My starter scrap is still attached, go me. I usually wait until I need to sew onto it again to snip it off (and you would think it would be called a starter/ender scrap, but mercifully no, no one does that).*
The foot I'm using (on both machines) is not your standard sewing foot - it's a handy-dandy 1/4" quilting foot. It has a vertical metal piece on the right that helps you keep your fabric lined up exactly 1/4" to the right of the needle.
I use it a lot (see "feeding and care of your inner OCDer"). It is awesome!
*Yes, I know about leaders and enders. Please Google it if you want to know more...
To chain piece is to sew sets (usually of 2*) of fabric together one set after another, without cutting the thread in between sets.
Chain piecing is a fast way to sew a bunch of pieces of fabric together quickly, especially if you're sewing hundred(s) of little squares or triangles together (BTDT).
Chain piecing is great because it wastes less thread, and keeps the needle from unthreading if the take-up lever isn't all the way up when you last stopped sewing.
It is super-annoying and a massive time waster to have to stop to rethread your needle and/or fish the bobbin thread out of the bobbin case. It's the same as using a starter scrap to keep your thread ends from getting sucked away, only you're not using a starter scrap. It's the same, but different! LOL
*I know of one exception: you sew 3 pieces together at once for Kaye Wood's Attic Windows pattern
The machine on the left is a 1957 Singer 1200 in an artisan/dressmaker's table with electric treadle.
It's the same machine as a 201-2 (great-grandma's machine, on the right) except for the knee-operated presser foot lever.
It's big help in making quick work of sewing pieces together, one after another. (Also called chain piecing. Wheeeeeeeeee)
