Sewing Machine Cover Binding Finished

I last posted about the cat sewing machine cover when I finished the applique back in May of not this year, but May of last year!  Somewhere between now and then I sewed the pieces together and sewed on binding and it has been waiting for me to finish hand sewing the edges of the binding down ever since.  One curved side was nearly finished so I just had to sew down a couple of inches and then sew down the other side.  It probably only took me about an hour and now I can use it instead of the vinyl cover the machine came with.

I'm very pleased with this finish.  Here's a better picture of the cat himself and his mischievous face.

It's nice to have a cat in the sewing room.

Sewing Machine Cover Cat Applique - Applique and Quilting Completed

Wow, time has flown, I didn't realise it was two and a half weeks since I last did a blog post.  I have been sewing on several projects, although I haven't finished anything.  I have almost completed my Sewing Machine Cover with the cat applique on the front though.  After I appliqued all the chocolate Easter bunnies, I got the cat out and started appliqueing his body which was a bit more intricate than the bunnies.  My sewing buddy Marilyn gave me the idea of using the magnifying light to see if it would help me see better, and it certainly did.

After I took the above picture, I also switched to an open toe foot so had a totally clear view of  the stitching line which helped me sew even more accurately.  It also helped my posture because instead of leaning forward to try to see what I was doing, I actually had to lean back a bit from the magnifying glass and sit up straight to see clearly.

Here are detail shots of one of his paws from the back, just for fun, and from the front showing how closely I was able to follow the contours of his toes because of the magnifying glass and the open toe foot.

Here's the cat all appliqued, quilted and with embroidered whiskers.  I love his mischievous face and big feet!

Now I just have to decide what the back of the cover will be made out of and get it sewn together.

Finished Tree of Life Cushion Cover and Progress on Cat Applique Sewing Machine Cover

Yesterday was a snow day so I was able to skype sew with my sewing buddy Marilyn during the work week.  I worked on fusing the applique cat which will become the front of my sewing machine cover.

Here he is with just a few quilting lines drawn on him in white chalk, but it brings him to life.  I can already tell he is mischievious and is going to cause some mayhem in the sewing room.  Whenever I can't find anything, I'll be able to blame it on him!

Today I quilted and bound the Tree of Life Cushion Cover.  Here's what the quilting looked like from the back.  I did some orange peel quilting in the branches of the trees.  I think they look like leaves.

Here's the envelope back and binding.

And here's the front.

I will have to get another cushion form so I can use it and take another picture with it stuffed.

Spools Mid-Arm Quilting Machine Cover Finished

Yesterday I quilted and bound my Spools Sewing Machine Cover.   Here it is after trimming off the excess batting and backing.

Here is a close up of one of the blocks.  It's supposed to look like the thread from the spool is unravelling and all tangled up.

I had to cut a slit in the cover to accommodate the thread stand and bind around it.  I chose a nice multi-coloured striped fabric.

Here's what it looks like on the machine from the front.

And here's the back where you can see the thread stand sticks through.

I did make a boo boo with some of my quilting.  Since I was changing thread for each of the twelve blocks, I chose to change the thread quickly by cutting the finished thread spool off and tying the new thread spool on and then pulling the thread through the machine until the new colour thread appeared.  This worked  great the first few times and saved me from having to re-thread the machine from scratch each time.  However, during the middle row, the knot where the two threads were tied together must have popped the thread out of the tension disk and with the top thread loose it was pulled to the back  by the bobbin thread tension and made some "eye lashes" on the back.  I discovered this and fixed it for the last row.  If this were a bed quilt, I would rip the stitching out and fix it.  Since the only thing that will "see" the back of this quilt is my machine, I chose to leave it as is as it looks fine from the front.  If it bothers me, I can fix it later.  In the meantime, I'm calling this a finish!

Touch Base Tuesday

On Saturday thirteen members of our guild met at a local quilt shop and worked from 9 am til 4 pm on making comfort quilts.  We  had a great time and half a dozen tops at least were worked on.  I'm looking forward to seeing them all finished.  

On Sunday while skyping with my quilt buddy Marilyn, I did some tidying in my sewing room and put the spools quilt I made back in October on the frame and figured out what threads I am going to use to quilt it.  I love the rainbow of threads laid out on the quilt top.  You can also see the colourful rubber floor mats I have in front of my frame to make standing easier on me.  I am going to quilt each individual spool bock with the colour of thread that is on that spool.  My quilt was based on a "Time to Sew" quilt tutorial by Jenny Doan from the Missouri Star Quilt Company  and is going to become a sewing machine cover for the machine on my frame. 

Since I was working on making one sewing machine cover, I decided I may as well also work on making a second sewing machine cover.  After all, I wouldn't want my machines to get jealous of one another.  I cut out the backing or lining fabric for a sewing machine cover for the heavy duty sewing machine I piece with.  I have been planning for awhile now to use selvages to make the sides and top of this cover so I got out my bin of selvages and starting cutting out interesting pieces.  They were jammed in and overflowing from the bin so after I cut them I had to iron them before I could sew with them.

On Monday, I started sewing the strips to the lining fabric.  I had cut mine quite narrow, most of them are only .75" wide so not much of the fabric pattern shows as I overlap them and sew as close to the finished edge of the selvage as I can.  I drew some lines in pencil on the base fabric to help me keep the strips straight.

At first I was going to include a layer of  batting but the selvages and the lining fabric turned out nice and sturdy without the batting and I also wouldn't have been able to see the lines if I had included batting.  I have a pattern which has three different cats sitting, laying or playing on stacks of fabric.  I'm going to make the orange cat laying on a bolt of fabric as the front of my sewing machine cover.  The pattern is shown here with my finished strip of selvages.  If you read the selvages there are two with "Kitty" and "Katz" in them which makes me happy.

 

The selvages really went together quite quickly and I cut way more than I needed and I think the bin actually looks fuller than before I used some so I need to think of another project to use some more up!  I know I want to try crocheting a rug with some of them, but maybe a sewing room apron made with selvages or at least accented with selvage pockets would be nice.

Last night while I was watching TV, I basted enough hexagons to make two flowers.  I sewed one together at breakfast in the bright sunlight.  

Time to get into the sewing room!  Which machine cover shall I work on first?  The spools or the cat?

What I'm Currently Working On

After I got the basket quilt top put together, and just before we went away on vacation, I pulled out another project that had the blocks all completed which just required putting them together and adding borders.  These are the blocks from the Fat Quarter Shop 2017 Patchwork Quilt Along.  I got them all laid out on the design wall and have the first two rows sashed together.

Then I got side tracked....  I love watching the Missouri Star Friday Tutorials with Jenny Doan and I really liked this one.   Missouri Star "Time to Sew" youtube quilt tutorial  I didn't follow it exactly but used it as the basis for my blocks.  My half square triangles finish at 2.5" which is half the size of Jenny's and I used them in all the corners of the blocks and did not use sashing.  I sewed twelve blocks together this morning and it is going to become a cover for my Q'nique Sewing Machine.

I have been wanting to make sewing machine covers for awhile now and the spools of thread seemed like the perfect pairing.  You must realize by now how I like themes!