Saturday, May 31, 2014

UFOs everywhere

As promised in my last post, I've started putting together a list of all my UFOs - unfinished objects - or at least those ones that I'm still keeping and trying to finish...


Saturday, May 24, 2014

And now for something completely different - hand embroidery

I've been doing quite a bit of applique and embroidery on my sewing machine over the past months and have improved quite a bit. But when I wanted to quickly embroider a loop scarf last week, the tiny curves just didn't turn out as I had envisioned them, and I couldn't find a stitch that worked out. So I thought it was time to try out something new: hand embroidery.

Hand embroidered loop scarf | Twice the fun - doppeltsolustig.blogspot.com

I got some very nice light violet cotton and linen blend from a sale and it was just perfect for making two loop scarves. Unlike the other ones I've made so far, I decided to do these single layer, with a french seam and rolled hems (with my sewing machine's rolled hem foot - easy peasy :-)). Tutorials for these techniques can be found at Oliver + S (french seams) and Craftsy (free mini class on sewing machine feet with Steffani Lincecum). The scarves came together in a breeze.

I then looked for a cute embroidery design, and fell in love with this one I found on Pinterest (well, where else? ;-)) As I wrote above, I first tried embroidering it using my sewing machine as usual, but neither the satin stitch nor any of the other decorative stitches I tried turned out well. Luckily, I had bought a couple of skeins of embroidery floss a while ago, had a suitable needle and some fusible embroidery paper at hand, so I was all set to go. I signed up for the Craftsy class "Design it, stitch it" with Jessica Marquez (I was really lucky to get it while it was on sale! :-)), watched the introduction and the part on backstitching, and started stitching. It didn't even take me as long as I'd expected, maybe 2 hours all in all. I guess with a little practice I can even pick up some more speed.

So I'm planning to embroider the second loop scarf for myself (I gave the one above to my mother-in-law). Maybe with "Twice the fun" in a nice font and a twin motif? What do you think? Oh, and maybe my next post will be about all my unfinished projects? Would be nice for myself to see a full list of everything I've already started, not to mention everything that's on my "really wanna make" list...

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Work in progress... erm, regress

Anyone wanna see what I'm currently working on?


I hate, hate, hate picking out stitches. And today, I'm extra "lucky" as the flatlock stitch I used here not only turned out terribly uneven, but is next to impossible to rip. Do you see all those little "x"s? It seems like I have to use my seam ripper on every single tiny stitch here, that is FOUR times per "x"!!! Wish me luck that I get this done before midnight. Or at least before sunrise. I really want to finish this pair of sweatpants (from Ottobre design 1/ 2014, size 98). And as soon as I've completed the second one, I promise I'll never ever use this stitch again.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Happy mother's day

Just so that this week doesn't pass without a single post, here's a quick snapshot of the fingerprint painting I made with the boys to give to our beloved grandmas on mother's day today.