Cute Baby Post

Guess who came to visit last night? The beautiful and talented Nealla Rose! Isn't she the cutest ever?I adore her faces and smiles. I'm now super-motivated to try making some pint-size clothes!

Happy Friday!

Rachel S.

The Guts of the Matter

I'm skipping the ongoing wonky saga this time so I can bring you...the guts of my sewing machine. This morning I sat down to practice some buttonholes prior to sewing up a pillow for the couch. I haven't really done too many buttonholes on this machine in the year I've had it. Well, let me tell you how NOT to machine stitch a buttonhole.

It all comes down to this: play it safe. If, when practicing, you decide to use a different bobbin and thread be sure to set the bobbin with your "fashion" thread far, far away from your sewing machine. Ugh. I don't know quite how it happened but I began a second buttonhole and the wheel became very difficult to turn. Closer inspection showed that the thread from the bobbin I wasn't using (and had set behind the machine on the table) had somehow became entangled in the hand-wheel. Oh boy. The Offending Bobbin had been previously sitting on top of the machine. I guess the end stayed behind when I moved it. Gobs of thread were wound around the wheel. Everything had to come apart. The photo on the left is after most all but a few bits were removed. You can see thread wound around the inner part of the wheel in the one below.

The thread managed to burn into the belt where it got lodged between the belt and the cogs. There are some burned and shredded bits on the belt now. I cleaned them off as best I could and have decided to keep with this belt for now. Here's another shot topless.

It all turned out surprisingly well in the end but I was a little anxious there for a half-hour or so. All that was needed was a screwdriver and a cool head. An interesting afternoon but not something I'd like to repeat anytime soon. From now on, I'll be keeping any thread not in use far from my machine! : )

Now, back to buttonholes...

Rachel S.

A Month of Wonky

It's been about a month and it has ALL been WONKY. Oh I've been doing some sewing. Quite a bit actually. Nothing fancy. Almost nothing has gone right. Don't get me wrong I'm not paddling down the river singing a sad song yet. I keep trying. Of course the misses have not inclined me to create a blog entry but I finally decided that it's all just laughable so I might as well post.

First, Wonky Curtains.

This is how we roll in tight living spaces in (parts of) San Francisco. I give you: the view from living room window.Aren't those pipes on the neighbor's house cool? Almost like really grotesque wall art of some sort right in my living room. I realize that this is going to repulse most anyone who comes across this while sitting in their roomy, reasonably-priced duplex or apartment with backyard and garage or (better yet) their HOUSE. Natch. I am, regrettably, (sorta) used to it.

So, I (desperately) needed some curtains and had the opportunity to purchase some medium-weight linen for a nice price. Ready-to-dye was available and I've been wanting to try fabric dyeing so I went through a few tests and decided to dye a batch to match the new color DB painted the living room walls. [Formally, they were a terrible baby-poop brown - sooo glad that's gone.]

I'm getting to the wonky part, I promise.

The new walls are a celery / avocado green. Originally, I purchased the dye used for my test online. At the time, I had thought we would be going with a really light purple so I purchased that one and a few others - no green. Thinking I would save time I went local and purchased a different brand. Now I should have known something was up when I noticed that the first tub I took was a very different looking color from the one behind it. Figuring the ones in the back would be more fresh (the color was similar among those in the back) and on target, I selected one of those. Went home, dyed my fabric and guess what? The color was perfect. I mean SPOT ON. I felt deadly! It turns out I even had a color of thread in the stash to match exactly. I carefully folded the fabric and set it aside as I couldn't get around to actually sewing the curtains until the following week.

Fast forward...I had placed the fabric near the window in the bedroom (the one that gets a lot of light) and guess what?! It FADED where exposed to the sun! Now I used soda ash to set the dye, a dye fixative, AND a professional cleaning agent that is also supposed to help fix the dye - just to avoid this very thing (I mean they are going to be curtains after all). I believe I purchased old stock. ...And that's all I have to say about that. That, and grrrrrrr!

Since I used so much fabric and we still had need of curtains, I decided to move forward with making them. I'm pleased with their construction. I'm hoping that the strips of faded color will grow larger and then I can re-dye. I think that's probably not going to happen as little direct sunlight gets to these particular windows but I can't think about messing with them further at the moment. August is a new month. Here's a photo of 'em hanging (I know, you can't see the fade patches - my camera isn't that great anymore but they're there, trust me). You can see some of those awful pipes peeping through the right window. At the moment, they're hanging on a cafe rod because we mistakenly grabbed the wrong setup. I'll move them when I get the kitchen curtains made. They're simple. They work. They are a knock-off attempt of some I saw in Romantic Home Sewing, Cottage Style Projects by Christina Strutt. [On a side note, I'm really happy I purchased this book. It focuses on simple decorating using linens and printed muslins. The library copy was becoming a pain so I decided to buy it. ]

I'll save the Wonky Shirts for the next post (or maybe the one after that - it's soo depressing). (Also on the menu are Wonky Mug Mats and Wonky Pillows.)

Happy Saturday! (And goodbye Wonky July!)

Rachel S.