First I want to welcome new followers to the blog who found me though the Grow Your Blog Party from last week! It has been a pleasure reading your comments and finding more new blog friends with similar interests. I really can feel the "web-ness" of the WWW when we do things like the blog party, which connects people from all over through a desire to share all the fun things we do.
Then, last week was a week of a lot of sewing! The week before I finally bought myself a Baby Lock Eclipse serger (after thinking about one for at least 6 months)...
I had one serger lesson before I took LisAnn's Serger Club Tiered Skirt class at Country Sew and now I can very quickly and easily make skirts...
What I love about the serger (also called an overlock machine) is that it does several things at the same time in the sewing process. It is essentially a finishing machine (all those weird stitches you see at the edges of your clothing seams, those are overlocked -- keeps fabric from fraying), but it also can gather and of course it cuts the edges of your stitches so instead of 5 or 6 steps with a regular sewing machine to make gathers (pin, baste, gather, stitch, take out basting, trim seams), it does all that in one step. In the class we learned how to make the casing for elastic (like a blind hem for you sewers out there), how to figure out the fabric for the tiers, and for the hem, a nice rolled hem stitch.
And then yesterday, I went to Oakland for an all day workshop at the lovely A Verb For Keeping Warm yarn and fabric shop. The workshop was to learn the basics of the Alabama Chanin hand-sewn method of stenciling, stitching, and cutting a garment. We made a simple bandana sampler as a beginner project.
Here is a section of three ways of stitching around the cut or stenciled areas...
All of Alabama Chanin clothing is made on jersey knit (think t-shirt material). I had never actually worked with jersey before so I discovered how difficult it is to cut when I was making the squares to bring to the workshop. I guess it takes a little getting used to. And lest you think oh, t-shirt material, how plain can that be, check out her collection. Keep in mind these are all hand-sewn and take weeks to make... and cost thousands of dollars if you want the full embroidered beaded clothing!
love your new sewing machine and can tell already that you are going to have lots of fun with this! Enjoy! perfect time of year for sewing!
ReplyDeleteYes this is more when I want to stay warm inside, although we have not had a very cold winter here (in California) this year. But it is nice to have a new sewing "toy" to make things on! Now to just sit and do it! Thanks for visiting!
DeleteI've been following your blog for a very long time. Sorry, I just never signed up as a follower, but I did it today. I'll have to look into this (Grow Your Blog) to check this out. You have a lovely blog. I am a quilter in Israel.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by my blog and leaving your nice comment. I appreciate that you are now a follower (I think it makes it easier to see when I have made a new post and that always encourages me to do more blogging!) I always love finding a new quilting blog so I will check out yours too! Thanks for visiting from halfway around the world!
Deleteoh how fun to have a new serger. I love mine and just dragged it out to make clothes for my 6 granddaughters. ENJOY
DeleteThanks CatieAn... I am really enjoying using it so far!
DeleteA serger, huh? Never had one but sewed on one a time or two. As I remember, it went hellaciously fast. The skirt fabric is cool. Haven't worn a skirt in too many years to remember, altho I always liked the *idea* of skirts.
ReplyDeleteThe cool thing about this skirt is that it is entirely done on the serger, and once I have made a couple more I am sure it will go very fast. I wanted to start going to English Country Dance again and needed a skirt. I also haven't worn one for years but they are fun for dancing!
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