The Sewing Place

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Topics - Sheilago

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A Good Yarn / Baby collection
« on: March 21, 2024, 13:09:26 PM »
I love knitting for new babies. These are all the things I’ve done since Christmas for a cousin’s grandchild due in the summer- a special baby which is quite a surprise first baby. I also sewed a nappy caddy and some burp cloths . They don’t know the sex of the baby, so I had to keep things neutral.
Don’t know what I’m going to do now- no more family babies in the offing.

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A Good Yarn / Why didn’t I make this years ago?
« on: February 25, 2024, 18:53:59 PM »
Browsing on Etsy, I saw an organiser for double pointed pins and thought I could easily make one. I made this one this afternoon in half an hour, which makes me think why didn’t I make it years ago. I made one ages ago to store all my crochet hooks and this is so similar. No more scrabbling around looking for matching dpns. :D
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A Good Yarn / Anyone knitted purlsoho cowl - my join is not working
« on: December 05, 2023, 08:51:29 AM »
I’m knitting this pattern - https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/two-color-cotton-cowl as part of my sister’s Christmas gift, using Drops baby merino rather than cotton. It’s going ok, barring a couple of mistakes that are very difficult to fix, but try as I might I can’t get the bit where the rounds join to be neat. I’m making sure that the yarns are twisted together when I change from one colour to another and knitting tightly, but it’s such a mess that I think I’ll have to just sew a seam effectively. I’ve already sewn a little of it up. I just wondered if anyone had done something similar . I’ve looked on Ravelry, but no one mentions having difficulty with the join.
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Tech Know How / Uploading photos on smaller format
« on: November 29, 2023, 16:06:18 PM »
Apple have changed the way photos work on my iPad and it’s no longer easy to resize the photo file for the purposes of uploading to TSP. It used to ask what size I wanted to upload, but now we’re on iOS 17, I can’t see how to do it.. Does anyone else know?

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A Good Yarn / Anyone used Drops Alpaca?
« on: November 18, 2023, 16:32:56 PM »
I’ve just ordered 8 balls of this yarn; to knit 2 cowls, but I was surprised that it wasn’t as soft as I was expecting. I’ve used alpaca before as I can’t wear normal wool next to my skin, especially on my neck and near my face, but this particular yarn feels really itchy to me. The description and reviews all talk about it’s softness.  :S

I wondered if it gets softer when washed, but probably I’d be best just to send it back.

Not sure why there are 2 of these posts: the website was very slow when I was posting.

6
A friend asked me to make 6 patchwork stockings and I know she’ll ask me what to pay for them. I make a patchwork front and a Christmas fabric back and quilt them both free motion, with cotton wadding, then I add a fleece cuff with free motion embroidered name and sew in a liner and a tartan ribbon loop to hang it.

I’ve estimated I use about a fat quarter of fabric and wadding plus another fat quarter of lining, so maybe they will cost £8-£9 for materials. My problem is that I’ve made 6 for her, so even asking for £10 each comes to £60, which seems quite a lot. My DH says £10 each is too little.

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A few weeks ago DIL asked if I’d make memory quilts from old baby and toddler clothes and I happily said yes, picturing a couple of lap sized quilts. However, she has now asked if the quilts could be ‘king size’ and reversible as she has lots of clothes that she can’t part with.

I was a bit daunted by the prospect and tried to explain that it would take a long time and might be a bit bulky to quilt on a normal sewing machine.

 I’m now thinking that QAYG might be the perfect answer as I could do it a  block at a time, at my leisure and see how big the quilts become. I’ve had a look at the excellent tutorial by @Iminei and it looks ideal.

 I wondered if any of you had done memory quilts this way and what patterns  you’d used. Obviously this method means that there will be a grid element to the design, which I might want. I’m also thinking that if I used different quilting fabrics for the joining strips I could develop a different pattern.  ::thinks:: Any tips, inspiration would be welcome  :D

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A Good Yarn / Pumpkin hats
« on: October 05, 2023, 08:04:58 AM »
When I was in holiday in Donegal I was hoping to finish my big jumper, so I took my knitting bag, but of course forgot to put in next few balls of wool. :[
Luckily there’s a local wool shop there, so I looked up this cute free Drops pattern and knitted two pumpkin hats for my younger granddaughters. It’s such an easy pattern and number 2 granddaughter just loves it. :D
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In the wardrobe / Diameter of round elastic cord?
« on: August 23, 2023, 11:01:40 AM »
A friend has asked me to fix the button loop at the back of a dress. The dress has a back zip and then a few inches of opening until the neck when it’s fastened with a loop and button. It looks like a cord elastic loop that has broken. If I need to buy some , does anyone know what diameter is typical for this type of purpose. Had a look on eBay and I can find elastic cord from 0.3mm to 3 mm. I don’t want it to be too thick, but it’s difficult to measure. Equally I don’t want it to be too thin.

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A Good Yarn / Diagonal shoulder
« on: August 11, 2023, 19:59:13 PM »
I’ve just begun a sweater for myself using Drops ‘Around Town ‘ https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=10947&cid=19
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Reading ahead, I’ve noticed that this sweater has a diagonal shoulder and it looks complicated. I’ve done a lot of knitting, but this is new to me. 
 Has anyone ever knitted a shoulder like this? I just can’t picture in my head what is going on when I put 4 stitches 4 times on a thread. :S
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Machine Accessories / Best cutting mat?
« on: June 27, 2023, 16:29:42 PM »
My very old Fiskars A2 cutting mat is very worn in the middle, so I have been looking online at reviews and to be honest, I’m confused. So many people are complaining that their rotary cutter has cut right through the mat.

Has anyone bought one recently that they like?

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Embroidery and Embellishment / Hand embroidery to the rescue
« on: June 26, 2023, 16:51:24 PM »
Last week I was painting my son’s porch wearing an old t shirt to protect myself from paint. I can paint quite well, but I’m a messy worker! :laugh:
When I got home , I was annoyed to find that drops of paint had soaked through to my favourite cotton bra and I don’t find them easy to come by.
Then a moment of inspiration- I could embroider little flowers over the grey spot stains.
Not having embroidered for years I refreshed my memory on YouTube, picked up 2 skeins at the charity shop and got it done in a half an hour.  It worked perfectly, so I’m delighted.. No photos, for obvious reasons  :embarrassed:

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Sewing Machines / Feed dogs playing up ( or down!)
« on: June 26, 2023, 15:16:24 PM »
For a while I’ve felt that my feed dogs were not gripping fabric very well. Today I was making a few quick baby burp cloths and thought at first it was the towelling that was causing the feed problem. I decided to give the feed dogs and all the other bits I could access a good vacuum out.

Feeling very pleased with myself I put the plate back on, but then when the feed dogs were lowered , they wouldn’t come back up at all.
I have, therefore , just had a trip to the nearby town to put the machine in for its first ever service. After what must be about 10 years constant use, it’s probably due one, but what am I going to do for 10 days?

14
Current Projects / Baby gift
« on: June 26, 2023, 09:58:12 AM »
Found a remnant of nursery fabric in my cupboard and decided to make a nappy caddy with it for my daughter’s friend. It was such a wet afternoon yesterday and it was an ideal short project. By happy coincidence , it’s the perfect colour match for a baby blanket I crocheted in the winter. Love it when that happens- it looks like I’ve planned it all along. :laugh:
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Current Projects / ‘Whale’ of a mishap
« on: February 20, 2023, 13:21:58 PM »
Last week I was working on the quilting of my whale quilt. I decided to do wave-like free motion quilting at the top. As I’d not done that very often I thought I’d grab my frixion pen to draw the first two waves. Only after I’d finished did I notice I’d drawn with a normal biro pen!

Yesterday I decided to have a go at removing the visible biro marks. I didn’t want to wash the whole quilt, so I sprayed the section with Vanish and washed with cold water and was pleased to see that I had successfully got the ink marks out. However, after leaving it to dry , I was horrified to see that the fabric forming the red whale had bled red dye into the off white background. :rant: :headbang:

The whole quilt is now in the machine on a cold wash, in the hope that it might look ok . Fingers crossed!




Update - now out of machine and so far it looks better. Here’s hoping it stays that way until it’s dried. :facepalm:

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