Sam's flowers

The theme for Sam's memorial project is flowers.

Making flowers was what I had started doing before Sam fell ill. I made a bunch of them with Sam either on my lap or right beside me on the sofa.
So making flowers feels more Sam-related than a quilt.

I'm going to make Sam a wall hanging. It's going to be a flower sampler. The flowers in the photo are made from fabrics, but I plan to add silk ribbon flowers to the mix, and some spiderweb roses.
For stems and leaves I'll be doing a combination of applique and embroidery. The embroidered leaves will be done in silk ribbon and embroidery floss. 

The background fabric is the actual background I'll be using for the wall hanging.

For the silk ribbon flowers I have several gorgeous wired ombre ribbons, but they're very hard to come by and I don't have a huge stash of them unfortunately. So for the time being I'll practice the ribbon flowers with fabric strips and/or more readily available ribbons to build enough confidence to use the pretty ones.  

Except for the yoyo maker flowers, all the flowers come from a wonderful book I bought several years ago when Nils was still alive. The author is Janice Vaine, and the book title is "The Art of Elegant Hand Embroidery, Embellishment and Appliqué."
This book contains an abundance of techniques: fabric, ribbon, beads, you name it. It has lots of diagrams, and the instructions are quite easy to follow.
Definitely worthwhile, and very inspiring.

The flowers in the foreground are so enjoyable to make! In Janice's book they're called Batchelor Buttons.  The red flower above them is made with the yoyo maker, and the 2 cuties on the right are called Traveler's Joy. The Traveler's Joy flower were the easiest, but none of these flowers are hard to do. Some just need some more practice than others.

Singer 15 meets Sieuwke's Quilt

Well, it took me long enough, but I've finally started to quilt Sieuwke's Quilt.

I used a rather unusual way to sandwich the quilt, due to the size. Of course I wasn't looking forward to sandwich a quilt on the floor on my hands and knees to begin with, but also because I'm short. So I would have to crawl over it anyway, and most likely inadvertently cause wrinkling.

Instead I first spread the background fabric on my bed, and positioned the wadding (batting) on top of it. I had already marked the center.
Then I laid the background fabric along with the wadding on a table with a smooth surface, and checked for wrinkles. Lastly I carefully draped the patchwork over them, again smoothing out the sandwich and started pinning from the center.

Although I used a thin wadding the quilt is quite heavy. Much to my delight quilting in the ditch is going well, considering that I'm not very experienced at machine quilting. So far I've managed to stay in the ditch most of the time.
My arms tire, though, from handling the quilt. So I do two to three rows at the time, and take a rest or work on something else for a while.

After using the 127 to stitch the quilt top, I'm once again amazed at how quiet the Singer 15 is when you're operating it. Not that the 127 is noisy, but when you use the 15 you can hardly hear it at all. You just see the needle moving, ;-)))


A closer look at the machine quilting:

Well, here you can see why it's hard on my arm muscles. I can stitch almost 3/4", smooth out the fabric, move the large part that is not being stitched along, and keep the folded part flat so it doesn't interfere with my lamp.

That's it, folks. I'm off to bed.

Sieuwke's Quilt, top is ready

Sunday evening I completed the top for Sieuwke's Quilt.
It's been a bear to photograph. I must have taken twenty plus pictures of it, but the colours are off no matter what. Must be that bright orange, I suppose.
But here's a remotely decent attempt:

And 1 more:
 

Well, at least it shows how the design turned out. 15 yr old Muis can't wait for it to be finished. He sleeps on my bed every night so his approval is very important, ;-).

As I had mentioned in my last post, I've sewn the entire top on my Singer 127.  My 127 came with just the one fixed foot. There were no other feet or attachments.
But when I had finished the individual blocks it suddenly occurred to me I might try and see if I could use the hinged straight stitch foot of one of my other vintage Singers.

So I put on the 191B's hinged foot. It went on fine, but when I turned the hand wheel, the needle got stuck at the point where it meets the shuttle (the lowest position for the needle to sink in). It took some wriggling back and forth with the hand wheel to gently ease it out .  
Then I tried the 15's hinged foot, because that's an older machine. Much better, because the needle performed the motion completely, or does it?

It's odd, but occasionally the needle jams with the 15's foot too. It's intermittent, and it only happens when I want to move the needle back in the up position to thread it.
With the 127, when I stop stitching the needle sometimes lowers by itself even if I stopped while it's in the highest position.
Interestingly, provided there's fabric touching the feed dogs the machine stitches beautifully and with no jams at all.

Is it me or do hinged feet really make a difference while sewing? I find that I don't need to guide the fabric as much to sew a straight line when I use a hinged foot. With the fixed foot the fabric has a tendency to run off to one side.

So since the hinged foot appears to be working well with the 127, I'll probably continue to use it. By comparison managing the fabric became a lot easier once I put it on.
As originally planned the binding will be done on the 15, because that one has a reverse.

Sieuwke's quilt

I've started a quilt for my bed to commemorate my darling Sieuwke.

When I brought Sieuwke home from the shelter he was given a room of his own. In order to get Muis and Sieuwke to get along, a proper introduction was crucial. After all Muis was 15 yrs old, still grieving over Nils, and Sieuwke was extremely timid.

So Sieuwke started his new life in his very own room, and was given plenty of time to take it all in. I visited him a number of times during the day to provide food and water, and spend some time with him.
On those occasions I used to have some small sewing project handy so he wouldn't feel like the center of attention because he was so timid. I finished hand quilting a tablecloth while he napped in his safe spot between two cabinets. That tablecloth was a Courthouse steps quilt.

In his final hours Sieuwke wanted to be in the bedroom, which is why I chose to do a quilt for my bed.

I'm sewing the blocks on the Singer 127, my oldest machine.
The Singer 15 will also be involved at a later stage. I'm going to use the 15 for the quilting and to sew on the binding, because I want to use a hinged foot for that.

I've cut all the strips with the Log Cabin ruler (Marti Michell).

It's a dream to use and you have your strips ready to go in no time at all. After cutting your strips you can then proceed to sew them assembly-line style.
BUT, and I can't stress this enough, do make sure your 1/4" seam allowances are spot on. Otherwise every next piece you add won't fit. So if the piece you add is longer or shorter, make sure you fix it before you continue.
In case you're wondering, yes I got mine wrong on 10 blocks, :-).

The knits

Sis and I went to our favourite yarn shop last Friday. As always when we go on trips we had a great time.
For the time being I decided to get yarn for two cardigans. So now I have plenty of yarn for the 1960 cardigan plus another cardigan that I noticed when I was browsing the knitting magazines.
In fact the two magazines I've bought have four potential candidates for future knitting, provided the first two cardigans go well.

I started knitting right away when we got home from the yarn shop. Prior to our trip I had already done a rather large swatch for the 1960 cardigan. As it turns out, I did need to go down two needle sizes, but that's normal for the technique I use.

A major difference for me, compared to knitting socks, is the tension. The tension required for a cardigan is much tighter than I'm used to. Another reason why I went down two needle sizes.
And it felt so weird to use only two needles instead of the usual five when I knit a sock.

On another note, I'm nearly done knitting the back of the 1960 cardigan.
Here's a picture:

If it seems too narrow to you, don't worry, because it's being knitted in ribbing stitch entirely.  I can assure you that it's quite stretchy. As you can see, I've just started the armhole. I now need to work 8" as is, then proceed with the rest of the armhole.
Well, at least the largest piece of the cardigan is nearly done. At least the other pieces have far less stitches, so in theory they should go faster, or at least appear to, ;-))
The yarn is called Bingo, and it's from Lana Grossa. 

Of course I couldn't wait to see how the other yarn would look like, so I knitted a swatch. I have no idea how the stitch is called, as it wasn't specified in the directions, but I sure like the look of it.
See picture:

It's a cardigan pattern as well, made entirely in that stitch. This yarn too is Lana Grossa, and it's called Royal Tweed. I find it a little harder to knit with, but it's very pretty and the stitch is so fun to do.
My sister advised me to do at least one cardigan from a magazine, because you can use the exact same yarn as used in the design, making it more likely that the result will look the same.
I have no picture of the design, but it's a very simple long cardigan with straight sleeves and a collar.

Oh, I can show you some finished knitting as well. When I bought the vintage cardigan patterns on Etsy I also bought this irresistible pattern for dishcloths. 
And I've already made a pair:

They were so much fun to make! Cheerful, aren't they?

Lastly, I'm still contemplating what to do about a quilt for my draughty  bedroom. I've decided that hand quilting would be too time consuming. After all I'm still hand quilting the lap quilt for my sister. I would prefer not to start another hand quilting project while hers isn't finished yet.

I've looked at quilts in shops, but I can't find any color I like. All the colors are ever so boring: greys, taupe, white..... bleh.
But how would I go about machine quilting?
Free motion quilting is out. It would take me too long to learn. Most likely I could do a large quilt by hand faster than attempting to get a remotely decent result by free motion quilting.
Besides, I would have to do it on my Pfaff, because my vintage Singers are hand cranks. Plus, if I use a vintage Singer for the patchwork top, I would prefer not to use an electric machine to quilt it, It just doesn't seem right somehow.

So the solution might be to quilt in the ditch by machine. If I do a log cabin top, all I would need to do is stitch the outlines of each block.  Meaning I would have to do straight lines only, lengthwise and crosswise. I suppose it won't be easy anyway, because I'm not used to handling such an amount of fabric with any machine, but since it'd be straight lines it might work.

Summer Dress

Lately I've been reading much about sewing garments in the blogs I follow daily. It's so enjoyable to read all about their adventures that I was totally in the mood to make something too.

As it happens I discovered only recently, at the age of 53 no less, that knee length dresses don't work for me because I'm short. So when that eye opening moment finally occurred I immediately started to shop for some new dress patterns.

This is the one I'm working on:

The design is a princess line with short sleeves, button down closure, and a collar with stand. The sleeves are gathered, but only at the the top. Needless to say they were very easy to sew, since there was no easing involved.
Much to my delight the collar with stand went quite well too. I was a bit worried because I never made a collar with stand before.

I've sewn one side of the collar stand to the dress with the sewing machine. The inner side, which is pinned in the photo, is going to be hand sewn.
Now that I'm looking at the photo I'm not sure whether I should have sewn the inner stand to the dress, thus having the hand sewing hidden by the collar when I wear the dress. I'll keep it in mind for the next dress, and try how it looks when I do it the other way around.

I love how the sleeves turned out, but I'm not happy with how the buttonholes turned out. I used the regular sewing thread to make them. Perhaps I should have used a thicker thread. But how to thread the machine then? A thicker upper thread and the regular sewing thread in the bobbin? I have no idea. Luckily the buttonholes will be less noticeable once the buttons are sewn on. 

The pockets are a nice detail, I think.
This is a fun project overall. And several first times are involved, like making buttonholes, and a collar with a stand.This fabric, however was so cheap that I bought 6 meters of it. It's incredible, but the fabric cost only 1 Euro per meter, and the width is 1.40 m.!!! No wonder I didn't fret about making mistakes.

 The dress is being sewn using the Pfaff and the Juki.

Waiting in the wings

After I finished a tablecloth for my cutting table in my sewing room, I had plenty of fabrics left for a smaller one. Very convenient actually, because by that time I had purchased both my hand crank machines, and I was looking for a simple project to use one.

I've always had a soft spot for log cabin quilts. They are fun to sew, and I love how you can play with a variety of layouts. So, when I read about log cabin rulers by Marti Michell, I bought them in two sizes.
The photo shows the ruler for the widest strip size available: the 2"/1" ruler. It's the perfect ruler for jelly rolls, because all you need to do is cut the strips to the appropriate lengths.

Log Cabin Ruler

As you can see in the closeup picture, the strips you cut are the exact length of each individual strip. Which means that you don't need to cut excess fabric once you've added a new strip. I find that very helpful in keeping the blocks square.

What the picture only shows a glimpse of, is that you can combine 1" and 2" strips to make off-center log cabin blocks.

A picture of the small tablecloth:

Since this was done with the jelly roll leftover, the blocks are quite big.
For my next log cabin quilt, I'm going to use the other ruler, because I want smaller blocks. So I'm going for  3/4" strips (finished size).  I hope I have enough fabric for a bed quilt.

The fabrics for the new log cabin quilt:

The red and yellow are accurate, but for some reason the soft green looks like turquoise. I have a very specific block setting in mind, and 1 shade of red and yellow will do.

Lastly, just a fun picture of the new fabrics together with the Singer 127.

Border woes

Adding the three borders to my wall hanging didn't go well.
The seams of the first border puckered.  I should've taken the time to find out why, but I continued to sew them on instead. I was hoping to literally iron them out, I guess. ;-))

Anyway, prior to this project all I had done with the Singer 127K was a couple of test runs after I had oiled it. In other words, this was its first real project.

I had to tinker a bit with the stitch length when I started the paper foundation piecing, but the tension was fine. And remained fine most of the time.
But this is what I couldn't figure out: occasionally the tension setting changed apparently, particularly when I hadn't used the machine for a couple of hours. And then I would have to find the correct setting again first and continue to sew.

Now, I'm a beginner when it comes to hand crank machines. I'm not sure how they're supposed to behave. My first sewing machine was an electric Singer 191B. I still have it, by the way.
As I recall I hardly ever had to adjust the tension on it. It would sew anything.

Anyway, after trying every setting of the upper tension I resorted to adjusting the screw on the shuttle by turning it 1/8" anticlockwise. As a result of that the seams of the last border strips were fine.

Of course I still need to unpick all the borders, and start over. Hopefully the tension won't give me any more problems this time around. However, if the tension problems keep reoccurring I obviously haven't solved the problem. I feel I need a professional to have a look at it.
But first I'm going to start over with the borders, and see how it'll play out.

Time to show and tell, so here's some more pictures I took. Come to think of it,  maybe it wasn't just the tension issues. After I added the first border I removed the paper foundation. Some parts of the houses stretched a bit. I chalked it down to how the pieces were cut. I hadn't paid any attention to the grain. After all, the paper foundation acts as a stabiliser. Maybe I should've left it in.

Row of houses complete

Yesterday I completed the row of houses.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had to order new fabric for one of the houses. The fabric I had planned to use didn't match the overall color scheme.

Houses are ready!

I had taken my chances and ordered the fabric online. Well, I was lucky, because I love it. I think it coordinates very well with the other fabrics. It's the fabric in the fourth house from the left.
The design of this house is different, hence the fabric should be different too.

Next I'll need to cut borders and the binding.
A total of three borders in two different widths (alternating wide and narrow), followed by the binding.
The thing is I don't like cutting borders, so I'm procrastinating. I don't mind sewing them, but cutting them is bleh. The binding on the other hand is something I look forward to. I like to sew on the binding by machine first, and after that hand sew the back. 
I find hand sewing very soothing, especially on a sofa with two napping cats next to me.

It's so enjoyable to do this on the Singer 127K.  It holds the stitch length perfectly, and the tension too. Of course you need to adjust the presser bar a bit when you add a new house due the amount of seams involved.

I do have to pay intention to where I start stitching. If the needle is lowered it must hit the fabric. You can't start stitching while there's no fabric under the presser foot. Good heavens, how do you say this in English?
Well, I hope it makes sense. Anyway, if you're not paying attention to that, you'll get snags. That's what I was trying to say, ;-)).

More about the wall hanging

There's going to be five houses in the Canal row houses wall hanging.
I'm working on the fourth house, but one of the colors I had planned to use clashes with the overall color scheme.

I hope the fabric I've ordered online is the right one. I wish I could've gone to the store and see the fabrics in person. Alas, my favorite store is too far away. I can't justify a trip to Amsterdam, just to get 1 fat quarter of fabric.
So, I made do and took my chances ordering it online. I expect to receive it tomorrow.

Meanwhile I joined the three finished houses. And took some pictures.

Canal row houses are joined now

The technique is called paper foundation piecing. My printer has run out of ink, so I copy the pattern by hand. I use regular print paper, a ruler and a pen.
Since this design is pretty straightforward, it's quite easy to copy it that way. Of course with a more complex design it might not be so easy to maintain accuracy. In that case you'd be better off photocopying it.

The Back

So this is what the back looks like. For now I leave the paper foundation in place, but I tested how to tear it away in two seams of the house in the middle. The needle perforates the paper when you stitch, which makes it quite easy to tear away the paper when you're done.
A closeup:

Closeup paper foundation

Technically I could leave the paper in. This is a wall hanging after all. I guess, it depends on whether I''ll want to embellish it.

Lastly, some closeups of the houses. My apologies for the cat hairs. I was so caught up in taking pictures, that I completely forgot to check for cat hairs first. I'll do better in future, I promise.

Closeup house on the left

Closeup house in the middle

Work in progress

I'm working on a wall hanging for my living room.
The pattern is by Maaike Bakker. Most if not all of her designs are paper foundation piecing. I bought it several years ago at a craft show after seeing the finished version of it.
It was also available as a kit, including all fabrics in different shades of blue, but I wanted to use different colors. 

The Singer 127K proofs to be perfect for paper foundation piecing, because you're not sewing continuously. After all, every time after you've added another piece, you have to trim it, flip it and press.

With an electric machine, you'd leave it switched on obviously until you're done for the day. Which means I have to watch the cats while I'm not using the machine. Cats are just like small children. I admit, neither of them ever touched the foot pedal yet, but you never know.

The 127K is a vibrating shuttle machine, that takes long bobbins. I'm very pleased with how much I can sew before the bobbin thread runs out.

So, here's a photo of what I'm working on:

Canal Row Houses

 










My temporary sewing room:

Sewing space

My regular sewing room is actually adjacent to this room.
When I moved here two years ago, I naturally chose the biggest room as a craft room. As it turns out, the light is not ideal in the bigger room, plus it's quite cold in winter.
And the view from the room I'm currently working in, is so much nicer. I live across a wood.