Oh my gosh, you guys! I completed a whole sewing project from start to finish last night in under an hour! This is what it must feel like to own a sewing machine but NOT be a quilter!!
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| A Sewing Project Completed Start to Finish in Under an Hour! |
This is something I’ve been “fixing to do” for a couple of years now, just “waiting to get a round tuit” that never arrived… No pattern; just eyeballed an old, stretched out elastic contraption that needed replacing and replicated it with some purple elastic from my garment supply stash and a little piece of jacquard ribbon to make it pretty. This elastic strap slips on and off over my iPad case quickly and easily and has a channel stitched to securely hold my Apple Pencil.
I even used one of the high tech gizmos on the new B 990 sewing machine. When top stitching my ribbon in place with Edgestitch Foot #10D, I turned on the laser that shows exactly where my needle is positioned to stitch on my project; see that red dot below on the black ribbon?
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| B 990 Laser Helps Position Edge Stitching |
On previous machines, I would have tried out different out of center needle positions one click at a time, lowering the needle to see how far I was about to stitch from the edge, but it was faster (and more fun) to just turn on the red laser dot. One, two clicks to the left, looks perfect, GO! I only turned the laser on to select my needle position; did not leave it on for sewing. I used two different utility stitches, the three step zigzag stitch to overcast the raw cut edges of my elastic to prevent fraying with use, and the triple straight stitch around my ribbon flower and along the edges of the long, skinny pocket for holding the Apple Pencil. I used Mettler Metrosene all-purpose polyester thread and a Schmetz Stretch needle in size 90. I wish I had a closer thread color match to the color of my elastic, but I wanted a strong poly thread for durability and I don’t have anywhere near the stash of colors in all purpose poly that I have for quilting, appliqué, embroidery etc. This was an impulse project chosen primarily so I could procrastinate packing for my trip.
Maybe I should do more projects that don’t take 6 years to finish?
Speaking of projects that take years to finish… I did get a bit more quilting done on Marybeth’s 1984 WIP sampler quilt this week. I added some hand guided ruler work quilting to the three blocks that I quilted with computerized designs the last time I posted about this project:
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| Continuous Curves Ruler Quilting Added Around Digital Block Design |
My hand guided quilting is nowhere near as nice as the computerized design but the block looked unfinished to me before. I’m doing the best I can but it’s a learning process and if I keeping stopping to rip out quilting and redo it, I’ll never get the quilt back to Marybeth!
