The last couple of days I have been wrestling with making Elvistoo a new cover ...
I find it frankly shocking that such expensive machines, as the Brother Innovis range are, are sold with the cheapest, nastiest, illfittingest plasticky piece of c*** for a cover ... hereafter ever known as Elvistoos bodybag and have long wanted to make a new cover for both my Elvis's ...
My first Elvis had an attached embroidery carriage which made the shape of any cover much more problematic; if I recall correctly
@twopence and
@Elnnina brashly offered to come up with a design for me ... thankfully it didnt happen and I traded Elvis in for his much bigger brother Elvistoo whose embroidery carriage was detachable making it a much more regular shape to fit.
There was a woman on FB recently who, after selling patterns for a cover for the V3, had decided in her magnanimity to allow those who had previously purchased them from her to redistribute the pattern freely. I got hold of one of these in the form of email pics and filed them away ready for the day .... which suddenly arrived on Saturday!
I printed all the info out and the lovely
@Puzzler and I sat down to try and work them out.
Most of the destruction were pics of a booklet which the lady who sent it to me hadn't bothered to unstaple so the writing was on the wonk and quite frankly I was pleased that Puzzler was with me because it was one almighty riddle.
I think it transpired that there were two separate patterns involved as pieces such as G and H weren't shown in any pics and although A and B were pertaining to the main body of the machine in the text the pics showing pieces A and B related to the embroidery carriage.
Long story short we ditched the destructions which proved to be a complete waste or ink, time and paper and worked from that Great British Childhood staple, A cornflakes packet (or two) ...
I drew round both ends of Elvistoo and we set about making a pattern from there. As we worked I realised this was no 5 minute job so my plans to make a practice one (to be donated to a V3 owner at the finish) turned into this was the Real Deal!
What a Faff !!!!! probably, no definitely all of my own making as I really dont understand how to sew 3D ... hence I'm just a lowly Darksider.
Puzzler taught me about clipping into the straight fabric to go round the curves and when I said I thought I would like to wad and quilt it very wisely left me to it.
Sunday was spent quilting, quilting, quilting ... I was only going round the (bloody doors) outline of the pattern, nothing fancy, schmancy but on Monday I was still quilting.
I should have given up ... but around midday there I was sewing curved pieces to straight or straight pieces to curved I misremember which way round I did it, probably a bit of both ... I know I started from the middle and worked out (can I hear lightsiders howling with laughter from here ??) and used a loooong stitch length just in case I had to use Jack.
Anyway it fit! in fact it was too loose ... so I started again, normal stitch length and at least a quarter inch inside my sewn line ... It still fitted so that was good but now the problem was evening up the edge/hem ????
I pinned and swore and bled for hours it seemed until I had something that resembled straightish lines around the edges ... but My God... the mess inside.
I thought and thought on how I could possibly tidy up the inside seams to no avail ... There wasn't enough fabric to turn the seams over/under?? so I decided to leave them as they were. The hem was a similar disaster and the only solution I could come up with was to sew a ribbon around the inside covering the mess underneath.
Still by the end of play on Monday Elvistoo had a proper (although very UnElvislike) well fitting cover (if no one looks too closely) ... but what of a cover for the embroidery carriage??? God, I'm sorry I haven't the strength!
Galloping horses are available on the right peeps, if you want to take a look at The Kings new jumpsuit!
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