Curtains

My Grandmother wanted new curtains in the laundry and kitchen.  Blockout in the laundry but anything in the kitchen.  After four hours trailing through shops to get material and curtain tape (we had a wait of over an hour just to get served for seven metres of curtain tape, which transpired to be the wrong stuff anyway) I made a start on the laundry curtains.  The laundry curtains were made on the Necchi Supernova Ultra mark 2 and it did a very good job.  Because of the blockout I couldn't use pins and I ended up 'pinning' everything with masking tape, which can just be ripped off around the stitches.  The finished laundry curtains are shown below.

I sewed the kitchen curtains at Grandmas and took the Singer 306 up there.  Despite the material being crepe like the machine behaved very well and other than the final hem (which has gone very awry) they are finished.  Hopefully I'll finish the hem soon and we can hang them next time we go up there.

Measuring the material on the lounge floor

Pattern matching with a little help from the dog

Makeshift sewing set up in the lounge, the iron was diagonally opposite.

In other news I have just returned from watching Night At The Museum - Secret Of The Tomb at the movies for the second time.  I love the film and must buy it on DVD eventually.

A New Dress!

"Just what she needs....", I hear you grumble to yourself.  I cannot blame you really, I very rarely (about, ahem, twice a year) wear the dresses I make, dresses are just not practical.  I also think that some part of my brain tells me that if I wish to be seen as 'good' as any man, I must dress like one.  However, it does not seem to work!

Anyhow, back to the topic of the new dress, I actually am making this with a particular occasion in mind.  I intend to wear it to an awards ceremony in a week.  There was a large number of potential dress patterns to choose from but for various reasons I managed to narrow it down to this one only: Butterick B5281, picture below:

I am making view B with the capped sleeves and I will not be putting shoulder pads in mine.  After a trip to Spotlight I settled on some lovely red self patterned drapey jacquard.  The lining is a red lawn to give the dress some body.

Today I managed (in between making a batch of grapefruit pickle with some mouldy grapefruits and taking the dog for a walk) to cut the dress out and assemble the bodice, except for the sleeves.  The dress is fully lined which gives a lovely neckline without the frustration of a facing that keeps jumping to the right side.  Below are some random pictures from the construction.

Tucks stitched into the right hand shoulder.

The assembled bodice without the lining.

The assembled bodice with lining, I am happy with it!

Close up of neckline.

I am using my Singer 306 to sew this dress.  So far it is behaving nicely and making a very nice stitch.  I decided to use the straight stitch throat-plate in a fit of inspiration and it seems to be really helping.

On another note, it was the 23rd (!) anniversary of Freddie Mercury's passing yesterday, I was going to listen to my Queen CD but my CD player has finally given up the ghost so that plan went out of the window.

More updates to follow!

A small present

A friend is having a birthday soon and I was very unsure what to do for her.  Eventually I settled on machine embroidered pillow cases.  Using two of her favourite colours I came up with these.

I used the Singer 306 again because of its interchangeably cams.  It was actually remarkably well behaved.  It really didn't like the downward triangles but I had some lightweight interfacing underneath and that helped.

Downward triangles, or upward I suppose if turned up the other way!

I think perhaps I need to play with the tension a bit more but it worked and that's all I'm concerned about!

Oooohhhh tension!

These were really rather neat, I quite liked them.

This has to be one of the more interesting renditions of sideways triangles...

A close up of the cam on the Singer 306

The beautiful Singer 306

The Singer 306 has to be one of the most beautiful machines, in my opinion anyway!  I know a lot of people don't like them and to be truly honest if I'm not feeling patient I prefer not to use them.  They take a shorter needle than your standard sewing machine and have a front loading full-rotary bobbin.  The timing on these machines seems to slip quite easily and unless they are perfectly timed they go from difficult to impossible.  Unless you are sewing slightly rigid, heavy weight, woven material at exactly the right speed they are likely to skip stitches quite frequently, no amount of anything seems to completely rid them of this trait.  I found through testing with my 206 (the pre-cursor to the 306) that they like a spotless and well oiled bobbin and foot area.  Changing the bobbin (which by the way, is flatter than your standard bobbin!) requires you to tilt the machine backwards in its box or stand, no mean feat considering the weight of a 206!  However the one-piece throat-plate is handy because there is little for your thread or material to catch in.  I totally love the zig-zag and needle position adjuster knob though, I've always found it fascinating.  The final catch with these machines is that internally they have a 'cloth' belt which apparently is not particularly robust although in my three they are fine.  I have found a lot of more modern machines use these crimped belts as well but I suspect they may be stronger than the ones used in the 206/306/319 clan.  If sourcing bobbins and needles for these machines is difficult there are a few solutions.  You can re-time the machine to take standard sewing machine needles, some people disagree with this but my 206 is re-timed and works fine.  The machines will sew with standard metal Husqvarna bobbins although they won't wind them.  I buy the Husqvarna bobbins and wind them on a stand-alone bobbin winder, it's easier.  If someone is offering you one of the clan I would say yes and have fun going completely barmy!  They are great if you have patience!  When they're good they're very, very good but when they're bad they're horrid!

Bye-Bye Baby.....For a little While

I haven't completely disappeared......  I've been working on my 206's motor.  It has a bearing.  Quite a few actually but one of them is a naughty bearing.  It is my go-to machine because of its beautiful industrial table.  Its sister, the 306, is getting a work-out at the moment.  Blogger is refusing to let me upload photos tonight.