A couple of months ago Pfaff posted a video on their Facebook Page about their Circular Attachment. It's a great video so check it out!!
I thought this Pfaff Attachment was an interesting gadget with lots of potential so I went to my Singer Quantum L-500 box and took out the Singer Circle Attachment foot that I bought separately for my machine. Mine didn't come with the templates that Pfaff offered, however it's all just basic geometry isn't it?? It just looked to me like the templates made the whole placement process easier with all the corresponding numbers and letters, but I could do the same thing with my Singer foot, couldn't I?? So I set it up on the machine to try it out. You don't need to take the regular foot off the machine at all. This attachment comes with a longer screw to be attached to the regular ankle on your machine. AND as a bonus, I can still us the IDF (integrated dual feed) for a smoother stitch. Going around in a circle you will be stitching over the bias of the fabric 4 times!! That's 4x's the chance for the fabric to stretch and skew out of shape and basically make your project look, (dare I say the "H" word) "homemade"???? It also came with 2 pages of directions.
Ok, here we go!! I wanted to compare the Singer Circular Attachment to the Pfaff version so I wanted to do some of the same samples. I knew I wasn't able to do samples as large as the Pfaff sample because this foot only will make a circle 4" in diameter. A limitation yes, but just in size. With a little imagination, I think I can make some interesting designs. I also didn't have the cool templates that were available with the Pfaff version, but I have a compass and that worked fine. I just had to figure out what sizes I needed to work with. One thing I found is that this attachment is not easy to dial into an exact size. The Singer attachment has to be screwed in and out to change sizing instead of sliding to another size demarcation like the Pfaff attachment. Not really a big deal since I have a handy dandy hem gage to check my radius sizing. Here's a picture of the foot, the screw and the tack that come in this kit.
Well friends, this foot didn't attach or work well on my Singer Quantum L-500. It just didn't tighten or line up properly to sew well, so I decided to wait until my husband could check it out for me. He's very mechanical and I knew that he could get things rolling for me with this attachment. He checked it all out on the L-500 and found that the IDT had a support collar on the shaft that wouldn't allow this attachment to screw in properly.
So we headed over to the Singer Stylist 9960 to see if this attachment would work on that machine. After more finagling, with this $49.99 attachment, it was all a BUST!! He was able to get it "somewhat" attached and I tried to make some samples. They all turned out wonky and were not worth showing. It was all for NOT....the attachment just didn't stay tight and wobbled all over the place when trying to stitch. I'm so disappointed to report that this Circular Attachment didn't attach properly to either machine and therefore this is where my efforts will end.
So I think I will be contacting Singer and letting them know of my frustration with this attachment. It seems to still be available for purchase on the official Singer site, so I will have to do further investigation and follow up with them. I will repost after I contact Singer.
UPDATE TO THE CIRCLE ATTACHMENT ISSUES: I spent nearly an hour on the phone with Singer regarding the attachment. Singer's customer service representative Sharon was very patient and listened to my concerns about this attachment. She went and got an L-500 and she and I both tried to attach this attachment to our machines. She determined that it will not work on the L-500 unfortunately. Then she went and got a 9960 and we tried those machines together. Well friends, it worked. I'm not exactly sure what made the difference from when we tried this attachment, but it worked beautifully!! I can only attribute it to user error. Here's the sample of the perfect circle it made. I'm excited again and now will try a project with the attachment.
This was definitely another opportunity to learn something new and I'm glad that I took the time to call Singer and have them help me with my issues. Have a Happy Creative Day.
Well friends, this foot didn't attach or work well on my Singer Quantum L-500. It just didn't tighten or line up properly to sew well, so I decided to wait until my husband could check it out for me. He's very mechanical and I knew that he could get things rolling for me with this attachment. He checked it all out on the L-500 and found that the IDT had a support collar on the shaft that wouldn't allow this attachment to screw in properly.
So we headed over to the Singer Stylist 9960 to see if this attachment would work on that machine. After more finagling, with this $49.99 attachment, it was all a BUST!! He was able to get it "somewhat" attached and I tried to make some samples. They all turned out wonky and were not worth showing. It was all for NOT....the attachment just didn't stay tight and wobbled all over the place when trying to stitch. I'm so disappointed to report that this Circular Attachment didn't attach properly to either machine and therefore this is where my efforts will end.
So I think I will be contacting Singer and letting them know of my frustration with this attachment. It seems to still be available for purchase on the official Singer site, so I will have to do further investigation and follow up with them. I will repost after I contact Singer.
UPDATE TO THE CIRCLE ATTACHMENT ISSUES: I spent nearly an hour on the phone with Singer regarding the attachment. Singer's customer service representative Sharon was very patient and listened to my concerns about this attachment. She went and got an L-500 and she and I both tried to attach this attachment to our machines. She determined that it will not work on the L-500 unfortunately. Then she went and got a 9960 and we tried those machines together. Well friends, it worked. I'm not exactly sure what made the difference from when we tried this attachment, but it worked beautifully!! I can only attribute it to user error. Here's the sample of the perfect circle it made. I'm excited again and now will try a project with the attachment.
This was definitely another opportunity to learn something new and I'm glad that I took the time to call Singer and have them help me with my issues. Have a Happy Creative Day.
I didn't watch all of the video but I noticed that there was some stretching on the bias even with their foot. I should watch again to see if they were able to iron out all those wrinkles. I need to try doing this without the special foot. You can tape a tack point up on the bed or table of the sewing machine, then use that as the pivot point to sew circles on your fabric. You could use a walking foot which may help with the stretch. Again, this is something I haven't tried but maybe I should later today.
ReplyDeleteHow did you finally get it to work on the 9960?
ReplyDeleteHi Sonia!! It's not an easy attachment to install on the 9960, however by calling Singer, they were able to walk me through the installation and it made a perfect circle.
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