A little sewing project for my Singer 306K

I was admiring some straps on an umbrella in our local Tighter Men store, designed to keep a large cantilever umbrella from damaging itself in the wind. For a few weeks I used some can straps out of my roof rack kit, but they were slow and cumbersome to use, and often needed elsewhere. I nearly gave in and bought a couple of sets at $30 each, but as I have a house full of sewing machines I decided to make my own

A quick visit to my local haberdashery emporium, and I came away with 15 metres of bright orange 40mm webbing, 8 D rings, 8 clips and 4 ladder buckles. I had a large reel of Guttenberg heavy duty polyester thread in a matching orange so was good to go.

Altogether there were 14 parts, 4 loops with D rings to attach to 4 ribs of the umbrella, two loops with 2 D rings, 1 to go round the base of the umbrella, and one to go round a water container used as a weighted anchor. There are 4 adjustable straps, each made up of two parts, one long strap with a clip on it, and a short strap with a clip and a ladder buckle. Together these made adjustable straps to hold down 4 of the 8 umbrella ribs.

I used my Singer 306K with it’s new 20U bobbin carrier, with a size 16 15×1 jeans needle, replaced by a second one when the clamp came loose and the needle broke. Each end of every piece, and a couple of extra places on the loops to go round the poles, was stitched around a D ring, a clip or a ladder buckle, or sewn into a 50mm loop to pass the other end through.

So webbing was cut, folded enough times, and 32 basic rectangles with Xs in them were sewn to hold it all together. I refilled the Type L bobbins 3 times, and the plastic was showing through the thread on the 100 metre reel of thread, so maybe 80 metres of thread was used!

I have been sitting under the umbrella most of the afternoon, and it is behaving perfectly in a light to medium breeze!