A FEW THINGS I HAVE BEEN DOING!

I have been doing a little sewing.  A few things that I have been wanting to do for a while and some baby sewing items.

I made some baby receiving blankets so our little darling can be snuggled up.  I always make mine with a double layer of flannel.  They always turn out a little bit heavier and nice.

Next, I saw this on some featherweight machines and I loved this little thread holder and finally had time to make one.

Now, onto the hard one.  I am really just a crochet beginner.  I saw these little booties that I knew my granddaughter would love so I bought the pattern.  They are a little bit over my head and I had to constantly look up how to do this stitch and that stitch.  Then I could not remember them when it was time again to use that stitch, so I had to look them up again.  It took me a week to do my practice bootie which turned out ok, but I just used that to learn the stitches.  Here is my first finished bootie.  Now I am sure you pros will see lots of mistakes, but it was made with love.  I have to make the other one now.  It was hard mostly because it is so small, and the yarn is dark that I had trouble seeing my stitches.  I wish I could of went out and got me a pair of cheater glasses that would have magnified it a little closed for me.  Hopefully, this next one will go a little bit faster!

Anyone else working on anything new or finishing up some ufo's?

RED & WHITE QUILT - 13

This will be the last post on the Red & White Quilt!  It is finally finished!  I have the binding all sewn on.  I will be moving onto some baby items now since I will soon become a great-grandma!  Doesn't that sound terrible!!  Here are the last pictures of the quilt.  Thank you for hanging in with me for the last four months.  I think I am going to have to go shopping for some more material.  With the medication that I am on for this arthritis,  my immune system is compromised and not as strong as it should be.  I will probably be mostly staying in the house for a while and I am going to have to have something to sew!  Talk soon!  Cindy

RED & WHITE QUILT 12

I have the quilt all sewn and quilted.  All that is left now is the binding.  This also took me quite some time.  I had some trouble with my Singer sewing machine which was my mother-in-laws.  I just could not part with that and my husband had it stretched into a longarm.  I don't use this often enough and it was working fine and then I wound a bobbin and then it just would not sew a stitch.  I ended up taking apart the clutch on the machine and I cleaned it out really well and put in new grease.  I noticed that the one-piece inside might not be original.  The little silver locking ring that has the three little knobs that stick out doesn't look like an original part.  I put it back together and it still would not run.  I had read some articles on it and it said if you put it together and it won't run try putting on that locking ring and giving it a turn.  Now with the three knobs, it can set in place three different ways. I could not believe this would make a difference, but I opened it back up and turned the locking ring one turn and put it back together and then it ran perfectly again.  I know some of you ladies won't understand anything I just said, but there might be a few out there that will take their machines apart.  I would of never guessed this would work.  For the rest of the quilt, I filled the bobbins on my Janome 10,000 because I didn't want this to happen again.  I didn't know if that would work either, but this also worked great.

It actually turned out prettier than I expected and I am very happy with it!!  The other side is actually just as beautiful as the front, I will probably flip it from time to time.   If you watched my previous post on how to stop thread knots when you start to sew, this really works great.  I am so glad I saw this tip before I started quilting this because there are very few on the back of my quilt.  Now onto the binding!  My hubby says it looks like a German quilt and that could be why it caught my eye!  I am a German girl!!  Please let me know what you think!

The Best Sewing Tip Ever In My Opinion!!

Wow!  I have been sewing, lets see, it will be 52 years this year and I just learned the greatest tip!  I would think this video tip would work on any machine.  You absolutely must watch this very short video!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5YV1iBMTRQ&feature=youtu.be

RED & WHITE QUILT 11

I was having trouble with some of the embroidery in the center of the quilt.  Please watch the new video to see the work around I designed to fix the problem with very little expense.

https://youtu.be/Hglot6paj3Q

RED & WHITE QUILT - 10

I have the quilt all laid out and when it came time to piece it together, I had a very difficult time.  What gave me the most trouble was sewing on the sashing pieces to the correct block.  Some sashing was on top of the blocks and some sashing was on the bottom.  I guess I was going cross-eyed because I sure did a lot of ripping out.  I am not sure if I like the two-toned look of the white and beige background material but I used it anyway.  Hopefully, it will look better once it is quilted.  I do like it in the picture in the book of the pattern.

I do have it all pieced together now.  I ironed it and also laid it out on my backing and batting.  I used a different kind of batting because JoAnn Fabrics no long carries the Warm and Natural which is my favorite.  I can't even remember what the name of it is that I purchased but it is similar.  It did seem thin to me and I thought it would make a very cheap feeling quilt, so I bought enough when it was on sale to double it.  So I am using two layers of batting.

I am now in the process of starting to quilt the squares with a embroidery design on my Janome 15,000 sewing machine.

I am using the   https://www.sewingmachinesplus.com/dime-quilt-trooper-janome.php

DIME Quilt Topper Hoop.  This is the first time I have used this quilt topper.  It is available for certain special hoops that match your sewing machine.  You hoop just the bottom of the hoop that is your regular sewing machine hoop to your sewing machine and then lay your quilt on top of the hoop.  You do not use the normal top hoop that comes with your hoop, you use this topper instead.  It is just laying on top of your fabric and attaches on top of the bottom hoop with magnets to hold it in place. You can see they are the gray pieces in the picture. The magnets are very strong.  I got two in my hand that connected through my skin and it was very painful!  It really pinched.  Now, you sew out your design and then when finished you remove just the topper and slide your quilt to the next block, add the topper again and sew.  So far so good!

RED & WHITE QUILT - 9 A TRICK I FIGURED OUT THAT WORKED GREAT!

Can you believe after all of this, I still had to make another 80 flying geese and several half-square triangles.

I tried an idea and I think it is working great. So I will share. 

 On my center quilt block, I had many hoopings to get all of the embroideries finished.  The many hoopings left my center with some puckers which I was not happy with.  When I quilt, I want a perfectly flat surface.  Here is what I did.  First, I serged the four edges of the center block.  I layed the center block out on my table that has a flat surface and sprayed it with water and tried to stay away from the edges.  I then taped the edges down on the table with painters tape.  I would lift up a section of the tape at a time and I pulled and stretched the block in the directions that I needed to get all the puckering out.  Once I was happy with it, I sprayed it again with water and then I left it sit and dry.  It is perfectly flat now.  It might be a little distorted along the edges but I will just again square it up to the 18 inches that the block is supposed to be.  This worked great!  I also gave it a spray of starch after it dried.

I now also have a few of the blocks stitched together with the sashing.

I am getting close, the sashings are taking a lot of time also because I have to make sure that each star point is correct when I sew on the sashing.