There’s no place like home! And while all the rain is keeping us out of our gardens, it might be fun to tackle some sewing machine maintenance to keep our sewing machines in good running order. Let’s begin with some general sewing machine maintenance that applies to most machines. There are two equal and opposite …
Celebrating St Lucia’s Day
Did you know that Scandinavian countries will be celebrating St Lucia’s Day next Tuesday? St Lucia’s Day is a Swedish Festival of Light celebrated on December 13th. In the old Julian calendar December 13th was the date of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Lucia or Lucy means light. Although it’s a …
Fabricating Postcards
I have a pet project. It’s fabricating postcards. I’ll show you a simple way to make fabric postcards with favourite fabrics on your sewing machine. Small is Beautiful One of my favourite things about fabricating postcards is that they’re a small fast, easy-to-finish project; a perfect opportunity to try out something new on a small …
Making Moana Waves
Recently, I watched the Disney movie Moana and decided to transform the primitive wave motif that appears in the movie title, into a free motion quilting line design. I like to call it making Moana waves. Regrettably, I missed Moana the first time around. Our kids had passed their Disney princess stage when Moana came …
Marie makes McCalls 7969
Marie Lawlor shares about her make of the ever-so-popular McCalls 7969 dress. Happily, a favourite fabric finally found the perfect pattern. The Pattern This McCalls pattern has been a sewing community cult favourite for over 2 years now, and I can finally understand why! I will admit, that when I first saw it, M7969 wasn’t …
Making Knickers with Mercedes
Mercedes has a knack for Nickers! You can visit Mercedes and lots of other sewing celeb’s in Birmingham this month at Sewing for Pleasure. Juki is hosting a series of Sewing Celeb Workshops. Mercedes is offering workshops on her Fold Over Elastic techniques on Saturday and Sunday at 3:15. Making Knickers with Mercedes will help …
Fabric Postcard Swap
I love making fabric postcards! I’ve been making them for years. It’s fun to send and receive postcards during the Valentine season. Here’s a post from the archives about a fabric postcard swap, hosted by Kate Brown @sparklestash. During a swap people get to make and receive fabric postcards from all over the world. During …
Stitching Christmas Postcards
Home stitched fabric postcards are like sending a hug through the post. It’s one of my favourite ways of connecting with family and friends. This post shows how to make fabric postcards free motion quilted on a long arm or quilting frame. Longarm quilting your postcards, allows you to quilt all the Christmas cards on …
Upcycle with Ellie
Meet Ellie Bannerman. We discovered Ellie on the @the.seam.uk – a cool site that helps people find sewists in their area who upcycle and do alterations. When I noticed that Ellie was using a Juki overlocker, I asked her if she would share about what she does. Here’s what she said. Starting out Ever since …
Marie sews silk chiffon
The Fabric Sewing with crinkle silk chiffon is possibly the most challenging substrate I have sewn with to date. I am the kind of person who can become bogged down in minor details, talk myself in circles and procrastinate on a seemingly difficult (or new) task. I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to …