Arianne (this is my sister in-law who emailed me to ask if she could enter too)
and Erin you can win too! (just post a comment with your email)
The winners are:
Friday, April 24, 2009
Lolly Chops
Arianne (this is my sister in-law who emailed me to ask if she could enter too)
and Erin you can win too! (just post a comment with your email)
Arianne (this is my sister in-law who emailed me to ask if she could enter too)
and Erin you can win too! (just post a comment with your email)
Headband Bouquet and giveaway
Friday, April 10, 2009
The giveaway!
Leave a comment (on this post) from now until Monday morning 6am Central time and 2 lucky winners will receive a free copy of my Reversible Headbands tutorial. I will choose the winner by using a random number generator. If you don't win you can buy the tutorial at my Etsy Shop
I made a set of 3 headbands for a little friend of my daughter for her birthday. I couldn't think of an appropriate way to wrap these up that would make them look substantial. Don't get me wrong I think these make great gifts but if you were to just wrap them up it would be a tiny package and wouldn't compare to the mounds of plastic toys at a birthday party. Even though if you went out and bought the headbands you'd be spending at least $5 a piece so that's a $15 gift but would look like a $1 gift if not packaged accordingly.
So I ran around the house this morning and looked for things I could use. I spotted and empty little flower pot and a recent tutorial came to mind: April Flowers over on the Going Sew Crazy blog.
Materials:
1) Add a few rocks to the bottom of the pot. Cut a piece of floral foam to fit snugly in to the pot and about 1/4 inch below the top of the pot.
2) Cut out some leaf shapes from green felt. I used 2 leaves per flower.
3) Since this was gift for a 3yr old I cut the pointy end of the skewers off and made them all different lengths. It is easy to do this by scoring the skewer with the kitchen shears and then breaking the piece off with your hands.
4) use a little bit of glue on the end of leaves and a twistie tie to
hold the leaf in place while the glue dries
5) Lay out the head band as shown in the first picture, then roll from the large side to the short side onto a skewer keeping the elastic tucked inside. secure with a rubber band and then cover the rubber band with ribbon or ricrac.
6) Another way to do the flowers (which I like better) is to use a needle and thread to make a basting/gathering stitch along the bottom of the head band. Lay the head band out as shown and start at "a" go to "b" and end at "c". Pull the thread tight to bunch up the fabric. Roll onto skewer and secure as before.
7) Insert into pot and cove
r foam with Easter grass, pebbles, or rafia.
Leave a comment (on this post) from now until Monday morning 6am Central time and 2 lucky winners will receive a free copy of my Reversible Headbands tutorial. I will choose the winner by using a random number generator. If you don't win you can buy the tutorial at my Etsy Shop
I made a set of 3 headbands for a little friend of my daughter for her birthday. I couldn't think of an appropriate way to wrap these up that would make them look substantial. Don't get me wrong I think these make great gifts but if you were to just wrap them up it would be a tiny package and wouldn't compare to the mounds of plastic toys at a birthday party. Even though if you went out and bought the headbands you'd be spending at least $5 a piece so that's a $15 gift but would look like a $1 gift if not packaged accordingly.
So I ran around the house this morning and looked for things I could use. I spotted and empty little flower pot and a recent tutorial came to mind: April Flowers over on the Going Sew Crazy blog.
Thus was born the Headband Bouquet!
Materials:
- Fabric headbands
- Glue
- Scissors and kitchen shears
- Glue
- Bamboo skewers, or fun pencils
- Felt
- Needle and thread
- Ribbon or ricrac
- Rubber Bands, or green floral wire
- Floral Foam
- Trash twistie ties
- Rocks or something to weigh don the pot
- Raffia, moss, or something to cover the floral foam
1) Add a few rocks to the bottom of the pot. Cut a piece of floral foam to fit snugly in to the pot and about 1/4 inch below the top of the pot.2) Cut out some leaf shapes from green felt. I used 2 leaves per flower.
3) Since this was gift for a 3yr old I cut the pointy end of the skewers off and made them all different lengths. It is easy to do this by scoring the skewer with the kitchen shears and then breaking the piece off with your hands.
4) use a little bit of glue on the end of leaves and a twistie tie to
hold the leaf in place while the glue dries5) Lay out the head band as shown in the first picture, then roll from the large side to the short side onto a skewer keeping the elastic tucked inside. secure with a rubber band and then cover the rubber band with ribbon or ricrac.
6) Another way to do the flowers (which I like better) is to use a needle and thread to make a basting/gathering stitch along the bottom of the head band. Lay the head band out as shown and start at "a" go to "b" and end at "c". Pull the thread tight to bunch up the fabric. Roll onto skewer and secure as before.
7) Insert into pot and cove
r foam with Easter grass, pebbles, or rafia.
Free Motion Quilting
Last weekend I was able to take a "beginner machine quilting" class. I mainly signed up just to get some practice. I figured I wouldn't learn much since "I know quite a bit about quilting." For $25 I thought that maybe the teacher could help me figure out the tension on my Kenmore 19233 for free motion quilting.
You see, I have owned my Kenmore (made by Janome) for about 4-5 years, and have gotten it to work perfectly for everyday sewing. But when it came to free motion quilting, I could never get the tension just right. I would always get loops from the top thread on the back side of the quilt. Well when I was at the quilting class the teacher tried to help me but no adjustment would help. Finally she called the quilt shop owner who is pretty dang savvy when it comes to all different types of machines. Well after about 3 minutes she figured out I wasn't threading my machine correctly! Go figure! After 5 years of owning my machine I've been doing it wrong the whole time!
See the little green arrow? (feel free to click to enlarge) I have always missed looping the thread around that little hook there.
You see, I have owned my Kenmore (made by Janome) for about 4-5 years, and have gotten it to work perfectly for everyday sewing. But when it came to free motion quilting, I could never get the tension just right. I would always get loops from the top thread on the back side of the quilt. Well when I was at the quilting class the teacher tried to help me but no adjustment would help. Finally she called the quilt shop owner who is pretty dang savvy when it comes to all different types of machines. Well after about 3 minutes she figured out I wasn't threading my machine correctly! Go figure! After 5 years of owning my machine I've been doing it wrong the whole time!Wrong:
See the little green arrow? (feel free to click to enlarge) I have always missed looping the thread around that little hook there.
...and this is the way it's supposed to thread!
Well as soon as the quilt shop owner made that change my machine was free motion-ing like a dream! No more loops... and to think I was too darned prideful to think I would learn anything at a beginner class. I wasn't even threading the machine right - what a rookie mistake! LOL
But it doesn't end there. When I got home I decided to clean and oil my machine (now this particular machine does not have any oiling instructions - it claims to not need oil) Well I know enough about mechanical things to figure out where a little oil could be useful especially if the machine is getting loud and clunky sounding -like mine was. Well after it was all cleaned (and after a run in between my poor finger and the shuttle hook race - I'll spare you the gory details) I made up a practice quilt sandwich. To my horror and surprise the loops were back.
I spent the next 1/2 hour trying to figure out the tension all over again. Adjusting the top thread tension only got me so far. Close to perfect but not good enough. I checked my manual for instructions on how to adjust the bobbin tension and found no instructions whatsoever. You see my machine is a top loading bobbin machine. And I guess they just think that information is not applicable for some weird reason. So I took my machine apart once more and guess what I discovered?
My bobbin adjustment screw!!! See that little screw front and center in the above pic? On the black plastic? That's it. I had never noticed it before. The only reason I even know what it is, is from my old sewing machine that had a regular vertical bobbin thinga-ma-jiggy. Anyway if you rotate that little screw to the left it loosens the bobbin tension, go the other way and it tightens the bobbin tension. Lefty loosey righty tighty.
One other thing I was doing wrong, I was using metal bobbins that fit... but I realized that they created too much drag. So I switched to some plastic ones and the drag was virtually gone!
Yay! so now my machine free motions awesomely. I was able to do the quilting on my DQS6 quilt in one evening and the best part is: No Loops!
Things learned:
But it doesn't end there. When I got home I decided to clean and oil my machine (now this particular machine does not have any oiling instructions - it claims to not need oil) Well I know enough about mechanical things to figure out where a little oil could be useful especially if the machine is getting loud and clunky sounding -like mine was. Well after it was all cleaned (and after a run in between my poor finger and the shuttle hook race - I'll spare you the gory details) I made up a practice quilt sandwich. To my horror and surprise the loops were back.
I spent the next 1/2 hour trying to figure out the tension all over again. Adjusting the top thread tension only got me so far. Close to perfect but not good enough. I checked my manual for instructions on how to adjust the bobbin tension and found no instructions whatsoever. You see my machine is a top loading bobbin machine. And I guess they just think that information is not applicable for some weird reason. So I took my machine apart once more and guess what I discovered?
My bobbin adjustment screw!!! See that little screw front and center in the above pic? On the black plastic? That's it. I had never noticed it before. The only reason I even know what it is, is from my old sewing machine that had a regular vertical bobbin thinga-ma-jiggy. Anyway if you rotate that little screw to the left it loosens the bobbin tension, go the other way and it tightens the bobbin tension. Lefty loosey righty tighty.
One other thing I was doing wrong, I was using metal bobbins that fit... but I realized that they created too much drag. So I switched to some plastic ones and the drag was virtually gone!
Yay! so now my machine free motions awesomely. I was able to do the quilting on my DQS6 quilt in one evening and the best part is: No Loops!
Things learned:
- Thread machine correctly, oh and use a cone holder thingy if you are using a cone of thread.
- Check top thread tension
- Check bobbin tension
- Use the right kind of bobbins
- Unplug the foot pedal when cleaning machine so as not to accidentally tap it.
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