How Madeira Embroidery Is Made in Portugal! Fascinating!

I ran across this link this morning on how Madeira embroidery is made in Portugal.  This is fascinating and the amount of time of both days and hours that are put into this.  You must watch!

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The production of Bordal’s Madeira Hand Embroidery, filmed in our factory. All customers are invited to visit Bordal's Historic Tour in our factory at Rua Dr. Fernão de Ornelas, 77 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

Sewing On Elastic, three techniques! by Fabrics.com

Here is a great little video for sewing on elastic bands from Fabrics.com.  Three different techniques.  I like to save these little videos in a folder.  If I am making something, then I can do a little review!  Click on the Fabrics.com link below!

Fabrics.com

Free Sue Box Designs

Have you ever seen Sue Box's designs?  If you like to machine embroider, she always has gorgeous designs.  She just sent an email this morning for a free flower design.  I don't have any connection, I just like her designs and she has a freebie for each collection!

You might want to take a look!  This is the free design I received this morning.  Here is her website.

http://suebox.com/

Sit And Stitch Pincushion

Last week we took a ride down to Charm, Ohio and, of course, I went into the quilt shops. For those of you not familiar with the area, this is Amish Country and I love it down there.   I purchased this pattern by Cindy Taylor Oates at Miller's Dry Goods.  I am always knitting or hand sewing something while we watch tv.  I think I have told you before, this keeps me from munching.  Sometimes!!

I thought this would be cute because my scissors, glasses, needles and such are always scattered on my end table.  

It wasn't hard to make, but they suggested that you fill the pincushion with crushed walnut shells.  Well, that  was  something   that I didn't have.  They   suggested you get this  at a pet store.   I wanted

to start to make this and didn't want to run around trying to find this.  I did have some dried buckeye shells in the basement, so I thought I would see if I could grind these up.  I had my mom and dad's old hand grinder and I tried to grind up a few and I could hardly turn the handle.  I took the buckeye shells and put them in a plastic freezer bag and hammered the heck out of them out in the garage.  I had to strain them to get the little pieces and do this about six times.  Then I ran the smaller pieces through the grinder again and this was much easier. I finally got enough ground up to fill the pincushion and I must say it filled it up and the pins slide in very easily.   What a job that was though.  My suggestion would be to go to the pet store!!!   After this was done, I had a sink full of dirty dishes!!  

Here is a picture of the one that I made.  It turned out really cute and matches my family room.

Hat, Scarf, Gloves! Pattern - Simplicity 0890 Sew Simple

I made one of these back in 2013, October if you want to look at that post.  My granddaughter has worn this to death.  Still looks good, but does not match with her new pink coat.  She asked me to make her another one.   We went to JoAnn fabrics and she picked out the color.  It is suppose to be two toned, but she wanted a solid color.  I thought I remembered how to make it and thought I didn't need to read the pattern.  WRONG!!  I sewed the ears in the wrong place and had to do some major ripping out.  I guess I thought I was just too big for my britches as my mother use to say when I was little.  Anyway, I thought, I would explain how to sew on the mittens and have a nice smooth, round  edge. 

Here is a picture of the paw which I zigzagged around some faux leather for this look.  Now here is where I  like to sew around the paw and come out with a perfectly round edge and have both paws looking the same.  This is my technique that I use.

First I make a copy of the pattern edge with my printer.

Here is the copy, but you can see this pattern does not even give you any seam allowances so this will not work, because all I have is the cutting line, not the sewing line.  I need the actual sewing line.

I take my copy and cut out around the edge and fold it in half to make sure that both sides are the same.  Don't just assume that they will be because this is not always the case.  I had to trim up a little on this copy to make sure both sides were even.  Then I use my handy 5/8 tool here which I have no idea what it is called.  You just lay the edge of the ruler on the edge of your pattern and draw in the lines as shown and this gives you the 5/8 inch seam allowance.

 

Next, I trimmed off the 5/8 seam allowance so I could copy exactly the sewing line and  this is how it should be sewn.

I then placed it on my material and copied the curve.  I used a black magic marker, but, I would recommend a water-soluble marker for this.  I used the marker so you could see what I was doing and I knew it would not show through on this material.  Now I have an exact line to follow when I sew for a perfect pocket edge.

I did a little decorating on it because with just one color, it looked a little plain.  I hope she likes it.  I have to pick her up from school today, so we shall see!  If you look close at the pattern, you will see that the two paws in the picture are not sewn the same.  This is why I use my technique.  I used Luxe fleece and I absolutely love it.  It is pure quality!!!  Nice and heavy for winter!!

Elastic 101 and How To Use It!

I just watched this Threads video about the different types of elastic and how to use each one.  This was a very informative video.   I thought I would share it with anyone who would like to watch it.

http://www.threadsmagazine.com/2012/02/15/elastic-101?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=editpost

Christmas Quilt!!

Well, as you know, I received the Janome 15,000 Quilt Maker for Christmas.  I have been using it for about two months now and I absolutely love this machine.  The software that comes with this  is just amazing.  I learn something new about this machine everyday.

  I haven't made a quilt for quite a long time.  I decided to make the designs in the center that I used on the quilt with the software called HorizonLink.  The sewing machine has WIFI so I can get on my computer or i-pad anywhere in the house and send designs to my machine which is upstairs in my sewing room.  This is just so handy.  It also has software called AcuMonitor which will show my design being sewed out while I am in another room of the house.  I was baking during Christmas prep and could watch my sewing machine sew while baking cookies.

Here is the design that I created using HorizonLink.  It gave my Christmas quilt more of a star effect and I sewed it out with gold thread which really adds to the beauty. 

I had to learn how to get these designs centered all around the quilt edge and have them equally spaced.  This was tricky, but since then, I learned of a fantastic trick from a fellow Janome friend which I think will make things easier.  I haven't tried it yet, so I can't explain it to you.  I had to line up two designs and bring then exactly together so they look like they were one continuous design.  How I handled this was easy.  I sewed out the first design.  Then I had my second design brought up on the sewing machine screen.  I would jump the machine up one stitch of the new design and then I could use my up and down arrow keys to line this first stitch exactly where I wanted it to sew.  Then the design would sew exactly where I needed it.  Now, you might know that quilting is not my first love, so I don't quilt as much as probably some of my followers.  You may have tricks you can teach me.  My first love is garment sewing and right now I am trying to take off a few pounds, so I don't want to make any new clothes for another month or so.  This is why I started with a quilt.  I have some knots where I joined the two designs together, so if anyone knows how to handle this differently, please let me know.  It shows up more in the picture than on the quilt.

The finished quilt turned out nice.  My pictures are not the greatest.  I took  them with my  phone instead of getting out my camera.  Hope they show up for you.  I hope you all had a very Blessed        Christmas!!!