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Gidget II Sewing Table: Temporary Juki Insert

Mary’s new sewing table just arrived, but the laser-cut acrylic insert fitting around her Juki sewing machine is still a month or two away. Until then, a simple cardboard replacement must suffice to fill the gap:

Juki temporary table insert
Juki temporary table insert

The rectangle just to the left of the needle is a hatch for bobbin changes. Sheer faith and an interference fit between layers of Kapton tape holds it in place with surprising force.

I wanted to tape the cardboard edges to the machine and the table to smooth out the transitions, but her Supreme Slider slippery sheet may solve the problem without adhesives:

Juki temporary table insert - Super Slider
Juki temporary table insert – Super Slider

The “insert” is a 1/4 inch thick double-layer corrugated cardboard sheet, utility-knifed from a huge box. She layers cardboard under the wood chips in her Vassar Farms garden paths to discourage the weeds; this seemed like a perfectly reasonable diversion.

5 thoughts on “Gidget II Sewing Table: Temporary Juki Insert”

  1. Since Mary is doing it, it must work, but would you like to say anything else about the cardboard-and-wood-chips approach to weed management? Particularly curious how well water makes it through. Given your (and my!) history with soaker hose repair I’m suspecting there might be some of it below the cardboard, but I don’t know. I have about 4000 ft^2 of produce and weeds. :-)

    1. AFAICT, covering the paths with cardboard and chips works perfectly by blocking all the light and most of the water from the underlying soil: even weeds can’t survive! It’s now the accepted method for all the public paths around the plots.

      Inside her own plot, she lays down kraft paper harvested from the (many!) bags of shredded leaves used as mulch. The leaves and paper pretty much vanish by the end of the gardening season, so she just lays down another layer the next year. The drip irrigation we installed last year doesn’t reach into the paths, so they stay surprisingly dry.

      The vast amount of vegetables she harvests every year keeps the garden from rising a couple of feet above the surrounding terrain …

      1. My operation uses 9 plots. I’m going to try this on one or two – I plant plots redundantly so I can tolerate the loss if I goof this up somehow. Thanks!

        1. At the community gardens, we use wood chips over cardboard on the 4′ wide public paths. If they are reasonably clear to start with, this works very well for the season. Note- the cardboard must be thoroughly covered so the wind does not get under an edge and blow it into the next county. Putting cardboard & woodchips over a thick mat of mugwort roots is futile, the mugwort will simply crawl out the sides. My plot is 20’x40′. Beds are roughly 4′ wide with 14″ paths between. I place strips of paper in the paths, lightly cover with wood chips and add a lot of leaves. Occasionally I use paper in a bed, but normally it is only shredded leaves. Rain goes through the leaves. I normally place irrigation lines under the leaves.

          Wood chips take 2-3 years to thoroughly decompose which can be a problem if you are tilling. The man who tills at the community gardens charges extra if there is a thick layer of wood chips to turn under – or he refuses the job. BTW he has a big tiller. Too many wood chips in the soil can use up the nitrogen as they decompose – one garden I worked in had a stump ground into the soil and we had to supplement that area with blood meal.
          You can tour my 2017 garden here:
          https://marysveggiegarden.wordpress.com/2017/07/17/july-17-2017-community-gardens-plot-tour-and-harvest/

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