My New Sewing Machine

My Brother LX-2500 has served me well over the past 2 1/2 years as I dipped my toe into the world of sewing and quilting, but the more I worked on it, the more I started to notice its flaws. The thread tension would sometimes change for no good reason, leaving me with trails of loose or tight stitches I would have to pull out and redo. There's not a lot of space to push a large quilt through. The presser foot stopped lifting as high as it should, so I'd have to hold it in place when I needed it in the "up" position. And finally, it was very, very loud. 

As a beginner's machine, I could not recommend it highly enough. It has everything you need without any frills, and for occasional sewing or mending, it would be perfect. But this past fall, I knew I wanted to step up to a better machine. So, come Christmas, I knew what I would be asking for.

I did quite a bit of research. All of the sewing bloggers I read use Janomes, Berninas, or Jukis, it seems. But those are expensive (in the $1000-2000 range), and they also have a different layout than what I'm used to. I don't sew every day, and sometimes I even let a few weeks go by without sewing, so spending more than a few hundred dollars on a machine seemed excessive -- even if it would be a gift! 

Since I had a good experience with Brother, I set my sights on one of their computerized models, the CS6000i. It has the same layout as my old machine, but much more space to work with. There's even a snap-on table that extends your workspace. The digital display is easy to use and there are 60-some stitches. (I've only tried a handful, so far.) The automatic needle-threader was a selling point for me. It also came with a cover and several feet. Best of all, I found it on sale on Amazon in the range of $150, so I keep reminding my dad that I saved him a bunch money on my Christmas gift.

(A bonus peek at my Liberty quilt in progress!)

So far, it's been great. The tension is much more consistent, and so is the stitch length. It runs the fabric through much more smoothly than it's predecessor. And it's quiet! 

My first project was a pillow for my college friend Ryan's new son, Arthur. I used some Michael Miller fabric I had on hand and I machine-appliqued an "A" on the front. It came together in just a couple of hours. I hope the little man likes it!

(Ignore the rogue thread...)

Then, I made an apron for myself with some of the Joel Dewberry's Bungalow fabric my mom got me for Christmas. I used an apron of my dad's as a template, then I pretty much winged it! I mentally split the apron into a top and bottom, then I arranged the fat quarters to fit the separate parts. I lined the top piece and the bottom piece to give it some weight. For each piece, I pinned reverse sides of the outer fabric and lining fabric together, stitched around three sides (leaving the bottom of the top and the top of the bottom open), then flipped the piece right-side out. As I attached the lining for the top, I also attached the neck strap (whose fabric is from the very first quilt I made!). I added a pocket to the bottom. Then I connected everything with the middle band, and topstitched around each of the fabric pieces to give it more of a finished look. 

I decided to extend the ties at the last minute and had run out of that fabric, so I improvised. I wasn't 100% pleased with the top, so I added the extra strip of fabric, which I think brings it all together. When you look at the back, you can see how piecemeal it is, but I figure it doesn't really matter, since it's just for me.

It's big -- the sides wrap around my back, so they're almost touching. However, I'm a messy cook, so that's probably a good thing. I'm very happy with it. I like how crazy it looks with so may fabrics and colors. Maybe it will make me want to cook more often! 

Next up: Laundry Bags, Take 2

Brother & Mother Quilts

I'm officially a year behind in posting, so the next few posts will be brief and full of pictures. Once I started quilting, my brother made a request for an LSU quilt (his alma mater). He kept getting bumped down the list for new baby quilts, which he wasn't too happy about. But I finally started working on his quilt last fall and finished it up for his birthday in November. 

This is the first quilt I've done with black sashing. I also used purple and gold thread for the quilting. Using colors on black fabric really emphasizes any uneven or crooked stitching, so I'm not sure I'd do it again, but the effect is kind of neat. Most of the fabric came from fabric.com and an Etsy shop specializing in fabrics using school colors. My favorite is the purple fleur-de-lis on a gold background. You can't get much more Louisiana than that! The backing is a basic gingham from Joann that was on sale.

Unfortunately, the original pics of this quilt were lost when my old computer crashed, so here it is at 8 months old. It's already been very loved, as it lives in the rec room with the big TV and my brother's multiple gaming systems. (It could also use a good wash! The other thing about black sashing is that it attracts lint and dust like nothing else!)

After a brief break over the holidays, I started on a quilt for my mom. She lives in Michigan and faces some cold, cold weather, so I thought she could use a nice lap quilt for watching TV or reading. I used fabrics from Bonnie & Camille's Marmalade and Vintage Modern lines. (I figured it was fitting, since they are a mother-daughter design team!) They have some nice floral patterns in soft colors, but aren't too chintzy or precious.

I wanted to do something a little different with this quilt, so I stitched together a bunch of charm squares into one large block, then used a wide border to fill out the quilt. I quilted a criss-cross pattern, which involved a yard stick and soluble marking pen, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. For the backing, I used a pink pattern from Connecting Threads and pieced a long row of leftover fabric from the quilt top. The binding is a nice grayish-taupe color from Moda that coordinates with some of the prints on the front. All in all, I think this is my most well-constructed quilt. I'm finally at the point where I feel comfortable breaking away from patterns and tutorials and doing things my own way.

A preview of the quilting in progress, to prove to my mom that her quilt was actually coming together!

She seems to love it, though moms usually do, don't they? For those of you keeping score, I've now made quilts for everyone in my immediate family, including myself. Hopefully, this will keep them happy for a while so I can focus on another slew of baby quilts for expectant friends. :)

Going back in time!

It's been a while! There's been a broken laptop, a trip to England, and another broken laptop (now fixed!) since my last post. But you haven't missed much; very little sewing or embroidery has taken place since I last wrote. I did make some fabulous acquisitions from Liberty on vacation (I could have spent my entire savings in there), but I'm still figuring out what to do with it all.

However, I still need to catch up with writing about my finished projects. Hop in my time machine (or TARDIS, if you will) and we'll travel back a year...

It was summer 2012, very sticky and steamy. Sometime in August, I began working on a 30th birthday quilt for Drea, one of my best friends. She and her husband had just bought their first house and they painted their living room walls mint green to coordinate with the previous residents' unusual choice of carpeting. It instantly reminded me of  an Amy Butler print! 

So, the soft green fabrics in Amy Butler's Daisy Chain and Midwest Modern  / Midwest Modern 2 lines became the foundation of the quilt. I chose a few Joel Dewberry patterns from the Heirloom collection to fill it out and Lizzy House's Jewels for the small pieces. I had a difficult time finding a backing fabric in a similar colorway that wasn't too pricey. I ended up using a coupon and ordering a cute green floral print from Joann.  (I used the extra to make the oven mitts in the previous post!)

I worked from the Lattice Quilt pattern by Amy Smart. It was definitely the most complex pattern I've done! After cutting the squares and triangles, I laid everything out to make sure the fabrics looked good together:

Then I cut all the sashing. There was lots and lots of sashing! For this pattern, you have to piece together each row on the diagonal and then sew on the triangle corners. I kept forgetting which way the triangles pointed and had to break out the seam ripper a few times. The tiny squares kept getting lost in the shuffle, too. I opted to omit the extra border in the pattern, since the quilt was plenty big for a lap quilt. I shadow-quilted the diagonal lines and bound it in a light green.

I finished the quilt about 2 months after Drea's birthday, but she knew it was coming! I ended up dropping it off a few hours before Hurricane Sandy hit, so she was able to use it during the storm. Unfortunately, all of the pictures I took of the quilt after I finished it were casualties of my crashed laptop. Drea sent this one along, though:

Perhaps I'll pester her to take some more the next time I'm at her house. :)

UPDATE: Some more pictures!

A Sad Quilt Story with a Happy Ending

I started planning this quilt while I was finishing up my Aviary quilt. I hadn't anticipated making another one so soon, but the circumstances called for it. My best friend Andrea's older sister, Theresa, was diagnosed with cancer in January. The initial prognosis was hopeful, but I knew she was be going through a few rounds of chemo and I thought a cozy throw quilt would be just the thing to help her keep her spirits up. She could pack it with her on trips to the doctor or just curl up on the couch with it at home while she recovered. I decided on a very basic pattern using pre-cut squares (charm squares) to make it quick and easy, so she could use it right away. Moda had just put out a cute new line of fabric called California Girl, which has lots of flowers and bright colors. It was cheerful and would also match her room, so I bought a charm square pack.

I hadn't yet started the quilt when Theresa took a turn for the worst. The cancer had spread faster than the doctors could treat it, and she passed away on Valentine's Day. It was obviously a very heart-breaking and emotional time, but it was also a blessing that she didn't have to face a long, difficult battle with an unpredictable disease.

Left to right: Drea, Theresa (in back), me, and Lynn at the rehearsal dinner before Drea's wedding in 2009

I was left wondering what to do with the pieces of this quilt that hadn't quite come to fruition. Should I just toss them, since they could never serve their original purpose? It didn't seem right to use them to make something for myself. But then I realized that Theresa and Drea's younger sister, Lynn, had a birthday coming up. I could use the fabric to make her a birthday quilt! It would be a way to remember Theresa, turning something sad into a celebration of something happy. (Anyone who knew Theresa would tell you that she was an exuberant gal who loved life and would hate to see us all moping around at her expense!)

So, I set out to give these pieces a new life. I kept to my original plan of using a simple charm square layout. I agonized over the placement for quite a few hours, trying to evenly distribute the colors and patterns. I ended up swapping out a few squares with some leftover blue Taza stripes from the tea cozy set I made for my mom's birthday.

I used Moda Bella in Snow for the sashing (it has a yellowish-tint to it, which went well with the yellows in the charm squares). I made the quilt a little bigger than I originally planned by adding an extra border of yellow dots from Moda's Strawberry Field line. 

Since backing fabric can get mighty expensive when you need a good 2-3 yards of it, I hunted around for a while to find something on sale that would complement the California Girl squares. It was hard to get the colors just right, but I ended up getting a good deal on Bandana Cream from Riley Blake's Daydream line from fabric.com. I added a couple of strips of the yellow dots to the back and embroidered a message to Lynn on a strip of the sashing fabric. 

I opted to quilt diagonal criss-crossed lines this time, while using straight lines along the borders to make big squares. I used a water-soluble pen to draw the lines so I wouldn't mess up. I wish I could say it went off without a hitch. However, I didn't extend the diagonals all the way to the edges, and due to the limitations of my walking foot (I can't backstitch to secure the thread), some of the lines were already coming undone after the first wash. I had to go back and hand-stitch some areas. Not ideal, but I don't think it's too noticeable; I just hope it doesn't completely fall apart on Lynn one day! I also had some problems with the quilt bunching up under the stitching. I later realized this was more to do with the way I hold the quilt while quilting than my machine or the fabric. I have to make more of an effort to constantly steady the quilt and smooth out the fabric as I go. I'm getting better at it, though!

I used Michael Miller's solid in geranium for the binding. At first, I thought it was a bit too bright and peachy for my taste (I was anticipating more of a coral color), but I think it actually looks good on the finished product. It gives the quilt a little extra oomph. I once again used Amy Smart's tutorial for binding. So helpful!

Lynn seemed to love the quilt. I explained the story behind it -- how I originally bought the fabric to make a quilt for Theresa -- and I tried to convey that this wasn't meant to be a hand-me-down. Instead, I hope that when she uses the quilt, she's reminded that little pieces of Theresa are still in all of our lives. 

It was hard to part with this quilt for a variety of reasons. I may have to go to Lynn's house to visit it on a regular basis.

On a related note, some of Theresa's family and friends are walking in the Relay for Life to raise money for the American Cancer Society. If you can spare a few dollars, you can click on this link to donate. (I know it would mean a lot to her family!) Thanks!

Next time: A baby quilt for an awesome baby!

Lined Drawstring Bag

In my quest to learn more about sewing, I started reading some really helpful blogs. (See the list to the right!) There are easy-to-follow tutorials for just about every aspect of sewing, even how to change the feet on your sewing machine and pick fabrics that will complement one another. I always had this impression that people who sewed, embroidered, and the like were stodgy old ladies who were sticklers for the rules. Not so. By and large, the crafty ladies who write these blogs are young-ish, really psyched about what they do, and eager to share their knowledge from both their successes and their failures. They like big, bold fabrics, bright colors, and taking shortcuts when they can. Some of them are newer at sewing, like myself, while some grew up stitching. It's definitely reassuring to know that the seasoned pros still make mistakes and that's part of the charm of making something by hand. It's a nice little community out there!

Thanks to these blogs and Pinterest, I have no shortage of projects I want to get started on. But I'm a pretty practical person, and I knew I'd have to start small. When I found this tutorial for a lined drawstring bag (it was free!), I knew I had to make one. Or five.

I had purchased a bunch of fabric from an Etsy seller in anticipation of making my plum Aviary quilt (which I will describe in detail one of these days, I promise!). Since the seller offered flat rate shipping and I wanted to get my money's worth, I decided to buy a bit of Alexander Henry's Spotted Owl fabric in Smoke, too. I have a slight obsession with owls and I really couldn't resist. I figured it would be perfect for my new bag, and I paired it with some leftover gray Kona cotton from Ryan's pillow and black cotton from Sean's pillow.

It took me about four hours to cut the fabric, figure out how to pin everything together, press, and sew, but when I was finished, I had this awesome little bag:

It's the perfect size for storing my embroidery projects in my commuting bag. You've already seen the canvas case I keep my needles, scissors, and floss in, but here's a photo of all of my embroidery notions, including my fab magnetic polka-dot needle case and scissors, both from Sublime Stitching. (I'm pretty sure I've ripped off Lindsay's taste in notions!) The scissors have a cute embossed cover and they fit inside the needle case. Ingenious!

The hoop is 5 inches (I think) from Jo-Ann. After trying a plastic square snap-frame, which doesn't hold the fabric very tight, and wooden hoops that sometimes snag the fabric, I think I've settled on plastic hoop -- this  purple one in particular. So, all of that fits into what will henceforth be known as my owl bag which, in turn, fits into my commuting bag. I don't travel light.

Jeni of In Color Order had another pattern for the same bag in a variety of sizes, so of course I had to pay for that one, too. I used it to make birthday presents for a couple of special people. I'll post pictures after they open them.

And finally, I finished my Aviary quilt this weekend and I love it! I'm sooo close to being caught up with my project recap, so I don't want to skip out of chronological order at this point. I also anticipate that post will be a long one, so I may have to put it off until the weekend -- but it's coming! 

Adventures in Hand-Sewing (aka What Led Me to Purchase My First Sewing Machine)

Over the past few years, my extended family has grown as my cousins and their significant others started adding to their family. My cousin Becky and her husband Paul have two boys, Ryan and Trevor. Ryan is my Godson and was the first of the new generation. He's turning 5 next month. Trevor is 1 1/2. My cousin Chrissy and her husband Rich have two kids, as well. Sienna is 4 1/2 and Shane is 2 1/2. All four kids are ridiculously cute and I've been enjoying watching their personalities develop. I see them pretty often, and I knew I wanted to make them each something special for Christmas.

After the success of Sean's LSU pillow, I figured I'd make some more pillow covers, personalizing them with some sort of design each of them would like. I immediately knew that I wanted to make Sienna a princess pillow. She's a total girly-girl and is going through a pretty serious princess phase. But I didn't want to embroider a Disney princess or anything, so I found a coloring page of a cute clipart-like princess online. I traced it onto a pink fat quarter I picked up at Jo-Ann. (Pink is her favorite. She is exactly the opposite of how I was at that age!). Then, I embroidered it with shades of pink and purple. I made the princess's hair and eyes brown so she would look more like Sienna. Finally, I added a little frame based on Aimee Ray's Doodle Motifs and stitched Sienna's name at the bottom.

All was going well until I actually had to start sewing the pillowcase together. The pillow forms I bought (from IKEA -- so cheap!) were larger than the pillow I had made for Sean, and hand sewing ended up taking ages. Also, since it was light-colored fabric, I was really paranoid about the stitches showing through. After I finished 3 sides, I put it over the pillow form to stitch up the bottom. But for some reason, this came out lumpy and I had to do a second row of stitches to try and tame it. I think that part of the problem stemmed from the fact I cut the fabric with regular old scissors, so it was pretty uneven in parts. (I didn't have a rotary cutter at that point. Man, whoever invented the rotary cutter deserves a medal!) I was kind of annoyed that after all of this careful hand sewing, the bottom looked so weird. But I wasn't about to start over! I eventually got it to a point where it didn't look terrible, and I didn't think Sienna would be critiquing my work anyway.

However, I dreaded the thought of having to make three more pillow covers by hand. Sienna's pillowcase took me the better part of a week, diligently sewing every night! Would I even finish the rest in time for Christmas?

Then fate stepped in. The day after I finished Sienna's pillowcase, I was perusing dealnews.com (a site that links to sales all over the web) when I saw a listing for refurbished Brother sewing machines on eBay. They came with warranties, seemed to be from a reputable store, and most importantly, they were only $50 each! So, I treated myself to an early Christmas present. I bought the LX-2500.

It's nothing fancy, and if I stick with sewing, I'll probably have to upgrade in a few years. But it does have 17 different stitches and can do buttonholes. (I have no idea how, but the potential is there!) Also, it has a pretty design!

(I haven't given it a name yet. This is something that crafty people do, right? I am thinking Miss Marple might be fitting. In Agatha Christie's books, Miss Marple is always knitting or stitching while crime solving. She seems sweet and unassuming, but she knows how to get the job done. I think this is a good thing for my sewing machine to aspire to.)

I hadn't used a sewing machine since my 7th grade sewing class. My mom never used one, so we never had one at home growing up. It took me few days to get familiar with it and feel comfortable threading it. Things like bobbin winding were completely new to me. Luckily, the instruction manual was pretty helpful in this capacity. I ordered a quilting foot, walking foot, and free motion foot online to give me some more options than the regular old foot that came with it. I had no idea how or when to use these, but I took the advice of some more experienced sewing bloggers and ordered them anyway. (Most feet are under $10. The walking foot can be up to $50, but I got mine on sale for $22!) I also had to run out and buy things like... thread. Silly as it may seem, I didn't think about the fact a machine would require a different kind of thread than what was already in my sewing box. But there you have it.

My first task was to make a dust cover for the machine. I had some fat quarters I bought at Jo-Ann that I wasn't sure what to do with, but they match the color scheme of our living room and I thought they would work nicely. I did some very rough measuring, stitched the top and 2/3 down each side, and hemmed the remainder. Then I added some ties made from brown fabric, and... voila!

Then, I finished off the pillow covers that I had already embroidered for Ryan, Trevor, and Shane. The machine made life soooo much easier. I was able to sew each pillow cover together in about a half hour. I also figured out that I should probably make them removable, since kids can be ... you know ... messy. So, I overlapped two pieces of fabric to make the back of the pillow. The pillow forms can slip right out! (I feel kind of bad Sienna's doesn't do this, but she's also the neatest of the bunch!)

Ryan is obsessed with superheroes and he likes to pretend he's Batman, so his pillow has the bat signal. I printed out an image of the bat signal I found online and used a black iron-transfer marker to put the image on the fabric. The font comes from a Word document. (I tried to choose the font that was most comic book-esque without being Comic Sans...)

Just as Sienna is a girly-girl, her brother Shane is a typical boy. He loves sports and playing outside. His pillow is football themed. I drew this one myself and transferred it with the iron-on marker. I thought it could be a little more colorful, so the red and yellow lines were last-minute additions.

Since Trevor is only 1 1/2, it's a little too early to tell what he really likes. But he always seems to be playing with race cars (usually, ones that belong to his big brother!), so I used a coloring page of a race car and driver  for Trevor's pillow. (There are a ton of free coloring pages online that make for really awesome embroidery designs!) Trevor's name is in a font from Word, too. The checkered flags are my favorite part!

And thus ends the story of how I acquired my first sewing machine. Two months later, and it's already paid for itself. I only regret not buying one sooner!

Small Victory!

So, I promised myself I would tell my tale in chronological order, but I need to jump ahead a bit to share some news: I finally figured out how to put a walking foot on my sewing machine! It took three separate attempts over the course of about a month, but once I realized the instructions were being completely unhelpful, I tried doing it my own way and it worked!

There was an extra little screw that had no apparent purpose and I was getting frustrated while trying to figure out where it went. Then, I  realized that it didn't pertain to my sewing machine at all. I guess it was included for different models, but the instructions didn't make that clear. Once I decided to proceed with my regular old screw, everything worked just fine.

Maybe I was just uneducated, but I had no idea that sewing with a machine would require me to actually be somewhat mechanically minded. You kind of have to know how the machine works in order to get anything out of it. I always just figured you'd thread the needle and go! But no... you have to switch the feet (the little pieces that hold down the fabric and allow the needle to pass through) depending on what kind of sewing you're doing. (And I had NO idea there were so many kinds of feet! I currently have four, and I'm just a novice. I still have no clue what I could possibly use the rest of them for.) You have to unscrew and rescrew the needle holder if you want to change needles. And the walking foot... well, let's just say I was pretty close to having one of my mechanical engineer friends take a look at it.

The walking foot is its own beast. (It kind of reminds me of an AT-AT from Star Wars...) It's supposed to be immensely helpful when quilting, since its job is to move thicker fabrics through without jamming. Hopefully, it will be worth the effort!