When my sister Mindy came to visit in November we finished her quilt tops, sorted through bins of fabric and clothes, and just had fun together. In the end I took several of her "extra" sewing machines, quilt blocks, and cut squares of fabric from one of the quilt tops. I fully planned on donating them to the Textile Center Garage Sale in April but when I needed something to sew on to test out the Singer 66 with lotus decals, I thought about the extra blocks and what I could do with them. It seems I always need sewing machine covers and tote bags so I laid out some of the blocks to see what I could come up with:
 |
| Block arrangement: what's up, Meg? |
Okay, something was wrong with this and even my cat, Meg, knew it, but my husband got into the act and here's a better arrangement:
 |
| This looks better and ready for quilting |
Just like a tote bag, the wasn't going to be seen as a whole like you would see it as a quilt, so I wasn't too concerned with the lights and darks of the fabrics. After basting the top, batting, and bottom layers together, I only stitched it in a few places over the plaids so it would hold it in place but not show. Then I had the dilemma of what to do with those large beige centers. I kept coming back to free motion embroidery so I found a pattern and traced it in one of the centers with old fashioned dressmakers tracing paper. Boy, this was harder than I thought but the results are okay if you don't look too close:
Next up, I tried a wash out pen that I could see better but it still was a lot of tiny stitches:
For the final one I used a pen that would fade over time and it still was not as smooth stitching or longer length.: this is going to take much more practice!
As I said, don't look too close but over all a nice first try:
Now I had to figure out how to actually get this to fit over the machine but that turned out to be easy by making a large box as I have done with tote bags except the opening faces down, not up. All of the inside seams were bound in bias tape, boxed at the top and bound, with the same binding around the bottom edge. Since this was to fit over a Bernina 730, I used one of their decorative stitches along the bottom edge, too:
 |
| Back |
 |
| Front (or is that the back? I can't tell!) |
 |
| Top: this I'm sure of! |
When I put it all back together I decided it needed a bag for the accessories so I got out some of the cut squares and made up a lined bag and put a zipper in the top so nothing is going to go sailing out:
 |
| Zippered bag for the accessories |
It was a nice way to use up those really nice blocks, practice a new skill of free motion embroidery, and get another very nice sewing machine ready to be sold:
 |
| Bernina Record 730 ready for its new cover |
A classic cover for a classic Bernina Record 730 sewing machine, complete with knee control, Bernina bobbins, and a nice set of feet. Thank you, Mindy, for your donation of the quilt squares now put to use. There's that old saying "Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without" and I think this project hit on almost all of those, don't you?
Next up, I tried a wash out pen that I could see better but it still was a lot of tiny stitches:
For the final one I used a pen that would fade over time and it still was not as smooth stitching or longer length.: this is going to take much more practice!
As I said, don't look too close but over all a nice first try:
Now I had to figure out how to actually get this to fit over the machine but that turned out to be easy by making a large box as I have done with tote bags except the opening faces down, not up. All of the inside seams were bound in bias tape, boxed at the top and bound, with the same binding around the bottom edge. Since this was to fit over a Bernina 730, I used one of their decorative stitches along the bottom edge, too:
No comments:
Post a Comment