Serger Project 1

E-Reader
Click for free Bernina pattern by Kellie Rushing 

Okay, I admit it.  I REALLY don’t like sergers.  I use them as little as possible in my sewing classes, but I know I need to use them more.  So I signed up for serger club at Studio Stitch.  They MIGHT change my mind, but the jury is still out.


I would much rather do clothing construction start to finish BY HAND as opposed to using a serger for any of the steps.  I think this stems back to my early childhood.  Mother made my clothes and did a fantastic job.  Sergers were not so readily available  for the home sewist fifty years ago, so if a classmate had something on with a serged finished, it was obviously store bought and made with far less love than what my mother made for me.  I used to feel sorry for the girls who had to wear store bought clothes, and a serged seam was a dead give away.

Flea Market Serger Find

However, home sewing has come a long way and many of us now have sergers.  I have two...they just stay in the closet.  (How did you like that explanation about why I don’t use a serger very often?  I’m sure you would never think that the real reason is that I don’t have the patience to put four or five different threads through 5,699 different holes, thread guides, and tension discs! In my high school class, if a student unthreads a serger, they have to put a dollar in the serger jar.  Anyone who threads a serger gets a dollar!  Ninth graders will do anything for a dollar around lunch time!)  

Let’s go back to today’s story.  A friend was able to stay with my husband so I could run out for a quick class at Studio Stitch.  It was so good to get a couple of hours away after the hub's recent ER visit.  In class we were making a cover for our e-Readers from a Bernina pattern by Kellie Rushing.   It took me awhile to get the threading right on my “borrowed” serger.  (We are buying a Bernina serger for my school classroom so Studio Stitch let me use one today to get accustomed to it!)  Justiann finally convinced me to do EXACTLY the same thing with the serger that I tell my students to do with the conventional machine  when there’s a problem. I needed to unthread it totally and rethread it from scratch.  It’s just a little more complicated to do that with a serger, so I tried to avoid doing it.  However, a couple of re-threadings later it was working great.

(It turns out that my left-handed nature gets me even when threading sergers.  I try to thread left to right through thread guides when they want right to left, and vice versa.)  

After all the time threading and re-threading, the actual e-Reader case only took about 20 minutes to finish.  It was super-easy, after I sorted through my left-handed spatial challenges (Definitions for the words “width” and “length” were a little challenging today!)   I’m now on the search for any of my friends who have e-Readers!  Guess what they are going to get for Christmas!  My sample leaves a lot to be desired, but now that I’ve conquered the basic concept I’m thinking of doing some embroidery on them and turning them out one weekend for gifts.  It will be a good way to use from my fabric stash, practice serging skills, and give a gift all at once. If I become familiar enough with the pattern, it can go into the supplemental projects that my first year students are allowed to do if they finish assigned projects in class.
Here’s the funny thing.  After the class I came home and got the old Elna serger out of the cupboard and actually threaded it and began serging a bit. It took two hours to get it up and running, using a manual that I had located on the Internet. (This serger was a $5.00 flea market find, no manual included.)  You might notice in the picture that each cone has a different color thread, just like the manual said to do to check the tensions on the stitch. That Justiann at Studio Stitch may just make me move out of my comfort zone.    I guess I just needed a push.  I’m looking forward to next month’s serger club!

Project S-02 Girlie Onesies and Project Q-96 Studio Stitch Block of the Month

"Onesie" Dress for new baby

Wednesday morning waiting at Wake Forest Baptist Medical University Center for my husband to finish a CT scan.  I hope the news is good.  There hasn’t been a lot of time for serious quilting this last week because I’ve been working on several small projects.  

Denim Re-Do

I love wearing comfortable denim dresses because they last forever, but the length “dates” them.  In previous decades we wore them a bit longer.  So I spent a little time cutting six inches off the bottom of several of them and hemming them up.  (Not too short now....I am fifty years old.  Don’t want to try to look like my students!!!)

Onesie Dress

I was also excited to take a “onesie” class at Studio Stitch in Greensboro, NC this last Saturday.    Our instructor, Gail, showed us how to  deconstruct part of the onesie and add a ruffle to it to turn it into a onesie dress.  Since I have two very good friends and a niece expecting little girls within the next couple of months, this was a good time to take up this project.  I wish I had purchased a slightly better quality onesie to take to class to work on because it turned out better than I thought it would.  I gave it as a gift to my niece the day after I finished it.  She’s only four months pregnant, but I wanted to give her her first baby gift.  I also gave her two of the burp clothes I talked about last week.  

Since this niece has an older sister who has a six month old boy, there are going to be lots of “boy onesies” that we can turn into “girl onesies” by adding a  pretty ruffle.  It actually takes less than thirty minutes to turn a onesie into a “dressie”

July BOM from Studio Stitch, Greensboro, N

 Studio Stitch Block of the Month- July 

I attended the block of the month class at Studio Stitch in Greensboro last night and picked up my July block. Justiann at Studio Stitch is in charge of this and is doing a great job introducing us to simple patterns.  This pattern has a lot of potential.  I can see myself using it for the “cross motif” that is expressed if I choose my colors to emphasize the cross. (As a matter of fact, I have a quilt in my head with this right now using Freedom Fabric manufactured in the U.K.  I was wondering how I was going to use that fabric!!!!  It has Celtic crosses that can be fussy cut for the middle of this block.  )   I can also see this block used as a friendship signature block.  It could also work to feature specific fussy cut motifs in the middle of the block for a baby quilt.   

Oh, no, here’s another idea for this block!  One of my closest friends is a Mexican and her baby will be born an American.  One set of the three color blocks in the main block could be the three colors of the Mexican flag.  One set could be the three colors of the American flag.  I could alternate the main section of the block with a mini Mexican rose pattern.  Hum..... I need to think on that one.  

I’m using a quilt-as-you go method for these blocks.  Doing it this way means I’m not left with 12 blocks that I have to incorporate into a quilt at the beginning of the year when I’m ready to start on another BOM project!  I do so hate to have tons of blocks stacked up waiting to be joined into quilt tops.  (For some reason I don’t mind have twenty quilt tops waiting to be quilted.  I just don’t like having stacks of blocks.  Go figure what the difference is there.  I’m sure it gives some deep psychological insight into my personality.)

I’m doing both color ways for the BOM  and I finished one last night and then finished the cutting for the other one last night as well.  I started the piecing on the second one this morning before heading out to the hospital.  This “cancer journey” with my husband means that my quilting has to be done in fits and starts.  But it’s all good.  It does get done and if it’s not as precise as I would like I remind myself that  I do it for the love of it, not for any desire for perfection.