A Game Changer in Sewing Machine Lighting

Sometimes the very best tools we can use in our sewing rooms come from non-sewing places.  I like a lot of very bright light when I sew.  Like daylight-bright-white-light.  I’ve got a couple of those outrageously-priced spot lights for sewing (upwards of $50 each) and while they work OK, sometimes that spotlight is too bright even for me, or the glare off the silver plate around the feed dogs is too much and I don’t use it at all.  I went searching for a better solution and oh boy did I find one in of all places…Home Depot!  This product is $29.99 and it’s on the lighting aisle.

While there are 4 strips in this package, I only needed one.  The strips have a strong sticky on the back and the packaging says the light will last for 23 years.  I doubt I’ll have need for the spares.  🙂

Here is the before.  Yes, I’m machine binding my quilt.  After I attach it on the front as normal, instead of stitching on the back, I wrap it around and then stitch in the ditch from the front.  Without the light, it’s kind of hard to see the ditch.

And here is the after!  The picture doesn’t do it justice.  I can see the ditch perfectly.  The reflection of the bulbs on the base of the machine are not a distraction and they don’t bother me at all.

I held it up with the protective backing on first to see where I wanted to place it and then simply adhered it to the machine with the sticky backing.  I placed it a little to the back of the throat and ended up moving the cord side a little to the backside of the machine so as not to have a direct visible line-of-sight to the lights.

I’m SO happy with this solution!  I can see buying more for my other machines.  🙂  I wish I could just buy the electric part to use the other bulbs from this package on my 18″ sit down machine.