I am here still battling with my mattress covers, determined to get these finished either today or tomorrow as I am rather fed up with these dominating my sewing space, and of course it is stopping me from sewing other much needed items.  My sewing room faces east and at the moment there is a huge area of black clouds looming, it is almost like  a 'four seasons in one day' day we have had the sunshine, rain, wind, possible snow in the rain, thunderclaps all we need now is a rainbow and some lightning.

I am here and this time I am dealing with bedding.  A few years ago now we changed our bed to two electric beds, so both top and feet ends rise when needed.  Thus I then doctored our existing mattress cover to make two new single bed covers.  Well the time has come to now make two new mattress covers, and as I cannot buy suitable ones to fit, I ordered a super king size one and am now in the process of  unpicking this and then cutting this in half and fitting this on the mattress so I have it boxed at the ends, and slightly going over the sides of the mattress, then I need to add the side fabric and elasticate this.  Trying to wrestle the padded mattress cover through the overlocker has been fun, and I am about to cut this up the middle to make the two, then it will be much easier to manage.  However also waiting in the wings I need to cut down a little a super sized duvet in order to fit into the duvet covers I have made - most duvet covers do not cover us at night, so I measured down to what we needed and made the covers to suit.  Only problem is the new duvet is a four seasons one so that is twice the work.  I have also cut down flat sheets in order to make fitted sheets for the beds -  so that will be another job for later in the year once I have sourced the pale blue sheets I need.

Well done Silver Rose,  your dressing gown looks lovely - love the fabric too.

I am trying to pick up on a blouse I started what seems like months ago, just having trouble trying to get a pattern balanced on the collar so that the points do not look odd - perhaps I am being too fussy.  I have even drawn out the collar on some clear plastic so that I can see what I will get.  There are bunches of flowers all flowing in one direction and unless I can come up with a solution to make it look right I don't know what else I can do.  I went to great lengths to get the fronts matching up at the CF, otherwise this blouse is nearly finished.

Thanks for your advice Helen M, Ellabella and Ouryve, I have tried doing these sleeves both ways, and have even hand tacked a line to follow, this fabric seems to have a mind of its own.  The Avalon stabiliser on top i.e. on the right side seems to help stop the tunnelling but I have yet to soak them in water to remove this.  As I have said they are only thermal vests, so they will have to do.  Perhaps I was too ambitious in trying to coverstitch these as a first attempt - it is a steep learning curve though.

I am lucky in that I have another smaller overlocker, so I will leave the bigger/fancier one set up for coverstitch and come back to this again when further into my journey of discovering today's type of knits.  This machine luckily lives in my sewing cabinet - the pull out side unit, so it is out of the way and thus not likely to get knocked, but I will leave several post it notes stuck on it saying what I have done in the way of changing things.

Anyone else joining me this afternoon, I am continuing with my coverstitch learning curve, and now have 8 sleeve hems to deal with - going  to try an experiment on 6 of the sleeves, i.e. not cutting off  the surplus long bit until I have sewn them and then use the duck billed scissors - this way I think I will have more luck with more fabric under the foot rather than on the first two sleeve which I have already shortened.

Ploshkin and Celia thanks for that information, I had never seen anything like these irons before, and of course made so much sense to have an iron flat on your pressing board if it is next to you when sewing, but I am not paying that price.  I have enough irons of my own to use, and I think one automatically switches itself off if left alone for any length of time.

My sample of coverstitching and using some layers of Avalon has worked, so much better.  Whilst I only ran the sample under some water and did not properly wash it the part where the Avalon was feels a little stiff compared to the other half of the piece which did not have the Avalon.  At least that is encouraging and I will go ahead and 'doctor' my vest sleeves and fingers crossed nothing goes haywire.

I agree with what you say Ouryve about some webbing inside a hem on knit fabrics, but that is what Nancy Zieman was using, but I am not sure whether this was a wash away or not.  I would have to go and sit through viewing her videos again to find that spot.  By the way she had a fantastic iron which she was using on a small ironing pad right by her sewing machine, this iron to all appearances was just sitting flat on the pad, she lifted it up, used it and put it back down flat again and then suddenly the iron lifted itself up off the pad - some very special iron - never seen anything like this before.

Oh thank you Celia for that link, and no I haven't got the video.  As Ouryve found something last week on this machine it is too sophisticated for its own good!!!!!  and yes once I have mastered the coverstitch I intend to keep it set up for that.  My other Bernina overlocker is the 1100DA and is the one I have been tending to use for simple overlocking.

I have dug down deep and into the back of my sewing room (far too much stuff in here really) and have found the Avalon so that is good.  Now despite having so much stuff (not all of it is mine, some of the things in here are from my daughter's house as we are still trying to sort things out and it is easier doing that here rather than there as there is a lack of anything to sit on over there now!!), but I do know where things are which helps a lot.  I now have to go and retrieve my machines that are sitting on the floor outside the bedroom door - luckily I live in a bungalow.

Just read coffeeandcakes's post,  regarding the Avalon, luckily I knew just where it would be and it was, I used this last back in 2003 on my daughter's wedding veil - she had to wait until the week of the wedding didn't she to announce that she wanted a veil, scalloped and edged with a beautiful edging stitch stitched over two lengths of perle thread - when finished I didn't want to immerse the whole veil in water - there wasn't much time left, so I just had a bowl of water on the kitchen table and some towels and just wet the area of the scallops and embroidery and it worked like a dream.

I will have a go tomorrow afternoon using this Avalon and will report back as to whether it has made any difference - maybe it will need more than one layer.

I have also spent some time ordering in things I will need, like some clear elastic for the shoulder seams on knits, some wash away wonder tape,  some overlocking thread and some woolly nylon, a book on coverstitching and then Nancy Sieman's book on Sewing Knits with Confidence - as I haven't sewn modern day knits on a modern day sewing machine/overlocker - well the last lot of sewing knits rather dates me as it was back in the 60's and 70's and then on a straight stitch machine and crimplene!!!!!!

Whilst I was in the back of my room I dug out a couple of lengths of fabric for some long sleeve blouses - already washed, and in each bag are the threads and buttons - so I have no excuse for not getting on with some sewing.

I have to add something my daughter loved shoes and boots amongst other items, and I have acquired the lovely long boot boxes  - several of them and they are brilliant for being able to lay work in progress, or just cut out in them - there is plenty of room.