Bits and bobs boxes

We've been busy again! This time there was no sewing involved but instead, lots of glue! We have a few plain boxes between us and thought we'd put them to good use! These two hexagonal boxes have magnetic closures, so we thought they might make good 'bits and bob's' boxes! We used several layers of wadding on the top, which we stretched material over tightly and fixed it into position with a hot glue gun.  We thought that the padded tops could be used as pin cushions!  Fortunately, this glue sets really quickly and is very strong, so it was perfect for this task! Then we took to the main body of the box with hi-tack glue, cardboard, ribbon, punched paper flowers, sparkly gems and metallic pens - great fun! Hope you like!

Sewing with oilcloth

As we'd already cut out the pieces of oilcloth the other day, we thought we'd just run up the bags today - famous last words! We knew already from our research trawling the net that sewing with oilcloth is an art form, a tricky one at that. But armed with all the tips on how to sew with oilcloth, we thought we were fairly well prepared for the challenges ahead and we were both looking forward to creating our tote bag. Hours and hours later, we're really pleased with our creation but are both a little worse for wear as our patience was tested to its limits!

With teflon foot and our sewing machine sleeve (see previous blog entry) attached, theory has it that the right (shiny) side couldn't stick to anything. We made the stitch length longer, so that our stitching wouldn't act as a perforator. We changed the needle for a denim needle coz at some stages we were sewing through 5 layers of oilcloth! We used bulldog clips and paperclips to temporarily hold the pieces of oilcloth together. Ready, set, GO!

Or not as the case was!! We sewed the handles together first. With right sides outermost, the sewing machine just wasn't feeding the oilcloth through. I tried pushing and pulling it but no, it wasn't going to budge! So I relented and put some masking tape on the bottom of the foot - hey presto, material feeds through. (Although this worked, I was a little frustrated as we'd bought the teflon foot especially for sewing with oilcloth! If teflon frying pans are non-stick why was my teflon foot not non-stick? Yes I know I wasn't trying to fry an egg on my teflon foot but I thought the theory would be the same. Mind you, perhaps frying an egg on it isn't a bad idea coz it wasn't much use for anything else!!

The next problem? The thread kept snapping....zillions of times (a little exaggeration but boy it felt like a zillion and if the discarded pile of cotton threads was anything to go by...a zillion is a conservative estimate!). We altered the thread tension to loosen it a bit in case that was the problem. Although this helped a bit, the thread was still snapping. Sewing slow and steady seemed to reduce the frequency of snapping further but it was still too frequent for my nerves! The stitches didn't look completely even either. Every now and again it skipped a stitch too....very testing!

Suffice to say that the handles were the most difficult to sew. Once we'd managed to sew them, the rest was a doddle. The machine was very happy to sew just two layers of oilcloth with right sides together....trouble was, by the time we came to this point, the damage was already done....my nerves were shot and my hair had virtually turned white! (Am not sure whether this was because of the stress sewing oilcloth caused me, or whether it's because it took so long to sew the oilcloth that my hair turned white with age!)

Will we be sewing with oilcloth again?   Yes because we've never been ones to give up lightly!

Preparation for oilcloth lift off!

And for our next project? We want to make a version of our tote bags in oilcloth. We found a lovely pink and green coloured oilcloth....or should I more correctly say....pvc covered cotton! We've cut out the pieces today and we are soooo excited - we can't wait to assemble them. We've been researching how to sew with oilcloth and picked up loads of tips along the way. We'll let you know if they were useful tips or not when we try and put said tips into practice!

First tip was use a teflon foot. Apparently, you can use masking tape on the bottom of the foot but as teflon feet are so cheap off eBay, we decided to push the boat out and just buy one!  The teflon foot will hopefully prevent the oilcloth sticking to the foot. Next step, is to prevent the oilcloth sticking to the actual sewing machine! There are a few ways to do this but we adapted an idea....we're not sure if it'll quite work or not, but we think it should in theory! We made this sleeve for my sewing machine! Sounds strange but here it is!

It is made out off an offcut of oilcloth, shiny side down. We cut out a little rectangle, so only the feed dogs are visible. We then moulded the corners on the left hand side and sewed them into position. The idea is that to use it, all you'd have to do is to slide the sleeve on and then use masking tape to secure the right-hand edge to the machine. Hey presto, we should then have a surface that shouldn't stick when we sew on either the right-side or the wrong-side of the oilcloth....time will tell!

Tote bag with navy blue handles

For the first time ever, we had a sewing session that didn't involve any unpicking!!! Yay, progress! We made two more of our little tote bags but this time with navy blue herringbone cotton tape (1.5" wide). We thought that would be a more practical colour! We also learnt from our first prototypes to attach the handles to the lining before assembling the outer and inner layers together. It was hard to try to make sure the handles were exactly in the right place....they tended to move if you weren't paying attention! We also allowed for more at each end of the handles, so that they were easy to catch inbetween the layers. We were a bit miserly the first time round and it turned out to be a false economy - took loads more stress to ensure you had caught the handles at all! It's always a relief though when you turn everything the right way round and you find that everything is where it should be! If it was left to me, gosh only knows where the handles would have ended up!


 

Padded heart now with added button!

As you know we made four of these padded hearts the other day and we weren't happy with them.  We thought the heart in the centre was too big and overpowered the rose design of the Cath Kidston material.  So after much scratching of heads and whirring of mental cogs, we thought that something had to be added.  Luckily my friend had four wooden buttons that seemed to be perfect for the job

We like them much better now but we don't think we will be making anymore the same as these.  In future, we'll try adjusting the size of the middle heart and we thought we might even use a different colour to do the zig zag stitch  We'll keep you updated....as my friend keeps telling me....perfection takes time!

Padded Cath Kidston hearts

We've had a bit of a holiday this week so we haven't done much sewing to speak of. But we managed to knock these hearts up made out of Cath Kidston material. We're not sure about the design but we wanted to have a practice at machine applique...using a close zig zag stitch (almost satin stitch). It took a while to get our machines on the right settings. Too close a stitch and the material puckered. My machine kept protesting by snagging too which made it very frustrating! I did check that the needle was in straight this time, which I'm pleased to report it was! (for a change!!)

When I changed from the zig zag to the straight stitch to stitch the hearts together, my machine wouldn't sew more than two sitches before it jammed.  When I managed to extricate the material by removing the bobbin and everything else that's physically possible to remove without a screwdriver (hook race cover etc), all I could see was a huge tangle of cotton!  So I dutifully unpicked the hoops of cotton and tried again.  Yes you guessed it, two more stitches and the same mess again!  By this point I am fretting that my machine is bust and woe is me!  After four attempts....and yes really, 4 attempts later, I throw my arms in the air and declare defeat!  I call my friend (who is dealing with more important matters - putting the kettle on to make a well earned cup of tea!) who runs to my rescue and then quickly declares that the machine isn't for the scrap heap after all!  It was merely a simple case on not threading the machine properly!  I'd missed out one of the stages completely!  After much severe blushing and trying to wonder how indeed that had happened when I know I threaded it correctly speech....I breathed a huge sigh of relief that my sewing machine was going to live another day after all!

Once the hearts were stuffed to bursting, I sat and hand-stitched the gap we used for turning, closed with ladder stitch, whilst watching tv of course! It somehow seems to make watching the hum-drum of soaps on tv more bearable, and should I say, acceptable because I'm doing some sewing at the same time - multi-tasking I believe they call it!

We're not happy with the design yet.  We think the heart in the middle is too large, dwarfing the Cath Kidston material?  We would welcome your comments!

All change!

We have moved our blog from our website www.crazymoocrafts.co.uk to Blogger so that you all have easier access to our sewing ramblings!  And selfishly of course, we have a much easier user-friendly blogging platform!  Enjoy!