Favourite Things Friday

Ah, Friday. Well, technically it's Saturday now, but whatever. I love Fridays. I love how I never have to work on Fridays. I love how I could sleep all day on Fridays, though to be honest after this week I'm kinda bored with the sleeping.

Things I'm not bored with - Spotlight bargains. Apologies to any international visitors and I really ought to point out that I don't work for them (any more) so this isn't advertising but cheap stuff is cheap stuff. And this week batting in particular is very, very cheap, so even though I bought 5 metres last week (when it was still cheap, but not as cheap as it is now) today I lay-by'd another 7 metres for $60 - about $8.55 a metre. And layby is great when you're stockpiling, cause they handle the storage for a couple of months. So, cheap 254cm wide cozy cotton = good.

After not touching my sewing machine for a whole week (I was busy with the sleeping) I decided tonight to clean it out. It was both fascinating and disgusting. I highly recommend it, especially if you have an old (47 years) machine like I do. The fact that people with only pencils could design it all and make it work as well as it does without even the use of a small pocket calculator is pretty amazing. And the fact that I pulled about a half a kilo of fuzz out of it was kinda ick. Also, there appears to be a small lake of oil in the bottom. But the only screwdriver I could find couldn't get me down to that bit, so I left it. Nonetheless, interesting engineering + satisfaction of a machine that's no longer making nasty groany noises = good.

And tonight I had a finish - after it was all clean I got to quilting the bike quilt I made a couple of weeks ago.

I did it with wavy lines that I did by moving the quilt back and forth instead of just letting the needle do it and I trimmed the batting beforehand so I could do it with a self binding. Even though the back is just calico, it looks bloody good with the quilt lines. I'm gunna do this style of quilting more often.

Unfortunately, the foot pedal on my machine decided to break with about 5 lines to go, but I have spares. The one I got was a) at the bottom of a sister's cupboard and b) an actual Elna one, which isn't as nice to use as my Frankenstein'd Singer one. But it's tough to get your dad to fix stuff for you at 1am. I'm still gunna blame the couple of slightly too-wide lines that I did last on the foot pedal. Also, it makes the entire machine sound different. I think. I may be tripping. But 1am resourcefulness to get a quilt finished = good.

And finally, my favourite thing this week. Two strips of peeled cow that I cut out and sewed together last Friday before I went to the pub, to make a cute little wrist cuff.

You can kinda see where I burnt my hand on the iron tonight too.

It's just a wide bit with a long skinny bit sewed in half at one end, and two little holes at the other end.

It's a bit wrinkly now cause I've worn it every day this week

Wrap it round, thread the two ends of skinny bit through the holes, then loop them round a few times and tie together.

I used to wear scarves and bits of fabric tied around my wrist all the time. I like the leather though - the edges don't need finishing. And cute accessories that can be made in 2 minutes with about 4cm of stitching back and forth to join the two bits together = good

Done for the night...

It would seem that, just because you can do the first quilt top in two hours...

...Doesn't mean you can do the second quilt top in 2 hours.

Especially when you change your design after you've sewn half of it, and then get a bit distracted by the Commonwealth Games on one channel and Crocodile Dundee on the other, and you're flicking between the two in the adverts, and it's hard to leave the lounge to go and sew.

Still, that's 2 quilt tops in one day, AND I didn't get started till about 4 this afternoon AND my machine's tension dial appears to have shat itself. Normal tension is at 5, I'm currently at 3.5 which is tight enough that the stitches aren't loose but not so tight that it bunches horrifically, but it's still bunching up a little. I have oiled, changed needles, screwed and unscrewed, cleaned the bobbin case, put the cotton on the other way (I'm getting desperate okay?) but still nothing. Where it's at now is bearable - you just need to leave a bit more space between the string piecing so that you can ease out the stitching. It does have an advantage though - it made unpicking (which I did a lot of at the design changing point in the pink top) a lot easier.

You can see the size difference with the overhang in each picture - the pink one ended up about 8cm wider but 4cm shorter. I like the blue and green one better since the difference between the fabrics is a lot more visible, and also the corners of the pink quilt are just sorted randomly because no matter what I did, I couldn't quite make it right. I would get 3 that matched, and then one would be really wrong, so I figured if they were all off I can call it random. I'll be doing the other side tomorrow, and I'm gunna make a point of using bigger pieces on the pink one, so hopefully the fabric patterns wont be so overwhelmed.

But that's tomorrow.

And a real post too...

I did some free motion tests. They didn't go well. If I had to pinpoint a reason, I would say the foot does not go down far enough to get a good hold, making my movements super jerky. If there was more loft, this wouldn't be a problem, but it is.

Also put the walking foot back on, and I'm not a huge fan of that either. I just don't see the point, when my pull feed method works fine for me, it's way less bulky and I don't strain a muscle lifting the foot up. But my second test makes me fairly sure I'm going to wavy line straight quilt the blue/green quilt. I did an around and around with the regular foot and it bunched up a bit at the tight corners, but on the top, not the bottom, which was annoying, as it would mean quilting upside down for a nice finish. So monodirectional it is, and real binding also.

But not tonight. Despite my day off, and lack of any real achievement (basted and tests done, when I was hoping to have at least started to quilt) I'm beat. I did get an entire book read today, as well as about 20 CDs copied for my father though, so it's been a big day mentally, if not physically.