I finally got the courage to modify our mainsail. Changes to the foot require both machine and hand sewing. David helped me pull the heavy 12 oz sail cloth through the machine for all the sewing that could take place there. Now, I have several things which must be performed by hand because there are too many layers of cloth for the machine to go through OR because I will be reattaching the external bolt roping. Initially, I though rebuilding the clew would be the scary part, but now I realize that won’t be as difficult as sewing all that bolt roping back on.

Here are a couple pics of my workplace–I put the machine under the foreboom between the foremast and the mainmast. David sat forward of me and pulled fabric as it came through. It was sort of “one handed sewing” for me and I was glad for the walking foot on the machine as I had to use my right hand to run the footpedal and only had my left hand for feeding the sail into the machine.