Sewing Machine AHA! Moment

Recently I did the math and realized that my sewing machine is almost 15 years old! My mom bought it for me when I was about 13 and my friends and I were making scrunchies (the elastic hair bands) to sell at the fall festival at our school.  My mom taught me how to use it and showed me how to make a few things.  Over the years I have made pillows, aprons, curtains and other really basic items.  

Lately I have been trying to work on my sewing skills and Pinterest has been a big help.  Since I never had any formal sewing training some of the lingo is a little beyond me, but the step-by-step photo tutorials are awesome!  Last weekend I set out to make a little makeup pouch for part of a friend's birthday present.  I saw this Pin on Pinterest...

Pouch Tutorials

I made the middle type of pouch and used this tutorial: Zipper Pouch.  I am not going to go into much detail because her tutorial is very well written and easy to follow.  I was a little nervous because I had never installed a zipper before, but it didn't turn out too bad!

Already you can probably tell that this post is a little different than my others.  I am not going to teach you how to make the zipper pouch, but I am going to share with you something that I learned about my sewing machine while making the zipper pouch.

 

After I share this information you are going to think one of two things:

 

1.  Wow!  I didn't even know my sewing machine had that.  That is so cool and saves so much time.

 

2.  Wow!  She's not that bright.  She has had her machine for almost 15 years and didn't know something so basic.

 

I'm going to assume your reaction will be more like #2, but I am going to tell you anyway just in case by some off chance you were just as in the dark as me.

 

So, I was just sewing along following the steps of the zipper pouch tutorial (which only took about an hour!) and only really stopped to cut my threads, read the next direction, and start sewing again. 

As I was reaching for my scissors in order to cut my threads I pulled the pouch up and the threads caught on the machine and tore just where I had planned to cut them.  I didn't think much about it except that I was really glad that they tore in the right place!  I looked behind my machine to see what it had caught on and saw this...

 

See that little metal piece that is attached to the right side of the light case?  Yeah, that's a built in blade that you can use to cut your threads.  Apparently it has been there the entire time I have had the machine... 15 years!

 

I could look at this two ways:

 

1.  Wow!  Think of how time I am going to save with this bad boy!

 

2.  Wow!  Think of how much time I have wasted over the last 15 years stopping to track down a pair of scissors for these little cuts.

 

I have chosen to be optimistic and go with #1.  Hopefully this little post saves you some time too.  Or maybe you just got a good laugh because you have known all along about that little hidden gem.