The sewing thread

silvasava

Polly - I bought a pair of thread snips some years ago but they weren't very successful and languished in the bottom of my sewing box until I had a LBM - they are brilliant for topping and tailing gooseberries and blackcurrants!! They now live in the utensil drawer in the kitchen. I did find a much better pair for sewing though ;!

daisy_1571

:jIve read the great British sewing bee will be back in the new year.

I also got my elna serviced this week which cost just over £200 but chap said its worth about £2000 now !!! Surely not? Maybe he meant I'd have to pay £2000 nowadays to get an equivalent? It's not computerised, about 30 years old but still going great.

Daisy xx

PollyWollyDoodle

Wow! No idea but if you love it and it works, it's worth it.

I've been hoping to see Sewing Bee in the schedules, thought it was going to be this year but I'd given up on it.

zebedy

Hi, very pleased with myself as i spent the evenings last week making lined drawstring bags out of some Christmas tree fabric. I’m using these instead of wrapping up presents. I’m trying to work out a formula to get the dimensions right as i want to make some the right size for wine or champagne bottles.
Does anyone know a good source of Christmas fabric (preferably quite cheap). The pattern has to be small as i’m not doing pattern marching at the seams. I’m keeping it simple and quick but they do look nice for the gift recipient

silvasava

I do hope it's a new series of Sewing Bee and not repeats although I'd watch those too!
My sewing machines are both elderly - one nearly 50 years old - a heavy duty Singer and my 'lighter' one a Husquvarna that's nearly 30 years old. They are both like old friends and have sewn some lovely memories.
Sorry Zebedee can't offer any suggestions for Christmas pattern fabric. How about some plain red or green and applique a Christmas design. The bottle bags could be red with a green Christmas tree? Just a thought.

ivyleaf

It is a new series of Sewing Bee, but it will be presented by Joe Lycett who's apparently a comedian. Why, oh why? Bring back Claudia!

Wraithlady

Apparently Claudia didn't have enough space in her work calendar to do it - so say the Radio Times. As long as Joe isn't annoying, I dare say I can cope

ivyleaf

Wraithlady wrote: »

Apparently Claudia didn't have enough space in her work calendar to do it - so say the Radio Times. As long as Joe isn't annoying, I dare say I can cope

Oh, me too.

Wraithlady

Zebedy - any use?

https://www.craftsy.com/sewing/article/how-to-make-a-wine-bag/

Laura_Elsewhere

zebedy wrote: »

Hi, very pleased with myself as i spent the evenings last week making lined drawstring bags out of some Christmas tree fabric. I’m using these instead of wrapping up presents. I’m trying to work out a formula to get the dimensions right as i want to make some the right size for wine or champagne bottles.
Does anyone know a good source of Christmas fabric (preferably quite cheap). The pattern has to be small as i’m not doing pattern marching at the seams. I’m keeping it simple and quick but they do look nice for the gift recipient

I love this idea! Especially since finding out how much modern wrapping-"paper" can't be recycled because it has plastic or metal incorporated into it in a way that can't be separated out.

I would suggest looking on eBay - and if you link your Nectar card to eBay then you get SIX TIMES the usual points the rest of November, as they're running an offer, so that's nice!

There are a lot of suppliers who do Xmas fabric, the cheap cotton stuff - lots of small patterns. I would put "Christmas fabric" into the search box and then click the results to "Lowest first - price + p&p". Lots have annoying samples listed for 99p to distort the search results, which drives me up the wall, but you can get rid of some by adding -sample -samples into the search box, and get rid of others by putting a minimum price of £1.

And I shall be doing this in January - if I'm lucky I can get some Xmas fabrics reduced on eBay in the post-Christmas period, and can make some drawstring Christmassy bags through the year to use next Xmas - thankyou for the idea!

I also really like the idea of plain green or red (polycotton can be as cheap as £2.50/m with free p&p) - green lined in red would be fun, and you can also track down cheap felt on eBay so could do red bags with green Xmas trees, and stitch a few beads onto the tree as decorations (haunt jumble sales for old necklaces?), or buy a ball of cheap sparkly acrylic knitting-yarn, they do some in white with a big sparkly-silver-iridescent strand all through, and you could do big embroidery stitches on the outer fabric, snowflakes, etc. Or plait it for the drawstring and do little pom-poms on the ends?