Miss Loreen's Schoolhouse

What a embroidery nightmare!!

Tell me this has happened to you..........PLEASE!!  I am working on pincushions for the farmer's market.  I wanted to do some samples with embroidery on them as you have probably seen in one of my photo albums.  I digitize four designs at a time that fit nicely in one hooping.  I made the designs all the same so there would be less color changes.  Ok, working good so far.  The embroidery is going along fine and I finally feel comfortable enough to leave the room.  Not the best idea apparently.  I just wanted to go to the bathroom!!  I came back and one of the designs is practically sucked down into the bobbin area.  Of course, I have to hack it to shreds just to get it out of the sewing machine.  Did I mention that I put the hope down on top of another fabric before I started cutting away??  Now I have a hole where one of the designs was when I left the room and another innocent fabric with a few random slices in it.  Sounds like I saved three designs easily, doesn't it?  NOPE.  You see, the designs weren't finished stitching out and now I have this big hole where there is no fabric, no stabilizer, nothing.  Now I have to become Dr. Frankenstein and patch up the hole with pieces of extra stabilizer, making sure I don't tear the good stabilizer.  Did I mention that I was using "tear away" stabilizer???  Did I mention that I have to keep everything hooped so it will all line up again??  Now I'm sure that you expert embroiderers (is that a word?) will scoff at my solution but I decided to patch it up and use a little hand stitching to keep everything together.  Maybe I just have to be neat, I don't know.  I only had about a half inch between each design so I could only spray adhesive on the bottom but I needed a little something on top so the foot wouldn't catch in the shreds.  Ok, I didn't think to shut the overhead fan off so the top piece of stabilizer would just stay put on its own.  I was pretty hot by that time!

Got it done and save the remaining three designs so I guess that's all that matter.  I didn't think at the time to take pictures for you to laugh at........I mean LOOK at.  You could picture how a stuffed animal might look after a dog finished with it and that would be close.  Now back to work!

Keep stitching,
loreen

Senior Discount!!

I went to Denny's for breakfast yesterday and noticed that the senior discount menu was for ages 55 and over so I thought "What the heck!"  When the waitress came over, I gave my order and waited patiently for her to question whether or not I was old enough for the senior's menu!  HA! HA! HA! I'd have had a long wait!  No, she never asked me.  Never batted an eye, raised an eyebrow or hesitated one little bitty second before writing down my order.  The only thing she asked me was what did I want to drink.  Now how deflating was that.  It's not like I'm 65 or 70.  I'm 58!  That's only three years over the 55 required age.  Back in the day, I was asked for ID to prove I was over 21 and I was over 30.  I guess the years haven't been all that kind and my mirror is really telling me the truth.  All this time I thought it was bad lighting..............

I'm sobbing in my sewing,
loreen

Embroidered Pincushions

Well, I started on the embroidered pincushions.  I digitized the pincushions so that I could sew the back to the front while still in the hoop.  The stitching wasn't as great as I had hoped so I went back to the drawing board and shorten the stitch length but I still wasn't thrilled with it.  I think I will try digitizing a bean stitch as my last resort.  A bean stitch is a triple stitch so hopefully that will give it the strength t hese cushions need since they are stuff pretty full.  I went ahead and stuffed the pincushions I had done so far and I now need to hand stitch to close the little openings.  I practiced using some of my old workmates names and/or initials.  Hopefully, I will be able to give these to them some time in the future as a thanks for being fun to work with.  Hope they won't peak at the pictures beforehand!  LOL!!

The round pincushions didn't come out as nice as I would have liked.  I think it may have been the tear away stabilizer that I had used.  I had a very hard time getting the stabilizer off where the regular stitching was and didn't want to yank on that area too hard.  I used a cheapy stabilizer so I've learned my lesson there.  It was practically a cutaway instead of a tear away.  Live and learn!

There's one picture showing the back fabric I used on all of the cushions.  It's a Loralie sewing notions fabric.  Pretty cute! I added an extra picture with the pincushions (in Sewing Necessaries) showing how I embroidered four tops at a time.  I haven't pressed these yet and hopefully, the wrinkles will come out easily.  Wished I could same the same for the ones appearing on my face!!

Update on knitted socks!

Not much progress on my knitted socks.  I am knitting from the toe up and must admit I had to start the poor toe twice before I got the hang of it.  I've made it beyond the toe and now on an easy section between the toe and heel.  I'm using five double pointed needles.  I did have the option of using two circular needles but that seemed like a catastrophe waiting to happen so thought I'd avoid that mess!    Check out my knitting projects photo library for more pictures.  I used the yarn that automatically makes a design as you knit the sock. There is a picture of what the sock pattern actually looks like if knitted correctly!  Unfortunately, I think this is configured on knitting the sock from the top down and I am knitting from the toe up.  I thought I might be able to fix this problem by starting the yarn from the outside end instead of the inside end.  Since I haven't knitted something like this in quite some time, I'm not sure if things have changed and knitters now start with the yarn tail that is on the outside.  I remember years ago having to fish around inside the ball of yarn for the start end and creating quite a mess pulled outside in a pile before finding the starting end of the yarn.  You may have some pointers for me on this sock design business!

Back to knitting!
loreen  

New Blog Look!

It was time for a change on my blog so I'm going to try out a few looks over the next few weeks.  This is the newst look.  Hope you like it! 

Poot (Caspian) and I went to the park the other day.  He enjoyed the swing for about three minutes then wanted to run around!!

Happy sewing,
loreen

Pillowtalk!

I've been diligently working on pillowcases.  First I cut out all of the fabric, then sewed on the borders (hem edge) at the same time as I sewed on the little trims.  Once all of those were done, I sewed the side seams with a french seam and finally the bottom seam on the serger.   I did serge some of the side seams but decided I didn't care for that.  It went pretty quickly and the nice thing was that when I was finished I had a whole pile of pillowcases!  They make great gifts!  I will have to do some with Christmas fabrics. Check out the Pillowcase Photo Album for more pictures of these newest pillowcases.

Next project is a bunch of little pincushions. I want to embroidery some with names, some with initials and the rest with sewing notion embroideries on the top.  I'm going to try to sew a few round ones.  I have two choices on those.  First, I can get the embroidery done then sew the circles on my sewing machine with the new circular attachment I have. Secondly, I could digitize sewing the circle after the embroidery is finished.  I must remember to leave a place to turn the little devils right side out.  We'll see how that works out!  Wish me luck!!

Hope you're sewing today!
loreen

Knitting Socks!

It's been awhile since I have knitted so I thought I'd have a go at it once again.  I made a wash mitt from some great cotton.  Knitting only--no purling!!  The pattern was on the paper band that goes around the ball of yarn.  Simple and fun.  Nice while watching the old boob tube!  Does anyone remember the toy "Boob Tube"?  When I was a kid, my friend had a set of Boob Tubes (now doesn't that sound funny??) and I wanted some in the worst way.  I never did get any but my friend shared hers with me.  You had to have two people to play the game.  You had to get all the little balls down to the other end before the other person.  Don't know why I was so intrigued by those things but I could play for hours.

Anyway, I've advanced on in my knitting to a pair of socks knitted from the toe up.  The yarn feels great just to work with so my tootsies should love the socks.  As I was reading the instructions in the front of the book, it mentioned knitting with two pairs of circular needles.  It sounded a bit dangerous to me and I had images of not being able to get the sock off the needles when I was done due to a big tangled mess.  Then I remembered the internet.  Why not look for some instructions or maybe a video showing me how two circular needles worked to make one circle.  I "binged" knitting videos and found a fantastic site with a video showing me exactly what I wanted to see.   Check it out if you're trying to knit or trying to remember how to knit!  http://www.knittinghelp.com/

Can't say "keep sewing" so today it's
keep knitting!!
loreen

Update on Bunny Hill Designs - Tisket, Tasket

Finally, some of us (not me!) have finished the 2009 BOM from Bunny Hill Designs.   I loaded up the pictures for all of you to see.  Cute as can be!!  Bunny Hill has a new BOM series for 2010 with snowmen and it looks like another cutie!  Hope all of you join in the fun with this year's BOM.

If any of you have finished some of your blocks or your whole quilt, send pictures along and I'll add them to the Bunny Hill album.

Keep sewing,
loreen

More Aprons

Today I've added pictures of a couple of aprons to my Apron album. I put these together for my Chef daughter.  They were panels so it was quick and simple. A nice break from following along with a pattern or working my way through a big quilt.

I have a bunch of cloth book panels that I've picked up over the past few weeks for my grandson.  For awhile I couldn't find a cloth book panel to save my life and now I have about six of them to do.  I have one finished so I'll have to sneak it away from Caspian to take a few pictures!

Keep sewing,
loreen

Veggie Table Runner

When I was a kid, we had to do alot of canning in the summer when whatever vegetables were ready for picking.  In New England, we didn't have any such thing as air conditioning so canning could be a very hot process depending on the weather.  Of course New England is known for having cold summers as well but generally, as luck would have it, I don't recall any of those cool days when it was time for canning.  Once I was all grown up and had my own home, I continued canning.  I especially loved the bread and butter pickles.  Wonder what I did with that recipe?? I remember one time I tried my hand at dill pickles but found only one person was brave enough to eat more than a few.  Vlasic doesn't have to worry about me taking over the dill pickle market!

I've just finished "canning" the easy way!  My newest pattern is a quick and easy table runner with "cans" of veggies running down the center with borders of fabric and a little rickrack on each side.  Check out the "Sewing Projects" album for pictures.  

Here's a link to a recipe for bread and butter pickles you may want to try your hand at.  I remember my recipe had onions in it and though I don't like onions, I have to say they always tasted good in with the pickles!

Bread and Butter Pickle Recipe

Happy sewing,
loreen