Sewing Business Blog

Buttonhole Elastic

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ButtonholeElastic2Buttonhole elastic is a wonderful product. I don’t think I could do without it.

Buttonhole elastic can be used in waistbands of maternity clothing – is easy to expand the waistline as needed.

For me, I use a LOT of it for my grandchildren’s clothing.  We have quadruplet grandchildren- 8 years old.  The little boys are sooooo small around the waist that sometimes a size 5  elastic waist pants will fit, however they are waaaaay tooooo short!    It is so easy to pull in the waist bands of size 7 & 8 shorts and pants with the buttonhole elastic, while the lengths are just right.  Well, I KNOW they’re gonna catch up with their big brother soon, who is 9, so in the meantime,  we use a lot of buttonhole elastic in their waist bands.

Another use for buttonhole elastic is if you’re making fitted sheets, or repairing fitted sheets, sew buttonhole elastic around the curved areas.  The “buttonhole” part lets it fold easily to be attached to the sheets, and is perfect when putting the sheets back on the bed.

I’m sure there are many other uses for this product – once you’ve tried it, you won’t want to be without it.

The buttonhole elastic is available on ebay and I’m sure JoAnns probably carries it as well.

Sidewinder Bobbin Winder

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I have mixed feelings about the Sidewinder bobbin winder.



The cost is about $35.00 and can be purchased from many brick & mortar stores, as well as online mail order catalog companies.

On the positive side, the unit is small, lightweight and compact, making it easy to move around.  The other good thing about it is that you can wind the bobbins without taking the thread out of your sewing machine, and have one ready in just a few minutes.

On the negative side, it winds the bobbins so fast that it doesn’t do the bobbin evenly. I used a pen to move the thread up and down on the bobbin in order to get it more evenly threaded.  Also, it will only hold regular size spools of thread – you can’t fill the bobbin from a thread cone.

All in all, while I DO use mine sometimes, I wouldn’t give it as a gift to someone.