Featherweight Project - Cashmere Covered Pillows

Ever go through your closet and start to weed out the things that don't fit anymore, or are not things you wear much, or just need to get tossed? Sometimes those things are too good to toss and need a new purpose. I looked at some sorry looking pillows and stuffed them into the worn sweaters. Voila, the cashmere covered pillows started to come to life.

This is not a ground breaking discovery. There are many websites that show their way of making them. Here's the way I did mine.

I bought a couple 16" pillow forms. They fit nicely into the size sweaters I had to work with.

The first thing to do is turn the pillow inside out and line up the ruler along the side so you can cut off the sleeves. I was surprised at how easily the blade cut through the knitted fabric.

Sewing Skill: The Y-Seam Tutorial

Ah, the beautiful, intimidating Y-seam. It makes a lovey, mitred picture frame effect in a quilt block.

We love to see it in completed projects but shy away from sewing seams that are disjointed in construction. If you've sewn for any length of time, this is a desired skill! Let's practice up. Here are my tips to help you dive into the Y-seam world of sewing!

Strip Cutting Breakdown

Sadie from Germany asked me about how I cut strips for clue 4 so here's the visual for her and anyone else who finds it helpful.

Please keep in mind that I am not a certified quilt instructor. (is there such a title?) But I do what works for me. My methods may not always be 100% proper but they get the results that I want. If you have another method that you like, then take my tutorials as food for thought, but do what works best for you.

First things first - do yourself a favor and use a new or almost new blade in your rotary cutter! It will help you so much in making good, clean cuts! If you have to make two or more firm passes across your fabric to get through it, you need a new blade! OK - here we go!

Part 1

I cut the initial strips individually if going from selvage to selvage. Since my cutting mat is 24", I fold the fabric into thirds so I can cut it in one pass. Be careful when folding, if your fabric shifts, you'll end up with a crooked strip! Then you'll be having to realign it over and over while you are making your future cuts. I know this from experience!

If I have shorter pieces of fabric, I stack them no more than 4 layers and make the cut. The more layers you cut, the more chance the fabric will shift and your strips will come out crooked or narrow. 

Extra fabric is neatly set aside in case I need to cut more strips. I try to keep those cut edges lined up so it doesn't need much straightening out if I have to cut more later. 

Part 2

The strips get put right sides together, sewn, and pressed open, all as per the mystery's instructions. 

They are paired up, right sides together. You feel the seams snugging up together when you do this step. Love that!

You can see that 4 patch peeking out at you already! We're getting closer!

Part 3

This is the neat part that makes the cutting go really quick. I place the paired sets on the mat so they are staggered up the mat. Here's two sets staggered in that layout. Under the middle green strip, there are 4 layers of fabric. The next strip set will go on top of the upper orange strip, and so on.

You can stagger as many sets as you are comfortable cutting. I like to do five sets. It's easier counting them out into sets of 10 after they're cut. 

Line up the left edge along the proper line on the ruler, in this case it's on the 2" line. It's good to try to have the sewing lines on the fabric under a number line. See them under the 10" and 12" lines? You can be pretty confident that you'll wind up with an even rectangular piece when it's cut! Hold that ruler down firmly and make your cutting pass. 

Now the pieces are ready to be sewn into the beloved 4-patch!

If you are a beginner or are interested in a simple 5-clue mystery project, I have one in the Mystery Projects tab on my blog called Ringing in the New Year! All the clues can be found in the 2013 dates that are in the post.

I hope this little tutorial is helpful. Sometimes visuals are better than imagining the steps. If you enjoy my posts, consider following my blog and visiting my Facebook page! E-see you later!

Tension terror

I am just zipping along on my Double Delight quilt and began to see something wrong developing.

See how the top stitches are loose? This is a clear indication that there is trouble!

Looking at the underside of the quilt shows this mess. Birdnesting. Noooo!!!!

Ok. Breathe. Tension issues has got to be the probably the biggest terror that we face as sewers. Is it the upper or lower tension? It is clear that this one is the lower thread is too tight, pulling the upper thread in too far. I spent a half an hour ripping all this out and went to do some set up research.

I found a really good video on you tube that was very helpful. It was made by a man who sets up long arm machines and teaches people how to use them. That's a reliable source!

First thing - the bobbin was set too tight. Set the loaded case in your hand and pull on the thread. It should not hang in air like this. Jamie explained that on long arm machines, the thread should pull the case up onto its side in your hand and release the thread freely. It should not lift it off the hand.

The large screw on the side of the case adjusts the tension. I turned it counter-clockwise to loosen the tension. Then did the thread pull test until it did what the video described. This adjustment gave the correction in my tension and the stitches began sewing correctly again.

Another problem that can destroy stitches is the way your machine is threaded. This is not correct. Can you see why? The thread is not going through the upper tension discs.

 

Fixing tension is not as much of factor when you are using tabletop machines. Most hobby machines hide the mechanisms, only showing a dial for tension adjustment, making it somewhat mysterious. Changing those settings is frightening! 

 

It does have to be addressed when using different threads and fabrics. Getting an understanding of tension is worth the effort. That way you do not have to feel the terror when your tension goes awry.

Oh, no! I ran out of fabric!

And this fabric was sitting in your stash for years. There's no WAY you will find that print again... anywhere. What do you do? Before the panic sets in, try a few things first.

Take a swatch that best shows the colors in your fabric. Truck yourself out to your favorite fabric store.

Here's a sample of my material that I ran out of. I wanted the faded purple and green effect with most of the background material an off white.

Time for Maintenance

You know the horror you have when you actually cannot remember the last time you cleaned the lint out from under your fridge? You pull off the vent cover and cannot even see the coils under the layers of dusty build up. Gross. Then you clean it all out and, maybe it's your imagination but the fridge just seems to sound better and run colder.

The same goes for our trusty sewing machines. I have been told that it is really hard to break your singer, or in my case, brother, but if you don't do some maintenance from time to time, your sidekick will start to suffer because of the neglect of its simple needs. I'll walk you through how I cleaned and oiled my machine tonight. I'd recommend you dig out your machine's manual for cleaning and oiling instructions and get in prepped for the upcoming mystery!

If you need more help, here's what I would suggest. You have to take the shield off of the base to expose the bobbin area. This is the spot where most of the offending lint is left behind. My machine has the bobbin accessible from the top. There were two screws holding the metal plate in place. I removed the two screws and released the two plates to open it up as much as it would let me. If you machine has the bobbin underneath the top throat plate, remove as much of the encasement as you can.

Adding Length To Batting

While working on the Holly & Berry placemats, the batting didn't come out to the corner on one side. Sometimes you will need more than one piece of batting for a project. This is an easy fix!

Cut a piece of batting that will be large enough to fill in the area that is without batting.

Butt the pieces up next to each other. Take a needle and thread and loosely sew the pieces but do not let them overlap.

Trim off the excess and continue with your project!

Thoughts on set in triangles

 Set in triangles - eeeek! gasp! choke!!!

Working "on point" is an interesting undertaking. You suddenly have the ability to make your projects bigger faster, which I absolutely LOVE, but you also have to deal with cutting those 1/2 and 1/4 square "set in triangles" along the edges of your work. Unless your project is to have pointy edges, in which case, my project has pointy ends so no 1/4 square triangles are needed.

Adding A Stem My Way

You can add a stem onto the base of a leaf or flower without cutting the base fabric. 

Here's a block from a project that I'm working on. I put on the stem without cutting the white square.