We've been at it again! Here's another owl picture! You may remember the one we did a little while ago, that had just one owl sitting on the branch. Well now we have double trouble!
The words Best Friends at the bottom, are stitched with a single strand of blue x-stitch thread in back stitch. The trails of the butterfly and the bee are stitched with a running stitch in grey x-stitch thread. We find that using black can sometimes look a little harsh!
I prefer a white frame too but as this picture is for a friend of a friend, a dark wood frame suits their lounge decor apparently!
I wonder what to make next? I have a few ideas buzzing around in my head as usual! I quite fancy making an owl family tree, so watch this space!
We think these little additions are moo-vellous! When we saw this sew a cow kit from Galt, we knew we just had to make one - well two to be precise - one each!
The instructions were quite clear, so we were hopeful they wouldn't take too long to make - wrong! About 10hrs we reckoned in total! Interestingly, the kit says it's for age 8+.......hmmm, that would be one very clever and very patient 8yr old kid! We had about three paddies between us and we're definitely older than 8!
There are a lot of curves involved. This makes for a much better finished animal but it makes sewing a little trickier! We did however this time, try tacking the curved pieces together with cotton before we tried to sew them with the sewing machine. I've always thought this would be too much effort and would waste time but I was so wrong! Tacking doesn't take long with a large running stitch and it means you can then take the pins out - saving the wrestle with the unruly porcupine later! We'll definitely be tacking anything resembling curves from now on. It doesn't take long, it makes life easier and it actually works!
The cows have movable joints and sand in their bodies, so they sit really well. We love them but we haven't given them names yet!
My mum and dad have recently got two new additions to their canine family - two adorable Yorkshire terriers, a boy and a girl called Benji and Topsy. I haven't seen them but apparently they're small enough to fit in the palm of your hand - how cute! So we wanted to do something to mark their arrival! Naturally, we turned to our sewing machines and this is what we made:
They are adjustable, so hopefully they won't just be for them as puppies, they should be large enough to fit them as adults too. The collars are only a centimetre wide, so sewing the ribbon on was a little tricky - not much room for error!
Up until now I was zig-zagging the end of the cut ends of the webbing to stop it fraying but now I've learnt how to melt the ends. I've always been too afraid to do this - me and flames is probably a recipe for disaster I thought! But my friend showed me how to do it and I was surprised to see that the webbing and the flame don't actually need to meet each other! Just moving the webbing towards the flame is enough for it to melt - no need to have the fire brigade on standby!
I used the gauge to mark a 6mm seam allowance. Once the slider is set to 6mm, you line up the edge of the red slider with the edge of the material and hey presto, it's dead easy to mark 6mm in. Often when I'm measuring things, my mind wanders and I start marking incorrectly, 6mm becomes 11mm! With this measuring gauge I definitely make less mistakes.
It's says you can also draw circles and scallops with it, by placing a pin in one of the holes in the red plastic slider, then putting a pencil in the hole in the metal gauge and basically using it like a compass. I haven't tried this yet but I like the theory!
It also has a point on one end, so it can be used as a point turner too.
What's not to like!
My machine has been making strange noises and I think I've figured out the culprits!
Thudding noise! Turns out the needle was a little blunt! It still seemed to sew quite happily but was thudding every time the needle went in. I have read various articles about how often to change your needle. Some say after a bobbins worth. Some say at the start of every new project. Some say after so many hours of sewing. Well, truth be told, I am a Northerner at heart, so think I felt the idea of chucking the needle away unless it was either snapped or bent out of all recognition, was a little rash! Turns out the machine ain't too happy sewing with a blunt needle! Out of respect for my machine (and for my pocket!!), I changed the needle. I guess the machine was finding it harder work to push the blunt needle through the layers of fabric - common sense really!
Clanking noises! Clatter, clatter, bang bang - or summit like that! My machine was getting increasingly noisy. It sounded like something was loose or out of sync. It got gradually louder and louder over time, almost imperceptibly so. It was only when my friend brought her machine over that I had to acknowledge that it had indeed got rather loud! Not only that, the machine was messing me about rather a lot recently. Sometimes it would snag even before it had stitched a stitch. It would also often not complete a stitch - the needle would go up and down but never would the upper thread go anywhere near the lower thread! I had taken it apart and fiddled with the hook race cover, the bobbin etc to feel if anything was loose! In the end, I declared sackcloth and ashes were in order....there was no doubt about it, my machine was going to die an untimely death at any second! Boo-hoo! This can't be happening! Then a eureka moment, like a bolt out the blue....my friend declares that it probably just needs oiling! To which I scoffed and said "Oil, it can't be that!". Boy did I have to eat my words! As much as to prove that it couldn't possibly be that, I dutifully took out the oil that came with the machine and squirted it into the inner workings of the machine (supposedly following the manufacturers instructions....if only I could locate them!!). And as if by magic - yes you guessed it - my machine was brought back from the brink and ran as smooth as a baby's bum!
Gosh how I ever manage to sew anything at all is nothing short of a miracle! My poor machine is operated by a rookie! Luckily so far, I haven't actually managed to kill it completely, just made it struggle for a while!
