Serge a Quick Bias Cut skirt

Create a  quick and easy bias cut skirt for Spring using your 4 thread overlock for your seams. Adjust the differential feed according to the bias to prevent any rippling or stretching out. Try out a sample piece of your fabric first with your serger. 

•  Simply serge the upper edge of your skirt, turn down to wrong side for desirable waistband according to your elastic width and sew on your band into position using a sewing machine. Insert elastic.
• Create a mock band and insert elastic. There will be more information to follow for this application.
• Use the elastic foot to create an elastic application and turn edge down and top-stitch into place. 
• Just 3 ways of creating a quick and easy waistband

Using a rolled hem or narrow hem feature as seen above, and decorative thread 
to your upper and /or lower looper, this will add a bit of sheen to the hem.

Serging Blanket Edges

A quick blanket using fleece is a quick gift idea for friends, or if you are always travelling to sports events with the kids, blankets come in handy at those evening soccer games, cooler football games, and of course hockey to only name a few.......In photo below decorative thread has been used on the serger, and this can be achieved by using 3 thread wide, 2-thread overlock wide, or 2-thread wrapped overlock wide application. Any of these three will work for blankets.

This blanket is actually double thickness with contrasting solid on reverse side.

Fleece, cotton flannel, wool, are all great possibilities for blankets.

Corners can sometimes ripple when you least expect it , if fabrics are very stretchy. Practice on a small piece of the same fabric you are using for your blanket. Adjust your differential feed accordingly. (see your manual if you are not sure). 
If your fabric is very very stretchy, using a piece of water soluble stabilizer, just underneath the corner will prevent any further rippling. 
Very occasionally bias cut projects require adjustments in differential feed and use of stabilizers depending on the type of project. 

Embroidery can be done directly on the blanket or they can be created as appliques as seen above.

 If you are in a pinch and need a very fast gift, purchase a ready made blanket as this white one above. If your sewing machine has machine embroidery capabilities, machine embroidery on a separate piece of fabric, the word friends, or the name of the friend, or even their favourite theme. Embroider a number of them in one sitting leaving enough space around each one to cut them each out. Using your serger and a narrow or rolled hem, stitch around the 4 edges. This is very good practice for serging corners. This blanket shown has approximately 10 of the Friend appliques. Stitch them on with your sewing machine. Use a straight stitch or a pretty decorative stitch. 
Have fun. 

                

Machine Embroidery On Ready Made Fashion Items

Machine Embroidery can be done on so many backgrounds. In this photo you will see the simple handbag which was originally plain. The embroidery in this photo was done using  a piece of silk dupioni ( approximately 20cm x 30cm) using metallic 40wt threads and a needle designed for metallics. Stabilizer is very important for this application as you would prefer the piece to lay flat, with edges pressed back. If you have a sewing advisor and sensor foot system, you can select your fabric type, and use an extra high lift position for weaved, or rattan like materials. Use a size 90 needle to stitch your embroidery piece onto your handbag using a longer stitch length. Embroidery is Blooming Flowers #162 HV




This is an example of large embroidery that has been split and stitched down on a skirt waistband to hold the belt in place. 
 HV Embroidery is Mega Borders #117

Think Spring Everyone...............Beautiful Alberta :)

Needle Felting Follow-up

Wool yarn with pieces of felt

Experiment on an old sweater and make all of your mistakes on this piece.

Sweater and skirt hem done together with very simple felting using yarn pieces.

 A combination of silk yarns, wool roving, wool pieces, and other varieties of threads.

Using wool roving, wool yarn, on angora.

Hemlines for skirts, cuffs, pants using wool yarn.

Felt yarns for mittens, scarves, and sweaters. 

Pieces of Yarn cut up into petal like pieces
on wool.

This shows the right and wrong side of the needle felted piece on the covered buttons.

Threads embellished onto cotton for covered buttons.

Step 1 Choosing decorative threads

Step 2

Step 3

Soya Silk

Try an assortment of threads from your stash. You will simply be amazed.

This thread gives the fabric a boucle look.

Happy Valentines Day

I thought you might enjoy looking at some very very old buttons from my collection. Buttons can be so very interesting, like quilts you can only wonder about the history of them, where they came from and what type of clothing they adorned. Collecting anything to do with sewing has always been of interest to me. I guess this is one more thing we can learn about. The materials they are made from. Where they are made. When I was in Houston for the Quilt Show, I had the opportunity of finding some very unique glass buttons from Czechoslovakia which are just absolutely beautiful. The person who sold them to me gave me the whole history on them which I was totally fascinated by. I think everything has a story to it, and you will have the opportunity of seeing these beautiful glass buttons on my projects for Creative Machine Embroidery in a future issue. Enjoy lots of chocolate on this special day. 

  

All photos show Antique style buttons

Machine or Hand Needle Felting Embellishments

I would like to take the opportunity to share with you some very interesting machine needle felting tips for embellishment that I am sure aren't new ideas but it is nice to review.  There are many different threads, yarns and fabric fibres that I love to work with whenever my creative mode kicks in. Especially with the very cold below zero temperatures. Felted mittens, hats, decorative felting for existing ready made items you already have in your closet. Collars, cuffs, sweaters,  The list is actually endless. Natural fibres work very well as you will see in the photographs. 


Hand felting with your hand felting tools will work as well. Machine needle felting is very quick and saves time. 



 Letters on yarns are a bit light. Hopefully you can see them. 

• A  Blue     Kid Mohair Blend
• B  Blue     Merino Blend
• C  Rusts   Mohair Blend
• D  Multi    Baby Alpaca blend
• E  Blank    Oops 
• F  Red      Hand dyed Wool (Leicester wool)
• G Tan       Rayon, Linen, Silk, Nylon
• H Tan       100% Wet Spun Linen
• I  Reds      Silk 
• J  Reds      Baby Alpaca
• K Green    Silk
• L  Pink       Schurwolle Blend

                                      Having Fun with Yarns just one heaping pile of colour.
Cotton also works well as a background fabric, as well as wools, and wool blends. You will find that when you needle felt an article like a sweater, the right side of the fabric will look as nice as the wrong side and most times it is desirable to test a sample of similar sweater knit content to see which side of the sweater you preferIf I am not sure about laundering the project, I will hand wash and hang dry or lay it out to dry on a towel. 

• A  Red   100% Soya Silk
• B  Red   100% Hemp Cording
• C  Blue   100% Hemp Cording
• D  Green 100% Soya Silk
• E  Green 30wt cotton
• F  Gold    Pearl Crown Rayon
• G  Blues  100% Long Staple Cotton
• H  Turquoise  40wt Rayon
• I    Golden 30wt Rayon
• J   Orange  12wt 100% Cotton Blendable
• K  Cream  100% Cool Spun cotton

A handbag is one project that are fun to embellish. You can embellish before you assemble,  or if your needle felting machine is a free arm style you can also embellish after sewing it together. If you are knitting or crocheting one, there is so much excitement in taking your creative piece just one step further. Check back this week to see all of these wonderful threads and yarns felted onto a variety of backgrounds.