Nearly there!

Am a bit worried about that wobbly edge on the unworked part - perhaps it will straighten out once it's been worked up.

24 nov

Close up of Edith's rug

I have this photo as wallpaper on my phone. It gave me a migraine.

My new frame and progress

Truffle takes an interest

Instructions for care and operation of Rigby Cloth Stripping Machine

Jenni Stuart Anderson and Mr Rigby

Jenni has sent me advice on using my Rigby cutter:

Clamp it to a table edge screwing the red screw on the left of your pic. Requires a relatively thin table.

The rotating silver metal clamp thingy should be screwed down only enough to press the fabric against the circular cutter blades underneath it so wait before you screw it down (red screw on right of pic).

You need to align the red metal fabric guide with the edge of the blade so that, when you feed fabric (I like machine knits best, or blankets) against it, turning the handle (on your right) will pull the fabric across the blades and you strip(s) come out the side facing away from you. That's aligned by loosening off the screw underneath, getting guide parallel with edge so it guides fabric straight at the cutters.

If you screw the clamp down too hard it will wear the blades out quickly so do a test run to screw it down just enough to press the fabric against the rotating blades.

I work with sections of a jumper up to about 8" wide so it's not unmanageable. It can be any length.

My Mr Rigby

Just looking at my Rigby cutter makes me feel as though I have suddenly slipped back an uncountable number of decades...it is like those awful dreams where you are - as you always have been in dreams - about 23, then as you wake you think, "No! I'm thirty-something, aren't I? No! forty-two... Oh, hang on..."