A Very Early Birthday Present and some Embroidery.

My friend Charlotte had posted a link to a beautiful sewing machine and I had lusty thoughts at once. As it's a big *cough* birthday next month my lovely boyfriend has been an absolute star and has bought it for me! It turned up Thursday and it's just as beautiful in person!

Please meet the Singer 160!

                               

This is what the Singer website says ....

"Timeless Style and Modern Innovation. Introducing The SINGER 160™ limited edition sewing machine. Created to commemorate the SINGER® brand’s 160 year anniversary by taking design cues from the past while introducing our simplest and most easy to use machine available"

So far I've found it a graceful machine to use, it purrs along and I'm enjoying using it. The main thing I like is that there is an automatic tension setting and also a large bed so I'll be able to sew bigger things with far more ease. Top loading bobbin, my Janome has the same and I love it as a feature, saves so much time when threading up. It has an auto threading feature but i don't really need to use it.

There's a pop out draw in the end of the base which is quite novel, although its just one big space so I might have to make some dividers to keep my bobbins separate. Kinda feels like I'm gonna break it when I open it, but that's just me I think! New machine nerves ha ha

The big base slides off easily; there's a release button on the back. This is so I can sew sleeves and trouser hem's.

Sorry for the poor photo but I wanted to show you how cool the LED looks :) really easy to select the different stitch types and there are two different button hole options I can use.

Here's a selection of some of the stitches :) I think I'm gonna be using the scalloped edge on some collars and borders very soon! I also really like the wiggly lines and stars. There's a blind hem stitch and foot as well that's really useful.

Its a large beast of a machine (in a good way) and I'm very impressed with it. Thank you Thom!

I've had my Janome since I was 21. My Grandma bought it for me and I've nevr looked back. I'm definitely keeping it for my back up and talking out and about machine. It could do with a slight tune up but a good solid machine and my overlocker's great too. At the moment i feel like i'm cheating on it, haha sewing machine guilt.... we've just been through so much together!

Anyway hopefully I haven't bored you with all that jibber jabber. So here's a hoopla I've worked on this week. I've used a mixture of screen print and embroidery. Stitch wise I've used a split stitch on the shuttle, french knots for craters on the moon and some satin stitches.

Oh and today is a very good day as the cat we thought was sat on the kitchen table this morning after 4 1/2 weeks of walkabout! Go Zorro!

I finally kinda have a day off... but not really!

This has been a busy action packed week and now I'm exhausted. Started off on Monday with a stall at the Buffalo Mini Mart in Cardiff that was fun.

This was me sorting out my rail of things to sell beforehand!

I also made a few new tote bags to sell at the fair. Here's a couple of my favourites.

I'd printed a pile of bags when I was printing on the skirts etc on Sunday and then finished them off with the lace on Monday. Here are a few pics I took when at the PrintHaus.

The rest of the week has been a couple of days sorting tshirts at Visible Arts and then preparing for the One Planet Living Festival. I finished the flags (I'm waiting on photos to put up) and made some more bunting for Becca.

15 metres later... haha! ooh and fixing new zips in vintage dresses for a shop in town.

So then yesterday was the big day and it was awesome! Loads of people milling around which is great. I was running a little workshop making wallets or purses out of woven paper. I'd picked up a pile of old annuals from a carboot and we used those and a mixture of magazines to make them from. Spot the Beano in there!!

I used gaffer tape to edge them and keep them together, this one's white but I did indulge and bought a host of colours for everyone to use!

Jude and Nigel from the PrintHaus had the stall next to me so I had a great view of my designs getting printed. The kids were loving my cat on a bike design!

Dan's niece looks like a happy customer :) thanks for the picture!

My other design too!

Go Gavin!!

So today I am taking it easy(ish) after the mamouth washing up pile, I admit the house worked slipped this week haha and I ended up with a Daisy from Spaced in the kitchen moment of horror!

I've started putting some fabric in hoops that I'm going to embroider into, sneak peak -

The top one is just a pretty Ikea fabric I like but the bottom one is one of my screen prints.....oooooooh! So now I'm sat back in bed watching Grey's Anatomy and doing a bit of stitching with the cat curled up next to me. Thom (my yummy Mr) is off recording music with the band he's in with my brother; can't wait to here it later! Hope you're enjoying your Sunday Afternoon too x

Skirts from Tshirts and Batwings.

I've always loved revamping and recycling clothing, so when Becca gave me a big pile of her and Dan's old clothes I knew exactly how to put them to good use. I thought the easiest way to make them would be to slice across from armpit to armpit, overlock the edge and then fold over and stitch down to create a channel for the elastic waistband. Tada!! haha

I kept the hem of the tshirt as the hem of the skirt, but added lace from my big collection to the edge. This is the only one I've made with the carousel horse repeat on it so far, I've just done it as a stripe down the front but I'd quite like to do another with it printed all over.

There was another purple tshirt but it had a big print on the front, so I decided to use the back of that for the front of the skirt and do the back of the skirt in a different fabric (does that make sense?). There was this great grey leopard print wrap around dress in the pile too so chopped a bit out of that!!

I was given a huge amount of fabric a few years ago by a friend who's relative had passed away and had a large collection that they wanted to go to a good home. I'm slowly working my way through it and still finding gems. The thing is I always look through it with an intent or purpose (whether I need a certain colour or type) and often don't look at it properly if its not what I need there and then! You have to, to be able to do anything else otherwise I could easily spend all day playing! In this case I went through finding anything that had a stretch to it and was suitable for the style of skirt. This first pastel stripe one is a thick Lycra and was really lovely to sew with, there were others on this post that were more challenging!!

I've made some really cool things out of this fabric before and I had just enough left to do a skirt. I actually made it last year maybe longer ago for myself but didn't wear it for some reason.So when I was searching for things to print on I knew this needed something else.

This is a lovely silky wool jersey. I think its the best colour, really jewel looking. The print is a darker shade and then the lace is a darkish bright green that I picked up in a charity shop in Leytonstone in London when I was visiting my sister one time.

This must be from the 80's, I'd love to know what the lady had in mind when she bought it, I'm thinking a suave polo shirt but I'd love a dress with a little with collar, really Fred Perry looking I think. Anyways I just went for a white zebra and this pretty scalloped white lace.

This one was awful to sew! The jersey is super lightweight and silky so I guess I should have expected it. I've already sold this one to my friend Susie who popped to see me at Buffalo where I was doing a little stall. Can't wait to see her twirling round in it.

This one has a different feel to it because the fabric is heavier than the others. It's definitely more of a sweater weight rather than tshirt but I loved the colours so wanted to include it. The pink frilly trim is really fun and came from the suitcase of habby I was given a few weeks ago. I'm realising I do get a lot of stuff given to me...

I also made a a couple of tops. I've made a few vests that aren't finished yet and I also made a couple of different sized bat winged tops. These 2 are the ones that are finished so far, but there are a few more to follow in a later post :) I used more of the blues and green stripe and added a wide pale pinky lace to the hem. The print is a water based pinky maroon that I mixed up, although it looks much redder in the picture.

The print is a drawing that I did not long after I left uni, the zebra is from the same sketch book. The fabric is really light weight with a bit of a slub in the weave. Its much shorter than the other top but I quite like the shorter style with the bat wing. I'm going to put all of these up on the folksy page so I guess which ever sells better I'll make more of.

This dress is one of mine that I picked up a few years ago but haven't been wearing recently, hence the update. I've used a white plastisol for the zebra which is an oil based ink as I don't have an opaque water based white and thought this would be better for the occasion. I usually prefer using water based inks as they're less harsh environmentally and also there's more scope for playing around with different colours as you have to wash the screen out after about 4 prints on average to stop the ink from drying and clogging up the stencil. Plastisol has other benefits as it doesn't dry in the screen so you can do larger runs of printing. Its the standard ink I guess for tshirt printing, but sits on top of the fabric rather than sinking in.