Sewing Mojo

The mornings may be colder but you can't beat a sunny winter's morning.

I think I must be solar-powered, as it really get's me moving!

 You may have caught a peek at my Christmas present (to myself!) in the Dolly Sling post..I'm sooo happy to finally have a fully working sewing machine!

I've got a Janome DC3050, from eBay for £180 and she's lovely!

I've got feet and stitches I don't know what to do with but it's the basic's I love, the ability to feed material through with no pushing or pulling and having adjustable speed control - it's effortless.

So after feeling nervous about actually using her instead of gazing wistfully at her, I jumped straight in, not worried about technique or looks, just getting down to some simple sewing. You know that feeling where you don't care how it turns out as it's the actual process of doing it that's the fun bit?

Which is fortunate as with the project below, I forgot to leave the opening for turning out and had to unpick and (hurrah!) do More sewing!!

So firstly I've finished Rowan's Christmas present!

The rectangle of knitting has now been backed with this gorgeous giraffe safari print and I added in a few ribbon taggies around the edges.

I've had a go at making a dribble bib, using a hungry caterpillar fat quarter and an old terry towelling cot sheet. Used one of the machines fancy stretch stitches for it as it didn't feed properly with a straight stitch.

 

A last minute project is a Kirtle! My daughter is having a Tudor day which requires a costume, so I found on the Hampton Court Palace website an actual pattern for a girls tudor style bodice dress.

I'm only loosely following the instructions as it doesn't need to be accurate. I got the green fabric from the charity shop for £3 and also bought a child's dress for the net underskirt for £3.

Lastly is my largest project, still in progress, the Hungry Caterpillar quilt, I got this from the Festival of Quilts in August and have just started it, hopefully it will be a play mat for Rowan.

It's really simple, the hardest part for me is cutting straight lines with my rotary cutter and too-small cutting mat (bigger is definitely better!) and then sewing a straight line! It's harder then it looks, would love a 1/4" foot for the machine!

Still I'm enjoying it and I think it'll look great when finished.