Birthday Presents

I went to Nancy's Notions Sewing Weekend a couple of weeks ago.  It's been held the same weekend as my birthday for several years now.  I feel that this fact allows me to buy myself something nice that weekend, something beyond the usual fabric, patterns and notions.

This year I took some classes from Gail Yellen of Gail Patrice Designs.  One was called Cosmetic Sergery.  It sounded interesting, and since I have a serger that I like, I thought I'd see what she had to say.

I was impressed with everything she knows about how stitches form and other technical stuff.  I mainly use my machine to sew seams and finish raw edges so I was prepared to be wowed and I was very pleased.

After seeing the ruffles she made with a few simple adjustments, I was SO ready to go home and do that!  Miss A loves ruffles... and she likes skirts with ruffles most of all.  After watching Gail do a ruffle in mere seconds, I knew what I was buying!  New feet!

Now seriously, when I told people that, they laughed...

I picked up the clear foot, just because I could and at 33% off, why not?

I also got the cording foot.  Gail made this really cool button cording using this foot and skinny elastic with decorative thread.  I'm in!

I got an elastic foot too, as long as they were on sale.  Gail showed how to add elastic to a waistband with the serger, then you just turn it under and topstitch.  True no-roll elastic!

And of course the ruffling foot.   I'm trying to type 'ruffler' but BlogSpot wants to spell check me.

So maybe if I get some time to sew, the grands will have some fancy summer skirts and dresses soon!  And when your birthday comes around, feel free to give yourself a gift you'll enjoy, whether people understand it or not!

Happy birthday to me. 

Sew on...

Putting the NO in Technology -- Argh!!

This is supposed to be my post-sewing weekend post, showing all the cool things I purchased there and telling everyone how enjoyable it was.

The best laid plans of mice and women, people!!

Here's the thing:  my printer will NOT under any circumstance read the disk from my camera today.  Technology when it works is great, and when it doesn't it is horrible.

Trying to work around it... the first day there I went to classes with Pamela Leggett of Pamela's Patterns, and Gail Yellen of Gail Patrice Designs.  I've heard of them previously, since they are well known among members of the American Sewing Guild.  So Pam discussed designer details using both your sewing machine and your serger. 

<Insert here a picture of Pam's tee-shirt pattern and the pattern to customize purchased tee shirts!>

See how well that worked?  Ha!  Hopefully I'll get the photos at some point.

I learned a few tricks... such as using a narrow serged seam for the first step of a French seam, or using a narrow rolled edge for seam reinforcements in sheer garments.  Cool.

From Gail Yellen I learned that I am NOT using my serger to its full potential.  For example my Baby Lock serger has a ruffler foot that I don't have, and I think that I can use this in sewing form Miss A and even for myself.  I'm happy to report that I have one now, along with a clear foot, a cording foot and an elastic foot.  They were 33% off the list price so I treated myself for my birthday.

<Imagine a picture of serger feet>

Friday I went to see one of my favorite sewing people, Mary Mulari.  I'm a Mary Groupie -- I try to see her whenever she's in the area.  When I was a chapter president of our local ASG Mary was one of the first outside speakers we brought in, and she did a great job for our chapter.  You can never go wrong with Mary.  So I  knew some of the material she was presenting (and I enjoyed that) but she did have some new tricks and tips and I enjoyed those too.  She has very cool bag and accessory patterns, and I was reminded of how many of her designer jackets from sweatshirts I would love to make.

<See the picture of her latest travel book and CD??>

I picked up some great bargains in the warehouse... lots of Madiera thread, sewing machine needles, some Bare Knits fabric from a Canadian manufacturer called Siltex.  That stuff is wonderful, with dyed to match ribbing and top and bottom weight cotton/poly... I picked up a few yards of that this year.

We went to two different evening programs at Beaver Dam high school.  Mary and Nancy Zieman did a hilarious second round of Kick It Up A Stitch -- a little sewing, a little cooking, a lot of laughing.  They took the shirt off the back of Steve from Baby Lock and cut off the sleeve and made a bag out of it, then they cut off the logo to make a tag (and gave him back the shirt, hole and all).  Ask your friends who were there if they tasted the kale smoothy...  I heard it was kind of chunky!

Saturday morning I was up bright and early to see Nancy's class, had lunch with friends and ended up at church -- the fellowship hall of Peace Lutheran in Beaver Dam hosts classes because it's big.  Deborah Jones taught me lots about doing lettering and monograms on a home embroidery machine.   I will not do monograms for myself in the normal way.  My last initial is S, my first is S and my middle is A.  DH's initial is A.  So if we do a couples monogram that would be little A - large S - little S and if I did my own it would be little S - large S - little A.  Noooo.... probably not.

I also got 20 fat quarters for $19.95 - a bargain whether you actually need them or not.  Picked up some pink plastic clogs for Miss A's doll, and a few other miscellaneous items that filled up four shopping bags.  Yes, I am helping the economy when I can.

Hopefully I can fix my printer soon.  You'll enjoy the photos!

Sew on...

Stash Busting

A couple of weekends ago I decided it was time.  Time to spruce up the wardrobe, time to make a dent in the apparel fabric stash, time for some new pants! 

I have a wonderful Great Copy pattern that I have used a lot, my very favorite.  Then I have a go-to trousers pattern from the Today's Fit line from Sandra Betzina.  Last but not least, I have a lovely Palmer-Pletsch pattern that was personally fit to me by Marta Alto at a seminar in Platteville, WI one summer.

What to do, what to do?  Which should I pick?  And what fabric?  The choices nearly paralyzed me for a while.  Finally I remembered how much I love moleskin fabric and how nice it is to sew.  AND how good it looks even after many washings!  I dug into the stash and came up with light gray and dark brown moleskin.  On the way I found a lovely dark stretch denim.

Pulling patterns -- remember my post about putting things away?  Hmmm, must not have found the Great Copy pieces, because the folder is not in my circle of activity.  OK, Great Copy is Missing In Action.

Sandra -- where are you Sandra?  Must be stashed away somewhere with a piece of designated fabric!

OK!  Choice made, on to the PP.  I cleared off the table and laid out the gray fabric.  This one has all the adjustments made and should be just about perfect in the moleskin, with its slight stretch.  Pockets or no pockets?  None this time, and no zipper.  Actually, my hips are relatively small in the scheme of things.  Even the snuggest waistline just skims over the back and bottom of me without unzipping.  Easy peasy!

I cut and snipped and got three pairs cut in one afternoon.  Out came the serger, and one we go!  I had white thread in, so I did the light pair first.  I can sew nearly the entire garment on the serger, the only exception being hem and waistline.  I cut three lengths of my favorite noon-roll elastic, and got down to it.

I have a Babylock Serger, with the pneumatic looper threading.  I love this machine!!  I used to hate changing thread colors.  I would sew everything with a kind of a dirty gray just so I wouldn't have to change looper threads.  And me breaking a looper thread was not a pretty sight!

Anyway, I did all three pairs of pants, top stitching the waistbands and pressing up and sewing the hem.

Good News:  I used 8.5 yards of fabric from my stash.

Bad News:     I forgot to adjust for length again, and all THREE pairs of these wonderful pants are about three inches too long!!  Just like when I buy them from the store.

Only they actually fit everywhere else.  Darn.  I should alter the pattern right now!

Sew on!