Progress...

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but the Man is a cyclist.  His idea of downtime is a couple of hours riding up a hill somewhere.  Not my idea of downtime, although I'm trying - we're off on a family cycling holiday along a rail trail later in the week.  The tradeoff works in my favour though - we have a deal that if he takes a few hours on the weekend to go riding then I can take the same to 'go' crafting/garden (ie. potter without needing to be on call for the kids).  Yesterday afternoon I had some time and I'm quite impressed with what I managed to achieve:

A skirt for the sofa bed cover (not sure how I managed to make it too long at the front but OK at the side, but a fair step up from what it looked like here).  My plan was to secure the cover under the mattress, but I've been impressed with how Stage 1 has stayed in place so far, so I'm going to play it by ear.

I also managed to finish cutting the coloured squares for my 'Scrappy Leaves' quilts, and stitch them into pairs.  There are six different patterns in the Gypsy Rose range, and I decided that I didn't want any four-patch block to contain more than one of each pattern.  Worked that out with little angst, but this afternoon when I came to join the pairs into fours I decided that I wanted to split the colours as well.  I'm nearly finished rearranging, unpicking, counting and re-counting (strangely, my 280 squares seem to have multiplied and I have at least 10 left over?!?).  Here's the more pink-toned (well, salmon really) one for Niece J:

And here's the mauve toned one for Niece H:

Hoping to pick up some coordinating fabric somewhere along the way next weekend (planning to trade a 'quick ride up Mt Buller' for some shopping without the boys wrestling on the sidelines!).

Scrappy Roses

I 've been feeling the call to patchwork.  I'm not sure if its all the blog references to it lately, the lure of the Gypsy Rose fabric or the need for a little time out, but yesterday I succumbed and started cutting squares for my nieces' Scrappy Leaves quilts whilst my computer was chugging through its calculations.  Normally the speed at which it was working would be cause for worry and alarm, but yesterday it just felt fortuitous - an opportunity to craft on the sly!

So here's my progress so far - 81 3" squares cut, 199 to go!  I figure I'll take it one step at a time - I have until Christmas to get these two done.

Need some inspiration?  Check out more creative spaces at Kirsty's.

A posse of bandoliers

The Old Girl is alive and kicking!  Singer tell me that she was manufactured on 12 July 1932.  How's that for detail!  They also have the manuals available for free download.

Anyway, after a bit of a slow start, and a few 'aha' moments from me as I remembered her quirks, she's going great guns.  Together we've manufactured a posse of bandoliers (more Matchbox than Snack though), loosely based on Deborah's Snack Bandolier.

In my bulk manufacture I did a few things differently:

• My boys are 3 and 6, and their friends are just turning 4 and 7, so I made my bandoliers longer - I measured my boys to get a size which fitted reasonably well.  I also lengthened the elastic casing, but found that I had more than enough length and trimmed it off.

• My old girl only does straight stitch, so I didn't do the zig zag topstitching.  I managed to give my Bernina a siezure trying to do a contrast honeycomb stitch on the original I cut for the Kinderboy, and it was looking quite effective and would be worth considering (just don't do as I did and try and do it at 100kmh!!)

• I widened the fabric casing for the elastic to 3", and did away with it entirely for the Schoolboy.  I had some tartan elastic which he loved, so I let it shine (I used around 45cm).  It had the advantage of speed as well as allowing me to fit more cars onto his bandolier.  I'd use this method if I was teaching someone with little/no sewing experience how to do the project.

• On two of my bandoliers I cut one main fabric section 5" wide, rather than two at 3".  I also ironed it as Deborah recommends for the elastic casing - much quicker because you don't have to turn the whole lot through.
• I made the pocket bigger - 4" x 6" - so that it ended up being around 3" tall and the full width of the bandolier.  I think that this was probably a bit of an overkill in terms of width though, and on reflection it could have been 4" square or 4" x 5".

On the whole, I'd highly recommend it as a quick project for anyone with even limited sewing experience.

Stalled.

I've been going great guns tonight on making four of Deborah's Snack Bandoliers - one each for my boys and one each for their friends who are having a birthday party on Saturday.  I think I pushed the Bernina a little too hard and fast on the herringbone stitch though, and something's gone kerput inside.  I have sideways movement, but no forwards movement.  Hmmm...

Rang mum.  No help.

Pulled out the old Singer.  Fell in love.  This was my first machine (actually, technically Grandma bought it for my sister and I nearly 30 years ago, but my sibling has no interest in sewing so by default its mine).  I love the way it looks and the way it smells, and even the knee press is quirky enough to be cute.  It has a heap of foot-like attachments that I've never known what to do with, and had forgotten about.  I suspect that a few of them would have made life easier over the last 15 years if only I'd broken it out.  Sadly though, the rubber (leather?) band that makes it go is no longer up to it - solid, warped and threatening to disintegrate - and I can't get it to move at all.

Looks like the Bandoliers will have to wait.

Here's a picture of my old love.

PS.  Just done some net surfing, and found a manual for a similar machine, dating from the 1950s.  One of my feet apparently can be used to sew on commercial bias binding in a single step?!?

WOO HOO!  I just lifted the lid on the machine to show the boys, and found that in fact she's not given up on me, just needed a gentle nudge!  And a service.  But for today a nudge will be enough.