Month: September 2024

Sewing/Quilting Tools

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I taught a class yesterday at Sew With Vision on “Basic Alterations” – taking clothing in at the waist, under the arms; shortening pant/jeans legs, adjusting straps, etc. I wanted the two gals to understand there’s not a lot you can do to make a RTW (ready to wear) garment bigger; however, you can make adjustments to make something smaller.

For example, my high-belly measurement is much larger than it was ten years ago (related to my age and the meds I take). Not much I can do about dropping the weight from that location. So when I was buying a vest for fall wear, I bought 1XL to fit my belly, which meant it was too big around the hips, and the armholes needed adjusting. I could have done some complex taking apart, but instead, I just took darts in the shoulder seams (and hand stitched the dart to the lining so it laid flat); I did the same at the hips – a dart in the side seam from waist to hem by machine, then hand stitched the dart down. Now the vest fits decently and looks fine.

The one enlargement adjustment I do to make something bigger is to add elastic gussets to the waist of pants when the waist just gets too tight (my hips and thighs have stayed the same size for more than 20 years!). [I’ve previously described how I add elastic gussets to pants: https://jmncreativeendeavours.ca/2018/04/02/elastic-inserts/]

Back to the class – while the gals were working on small adjustments to garments for themselves and their children, it became obvious they had a few tools. Because I wasn’t expecting to do any sewing myself, I’d neglected to bring my sewing kit with me (https://jmncreativeendeavours.ca/2017/12/12/sewing-tools-organizer-finished/). We had to hunt through the shop’s tool collection (of dull very well used tools) to find what we needed. I told the gals I’d make them up a list of necessary sewing tools.

I’ve previously described five essential quilting tools I have at each sewing machine (https://jmncreativeendeavours.ca/2019/01/30/my-5-essential-quilting-tools/).

5 Essential Sewing/Quilting Tools
  • A Seam clipper/ripper
  • Self-threading needles (for embedding quilting thread ends)
  • Sharp 4 1/2″ embroidery scissors
  • Precision 3″ tweezers
  • Frixion Erasable Pen

But I use a lot more tools regularly.

Essential Sewing/Quilting Tools

I’ve laid out my tools, clustering those in the same category.

  • Measuring Tools
    • Rotary Cutting Ruler 6″ x 24″ – a good first measuring cutting tool
    • A measuring tape with both metric and inches on both sides
    • A metal 15″ ruler with both metric and inches
    • A slide ruler with notches for measuring and marking short distances
    • A small plastic ruler for checking short measurements (metric and inches)
  • Cutting Tools (these are going to seem expensive, they are, but expect to pay a lot more than you anticipate to get good sharp tools – I like KAI scissors – they feel good in the hand, they’re sharp and bit less costly than some other good brands)
    • 8″ shears – for cutting out garment patterns (I use a rotary cutter for cutting out patterns but there are curves that sometimes call out for shears)
    • 4 1/2″ embroidery scissors – I use these for snipping and cutting small pieces
    • 3 1/2″ precision embroidery scissors for removing stitches and close cutting
    • A sharp seam ripper (I change them as soon as they feel dull; I buy them in quantity to have plenty on hand and within easy reach)
    • A Seam Ripper Clipper (in photo above)
    • A 45mm rotary cutter with a supply of spare blades always on hand (I order in bulk online)
    • A Self-healing Cutting Mat – I recommend starting with a 24″ x 36″ mat (I have a 3′ x 6′ mat that covers my entire cutting table – expensive but useful)
    • Rotary Cutting Rulers and Templates – start with a 6″ x 24″ ruler
    • A Shape Cut Template/Ruler – this makes cutting strips of fabric very easy
Shape Cut Ruler
  • Marking Tools
    • Heat Erasable marking pens (Frixion are the most common, but I’ve bought acceptable ones in sets online)
    • Clover Chaco Liner – makes a fine chalk line (can purchase refills)
    • Chakoner – a heart-shaped chalk line drawing tool
    • A Fons and Porter or Bohin mechanical pencil with white lead (I have other colours, too, but I use the Frixion pens for marking on light fabrics and the chalk liners or pencil for marking on dark)
    • Post it notes, small and larger – I use them to identify cut fabric for both sewing and quilting
    • Masking Tape – I mark fronts and backs of garment pieces, for example, so I know what is what
    • Fine Sharpie Permanent Marker – another tool I keep at each sewing machine
    • A .7mm lead mechanical pencil (with .7mm HB lead) – perfect for pattern drafting on paper
    • Medical Exam Table Paper 18″x125′ ideal for tracing garment pattern pieces
  • Bobbins and Bobbin Holder
    • A supply of empty bobbins for each different sewing machine – each colour thread needs its own bobbin! You always want an empty bobbin around and each machine may take a different size bobbin (even from the same company)
    • A bobbin holder or box to keep bobbins in order and easily accessible and storable
  • Thread – there’s no point in sewing with cheap thread! Your machine won’t like it and the garment or quilt won’t like it either! I suggest
    • Aurifil 50wt cotton thread (variegated in two shades of grey for quilt piecing) – this is a lovely, strong, low lint thread, although expensive
    • Wonderful 50 weight cotton thread – a bit heavier than Aurifil but I use it for quilting a lot
    • Gutterman polyester thread (50wt)
    • Mettler polyester thread (50wt)
    • Coats and Clark polyester thread (50wt) – this is my least favourite but do use it to match with fabric when I have to
  • Other Useful Tools
    • A brush for cleaning lint from the sewing machine
    • A “HumpJumper/Seam Jumper” multi-purpose tool (the tool I have for lifting the presser foot for thick fabric also has a small hole for inserting a new machine needle – handy
    • A fine crochet hook for pulling threads hidden beneath quilt top or bringing pulled threads to the back of a knit garment
    • A Snag Repair Tool (Snag Nab-it) to bring pulled thread to back of knit fabric
    • A Large Safety Pin – for pulling elastic or ribbon through channels in garment or other sewing construction
    • A roller of sticky tape – great for picking up threads on your ironing board or fabric
    • Fray Check fabric glue
    • Glass Head straight pins (I like 1 1/16″ length – I find shorter ones harder to handle).You want glass heads because the iron won’t melt them! You want bead heads because they’re much easier to pick up
    • 1″ Curved Safety Pins for holding a quilt sandwich together (these small pins are a good size – the larger ones are awkward to sew around when quilting)
    • Washers – the largest you can find in the hardware store – great for holding paper patterns on fabric – much better than pinning – you need at least 6 (8 is better to have on hand; they’re inexpensive)
    • In addition to the feet that come with your machine, you will want extra feet for different jobs – you can find sets online that come with both a low-shank and high-shank adaptors (the set I have from Love/Sew works on both my old Singer Featherweight and my Brother Quilter)
    • NEEDLES – you need lots of spare needles – you need a fresh needle every time you start a new project (when I’m quilting, I change needles every 30,000-40,000 stitches – in other words, I change my needle two to three times during the quilting process). I buy needles in bulk – in boxes of 100 – for the needles I use most: Universal 80, Embroidery 75, Quilting 75. I also use Top-Stitching 90, and various Stretch/Ballpoint needles, Twin Needle 75 4mm & 6mm, also it’s useful to have Denim /Jeans needles 90 for working with denim. Schmetz and Inspira (as well as Klasse) are all sturdy needles which come in many sizes and for all fabric types [https://www.schmetzneedles.com/pages/sewing-machine-needle-chart?srsltid=AfmBOopLOpsA-oGFmbcXGBllCANtjbRxzSIvBejuXQKS0Bgcuf11qDSv]
      Just remember: dull needles can ruin your project, and there’s nothing worse than breaking a needle and not having a new needle on hand
    • A pin holder with a magnetic mouth used for storing discarded needles and bent pins – you can also use a large pill container with a lid, even a mason jar – something to collect used sharps
    • A magnetic pin holder
Magnetic Pin Holder
Sewing Machine Needles
  • Ironing Board and Iron – if possible keep your ironing board always set up – makes it much easier to just get a project going. You want a good pad and cover – I have a felted wool padding and I use a heavy twill unbleached cotton to make my table cover – I make a new cover every two years or so
  • A sewing table at the right height for your body (I had mine made for me – lower than a standard table height because I’m short and my upper arm measurement is somewhat long) – a dedicated sewing table means you can keep your machine set up and ready to go.
  • An adjustable stool – I have what’s called a Saddle Seat that I can adjust to the perfect height to keep my shoulders down and relaxed when I’m sewing (I actually have two of them which I move around as I need them). Even though they don’t have a back support, the seat forces you to sit with your knees below your hips which puts the lower back in a good position for extended working (although if you’re quilting or making a garment from scratch, you’re pressing as you go which gets you standing and moving to and from the ironing board a lot).
  • A Cutting Table at a comfortable working height – I created mine from a teak dining room table on a double set of wood bed lifts – makes it the perfect height for me
My Sewing Studio
  • Shelves and drawers and containers for storing fabric, notions, zippers, thread, patterns, tools
  • Trash cans – one at each sewing station
  • Good lighting

Two New Pair Of Socks

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I’m working away at my yarn stash – these yarns are turning out interesting socks. I like how the golden pair has dark accents. The long repeat on the blue sock creates an interesting colour flow.

The blue sock was a surprise! I knit the contrasting cuff from a 4-ply yarn in my stash – that’s all I ever use. However, I’d bought the blue yarn at Woolworks in Mahone Bay not realizing it (and the three other balls I had picked up) were a 6-ply! When I started knitting the leg the yarn felt funny…heavy in my hand, uncomfortable. I’d probably knit close to 20 rows before I thought to look at the label – only to discover I was working with 6-ply yarn. I had three choices: unravel what I’d done and substitute a different 4-ply, change my needles to a larger size (needing to unravel what I’d done and work with a different number of stitches), or keep knitting the socks. I decided to keep knitting.

As it is, the cuff, heel and toe are knit from 4-ply; the rest of the sock is 6-ply. I’m confident that whoever gets these socks won’t ever notice the difference. What surprised me was how different the heavier yarn felt in my hands. I didn’t like it. And of course, using the smaller 2.5mm needles I’ve used to knit at least 100 pair of socks made the sock more dense than if I’d knit using 3.0mm needles. The problem with the larger needles is having to use fewer stitches if I wanted the socks to turn out the same size – the number of rows would also be different – everything was an unknown. I kept working with my 2.5mm needles.

I knit almost every evening for relaxation – the sock production is a by-product but not my primary motivation. I find my mind slows down when I’m knitting in front of the TV. My attention isn’t on the screen entirely and at the end of the evening I’ve another 20-30 rows completed – I’m not wasting my time but I’m also not rushing to finish the socks – I’m just relaxing!

I returned the other three balls of 6-ply yarn even though they each had a lovely colour scheme. I exchanged them for 4-ply balls. I didn’t like the colours as they appeared in the ball but I’m discovering they’re knitting into interesting socks! I’ve one sock completed, the second half done – a pattern I didn’t expect emerged. It was challenging finding a starting place to match the first sock but I succeeded in the end. I will end up with a pair of matched socks from this new ball of yarn.

Finally Back Again

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Been gone a month – I’ve been busy sewing and knitting, and engaged in my daily/weekly routine but for some reason I haven’t managed to sit at the computer and describe what I’ve been up to. So let’s get to it.

Mid August, I wanted to start a new quilt. I looked through my fabric stash and decided to use a jelly roll I’ve had for a couple of years.

Jellyroll Strips Laid Out
Contrast Fabrics
Contrast Fabric With Jellyroll
Squares In Squares

The jellyroll fabrics (20 strips) ranged from black to white with many gradations of grey. Dull on its own – I decided I needed some strong contrasts. Because the strips were batik, I selected bright batik scraps to contrast with the black/white. I decided to make “square in square” blocks, cut them into triangles on the diagonal, then arranged them in squares again. All is fine, until I try arranging the resulting squares into a larger array only to end up with a hodgepodge I wasn’t happy with.

First Attempt

There’s a hint of a gradation from black to white but it doesn’t work overall because each of my blocks has light/medium/dark elements and to get a good colour flow I need some blocks that are very dark and some that are completely white. To make that happen I had to make many more blocks from scratch.

Second Array

This time, I established a dark corner and a light corner and tried filling in. I was working on my cutting table, rather than on my floor beside the cutting table as I usually do, because I’d injured my right knee and couldn’t get up and down. It didn’t occur to me at that moment that I could set up a design wall using a length of batting hung from a rod in my spare room (in front of the closet door) to hold the triangles/squares to audition placement – that came later.

So I filled up my cutting table with a layout I thought would be the darker bottom half of the quilt top. I made the mistake of actually sewing these blocks together into a 6×12 array. I was planning on filling the cutting table again this time with the top half but then I couldn’t see what I’d already constructed. This was when I set up a design wall:

Array #3

I placed the assembled bottom half of the panel at the bottom of the wall and started laying out more blocks. Two things were immediately obvious: 1. I didn’t have enough “black” extending from the lower right corner and 2. the grey extended too far across in the middle of the emerging piece. I’d also run out of triangles at this point and needed to make another 60 or so.

By this time I had stopped making squares in squares and instead I cut trapezoids from the jellyroll strips (I had to open the second package I had on hand) as well as triangles from the contrast fabrics. I’d figured out that working with reassembled squares wasn’t helpful – I was better off constructing just triangles where I could control the colours I was juxtaposing and had more freedom when placing them.

Array #4

Close, I thought but I still wasn’t completely happy with the colour flow so I played with it over the next few days – shifting blocks in the top half, and pinning other triangles over existing triangles in the sewn bottom portion.

Final Array

It took a couple of days looking at the design wall and moving and pinning elements until I was finally satisfied with the look of my panel. Yesterday, I took a photo, then very carefully stacked the pieces in the top six rows, numbering each stack so I knew the order and orientation of the pieces in each stack. Then I carefully repinned and labelled the changes I’d made to the bottom panel – knowing I would have to take much of it apart in order to get the arrangement I wanted.

It’s taken the better part of two days to reconstruct the bottom half of the quilt top:

Reassembling In Progress
Finished Bottom Portion

Now I have the bottom portion of the array back together – many of the changes were subtle ones, mainly involving extending the darker batiks further across the panel, limiting the lighter, brighter trapezoids and triangles until the mid area.

Tomorrow I’ll start sewing the six top stacks together, row by row – it won’t take long because I’m not having to carefully unstitch many interlocked seams!

As you can gather, this whole process would have been much easier had I planned out on graph paper what I was thinking about, but that’s not how I seem to work. I much prefer just starting and building and designing as the project unfolds. I find improvising so much more interesting because I have no idea where I’m going to end up. Always a surprise and satisfying. It’s how I write as well – just get some words on the screen and see where they take me. I never know what I’m writing about until I get well into something and an ending emerges. That’s my creative process.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with the back – do I want to make another 36 of these triangle elements for an insert or do I want to try something else – still thinking about that.