The Perfect Pinker

One of my favorite things to do is accompany Mr. Squash when he goes out of town to conferences. What quilter doesn’t want the chance to visit another quilt shop?! We were in Eastern Washington about 9 years ago for a couple of days. I had already been to the quilt shops in the town which took up the first day, so this rather large antique mall next to the last quilt shop I had visited the day before looked pretty interesting! One space in the mall had a lot of vintage sewing items. Tucked away in a corner was the Florian Perfect Pinker! (In case you’re wondering, this was in drawer #54 of my quilting chest).

I knew it had something to do with pinking fabric, and really couldn’t figure out how it worked, but for $8.95 I thought what the heck! I took it home and still couldn’t get it to work, so I wrote to the company whose name was on the back of the instructions below:
About two weeks later I received a letter back from Marilyn Florian of Florian Products in Connecticut who had this to say:

“ Your “Perfect Pinker” is about 50 years old. We are the original manufacturers and will be happy to repair it. It sounds as if the pin assembly gear is worn out. We now produce the Florian Rotary Pinker with a new type of clutch assembly. This new clutch/gear assembly will replace your old one. As long as there isn’t anything else wrong with the Pinker, the charge for repairing it is $13.50, which includes return shipping. I, too, sew a great deal and would be lost without my Florian Rotary Pinker. I know you will have many years of pinking enjoyment and comfort with your Pinker.”

I really haven’t used it much yet, but I can see a lot of things it will be useful for - especially crafty things once we are retired and I have more time. What’s really neat about it is that it “grabs” the fabric once you start cutting and doesn’t let it go until you reach the end of your piece, so your pinking always has a continual edge rather than when you’re using shears and you have to be careful with your stops and starts. It takes a little getting used to (you can see in the first photo that I was a little off course toward the end of the cut), but really a fun tool!