Spring Cleaning

I've been doing a bit of spring cleaning around the house. It started on Tuesday or Wednesday of last week with a garage sale purchase. This Domestic sewing machine came home with me (a bit unexpectedly)! I've oiled the machine and cleaned it up--but I don't have any experience at fine tuning a machine like this, so I may need to make a call to some experts to make it sew a seam.

The next bit of spring cleaning is without a photo. We moved to this house almost four years ago, and on Saturday I got the last box out of my son's closet. I'd been in it recently enough to know that it had some decorations and nic naks....but I hadn't been in it deep enough to discover our old box of loose change! We had over seventeen dollars in coins, and at least that much again in our children's old piggy banks that were there too!

And, the last bit of spring cleaning... This came home with me yesterday. It was a Craigslist purchase and had been living in a warehouse in Indianapolis. It's a Schacht 8 Harness Baby Wolf. There was a lot of dust and dirt on it and it took me most of the afternoon to get it clean, but it works just fine! Here it is with my test warp.

A "Real" Swimsuit

My now almost 10 year old was desperately in need of a new swimsuit. Her old one was made without a pattern and of odd material over a year ago. It worked ok, but it was odd!

This time, I purchased a pattern and spandex, and am thrilled with the outcome!

The pattern is Kwik Sew #2606 with a racing back. I got it and the swimsuit elastic from Sew Sassy Fabrics online. The fabric came from Spandex World (again, via their online store). Both stores had great service and good prices. I put my orders in on April 5th. The pattern arrived first, then the fabric arrived yesterday, and today the suit is finished!

How's that for fast!

Cutting Error (and Repair)

Nope, it's not mice eating my fine handwoven table linens....it's operator error--I cut into the fabric when I was cutting the napkins apart! Waaaaaa!


This is a set of Atwater-Bronson lace napkins in an unlabled yarn, which I think is a rayon/cotton blend. It's a fine yarn--about 20/2--and they turned out wonderfully soft and fine! They are perfect for a nice set of napkins.


And then I went and worked on sewing them and cutting them apart when I was a bit tired. The fabric is so much finer than what I usually weave, that I hardly noticed when I caught the edge the first time. The second time, I realized that something wasn't quite right, and sure enough it wasn't.

The napkins sat for a day or two. It took me a while to decide how to hem these (I've chosen a rolled hem--thank you internet bloggers who posted tutorials on this little hemming technique!) and now, with two napkins hemmed, I turned to this error.

The easiest repair was to simply make them shorter. I knew that there is some variation in the positioning of the lace that goes across the whole piece, so it would just be part of the variation and these are napkins.....They will never be right next to each other except in the laundry, so no one should notice the extra variation, right!?

I kept the little piece with my cuts in it. I think I need the reminder to focus and pay attention to the details in my work! :)

Two Dye Jobs

I'm playing with dyes again. I used to do a fair bit of dyeing and would sell my dyed rovings on ebay. Then I hit a bad spell where most of the things I dyed felted...either that or they just looked awful!

So, after taking a break, I'm at it again! Pictured here are two variations on the same theme dyed with acid dyes. The outer two rovings are the initial dye job, and I felt that they were too pale. The inner two rovings are a repeat with 3x the amount of dye. Definitely more color there...I'm not sure about beauty!

It's time to take a dye class!