Sunday, January 1, 2017

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

My new toy!
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and are having a Happy New Year. I'm recovering from last night's celebrations (ironing fabric while watching Twilight Zone) by watching the episode "Once Upon a Time" with Buster Keaton. It's hilarious.

I got a wonderful Christmas present this year, a Pfaff Coverlock 4.0. Actually, I got it during the Black Friday sales, so I've been using it for a month now, and already have had to empty the fabric catcher. Once I took the Jean-ius Craftsy class I realized that it would be a real help to my sewing efforts.

I know I haven't posted in quite a while and I do have a good reason. My daughter started a new job shortly before Thanksgiving and commutes to Denver each day. So we go to her house each morning, get the kids up and the older one off to school, then bring the toddler home, pick the older one up from school, monitor homework, feed them dinner and keep entertained. Her parents don't pick them up until after 6:30, so we are pretty exhausted by the end of the day. At least she can drive with her husband, who also works in Denver.

Great PJ pattern, I might make some for myself
I've done some sewing lately, and will post about it as I can. Right now, I'm working on two pair of PJ's for my granddaughter, as the ones I made in 2014 and 2013 are half way to her knees. I used the same pattern, Simplicity 2771, and even the same size. I just added 5 inches (13 cm) to the legs, and 2 inches (5 cm) to the bodice and sleeves.

Serged seam allowances
I've stitched the seams on the sewing machine, serged the edges, then topstitched the seams. I'm not ready to sew the entire garment on the serger.

Beautiful topstitched seam
My serger lessons begin on January 27, and run for three sessions. I was able to thread it on the third try, so I'm pretty happy about that. I was originally a bit nervous about the difficulty of threading it, but I finally realized that I've written more complicated procedures in past jobs. So I figured that I could handle it, and I have. Of course, I've only threaded it once, and only used the four thread overlock stitch. But I'm looking forward to trying the other stitches.

I'm trying to formulate plans for 2017, and will publish them later in the week. In the meantime, Happy Stitching in this New Year!

10 comments:

  1. Glad to see you back! The serger will definitely be a fun toy. I wouldn't mind one either! Good to know that it wasn't that hard to thread. The shop owner here was very big on the self threading one, at four times the price! Food for thought.

    Hard to believe gd has outgrown those pjs already! They were beautiful.

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    1. Thanks, I was really surprised to see her still wearing them even though they were so short.

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  2. Happy New Year, Cynthis! Nice toy!!!

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  3. Congrats on the new serger. Threading those babies is always a tad intimidating, but it sounds like you've already got it under control. All of your work is always finished so beautifully with your top stitching and trims. Is it even possible to do an entire garment with your pro finishes using a serger? I'll be interested to see what you learn from your lessons.

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    1. I think you can finish a garment entirely, but it may be more trouble than it's worth. It's so easy to go to the sewing machine for the topstitching, and of course, it's much easier to thread.

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