Monthly Archives: January 2013

How to avoid the sewing machine chewing up your fabric without using leaders

26 Saturday Jan 2013

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Does this happen to you?

P1050453This happens to me all the time. Even when using a leader, as I did this time, the sewing machine chews up the beginning of the fabric.

I have the answer

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This small piece of paper can avoid all these hassles. This is what I worked out. I place the fabric to be sewed on the edge of a small piece of photocopy paper, slide it under the presser foot and start sewing. It’s like magic! It sews beautifully and when you’ve finished you just remove it like you would if you were foundation paper piecing.

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At least the fabric’s organised

26 Saturday Jan 2013

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I have finished the fabric organisation. Oh my goodness! It was so hot! Anyway now it’s done and I have to turn to the cutting table and the sewing machine table. More pics when it’s done.
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Getting organised

25 Friday Jan 2013

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After visiting my friend Lorena’s studio and seeing how beautifully organised she is I felt that my sewing room (see below) was sorely in need of a good sorting out.

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I always thought that the IKEA Expedit shelves would be great for fabric but I have found the depth of them a mixed blessing. I was keeping my fabrics folded as fat quarters and that led to piles two deep and due to the small cross-section they were very unstable. However, I noticed that Lorena had the same shelves but had folded her fabric lengthways so you can have more fabric per stack, which is more stable and you can see them all. So obvious when someone else has had the bright spark moment for you!

Here’s where I’m up to. It’s hot and I’m taking a rest from slaving over a hot iron. It takes so long to do this stuff. I’ve been at it for 4  plus hours already!

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As you can see I still have along way to go!

Playing around in Camelot

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

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I’ve finished 15of the 16 Camelot blocks now and I played around with them on my bed to see what fabrics I needed for Block 16. This is only a provisional layout and the background will most likely be Black Painter’s Canvas but it’ll give you an idea of how the blocks play together.Image

Blocks 11 and 12

17 Thursday Jan 2013

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I’m powering along through these blocks. I’ve ordered some of Laura Gunn’s Painter’s Canvas in Black to use as the background. I’m hoping that might work better than the grey with white dots.

Here are the latest two blocks.

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The trials and tribulation of Block 10

13 Sunday Jan 2013

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Do you see anything wrong with this picture?
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I didn’t have any of Heather’s ready-made templates to use with Bock 10 so I had to go back to the pattern. I tried to use Heather’s redrawn blocks but my printer wouldn’t print them the right size so I thought I would just use the original pattern. Then I looked at it and saw just how poorly drawn it was. The small segment is supposed to finish at the centre of the circle but as you can see you are supposed to cut the circular band on the fold and the fold line is way off the end of the segment block! I had to turn to EQ – not my favourite program. I had to redraw the block as a quadrant of a Mariner’s Compass and then print it onto freezer paper. Because of this I decided to make a virtue of necessity and I made the circular band in quadrants instead of a plain circle.

Anyway here is the resulting block.

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Halfway to Camelot and then some…

08 Tuesday Jan 2013

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Making the Camelot quilt has been interesting. I know this sounds silly but I really took no notice of the name, it was just a label. I was surprised when I looked at my blocks and they seemed very heraldic. They reminded me of knights at a jousting tournament. It was only when I articulated this that I realised that was very fitting for a quilt called Camelot!

I have seen many others of this quilt and all are gorgeous but none reminded me of medieval times. That’s why I was surprised when mine did, especially as I have used modern fabrics.

Here’s a photo of the nine completed blocks on what may become the background. I’m actually not sure I like them together. Anyway I’ll wait until I have the other colourways completed.

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