A cute keychain project!

I got the idea for this keychain (I needed a new one) from The Idea Room, and used her pattern. It has been awhile since I have sewn anything so it was a lot of stop and start, though all in all, the idea is very simple.

First, my workspace. My sewing table houses our 4" Charlie Brown Christmas tree, so this is our kitchen table. There is also wrapping paper and bits of cake on the table. Lovely.
I picked the Apples and Pears fabric. I used only scrap for this project.
I had some nice green upholstery fabric from Ikea. This would turn out to be a mistake. It unravels very easily and it just didn't work the way I hoped it would. I got all the way to sewing the two sides together when I realized the green had to go.
So...I picked a different green. This one was regular fabric-y fabric. It worked much better. See those scissors under the green? Those are my new love. These new scissors are AMAZING. They cut like they are going through melted butter.
The pieces ironed, folded, sandwiching interface, and ironed again.

As you can see, many mistakes were made. It needed a very narrow hem (is that the right word?) and in some places it didn't "catch" the back. That isn't so much a sewing mistake as a cutting/ironing mistake.
I didn't have the ribbon the pattern calls for, so I used some bias binding I had lying around. The brown actually matches the leaves on the fabric quite well. I was going to use dark thread to do this part, but I didn't have a "blank" bobbin to use so I just went with white.
As you can see, the white isn't terrible but nor is it anywhere near perfect.
I did do one thing definitely wrong. I wanted this to be long enough to go over my hand, but unfortunately I miscalculated how much to cut off after sewing them together. I will remember this for next time!

Too long, again!

The sewing machine is all packed up for the time being, because our sewing table now houses our Christmas tree (our very small, plastic tree).

However, tonight I will take it out and take over the kitchen, because I really want to make one of these keychains. It is just what i am looking for! My current keychain is 3 months old and falling apart already. If I can get the purse clips today, I will make it today. I have a ton of scrap that would do this well.

Also I just have to show off the gift I got for my birthday (12/21) from my mom:

Sorry for the strange picture. Anyway, these are Gingher 8" sewing scissors. The BMW of scissors. Apparently my mom has noticed that my cutting skills are worse than bad. Woo hoo! Maybe I AM destined to cut in a straight line someday!

It has been FAR too long!

Today I made a pair of fleece longies (pants that are also a cloth diaper cover). I used this tutorial.

First I made the pattern according to the tutorial. This was more of a pain that actually sewing it, believe it or not!
Cut out the legs, leaving a 1/4" seam allowance. This is some nice blue fleece that my mom had leftover from making my grandma what was pretty much an adult sleep sack.
Pinned them, right side together.
I sewed the legs and waist together.
Pinning together the rise. I ran into some trouble here, and in the crotch. It left a big hole, I was too conservative not coming to the end every time.
Obviously things were going too well. This was not good.
Stretching out the waist to fit the pants.
Done! They are probably too long but they will fit before much time passes.

Getting to know my new machine

This time, I didn't read the manual cover to cover, I figured out from the last one that some things I can just look up. The spool is in a different place on this machine, it is under a little door. Threading it is a bit different but not too bad.
I like that the presser foot comes up much higher than on my Kenmore. This should be good for certain things (like the slipcover I still want to sew...).
I went about making a stitch sampler, just like I did with the old one. Screwed up the very first time. Surprise! After that, it was smooth sailing, even when I messed up big time, this thing didn't miss a beat.
VERY nice, even stitching, with little effort from me (the feed dogs on this one really do all the work!). Changing from stitch to stitch is no problem at all.
All sorts of cool stitches on this one. I even did cherry blossoms and they turned out OK.
Couldn't get a clear picture of this, but I embroidered my son's name. I had to program the machine to do this, which took about 30 seconds to learn.
Embroidered my name. I could clean it up and remove the extra thread, I might just to see how it looks.

This machine is AWESOME! It is quieter than the old one, quicker, stitches are extremely even and hard for even me to screw up. I love the huge sewing table, it helps things stay flat.

Final banner and Starting Over

I haven't been around much lately, as you can see. Bad blogger! I have been really busy with work/family/extended family drama. Here it is, the banner, hung up on the entrance to our kitchen on the day of Jack's birthday! I like how it turned out but I wish I had used a pattern. I think it would take a LOT less time now that I have done it once.
I got a new sewing machine! My mom got the Rolls Royce of sewing machines, a Bernina Virtuosa, on Ebay as an early Christmas gift. She gave her old good backup machine to me, and is taking the Kenmore I have been using to work so she can repair donated clothes there (she is a school nurse).

So here is my new machine!
I haven't tried it yet, but I do like the look of it. It has every stitch under the sun, and each button is marked with its stitch. On the Kenmore, there was a code to punch in (more or less). I am excited to try this one, Mom says it is a very good machine, and she would know.

Here is an attachment mom sent along with it. A large sewing area can only be a good thing. That whole "table" is detachable.
She also sent along a book on making a good sewing space with a little or a lot of room. I will have to give this a look, I have a VERY small sewing area. It is a corner of our living room, on our old, small kitchen table, with only a few totes to hold my stuff.
I am going to try out the new machine sometime this weekend, and possibly make those fleece longies I have been meaning to make. I have never tried to take anyone's measurements, let alone my squirmy toddlers!

So close, yet so far (Banner part 97)

Didn't get the A taken care of, but I finished what I could. Birthd.

I didn't finish the binding becuase I need to add the others. End is in sight.

H-A-P-P-Y

Got part of the banner done today!

It is almost bedtime so excuse me for my succinctness.

Ironing out all of the now-connected triangles. I had to trim them all to match one that was a bit short. Not as far off as I thought!
Re-watched Angry Chickens guide to applying bias binding without swearing. Twice! And believe it or not, no swearing was done. Out loud, anyway.
My first attempt...side one of the bias. Argh! Guess who forgot to lower the presser foot?
I don't even know what happened here but it was not good.
I meant to do "Birthday" first but look who pays no attention. So "Happy" it is! Turns out, this is going to take a lot more binding than I thought, so I have to go to Walmart this weekend to get more.
The finished product! I think it turned out pretty nice. Sure, it would be easier to go out and buy one, but it actually gave me an opportunity to test out a few of my new skills. Plus, it is for my little Munkin so whatever it takes, I will do.

More of the Neverending Banner

First triangle. I stitched these at 1/4" seam on the flowered print, not on the blue. The blue ones were all badly cut but the white was pretty good, so I used that as my guide.

Done chain-piecing one side of each triangle
Clipped those, chain-pieced the other side.
I used my pretty pink pinking shears and this was the result.
Turned them inside out, and voila! Almost done. Just have to apply the bias binding, cut these to uniform lengths, make another A, make one more flowered piece, and I am done! Let me also add "iron these flat without melting any letters" to the pile.

I finally got a bit done (lame, but done)

Yesterday I ironed and pinned the triangles for the banner.

Guess who didn't know that felt was a "melty" fabric? ME!
The others turned out fine, I just ironed them from the opposite side. I think I only got NEAR the A and this happened. Not even on it.
All pinned, nicely stacked. Turns out I am missing one flower triangle. These are pinned right side together and I will chain piece them tonight.
Bonus picture: A poor quality photo of the Podaegi I sewed in action. Still my favorite back carrier! Jack loves it because he gets to be hoisted on my back like Superman for this one!

Banner (Part 3)

I hand-sewed the letters on the fabric. Just a bit here and there, so I wouldn't have to pin it. I might reinforce this with the machine, or I might just leave it. Not sure.

Wetbag: take 2

Today I did another wetbag. This time, I uses a patterned PUL so I didn't have to futz with an outside layer.
First, I used this PUL. It was a cute patterned one from when my mom made Jack a ton of cloth diapers with it.
There really wasn't a ton of it, and this was for a smallish wetbag. Here it is cut out and ready to go.
Oh no! The zipper is too long! Thankfully, the package for the zipper had directions on shortening it. I love the nylon zippers, they are very easy to work with. I just had to hand sew around the zipper where I wanted it to end, cut off 1/2 inch from there and voila! it was done.

I had no pure white bobbin thread so I had to wind the bobbin. Anyone who has read for any amount of time knows I stink at winding the bobbin. I thought I figured out the problem but I was WRONG! I screwed it up twice before figuring out the real problem. It was tension, yes, but around the guide, not the spool. Fixed it and got it going.
The zipper is on. I am making another bag tomorrow (kitchen bag, same as yesterday only 1/2 the size). I will watch more tutorials on applying the zipper because I just did a crappy (though functional) job on this one too.
For some reason, the machine kept skipping HUGE chunks of stitches. It would have stitchstitchstitchloooooooooooongpieceofthreadstitchstitchstitch. Ugh. Frustrating. I eventually got it figured out, but it sucked.
Putting on the ring for hanging. This did not turn out anything like I hoped it would, but it works. I sewed it to the outside, and then put Aplix (velcro) on either side. Meh.
Here it is, hanging up on our over the toilet shelving thingy. I put the new microfiber rags I bought at Walmart today (cheap cheap cheap!) to see if it would hold the weight, it worked fine. Sure, they will be wet when they go in, but never soaking.
What did I learn today?

• The sound of the machine is extremely important. I need to start listening to subtle changes in the "whirring" sound while sewing, because when it is screwed up, it makes a sound just a tiny bit different than "normal". It also feels a tad different. The bobbin and thread screwed up a few times and made a totally different noise as well.
  
• PUL is easier to work with when it has a cute print, no messing with an outer fabric.
  
• The ring to attach this to other stuff has not worked either time. This time at least the velcro holds it, but I am going to change it again tomorrow. Perhaps attach it in a way that it has to hang on something, can't be hung through something. We have plenty of clothespins to attach it to itself on a handle/bar anyway.