A little more sewing room luxury cover for my Coverstitch Machine

The only thing that I didn't like about my Babylock cover stitch machine was the extremely cheesy cover that came with it. Same with my Enlighten serger. They are made out of flimsy plastic and not at all esthetically pleasing to look at.

The Enlighten lives in my Rockler cabinet so there is no need for to have a cover but the cover stitch sits on the Gristmill cabinet when not in use. Anything that visible needs a nice cover!

I made one for my Sashiko, who sits on the antique sewing cabinet that belonged to my Grandmother and one for the Bernina serger living at the lake house. So time for the cover stitch to get one.

I used jelly roll fabric to make the front, top and back. I used the cheesy plastic cover as a pattern. This was done on Bernina B580 and it was fun using the decorative 9mm stitches the machine. The piecing went perfectly using the 97 foot and guide. Best 1/4" seems ever! The logo was done through the Bernina Designer Plus 7 software.

I used a close font to their log and they added the oval around to emulate it. I've got the Bernina one, which I have on my serger cover in Pennsylvania as I like the label them with who made them.

This is how the front and back look:

The sides were done with my Saskiko machine:

This is the one I did for the Sashiko machine. It was one of the first ones I made so it's not quite as nice as the cover stitch cover. But it does nicely serve the purpose of keeping dust off the machines!

My new machine and it's Gristmill cabinet!

Since it came out I'm been interested in a Bernina B780. It has everything I want in a machine but the size is huge and I knew it would not fit in my Rockler cabinet. I really like machines in cabinets as they get used more than machines in the closet. I also hesitated initially as there were issues with the 7 series machine. It's now been out for two years so I decided this was the time!

In our house in Virgina if something comes in, something must leave. The organizer I kept my television on is now at the Pocono house and the totally shot chair went out in the trash.

I called Pocono Sew and Vac in Stroudsburg and asked if they took trades. They gave me a great price for the machine, a great trade in for my Artista 630 and terrific financing AND even had it in stock. No way I was not getting it. Between that and my Babylock Coverstitch BLCS2 they are fast becoming my favorite dealer.

At the start it was on my Roberts table with the extended table on it. I made my Deer and Doe Pavot jacket on this machine and it did wonderfully with the thick wool with the dual feed engaged. When I made my denim/leather jacket it was set up for topstitching and the Bernina B580 was set up for piecing the jacket. The topstitching was absolutely perfect!

So enter the cabinet. As my dear Father in Law Jim passed away last August I have to find another place to get a cabinet. I've heard wonderful things about the Gristmill Collection of sewing machine cabinets. I contacted them and told them what I had and received information on what they recommended. I realize the cabinets suggested were too big for my space so I called Jason at Gristmill and we talked about what would work for the space I had. He proposed a Mini+ extended enough to accommidate the B780 and with an electric lift because of the height and weight of the machine. I requested shaker style and a color that would coordinate with the Rockler.

When it was built he called to confirm the stain color. Then several weeks later I was notified the cabinet was ready! 

We decided, since we are less than three hours from Bethal, PA, we would drive up to get it. It fit quite well in the back of my Prius (back seats down of course) and Jason and Colin got the cabinet in the car. We stopped at Wolf's Diner in Dillsburg, PA on the way home. It's a good basic diner, totally recommend!

This is what it looks like closed:

And this is what it looks like open with machine:

This, along with the B580 are the absolute dream team of machines for me!

Deer and Doe Pavot Jacket

As before mentioned I received this pattern as a gift for participating in the Pattern Review Wardrobe Contest. It was a really fun contest and putting things together and photographing them was part of the fun too. I think Colin would agree to that.

I decided as one of the pieces for the Natural Fabrics Contest I would use it to make a Winter coat. This pattern is unlined and made to be mid season but I've pretty much got mid season covered and for Winter I wanted something new.

My fabric came from Gorgeous Fabrics. I got some very nice brown coat weight wool and some black Bemberg lining for it. The buttons were from G Street Fabrics.  I definitely recommend Gorgeous Fabrics - the fabric got here very quickly and it is wonderful to work with.

My first observation when I was doing the muslin of the pattern is that French women are obviously not like 5'8" me. I had to drop the bust point down 1 1/2" and also drop the waist 1". Because I was making it to go over Winter jackets and sweaters I used the largest size, 46, and added 1" of ease to it as well. This fabrics was pretty beefy and definitely benefited by the additional ease.

 

 

I came to terms with the Peter Pan collar although I had to think about the first. Not exactly my style but it works on this coat. I also decided the puffy sleeve affect wasn't me and really wasn't this fabric. I made the sleeve as a basic set in with a fairly thin shoulder pad.

I also drafted the lining using the skirt pattern, the bodice and taking into account the facings. That worked quite well.

I found these very cool buttons at G Street Fabrics:

 

 

This was my first project on my new Bernina B780. It followed me home a few weeks ago and although it's cabinet isn't here yet I have it set up on Roberts sewing table I bought for machines not in cabinets and it's worked out pretty well in the interim. I can't get over how much the dual feed feature helped on this thick wool! It also made some really nice buttonholes. Having this machine and my B580 as my two main machines is truly a dream combination.

The fact I got both of these jackets done in the month of October feels much like a win already -
so - bring on the Surprise Sewing Bee!

Entries for the T Shirt Contest!

The title of this one is T Shirts for All Seasons.

Like the Wardrobe Contest I decided to take the approach to do the most intricate shirts first and go towards the easiest. That almost worked. Turns out number three was the most time consuming as it's the first time I worked with Bernina Design Works. The Crystal Works was a breeze but the Paint Works had a bit of a learning curve. The good thing was I had a lot of white knit fabric from a recent Michael's Fabrics bundle so I did have the opportunity to play a bit. Now I feel I've got it and there will be no stopping me in the future!

I based this on the Bernina My Label T shirt pattern that has served me quite well. The one big modification I did was a full bust adjustment. I've never thought that to be needed before but it made a big difference in the way the front lays. I used Louise Cutting's technique from her Threads Insiders Industry Techniques #4. It's also on the Thread's Insider site which I find very handy when I don't have the disc with me. This is a really good series for a more experience sewist as it goes through some very useful techniques. Not really beginner level though.

Well here is the first one:

I got some rather thin yellow rayon knit in the bundle and since yellow is not an everyday color for me I though beach coverup! Our PA house is across the street from the lake so I'm not particularly comfortable walking around in just my swimsuit. I took my basic T, lengthened it, put a V neck on it and shortened the sleeves. I could not resist embroidering the silly crab on the hem. Of course I had to take the picture at the lake on Cyber Seas.

For the next one I lengthened the shirt, made it with slits on the side, made it sleeveless and added the embroidery from Bernina's Tuscan Garden collection using the Mega Hoop on my Bernina 630. This was another fabric from my Michael's Fabrics bundle. This one was a little beefier. I thought this was a good Summer dress and something that can be dressed up or down.

The third one was the basic shirt but I embellished the sleeves with Paint works and Crystal Works. This had to be done on my B580 as it's the only machine I've got that's capable of using this program. The collections was Bernina's Loop-D-Loop which I thought looked like fun.

The Edding pens that came with Paint Works ran out pretty fast so I bought a whole bunch of Tuskineko pens in all kinds of colors from Amazon. They came highly recommended from the Design Works Yahoo group. I then punched the template for the crystals using the Crystal Works program and made four sets, 2 each for the sleeves. It was a lot of fun and I can see wanting to use this more in the future!

The forth one was a basic T with the neck scooped a bit and out of the fabulous nicely heavy wool knit from Mood. I'm not wishing Summer away so quickly but this is going to a nice sweater for when the weather gets colder.

The fifth one also fell out of my sequence on complexity idea. I was going to see if I had time for this at the end - the requirement was four but I shot for six. This cotton knit fabric came from G Street and it's a nice substantial weight. I took one of the curved rulers I got with my pattern design kit from Wawak and made the curves using the ruler. I then faced them and trimmed the facing down. My nice new Babylock cover stitch did a very good job of following the curves to cover. Then I used some very small black buttons to tack the sleeves together. The neck on this one was scooped a bit as well.

Here's the sixth one. I didn't get the cashmere knit fabric from Mood in time so into the stash I went. I found this wild knit fabric I got from the G Street remnant pile years ago and I though dress! I can always use a casual dress! I lengthened the shirt but 12 inches and "ruched" the sleeves a bit. For the ruching I zigzaged over the round elastic and then pulled it tighter. Voila! Instant ruching!

So I made it! Six shirts this quickly makes a very busy month. Wish me luck!

Fun with baseball caps!

Wow, I've been away from this too long! Life gets really complicated sometimes. Well, I'm back!

We, last year, found a nice little 20 ft Chaparral bow rider for our PA house. We went looking for a nice used one found one we could afford at Capri Marina on Lake Wallenpaupack. Since we finally acquired a boat slip we decided we needed a boat! Our lake is 13 miles long, has 52 miles of shoreline and three pretty good restaurants on it. We've decided our car does not know where to find lunch when the boat is in the water!

Here it is on the very crisp May day we first launched it. And of course it was a bit of challenge to figure out  how to tie it up!

With the sunny Pocono weather I decided we needed some baseball caps. I designed a logo using Cooper Black type for the back of the boat and also found some key chains (float-able!) we could get with the logo on. I found there was  hoop insert for the oval hoop for my Bernina B580 and of course had to have it. The trick to hooping this was to get the hat really flat. I found staples helped quite a bit. We could get very reasonably priced hats on Amazon. So this is what the result was:

Needless to say we now also have sweatshirts and jackets with this logo!

My sewing table at home - the imfamous Rockler!

The afore mentioned Singer #42 cabinet is headed for our house on Lake Wallenpaupack. I have my real sewing room in my house in Virginia. That's, of course, where most of my sewing takes place.

The original dilemma I had was with the compact space I have here and what to do with a newly aquired serger. I saw some Horn cabinets that looks like they might do the trick but they were expensive and frankly a bit cheesy looking. The solid wood ones were prohibitive.

My Father in Law is a wonderful woodworker. He does this as a hobby but makes absolutely beautiful furniture. I showed him the picture of the Horn and he then went out and found plans from Rockler that were even better than the Horn one I was looking at. He asked me what wood and I asked for cherry. This is how it looks open:

It was originally constructed for my Bernina 1010 but then I retrofitted it for my Artista 165E and later my Artista 630E (that's what's in it now). The arm holds my Bernina 1300MDC serger nicely. All I have to do is swing the chair and I can get to each of them quickly. He also made me the corresponding inserts for the various machines. This is how it looks closed:

After he finished he asked me what did I want to do with the leftover wood. Well, a matching bookcase of course:

Needless to say I spend a lot of happy sewing hours at this table!

Love my Kindle! Now how to protect it...

I got a Kindle on a recent birthday. It was a gift from my wonderful Husband. He was afraid I would think the gift was repetitious as I got him of for his last one. But no, ever since I gave it to him I wanted one too! Now, how to protect it. I'm not much for buying covers if I think I can do one better myself. The latest issue of Bernina's online magazine Through the Needle Issue 7 there were instructions to make this wonderful cover. They are a bit confusing but when I hit that AHA thought! it all came together.

I decided to embellish it with this nifty bookworm that can be downloaded free off the Bernina International Inspirations site. They have a lot of really neat downloadable embroidery designs. I took the bookmark bookworm and took out the background using the Bernina Designer 6 embroidery program. 

I also found that Windows 7 32 bit WILL work with a Bernina Artista 165E! My 630E was in for maintenance so I used the 165E. Things to note: make sure the machine has the correct driver for the USB to serial and in the advanced properties to send the correct machine is selected. So for owners of the 170E, 180E and 185E as well as the 165E - don't worry, it works!

What to do with those beloved T shirts...

My daughter in law wanted a T shirt quilt as she didn't want to toss all her old T shirts and the memories that went with them. I said "of course"! I requested she pick the fabric as this is a really personal type project. She made some very nice choices. I used the Bernina Stitch Regular on my Artista 630E as I'm not too practiced with free form machine quilting. I don't really quilt - only when I need a quilt! This how the front turned out:

Since I used a quilt-as-you-go technique (no way was I forcing the whole quilt under this machine) so the back was pretty interesting too.

I wish this idea was around when I had some well loved T shirts but then quilting would have never occured to me at the time!

And now for something different, home dec!

I mostly make clothes but sometimes I want to do some home dec. I hate to buy too many things I can make for myself. Right now I'm redoing the master bedroom but this is something I did a recently when I wanted a dinning room table to look a bit more like Summer.

I took a look at the website for the Bernina 800 series machine and saw a really nice table runner for Summer. I don’t own an 830E – I don’t have the room, it won’t fit in the fabulous Rockler cabinet my wonderful Father in Law made for me and frankly I didn’t want a machine that cost twice what my first new car cost! I am very happy with My Artista 630E – it does everything I want and then some. So I thought “hey, I’ll bet I can do this on my 630E!” I was right!

I used the fabulous Mega Hoop frame that allows the machine to automatically split a very large design. In the software I set up the reeds to fill the frame and just rehooped it as needed to get multiple designs. It was really easy to rehoop as it aligned easily. The embroidery designs were from the OESD’s Reeds and Grasses set.

To go along with the runner I embroidered 10 cocktail napkins that I ordered from All About Blanks. They have some pretty neat blanks for things so I’m sure I’ll be back at that site in the near future. So this is now my Summer table runner – it dress up a very basic Tommy Bahama tablecloth for sort of an island vibe.

So this is what's on my table right now

A nice little wrap skirt that won't unwrap

I’ve been really happy with working with My Label patterns and like to take creative license with them. I wanted a wrap skirt, but not all the quirky problems with a true wraps skirt. This was done as a "faux" wrap. The fabric came from a remanent I found at G Street Fabrics. 100% linen and a true steal!

Between where the basic skirt ends and the wrap starts I inserted a hidden invisible zipper:

I also added a slit right below that for walking ease:

Also I used a combination of the multi-hoop program in the Bernina Designer Plus 6.0 and the giant Hoop-it-all to create the embroidery design as this one was done on my Bernina Artista 165E. The embroidery design was from the “Dressed in Damask” package from Emblibray. Had I used my Artista 630E (which I did not have at the time) I could have auto split it with the mega hoop.

I then added buttons for the faux closure. I really like the versatility of the My Label patterns. It’s amazing what

The kimono jacket - perfect for an over air-conditioned office

As anyone who works in the DC area knows offices are notoriously over air-conditioned. When it's hot and muggy outside you can count on freezing in the office. That's why having some nice Summer jackets are a good thing.

This was a pattern for Bernina My Label that was released after the original package came out. There have been six more patterns released, free to anyone who has the program. I've been really happy with My Label and have tried just about every pattern so far.

 This komono jacket was quite challenge in construction. I found some really nice stripped texture linen at G Street Fabrics and some turquoise linen to make the trim with. The embroidery as a fairly inexpensive download from Emblibrary. It's worth checking every so often with them. They frequently have $1 designs that are fun to use. I used a giant Hoop-it-All for the design with assistance from the multi-hoop program on my Bernina Designer Plus software. That's the way I could split designs on my Bernina Artista 165E. On my Artista 630E I can use the Bernina Megahoop and the softwear will auto split it for me.

The back was actually one piece at the top but I liked putting the strip across it to give it more interest.

The sides are slit with hidden pockets - I love to hide pockets when I can because I never seem to have enough!

So I'm really happy with this program  - I haven't had to buy a pattern since I started using it!