May 28, 2026

Sewing -- patching

Watch this video. I was skeptical when I saw the mention of a darning stitch. Now I am wondering if my Elna has a way to lower the feed dogs and if I have that accessory. Doing this avoids the need to rotate the pants leg into an almost impossible position.

Darning on the Elna

Since writing the last sentence, I have dug around in my box of mysterious sewing related gadgets and located the darning foot AND the all important feed dog cover (Elna part 722010). The feed dog cover is a nicely made chrome plated metal thing that snaps in place. No brittle or broken plastic thing. For which we are thankful.

I also thank myself for saving all these strange and curious items that came my way when I bought the sewing machine. I have two Elnas that are nearly identical. The second one I bought at an "estate sale store" and it came with a nice collection of items that I thought I might perhaps find useful someday.

For the record, the darning foot is also known as a "free motion" foot or an "embroidery foot".

A trial run with the setup using a scrap of fabric was encouraging. It all works just fine. The foot has a spring loaded lever that rides against the needle shaft and raises the foot each time the needle goes up. I should be able to duplicate the work exhibited in the above video quite nicely with this setup.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's home page / tom@mmto.org