A project for my new serger

I needed one of those bags to hang under the serger to collect all the junk that it spits out. I didn't want to use a plastic bag. I didn't want to make something you'd see anywhere. I decided to make a litter bag to match the cover for my other sewing machines. Here it is:





P.S. I'm also working on a matching sewing machine cover.

Sewbot's Favorites - February 21, 2010

I finally got a serger! I totally love it. Here it is...

Happy Birthday, Jason!

Happy Birthday, Jason! Thanks for being tolerable of my unmonitored stash of fabric, notions and other creative supplies.

I found a few things to share with you and the rest of my readers.
These are the 71 Reasons to Buy Fabric, minus

#16 because you don't usually fuss.

#24 since I've never once thought of calling you the Fabric Patrol
Officer.

#28. Until now I hadn't thought of storing fabric under the
bed.

#34 is kind of hard to use since our youngest (yet to be created) child is
not leaving us.

#66 because I'm sure you can always find something else to complain
about.

So, I thought I'd share that poem with you on your birthday to say thanks for not complaining too much that my stash has hit the floor. I love you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! This week, my favorite thing is my valentine.

Jargon of the Week - Couching

Dictionary.com defines couching as:

couch⋅ing [kou-ching]

–noun
1. the act of a person or thing that couches.
2. a method of embroidering in which a thread, often heavy, laid upon the surface of the material, is caught down at intervals by stitches taken with another thread through the material.
3. work so made.

Origin: 1325–75; ME; see couch, -ing 1

The definition goes on to include the term couch as in your sofa. I've always thought this terms was a little bit funny.

According to the glossary in Jo-Ann: Your Guide to Quilting, couching is,

"Stitching thick threads, ribbons, beads, and other items to a quilt surface."

Couching is a pretty cool way to embellish things. Click on the links below for some examples.

• Simple Couching Diagram
• This blogger has a lot of images of couching.
• So does this blogger.

If you're interested in learning more about or giving couching a try, check out the article on wikipedia. There are examples of stitches and some really nice descriptions.

Benson Boutique

I've signed up to participate in the Benson Boutique on March 6, 2010. I've been pretty busy lately working on projects to beef up my "for sale inventory".

I've also been putting in more hours at my day job lately. Things have been pretty busy!

I'll be busy working at the office and on making things to sell in a few weeks, so blogging is probably going to take a backseat until March.

Anyway... that's about all I have for now. I'll be back in a few weeks!

Ella's Cape and Crown

Ella's third birthday was a while ago, but I'm just now getting this photo uploaded to share. Ella is Jason's niece. For her birthday, I made her a cape & crown.



I thought it was pretty cute. I've got a bunch more cut out to stitch together for an upcoming craft show.

Sewbot's Favorites - February 7, 2010

This week my favorite thing is a gift I received this past Christmas from my parents. It's a pair of earrings they picked up for me in Paducah.

Jargon of the Week - Basting

Dictionary.com defines Basting as:

bast⋅ing [bey-sting]

–noun
1. sewing with long, loose stitches to hold material in place until the
final sewing.
2. bastings, the stitches taken or the threads used.

Origin:
1515–25; baste 1 + -ing 1

–noun
1. the act
of moistening food while cooking, esp. with stock or pan juices.
2. the
liquid used in basting.

Origin:
1520–30; baste 2 + -ing 1

This is one of the few times where the first definition found in the dictionary is the definition used in the creative world. There are a few other alternatives to basting than just sewing long stitches. Here's a few alternatives:

1. We can use a basting spray. This is a temporary adhesive that we can spray between pieces of fabric or layers of a quilt to hold them in place.
2. We can use a basting gun to tack layers together. (Note: I used to love this method. The guns are fairly expensive, but very convenient. I've given up on this though, because I've broken two guns and they aren't really repairable.)
3. Safety pins are a quick and easy way to baste a quilt. All you have to do is spread it out and pin through all the layers. This prevents a lot of wasted thread and is much quicker (in my opinion).
4. You can also use a basting tape in some circumstances. This wouldn't work well in quilting because you need to be able to remove the basting after you have completed the quilt, but it could be handy in sewing or other craft projects.

Mystery Giveaway

Alexis at Knot Sew Crafty is doing a giveaway because she had a bad Monday. What a fun idea, eh? It's a mystery what she's giving away; also a fun idea.

Want to enter? Check it out here.

Jargon of the Week - Yo Yo

Dictionary.com defines Yo Yo as:

yo-yo  [yoh-yoh]

–noun
1. a spoollike toy consisting of two thick wooden, plastic, or metal disks connected by a dowel pin in the center to which a string is attached, one end being looped around the player's finger so that the toy can be spun out and reeled in by wrist motion.
2. something that fluctuates or moves up and down, esp. suddenly or repeatedly.
3. Slang. a stupid, foolish, or incompetent person.

–adjective
4. Informal. moving up and down or back and forth; fluctuating; vacillating: yo-yo prices; a yo-yo foreign policy.

–verb (used without object)
5. Informal. to move up and down or back and forth; fluctuate or vacillate: Mortgage rates are still yo-yoing.

–verb (used with object)
6. Informal. to cause to yo-yo.

Origin:
earlier, a U.S. trademark for such a toy (1932); recorded in 1915 as the name of a Philippine toy; of undetermined orig.

A yo yo in sewing and quilting, is defined in Your Guide to Quilting as:

"Three-dimensional gathered fabric circles that may be sewn into quilt tops or used for decorative embellishments."

Want to learn how to make yo yos? Click here for a how-to by Heather Bailey.

I went and I loved it.

The Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild is what I'm referring to. It was awesome. It was fantastic. Purely fantastic.

So, here's the scoop. Saturday was the first meeting. We talked about dues, goals, activities, and meeting times.

• Dues will probably be $50 for a year or $5 per meeting. I think this could change depending on how things work, but that's the numbers that were thrown out on Saturday.
• Most of the goals that were listed had to do with inspiration and connecting with other quilters.
• There were some really cool activity ideas tossed out. Things like field trips, classes, and swaps of various items like potholders, pincushions, etc.
• So, currently I think the plan is to have two meetings a month; one in the evening on a weeknight and one on the weekend.

So, it was pretty cool. I'm excited. I'm a guild member (well, probably technically once we pay our dues, but I'm still excited)! Anyway... if you live in the Kansas City area (or close enough that you'd like to drive to come) there should be another meeting next month sometime. Everyone is welcome to join our ning site regardless of location. Check it out! I'm sure you'll love it.

Come Out & Play!

Live in the Kansas City area? Come check out the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild today at:

Urban Arts + Crafts in Briarcliff Village
from 10 am to 12 pm.

RSVP here.

Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild

I can't wait. I've been invited to join in the fun! Here's the scoop...

A few ladies in the area got together and are starting a quilt guild for non-traditional quilters. Our little online web group thing says this "The Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild was created to offer a place for the more non-traditional Modern Quilters to connect and create."

I'm totally excited to attend the first meeting and see what this is all about. Want to join me? Here's the deal:

We're meeting on Saturday, January 23rd from 10am - 2pm at Urban Arts + Crafts in Briarcliff Village. I

If you're going to attend, please RSVP here.

Need Camera Straps?

There's a giveaway going on at Make It and Love It right now. Made by Meegz makes these awesome camera straps for both point and shoot cameras and DSLR/SLRs. I love 'em! Go here to enter.

Jargon of the Week - Kaleidoscope

This week, we'll look at the difference between dictionary.com's kaleidoscope and the quilting term, kaleidoscope.

Dictionary.com defines kaleidoscope as:

ka⋅lei⋅do⋅scope [kuh-lahy-duh-skohp]

–noun
1. an optical instrument in which bits of glass, held loosely at the end of a rotating tube, are shown in continually changing symmetrical forms by reflection in two or more mirrors set at angles to each other.
2. a continually changing pattern of shapes and colors.
3. a continually shifting pattern, scene, or the like: The 1920s were a kaleidoscope of fads and fashions.

Origin:
1817; <>

In quilting, kaleidoscope refers to a specific type of pattern.
A kaleidoscope quilt is made by identifying specific points in a repeating fabric pattern, layering them, and cutting them exactly the same way. It's a really fun process to do.

The image below is a quilt I made a year and a half ago for my nephew, Lucas. It is a kaleidoscope pattern from the book Learn to Be a Wacky-Pinwheel Quilting Wizard. This book was really easy to understand and I recommend it if you want to try a kaleidoscope quilt.

The image below is a close-up of a block from the quilt shown above.

Posting Flickr Images on Blogspot

I had been having a heck of a time trying to upload my photographs or images into my Flickr account and using the URL to insert them into my blogspot blog posts. I had been trying and trying to find a way around this problem that started occurring a few weeks or so ago. Finally, I broke down and asked the nice people at Flickr for some help.

Here's what they sent me back in response.

Hello Jessica,
Thank you for contacting Flickr Customer Care.

We are sorry to hear about this problem you are experiencing...

Though you can no longer right click on an image to get the URL, there are
still a few ways to get the URL.

Go to the photo page, and click the "All Sizes" button above the photo.
Then choose the size you want and scroll down to see the html.

Alternatively, you can click on "Share this" and then click on the "Grab the
HTML" link on the upper right side of your photo pages to readily access the
medium size code for your images. You can even do this on other people's photos,
depending on their settings.

Keep in mind that Flickr's rules require you to link back to the photo page
if you post the photo to another site.

Hope this information helps you :).

If you have any other questions, please feel free to reply to this
email.

Thank you again for contacting us.

Regards,


Lucy

Flickr Customer Care

Isn't that a nice response? After all the pain and suffering (okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration) I've been going through to get my photos on both Flickr and blogspot, all I had to do was ask for help. Why they don't let me just use the URL like I had been doing I don't know.

I thought I'd share this with you for a few reasons:

1. Using Flickr to store your photos cuts down tremendously on the amount of space you use on your blog. Flickr is a pretty cheap route if you upload a lot of photos.
2. Somebody else has to be having the same problems.
3. I think it's a good reminder for everyone to make sure you link back to the Flickr photo page when you use an image that you store there on another site. It gives a little bit of credit back to Flickr for giving us such a nice and easy program to use.

Hope you found this useful. I know it's been a problem for me for a while now.

Christmas Bookends

I made these bookends for my dad for Christmas. How did I do it?

1. I took a Ziploc sandwich bag and cut two rectangles of fabric 1/2" bigger on each side.
2. I stitch them with right sides together, on three sides using a 1/4" seam allowance.
3. I turned them the right side out and pressed.
4. I folded the fabric in about 1/2" on the side that was left un-stitched and pressed it.
5. I filled the Ziploc bag with rice. Zipped it closed. Put the Ziploc bag into the bag I've created for the bookend.
6. I folded the extra part from the zipper down so it wouldn't get in my way.
7. I pinned across the folded edge.
8. I've got this really awesome foot on my sewing machine that's supposed to be used for the overlocking stitches. I like to use it when I edge-stitch things because it has this nice little built in guide thingie that just makes my life easier. So using my awesome overlocking stitch foot, I edge-stitched around all four sides.
9. Ta-da! You've got yourself a nice little rice-filled bookend. Now make another for the other side and you are ready to roll.

Easy, eh?

Also, a side note.... happy birthday to my now 3 year old neice, Ella.

January 17, 2009 - Favorite Things

I scanned it while I was at my parents' house one of the last times. I'm 17 months old in this photo, which would date this to around the new year of 1986. Love it!

simple sewing

For Christmas, I received Lotta Jansdotter's book simple sewing and I LOVE it!

I've already completed one project in it. I made a bag for my yoga mat (I'm taking a TurboKicking class that requires a mat) and it's adorable. The fabric I used is from a tablecloth Jason picked up at Target for me on clearance a while ago.

I had checked this book out from the library in the past and that's where I got the idea for the car place mats.

The projects are very clear and easy. They're also really super cute things. I love this book and totally recommend it. If you can get your hands on it, do.

Also, my parents gave Jason and I Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin, another fantastic book. We haven't tried anything out of it yet, but I've definitely got some ideas.