No help just wanted to say your dolly outfits are so cute.
Love all the dollie dresses.
Thank you both!
I have an older Singer heavy duty machine that I have WORN-OUT. It had tons of stitches and was a work horse. She will still do a beautiful straight stitch and sew through multiple layers of heavy fabric (denim, home dec.and upholstery types). I used to sew purses to sell. She just will not do the pretty stitches now and she is limping pretty badly at times. I bought a new Brother project runway machine at Wal-mart. Nice machine will do most things I need to sew. This new machine WILL NOT sew the heavier fabrics. There are skipped stitches, birds nests and worse.
I am not saying Lil'Blue is a bad machine and this may not be the case, but some machines will not sew heavy fabrics no matter what you do. I wish I had waited and bought a sturdier machine. I needed something right away and regret buying the machine I have. Hope some one can help you more than I have. And maybe I just have not found the right sequences for this new machine. The old one was just sew away.
Oh almost forgot. The doll clothes are beautiful. Great job.
Thank you for your input about my machine and the denim. I was kind of worried that maybe my machine wasn't powerful enough...it's the Kenmore Mini Ultra which is a 3/4 sized machine but it has a full sized motor and it says on the box/website that it can sew denim
BUT you still might be right, I will just have to play around with it a little more and see how he does!
I really like your repurposed dolly clothes. Some of the newer machines are not sturdy enough to sew on heavy materials, so that could be your problem. This is the reason why my MIL is hanging onto her old Bernina because it was built to sew over heavy materials as well as "regular sewing".
Oh and sewing materials that are too thick for the machine is a fast way to get a timing problem. I would not recommend doing that (not that I would know why or anything...)
Urgh! Guess which Canadian did not learn how to walk on ice?! As per usual, I was taking transit to work. The bus was late so I waited inside a bus shelter. The bus came, I walked out of the shelter, and immediately fell on my face! It was so fast that I didn't even have time to react or brace myself for impact. I got up and continued to walk towards the bus, and guess what? This driver was going to pull right out from the stop because he was late! Fortunately he eventually stopped and let me on (I think it has something to do with my screaming and arm waving), he didn't even apologize or anything. I think I will look like a hockey player for a while with a bruised cheekbone. My knee and hip will be turning colours too I am sure, but at least those parts are hidden under clothes!
On the plus side, I finished a skirt for Barbara's auction last night.
It's a good thing that it is too small for me, otherwise I would be tempted to keep it for myself!
Hmmm, another vote for the machine not being strong enough I see
I guess that's a pretty common problem. AND you really had me scared that I goofed up the timing
Thankfully I didn't! I'm SO SORRY that you fell on the ice. I hope that you didn't bruise too badly and are feeling better this morning. AND FANTASTIC job on the skirt! So pretty! I bet it will do really well in the auction
I haven't been able to keep up with this thread for the last few days. Thanks for all the good wishes for my parents. My dad is home from the hospital and seems to be doing ok. My mom is doing less well as the pain medication for her broken shoulder and pelvis are making her very sick. They hired an aide to come in for several hours each day to help out but she just told them that she can't work on Wednesdays and Fridays now. So I will be helping them on those days for now. I am hoping to get a chance to go and look at some assisted living places for them because they need more help at this point.
I'm so sorry to hear that your mom is having such a rough time with the meds. Hopefully they can figure out something to get her the pain relief she needs without making her sick.
And, I'd just like to thank everyone who has helped out with the auction for Barbara. It's really emotional for Heather and I to do this. Somehow it makes things more "real", and it's been pretty emotional for us. But, the kindness that everyone has shown to our sweet Barbara really means so much to us.
I'm new, but I think it's amazing that you are even holding the auction to try to take your sister to WDW again. HUGS and PRAYERS for you and the rest of the family as you all go through this.
WOW!!! Beautiful work. My favorite is the one from the man's shirt sleeve -- I love how you angled the hem. Did you use any pattern or just wing it?
about "angling the fabric"! I just cut the sleeve off the shirt and used the selvedge side (where it would join with the body of the shirt) as the bottom hem! I didn't even sew it! And then I was able to use the hem for the sleeve as the top part of the bodice. All I really did for this one was sew a side seam to take some of the width out and then add the elastic straps.
Your doll clothes turned out really cute. Great job repurposing.
I can't tell you much about denim, other than your machine probably doesn't have enough power to go through all the layers. My old Brother machines don't like a lot of layers, at all... but my 1952 Singer 15-91 (Patience) will sew through anything, and perfectly. So, my guess is that it's just your machine. If you're going to be doing lots of denim in the future, it might be a good thing to invest in a more powerful machine... if you're not going to do heavier fabrics that often, it's probably not worth the investment, so you'd just have to keep that in mind when you are choosing which fabrics to work with. Does that make sense???
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I haven't been sewing very many AG outfits the last few weeks... I kind of did a side detour into some park bags that people seem to like... However, I do have a few doll outfit orders that I plan to work on after I finish this current bag. I don't want to get so far away from my AG outfits that they take a back burner, like they seem to be doing. I hope to be able to do both.
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Thank you, that does make perfect sense! I will have to play around with it a little more and see if denim is a no go for my machine. I'm hoping it's not because I'd REALLY like to be able to repurpose jeans into other things, but if my machine won't handle it then I'll spare myself the headache!
And I can't wait to see what all you've been working on. I've been lurking (again) on your PTR and I'm sorry that Mr. Rocket has been giving you problems. Maybe alternate the bags and AG outfits in the future???
advice please this is from my PTR..
My 8yo really likes anything that says "Rock Star" on it, so what about a star applique with the word "ROCK" above the star and then "Star" below???
I finished the girls' AK outfits: (bad pics, sorry!...)
Hoping to get the holiday sets and Minnie dresses done this weekend
What will I make after our trip???
Oh my goodness I LOVE those outfits and that's saying something because I honestly rarely really like anything made for AK. They will look ADORABLE
LOVE the doll clothes. The tutu is cool and the men's shirt one is a really great idea. What a fun way to keep a part of dad close by!
As for your machine, I think I agree with others, I think it might not be able to handle the thickness. I have a fairly new, high end, Brother machine and it doesn't like to sew thru stuff that is too thick. It always skips stitches. I always have to break out my older Kenmore machine. Sometimes I just keep trying and running over the same spot in hopes it eventually sews - I would never use a needle and thread.
HA HA HA about never getting out the needle in thread! now why would I want to do that??? HA HA HA!!!! thanks for your opinion.
Well, I didn't get any sewing done last night because I spent the time troubleshooting why Lil'Blue was skipping stitches when I was zig zagging (instead of a zig zag pattern, it was making a straight stitch). I took him apart and cleaned him out really well. I found a bunch of thread that was wrapped around the uptake arm. Rejoiced while cutting that out thinking it would solve my problem. Finished cleaning him out, oiled him up good. Reassembled him, rethreaded and.....THE SAME THING. SO then I tried a different bobbin (thinking maybe that one was wound bad or something) and new needle. Well, that didn't seem to help. Went on the computer and googled a bunch. After a while of troubleshooting, I come to find out I HAD INSERTED MY NEEDLE IN THE WRONG DIRECTION
Now I'm "new" but not THAT new. I feel like such a dummy but I'm also really glad that it was something dumb and easy to fix like that rather than a timing problem (which is what I was starting to think it was since nothing else was working). So now that I have the zig zag thing sorted out I can try again on the denim tonight and figure out if my machine has the ooomph needed to sew that or not.
Ignore DD....she just didn't want to leave the cupcake.
