More owls + {Giveaway}

This weekend I made a load of vintage owl keychain card holders.






Of course they are made of vintage sheets. All of them have striped wings and pockets. They will be in the shop soon.

That brings me to the giveaway. Four lucky people will win one owl card holder.
To enter: follow my blog and leave a comment on this post stating that you follow. If you already follow, then leave a comment here stating that you follow. Contest is open to US and Canada residents and ends on Wednesday, September 28. Winners will be announced Thursday.

Foot Fetish: Quilting Feet

I have been wanting to do this for quite some time now: create a little how-to series on different presser feet. Let's get started!


Tonight I will be discussing different types of feet that can be beneficial to the quilting process.



{all purpose foot}


This foot comes with your machine and is a very general presser foot. It can stitch zigzag lines, straight lines, and also a number of decorative stitches.


{1/4 inch quilting foot}


This particular foot has dual purposes: it can sew a quarter inch seam and an eighth of an inch seam. Impressive, huh?



By lining your fabric up to the right edge of the foot, you will create a 1/4 inch seam. It's perfect for piecing fabrics or if you just like to sew with smaller seams as I do.



By lining your fabric up to the left side of the foot, you will create 1/8 inch seam. This is great for topstitching, edgstitching, and stitch-in-the-ditch quilting.


{quilting guide}

This is also know as a quilter. It is not a presser foot, per se, but an aid to your presser feet. It is simple an angled bar that you place in the master bracket (ankle that holds that you lock your feet into) and can adjust by sliding left and right.


holder for quilter



Simply line up the quilter to one of the inch/centimeter markings that you would like to use, place the edge of the fabric to this line, and sew. To sew the next line, place the previously stitched line to the quilter and stitch. Easy peasy!



{walking foot}

Also known as even-feed foot. It evenly feeds the top layer and the bottom layer of fabric at the same time, resulting in evenly sewn layers. This feat makes it great for quilting quilt tops with batting and sewing tricky fabrics vinyl, oilcloth, and leather.



The quilter can also be used with the walking foot. I used a thin piece of batting and quilted this sample piece and nothing shifted while sewing.



Also I used it to sew together two pieces of oilcloth, and I didn't have to worry about skipped stitches, slipping, or shifting. If you're sewing vinyl; leather; or oilcloth, remember to use a longer stitch than you would use for sewing natural fibers and do not pin.


{free-motion embroidery foot}


This foot can be used to darn, free-motion quilt, and free-motion embroider.


(Disclaimer: I am NO free motion quilter, embroider, anything. So my "quilting," if you will, does look horrible. My apologies.)
The feed dogs need to either be covered of lowered on your machine so that your machine won't want to keep feeding your project backwards as you are stitching.

That concludes the session I have today. I will be back soon with another portion of this series soon. Thank you for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!!!

Thrifting 9.10.11

I went thrifting yesterday. Surprise? I didn't think it would be, lol. I found a few more awesome things.


I found a ton more sheets, mostly yellow-based, a baggie of buttons, a baggie of vintage bindings and trims, a few Japanese mugs with birds on them, and a Singer Tiny Tailor.

Vintage Sheets


Singer Tiny Tailor


Japanese mugs


Sewing notions


The sewing machine was only 5 bucks.

I also found a brand new Ann Taylor Loft skirt with the tag still attached that was originally priced $69.50 for only 40 cents. It is a silky navy and cream crosshatched fabric and has asymmetrical pleating on the top. It was a 50 cent green tag item and I get 20% off my purchases. I was so shocked and excited.

I think I should give thrifting a little break. Ha! Yeah right!

Thrifting 9.9.11

I should stop... I just can't help it though. I wasn't going thrifting after work Friday, but then I told myself I will just stop into my fave place after I had lunch. I think I did well because I didn't buy much, but let me tell you! I hit thrifting gold in my eyes. There are few things that make me more excited than finding vintage sheets and pillowcases, and those things are vintage sewing supplies and notions and vintage sewing books. Ladies, ladies!! I found both a new (vintage) sewing book and the most wonderful thing that I have found in many moons: a box full of presser feet!!!!! Ecstatic!! Let me show you my findings.

My Loot

I managed to come home with more vintage belting. It's in a dark grey/brown color. I also found a vintage housecoat made by Sears; it reminds me of the Vera sheets with the leaves and butterflies but it has bright orange flowers on it instead. I'm probably going to use it for the fabric, not sure yet. I found some navy blue with red silky fabric. It also has woven circles on it, really adds some nice texture to it. I got a vintage pillowcase, a Kenmore sew-by-color (box of machine feet), and the sewing book. I am so happy to have found the last two objects. I mean I love them all, but I am especially infatuated with the box and book.

Kenmore sew-by-color




Oh my! This tiny little box has sooooooo much goodness inside of it that you can't even imagine!! When I first saw the box lying on the shelf, I didn't think it would be too promising being that boxes I see like that are usually empty by the time I get to them. So I picked it up and sort of shook it and heard rattling. I thought that the rattling was probably buttons and a bunch of whatnots. BOY! Was I wrong! I opened it and noticed the jumble of presser feet all over the place and sewing cards galore.I didn't think all of the feet were inside, but then again I didn't really care. If I had gotten only 4 extra feet, I couldn't be upset. It was only $2.97 and actually cheaper than that because I get 20% discount at that particular thrift store. So I bought it, duh!! Lol. As soon as I got inside my car, I opened it up and start situating the pieces. The beautiful thing about that box is that it is fully color coded and has a placement and number setting for every foot that is inside. And on top of that every foot has a card that is color coded and explains how to use the foot. I sorted the feet back into there places and noticed I was missing 2 things. I wasn't upset. But as I was moving the box to put it down, I heard more rattling. Two of the items had gotten stuck underneath the place settings! The only thing I am missing from the box is the number 2 card which is the quilting guide, and I think I can do without that. The box even still has the original price tag on it. It was originally 10 bucks back in 1960. I paid $14.99 just for a generic ruffler foot. Inflation!
Included in this beauty:
- color-coded cards giving a description of each sewing aid
- cutting guide which is put onto scissors to cut even strips of fabric
- quilting guide
- adjustable zipper foot
- gathering foot
- attachment foot which is used to attach some of the other feet
-screw-in seam guide
- 5 hemmer feet (narrow, 1/4", 3/8", 5/8", and 7/8")
- edgestitcher
-binder foot
-ruffler foot

Now I already own a harrow hemmer, 1/4" hemmer (that I couldn't use because I didn't have an attachment foot), quilting guide (that I've lost), an adjustable zipper foot, gathering foot, and a ruffler, along with some other feet that weren't included in this. But it also has some feet that I've been dying do get my paws on. Now I have them...and in a neat little container too.
Now I just need to test them all out!!

Finally on the back-to-school bandwagon

Although my little missy isn't in big kids school yet, I'm about to get her into Pre-K. What better time than now to get her used to the school routine than now? I needed to sew a lot this weekend. I felt that I had to. And I felt so bad that I haven't sewn a lot for my daughter lately. I actually felt REALLY bad about it. So I decided that Saturday it was all about her. I got up extremely early (as in started sewing around 5 a.m.) and started to sew a backpack for her. It was just preliminary, plus I didn't have any fusible interfacing. So she can actually use it as a play bag for the moment.





It's made from some sheet scraps. I'm going to embroider her name on it later. I think it's adorable, and she is so excited about it!!


I also made her a late summer pintucked dress. I say late summer because the sleeves are a tad longer for cooler breezes, although I accidently made it a little short. But it is perfect to wear tights underneath it. I also made it squareneck just to make it a little diverse from her other dresses. I added the tiniest pintucks on the neckline, sort of making it a faux yoke.














And finally I made her a two-layer skirt. She's very much iinto skirts right now. I think she's a girly-girl! It's so cute. I chose some not-so girlish colors for this one. I don't want her to get stuck in the "girls have to wear pink" state of mind. Personally I don't really care for pink, but eh.... Anyway. The skirt is pretty long. It'll be perfect to pair up with some cute little stockings and mary janes.









And I also finally organized my sheets and pillowcases by color! Most of them are here on this shelf. I still have a few running around all loosey-goosey. But I'm happy I got it done!

Now if I can just tackle the tote of scraps I have, everything will be just peachy!!!

Thrifting 9.2.11

I have no idea why all of a sudden I have been having excellent times at the thrift stores lately, but I hope I'm not jinxing myself! I keep running into the very sheets that I have been coveting for the longest of times. Not only that but I usually find either two of the much lusted-for linen or I find a king-size of it. Gosh! I'm just as happy and giddy as can be right now!

My finds

I found 2 twin-sized turquoise and purple striped sheets. I have been wanting these to come my way FOREVER! Now if I can only find the blue stripes..... Anywho, I also found a King skinny pink striped sheet. I think that one is so sweet; it has 2 shades of pink in it. I think it'll be great to use in place of the wider pink stripes that I always seem to accumulate. I also picked up a pillowcase that I think I already have. I know I have a sheet in that blue/purple floral print, but it's nice to have pillowcases for small projects. I also got a few zippers. I didn't really need them, but I wanted to make more hanging laundry bags so I was prowling for 20" zippers and grabbed those. They had a plastic shoebox overfilled with unused vintage zippers and another half of a 13 gallon tote of loose zippers. I should never run out of zippers so long as I shop there! I also picked up some vintage trim/belting. I like them though. Not really sure what they are. I think I may use some and put the rest into the shop. They are wide, so I'm guessing they are belting of some sort because they are finished on both sides. They had so many of these.

Sheets and pillowcases


Trims



This trip was to Harvest Thrift Mission. I am telling you this is my FAVORITE thrift store!!! I found just about all my sewing notions here. They have piles and piles of everything: industrial sewing machine thread, mountains of zippers, stacks of patterns, everything a vintage collector could drool over. And college students get 20% off their purchase. I love love love this place!! Whooo! Sorry for that. I get really excited. Anyway what have you guys thrifted lately that you're totally ecstatic about!

Shop Update

Just letting you all know that I added the pillow shams to the shop. I even added a fifth one to the collection. Enjoy your day!!