Not really quilting, but some fun with patchwork

Today I pieced a Jewel Bag using instructions from popularpatchwork.com.  The Sweet Sixteen Bag uses 16-5″ charm squares for the outside and 16 more for the lining.  I chose a solid piece of fabric for the lining using the completed outside piece as a pattern, and added a Cam Snap closure.  I used fusible fleece inside rather than quilting it, but this could easily be quilted for a little extra visual effect.

I’ve seen this shape tote called a Jewel Bag, but I’ve seen similar shapes called Hobo Bags or Slouch Bags.  I chose to put a mesh stabilizer in the bottom of my bag to give it shape, and hubby suggested with this shape it looked like a great lunchbox.  He also suggested that with the unusual top of the bag, I could add a little lace, make it look like a bra and call it a Lingerie Bag.  We don’t always listen to him.

I love these denim pieces.  I’ve been repurposing old jeans with blown out backsides or otherwise just too ratty to keep.  I’ve got some great jean fronts saved up to make a couple more aprons on a cold winter day.

This will be a running post with some miscellaneous projects.

7/2017 – Cross body bag with front pocket for small items, like a phone, pens, notepad, etc.  This one is custom made to the size of whatever tablet you want to put into it.  Mine is for my Asus Transformer with keyboard.  I adapted the Crazy Little Projects Laptop bag.

8/2017 – Silly little sewing project – pumpkin-style pincushion using instructions from CraftyGeminiCreates.  My flat-head quilting pins needed a home and it used up some fabric scraps.

How to Clean a Hopeless Iron.

Seems like an obvious statement, I know.  “Don’t iron stuff that will melt.”

But stuff happens sometimes.

So this happened tonight.  My iron tipped for a second at the most, as I was pressing a strap.  Unfortunately, it rested right smack on a thin plastic bag that melted instantaneously.  The plastic fused to the sole plate and was so thin and smooth it was NOT coming off.  I tried ironing waxed paper.  I tried gently scraping, I tried freezing and gently scraping, I tried Magic Erasers, and I tried dryer sheets by themselves.  Nothing budged this stuff.  It was one with the iron.

So here’s the trick – it’s a combo trick.

Waxed paper
Salt
Clean dryer sheets

Turn your iron on the hottest setting.  Put some table salt on a sheet of waxed paper, and on a surface that you won’t damage with a hot iron, iron the salt on the waxed paper.  The salt will cling to the iron, the iron will smoke.  Immediately iron a couple of clean dryer sheets.  You’ll see the melted stuff come off on the dryer sheets.  Repeat until clean.

Music to my ears, the purr of my old sewing machine.  My old White/Universal metal baby was purring no more though.  Locked up solid, she has been living in my closet for the last year.

Made of all metal shafts and gears, I had bought my old Model 4400 in 1984.  It was my first machine, and over the years it had made pillows, curtains, purses, pouches, costumes, aprons, even clothing back when I wasn’t so “curvy”.  Computerized machines with a zillion fancy stitches  are nice and all, but I never use much more than straight and zigzag stitches anyway, and the computerized models just won’t do just plain old straight sewing well, through any kind of thickness, and the stuff I make tends to have thickness or heavy seams.  Beep, beep, beep. Fist pounding.  Curse.

If you have an old machine sitting around, they aren’t that hard to figure out.  Metal parts need lubrication, and eventually parts can just freeze in place.  I’m not the most mechanical person, but I had hoped if I could find the spot that was locked up, I could point someone who is mechanical in that direction to fix it.  And besides, it was not working anyway, it’s not like I was going to hurt it.  So I took off the top and side covers of the machine, removed the hand wheel and just watched what happened when I pressed the foot pedal.  Nothing happened.  The motor whirred, but nothing moved — at all.

So I started with the belts and flywheels near the motors — or are they pulleys?  I don’t know, they’re round and weren’t spinning.  Thingamabobbers.  Whosie whatsits.  I tried to turn each of the two flywheels by hand, and found the culprit.  The bigger of the two wheels, the one on the left, wouldn’t budge.  I braved a pair of pliers, grabbed the wheel and gently twisted.  It broke free pretty easily.  Once free, and after a good oiling, it was spinning like a top.  I oiled the rest of the drive shaft and gears because everything had gotten pretty tight, even with standard oiling over the years.  My biggest snaffu was the research required on how to put the hand wheel back on properly.  I finally figured out there was a washer that I didn’t notice had fallen off the hand wheel cap, which as it turns out is a really integral part of the whole thing.  Not only is it integral, it has a top and a bottom and has to be installed correctly oriented.

My old machine has a new life, and has started to purr again.

There wasn’t a lot of instructional videos on YouTube that talk about these 1970s/1980s metal machines.  Either you were repairing the antique Singer machines, or you were troubleshooting a new, computerized machine.  I highly recommend the New Mexico State University College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences Sewing Machine Maintenance Guide, for some basic info on how these simple 1970s style machines work — and to point out there’s a washer laying around somewhere you just might need, and that little mark on the washer means “top”.

Now to figure out tensioning.  And to get my nails re-done.  Turns out sewing machine oil dissolves gel polish.

Hello.

I am Milady, and welcome to the premiere episode of IAmMilady Presents Fun with Flags. Tonight, you and I are going to explore the dynamic world of vexillology.

What is Vexillology, you ask?  Vexillology is the study of flags.

Tonight we will learn about the garden flag.  The garden flag is a piece of cloth or similar material, typically oblong or square, attachable by one edge, known as the hoist, to a pole or rope and used as the symbol or emblem of a home or yard and used as decoration.

Take for example, these garden flags.  This flag design is machine embroidered on a burlap field using in fun colors and displaying welcoming words, and customized with the name of the domicile they will proudly fly on …

Whoa, I’ve learned so much.

Just a quick update on the crafting front.  MartMan (the hubs) has been interested in creating his own soaps, and I thought it might be nice to make him some “soap pockets” to put his creations in.

I used a throwaway towel for this first pouch, mostly to test my embroidery.  For a standard sized bar of Dove soap, I cut my fabric 5″x 9″.  I serged the inside edges of my pouch, which takes less seam allowance than sewing.  If you’re sewing, I’d recommend making the width a bit bigger, at least 6″ to a standard bar of soap, like Dove.  For MartMan’s homemade soap, I’ll have to adjust the width, since homemade soap bars tend to be wider.  If you’re putting your own soap in these pouches, measure the inside width of your mold and add enough for a 1/2″ seam allowance on each side, plus some give for the bulk of the soap.  9″ length is just about right.  

I embellished with binding on the envelope outside edges before folding and sewing together the long edges.  I used satin fabric cut 3″ wide, then ironed in half, then quarters folded over the edge and sewed on. This would be a good place to experiment with those decorative stitches on your sewing machine that you never use!

The claw foot tub and ducky embroidery is self-digitized using Singer’s Autopunch, which came with my embroidery machine, then Sew What Pro from S&S Computing.  I have three bubbles that float above ducky’s head, that I totally forgot to include.  It came out great though, and I see some improvements to be made for the next generation of soap pouches.

Determine your center for the back by measuring down from the top of the envelope 2″ and up from the bottom 3″.  The area in the center becomes your embroidery area for whatever design you put on the pouch.  After you’ve embroidered and installed the satin border, turn the pouch on itself, folding 2″ at the top, 3″ at the bottom.  You should have an overlap of about an inch.  Sew the sides, turn inside out and you’re done!