Saturday 20 April 2013

Fools & Their Tools

Since the last posting about our excellent adventure with the needle felting machine, we have each bought ourselves a new tool for our fibre arts arsenal. 

Jan did the initial test drive and found the Pfaff Smart 350P to be a quiet little machine with lots of potential. It is referred to on the box, not as an embellisher or needle felter, but a punching machine.

Pfaff Smart 350P
I got mine out of the box today to give it a test run and broke one needle within minutes. The key is to take your foot off the foot pedal and let the needle mechanism raise to its highest point before you try to remove your piece.

The good news is that the needles are very easy to replace, the bad news is that they are about $3.75 each.

So Jan and I are ready to roll with the punches and we've promised each other that we need to use this new tool frequently in our fibre arts projects. I'm sure that the potential is limitless. Stay tuned...

5 comments:

  1. Too bad about the broken needles. I'm interested in finding out how I can use these machines to create new crafts. I think I can keep busy with other crafts and impress my friends in my local Stitch 'n Bitch group. Do you have any sample pix or can you provide any book references?

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    1. Hi Lauren, I'm hoping that I learned my lesson early and that I won't be breaking too many needles going forward.There are certainly some limitations to the punching machine/needle felter, but as long as you can get your layered project under the finger guard and the project does not have hard items or fabrics, you should be able to use it for a number of crafts. Another neat feature, which I found when I actually "read the manual" is that you can remove the accessory storage box and make it a free arm (like many sewing machines) so that you can do embellishments around cuffs and other circular items. I'll have to post again about book references as I am just reviewing a number of books from the library.

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  2. Mine just stopped working. The light comes on but nothing happens. 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

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  3. If your machine is a pfaff 350p punching machine, I would love to buy the finer guard. I’m desperate for that part

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  4. debsehnert@yahoo.com

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