http://www.newburysewfest.com/ was great fun, I wish I'd taken some photos while I was there, it's a beautiful venue. I was too busy sewing! I made one bag and have one more begun. Had my machine not played up I would have had two completed bags from the two days. The purple bag with the decorative stitching was the first one that I tried. The leather sewed fine with just a standard 80 needle in the machine, using a teflon foot.
On day two, when I had stitched down the lining, I went on to bag two and my machine began to have problems. It's been back to the dealer twice so far this year to try to solve its intermittent problem. The thread was shredding and breaking. Sandra who was taking my class works for Husqvarna and she established that the feed dogs are not dropping every time, which explains the problems I've had with free motion stitching. We got them to drop and I was able to embroider the designs, but then when they were joined the feed dogs did not work properly when I was trying to stitch a decorative line by the join. You can't unpick leather, so my bag will have to become smaller. In the meantime I need to make time to go to my dealer to get my machine fixed.
Bag two, when it's done, consists of two "purses in the hoop" designs stitched out. They make tiny bags, with barely room for a lipstick, so Sandra designed this with two joined together to make a more useful sized bag. It doesn't look much at present but it will be lovely when it's done :). I've used a navy suede.
Sewfest is planned for April 09 next. It was a really enjoyable couple of days, get there next year of you can!
Despite the wintry weather we're having, with ice and snow, I'm still in Autumn mode.
