"Max Penn" wrote in message
...

"Phaedrine" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Betty Vereen Hill" wrote:

In my meanderings on eBay, I've found numerous handmade tote bags which
are
decorated with blanket stitches. In each instance, the stitching is so
perfect that one wonders if it is done by hand or machine, but I am not
aware of a sewing machine capable of producing blanket stitches, and
the
stitching has a much more prominent (heavier?) appearance than ordinary
machine stitching, as if more than one thread was used. Is there such
a
machine on the market? I very likely will not be able to afford it.
My
old
clunker will probably have to keep me happy for a long time.

Betty in GA

Yes indeed. The Berninas do wonderful blanket stitches... the 200e or
730e Artistas. IIRC, only the 9mm Bernies do a really great blanket
stitch. And I think that the 1630 was the first 9 mm Bernina but I am
not sure if it had a blanket stitch or not (it likely did). The 1630s
have a track ball and the newer machines have a touch screen. I use my
blanket stitches a lot. There are several variations, light to heavy,
and each of them can be altered. I did a butterfly applique on a knit
shirt recently and configured a very small and narrow blanket stitch for
it. The applique came out really great. It's also great on fleece
where you can make a full 9 mm wide stitch if you want. And it may be
that with directional stitching, you can go even wider than that but I
have not done that yet. 9 mm seems plenty wide enough for me.

Phae

Isn't the blanket stitch on a home machine produced with two threads?
I thought the OP was referring to a conventional blanket stitch of the
sort
made with a single needle and thread. I've wondered what kind of machine
might produce such a stitch. I can't imagine a bunch of needle weilding
seamstresses at the Pendleton factory, for example, making such a precise
blanket stitch by hand on the masses of beautiful and expensive blankets
produced by the company. I've examined them and they appear to be a
single
strand, not two. How do they do it?

Max



You have gotten right to the crux of my quandary about the blanket stitching
I've seen, which is done so perfectly and so uniformly that, in each
instance, it defies logic that it might have been accomplished by hand. And
the stitching shows so prominently on the various finished pieces I've seen
that I had to conclude that more than a single strand of thread was used to
produce each stitch. Granted, the pieces in question were not the fabulous
Pendleton blankets, but were in fact primarily tote bags decorated with
blanket stitching in strategic areas on the totes. We all know what a
single machine-sewn thread looks like, and the blanket stitches were far
more robust than that which would be produced by a single strand of thread.
Now that suggestions have been made about machines which can produce blanket
stitching, I am even more intrigued about how more than one thread is
utilized in the machine to produce the heavy blanket stitch.

Many thanks to all who have offered suggestions and guidance.

Betty in GA