The Sewing Room

danables

hart44 wrote: »

Hi everyone
I feel like I have been away forever, you have all been so busy
At long last my blue and white patchwork quilt is finished and on my bed
I didn't cheat on this one, all the squares were rotary cut and I hand sewed the binding onto the back of the quilt (the red and black quilt I did were all pre-cut squares )
It's not perfect but Im happy with it

:T well done you thats fab- what did you do for backing did you quilt through to the back, burying threads as you go? or have a seperate backing? would love to see the back! x

upsy-daisy_3

Evening all

I hope you dont mind me posting here but was looking for abit of advice... After seeing so many lovely things you ladies make ive wanted to start sewing and my OH is going to buy me a machine for christmas (Yay )

But i have no idea where to start, there are loads of machines around! He has a budget of about £150 and was hoping you ladies could recomend me one. Also if there are any books about that you know of for sewing for beginners!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated xx

rosalie-lavender

This is quite a good price for this sewing book on the book people. How to use a sewing machine by Simplicity.

http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&productId=183856

dizzytina

craftgirl1960 wrote: »

Georgia oh my word that is gorgeous!

My little one is tucked up in bed so the sewing machine is out again that will be 2 days running!!

Dizzy thanks for the info, I'm going to attempt the ric-rac bag!

I need to find some nice material for the crayon rolls. Oh a tutorial on the drawstring bag would be great, I saw your tutorial for the beach bag to so thoughtful of you to do it!

Now I guess I need to find the cheapest place for my material?!

I'll try and do a tutorial at weekend for you:D. i'm not good on cheap places to buy although if you are making the bags you can do what i did and just use a small piece at the top and bottom of the best fabric and use a cheaper polycotton in the middle to keep the costs down.

Dunelm tend to have reasonable fabric which had 50% off recently. Patch fabric have some nice ones and fabricrehab is a gorgeous fabric shop but def not cheap.

For some of my crayon rolls i used teatowels which you can buy in a pack of 3 from home bargins. the funky brown flower fabric one one of the crayon rolls on my blog is made from those and you will get a few rolls out of one tea towel x

cuddles123

Agree about using tea towels - just made a Knitting Needle Case out of 2 tea towels. Just a larger version of the crayon roll.

Have also managed to nurse my machine to make a couple of pyramid doorstops.

BTW, if you turn a bobbin case upside down, should the bobbin stay in or fall out?

hart44

Thank you Danables I used a bed sheet for the back of my quilt, I brought some good quality (hospital/hotel type) from a CS years ago and Im so glad I kept them
I have not sewn through the back yet as Im waiting till I get a walking foot for my machine.
I will get a pic of the back on here tomorrow to show how it is

Upsy-daisy welcome and hope you find the machine you want somewhere on here there is advice on machines but I thought I would tell you about mine for now.
I got a Tesco EJ09 sewing machine just after xmas and so far it has been brill, I use it most days, the only prob I have had with it was the light bulb went after a few weeks and Ive never replaced it. I paid £79.99 for it and as a beginner it is ideal for what I do and everthing else has been working great (touch wood lol).
Im sure the ladies on here will help as well with machine advice soon
I usually get most of my fabric from CS's (duvets, sheets etc) but also fabric rehab, fancy moon and ebay are good.
Lots of tutoirials on Google are great too and the wonderful ladies here are very helpful

wam73

Georgiabay - Your daughters dress is amazing - well done to her. Can never imagine being able to make anyhting like that.
dizzytina - Your Crayon Rolls and matchingBags look great. Am going to add them to my to do list lol. A tutorial would be great, when you have the time.
cuddles123 - Not brilliant on anything sewing wise but I'm pretty sure it should stay in place, Mine clicks when it's in properly. That's how I know but I'm sure someone more experienced will be along soon to help you out.

Beautiful makes everyone. Never had time today to re jig my bag, had hospital appointment about my broken ankle. All good news but for some reason left me exhausted. Might have something to do with shopping yesterday lol First time in 4 weeks. So did go a bit mad walking round. Well and spending hehe.
xx

pennib

Mooloo; or anybody else that's into small children's clothes. Was browsing peeps blogs and someone has made a toddler
dressing gown out of.......teatowels! It was fab, and with the huge range of different colours and patterns and the
cheapness of the towels could be on a winner there.

sm1971

Well, I finally managed to get a Folksy shop up and running along with a blog! I feel so inspired by all the ideas on here I want to make everything but as I hold off three jobs there's never much time left to create.
http://minervacrafts.blogspot.com/
http://www.folksy.com/shops/sm1971

cuddles123

sm1971 wrote: »

Well, I finally managed to get a Folksy shop up and running along with a blog! I feel so inspired by all the ideas on here I want to make everything but as I hold off three jobs there's never much time left to create.
http://minervacrafts.blogspot.com/
http://www.folksy.com/shops/sm1971

Nice blog - are you also Minerva Crafts on ebay, or is the name just a coincidence?