SewingRoom OverHaul

I guess in my last post, I forgot to tell you that my sewingroom has been unusable since July. When my mother passed away, we had a dumpster which my husband decided to use up as much as possible.  I had carpeting in my sewingroom which I really did not like.  I had mentioned this to my husband on several occasions.  So he decided to rip up the carpeting in my sewingroom and throw it in the available dumpster.  This really was not the best time for this, but I wasn't thinking to clearly and just said that was fine with me.

Now here is the problem.  He had done this is in two other bedrooms and they had lovely hardwood floors underneath the carpet.  It only took a couple of days to get this job accomplished.  Well we were shocked when he ripped up the first piece of carpet.  Underneath was nothing but something that looked like sawdust.  For some reason they glued down the padding to the pretty hardwood floor (who would do this??) and whatever it was that they used disinigrated the padding into a powder.  Now you know my expensive machines are in there and the last thing I need right now is another great big mess and sawdust flying around my machines.  I told you my mother's things that I wanted to keep are still stacked in the dining room and now I have my sewing machines all covered and taken apart in my spare bedrooms.  So I have not sewed since July and I am missing it terribly.  My husband had gone up into the room and he started to hand sand the floor.  My sewing cabinets have all of the tops off of them and I could just imagine how much dust would get into them.  So I had to hurry and grab some sheets and cover them all up.  Then they sat there like that because we had several camping trips scheduled and a three week trip out West in September planned.  No time to work in my room.  When we came home from our three week trip, our camper took quite a beaten going up and down the mountains and there was about seven projects in there that needed attention before we took our last tiny trip and then put the camper away for the winter.  Now we have that finished and gosh it is Thanksgiving already.   He is going to put up the Christmas lights tomorrow and I still have some pretty hugh messes and I just dont feel very Christmasy this year.  Do I really want to drag out all of those decorations on top of the two messes I already have??  No not really!!

Well, I cleaned the kitchen extra good this week and I put some Christmas Fresh Cut Fraiser Fur wax cubes in my little burner hoping that would help!  Guess what, I think it did, I am kind of getting in the mood now!!  I guess I will drag out mess number three and have a Merry Christmas and worry about the rest later!

I will show you a couple of pictures of my sewing room and spare room messes!  He is not satisfied with the floor it still has spots of glue on it.  He rented a big sander from Home Depot and is bringing that home from work today.  He TOLD me that there won't be any dust because the machine will catch it!!  I sure hope he is right!  I am cleaning downstairs and I sure hope I don't have to start over or someone just might get coal in their stocking this year!!  He said he will have it down by Tuesday!!  We will see!!  LOL

HOW TO SAVE MONEY WHEN YOU SEW!

Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well.  So sorry I have not posted for a while.  It has been a bad summer for me.  My mother passed away in April and it was a hard time, plus we had so much to get rid of and try to sell and clean up.  We are finally past that but now my dining room looks like a cyclone went through it.  I have all the things that I wanted to keep in there and no place to store them.  My mom wore lots of jewelry, which I do not, so I have all of that and not really sure how to handle it.  I also have a hugh box of pictures that I just can't bare getting rid of.  If anyone has any tips on what to do with the jewelry, I would sure appreciate it!

I have two couches in my familyroom that are in desperate need of replacing.  Everywhere I checked, there was a year of waiting.  Oh my oh my!!  I did finally find a set that I liked at Furniture Row and purchased those.  My husband tore my old couches apart for me, because you just would not believe what you might find in a couch that you would want to save.  I made a video, so if you would like to watch it, I attached the link for you.   

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BABpVaCiPrU&t=306s

BAILEY ISLAND HOBO BAG - PART 6

 I got my handles finished and I designed them a little bit different than the directions.  I two toned the handles by sewing the black and colored fabric together.  The directions are for the handle to be in just one color.  I also made them a little bit longer.  It fits better under my arm this way.  

You take two lengths of batting for a heavier handle and two lengths of the material and stack the two materials facing each other on top of the batting.  Sew around the edges leaving an opening and then turn right side out. 

This turning is a little tricky if you have never done it before.  The directions did not explain this step, I assume there are you tube videos on this.  I will try and explain it, the ends of the handle are sewn all the way around including the ends leaving a opening on one of the sides.  Then you try and push in on a end while grabbing just one layer of material.  Then you push the ruler in and as you push the ruler you gather up the handle and then push it out the opening that you left and it turns everything right side out.  This is not a good explanation.  Sorry, just look for a video this is hard to explain.  If you make this and need a video, I will make you one.

You then top stitch around the handle a couple of times and it is finished.  You feed it through the opening you made at the top of the bag and then gather up the handle as far as you want it to be gathered and tie the two ends together.  Then sew down the opening where you fed in the handle to hold the gathers in place and the bag is finished!

My finished Hobo Bag, but this will be my beach bag.  I chose these colors because I have three bathing suits each a different size.  You know how it is, smaller, medium and 10 pounds to much.  One is, black, one is blue and the other is aqua.  This bag will now go with any suit that I wear!!  I love the bag!!

BAILEY ISLAND HOBO BAG - PART 5

A few more steps on the bag.  After you gather the edges of the bag, you need to sew across the edges to hold the gathers in this position.  The batting that I used was the Warm & Natural Needled Cotton Batting which is one of my favorites.  I was able to sew across all of the gathers, but  it is getting harder now because this causes a lot of thickness.  I did draw a line across the top so I would sew straight.  I just used a magic marker because I needed something to see well and I knew this was not going to show.

I ran a double line because before you sew, you are suppose to trim your line evenly.  Well this creates a problem because after you trim the edges, you have to be very careful because your zigzag stitches start to come apart.  If I make another bag, I would try to trim my strips before I sew them together and try to be able to skip this step. When you trim this you are cutting off all of your tie off stitches and the zigzag stitch pulls apart very easy.  You have to be very careful.

Now comes the binding for the tops of the bag where the handle will go through.  This is just suppose to be a straight piece of just material, but I thought it would be to flimsy since I was making the biggest bag so I added a layer of batting to that also and I added a strip of fabric down the center to add a little accent.  I then added diagonal stitches all the way across this binding and I really liked this better but it is not necessary this is just my touch to the bag.

Then I sewed this to the edge of the bag.  Now I did have some trouble with sewing this.  I think it was because I added one more layer of batting.  It now was hard to fit under the presser foot.  I sewed it on the back of the bag first with my machine but I broke a couple of needles and had to go very slow. Then when I brought it around to the front I just felt I would not be able to get it top stitched as neatly as I would want it so I decided just to sew this down by hand.  I used a heavy weight thread and just used a over cast stitch and it doesn't show and it is very sturdy.

I gave these a good steam pressing, which doesn't show here because I took the picture first and they turned out very nice.  Now you sew up the sides of the bag and make box corners.  Usually when you make a box corner there is a seam at the bottom of your bag to tell if you have things straight.  This bag just folds in half so I folded the bag in half and then took the edge of a sliver of soap and drew a line to show the center of the bottom of the bag.  Then on the front of the bag I stuck a pin in on the seam to line up the back and front together so I new everything was even. 

You then sew a diagonal line on the edge of the bag to make the bag sit up and fold this edge to the inside of the bag.  I gave it a couple of tack down stitches by hand to hold it in place.

I have one of the handles made and as soon as I get the second one finished, I will have the bag finished and post the final pictures.  I just love it!!!

BAILEY ISLAND HOBO BAG - PART 4

 I did get all of my strips sewn together.  It wasn't hard, just my eyes would cross while watching to make sure I was catching both sides with the zigzag stitch but it turned out nice and I love the colors!

Next, I decided to do a different type of  pocket.  This  is going  to be a big  bag and I wanted  something

that would zip closed so nothing will fall out.  I needed something large enough for two phones, our keys, and probably sunscreen and a hairbrush.  I decided to make a separate hook for the keys so they are not moving around and scratching the screens on the phones.  Here is what I came up with. 

 

 

This  is a  zippered  bag with  netting  and the hook  on the  left side will  be for our  keys to keep  them safe.  At first I thought I would just hand stitch the pocket and I got about half way finished and decided I didn't like the way it looked.  I didn't want to stitch it because it would show on the back of the bag.   I then thought I may as well try it and see how it looks.  I sewed it with the aqua thread and you could not even see it but I sewed the  zipper with  black thread and  it looked awful.  So I ripped it out  and put the nylon thread  just  in  the bobbin and  believe it or not, it sewed  out just fine  and you cannot see it at all now.

Last for now, I had to do a running stitch on the top and bottom edges with some heavy thread and pull them in for several inches and now it looks like a boat.  

Should have it finished soon!

BAILEY ISLAND HOBO BAG - PART 3

 I now have all of the tubes finished and I am trying to figure out how I want them arranged.  This was harder than I expected.  Now on the pictures, the first one is layed out really nice, but that was a pain.  the next ones are not as neat but you will get the idea.  I will show you the different arrangments and then the last will be what I chose.

Here is the winner next!  I think it looks the best.

Now I have to zig zag the tubes together.  I start by sewing the tubes into rows of two.  Then join the sets of two together to get four and etc. until they are all joined together.  I hope I made the right choice, but if not, you know me, I will just get out my seam ripper!  I am not sure what color of thread to use.  When I sewed the tubes, I matched the thread to the material in the top and bobbin area of the sewing machine since it will show on both sides of the bag.  That will work in some seams but not all.  I don't think I want to try nylon clear thread since I am sewing through so many layers.  Nylon thread is hard enough to work with without adding another head ache.  I guess I will have to wait and see what I am sewing together and use my best judgement.  Then see how much the thread actually shows after sewing.  I might be able to get some varigated thread if necessary.  Maybe I will try the nylon thread and just see if it would work.  Hmmmm!  Will let you know!

BAILEY ISLAND HOBO BAG - PART 2

  I have been doing a little sewing and here is a picture of the material that I picked out for my bag.

I have to make a lot of strips and what you do is take your strip of material and put your strip of batting on top of that and fold it over to meet in the center and then fold over again.  Then you have to sew down the whole tube.  That makes it four layers of batting and two layers of material that you are sewing through. 

It took a little time to get them started and get into a rythum that worked for me so they were all coming out to close to the exact same size.  I have some finished but I still have lots to go.  It is sort of a mindless sewing once you get the hang of it.  The material is thick so I started out with a heavy 16 denim needle and it just pounded my machine with every stitch it made.  Then I removed this needle and used a lighter thinner needle and this helped a lot.  It glided through all the layers much easier.  Here is what I have been working on.

.  This is a close up of what the finished tubes look like.

Here is what I have finished so far.