California 3

Here's an updated pregnancy picture, 32 weeks!
















With Bri gone all day to work, I'm left at our temporary home with nothing to do but read and sew. I'm making my way though President Monson's biography, "To the Rescue." I'm really enjoying it. I've learned a lot about President Monson that I didn't know. I can only sit and read for so long before my legs start to get restless. Thus, I need frequent sewing breaks. I have a feeling I'm going to rip through the fabric I brought with me pretty quickly.

Beware! What follows is a lot of rambling about me playing with my new sewing machine. If you don't want to be bored with the details of my sewing fun, then just look at the pictures and be done reading. :)

Saturday, Bri needed to work for a couple of hours (from home, which was nice). I decided to make my first attempt at sewing a burp cloth and finishing the edges with a fancy crochet stitch. When I received my sewing machine, it came with classes to learn about all it's cool features. During the classes, I learned that if I used a specific kind of needle in my machine, I could make the holes around the edge of a blanket or other article to crochet through. After learning how to do it, I bought the needle and came home to play. Sadly, Bri took my sewing machine to California only 2 days after I bought my needle, so now I'm finally getting to play with it.

The needle is called a wing needle because of the weird "wings" on the sides that help make the hole in the fabric. Here it is compared to a regular sewing machine needle.
















Anyways, I played with this needle on Saturday and made my first burp cloth.
















I crocheted a "scallop stitch" around the edge. Here's a close up. At the bottom you can see the holes my machine made.
















It was fun to finally get to use my new toy. Today, my project was the dust ruffle skirt for our crib. I made it using scraps from my mom's collection. To make the base piece that lies under the mattress, I had to do a little patchworking. I got to use another one of my new sewing toys to do this. It's called the 'edge joining' foot. It brings two pieces of fabric together and makes a flat seam. Here's a picture of the foot.
















The fabric pieces run along the guide in the middle. Here's a picture of the flat seam it made on my patchwork piece.
















I hemmed the skirt pieces with the same 'rolled hem' foot, I used to hem the slip I made Friday. Here's a picture of it. I really like this toy. :)
















The loop looking thing the middle rolls the fabric over for a nice small two fold seam. I am getting better at using it. It takes lots of concentration to keep the fabric feeding into the loop, but produces a pretty seam when it's working right. Here's my completed crib skirt.
















One of the exciting things that happened today was that I completely used up a spool of thread. I don't think I've ever done that before. For some reason, it made me feel accomplished. :) I'm trying to pace myself through the fabric I have left, so I probably won't make anything exciting tomorrow. Expect another random detailed sewing post on Wednesday. :)