Please vote!

I have entered a quilt in a weekly themed quilt contest at Quilting Gallery, and people may vote this weekend for up to 4 favorites in the running. Mine is called Family Tree, but there are two by that name. Of course, you can vote for both (and two others) , but mine is indicated by the blog name (Quilt in Progress) and my name, Donna.

I was so pleased with it when I finished it! In fact, in making the hanging tabs on the top, I had come up with a shortcut to more easily do rolled hems, which had frustrated me no end before that!

Please go vote here, and look at the lovely examples to fit the theme: Leaves, Trees & Flowers.

Found a shortcut

Have you ever wanted to sew a rolled hem, but couldn’t make it work?

I was making tabs to hang a wall quilt and decided to try one more time. As I was trying to feed the fabric into the rolled hem foot, I realized that an old trick I used with adding machine tape (how old is that?!) would work here.

First, put the rolled hem foot on your machine.

It has a curly doohickey where the fabric feeds into it.

Then, cut a diagonal at the right edge of the fabric, about 1/4 inch width, about 45 degrees. Just eyeball it.

Then start feeding your fabric into the foot. Make sure you hold about 3/8 inch of fabric folded over, so that it rolls twice and you get a ravel-free edge when you are finished.

Interesting note: doohickey is spelled correctly, and not “cky” on the end as I first tried. Who knew? Spell check knows the proper spelling.

Replace as refashion

I’m feeling more like myself again and had a great thrift store shopping session last Saturday. Among my finds were two tops I could wear to work that were ready to go, no altering needed. Another is too small and there’s nothing I can do about it except get on the exercise bike and lose that weight!

Today’s post is about a repair to one shirt. I fell in love with how simple it was, a v-neck button-down white cotton shirt with lace at the cuffs and hem. When I tried it on to show my husband, he pointed out that some of the lace was coming apart.

Close up of the lace problem

I found a great rose patterned lace in my basket, which was actually a leftover from some curtains I had made about 17 years ago.

I set my serger to do a rolled hem, and I did it successfully, I might add. Sometimes I don’t notice all the steps I need to change on something. I made a rolled hem at the bottom and sides of the lace piece, pinned it right sides together with the shirt without even cutting off the old lace, and simply serged it in place. I let the serger cut off the old.

I stitched over the seam with a narrow zigzag to keep it from flipping and allow it to hang straight. I’m very pleased with the results! I didn’t have enough lace to do the cuffs also, so I just cut off and serged the ends of the sleeves. I’ll figure it out later.

Why is the third time the charm?

This is Day Ten, and I had to conquer that serger.  Of course, I went through the diagrams, re-threaded everything the way I did twice yesterday, but this time it worked so I was able to continue with sewing the top I started. In doing this, I learned how to do a rolled hem, as the body of the shirt is a fabric so thin there really was no other choice. I’m pleased with how it came out, and I’m wearing it out to dinner tonight with my husband.

After completing it, I was inspired to look into my fabric stash and I started making a pair of pants, only to have the seams shred apart on me. I was totally uninspired at that point. Completing this top will have to do as my contribution to Day Ten of my Fifty Day Challenge.