Emery!: Day 108

Continuing With Needle Thoughts...

though a new project.

For Friday, May 6, 2011

Here is my old Strawberry Pincushion.
It encases emery which is an abrasive, granular material composed or corundum and hematite. It is used to sharpen and clean pins and needles and is generally found as a small fabric strawberry attached to the traditional  tomato pincushion.

Mine is getting to the point where the emery is slowly leaking out, and larger holes are being left after the needle or pin is removed. 

I have decided to take mine apart.
Here is the beginning of gently seam ripping  so I can reuse the emery.

Thought you might like to see what it looks like.

Strawberry has been completely emptied.
Now I have my small pile of emery to use.

Much of the emery is of a very fine consistency so it really is best with an inner pouch of close-woven fabric to contain it. I used a funnel to help guide the emery into the pouch.

This reminds me of the yolk of a fried egg!

The next phase of this project is to make an outer pouch.
Here are my pieces.
More surprises for tomorrow.

It is WAY too late to continue for tonight. (I got a very late start!)
It's after 1:00 AM for goodness sake...
See you next time.

Meet me here Saturday during daytime hours. :-]

Needle Book and A Sewing Tip: Day 107

Therapy Session Complete :-]

For Thursday, May 5, 2011

Stitching worked on my soul yesterday and today. I feel better, and I'm happy to present to you the finishing touches of the Needle Book.

The 4-page inside section is placed on the cover wrong sides together, and now the binding is being stitched up the center with black embroidery floss. The black blends nicely with the outside stripe which is a very, very dark midnight blue. It is hardly noticeable except for a dimple down the spine on the outside. I took a photo, but the camera didn't see it either!

Now that the spine is stitched I am ready to whipstitch the front- and back-facing pages to the cover.

The inside center with black stitching.

The back-facing page with the little blue French knots that I completed yesterday.

The happy pins...

...and needles.

Oh, the Sewing Tip!
I wanted to share with you something I discovered to make embroidering easier.
You may already be doing this, but it is a new idea to me.

Here is the wrong side of the front cover.
As I was hand sewing this I wanted to change color and was using coordinating colors of thread with each stripe. So that I didn't have to make a knot with the original then knot the new color and start again I decided to just tie the ends together and keep stitching. It seemed like a smoother transition than making all those knots.

And now, the Front Cover!

I left the ends of the lavender and pink threads free at the ends.
And also, out of the blue, decided to stitch on a pink button.
Enjoyable project!
Hope you like it. 

Needle Book Beginnings: Day 106

Continuing Pin and Needle Thoughts

As with the Wrist Pincushion of last night, I have been contemplating the idea of making a needle book.

I have several of them that I use most evenings in my sewing, but none that I have made myself.
It's time to buckle down and get one together.

Tonight I thought and measured and cut and pinned.

Here are the pieces that resulted:

The striped sweater piece will be the cover. 
It's 80% Lambs Wool, 20% Nylon and nicely felted.
The pink piece will be the pages. 
That sweater is 100% Merino. A great texture!

Today was not the best for me. Some frustrations hit me rather hard this evening, and I have to say that I am only human and feeling like making this a do-over day. Since that's not possible, and because my projects are sometimes (and mostly) very therapeutic for me, tonight especially I was glad to sit down to think about other things besides my Wednesday.

I actually decided that what I do tonight on this project will be primarily focused on making me feel better. An interesting approach, and quite a good idea.

Therefore, I just rolled with the flow and let this needle book create itself.

I found that free-hand embroidery was the best thing I could do tonight, and amazingly freeing for the day's journeys through those difficulties I encountered. Never thought of it like that. And, in fact, I found the stitching to be easy and most relaxing.

The results:

This will be the first inside page. It will back the front cover.
Lazy daisy, backstitch, and French knots...I never knew they could feel so good!
This is the Neat Side.

This is the Human Side!

Two pages stitched together (by machine) will be the pages to be home for the needles.

I stitched more French knots on the back-facing page. Here, again, is the Human Side.

This Needle Book needs a little more thinking to finish it.
I will update you tomorrow on progress.

Hope your Thursday goes well.

Rose: Day 105

A Wrist Pincushion

For Tuesday, May 3, 2011

I have been thinking about making a new wrist pincushion for myself so that I can stop impaling my wrist with pins each day/night when I am sewing. Though I have no permanent damage, it would just be nice to be a little more relaxed. It doesn't really hurt much, but I am spending too much time (at least on a subconscious level) planning the target each time I jam a pin into my current wrist-version cushion.

New Wrist Pincushion:

The Sweater: 50% Lambs Wool/40%Angora/10%Nylon
(Very soft and wonderful!)
The cut strip at the bottom is tapered so the Rose "petals" will be graduated from center to outside.

I wrapped a little, then took a stitch or two to secure it. Then more wrap and stitch.
Like a cinnamon roll.

This is the underneath portion.

The top of the rose.

The almost completed underneath.

The finished upper portion.

I wanted this to look more like a flower than a cinnamon roll :-/ so I pinned over the petals and steamed it, hoping that they would curve down and stay put.

Using a small section of the ribbing from the same sweater I made a cover for the elastic that will go around the wrist.
Very Exciting! that I could use my bodkin to turn the cover as well as to pull the elastic through it.
Not too many chances to use this great tool. It has such a great name, it would be lovely to use the word more often!

The finished wrist cuff and the (continuing to dry) Rose.

The steaming process worked!
Now the Rose has dried from getting hot and bothered, and is retaining it's shape.

Original wrist pincushion. Still functional, but inconsistent with protecting my anatomy.

New Rose Wrist Pincushion.

It looks larger here than it actually is in person.
(Goodness it's hard to take an accurate photo using one hand, having few options for the proper angle.)

The Rose needed some focal interest.
Some fancy pins helped quite a bit.

Hope you had a good Tuesday.
See you again tomorrow.

Childhood Memories: Day 104

The Paper Chain...

Now The Sweater Chain.

This particular project will be an on-going one. As I use more sweaters I can add a chain link and thus have a record of each one I have incorporated into a pincushion, bag, stuffed animal, or whatever happens to be the item of the day. 

It has been fun doing this. A small interim adventure!

After cutting the strips and laying them out in the order I wanted to attach them, I pinned them to each other.  

A close view.

All day today I was thinking of how to attach them...different techniques and the effect they might have.

Ribbons!
That was my final decision. I used a ribbon needle and made a stitch  down into the lap-over and up again. Then just tied it into an asymmetrical bow.
Very easy, and it gave a little more detail to the chain.

The chain in it's entirety.

Closer, so you can see the ribbons on one end...

...the opposite end...

...and the middle.

The child inside me had a very good time!
Hope you enjoyed my walk down Memory Lane. :-]

Paper Chain Thoughts:Day 103

A Trip Along Memory Lane

For Sunday, May 1, 2011

Today I needed another project. I was on a high from yesterday's Envelope Pillow, and had not exactly come up with something for today. Some days are like that. It's not that I don't want to make something, it's just that not every day brings an idea.
My way of pondering sometimes comes in the form of, you guessed it, the Internet!!

Even so, nothing jumped out at me to inspire or actually present a tutorial that grabbed me.

I don't know how this came to me, but I was thinking about the days with my kids when they would make paper chains for Christmas decorations or birthday parties. I remember also how much I LOVED making them when I was a child. The feel of the construction paper; the consistency of the paste that the teacher would put on that piece of paper for us to use for glueing the pieces together. (Did I sniff it...well, maybe just a little.)

Anyway, this gave me the idea.

With the previous projects that I have completed there are scraps left.
I thought what I would do is to make a Sweater Chain (the sweater version of the Paper Chain) using the leftovers. In this way I could have a sampler of all the wonderful sweaters I have used.

I put together a collage, if you will, of a number of my former efforts.
Clockwise:

Dog Bone (dark blue patterned sweater)
China Cup Pincushion
Sweater Box
Sweater Bowl
Drawstring Purse
Cocoa Brown Bunny
Green Chicken

A few others:
Basket Liner
Betz White Flower
Knot Flower
Baby Shoe Pincushion


Between these and others I have begun to cut the strips for the chain.
You should have seen the pile of sweaters on my bed and the stack of scraps to sift through!
My First Assistant was bored with the whole thing...or maybe just ready for a nap...
(I hope the latter.)

He was at least happy that he had a soft sweater for a pillow.

Here are the strips that I cut tonight. Amazing how much time it took to just get this far!
The white "chain" on the right side of the photo is a sleeve section that I will just use as is.

Hope this turns out to be a good idea :-]

Happy Monday!

Envelope Pillow: Day 102

Continuing With Last Night's Project

For April 30, 2011

Tonight I finished the pillow!

It was pretty easy, fun, and didn't take much time.

And is a most clever idea of Betz White.

Starting to cut the flannel shirt. I had pinned out the 13 1/2" square last night. You can still see the pins I used as a guide. I also centered the square so I would have 3 buttons in the placket as the envelope closure.

The flannel and the felted sweater squares. It was easy to cut the sweater because of the vertical cables as the design element.

Pinning wrong sides together.

I have just lapped over the sweater side to the flannel side showing wrong sides pinned together.

A 3/8" seam allowance.
Though the measurement of the fabrics is exactly the size of the pillow form, and taking away 3/8" all around, the form will still fit perfectly as it is gently arranged inside the finished cover.

Special Note:
You may remember my referring to one of Murphy's Laws of Sewing Practices many weeks ago.
The particular Law was the following: (I didn't quote it at the time, but this is it in it's true form.)

"When using your sewing machine for different projects each day, you will find that you will always need to change the color of thread before the next project."

I am pleased to announce that tonight I defied this Murphy's Law #12,083 (see above).
My sewing machine had Off White thread from my Dryer Ball project.
For tonight I needed what color? Off White!
How lucky is that?

Seams finished.
Before turning right side out, carefully trim the corners for a nice, clean square.

The beauty of making this is that the entire outer edge can be machine stitched without needing to leave an open section for turning. I left the buttons nestled in their buttonholes to stitch this, then just unbuttoned them to turn the cover right-side out.
No hand stitching here!

My pillow corner demonstrated by Lionni, my lion.
He likes to help, along with my 2 other assistants (they have the night off).

Pillow form in place, and ready to button up this project, literally!

Buttoning up completed.
I love the way this looks.
So easy. Did I mention how easy this is? I think I did!

Lionni and the front of the pillow.
This is SO soft and cozy.

Sleep tight!