Whatcha Working on REDnesday!

Whatcha Working on REDnesday!

How is that for including both meme's in the same title?

LOL!

Actually I initially typed it that way by accident

and then I thought

Hey, wait a minute!

That works.

So I retyped what I deleted.

~~~~

Anyway,

thank you to Leslie over at My Country Home for

hosting Whatch Working on Wednesday.

Posting for this theme every week as I can

has really helped to keep me

moving forward on my projects.

Gotta show something I am working on

each week.

Also thank you to Sue at

It's A Very Cherry World for

hosting REDnesday.

If I have the least bit of RED in my projects,

then I am going to link up with Sue too.

More fun that way!

~~~~~~~~

I will start you off with some RED.

And green too.

This is the fabric I got

to make the

other 4 quilt tops

I plan to make

for Christmas.

Well, I am going to try anyway.

The fabric is really more RED

than it looks here.

Also I have not ironed it yet

after doing the prewashing.

~~~~~~

So what else have I been up to this week?

Sunday I took my 13 year old niece out

for pattern and fabric shopping.

My birthday gift to her was

to pick out a pattern and

fabric and I would teach her

how to sew it.

I suggested an apron as a good first project.

Her birthday was in August.

But she has a busy schedule and

Sunday was our outing day.

We checked out Simplicity patterns since those

were the ones that were on sale.

I am not going to pay full price for those patterns.

As we browsed through them

I explained to her the things that

made it easy or hard to make.

This is the one she picked out.

I rather like it myself!

This is what she picked out for fabrics.
The print will the the apron,
the blue the pocket and the brown
the trim and strap.
But as we were checking the pattern for how much
fabric,
we discovered this is a reversable apron!
Okay...so the blue will be the apron on the reverse side.
I forget how she wants to do the pocket on that side.
Anyway, I am going to prewash the fabric.
I always so that.
And then in a couple of weeks we get together again
to cut out the fabric and start sewing.
My niece has been wanting to learn to sew.
It will be a great way to spend some one and one time with her.

I feel in love with this fabric.
A littled RED there for REDnesday!
This will be for a special project that I will reveal later.
First I need to prewash this fabric too.

Oh, look! I love this fabric so much I uploaded the
picture twice!! LOL!

Hmm...another project in the works.

I am farther along with two more rows of

eyelet sewed on.

But upon looking on it closely, I sewed the

last row on upside down.

Ugh!!

Guess I gotta use my seam ripper and redo that one.

Can't stand to leave it like that.

I had to do some of this too.
Shorten my new pants.

Still need to do a couple more pairs

plus a pair for B-Daddy.

Another project I am trying to get done soon!

Can you see some RED there?

Ah....I gues it is more orange.

But that is RED and yellow together.......

A card I am working on.
Needs to be done ASAP!

Working on my second NOEL block.

This I take to work and do on my lunch breaks.

It is the easiest take along project

I have going right now.

~~~~~

Whew!

I guess that is it for now.

Come back on Friday for

Get R Done Friday

and see what I have finished.

What are you working on this week?

Have a great day!

~Linnea~

New Toys for My Sewing Machine

I have been having a diffcult time seeing the markings on my sewing machine as I sew and I felt like I did not have enough light. I could not seem to aim the light I have attached to my sewing table to be effective for me. Today we stopped at Hancock's after church, something we do often. Anyway, I noticed a magnifier and a light I could attach to the machine.

The above picture shows the packaging from the light I bought. It is called a Mighty Bright Xtra Flex Super L.E.D. Craft Light. It was on sale which I did not realize until I was purchasing it. That was a pleasant surprise. I was able to attach the clamp to the carry handle of my sewing machine and use the flex arm to aim it right where I need it.
Then I also got the Magnistitch Sewing & Craft Magnifier, which was also on sale. Hooray!! I am beginning to get the aging eyes and have trouble seeing the small stuff comfortably. The picture shows how it should be attached to the sewing machine. I thought this should work pretty good. My husband was surprised I needed a magnifier. Probably forgot I am getting older too since he says I keep him young.
This picture shows the finished set up. A side note to my daughter, yes the lamp is purple. For those who don't know, purple is her favorite color. Or at least it was. I have done some sewing today with the new set up. I found it takes getting used to. But the light definitely helped and I could see better just where I need to sew with the magnifier. One thing though, it sure makes a 5/8" seam look big. I had to keep double checking to make I was not accidently making a bigger seam allowance.

I am hoping this will help to take away some of the frustration I had been having with not seeing as clearly as I would like while sewing. The magnifier will also help tremendously when I need to rip out a seam, which I do now and then. That is especially hard when sewing on dark fabric.

Since McCall's patterns were on sale at 99 cents each, I browsed through the pattern books and found one for myself and two to make things for my granddaughter. I got myself a blouse pattern. No fabric yet. The two for my granddaughter are kind of Bohemian style, or I can probably make it Bohemian style with the fabric choices. So if my daughter-in-love is reading this, I need updated chest and waist measurements for our granddaughter. Hint, hint. I want to make sure I make the correct size so she can wear it right away or grow into it later. I definitely don't want to make it too small.

Long Distance Sewing

This is a little difficult to do, sewing long distance 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. 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.