The Twelve+ Months of Christmas.

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A post twelve+ months in the making!

Yes, you read that right.  In 2017 I had some hand made items finished well before December, which was good because some health issues sidelined me for most of the month.  I decided it might be fun to try to finish a gift a month in advance of Christmas 2018.

I like making things, but I want the recipients to appreciate them so I don't usually do hand made gifts.  Except I learned years ago that adding a gift card or some folding currency makes any hand made gift appropriate for teenagers.

In 2017 I made a bunch of triangular zip bags and gave them out to lots of people.  I had so much fun making them that I didn't really care whether the recipients would appreciate them or not, lol.


JANUARY

In fact they were so much fun that I wanted to make more.  I ordered some fabric with tiny books on it from Spoonflower.  I love Spoonflower but was not happy with this fabric, which was much duller and more blurry than the online photo.  This is the first time I have been disappointed by Spoonflower and it's too bad because custom printed fabric is NOT CHEAP.  So I used it anyhow to make triangular zip bags for my book club buddies for Christmas.  I bought some tiny book charms and attached them to the zippers.

Just look at that adorable zipper pull!

QSAB = Queen Street And Beyond, the name of the book club.

FEBRUARY

During Christmas of 2017 I watched Jenn's eyes light up when I gave Emily a dozen crocheted dishcloths.  I interpreted this as awe and amazement at the wonderfulness of crocheted dishcloths.  I hope it wasn't amazement at the ridiculousness of giving dishcloths as a Christmas present.  In any case I crocheted a dozen for Jenn.  And she was very pleased with them,

Everyone who has received these tells me that they are the best dishcloths in the whole world and I agree.  I've seen lots of online tutes for much fancier ones and I have tried some of them but these are the easiest and best.  And I came up with the "pattern" all by myself.  Here it is:

Buy a cone of cotton yarn because you are going to make a ton of these.  I have made them in white, in colors, and with variegated yarn. I wash them in the bleach load and the colors will fade. Just avoid anything containing the color red, which bleeds.  Ask my formerly pristine white bathrobe how I know.

With a size H crochet hook, chain 25.
Switch to a size G crochet hook.  Chain 2 more, then insert into chain #24 and single crochet across the row.
Single crochet as many rows as it takes to make the dishcloth square.  I've never counted them and you don't need to either.  Tie off.

Why start with an H and then drop down to a G? Because it prevents the bottom row from being too tight and drawing up.  This may just be my lack of skill, and your mileage may vary.

MARCH

I came up with another design for little bags that is almost identical to the millions of online tutorials for lined flat cosmetic bags with one crucial difference: I don't put the zip at the top of the bag.  I fold it so the zip is about a half an inch down one side.  I have never liked the way the zips look when they are at the top.  There is undoubtedly a solution and maybe next year I will take the time to discover it.

I had a long roll of leftover string piecing on a foundation strip and I used that for some the bags.  This gave me a chance to check out more of the decorative stitches on my new-to-me Pfaff 7510.  Decorative stitching is one of my favorite things, and I'm always glad to find an excuse to use it on something.

I also added rick rack.  One of the foundational principles of DragonPoodle Studio is that everything is improved by adding rick rack.

Most but not all of my gift recipients are female.  I canvassed Hugh to see if a man would like a small zip bag and what he might use it for.  He couldn't think of anything but he took one of the prototypes home readily enough! (book fabric, no rick rack) So I made a some with gear-themed fabric for a couple of adult guys and a snazzy one for a young boy.

And I had a tiny scrap of cave-art-horses fabric that I used for me, the daughters and one more person.  One of the greatest thrills of my life happened when I was in Houston with my cousins for a memorial service.  We went to the art museum only to discover an exhibit of reproductions of parts of the caves of Lascaux.  Perfect.

All in all I made a lot of them.

APRIL
I spent April having a hip replacement and spending a couple of weeks in rehab recovering from the surgery.  Just as I did with my knee replacements 2 years ago (and yes, I DO assume that all my joints will have to be replaced eventually) I brought a Featherweight and a project to work on while I was in rehab.

One of the nurses said "I have been a nurse a long time and I have never seen anyone bring a sewing machine with them before."   What can I say, I have been a ground-breaker all my life.

The Featherweight was a GREAT conversation starter but I confess that sitting was uncomfortable and I could only work for 15 minutes at a time.  I also quickly discovered that devices that heat up are NOT considered acceptable at Chatham Hospital.  They nixed my heating pad for my bad shoulder* (like I said ALL the joints are toast) so I didn't even bother to ask about the iron.  I pieced a bunch of stuff and then brought them home to iron.

*they did provide a heating pad alternative that bubbled hot water through it.  It never got hot enough for me but it did make a nice white noise sound for attempts at sleeping, and I could leave it on all night, unlike a heating pad.

Didn't finish any crafty gifts in April and never expected to.

MAY

The recovery-from-major-surgery fun continued into May and consumed most of it.  But right at the end of May Becky expressed approval and admiration for an insulated tote bag I made last year.  So I made one for her.

On the insulated bags I made for myself I used Insulbrite.  But on this bag I merely slip covered an insulated bag from Walmart, and replaced the straps.  It was surplus to requirements once I had made the other bags, so this was a good way to recycle it into something much cuter.

The central panel fabric came from Ikea several years ago.  I bought it to make an apron but didn't buy enough for that purpose.  It's brighter than the photo above.  Bright colors make me happy.

JUNE

I'm going to cheat on this one because I don't remember making anything in June.  But in June I showed off my sewing machine totes at the NC TOGA (vintage sewing machine gathering and swap meet).

And Barbara liked them.  Honestly everybody liked them but not everybody is on my Christmas list.

  I had made several and when I saw Barbara's reaction I decided to give her one for Christmas.

JULY

I had an unexpected financial windfall in July.  I considered doing something responsible with it.  Instead I bought a Babylock Evolution, serger plus coverstitch.  I absolutely love it and I haven't forgotten that I have promised the thousands of people who requested it a review (well, OK, two or three people). But that will be later.

The first project I tried has been about a decade in the planning stages.  I've been buying 100% cashmere sweaters at thrift stores during that decade.  Don't make the mistake of thinking of me as a hoarder.  Hoarders never give up the stuff in their hoard.  I am an accumulator, and after accumulating for a decade or two I am perfectly willing to use it all up.

blanket for Megan's baby

All of the sweaters went into a hot washer and hot dryer.  You heard that right.  THEY DID NOT SHRINK, which surprised me. All of the textiles I buy at the thrift store gets this treatment as soon as they come in the door.   I cut the sweaters into 4.5" and 8.5" squares.  Because of the 0.5" seam allowances, four 4.5" squares pieced together equal one 8.5" square.  There is a lot of waste and I threw it all away.  The goal:  baby blankets and TV watching blankets.

and another baby blanket

I laid them out on my large worktable to get the colors placed harmoniously and then started flatlock seaming them together on the amazing Babylock Evolution.  I had never tried flatlocking before.  It's a loose-ish stitch and when you gently pull on the seam one side slides underneath the other.   So instead of a bulky seam on the back there is a flatter seam.  Two layers of cashmere won't be all that flat, but it looks nice and worked well.

and a TV watching blanket for myself

I failed to take photos of the other two blankets that I gave as gifts.

Cashmere sweaters come in different weights, from tissue paper thin to much thicker.  It works best to stay close to the same thickness in each blanket.  It also helped to stick with flat knitted pieces.  I had a couple of cable knit sweaters but they stretched too much while serging them.  And those tissue paper thin sweaters really weren't that great so I ditched them too.

AUGUST

Another project decades in the making:  a family cook book.  Once the daughters grew up and moved away they called on me from time to time for those trusty recipes and I enjoyed this.  I started typing up the recipes slowly.  VERY slowly.  And finally I thought I was almost finished.  Then I mentioned that there are a lot of stories that go with the recipes and they requested the stories also.  So I worked on that at the same snail-like pace for the next few years.

This is self-published, meaning that I printed out 12 copies of all of the recipes, 3-hole punched them and put them in binders with dividers.  This took an unbelievable amount of time.  I've listed this under August because that's when I did the bulk of the printing and punching but it stretched out before and after this.

SEPTEMBER

Last year at Christmas I gave Jim half a dozen crocheted washcloths (identical to the dishcloths) worked up in a camouflage variegated cotton yarn.  Emily told me he loves them but wanted to know if I could sew two of them together because he would like them bigger.  So I bought another cone of a similar color pattern and made more.  A one-pound cone made seven double-width washcloths.

OCTOBER

Finished up the cookbooks, which was a huge project made huge-r by several bad decisions about how to create it.  Not sewing related and not discussed here!  (But the cookbooks were a big hit).

NOVEMBER

My young friend Anna fell in love with this fabric.  It's a heavy silk brocade.  She wanted some to take home with her but I nixed that. Silk is slippery and difficult to work with and she is a beginning sewing person.  I didn't want her to start out with a frustrating experience.  So I told her I would make her a skirt.

The photo could be better.  It is the same color and shiny-ness all the way from top to bottom.

I bought the bolt at a thrift store.  23 yards for $10.  This is why I haunt the thrift stores.  The quality of this fabric is AMAZING.

Two things that contribute to my happiness and mental health:  great music* and fantastic textiles.

*at this very moment I am listening to Alan Doyle, formerly of the band Great Big Sea.  Love both Alan and Great Big Sea.  If you want to be happy, check them out.

DECEMBER

The original plan was for making one gift a month and easing up in December without that awful pressure to finish things in time for Christmas.  Instead my plan had the opposite effect psychologically.  I powered through additional Christmas projects like a sewing demon.  Go figure.  I do think the "there is no pressure" attitude worked though, because as I worked on these things I always had in mind that if they didn't get finished in time, well, those would be presents for 2019.  Because of that I ENJOYED all the sewing and never felt any pressure.  Life as it should be!

Little Red Rising Hood Cape

That red silk skirt that I made for Anna was crying out for a Little Red Riding Hood cape.  I found a child's cape pattern in my stash and modified it.

I lined it with the red silk and made it reversible.

She liked it!

She preferred the "fancier" silk brocade side.

Folkwear Sunset Wrap





Here's another time where I broke my own rule about not making things unless I know the recipient really wants it.  In this case I just really wanted to make it!  I have a complete, and I do mean complete, collection of Folkwear Patterns, which I began  buying when they first came out in the 1970s.  So when they came out with a new pattern for the Sunset Wrap I bought it and then really wanted to make it.










So I selected my victim recipient.  I thought it would look good on Jenn, and her favorite color is green.  I have tons of cotton velveteen and found a nice green and made it.  Simple yet very interesting construction.  It is basically a rectangle w
ith a sleeve.

She claims to like it!

Rex Factor pillows

Emily and I are both big fans of the podcast Rex Factor, a very funny podcast about British history.  I took a couple of phrases that have become running jokes and used my new Singer Futura embroidery machine to make covers for some thrift shop pillows.

One giant bolster and one neck roll

The new Futura has a hoop twice as large as the largest hoop on my 2005 Futura.

In one hooping I created these (the maroon one is for me).

Aed was king of Scotland from 877 to 878 and the only thing the Chronicles of the Kings of Alba had to say about his reign was this:

Áed held the throne for one year. The shortness of his rule has bequeathed nothing memorable to history; but he was killed in the town of Nrurim

And yet the fellows at Rex Factor got a whole episode out of this.

The large bolster was embroidered in two hoopings, and the software helped me line up that text very nicely.

Viking Steampunk Aprons

What?  Viking Steampunk Aprons?  Is Viking Steampunk a "thing"?  (Spoiler alert:  NO.  But it should be).

Stay tuned for the final thrilling installment of The Twelve+ Months of Christmas to discover what they are and how they were created.

These (and their construction on a vintage hand crank) are worth a blog post all to themselves.

*********

Whew!  I NEVER do this much crafting for Christmas.  At least I never have before and probably never will again.

I'm sticking with the idea of making something each month though.  The Viking Steampunk aprons were finished up on January 2019, and because of both daughters work and travel plans in December, it was January before we all got together to exchange gifts.

Did you give or receive handmade gifts for Christmas or any other holiday last year?

Featherweightiness

I've joined the Marie Kondo craze, although in  my own defense I must say that the urge to clean out and tidy-up hits me every year in January.  The shelf liners in my kitchen cabinets are now clean and everything is organized.  All the canned goods are on turntables and each turntable has its own theme.  Jam.  Tomato.  That kind of thing.  I LOVE doing this.

Tidying the living room yielded a Featherweight in a case hiding under a pile of sewing projects.  This machine is supposed to be ready to walk out the door at a moment's notice but I remembered that it needed some minor attention.  Good time for a few upgrades too.  And lo, a blog post was born.

The first thing I did (but did not photograph) was to swap out the original Singer button motor controller (aka foot pedal) for a modern electronic controller.  This is a super easy thing to do.  Let me know if you want to see it in a future post.

I prefer a knee lever and the button controller works beautifully with a Singer knee lever.  But I hate using them as a foot pedal.

The wiring on the Featherweight was in excellent condition except for the insulation missing from the end of the original plug.  Swapping the plug is another easy thing to do.

Older wiring was much thicker than modern wiring so you have to be careful when buying replacement plugs.  The ordinary modern ones just won't fit over the old fat wires.  In the past I have found that the plugs made for vacuum cleaners fit.  This time I found a nice reproduction antique electrical plug on Amazon.  I'm not fussy about whether the electrical plugs on my machines look period appropriate or not, but neither do I mind that this one looks great.

The light bulb was burned out, which gave me a chance to upgrade to an LED bulb.  I have bought them before from Stitch All The Things.  In fact, I already had several of these on hand, purchased 4 years ago and subsequently lost in the chaos of my "workroom".   Which is in the most desperate need of Marie-Kondo-ing.  I found my box of light bulbs about 4 days after the new ones arrived, of course.  I had completely forgotten than I had already some LED bulbs.  I'm sure this kind of thing never happens to Marie.

FYI Stitch All The Things also has two sizes of screw base bulbs.  As usual no one is paying me to tell you about this.

Nice bright LED in there now!

In another upgrade I added a thread stand, bought from Nova Montgomery.  You may think that the rest of this post is a paid advertisement for Nova but again, no one pays me.  It's just that Nova has some cool stuff.

The thread stand sits in one of the oil holes and allows you to use one of those giant thread cones sitting behind the machine.

Nova also sells little bumper dots to stick onto the screw on the front plate of your Featherweight.  This keeps the extension table from bumping into that screw when the table is folded up.

I also bought some motor lube from her.  She makes extravagant claims for it which I can neither confirm or deny but I can tell you that it comes in secure packaging and with a pinpoint delivery system.

And before we leave the subject of Nova's cool stuff, I have her seam guides on several of my machines

It comes with two little screws and an allen wrench.  Don't worry, she will sell you more screws or another wrench if you lose them.

My Featherweight is kept packed and ready to walk out the door to a workshop or a weeks long stay in a hospital rehab unit (there were previous posts about this after knee and hip surgeries).

I've had this Stanley wheeled tool box for several years but apparently it is still available.  It breaks down to three compartments.  I use the top one for materials and supplies for whatever project I will be working on.

The shallow tray is big enough for all the tools, thread. and bobbins.  And my own checklist.  Because organizing things and making checklists is SO MUCH FUN.

The bottom box holds the Featherweight, mostly invisible in the photo below underneath all the other stuff that fits in there.

And below is all the other stuff that fits in the bottom box.

I had a travel iron in there but recently swapped it out for an Oreck cordless iron, which seems like it might be useful in a workshop setting.  Or maybe not.  I bought this one at a thrift shop, so no link to the site where I bought it!

BTW if you want an iron to last, don't put water in it, use a spray bottle instead.  The shallow tray also has a small spray bottle for this purpose.  I do have one steam iron in the studio that I do put water in, but for most purposes I use spray bottles of water.

All of these fit into the bottom box:  the Featherweight, it's motor controller, the iron, an extension cord, an Ikea Jansjo light, a vintage Singer zigzagger accessory, and a very cool fold up ruler (another thrift store find).

The only other necessary thing for a getaway sewing binge just doesn't fit into the case:  An Omnigrid folding sewing and cutting mat.  I made a couple of attempts at making something like this but finally just gave up and bought one.  Sometimes that's just the best tbing to do!

Have Featherweight, will travel!

Do you have any "ready to walk out the door" sets?  Maybe for handwork?  Or another sewing machine configuration?  Let us know in the comments below.

Threading the Domestic High Arm Fiddlebase (YouTube)

Once upon a time I rescued a completely trashed Domestic High Arm Fiddlebase then completely restored the treadle, cabinet, and machine head.  Including painting it and applying DIY waterslide decals.  If you want to read about this, look at the links at the top of this page.

It's time for this machine to go to a good home and it is leaving tomorrow.  On its way out the door I shot videos of threading the machine, winding the bobbins, and threading the shuttle.

The first video is 20 minutes of heart pounding action and non stop thrills.  Join the hordes* of my YouTube followers, pop some popcorn and check it out.

Threading the Domestic High Arm Fiddlebase (YouTube video)

*if a horde is 10 people, then I have three hordes of followers on YouTube before publication of this blog post.  Let's see those numbers skyrocket!

Winding the Bobbin (YouTube video)

All of this is most definitely tongue-in-cheek, my friends.  There are a lot of people out there deriving all or part of their income from generating YouTube content and they have to promote themselves.  More power to them, and I follow many of their channels.

Threading the Bobbin into the Shuttle

I, on the other hand, derive none of my income from anything associated with my hobby.  That's not how hobbies work, lol.  And on the third other hand, I like to laugh.  Often at myself.

So seriously, absolutely no reason to watch any of this UNLESS you own a Domestic High Arm Fiddlebase.  Lucky you if so.

And speaking of laughing at myself, in the comments below feel free to list the hilarious mistakes that I make in the video.  It takes hours to create something like this, so if the information was coming through I figured that was all that mattered and left the bloopers in there.

And btw, if you are a longtime reader you may be wondering how I could bear to part with Shield Maiden, my first paint job and my 15 minutes of fame.  Easy, she is staying in the family and going to a relative.  Who loves her too.

And an update.  Camilla, who had never treadled before, sat down and treadled like she had been doing it all her life.  Seriously, zero learning curve.

Camilla and Shield Maiden are obviously meant for each other.

The Usual Disclaimers

I don't know why it took me YEARS to think of this.  Instead of explaining these things over and over again in the posts, here they all are in one handy post that I can link to.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

I am not an expert.  I do all of this for fun and I enjoy experimenting.  I make mistakes and really enjoy telling you about them when I do.

In summary
I am not an expert.
I am not an expert.
I am not an expert.

I don't mind when people contact me and ask for advice because I love talking about sewing machines.  BUT
I am not an expert.

THE USUAL DISCLAIMERS
Nobody pays me to promote products.  I mention brand names and sometimes link to the specific products I use when I am discussing how-to techniques.  There may be other products that would do the same thing, maybe even better.  But when you are tackling a brand new type of project for the very first time I'm hoping it will help you to see exactly what someone else did.

There was one time I got a product free in return for my (very insignificant) help during the design process and not only did I reveal this, I bragged about it.  See, I'm still talking about it all these years later.

PHOTOS
The purpose of my photos is to show you something, often details of a specific tool, device, supply, or technique.  I alter photos to enhance the clarity of the information they are supposed to be providing.  They may have been cropped, rotated, enhanced, backlit or anything else that can be done with the a click or two on the free photo editing software I use, Photoscape.  Kind of like Adobe Elements.  But free.  I have used it for years and years.

So don't be surprised if the color of my living room walls (or anything else) changes from one photo to the next.  An especially astute reader once noticed that I seemed to be left handed in one photo and right handed in another.  No, I had flipped one of those photos (for reasons I don't remember).

And black sewing machines are a NIGHTMARE to photograph.  By the time I finish tweaking the picture to convey some detail, everything in the photo probably looks like it slipped through from an alternate universe on a planet under an alien sun.  Probably purple.

PSA: Check Your Tapes!

PSA = public service announcement

Focus on the number 31 above.  The camera was directly above 31, so because of camera angle and perspective that is the only accurate place to look.

Recently I heard or read something about unreliable tape measures.  Honestly, I can't remember where.  Hey, it happened more than 2 seconds ago!  It was either on Facebook or a podcast because that's where I learn all the important things PLUS (on Facebook) there are those cute cat vids.  Friend of mine rescued a 3 week old abandoned kitten 4 weeks ago and she has been a faithful chronicler of its antics.  Have I drifted off topic?  Who knows,  I started writing this more than 2 seconds ago.

Oh yes. Tape measures and important information.  I'm a fan of Zede and Mallory Donahue, who have BOTH Facebook and podcasty presence.  Check out Sewing Out Loud and the Self Sewn Wardrobe.  It was probably here that I was alerted to the possibility that my tapes were wrong.  But it could have been anywhere.  See 2 second comments above.




So I lined a bunch of them up on my largest cutting mat, all starting at the zero point and held in place securely by a cast iron shoe last.   I also laid a steel yardstick down.  Fortunately the mat and the yardstick agreed, so I'm going to believe they are accurate.  But just look at the tapes!

Frankly  I am horrified by this.  Devices that are designed to measure should measure ACCURATELY.  Am I right?  or am I right?  Right?

I have never used cloth measuring tapes because I was told years ago that they would stretch over time, but I assumed I was fairly safe with the plastic ones.  But notice that both of them (top 2) are too short.

And the flexible curve ruler that I bought just last week is a full 3/8" too long by the time you get out to 31 inches.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!



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This public service announcement has been brought to you by DragonPoodle Studio, a completely not-for-profit private enterprise.  The term "not-for-profit" is a description only and has no legal meaning or validity under the tax codes and laws.  Not only is there no profit, it is pretty much a black hole into which a percentage of my disposable income regularly disappears. Happily, by the way.