A visit from the Glücksfee

I can’t remember the last time I entered an online competition by leaving a comment on a blog.  I’ve seen giveaways from time to time and thought I’d have a go, but thought better of it when I saw hundreds of comments where there’d normally be just a couple.  But just before Christmas, I spotted this:

I hadn’t seen this trolley system before so I was interested to read that such a thing had been produced.  I was even more impressed when I watched this.

My machine is so huge, I haven’t even tried to move it from my sewing table in the studio, but this bag/trolley is clearly the answer.

The embroidery module fits into its own snug case too.

Of course, Bernina had thought of everything!

So yes, I rather liked the idea of winning one!  I left my comment at the foot of the blog and discovered mine was #6 – and there were only a couple of days left before the competition closed.

After Christmas, I was catching up on some blog reading and noted on the German language Bernina blog that a lucky winner had been chosen – not me, sadly.  Oh well…   But this morning, I read a little further down my blog list as far as the Bernina English blog and discovered this:

Wooooohooo!  Thank you, Bernina xx  (and thank you for doing a great job, Glücksfee!

Straight line sewing

There are times when it’s really satisfying to work through a complex set of instructions and create something remarkable.  Making that bag recently was satisfying in spite – or because - of the frustrations and I’ll always want to have a go at a tricky project like that now and again.  But there are other times when I just want to sew straight lines.

For a while, a Moda Jelly Roll has been sitting on my shelf, bought for half price in some sale or other without any intention or purpose.  Strangely, though it’s called “A Breath of Avignon” and designed by American Jane, the label on the back says “Made in Japan” and it has a Japanese reference number attached.  Anyway, it’s a collection of those Provencal style fabrics which speak sunshine to me and I looked forward to using it, when I found a pattern, that is.

And then I came across this.

So first I sewed the strips of fabric into groups of four and pressed the seams flat.

I cut the 8” squares across the strips.

I sorted them into twenty random pairs and placed them right sides together.

I turned them at right angles to one another and sewed around the edges as shown on that website.

Then lined it all up using the 45 degree angle on my ruler and cut diagonally across the square.

I did the same along the other diagonal.

Then, pressed open all four squares.  I’ll now go away and do the same thing for all twenty squares and look forward to playing about with the eighty quilt blocks I’ll need to arrange in some kind of order.

I might be some time.

Pins and needles

There’s been a bit of sewing going on around here.  Nothing terribly creative or exciting, but a couple of projects I’d planned and thinking I needed to clear the decks a bit , I decided to get on with them.

The first is the quilt/wallhanging/headboard I’d started a couple of month ago for Edward’s bedroom. 

I’d given myself a good talking to and made myself finish it before going on to begin something else.  It didn’t take long – I didn’t quilt it very much and the longest process was getting it straightened up.  I used my usual method of binding it, with a scrappy strip here and there to add some colour.

It’s still laid out on the rug in his room awaiting the next step: fixing it to the wall.  That will probably get done about ten minutes before we next put the bed up!

For my next trick, I unpacked the “row by row” project I’d bought at the Woolen Needle in Iowa.  It’s a metre or so wide and consists of a log cabin square and an applique scene, quilted and bound.  We liked the soft colours and the small package of fabric was a good souvenir of that lovely day.

I fitted the patchwork foot to my sewing machine and began the log cabin square, feeling happy that the fabrics worked so well together and the end result looked great.

Next, I set to and began the picture panel, which is when I hit a snag.  Uh oh. The pale fabric (the sky) was cut to 5” as it should be, but the ground fabric was cut to the same size – when it ought to have been 6”.  I hummed and haahhed about this, for surely, an inch wouldn’t make that much difference, would it?  Well, of course, it does look better if the horizon isn’t dead centre across the panel but it also occurred to me that the end result would also be an inch too narrow.  The applique scene wouldn’t fit with the log cabin square and that square could not be cut down in size at all.

I emailed The Woolen Needle and had an almost instant reply.  I emailed them my address and they said they’ll send me a replacement piece.

But, you know, a couple of days ago, I couldn’t wait any longer and thought I’d take a look in my stash and see if I had a piece of suitable fabric.  I don’t have many pieces that wide as I tend to buy quilting cotton in fat quarters, so I didn’t hold out much hope.  But fortunately, in my Christmas box, I found a piece of bottle green cotton with a tiny print.  I prefer the original choice of a neat check, but hey ho.  I cut out the applique shapes from the wool felt and bondawebbed them to the background.

Stitching around each of them is slow going but it’s satisfying and it’s looking good so far.  Next time I’m out, I need to look for a suitable backing fabric and some for binding it too, or else it might find its way into that “needs finishing” heap in the corner of the studio

Yesterday, feeling I was starting a cold, I decided to take it easy and play with my sewing machine.  I made one of these using up a few scraps of fabric from my stash.  I’d read that one of my craft-judge colleagues had come across one in a show recently and as I made it, I pondered on the points I’d look for.  It’s a clever design and the process is well explained but there are a couple of processes I didn’t manage quite as well as I’d have liked.  Perhaps I’ll need to make a second, perfect on, but for now, this one is good enough.

100 years today

I couldn’t let the day go by without recording the centenary celebrations of the WI, even if it does feel as though it’s been a somewhat ongoing celebration for quite some time.

In the company of many others and knowing that I was likely to be on a train at 11am this morning, I signed up to the NFWI Thunderclap a couple of days ago with a tweet and a facebook post, because September 16th is when it all began.

Lo and behold, as I was standing on Stafford station (because my train was delayed slightly) my post appeared on Facebook.  Even more surprising (because I am no Twitter afficionado) my tweet was sent.

I’m proud to be part of the celebrations and felt rather disappointed that my own WI didn’t mark the anniversary at our meeting last week.  I’d have liked to have sang Jerusalem or maybe had a cake but never mind, it didn’t end there.

Whilst I was on my way home from Liverpool a small bunch of stitchers were busy recording the Twitter greetings in the WI’s Kings Road office. I’d have liked to have been there with my needle and thread too, but I haven’t yet managed to be in two places at once!

Look what Clare did, though.

Thanks Clare! 

I wonder how many tweets they managed to stitch?  Watch this space and I’ll share the end result when it’s complete.

The Third Law

You know, the one which states that every triumph has an equal number of disasters?  In this case, it was an equal number plus a few more.  But it’s done!  I’ve finished the bag!

So, where were we?  I think I was about to begin to sew the side panels in place.  It’s quite a clever design in that these side panels have pleats which hold the pocket sides together.  I folded and pressed and took it carefully and all appeared to be well.

Of course, one side is always easier than the other and where one seems to fit nicely and sit under the sewing machine foot without difficulty, the other side  doesn’t want to lay quite so flat.  Anyway, I got both sides stitched in place and took a deep breath.

Now it was time to sew the seam which joins the sides to the bottom, and though the straight parts were fairly ok, that curved piece was the trickiest part of the whole thing – so far.  In the end, I tacked it and stitched it by hand before doing what I could on the machine, hoping that my dreadful stitching would be hidden by the next challenging stage.

Those edges now needed to be bound, and though the pink binding was cut to fit, it soon became the next most trickiest bit of the whole project.  It should have been topstitched by machine but I copped out of that bit and simply blindstitched it in place.  Any wonky bits were pressed into submission with a good whack of steam.

There remained just one last step – sewing the long closing zip in place and however hard I tried, I just couldn’t envisage how it was done.  I waited until today, Saturday afternoon, to tackle that bit.

It was a (comparative!) breeze!  Well, I did have to rip out a couple of small areas but compared with other parts, sewing four long, straight seams was easy peasy. 

I finished off the zip “handle” with the tabs as instructed, and was nearly finished. 

I just needed to make the small dish with the magnetic clips which fits in the front.  That’s when I discovered that the pattern for that is on an additional Craftsy download!  Another seven pages!

But half an hour later I’d got that in place without too much bother.

Tra laaa!

Would I make it again?  Hmmm.  Maybe.  But I’m not in a hurry to do that!  Is it a beginner project?  Well, I don’t think so.  I think the curved seam in particular needs confidence to sew, and wrangling a fairly large, three dimensional object under the sewing machine takes some doing, too.  I was using all the clever capabilities of my machine, moving the needle left and right to squeeze the quarter inch seam through.  I engaged the dual feed to make sure the zips didn’t slip and move in between all those layers of fabric and yes, in places, it struggled to get through it all: Attaching the pink binding, at one point I was sewing a quarter inch seam through at least eight fabric layers and a couple of bits of interfacing too! Would I pay $50 for someone to steer me through it in a class?  If I were a beginner, you know, it’d probably be worth it, just to make sure I didn’t throw it across the room.

Anyway, for now, I’m just going to carry it everywhere with me, to unzip it and look inside from time to time and bask in the glory of a finished project.

I am not allowing a WI Craft Judge anywhere near it though