What am I working on?

Cutting Table

Blue Knit

I posted this picture of my cutting table with a glass of water for last week's Studio Friday. I recieved many comments asking what I am working on, so ...

The blue "tie dye" fabric is a printed knit, 50% cotton, 50% polyester, from Joann's that I bought to make the fitting toile of Neue Mode M23061. This will be my second attempt at this dress. The first time I chose an unsuitable fabric.

Playing with Embroidery

I've been playing with the designs loaded in my embroidery machine on scraps of fabric. This is a knit fabric, 100% cotton (I think), using a cut away stablizer.

I sent a cone of Maxi-Lock serger thread back to the manufacturer because it kept breaking every 18 inches or so. They sent me a large box full of thread. Some of those threads were rayon threads that I thought could be used for embroidery. I was very wrong. The duck on the left uses the free threads; you can see the white bobbin thread that is pulled up. I tried a lot of things to get that bobbin thread back behind; nothing worked. So I decided to use the free rayon thread as bobbin thread. The butterfly on the right uses Isacord (my favorite), Sulky, and Coat's & Clark's embroidery threads. No bobbin thread is showing.

Comparing Threads

I'm not sure why the colors were so different. The one on top uses the free thread, and the one on the bottom uses stuff I've paid for.

I'm making several t-shirts for myself. This one is almost complete. I've been working on this pattern for a couple of years, on and off. I keep lowering the neckline and changing the darts. This version uses 2 darts: a traditional bust dart and a french dart.

The image to the left is one of my prototype labels. I've wanted to put labels in my clothing for a long while, and I finally got my computer to talk to my embroidery machine, so Le Voila! labels! I was working on the labels when I got bored with them and started trying out the designs loaded in the embroidery module.

The image to the right are crochet samples. I recently discovered scrumble. I'm not sure if I'll make anything with these or not. I was just testing the patterns.
The blue fabric is for another t-shirt. I'm not sewing it because the serger is loaded with orange thread. The pink corduroy are a pair of Chungita's pants that need to be mended.

And last but not least, this is fabric for pillowcases for Chungita. I'm teaching her to sew. Right now, that means that mostly, I do the work while she watches. She can't cut straight, yet, so there isn't much she can do. But we do it together.