Hello
It's Thursday night, got a half bottle of red wine and watching the The Great British Sewing Bee
Great British Sewing Bee
This week, sewing with Lace, it even had a bit about bobbin lace making. I made bobbin lace for years, might have to dust off my bobbins and give it another go.
I really admire the contestants, sewing difficult things against the clock, I would have a nervous breakdown.
Cheers
Sharon
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Sunday, 1 March 2015
Tweed Notebook Cover - Present for a Chap
Hello
It's my partners brother's birthday so thought I would have a go making a present for him using some tweed suiting fabric that I have had stashed for years. Its lovely fine wool I think. It was hard not to pretty it up with girly stuff!
It's my partners brother's birthday so thought I would have a go making a present for him using some tweed suiting fabric that I have had stashed for years. Its lovely fine wool I think. It was hard not to pretty it up with girly stuff!
Cheers
Sharon
Monday, 23 February 2015
Irish Chain Wedding Quilt
Hello
My old school friend's daughter is getting married in March so rashly I thought that I would make a patchwork quilt as a wedding present. Asked and her favourite colour is blue.
Pieced the top a while ago but have been stalling making the quilt up. Its tricky to get all the layers of the quilt straight and flat, laying it on the floor at home isn't really an option cos Buzz sheds his coat everywhere. If the quilt had been just for me, I wouldn't bother too much but its for a wedding present and don't want to mess it up.
Then had a brainwave, found a use for my late Dad's front room while the house is empty, somewhere to lay my quilt sandwich. Yippee, with room to crawl round it while I tack it together with my nifty tag gun.
The hand quilting took quite a while but when the weather is cold, its the best way to pass the time, sitting on the sofa with a cozy quilt draped over me.
Finished it yesterday, doing the final bit sewing the 7.5 metres of binding on.
#
I like to put a label on my quilts, I normally make a heart shaped one, their wedding invitations had a little wooden heart attached, so having a artist in the house was handy, he drew me a larger version of it which I| traced onto some fabric. The colour theme for the wedding is a crimson red so despite this quilt being blue, the embroidery (I use this term loosely, embroidery is not my strong point) has been done in red. Hope the red doesn't run when they have to wash it, might do a test first so that I can warn them.
My old school friend's daughter is getting married in March so rashly I thought that I would make a patchwork quilt as a wedding present. Asked and her favourite colour is blue.
Pieced the top a while ago but have been stalling making the quilt up. Its tricky to get all the layers of the quilt straight and flat, laying it on the floor at home isn't really an option cos Buzz sheds his coat everywhere. If the quilt had been just for me, I wouldn't bother too much but its for a wedding present and don't want to mess it up.
Then had a brainwave, found a use for my late Dad's front room while the house is empty, somewhere to lay my quilt sandwich. Yippee, with room to crawl round it while I tack it together with my nifty tag gun.
The hand quilting took quite a while but when the weather is cold, its the best way to pass the time, sitting on the sofa with a cozy quilt draped over me.
Finished it yesterday, doing the final bit sewing the 7.5 metres of binding on.
# |
| All wrapped up and ready to go |
Hope they like it.
Oh, Buzz rounded up a pig (in his mind, it wandered up to the fence and was oblivious that he was even there, hee hee)
Cheers
Sharon
Friday, 30 January 2015
Patchwork Notebook Covers
Hello
Been having a go at covering note books. Had some left over fabric from the patchwork baby quilt. It was fun to do.
Played with my new Singer Embroidery foot on the Featherweight trying to learn free motion quilting. The small notebook is a Liberty print with the flowers picked out with orange thread, its not perfect by a long way but as I quilted with the machine, the easier it became. I found that if I turned the fabric too quickly, it skipped stitches so steady away was the way to go making sure that the stitches had caught before setting off. It finished off with some vintage bias binding which was a perfect match.
Been having a go at covering note books. Had some left over fabric from the patchwork baby quilt. It was fun to do.
Played with my new Singer Embroidery foot on the Featherweight trying to learn free motion quilting. The small notebook is a Liberty print with the flowers picked out with orange thread, its not perfect by a long way but as I quilted with the machine, the easier it became. I found that if I turned the fabric too quickly, it skipped stitches so steady away was the way to go making sure that the stitches had caught before setting off. It finished off with some vintage bias binding which was a perfect match.
Cheers
Sharon
Monday, 19 January 2015
Singer 221 Featherweight Free Motion Quilting/Embroidery Foot Simanco 121094
Hello
Been on a bit of a spending spree to cheer myself up. This icy weather is making me anxious despite having grips on my boots when dog walking. Roll on Spring.
I have always admired anyone that could do free motion embroidery on a sewing machine. Did have a go once on my "modern" (1980's Toyota machine) which can drop the feed dogs. It was disaster, despite having the correct foot, I just couldn't control the stitching, was totally defeated so gave up never to try again until now.
When browsing Ebay for Singer attachments, found this reproduction feed dog cover for my Featherweight at a price of £23 which seems a lot for such a tiny thing until you see the cost of an original Singer part, the last one I saw on internet was £90, eye watering! Only ever seen the odd one for sale so very rare.
All I needed to go with it was an Embroidery foot, Singer made a special "hopping" for the Featherweight 221 (Simanco 121094). Again, a fairly rare item but they do come up now and again. Missed one on Ebay for £14.99 got sidetracked and forgot about the listing (doh). Did find one but ended up paying twice the price, hey ho. It arrived in the post, again such a dinky little thing.
Put them on the machine, set the stitch length at zero. Made a little quilt sandwich and jumped in with both feet and wrote my name! Wow, so easy to control, the featherweight sews steady away, no zooming out of control. A joy to use.
Here is the first ever attempt which I don't think it too bad for a total beginner, can read the words (well almost all of them).
Will have to look at UTube for the quilting techniques and patterns but awesome, so chuffed.
I had borrowed this plastic Singer foot off my stitchery friend Sarah, again another embroidery foot but much later date, its huge compared with the the other foot but seeing its a low shank foot, tried it on my machine, it worked fine so this is a suitable alternative which would be cheaper to buy.
Off to practice
A WORD OF CAUTION - IF USING A FEATHERWEIGHT FOR FREE MOTION QUILTING/EMBROIDERY - YOU MUST LET THE MOTOR COOL DOWN REGULARLY - DON'T QUILT FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME YOU WILL DAMAGE IT
Cheers
Sharon
Been on a bit of a spending spree to cheer myself up. This icy weather is making me anxious despite having grips on my boots when dog walking. Roll on Spring.
I have always admired anyone that could do free motion embroidery on a sewing machine. Did have a go once on my "modern" (1980's Toyota machine) which can drop the feed dogs. It was disaster, despite having the correct foot, I just couldn't control the stitching, was totally defeated so gave up never to try again until now.
When browsing Ebay for Singer attachments, found this reproduction feed dog cover for my Featherweight at a price of £23 which seems a lot for such a tiny thing until you see the cost of an original Singer part, the last one I saw on internet was £90, eye watering! Only ever seen the odd one for sale so very rare.
All I needed to go with it was an Embroidery foot, Singer made a special "hopping" for the Featherweight 221 (Simanco 121094). Again, a fairly rare item but they do come up now and again. Missed one on Ebay for £14.99 got sidetracked and forgot about the listing (doh). Did find one but ended up paying twice the price, hey ho. It arrived in the post, again such a dinky little thing.
Put them on the machine, set the stitch length at zero. Made a little quilt sandwich and jumped in with both feet and wrote my name! Wow, so easy to control, the featherweight sews steady away, no zooming out of control. A joy to use.
Here is the first ever attempt which I don't think it too bad for a total beginner, can read the words (well almost all of them).
Will have to look at UTube for the quilting techniques and patterns but awesome, so chuffed.
I had borrowed this plastic Singer foot off my stitchery friend Sarah, again another embroidery foot but much later date, its huge compared with the the other foot but seeing its a low shank foot, tried it on my machine, it worked fine so this is a suitable alternative which would be cheaper to buy.
Off to practice
A WORD OF CAUTION - IF USING A FEATHERWEIGHT FOR FREE MOTION QUILTING/EMBROIDERY - YOU MUST LET THE MOTOR COOL DOWN REGULARLY - DON'T QUILT FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME YOU WILL DAMAGE IT
Cheers
Sharon
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Drum Carder Cover
Hello
My very good friend Julie asked if I could make a cover for her drum carder to keep it dust free when its not in use. Yes, I said without really knowing what a drum carder was.
If you are wondering, this vicious thing is a drum carder. It looks like a medieval implement of torture. You have to keep your fingers away from the spikes they are not nice. It is used to card wool to prepare it for spinning into yarn.
My very good friend Julie asked if I could make a cover for her drum carder to keep it dust free when its not in use. Yes, I said without really knowing what a drum carder was.
If you are wondering, this vicious thing is a drum carder. It looks like a medieval implement of torture. You have to keep your fingers away from the spikes they are not nice. It is used to card wool to prepare it for spinning into yarn.
We went to look for fabric. I wasn't sure quite how I was going to make the cover but seeing the oil cloth thought that this robust fabric would be just the ticket.
Had to make a template so I turned the machine on its side, drew round it with a marker pen onto some paper marking the highest curve, then folded the paper into half and cut out the curve so both sides would match. My Singer 201 made light work of this tough fabric. Just used my usual quarter inch foot when sewing back of the fabric. But when top stitching used a roller foot which worked a treat, it stopped the foot sticking to the plastic coating on the fabric.
Here it is, she picked this gorgeous fabric, isn't it yummy, just love the colours.
Made a very simple zipped bag with the left over fabric to keep the rest of her carding tools in.
This is the roller foot in action. Glad I finally found a use for it.
Cheers
Sharon
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Featherweight 221 - Patchwork Baby Quilt
Hello
Happy New Year, hope you all had a good time. We had a quiet festive break at our cottage but luckily our village pub opened a week before Xmas after being shut for months and months. The new owners did really well to get it fit to open in just a few days, they worked really hard. So a warm welcome to all the village from them. It was great to catch up with fellow residents, the pub is really the heart of the village.
I had another baby quilt to make for my neice Zoe who`s baby is due next month. As she didn`t want to know if its a boy or girl, I had to do a neutral colour scheme, found this range of fabric on Ebay with sweet rabbits and hares. They came in handy fat quarter packs which made it much simpler to get the contrasting and matching fabrics.
The quilt was a joy to make up on the Featherweight 221. Haven`t used the 221 for quite a while, been using the Singer 201 as it's faster and more powerful so ideal for making the tote bags with all those layers to sew through. I had forgotten how steady the 221 is which make it much more accurate when you want to do just one more stitch, the 201 doesn't like sewing slow. They both stitch beautifully. As usual I did hand quilt, just love the finish it gives.
Here is the 221 next to the 201 so that you can compare the sizes, the 221 is so cute. The 201 is made of cast iron so it weighs a ton.
Anyway, got side tracked, back to the finished quilt. Ta daaa
Cheers
Sharon
Happy New Year, hope you all had a good time. We had a quiet festive break at our cottage but luckily our village pub opened a week before Xmas after being shut for months and months. The new owners did really well to get it fit to open in just a few days, they worked really hard. So a warm welcome to all the village from them. It was great to catch up with fellow residents, the pub is really the heart of the village.
I had another baby quilt to make for my neice Zoe who`s baby is due next month. As she didn`t want to know if its a boy or girl, I had to do a neutral colour scheme, found this range of fabric on Ebay with sweet rabbits and hares. They came in handy fat quarter packs which made it much simpler to get the contrasting and matching fabrics.
The quilt was a joy to make up on the Featherweight 221. Haven`t used the 221 for quite a while, been using the Singer 201 as it's faster and more powerful so ideal for making the tote bags with all those layers to sew through. I had forgotten how steady the 221 is which make it much more accurate when you want to do just one more stitch, the 201 doesn't like sewing slow. They both stitch beautifully. As usual I did hand quilt, just love the finish it gives.
Here is the 221 next to the 201 so that you can compare the sizes, the 221 is so cute. The 201 is made of cast iron so it weighs a ton.
Anyway, got side tracked, back to the finished quilt. Ta daaa
Cheers
Sharon
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