I Made Something!

Don't faint from the shock!

My mojo disappeared sometime back in March. It seems like the combination of my crazy weekend of warp painting during a power failure, followed by an unexpectedly warm spring that just stayed nice, totally crushed my creative energy.

That's OK though. I've definitely been enjoying this fabulous spring and summer while getting enough accomplished to keep my head above water.

It's sort of surprising what kicked me back into gear.

We had guests over for dinner, so I wanted to unearth the dining room table. It was my sewing room for the winter, but I wanted to clear off the sewing to make room for entertaining.

I decided to make the blue curtain that I so excitedly found fabric for after the Fuzz Fest in January.

This fabric is a curtain fabric that's pretty stiff. It has blue and black threads making up the fabric, and then gold thread machine embroidered in that swirl pattern. I used it unbacked, even though it technically has a right side and a wrong side. It's nice enough on the back that I'm OK with that.

My sewing machine had a little trouble with this fabric. I tried a bunch of different needles but if I was sewing through more than 2 layers my machine had trouble and sometimes couldn't pierce the fabric. If you have any tips and pointers for me regarding that, definitely let me know!



In bits and pieces throughout the week, I finished the curtain!!

Here are the steps I followed (for my reference as much as yours!)

• Get measurements of finished curtain
• Sew side seams
• Sew pocket for curtain rod at top
• Hang to check length
• Sew bottom hem
• Hang to check
• Store until winter!

We won't hang it until the fall, because it is used to separate our kitchen and sunroom, which we heat well in the winter, from the rest of the house that we let get pretty chilly during the daytime. It's surprising how well a thin curtain can keep heat where we want it.



Bailey immediately figured out how to get through the new curtain. (The old one was short, purchased inexpensively as a test, so Bailey could walk right under it.)

That's one project down.....too many to count to go!!

I even tackled the pile of mending next to the sewing machine before moving all of that gear upstairs. I repaired a pair of jeans, pajama bottoms and a turtleneck.

Hopefully I'll have a bit more creative energy over the summer, if only to hide from the heat and humidity. I have some weaving deadlines in the fall, so I'd better get cracking!

Hemming and Hawing

In April, I attended a color workshop taught by Ruby Leslie.

In June, I wove the leftover warp and decided to make it into napkins.

In July, I finally hemmed them!!!

Time for me to go on at great length about hemming. I've had trouble perfecting my technique. Feel free to just look at pictures or skip this post all together! I'm just trying to record the things I've tried as I converge on my favorite hemming techniques.

Hems

I've had trouble perfecting my hemming technique.

My machine hems are somewhat crooked and wiggly, but they hold up great to everyday use and laundering.

My hand hems look beautiful, but are time-consuming. Plus, one of the huck towels that I hand-hemmed this winter, had problems with a bit of the hem coming loose within a few uses.

I want to move back toward machine hemming, but I want the hems to look good.

Cutting the ends of my cloth with a rotary cutter to square it up is easier and more accurate than using scissors.

Ways to secure the ends of the cloth:

• straight stitch
• zigzag stitch
• multi-stitch zigzag
• serging

For this project, I used the multi-stitch zigzag feature of my sewing machine. If my machine has it, yours probably does too!


I switched over to the multi-stitch zigzag disk. I've never used any of these mysterious disks before.


It didn't distort my fabric the way a normal zigzag stitch often does. I think it secures the threads in the fabric better than straight stitching because with a straight stitch not as many of the weft stitches are involved.


Regular zigzag on the left is puckering up a little. Multi-stitch zigzag on the right isn't as puckered. A few other tests are on this same scrap.


Here's my first multi-stitch zigzag on a scrap of the napkin fabric. Good thing it was a practice piece....I was all over the place!

I haven't tried serging yet because of the mixed reviews that weavers I know give their serged edges. Plus, I don't have a serger and don't really want to have to deal with another machine. I know some people swear by it though!

Ways to hold hems in place for sewing:

• pins
• Steam a Seam

I am a convert to Steam a Seam for holding fiddly pieces together. I've got the napkin hems secured and folded over ready to sew the hem.

Ways to sew hem:

• straight stitch by machine
• stitch by hand
• straight stitch by machine with walking foot

When I straight stitch by machine, my hems don't come out as even and beautiful as I wish they would. Several people recommended that I try a walking foot for my machine. I bought a general purpose walking foot at Joann Fabrics so I could give it a try.


The walking foot replaces the regular foot on your sewing machine, and has a prong that fits around the screw that holds the needle in place. That prong makes the walking foot advance the top of the fabric, just like the mechanism of your sewing machine advances the bottom of the fabric.

While my hems aren't perfect with the walking foot, they are better. It's easier to get the cloth to behave when the top advances along with the bottom.

The jury is still out as far as I'm concerned with the best way for me to secure the rough ends of my cloth. But the combination of Steam a Seam and the walking foot seem like they'll be great for many sewing jobs, especially with handwoven fabric.

In Summary:

My preferred method for hemming something that will be used heavily and machine washed and dried is to:

1. Multi-stitch zigzag to secure the fabric
2. Hold hem in position with Steam-a-Seam
3. Hem using a walking foot

Told you I was going to go on at length!!

What Did I Buy?

Last week, at Hub Mills Factory Store, I couldn't resist a few purchases.

If I hadn't been buying up a storm at the New Hampshire Weavers Guild yarn table, and if I didn't have two complete knitting projects - a sweater and a set of two tote bags - in my yarn stash, I certainly would have brought even more home with me!

We'll go in order by price in this post - lowest to highest!


These patterns and hanks of 12 inch lengths of yarn were in the free bin. I couldn't resist! Free is my favorite price!


This was from the $1 a ball wall. I like that price too.

I'm thinking I can use these as highlight yarns in some weaving, or as warp (the cone). I secretly want to knit a puppet out of the green yarn.

The green yarn seemed super garish in the store, but the longer I held it, the more I liked it! It's soft and cushy - so if any of you know of a puppet pattern let me know!! I've done no research on it yet!

Remember my dilemma about running out of yarn in this scarf? Well, I found matching thick and thin yarn that should give me enough to finish a scarf.

Over in the UK, Dot has been weaving faboo scarves with sock yarn....so if I'm going to frog this scarf anyway, I might weave it. Or frog then knit. We'll see!

Last, but not least, costing as much as a skein of that blue/green/gray yarn, one button for my green upholstery purse.

I'd just reached the point in this project where I needed the button to be able to continue.

I didn't have the purse with me, but I'm really happy with the way the button and the purse look together.


The button is made of antler, with metal on the surface and drilled through it to make a loop to attach the button. (Remember that deer lose their antlers yearly....so I hope no deer was harmed in making this button!)

My knitting buddies may have thought I showed admirable restraint on this shopping trip.....but you guys know how much yarn I've been adding to my stash lately. Restraint is not my specialty!!

Finish for Fifteen: Upholstery Purse

Starting at the beginning of this year (sounding suspiciously like a New Year's Resolution, isn't it?) I promised myself I'd spend 15 minutes at the start of my three weekly studio sessions finishing a project.


So far I've finished some fleece headbands, and a tapestry during my 15 minutes of finishing. I do set a timer and work for exactly 15 minutes. That almost guarantees that I stop at a good point of the project and am eager to get back to it the next time! (Instead of that nagging, gross feeling of being stuck and not wanting to work on the project that often occurs if I don't use a timer for these babies.) Plus, I can pretty much force myself to do anything for just 15 minutes!

Up next, I'm going to make a purse out of upholstery fabric.


Why?

Last winter, my local weaving group decided to focus on rep weave for the year. I had trouble coming up with rep ideas I really liked, but decided on a series of items: a small purse, a carpet bag, and a set of placemats.

For the small purse, I decided to make the pattern, but with fabric I had on hand. I chose an upholstery fabric from a field trip to Boston Design Center, purchased lining and other notions.

Last summer, our weaving group learned that we wouldn't have space to exhibit our group project at NEWS. We drifted off in our own weaving directions. We still meet monthly - but we're not working on themed projects together at this point.

I tabled the project since I wasn't especially motivated. I'm fine with the fact that I tabled it in August. At that point, I didn't have good studio habits, and working on projects that didn't inherently motivate me wasn't helping me develop good habits.

Now I want to finish this project so I can reclaim the space taken by this unfinished project in my studio and in my spirit.


I could just return the various pieces to my raw materials bins, but the trim that I purchased to go with the upholstery fabric goes with it well enough that I'm going to finish up the bag.

Fifteen minutes at a time will get this project finished!!

All of a Sudden

One minute, you're hand-basting fabric on your living room floor in your pajamas


and seemingly moments later, you've got a completed project!!

Two New Year's projects (resolutions?) down....


Two to go!

Related posts:
Project Start

Too Much Sun

A plea for curtain ideas!

After 10 years without window treatments, this room needs some. We want working window treatments of some sort to keep the sun out of our eyes - but we will frequently want most of the curtains open to maximize our solar exposure. (Hey - it's dark here in New Hampshire.....we need sun!!) Plus, we just put all this fancy woodwork around the windows, and we don't really want to cover it up.

I'd love to hear ideas for what you think we should do with window treatments for this room!!

The Room

Sorry these photos are a little dark. This room has a ton of natural light, but I took these on a gray, snowy day, thinking you'd be able to see the room better. Not sure that was a good strategy!

View from the kitchen

My blogging corner & the giant cactus

Jim's computer zone with Bailey watching squirrels

Ceiling fan, skylights, and all 6 windows

Truer colors

The Textiles

Chair	Chair close-up
Rug	Ottoman

Fabric Swatch of coordinating fabric

Other Plans

• The giant cactus is getting moved to the living room....as soon as I find the right pot for it. (That's my 4th New Year's Resolution!)
• The trim was installed last summer and we plan to paint it by spring.
• We will paint the walls once we've got the window treatments figured out.
  

Some Background

We live in New Hampshire, so we have long, dark winters - at least compared to people south of here. Having Canadian, English and Scandanavian blog readers, makes me hesitant to complain about our winters!!

Our house, from a planbook we found at the library, was designed by an architect from Texas. There was a screenporch off the kitchen in the original design. Jim enlarged it slightly and turned it into a sunroom, with lots of windows, and two skylights.

For our first ten years living in this house, this room was full of plants. We had white wicker furniture from Pier 1 in here, but it was very uncomfortable. The room was pretty to look at, but we never sat in here.

For the past few years, we've searched off and on for comfortable wicker furniture. We finally found furniture we loved last spring at Fran's Wicker (in New Jersey, but they ship nationwide!)

Our furniture arrived last year, and we've been sitting pretty. Computer junkies that we are, we use this room a lot.

Everything is great with this room, except that sometimes we have too much sun. At certain times of year, the sun gets in Jim's eyes.

We need some kind of curtains or blinds or shades or something, so that Jim can adjust them so he doesn't get sun in his eyes. But most of the time we want the room to be as open and light and airy as possible.

Please, please, please tell me your ideas!

We need something that can keep the sun out of our eyes when we need it to, but that will mostly be out of the way not covering up our view of trees!! I can sew (or shop!) I would love to get some different ideas about what to do for these windows!!

Thank you!!!!

My Second New Year's Resolution

Any day that starts out this beautifully, has to be a good day, right?

That's an unexpected 4 inches of snow that fell quietly overnight. I said yesterday that we needed some pretty snow....since yesterday we got slushy, messy snow. My wish was granted.


You might remember that I didn't make New Year's Resolutions this year. I did choose 4 projects that were bugging me, and planned to finish them all in January.

I finished one. Today I started the next.....

Last March we re-painted our bedroom after a long, snowy winter. We went with bright orange and yellow paint. The pastel blue bedskirt doesn't quite fit with the new vibrant color scheme.

I shopped everywhere, and couldn't find a bedskirt for a king-sized bed, in bright colors that I liked. (Please, don't tell me that you know where I can find a great one...because now I'm committed to sewing a bedskirt out of this striped fabric. I really wanted to solve this problem by shopping, not sewing.....but such is life!)


I sneakily took over the dining room for this project....justifying it by saying my studio is too full of looms to fit a sewing project. Since this project is for the house....I should be able to sew it in the house. Clever, eh?


I'm changing the pattern slightly because I don't have quite enough fabric to make the pattern as designed. I had to think, use my calculator, and even make a tiny graph paper template. (I'm such an engineer sometimes!)


As the saying goes "Measure twice, Cut once." I did just that, and chopped the fabric into the side and end panels for the bedskirt. More math will follow no doubt.

Hopefully I won't be back here begging for ideas for where I can buy a bright bedskirt (because that would mean the project has collapsed or at least become incredibly frustrating!)

Don't Tell Bailey!

I wouldn't want the pup to think I'm dissing him, but he really doesn't like walking on snow barefoot.

I don't either!


He has this pair of dog booties that he sometimes wears. Unlike most dogs, he took to them right away.

We purchased these booties several dogs ago, for a dog with bigger feet. They're a little too big for Bailey.


I'm saving these fleece scraps for when he loses the current booties. I can make more!

I will try not to cringe at the fact that I could wear a matching fleece sweatshirt and headband and dress my dog in matching dog boots!!

Perhaps I experienced Bailey's revenge today when I went running. It's a gorgeous day here - sunny, bright blue sky, snow on the ground - and I was running along and noticed myself singing that song B-I-N-G-O. (YouTube will start playing the song if you click that link - be careful!) Somehow I kept repeating that line over and over.....Glad I wasn't running a super long run!!

Gotta Stay Warm!

Last summer, I was very frustrated with my lack of productivity. I'd have a bazillion ideas, but wouldn't finish anything. Even starting projects - my favorite part of the creative process - didn't happen as often as I liked.

One of my local weaving friends is very prolific. She weaves five hours a week on average - and her five hours includes planning, ordering yarn, dressing the loom, weaving and finishing.

I thought....well, I can do a few hours a week in my studio and see how it goes. Maybe if I treated weaving more like I treat running - planning to do it and pushing through parts that are hard for me - I'd develop better creative habits. I started with two one-hour sessions in my studio a week. At the start of each month through the fall, I'd re-evaluate and decide what level of commitment felt right.

Now, I'm up to three weekly sessions, for a total of six-and-a-half hours per week. If a project is going well for me, or is fun, I'm free to spend more time on it. But I commit to those three sessions, schedule them, and definitely work during those times.

By the beginning of winter, these creative habits were ingrained, and instead of facing resistance and avoiding anything creative, I went upstairs and got to work with excitement and ease.

At the beginning of January, I decided to spend the first fifteen minutes of each studio session finishing up a project. I made a list of projects that were stalled and would just feel good to get finished....and I'm working through that list.

These headbands are the first of those projects!


It feels really good to be finished with this project! It feels really good to know that I'm in the habit of being productive in my studio and that my unfinished projects won't languish forever.

I've still got projects that will be completed in this fifteen minute manner. The beauty of fifteen minutes is that I can get a step or two done, it doesn't feel too long, and when I stop (I actually set a timer), I'm almost always at a point where I want to continue - so re-starting the next time isn't hard at all.


Meanwhile, I love spending time outside - running, hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing - so these headbands will be put to good use!! Perfect for keeping me warm, but not too warm!

Double Trouble

Living where it's cold, I have a small collection of fleece headbands.

I'm trying to make fleece scraps from another sewing project into more headbands.

My favorite headband is from EMS. Love the shape and fit!


The edge trimming on the EMS headband is not something I want to duplicate on my homemade headbands, both because my sewing skills are somewhat lacking and those edges aren't as comfortable as the hem on this Columbia headband.


The hem may have been done on a serger, but an expert seamstress in my circle of weavers told me I could probably get similar results using a special needle, called a twin needle or double needle, on my sewing machine.


I made a couple of quick patterns out of velum from Staples, cut out some headbands and was ready to figure out hems.


I already had a twin needle in my sewing box, like this one.


I don't know if this is entirely correct, but I put two spools of thread (one of which I hand wound) on the spool holder, and threaded the machine with both strands.


I fiddled with the tension a little, to keep the headband stretchy, but the back of my hem isn't exactly textbook. More fiddling with the tension probably would have fixed that.


These hems are fine for my purposes - which are just to keep my ears warm when I'm playing outside!


One can never have too many aqua fleece headbands, right?

Baby I'm Back

In the studio, that is.

For the past month, ever since I brought home my giant Toika loom, my studio has been out of commission - covered in drop clothes and loom parts.

Last week, when we got the loom frame set up, suddenly I could see my other projects again!

And this week, now that the holiday hubbub has died down, I can finally get back on a more normal schedule and get back to the studio.


I like to have a bunch of different projects in progress at once, so I store supplies for each project in its own bin.

Now that I have a New Year's burst of energy to clear things out to make way for adventures in 2009, I'm starting each studio session with 15 minutes on whichever project is closest to relinquishing its project bin.


First up is finishing this fleece. I made a fleece sweatshirt last winter to help improve my sewing. As a weaver, it seems like it would be cool to sew my handwoven fabric at some point.

These fleece scraps seem perfect for making a few headbands and possibly a neck gaiter.


I'm copying my two favorite fleece headbands. The light blue headband appears to have a hem sewed with a double needle, so I'm figuring out how to use a double needle with my sewing machine.

The beauty of doing only 15 minutes at a time on this project is that I won't get all bogged down on it at the expense of other projects.

I've missed my studio in the past few weeks - missed being in my creative routine, missed having the separate time and space to myself.

It's good to be back!