Monday, July 29, 2013

Angry bird pjs

Its been over a year since i've sewn anything for the boys but I'm happy to finally have a sewing room backds#1 has been asking for a new pair of pjs for at least 6 months now (ever since the start of the attic reno) so when I told him he could design his own pjs he was ecstatic - of course I had to make ds2 and ds3 a pair too - I found the angry bird online for free and then just formatted it have two of them. These pjs took me almost 2 weeks to make (because dd4 won't go to bed any earlier than 10) but the smiles on my sons faces when they realized they have a ''pee-pee hole" was priceless, it had them in stitches for over 1/2 hour saying mama look at my dingle dangle. I used ottobre 6/2010 #14 for the pants and #18 for the shirts leaving off the sleeve overarm patch because i wanted to use my binder for the neckline - i hate working with this rib knit in my coverstitch machine using my binder - the first time i thought it was just inexperience in using the machine but now I think it's the fabric - i guess that what you get for buying it in the clearance section and not knowing the content of the fabric.

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ottobre 6/2010 angry bird pjs

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Threading a Consew 75T blind hemmer / blind stitch machine

Back in December I purchased a blind stitch machine. Now some maybe wondering why on earth I would need another machine for blind stitching when my sewing machine already has a blind hem stitch on it. Well at the time of making my curtains I practiced on scrape fabric to see if in fact my domestic machine would be able to sew through the layers - as I suspected it wouldn't as with any domestic you have to flip over the fabric in order for it to do a blindhem stitch - I could have done it by hand but we were talking about yards of blind heming here and I wasn't up for the that. So I purchased the consew 75t for $100. For the price, I love the machine - it wouldn't go over the extremely bulky parts of my curtains (double folded and interlined and lined ) but I knew that when I purchased it, so i just did these parts by hand. So the difference between a true blind hem machine /stitch machine is that it only uses one thread to make a blind hem instead of the domestic machine which uses the thread and a bobbin thread. A domestic sewing machine stitches 3 straight stitches then a zig-zag.  This one difference makes ripping it out extremely easy and it looks way more professional in my opinion. If I didn't have so many layers I probably would have just used my sewing machine but I do love my blind hem machine and wouldn't give it up - as for anything sewing related - professional results are achieved with the right tool for the job.

blind hem sides

Here is a quick video of how to thread the machine too!