I think my entry might be considered weird if you've never used it, but I know it's not useless. It's the Dritz bound buttonhole maker. I posted a pic of it in the Gallery some time ago. I don't think they make it anymore, but I sure have used mine a lot to make perfect bound buttonholes.

Dayenu, I have a darning egg that my FIL made for me on his lathe! It's really pretty wood, so I'm keeping it, but it sure hasn't ever been used to darn anything! I'm with you - HAHAHA!

I bought one of those perfect pleater things from Clotilde years ago; played around with it a bit and couldn't think of any practical use for it. Of course, I still have it.

And I have a SimFlex for respacing buttonholes, but it doesn't expand evenly and doesn't stay put where you want it.

some day some anthropologist will discover them in the rubble of our houses and wonder what arcane religious purpose they had.

especially wooden eggs . hahahahaha

My worst purchase was for a "Riser" for my embroidery machine. $80 or so to make it a freearm to do tshirts, sweatshirts & etc. That bracket the moves the hoop has to move & can't with small shirts over that thing. I didn't need it for big shirts to start with. I am debating putting it on e-bay for some other fool to buy or maybe keep it to use in bed to eat off of when I get old & decrepit.

Some may swear by it's usefullness, but I think my ruffler attachment was nothing but a waste of good money. Every once in awhile I come across it while looking for something else in my sewing box and try it again. Sounds like a locomotive and I just can't get it to do anything but mangle fabric.

I have my grandmother's darning egg for sentimental reasons. DH brought me one of his socks once with his finger through a hole. I told him he didn't marry June Cleaver and to throw it in the garbage. Sheesh.

Who has time to darn when there's so much ruffling to do?

Hey June Cleaver... I have a ruffler too and it comes with a many page manual. It takes too long to re learn how to use it each time I try that it's hardly worth it.

and where DO men get those crazy ideas? But I did dig out the mandoline last night and sliced potatoes for the h*ll of it.

The mandoline! I use that as much as my ravioli edge crimper.

Dianne, who owns every gadget ever made (seemed like a good idea at the time)

we might consider a gadget swap. my useless things bight be gold to someone else.

Ooh, I found another one over the weekend - my "ham holder!" It's a plastic gizmo that's supposed to hold your tailor's ham in whatever position you need. Well, number one, the thing is plastic, so the instant you touch the ham you carefully placed in the right position, it slides away from you; and two, I'm not very tall and adding the extra height of the ham holder on the ironing board means I'm ironing under my nose. (Yeah, I know I could lower the ironing board, but I don't use the holder anyway!)

Definitely the seam ripper with the built-in light... what a waste!

You bought a seam-ripper with a built in light?? ;-)

What on earth for - those late night, brown out, ripping emergencies??

I don't think I have anything truly silly to report. But I bought an invisible zipper foot for £6, and took it back it was rubbish! It didn't, as I thought it would, curl the teeth out of the way to sew closer. In fact it did nothing useful at all. I find it better to baste it really firmly along the tape and then curl the teeth out of the way with your finger before sewing with your normal presser foot.

At least I got a refund - the lady who sold me it has a mega scarey hairdo and more make-up than should legally be allowed on one person - she's the Elna rep at a big department store here. But I've come to the conclusion that she doesn't know very much about garment sewing!

I'm thinking about placing an order with Clotilde soon - so who knows what idiocy I'll purchase then.

AJ

I got a lighted seamripper as a gift. The light fell off as I opened the package. The person who gave it to me was so proud of her purchase that I hate to tell her how long it survived. I don't know if it would have been nice to have or not. I do now have the black fabric problems my mother used to complain about & I thought she just wanted me to sew it for her!!!

Good point. Black thread on black fabric is NOT fun to unpick.

I once read about someone who wore 2 pairs of reading glasses, one on top of the other, for close work. I hope I never get to that stage.

AJ

Not weird really but I have my grandmother's button hook (for old high top button shoes)....it was in her sewing notions and my father grabbed it for me when he was packing up the last bits from grannie's house - never used it yet...and I don't know what she ever used it for...but there it sits.

My husband reckons I'll buy anything as he watched me place a miners light on my head to some black sewing, it sure looked funny but by gum it worked. He is more apt to buy gadgets for the kitchen, I have one of those superduper slicer thingies he purchased from a info ad, yep it just sits in the cupboard, the crinkle edge knife sits in the drawer, he bought that for when I cut chips, we use frozen.
My most useless had to have was a gocco print, $150 well spent that was. The flash bulbs were close to impossible to find cost $2 each and every time you used it needed 2 bulbs. The only time I really used it was for a playgroup craft, the kids printed a tiny hanging, I also used the same one on a pillowcase. I passed it on to my mother.

OMG, this is a GREAT thread (oops! no pun intended, trulyÂ) :P

I have acquired ALL of my hubby's grandmas' goodies and boy, talk about interesting goodies! Yep, I have the button hook as well as the curling iron that you actually put into the fire to heat upÂI also have all of her assorted sewing room gadgets. One of my favourite acquisitions is her knitting table (what?) that is this funky basket sitting atop a pedestal. I have MY thread basket on top of it and it sits next to me by the sofaÂhehehe

Gadgets? Men cannot complain about us women, that's for sure. Depending on the guy, take them into Home Depot and what happens? Eyes glaze over, right?

I just put my very expensive espresso maker (with that much-needed milk steamer) into the Goodwill box this week. I decided I hadn't made an espresso at home for, oh, ten years? :P

Notions? I can't even start to think about the weirdest or most useless one right now.

I have one of those miner's lights, Cheryl. I use it to go outdoors at night to collect leaves for caterpillars (I raise butterflies). I agreeÂthis is one gadget worth having for a number of reasons :)

Light on the end of the seam ripper? HmmmÂ

I keep a seam ripper next to the DVD player. Why? It makes a GREAT DVD cellophane opener AND who can ever get that !@#$% security tape stuff off the boxes? Seam rippers are GREAT! :) Dual duty, I tell you. Clover brand. :) hehehe

Darning egg? hehehe! When DH and I first got together, I had seen the condition of some of his socks. His GRANDMOTHER would have had a cow. I told him, "Throw those things out and get yourself some new socks, for goodness sake. Socks you can definitely afford to buyÂsheesh."

CherylNSW, is "NSW" New South Wales? How cool! Australia is one of those places I've always wanted to see, but just can't talk myself into more than 2-1/2 hours on a plane, and we don't have a sufficient boatload of money to take a cruise down there! Maybe someday...

I love all these gadgets, too! I have 2 actual ivory crochet hooks from 2 different grandmothers. Beautifully carved! And an ancient pair of pinking shears from one of the GMs. I don't know if they are hopelessly dull or if I can't use them because I'm left handed. All my other scissors work for me.

Donna

I've decided. The most useless - although very attractive - thing I've bought for sewing is a hand-turned wooden needle case. I think they are called Etui.

The inside is hollow and has a little stopper on top.

But the stopper kept coming loose. And the only way to get needles out was to tip them into your hand. Inevitably I'd put them in eye down, so the point reached my hand first!

Not exactly practical.

Every other notion I have is, of course ;-P, utterly useful and well worth the money.
And every project I start is finished before I start the next.
And oh look, flying pigs.

;-)AJ

I have a plastic magnetic needle keeper. looks like a little business card holder and when you open it the needles stick to a small sheet magnet and go no where.
But your needle case sounds way cool.

I work in a fabric store and several years ago an elderly lady came in and asked me where to find the darning eggs. I told her we didn't carry them and she was shocked. She asked me in amazement "what do you do with your socks when they get holes in them?" When I gently told her that my generation throws them away, she sat down on the notions ledge and burst into tears. As far as the most useless notion I have, it has to be the bicycle clips for quilting which turned out to take more fiddling around than I found practical ( but I don't do much quilting, so they may be useful to a quilter).

tdogmom, I love the way you write! Very entertaining! And your homepage is fascinating. Love the butterflies, but you can have the caterpillars that are eating my rose leaves! :-(

Mary

jomuir's story about the elderly woman touched a soft spot. I was raised in the 50's/60's/70's in a family that still lived like they were in the great depression. NOTHING was ever wasted. If it wasn't used it was repaired or recycled and even if you had to throw it away, you got the buttons and zipper first.

As far as gadgets, I inherited an old Kenmore cabinet machine. It came with every gadget made in the 40's or 50's. It turns out some of them fit my short shank machine so I'm attempting to learn to use all the weird looking feet. I'm hoping they turn out to be a treasure.

After amassing so many strange feet I decided to store them in a compartmentalized tray and label what each one was. I know if I get rid of one I will need it immediately, this happened after selling my walking foot.... it must be a law of the universe.

A rotary cutter and a mat. The cutter doesn't work right when used by a leftie, and the mat smells funky.

Ellen, you probably need to take the cutter apart and reassemble it the other way...I had to do that after being frustrated with my new big cutter - I couldn't see what I was cutting for the big knob holding the blade in place. Once I put it together the other way, it's great!

Dneecie, my FIL once tried to give DH a lawn mower blade that had been sharpened so many times it was about 6" long! I figured it must take him about 3 hours to mow the lawn!

The mat smell should go away if you wash it in hot soapy water and let dry. Some of them are stubborn and have to sit out in the garage for a week.

I can barely use my scissors anymore. I cut EVERYTHING out with my rotary cutter. LOL!

A darning egg? I thought that thing was just a weird looking needle or pin holder (the one I inherited had a handle you unscrewed to find a hollow space inside for just that). There are also several other items that I have slowly found out what they are by chance, things like the riveter, the rotary marker thingy (useless), and something like a weird shaped safety pin that I finally figured out was to help thread a tie or elastic through a long loop. what about all those tins of buttons I inherited? I think I've actually used three, so about 0.00001 percent...and counting....

In the kitchen, I, too, have those absolute essentials like like the never to be without appetizer cutter - you know the one that allows you to cut little tiny sandwiches into about 25 adorable shapes that would make them taste so much better (assuming I were ever to make little tiny sandwiches of anything?) You never know when you'll have a mini-heart shaped cucumber and ham salad sandwich emergency..I'm sure it'll come up the second I give the thing away...right after I find all the missing tupperware lids to those containers I refuse to throw out.

My OH used to covet those at-home artsy kits and after 6 years of stockpiling silk screening, wood burning, painting, origami, and I don't remember what else kits, I pointed out that before we bought two more for Japanese fan painting and something else, perhaps he'd like to open up & use just one of the others. Turns out, that very week he'd already opened up (on the sly) the woodburning kit to make a plaque asking me to marry him! (I never harassed him about it again.)

cat2, I love it! (the woodburning kit story) hehehe :) In our household I am the one with all the kitsÂmy hubby had to buy these huge metal shelving units to store all of my stuff (he calls them my crafts) and had to give me a bedroom just for my crafts storage! hehehe :) BUT, I have found that I am actually pretty good about 'donating' thingsÂwhen my school was having its carnival and wanted to have a booth where the kids used fabric puffy paints to decorate visors and things, I gave them my entire box of fabric paints. I figured, "What the heck! I haven't used these things in, oh, four years, right?" :) DH's comment, "Are you sure you want to give them away?" Good grief! He's the one who is always saying, "You need to do something about all your craft stuff, hon." (eyes rolling here)

Cat2, you reminded me of a couple of other useless notions I have: an eyelet setting tool (looks like a pair of pliers) - yep, use that one all the time (not!) and a fly front stitch guide. I don't think I ever used that.

PS - my darning egg has a handle on it, too, but I don't think it comes off.

oh my fly front stitch guide is a really great notion. I have several templates.