Sunday, May 26, 2013

I truly have a problem

I just helped a friend sort through her mother's fabric stash, destined for a fabric recycler, packed up in about 50 garbage bags.

I came home with five (5) garbage bags of fabric lengths. Highlights include wool felt, polyester felt, and a natural 100% virgin wool length that feels good enough on the skin to spread on toast.


Friday, May 24, 2013

I just took Gunny Jane to the sewing machine spa. I won't see her until Wednesday, next week.

Funny, how the urge to embroider something REALLY BIG strikes the minute you drop your big embroidery machine off for maintenance.

For the Dignified Assassin




 Dignity, with a bit of flash. My son's sai case was both easier and harder to do than my daughter's. There was a learning curve with hers, definitely, but there were a few challenges unique to this case with this design.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Static cling tape


The guy on the left popped up in my worm bin in March. So I planted it in a coffee cup and put it in the window. As of today, we got four purple beans off it, and the cats got to the rest. I don't expect quite as much from the avocado next to it.

But this is a sewing blog, and so I bring up the sewing thing: cling tape!


Monday, May 20, 2013

Off-Label, May, 2013

Does anyone still quilt? And does anyone still pin their sandwiches instead of using basting spray adhesive? And does anyone care that a serrated vegetable peeler will do the same job as a pin-closing doo-thangy you can buy at a quilting store, AND sharpen your marking pencils?

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Sai Case Details - for the feminine deadly assassin


You get things done when you stop whistling while you work. While you work with a BBQ lighter, anyway.

The Unbroken Thread


 When you find a thread in the carpet upstairs, it's no big deal. It was probably tracked from the sewing room. However, when you pick it up and discover it's still attached to something, you follow that thread to its source.


CATS and SERGERS don't mix.


Friday, May 17, 2013


One thing I learned today, while making a carrier for some kobudo stuff, is that you shouldn't whistle while you work if you're using a lighter to fuse the ends of nylon webbing.

Just thought I'd share that.

I'm supposed to be tidying my work area, and I keep finding things to read





This is just the part I'm not as ashamed to show. But digging through the hoard is a lot like sifting the compost heap: sometimes you turn up the toy soldier from yesteryear, the spoon you probably used to scrape the bottom of the kitchen bucket last year, or the weeding fork that was carelessly tossed into the pile with all the weeds.

I found another list someone at some sewing store or other had made when recommending useful items for sewing. I included a couple of items of my own... and never forwarded the list to the next person. Because that's what happens when you buy fabric without a purpose. And this was OLD, from my own toddler years!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Advice I wanted to give my sister-in-law when she got her first sewing machine





OK, see this, up there? This is why I'm not much into sewing right now. It's springtime in Ontario, an especially cruel, fickle, brief season that follows the cruel, fickle, lengthy winter. It makes whiners of every Canadian you'll ever meet. This is what my gorgeous cherry tree looked like before Mother's Day. Then it snowed and sleeted and rained and sleeted some more on Mother's Day. With some hail on Tuesday morning, as an afterthought. I blame the Toronto Maple Leafs for dragging out their playoff chances. Clearly, SOMETHING had frozen over! (In classic Leafs tradition, when they occasionally make the playoffs, they choke in Game 7 overtime. The temperatures climbed to 22C the next day. Coincidence? Not bloody likely!)

However, in this can't-garden/don't-wanna-sew-wanna-garden weather, I found a box I had NOT sent to my sister-in-law. This is important. She was not supposed to get this box. It contained everything I wish people had not done "for" me when I seriously got back into sewing 15 years ago.