Sunday 25 February 2018

Sewing Room Woes









This weekend, I am lucky enough to have the house to myself, The Scout, Miss B and Mr J are all at a Venturer Camp.

A couple of days prior I had basted my Sea Glass Sampler quilt using spray glue and some pins (cos I want to make sure it doesn't move), ready to attack the quilting on this beastie.  Imagine my heart break, when every time I attempted to machine quilt a line, the backing kept puckering.  It appears that wool batting does not like being glue basted and doesn't adhere very well. I have given up trying to machine quilt it, added more pins and started hand quilting it instead, which funnily enough I had dreamed about doing the night before.  I am actually enjoying the process,  which may be slow, and I have no real quilting plan, but is a lot easier  than trying to wrestle a quilt through my domestic machine.

There is another disaster story to add to my sewing woes, it appears that three of my completed Solstice Dream blocks, were made using felt squares were from the offcuts bag.  I have all the block patterns in a flip file - one per pocket, and when I am ready to sew some more blocks, I add the felt and fabrics I want to use to these pockets.  Since these errors - I have gone through and put correct sized pieces of felt in all the pockets now. I think to make my inner perfectionist happy, all three blocks will be redone on the correct sized felt.  Maybe I'll turn these ones into pin cushions.

And in other sewing news - look what I am now the proud owner of.  She was made in c1939. A lot of cleaning, and polishing needs to be done, a new belt needs to be installed and then we'll all be able to laugh at my lack of co-ordination trying to operate her.

Wishing you all a fabulous week ahead.

















12 comments:

  1. Oh Julie! What a time you have had of it!! I've also experienced the instability of wool batting and will always use cotton if I want to machine quilt! And your beautiful felt embroideries...! Would it be possible to border them with some of the pretty floral to bring them up to size, or would that spoil the design? Here's to many happy sewing adventures with your new Singer!

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  2. Oh sod it! Times like this can get us down. The hand quilting looks lovely, pretty thread. Can you get more of the wool felt for your backgrounds? Perhaps we could set our treadles up side by side and have a hysterical laugh at each other trying to co-ordinate our hands and feet......:-)

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  3. The hand quilting looks fantastic, neat stitches that enhance the quilt. Love the new Singer, looking forward to your adventures using that.

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  4. Your hand quilting is beautiful, I am always impressed by how straight and even people can make their stitching. x

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  5. Oh my goodness, what a time you've had! I haven't spray basted before, so can't offer any advice. But your hand quiltng is wonderful!

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  6. That's so frustrating! And just when you could have enjoyed a personal quilting retreat of sorts! I've never had problems with wool batting, but I've also never spray basted (my Lupus can't deal with it). I've always had a gazillion pins instead, which of course takes forever to put in and have to stop a lot to take out. . . Always have to consider the yin and yang with every choice we face, eh? Your hand quilting is so pretty - love that thread! Sometimes I really think the problem-solving we get forced into turns out prettier than what we originally intended.

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  7. I think your hand quilting is beautiful and the perfect choice for your quilt.
    Thanks for sharing your ups and downs, I go through frustrations too and sometimes
    wonder if I'm the only one!
    And your new Singer looks like a treasure.

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  8. Well, your stitches look great! It will take longer but you will love it I'm sure.

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  9. Oh my!
    I do appreciate that you share the frustrations too. We tend to post only the POSITIVE, in all honesty, some days are UGLY.
    Your Singer looks like you will LOVE!!

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  10. I learned to sew on a machine like that at school, then I was given one by a friend of my Mum's. I did so much sewing on it, both dressmaking and curtain making. I even made my peach satin bridesmaid's dress for my sister's wedding. Seeing your photo has brought back happy memories!!

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  11. Beautiful hand quilting on Sea Glass Julie, really lovely. Shame about the wrong sized pieces of felt - so frustrating when this sort of thing happens but at least it is recoverable. Love the Singer machine - I'm guessing she's a treadle, I should to get my hands on one for my place.

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  12. Although I read about it on instagram... oh the angst!! Nothing worse than finding you have spent time on something that is inherently wrong. BUT... I adore the hand quilting... so I think this was fate stepping in.

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