Road Trip for 3

This morning, Jen1, Jeanette, and I hit the road - headed for Your #1 Sewing Centre in Campbellford. The primary goal was to chat with Dennis, the sewing machine expert, about tuning up Jen's old Brother machine and looking at the possibility of buying a refurbished used machine. There were several machines to choose from but she settled on a Janome 4100 QDC with many bells and whistles - auto threader, push button start and stop, push button tacking, many specialty stitches, lots of presser feet, and an extender. If I didn't have my nifty entry level Bernina, I'd be coveting one for myself.

They had a wonderful selection of fabric. I've been in that shop a couple of times - the first time, I bought Rocky and Bullwinkle fabric to make Skip a pair of boxer shorts. They still had some on the bolt - probably the same bolt from years ago.

I couldn't resist these Peanuts fabrics.

Then they had this wonderful turtle fabric. The two top ones were in that series and the bottom two fabrics were 1/3s that coordinated nicely with the top ones.

We then piled back into the car and headed to Warkworth for lunch. Afterwards, we drove south to Cobourg and visit the Stitch Witch. It is a lovely shop that boasts 4000+ bolts of fabric. They also have a fine selection of patterns and accessories. I picked up one of these. It looks like a tube of lipstick.

But wait! It's a portable needlekeep/pin cushion! Isn't that cool?

I couldn't resist this fabric with a monarch butterfly and snagged a coordinating fat quarter.

This poppy fabric (cool! I just noticed the monarch butterfly!) spoke to me so, of course, I had to have it as well.

It reminded me of a couple of Dimensions cross stitch kits that use similar colours and Mason jars. I'm toying with the idea of getting one or both of them.

I'd most certainly ditch the Aida cloth and pick a nice evenweave or linen.

This quilt shop will also cut the fabric into fat quarters. I'm not aware of any others in our area that will do this. I will definitely be shopping there again and possibly taking a class of some kind. I also bought the kit to make the Color Wheel Pin Cushion from the License to Quilt series by Sheila Sinclair Snyder.

The kit is the foam rubber, composite circular base, thick tufting cord, and the screws for the feet.

I'm sure I can find 13 fabric scraps to make it. I've also got the crushed walnut shells that go in a muslin sac and lies on tip of the foam, under the outer fabric. Supposedly it's good for sharpening ones needles. It came in a pack of 2 so I split it with Jen. She has a big tuffet that she bought last year on one of our other road trips.

I now have visions of sewing projects dancing in my head.

I started the i-cord edging to my sock yarn blanket last night and got quite a bit done at spinning, afterwards at home, and then today in the car, when I realized I should be doing it from the back for the i-cord to sit properly on the front. So RIP! There went several hours of mindless i-cord edging. I have started again and will continue to putter away at it.

Jen1 is having some of us over on Friday for her new sewing machine inauguration. I think I'll make a couple of dumpling dishes and hopefully inspire some of the others to do the same.

Blogiversary!

Today marks the 12th anniversary of me starting this blog. I started it just before I retired from teaching high school in 2007.

I just checked and it's the 'linen' anniversary. How à propos seeing as I'm a stitcher and all.

This is my 1609th post and I've averaged 134 posts per year. This has mostly turned into a place for me to refer to things I've done in the past 12 years. I use the search window at the right a lot for that purpose.

It seems many crafters have moved on to videos they post on YouTube but I don't think I could be that organized to have everything ready to show and record it without having to do a lot of editing.  It would be kind of fun to see who all is out there that would be interested in what I'm crafting on a regular basis. But I am going to stick with blogging as that is what I find the easiest. I don't mind learning 'new tricks' - I just can't be bothered with the burden of having to post coherent videos on a regular basis.

Back at the beginning of the year I thought I had lost the blog forever when my domain expired and I didn't renew it in time. Honestly, it was like a death in the family - losing 12 years of documentation of my life. But when I went back to using 'blogspot' in my URL, it all came back! Thank goodness! And all I did was uncheck one thing in my settings.

I've been working on 'The Beast'  - what I now call my sock yarn blanket. It's 40" wide and 56" long.

I only have 3 more 'squares' to knit. I was working on one of them (green one on top right) and just now realized I am knitting it in the wrong place. It should go where the right hand 'X' is. On the top left, the arrow is pointing to where I need to stitch the two squares together.

The final two will go where the other to 'X's are.

I then will be selecting a dark, neutral (charcoal?) sock yarn to do the i-cord binding all around the edges like I did with the first sock yarn blanket.

It finished it off nicely.

Today at my Monday morning stitching group I finished the pumpkins and their stems.

The little button fits quite nicely.

If you look closely, you may note that I stitched the wrong colour on some of the 'mortar' between the stones. I will probably pick it out and re-do those stitches.

It's going to look very spiffy once it's in a frame.

I need to remember to do some backstitching around the star in the peak of the house to make it show up a bit better.

BGB Blitz

Last week Jen1, Marilyn, and I had a marathon sewing session (Geri's Academy of Sewing - LOL) at Jen's place making Bionic Gear Bags. This bag is an adaptation of the Sew Together Bag.

Jen and Marilyn's 'homework' was to cut, interface, and label all the pieces beforehand. We set to work and sewed all day with a break for lunch - Marilyn's delicious carrot soup.

Jen was a real keener and in addition to prepping all her pieces, she sewed all the pieces and pockets to the zippers ahead of time.

We set up in Jen's dining room. 

Because Jen had a head start, she was able to finish her bag.

I love the 'bee' theme and the lovely, yellow honeycomb fabric in the zipper pockets.

Marilyn did great for a person fairly new to sewing. This is a very ambitious project and she got the bag all finished except for the long zipper. At one point we thought she had sewn some of the pieces in the wrong order as we couldn't get the side pieces to fit. What a bummer! But Jen took a look at it and realized one of the pieces had just been mistakenly rotated 180 degrees. So we unpicked the stitches, rotated the piece into its correct place, and sewed it back up. Yay! It was an easy fix!

Here are our three bags. I had all my sewing tools in mine to transport them to Jen's. Now when I sew, I have it open right beside me with everything within easy reach.

I helped Marilyn finish the last zipper on her bag.

I like all the primary colours.

It looks pretty spiffy all zipped up.

There was a lot of pressure on them to forge ahead and keep sewing but they did a fantastic job. I'm so impressed at the improvement in both their sewing skills. What a fun and productive day!

Antique Market Shopping and Cord Keeper

I have the best luck when I go to the antique market looking for a particular thing. Last time I went in search of a dish with openings around the edge to hold my scissors and found it at the first booth I saw.

Today Skip and I went just to get out of the house and I wanted to find a frog, also to hold my scissors beside my chair when I'm stitching. I lucked out! However it wasn't a frog, it was a candlestick with holes around the edge. There was a candle in it but I left it behind.

It's even better than a frog because the holes don't go all the way through so my scissors won't dig into the surface the frog is on.

I'm so pleased I found it.

Then I had the urge to sew. I found a pattern to make a cord keeper to wrap around charging cables. It was free here. I used hook and loop tape (Velcro) on the first one then hauled out my snap tool and put snaps on the other ones I made.

I fussy cut cell phone images from fabric I've had in my stash for a while.

The inside is micro USB and Lightning cable fabric. Then two buttonholes are added to thread one end through so the keeper and the cable stay together when charging.

Then they all roll up and it snaps closed. Easy peasy. So handy for travelling or generally being on the go.

I cranked a few of these out today. One other modification I did was to fuse interfacing to one of the fabrics before sewing them right sides together. I also topstitched all around closing the opening that was left for turning. The original pattern doesn't include either of those steps.

And finally - I knit another Cunningham baby blanket for my friend's second grandchild to be born in the last 10 months (the babies are cousins). The appreciative mamas knew to send a photo with the baby and the knitted item.

Baby Wyn - born July 2018. Wearing Maille cardigan and using a Cunningham blanket.

Wyn's new cousin, June, born last month wrapped in her new Cunningham blanket.

It's so nice to make things for knitworthy people. And what baby doesn't need a handknit superwash blanket?

Teabag Caddy

Last night I was in the mood to sew something small. I've had the pattern for this teabag/card caddy for quite a while and was reminded of it when we went to Georgetown on our road trip a couple of weeks ago.

I raided my stash for fabric. Basically it's a 9 1/2" x 12 1/2" rectangle (including seam allowances) which is sewn with the right sides together then turned right side out. Then the two ends are folded up 2" and sewn down. I added the hair elastic which I would hook onto a button on the outside.

The dollar store has several colours and thicknesses to choose from. I selected the one with many different colours for my sewing stash.

All sewn together.

It was a pretty quick project - perfect for tucking in your favourite kind of tea when you're on the go.

It could also be used as a business or credit card holder.

I got most of my fat quarters into the Gnedby shelf. There's still room for some half yard/metre cuts.

I am going to have to anchor it to the wall, though as it's starting to want to tip forward.

Order out of Chaos

For too many years my office/craft room has had too much furniture and stuff crammed into it. For my birthday, Skip got the 'Got Junk' people to haul out the treadmill and sofabed which finally left room for me to get my stuff organized.

I ordered a Billy book shelf and a Gnedby shelving unit online from IKEA to finally restore some semblance of order. We have a local pick up spot so for only a $20 fee, the items were delivered there and I picked them up on Wednesday. It was SO nice not to have to drive into The Big City to pick them up. And BONUS! I grabbed some Swedish meatballs, gravy, and lingonberry sauce on my way out.

I finally got both shelves assembled and into place yesterday. Now I need to figure out how I'm going to organize things to make optimum used of the space I have. I also need to get rid of a lot of stuff that I haven't been using for a while.

I'm hoping to house my smaller cuts of fabric on the narrower shelving. I just have a concern about the fabric fading in the sunlight so may, at some point, move it to a spot where the sun doesn't directly shine on it.

I've also almost finished Cinnamon Stars. I only used 'fancy floss' on larger elements of the pattern and DMC on the rest.  I really like how the hand dyed thread looks on the front of the house. It would have just looked flat with DMC.

 The sunflowers are very cute.

I'm going to put a couple of pumpkin buttons where some of the stitched pumpkins should go.

Then I'll finish stitching the rest of the pumpkins and I'll be done!

Just looking at the image, I think I need to outline the star on the front of the house with a dark grey so it will stand out a bit better.