Sew frustrating...

In November last year I purchased a new Janome overlocker. I forget the model now... Last night was the first time I actually had some time to use it.

Why did I buy a new overlocker when I have one? Well, I am unable to find a manual for the dinosaur I currently own and I am too embarrased to visit the lovely lady at the Singer shop (for the 5th time) to help me re-thread the damn thing! So when the Janome's were on special, I bought one. The new model would be so easy to thread since it has all these color-coded guides and a MANUAL, not so? WRONG.

I spent over 2 hours last night threading and re-threading and finally gave up. Firstly, I discovered that maybe I need new glasses. Or maybe the modern machines are made with smaller components? I also discovered that only Mrs Incredible with her elastic body would be able to get into some of these threading points. I am no Mrs Incredible of course. I lost count on how many times I re-threaded, but the manual says it is either threaded incorrectly (duh) or the tension is wrong (duh again). Well, with 4 tension dials, I am at a loss. I changed tension a million times and each time another thread breaks. I will try again later today when my patience returns....

On a more creative note, I sat on Friday night and finished this cute crochet bag for a new sewing friend! This is the Sack Bag pattern on Crochet Me, originaly crocheted from a Sack dress torn up and used as "yarn". I double the pattern to make a bit bigger bag though. Just need to do lining.

I am so pleased with my revamped sewing room! When we came back from our lovely seaside holiday, I decided to do some spring cleaning around the house. My sewing room took several days! My DH helped me to sort out a storing system for my fabrics, see pic above. He cut me these large "cards" that I roll the fabric around and store it in these neat plastic holders. I am petrified of moths eating my lovely fabrics! Nor more fear with plastic containers as well as lots of cedar wood blocks all over and doom at the ready.

Can you see some of my awesome new fabrics in the middle shelve? These are some of the fabrics I found at a small shop in Mosselbay, while we were on holiday. I will share more detailed pics of these fabrics soon. I also hope to get my overlocker to work soon....

I'm back!

I cannot believe I have been absent from blogland for 2 months! It started with a crazy schedule at work to a trip to the UK where I picked up a nasty virus it has taken me weeks to cure. I have however got some exciting stuff to share with you!

Ta-da! A brand-new, handmade cutting table! My FIL is a whiz with making stuff and I asked him to make me a table to specifications for my new sewing room. He added a second shelf below where my overlocker and some other essentials are neatly stored. I had to go buy another large self-healing cutting mat and my long steel ruler is finally being put to good use on top of this table.

Just love it and it works wonderfully for me. No more sitting on the carpet to cut out fabric.

The latest issue (#47 Summer 2010) of the quarterly Bernina Inspiration magazine was just the inspiration I needed to christen my new cutting table.

This purple top is made from jersey stretch fabric and is super-easy to make. Just 2 pattern pieces and some elastic makes for a fast sew. I did not however like the off-the-shoulder look that much, so I played around and modified the pattern a bit.

This is the end-result. Two pattern pieces, front and back, all-in-one. I modified the neck and sleeves and it fits perfectly now. Here are a few tops I have now made with this pattern.

The first one is made from a silk-jersey. Not the easiest fabric to work with, but well worth the extra effort. Love the bright colours! I wanted to try my hand at sewing the neck with elastic thread, using the shirring method, and it was a breeze.

The second is just a standard stretch jersey fabric with lots of stretch in orange and brown. I am wearing this top today for the first time and love it. Also shirred around the neck with elastic thread.

The other reason for my absence is this - my brand-new kindle. I got this for my birthday from my DH recently and have been a frequent visitor on Amazon to purchase books. This is such a fun gadget to own!

I have loads more to share, but will be back soon for that. Right now I have a cup of tea and will be visiting your blogs to say hello and see what you have been up to the last 2 months!

Decoupaged Cane table

I am still busy working on little details decorating my new sewing room. Last year I bought a cane table for R50 and it has been standing in the garage since. I was keen to restore it somehow and use in my sewing room. Sadly, the table is in worse condition than I thought, so I decided to just make it a bit prettier.

The table used to have a very flimsy meshy top, but we had to remove this as it was full of holes and broken. I purchased some ply wood from the hardware, my DH cut it to size for me and I sanded it down a bit before starting to decoupage it.

I went through my scrapbooking paper stash and found this lovely leave-pattern paper in pink and brown. I bought this at Hobby Lobby several years ago and have been saving it for a special project. I wish I had more of this paper so I could match it perfectly, but I think it still looks great. All I did was use modge podge to attach the paper, sanded it a bit for shine, and it took one afternoon!

I also bought two new books. Love Lisa's book! So many awesome bags to sew. Sew Liberated has a peasant top pattern in that I am also keen to try.

I have been sewing a bit lately, although not much. I made this very simple black and white top with some white stitching on the black fabric at the waist. I used my favorite top pattern from the Bernina Inspiration magazine and just modified it a bit. I am not a frilly clothing kind of person and although I love the ruffled neck, I should have made the ruffle smaller. When I wear this top, it feels as if the ruffled neck is HUGE!

Another one of my favorite patterns. I just love this bright fabric! This is the third top I have made with this fabric. I noticed though that the colors tend to run when it gets wet. This is handwash only fabric.

We have been trying for a long time to get a nice picture of all three our dogs together. Not an easy task! As you can see, my son had to hold the two smaller dogs for this picture! Both Maxine and Buksie have recovered well from their recent operations and Jessie is growing every day. Just look at those sweet faces!

Hope you are all having a great week!

My New Sewing Room!

I can finally share some pictures of my new sewing room in the making! The built-in closet and shelves were done early last week, the room cleaned and I finally started moving in last week Thursday night. I have dedicated a corner of the room to each of my crafts. Above is a picture of my "library" and "quiet corner" where I can read, crochet, knit or just sit and admire my new room. Of course, over the last few days this chair has also become Jessie's new favorite spot! Love my new carpet that is a mixture of red, pink, lilac and purple.

Apart from the built-in closet, the carpenter also added a deep shelve all around the room where all my plastic containers with yarn can be stored. This was my DH's idea and what a great idea it was! I have sorted all my yarn by type and labelled the containers. I even have a container each for WIP crochet projects as well as WIP knitting projects!

This is my new Scrapbooking Corner. Although I have not done any Scrapbooking for over 2 years, lately I have felt like it, so I have hauled out some of my supplies. The closet will be divided into craft areas as well.

This is my sewing and computer corner. I must still sort out the wires. As you can see my sewing table sports a brand-new cover.

Another picture of my high shelving for yarn storage. I bought these really nice cherise pink fabric storage holders and labelled each one after I sorted the yarn by type.

This is my sewing (handbags and other) supplies corner of the closet. All my cotton fabric, handbag, apron and other patterns and tools for sewing is in this part.

This is the crochet/knit as well as part of my sewing (clothing only) supplies corner in the closet. Here you see (most of) my stretch knit fabric and clothing patterns as well as all my knitting needles and crochet hooks, etc.

The rest of the closet is still "under construction" and I hope to get it done this weekend. There is still my scrapbooking corner and the rest of my sewing supplies to sort out.

This picture was taken from the door. It shows the large open space in the middle of the room, in front of the window. This is where my new cutting table will be! My FIL is a mean woodworker and he is busy making me a wooden cutting table to my exact specifications. It will be a plain wooden table the exact size and height to make cutting fabric easier on me. I cannot wait!

I wish I had more time to finish my room but life has been very hectic around here. I hope to share more detailed pictures soon. My wonderful DH suggested additional, narrower shelves to display all my lovely stuff and I really like the idea. Still lots to do before I can actually do anything, but soon. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Sis Boom Meghan Peasant Blouse

I found the most delightful sewing pattern for a peasant blouse recently. The Sis Boom Meghan Peasant blouse pattern by Jennifer Paganelli is available in a downloadable PDF format on this lovely website http://www.pinkchalkfabrics.com/. Although the pattern is designed for cotton fabric, I used my favorite knit jersey fabric instead.

This is my first attempt. Lovely new flowery knit fabric I recently found at a local fabric store. I selected the size S (4-6) size and cut out the pattern on the second cutting line on each pattern piece. Each pattern piece has three sizes. The only reason I did this is because the first cutting line made the top front piece look extremely small. Although I do like the top, the front bodice was too big for me. The elastic part is not quite right.

This is my second attempt. My favorites - pink and polka dots. Another knit jersey fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby in Chicago. This time I cut the pattern on the first line and the bodice fit perfectly. Sorry, no pics of me wearing it, although I have warn it twice already! I also changed the bottom part to flare a bit and made it a bit shorter than the first version.

This is a stunning pattern. Very easy to follow with some really cool sewing methods I have never encountered before. Such as the method you follow to make the elastic casings. The method makes life so much easier and avoids puckering. I did not have to make any adjustments to the pattern for using knit jersey instead of cotton, which was also amazing. I highly recommend this pattern and plan to make many more!

You might remember I mentioned that I am re-doing my sewing room? It has been a very busy time with me spending several days clearing out my sewing room (I cannot believe how much stash I have accumulated!!) and getting it ready for the make-over. This is a picture I took this morning. The room has now been freshly painted and internet and power cables neatly laid. I just need to clean the carpet and wait for the carpenter to come in the end of this week. He will be installing shelves and a closet. The exciting part is coming soon!

This is where I have stored all my stuff. Our entertainment room looks positively terrible! This picture just shows a small section, it looks a lot worse! I will have to be more selective when I start moving my stash back into my new sewing room. And buy less!

I will share progress in the new sewing room as it happens. Once again, if you know of any good links to help me decorate my new room, please share them!

Crafty Stuff

I wanted to share a more recent picture of our little baby, Jessie. With lots of love (and don't forget spending quite a bit at the Vet!) she has grown tremendously the last few weeks. I remember weighing her at the Vet a month ago and we were so pleased that she had gained 200g, weighing 2kg then! Last night we weighed her on the bathroom scale and she is a whopping 8kg!I could not resist taking this picture! This is a first, Jessie sleeping on my cane chair in my sewing room. She was very affectionate last night, just wanting to cuddle up to me, so I put her on my chair for a snooze. Adorable. She looks like a rabbit at the moment when she runs - she is all long legs and ears!

This lovely surprize arrived in my post box yesterday! Thank you so much Karol-Ann! My lovely blog friend from the UK sent me a whole bunch of knitted and crocheted bag patterns from her old magazines. This top picture is my favorite. It uses the Rowan Biggy Print yarn and as you know, I am into the super-chunky yarn phase now.

I know, I know, I have enough stash to open my own shop, but I saw this lovely bag pattern on http://www.craftpassion.com/. This drawstring bag is made from paper raffia and I happened to see some at The Crazy Store yesterday at a very good price and decided to try it. I started on the bag last night, but changed the pattern. Raffia is not easy to crochet! Maybe it's the type I bought, not sure. It looks really nice though.

I first went to Fiona's Fabrics in Randburg looking for Raffia and saw this new stock. They have just put out some lovely 100% cotton (from India) fat quarters. They call it Flat Fats and there are rolls as well, normally called jelly rolls I think. You can choose between green, pink or blue and there are some odd ones, like the yellow polka dots. They sell for R20 each where all the quilt shops charge R35 a fat quarter. I see lovely FQ bags or some smaller projects like pin cushions.

Earlier this week I was on my way to see a customer when I saw this African Artist selling wire and beads animals next to the road. What caught my attention was the sheep! I immediately wanted the smaller one and then forgot to stop on my way back. Yesterday I took the same route to another customer and on my way back stopped. Isn't this cute?

These Artists are just amazing. Look at the cute hoofs and tail! Its based on a wire frame and they add seed beads. This is the smallest sheep he had and it stands about 30cm high.

Just look at the detail in the face and ears. This is the literal translation of "beady eyes"! They have even re-created the "wooly" look with the way they attached the beads.

I don't think I have mentioned yet that my sewing room is going to be completely revamped? This will be happening very soon. In fact, I am starting to clear out the room this weekend, painting will happen next week during the evenings, then the carpenter will be coming in to install a built-in closet and shelves. I have been spending a lot of time on planning my new room, including a decent cutting table. Imagine how nice this sheep will look in my new room! I will take some before, during and after pics of my room to share with you. If you know of any great sites where I can get more inspiration ideas for my new room, please drop me a note.

Hope you all have a great, crafty weekend!

Circular Knitting Needle Storage

My collection of circular knitting needles is growing. All the time. Storing them neatly has become such a problem lately that I was forced to start thinking of a better way to store them. I do not like any of the products on the market, so started looking at ideas other crafters came up with.

The idea I liked most was using smaller ring-binder type pouches such as in the photo above. I started looking at CD pouches, but could not find what I was looking for. CD pouches have slots for CD's and I wanted the ring-binder type. So Friday I paid my one and only local Thrift Store a visit. And I found THREE pouches just perfect for it!

I also found tins that I wanted for my straight needles.

The shorter, round tin will be suitably "embellished" to show off pretty knitting needles on my desk and the long tin for all the other straight knitting needles. I am delighted to say that all these items cost me less than $10! And can you believe the pouches are all leather?!

Most crafters used zip-lock type of plastic bags to store their circular knitting needles and just added stickers with the needle size and length on top. This is very neat and a great storage idea. However, I wanted to SEW my storage bags, not buy them. So I planned, plotted and measured and cut out fabric. Basically, it is just a long, doubled rectangle of fabric sewn up, and folded over for the pocket. I ironed on a very thin, lightweight fusible interfacing on one side only to give it some strength but not make it bulky.

This is the first sewn "pocket". I am so pleased with how it came out. Next step was to make the holes and set the eyelets.

I used my old faithful Crop-A-Dile from my scrapbooking days to make the holes and set the eyelets. My favorite and most useful tool!

Here's a close-up of my finished pockets with the eyelets all set.

The first pouch almost completed with 5 pockets for now, but still need to make quite a few more. I still need to work on an idea to label each pocket with the size and length of each needle. This must be an idea that allows me to add to my collection all the time, so I need to be able to change the label often. I do not want the pouches to be too bulky, so will only make up to 8 pockets per pouch. I still have some small changes to make to the pockets to make them perfect, but overall I love my new Circular Knitting Needle storage pouch.

I am so in the mood to sew a few handbags again! I went through all my patterns the weekend and selected a few bags I have not made before. I even selected fabric for one of them. Now I just need to find the time! Hope you all have a great week!

Zippered cushions

I cleaned up and re-arranged my sewing room recently. It was getting really cluttered with all the constant adding to my stash...(don't see this changing soon though!). Love the new look. I will share some of my new storage ideas as soon as I have taken pictures.

The most important change I had to make was to bring one of my thrift store cane chairs into the small room. I created this little corner where I can comfortably sit and crochet or knit. The chair needed a nice cushion though. A while back I found this awesome tutorial here http://houseonhillroad.typepad.com/photos/put_a_zipper_in_your_pill/. And what a great tutorial this is! Look at my pink pillow below...

The tutorial makes a very neat zipper! I used pink fleece for the back (so huggably soft, hmmm!) and lovely flowery cotton from Hobby Lobby for the front. This tutorial makes the cover fit a standard cushion snugly, which is great.

Not the greatest picture, but I made a blue one for my son. Also used blue fleece for the back and "manly" cotton fabric for the front. I gave it to him and 5 minutes later went back to take th picture - it has already been used to sit on, flat as a pancake! But I do like to see stuff I make being used.

Say hello to my new Baby!

I have always wanted a serger but did not see myself paying the exorbitant prices they seem to go for. Then recently I discovered a little Singer shop close to work that sells second-hand machines of all kinds and also now do all my sewing machine services.

From time to time they find used sewing machines, service them and do any repairs required, and then sell them. I asked the staff to call me if they have a well-priced serger in stock. On Thursday afternoon I got the call....I was there first thing Friday morning to have a look. What to do? Do I buy a serger and we eat soup for the rest of the month? Or do I wait for another bargain? What do you think I did?

Of course I bought it! So here is my "new" baby! An Empisal Mercury 404. I have never worked on a serger before so this is a learning curve for me. I received a 30 minute lesson on how to operate it from the expert at the Singer shop. I am amazed at what this baby can do! And how long it takes just to thread it! I had to go and stock up on thread of course. This baby eats thread!

I took it out the box and stared at it, touched it and marvelled at what it can do this weekend, but I am too scared to try it yet! I need to find a project to use it on. Soon. Oh, and I need to do some research on what this baby can really do.

I did not do much sewing this weekend though. I started making a pink satin top, but it's not finished yet. I re-organized my fabric and just chilled reading a new book in the sunroom on Sunday. On Saturday I spent some time shopping with the boys which does not happen often now they are teenagers. I hope to catch up on my sewing soon.

Buzzy, buzzy bee!

I feel ashamed! It has been a MONTH since my last post! Since coming back to work and with the new school year beginning, I have been crazily busy and have not posted once. No excuse. I had time to sew and post on flickr...Anyway, I am back and will make a point of posting at least once a week now.

Lots to update! What have I been up to? Most importantly, I have been re-decorating my Sewing Room! This is always so much fun. As the room itself inspires my creative juices, it is so important to change the decor a bit every now and then.

This is a view of one area in my sewing room that I am really so pleased about. I wanted to bring in some black & white with the pink theme and when I saw these magazine box files advertized in a local magazine, I ordered several.

They are wider than the average box file and the best of all: the words "creative ideas" on the boxes fit in perfectly! And the price was great too.

This is another item that is new in my sewing room - my tailor's dummy. A very good friend of mine went to great trouble to get me one so I appreciate it even more!

Another corner of my sewing room I really love! My magnetic notice board against the wall, my new CD rack with all my tutorials and inspiration on CD and my new wooden storage ideas. I have not put anything inside yet. I am still at the admiring stage...

A close-up of the new wooden drawer cabinet which I covered with Michael Miller fabric paper from my scrapbooking stash and my bicycle CD rack. Isn't it cute?

There are several other areas of note in my room, but I have lots of posts to get through, soI will post more at a later stage.