A new thing in blogland. A new meme.
Gives you a chance to repost a favorite
for those who are new to blogland and
may have not seen it.
Thank you to Chari at Happy to Design
for hosting this new fun meme for us.
The post I am sewing did not have a picture with it,
so I added a picture to add interest.
Plus it shows my current sewing maching which
I refer to in this post.
Long Distance Sewing
A post from August 2008.
That is a little difficult to do,
long distance sewing that is.
Huh?
First some background.
I taught my daughter Sara to sew somewhat when she was younger.
I would have her sit on my lap as we worked the sewing machine.
However, we never really got into all the details about sewing which now leaves her with questions now that she is on her own.
When she was in college, she was in the play "Agnes of God" with the role Mother Superior.
She did an excellent job with that role, and that is not just me bragging because I am her mother. It was a very intense role.
Anyway, she volunteered me to make the costumes.
Thanks Sara!
She helped me out by sewing the straight seams while I figured out the next step and prepared it and then either she or I sewed the next seam and so on.
It was only two costumes fortunately.
Hers and the one for the gal who played Agnes.
We had to design the headpieces ourselves.
Then of course my name was in the program for helping with the costumes.
Another time she was home from out of state, where she lives now,
and we decided to get an outfit made for her.
She helped with the cutting out, and some of the sewing.
That process allowed me to teach her more about sewing details in making an outfit
look good when it is finished.
Eventually we decided to help her buy a sewing machine so she could sew at home (her home). We found a Singer that was more simple than the fancy ones.
A few extra stitches like the zigzag and so on.
Plus we made sure it had a one step buttonhole maker.
One machine I had did not have that and I could never make all the buttonholes the same size.
I hated that.
So that one step buttonhole thing was an important feature.
I was using a Singer 6869 or something like that which has a drop in bobbin.
But it was getting to the point I had to pump the foot pedal for every stitch sometimes.
That was getting very tiring.
And yes I had taken it in for repair and that problem was never solved.
In the meantime I ended up with my mother-in-law's Singer Quantum XL-1.
(pictured above)
I decided to switch to that machine after getting frustrated with mine.
The Quantum has a side loading bobbin except it is in the front of the machine
instead of the side like the old black singer machines
which is what I learned to sew on when I was young.
My mother still uses her old black Singer.
I guess the Quantum is no longer available.
We had a dickens of a time locating the foot pedal since I did not have the original one.
We had to special order it.
Anyway, I had just switched to the Quantum machine
when my daughter texted me her bobbin kept falling out and she could not sew.
Help!
I am hard of hearing and no longer use the telephone.
Texting about the process would take forever.
So I had my husband call her so he can relay the instructions from me to her.
The bobbin on her machine is like the one on the Quantum
but on the side like the old black Singer machines.
My husband stood behind me and
explained what I was doing step-by-step to insert the bobbin and the bobbin holder.
We told her she had to line up the notch on the holder
with the notch where it goes in the machine.
She said "What notch?"
I told her that you need to look at where the bobbin goes to see that.
I was able to picture her bending over to see better and her exclamation of
"Oh now I see".
Happy day that she was able to sew a seam without the bobbin falling out.
New skill accomplished from afar.
NOW THE SEWING:
Next is to actually make an outfit.
She has texted me in the past about how to do something or what does something mean like
"What does it mean to baste?
How do I do that?"
Anyway, she is involved in a theatre show
and is part of the ensemble and has a couple of lines I guess.
She also volunteered to help make a couple of the costumes.
A Simplicity New Look pattern and
a McCall's pattern were chosen for these two costumes.
The New Look pattern had a confusing neckline to work out.
I looked at the pattern on line to try and help her figure out what to do.
Again this was on the phone.
She would ask my husband and he would repeat to me and
then I would explain loud enough for her to hear me.
It was crazy!
A three-way conversation.
At one point she even called my mother for sewing help about this crazy neckline.
I finally decided I was going to buy the pattern so that I could help her through it better with the instructions in front of me.
Last Sunday, my mother and I went to the fabric store to get the patterns.
Thought I would buy the other one too as well as baby pattern I wanted to get.
Wouldn't you know?
That New Look pattern was not available at all.
Not on the spinning display rack
nor was it listed as one of the patterns in the pattern book they had there.
Bummer!
So I looked through the other pattern books to try to find a pattern with a similar neckline. Turns out all the ones I found had a simplier way of making that neckline.
I had my mom call Sara
while I was doing the looking and helping my mom explain the process.
Since we could not find any patterns with the intructions
anywhere near the way the New Look pattern has them,
Sara and my mom together came up with a different way to finish the neckline
and have it lie down neatly.
Whew!
What a process that was!
This was one time where I really wished my daughter
and I lived closer together so that I could get to her easier
to help her out when these kinds of things happen.
She was successful putting in a zipper for the first time.
So that was a good feeling for her.
Sara will become a good seamstress eventually.
Even if I have to teach her long distance through texting or email.
~Linnea~
