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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

New sewing life

Seems like Marbles is getting used to her new home, so I attempted to sew in her presents. By now, I have learned that it's better to allow her to participate in whatever I do, otherwise she gets anxious and increases her efforts to participate. For example, she now runs in superman fashion into the plant room whenever someone goes into it.

Here is my calm cat sewing:




There are some things I have to be careful of, though:

1. Do not allow the cat near pin cushion.
2. Watch out for the needle of the sewing machine as she wants to play with it.
3. Do not leave the cat alone with the sewing machine or she will eat the thread.

Otherwise, it's all good.

EL

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Pet proof

The population of our apartment just increased by one pet. More specifically, we got a cat whom we brought from New York this weekend. She is an absolutely gorgeous Scottish fold with very nicely folded ears and humongous eyes.

Meet Marbles, our new cat.




In general, I'm not s cat person because my parents always had dogs. I actually thought I would not be able to have a cat ever. And now, see, I have my own cat.

She likes to sleep on her back.



And she likes to eat plants.




She is very smart and social. She follows me around the house and absolutely has to participate in everything I do. We got her from a Russian family and the woman there told me that Marbles like to "sew". That is, when the woman sews, cat likes to participate. This was a little concerning already then, but now I'm very concerned about the future of my sewing projects. My other concern is my plants as she already attempted to eat them. Sounds like it's time to make the apartment cat proof.

Up till now I didn't really have a dedicated sewing space, so I'm planning to make my own in the plant room. I'm not going to let her in that room anyway. Let's see what I can do.

EL

Sunday, October 10, 2010

What are the chances?

Often, when I sew 2 pieces of fabric together, I pin them so that the pins are perpendicular to the sewing line.



When the machine (not the serger!) approaches the pin, I normally do not take the pin out. What are the chances of the tiny point of the needle to not only hit the pin but also to do it so perfectly that the pin or the needle would break? I always assumed that the chances are so small that it's not worth taking the pins out.

See this little demonstration of how it goes:



This was all nice and true until today. So, what happens when the needle and the pin are perfectly aligned is that one or both of them break. In my case, the needle did not give up, but the pin was completely jammed into the machine. It was a pretty scary scene, worth rethinking the chances and the method. The middle of the pin was completely inside while both ends were sticking out. It took me some strength and help of the pliers to remove the pin out. Look at the great shape of the pin now:



So what are the chances? I think by now I've sewn through thousands of needles like this which does keep the chances pretty small. However, they are not infinitely small and I expect same thing to happen in another year or so. And no, I'm not going to give up on the method as it makes my life so much easier most of the times.

EL

Friday, October 8, 2010

Look who is sewing now!

In the past couple of weeks I have done some sewing, but I didn't finish anything significant to show here. There was the skirt for my new dress, there was also underskirt for my new dress... But most of the time, I've been drawing patterns of the bodysuits and making test garments to check the fit. However, the machine was occupied a lot by Tuan!

It started with the first set of the home made exercise bands we made. Tuan decided to make a bunch for his dance exercise class so I had to show him how to use sewing machine. And he was hooked. He made several more sets of the bands and I could not see my machine during that time at all. I'm not complaining, I was preoccupied with my patterns anyway. The best part is that he made me my own personal set.



Mine feature main part in light blue with dark blue top, pink threads and a logo. Also, see the improved design of the handles and the door piece. Now, it's not as hard on the hands and the door is protected from scratching.



I like the fact the we can make the bands in different colors. The original TRX bands are black/yellow combination which makes me feel like I'm on a construction sight every time I see them. BTW, I saw them this week when my trainer brought them to our session. Oh, they made me sick in my stomach. But it was worth it. Ever since I started using them, Tuan is saying I feel lighter when I dance. I guess those core exercises do help.

My only contribution was to put the DF logo on it (mainly to claim they are mine and not for the class :), which means Dance Fit, and to make a small pouch.

Here is the pouch.



It's made of thin nylon with a zipper on the top.



Besides chiffon, I've never used such thin fabric before. It didn't make sense to use a serger here, because I wanted to make very clean edges so that when the bands are inside, there is no chance of fraying.




It made me appreciate commercially made pouches like that. I didn't think much of them till now, but apparently, it's hard to insert a zipper on the top. I still can not figure out how they make the top stitch at the end of the zipper. I'm going to exercise now, see you later.

EL