The most frightening fabric to cut in the universe... or finished is better than perfect.

I've not done much cardmaking during the last week, partly because the weather has been so good and partly because two sewing friends have been cracking the whip about my lack of sewing :). Firstly, Marion came and spent a day with me working on the dreaded altar cloth. I had made a little progress on it since she last visited. After a solid session of cutting out and embroidering elements and attaching them I think it's starting to come together at last! I'll be so glad to pack that project back off to Marion when it's done!

Then I went to see my friend Kandy with a short length of fabric that I bought last summer. I have never paid so much per metre for a piece of fabric and I doubt I ever will :). I went to a sewing retreat last summer where I met the owner of a fabric shop in Devon, who made herself a skirt using the most gorgeous fabric. It's linen with man-made flowers sewn onto it and she had had two bolts woven for their shop, one white on white and one white on natural. If one wants to dye the fabric, the linen will take the dye while the manmade doesn't, so you can have any colour of skirt with the white flowers on it. I asked about the price and fell off my chair when I heard it. But by the end of the weekend I couldn't resist it calling my name, louder and louder, so .8m came home with me.

I didn't cut into it when I came home as we were due to go on holiday. I didn't cut into it when we came home. I was so petrified of messing up and wasting the fabric that it stayed in the cupboard. So Kandy came to the rescue. It needs as few seams as possible, no darts in the fabric. So she pinned and cut it to me in an afternoon and sent me home with stern instructions to finish it for a party I'm going to today.

I discovered a big problem for me with the fabric. There was an industrial iron at the sewing retreat, with lots of steam but less heat and Kandy also has a steamer. My everyday iron, used on the wrong side, sticks the flowers together. If I iron a seam then the flowers melt into an awful mess on the soleplate :(. The zip we put in on Thursday looked dreadful where we'd taken the side seam in and not cut down the bit where the zip was fitted. I've changed the zip and had another couple of tries at the shape, which is still not perfect. Somehow, it's also fractionally big around the waist. But the top I'm wearing will cover the zip and will also hide a safety pin to adjust the size.

But I made it! Thank you Kandy! Mental note: Avoid spilling anything on skirt at party today :)

Merry Christmas to all

It's nearly Christmas; I hope that everyone has a wonderful day tomorrow. I've moved away from quilting and embroidery and into papercrafts, but I still have a lovely new hanging for the house, thanks to my friend Kandy, who gave me this for Christmas. It's beautiful, thanks Kandy :)

Sewfest Pictures

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!