Quilt Decor, Stonefields Paper Flowers Appliqué Prep + Hexie Basting Preferences

I have a happy little snippet of renovation progress to share today!  Behold, my in-progress laundry room.  Can you tell a quilter lives here?

Limestone Mosaic Installed Over Laundry Sink

From a distance you might think it's wallpaper, but it's a honed limestone mosaic tile.  It was a splurge but I was helpless to resist (and my husband was foolish enough to send me to the tile showroom unsupervised).  The tile crew installed this on Thursday and it still needs to be grouted.  That brown paper is covering up and protecting my soapstone counter (same color as the dark gray/black squares in the mosaic) and a laundry sink directly beneath the window.  The window trim is only primed right now; it will be painted the same color as the crown molding and the cabinets once the tile installation is complete.  The painters also taped plastic over the window glass.

The tile installers pointed out to me ahead of time that the mosaic pieces are imperfectly cut and the points don't all meet up precisely, but I knew that already from the sample board in the showroom.  Surprisingly, this doesn't bother me -- it's kind of like an old patchwork quilt made out of stone.  I will see this mosaic wall every time I come into my house through the garage and it will make me smile.  💗

 

Imperfections Up Close, Mosaic Installed But Not Grouted

The installers planned and laid out the whole wall on the floor before they started installing.  

Staircase Railing Makeover in the New House Because Rebecca Is Picky And Bernie Loves Her

I know most of you only come here for the quilting, so here's a snapshot of where I am with custom quilting my Deco bed quilt as of today:

The End is In Sight for Deco Stitch In the Ditch Quilting!

Side note: I will NOT MISS those garish yellow walls in my Florida long arm studio!!  At first I was living with them so as not to offend my father-in-law, but then once my long arm was set up in there the repainting took a back seat to other priorities.  It is really difficult to get accurate quilt photos with such a vivid wall color as light reflects off the walls and casts yellow onto everything.  Every photo taken in this space has needed to be color corrected with editing software.  Here's what that photo looked like before editing:

Same Photo Before Editing to Correct Color

See what I mean?  And that is with white fluorescent lighting!  My next studio is going to have nice NEUTRAL wall paint.

Okay, back to the quilt: I've done the interior ditch quilting in the top row of purple and blue log cabin blocks but tomorrow I'll need to back up a row and quilt the ditches around each of those green 1" square patches in the row above them.  Do you see that canvas leader edge at the bottom of the photo?  That is the very bottom edge of my quilt top pinned to that leader.  When I get to the bottom I will still have to go back and do additional "To Be Determined" detail quilting in the pieced blocks, but at least I will be done with the tedious slog of ditch quilting.

Deco Blocks 3A + Quilting Piano Key Border on the 1984 Sampler

I finished half of the 3A blocks (Kona Solids Thistle and Indigo) for my Deco quilt last week!  Just  nine more of these light purple/indigo blocks to go before I can begin assembling the blocks into a quilt top.  It's amazing how much more one can accomplish when one is NOT twiddling her thumbs in a court house all day waiting to get rejected from jury duty!

9 of 18 Deco 3A Blocks Added to the Design Wall

I love the way the dark Willow green and Indigo 3B blocks recede visually and the Thistle/Indigo 3 blocks seem to come forward.  That's intentional; I played with those effects when I was creating my color scheme for this quilt in EQ8 (back in November of 2021, cough cough, change subject...). Anyway, I'm looking forward to wrapping this quilt up soon and moving on to something new.

Last week, when I shared a photo of the new Slimline lamp I'm enjoying for night time sewing, Nancy asked what happened to the view of the pool outside my window.  The pool didn't go anywhere; it was just hidden behind the window shades!  This is my new morning sewing routine (note the latte off to the right on my IKEA cart):

First Things First: Caffeine + 30 Minutes of Sewing

In our house in North Carolina, our bedroom and my studio were both on the 2nd floor.  My routine was to come downstairs to make coffee, then sit down in front of my computer while I drank it.  Many times I'd get sidetracked by email or whatever and realize that a couple of hours had gone by before I knew it -- WHOOSH!  But with our current house so much smaller and all on one level, I actually have to walk past my sewing machine to get to my computer.  So I am trying a new routine.  Now I go from the coffee machine straight to the sewing machine, still in my pajamas, and get my 30 minutes of sewing in BEFORE I check my email.  Because honestly, what could possibly be in my in-box that can't wait 30 minutes anyway?

My Slow Progress: Scrappy Tilda Celebration, Scandi Deco, New Sewing Room + Kitchen Update

Hello from sunny Naples, Florida, my lovelies!  Happy Spring and Happy Easter to all who are celebrating!  Son the Younger went off to spend the weekend with a friend in North Carolina, but Son the Elder, Bernie and I will be having Easter dinner with Bernie's dad and sister.  Alas, no little ones hunting eggs or keeping their eyes peeled to spot an Easter bunny.  Those years sure went by fast!

I haven't written a blog post in a LONG time, so fair warning -- I have lots to say.  ;-)

My Tilda Scrappy Celebration

On to the eye candy, because I know that's what you're here for.  My most recent accomplishment was cutting out all of the pieces for six of these double nine patch blocks, for my Scrappy Celebration quilt project.  The small scale green floral is Tilda Farm Flowers in Green (available here on Etsy).  This fabric is also included in the Tilda's Jubilee Mega Blenders Bundle if, like me, you are crushing on Tilda prints lately and want to add a whole coordinated assortment of these sweet Norwegian prints to your current projects (or to your stash -- no judgement!).  And now, for that icky but necessary disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.  If you make a purchase after clicking on one of my links, I might be compensated at no additional cost to you.  I feel so dirty now.  Moving on...  

The rose pink solid in the center of my little 9-patch blocks is from a Tilda Solids fat eighths bundle (not sure which shade), the little white squares were cut from my bolt of Moda Bella Solids Off White, and that low volume print with diagonal blue stripes and tiny red dots was pulled from my stash of Who Knows What Purchased Who Knows When.  I'm looking forward to piecing these blocks!

Yummy Tilda Fabrics Cut and Laid Out, Ready to Sew

I'm sure that, if I was following Lissa Alexander's pattern for my Scrappy Celebration-inspired quilt, the instructions probably involve time-saving strip piecing techniques.  However, when I began this project my rotary cutters and rulers were still packed in boxes somewhere, and they are still packed in boxes somewhere since we need to make modifications (amputations!) to my ginormous worktable before it will fit in the much smaller sewing room of our new house in Florida.  So instead of cutting strips for my nine patch blocks, I cut out all of my squares individually with my AccuQuilt GO! fabric cutting dies.  

Luxury DIY Christmas Tree Skirt for Mom

Happy Fourth Day of Christmas!  I realize that this post would have been more timely if I'd written it a couple of weeks BEFORE Christmas, but I made this tree skirt as a surprise gift for my mother (and she does read my blog).  However, if your own tree skirt has seen better days, or you're looking at a bare tree stand now that the gifts have all been unwrapped, I encourage you to make yourself a custom tree skirt for next Christmas.  

58" Lined Microsuede Velvet ChristmasTree Skirt with Trim

When my mom mentioned that she lost her Christmas tree skirt during her last move, I started shopping for a new one that I could gift to her for Christmas.  I had some serious sticker shock at the Peppermint Forest Christmas Shoppe, where they had tree skirts made out of flimsy polyester fabric (like what a toddler Disney Princess costume would be made of) retailing for $150 or more.  Then I checked online at Horchow and Frontgate, where they had much nicer quality tree skirts but even more outlandish price points of $500, $600, even $700...  And that's for a mass-produced tree skirt with limited fabric and color options.  When you're making your own tree skirt, you can get the size you want, the colors you want, and decorate it any way you want.

This isn't the first Christmas tree skirt I've ever made.  The crazy quilted and hand-embellished tree skirt I made for my own Christmas tree was fun to make but largely a wasted effort, since the vast majority of my hand embroidery and hand stitched sequins and beads get hidden beneath the branches of the tree:

My Crazy Quilted Tree Skirt, Completed in 2010

I worked on that crazy quilted tree skirt off and on for about two years, and I wouldn't ever make one like that again.  It would have been much better to do crazy quilted stockings or even a table runner, something closer to eye level where all those decorative bobbinwork machine stitches and handwork can be seen and appreciated.  

I Had to Crawl Under My Christmas Tree to Take This Picture

There is so much going on visually with most Christmas trees anyway, what with all the ornaments and packages, that I really prefer a solid tree skirt with embellishments at the outer border where they can make a strong impact. 

So, back to this year's project for my mom's tree!  She decorates her tree primarily with red and gold ornaments, with a sprinkling of black music ornaments in the mix.  I made her skirt out of a 60" wide, deep red home dec microsuede velvet home dec fabric that was very stable with a nice drape and no rubbery upholstery backing.  I started with this tutorial from Mary Jo's Cloth Store:

Mary Jo's Tree Skirt, Tutorial Found here

The Mary Jo's tutorial is easy enough to follow for anyone who has prior experience sewing window treatments and other home dec items, but those whose sewing experience is primarily quilting or apparel could probably use the following additional tips and tricks.

Choosing your Fabric:  For this project, a home dec weight fabric is going to be your best choice, along with a drapery lining fabric.  A lightweight quilting cotton isn't going to be wide enough to cut a full size tree skirt in a single piece, and since there is no batting in this skirt it would also be too flimsy to support the heavy machine stitched trim.  You need about a yard and a half each of 54-60" wide home dec fabric and the same amount of drapery lining fabric.

Covered Cording: The Mary Jo's tutorial uses a narrow covered welt cord around the outer and inner edges of the skirt, which you don't even notice unless you look closely at the photo.  This cording serves an important function, because it keeps the lining fabric from sagging and showing along the outside edge of the skirt once it's under your tree.  However, covering 6 yards of cording with fabric adds extra work to the project and if you use the same fabric as your tree skirt like they did, you don't get any extra dramatic impact from all of that work.  I could have covered my welt cord with a contrasting fabric, or done a shirred jumbo welt cord in a contrasting fabric, but I decided to use a 3/8" decorative rope cord instead.  

Shirred Jumbo Welt Cord Would Look Great On a Tree Skirt, Too

You can read about my tips and tricks for covering welt cord with fabric in this post, and you can read about my tips for sewing in-seam decorative rope cording here.  With fabric covered cord, the challenge is feeding the two fabric layers evenly through the machine, so I use Dual Feed on my Bernina sewing machine with large diameter welt cord, but I get the best results with 3/4" diameter welt cord when I use my serger.  With in-seam rope cord, the challenge is sewing close enough to the cord that the fabric tape "lip" doesn't show.

Trimming Your Tree (Skirt): Ideally, if you're going to use multiple trims on the same tree skirt, you want to select coordinating decorative rope cord, fringes and braids from the same collection.  You would think that, as an interior designer with access to a bazillion fabrics and trims, I could have found coordinating trims for this project, but alas -- there was no time for me to custom order anything and I was limited to what was in stock at my local JoAnn's store.  I loved the black and white pom pom fringe but there was no coordinating rope cord to go with it, just this plain black cord...  and some Snow White DMC embroidery floss over in the cross stitch aisle...

DIY "Matching Rope Cord" Trim

I used a size 22 tapestry needle and unseparated embroidery floss, all 6 strands, to whipstitch my white stripes around the black cording, but had to go over each stitch twice so it would stand out enough.  That means each stitch ended up with a total of 12 strands of embroidery floss.  I think I used three or three and a half skeins of floss to go around my whole skirt, and it took several hours -- on December 23rd, mind you, racing against the Advent clock!  But I liked the tree skirt MUCH BETTER after I added the white stitching to the black cord, so it was worth it.

Ta Da!  Matching Trims!

The biggest omission with the Mary Jo's tutorial is that they tell you to "sew fringe inset from your corded edge," but they don't tell you how to get your fringe lined up in a smooth curve equidistant from the edge of the skirt.  If you try to just eyeball it as you stitch the trim down, you'll end up with a wobbly mess.  Here's the trick I came up with for mine:

Marking Fringe Placement Inset 5" from Rope Cord

I chose a 5" tall plastic spool of giftwrap ribbon and "drove" it around the outer edge of my tree skirt, with the bottom edge of the spool riding in the groove between the black rope cord and the red fabric edge. (Note that the fringe gets sewn to the tree skirt PRIOR to lining it.  The seam allowance with the lip cord is merely rolled to the back side in this picture to enable me to get the ribbon spool right up against the cord edge).  The top edge of the plastic spool left a temporary track in the microsuede velvet pile in a smooth curved line spaced exactly 5" from the edge of the tree skirt.  I was then able to pin my fringe along that line, with pins as close as an inch or so apart so the fringe couldn't move out of place on the way from the worktable to the sewing machine.

Because my tree skirt is made of home dec weight microsuede, I used a size 90 Microtex needle and regular polyester all purpose sewing thread for this project, in black to match my trim.  I sewed the rope cord and fringe with a regular straight stitch, elongated to 3.5, but with no other tension adjustments.  I sewed the rope cord with Zipper Foot #4D and sewed the fringe with Open Toe Embroidery Foot #20D, engaging Dual Feed for both tasks.  

Machine Stitching the Inset Pom Pom Fringe

I sewed the fringe down in two passes, placing my stitching just inside the white running stitch embellishment on the fringe.  There IS such a thing as fringe adhesive, by the way, and gluing the trim to the skirt is an option.  However, so many of us store our holiday decorations in areas that are subject to extreme temperatures and humidity, and then we would be dragging gifts back and forth across the glued-on fringe, and i don't think the glue would hold for very long in those conditions.  Stitching the trim is the way to go.

So here you have the finished tree skirt, draped over my ironing board upon completion just after the stroke of midnight announcing the arrival of Christmas Eve:

Finished, In the Very Nick of Time!

...and here it is again, beneath my mom's tree:

Finished Tree Skirt, Beneath the Tree

There was a little bit of silliness initially about the tree skirt being "too nice to go on the floor," but then after running the vacuum cleaner she agreed to put the Christmas tree skirt on the floor beneath the tree as I had intended.  I think she likes it.

Mom's Christmas Tree, Naked No More!

So, that's what I was sewing last week when my blog was silent!  It's a good thing I finished on time, since I had no backup plan...  My mom did some Christmas sewing of her own, making pajama pants for Lars and Anders that were a huge hit.

As for me, this project reminded me that as much as I enjoy the "journey" of making, it really does feel good to FINISH something every once in awhile!  Now that the cookies have all been eaten and the wrapping debris has all been thrown away, I'm mulling my options for what to sew next. It sure would be nice if 2018 could be the Year I Finally Finished a Bunch of Stuff!

Today I'm linking up with Esther's WIPs on Wednesday, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Off the Wall Friday at Nina-Marie's Creations, Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts, and Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication.  Enjoy these last few days of 2017!

I Found the Perfect Christmas Tree Skirt!

"Holy Night" Appliqued Christmas Tree Skirt, available from Novica

I found the perfect Christmas tree skirt!  I know, I had planned to make one myself, but when I saw this "Holy Night" appliqued Christmas tree skirt on Novica's web site, it was exactly what I was looking for in so many ways.  Novica is fair trade organization with ties to National Geographic and Unicef that works to create opportunities for economically disadvantaged artisans around the world to sell their handmade goods for fair prices.  A Peruvian artisan named Balvina Huaytalla created this predominantly blue "Holy Night" tree skirt, which is perfect for tying in the blue star on my kitchen Christmas tree, and the folk art style of the dimensional stuffed applique complements the kiddo-themed ornaments on that tree as well (toys, sweets, and handmade ornaments going back to the boys' preschool years).  More importantly, I love that this tree skirt depicts the nativity, a reminder that the gift of our Redeemer's birth trumps any other gift we might find beneath the tree.  My parents used to set up a nativity scene beneath our Christmas tree, but when I tried that a couple years ago baby Jesus was abducted by our dog...  Since this holy family is stitched securely to the tree skirt, they should be safe from Lulu the Treacherous!

So, here's the Kitchen Christmas tree with the new tree skirt:

Kitchen Kiddo Tree with Nativity Tree Skirt

See how the blue at the bottom of the tree helps the blue star look less out of place?
Isn't it beautiful?

The Holy Family, Safe from Wicked Dogs

Could I have made my own version of this tree skirt instead?  Sure, but it would have taken a long time and I might not have finished it in time for Christmas this year.  Moreover, ripping off the artist's design instead of buying her tree skirt is really the OPPOSITE of fair trade, isn't it?

So, back to my pineapple log cabin quilt!  Happy Hannukah to all of my Jewish friends, and Happy Advent and Merry Christmas to my Christian friends and family.  May we all experience God's presence and peace this holiday season.

My Son Lars, Designer of Festive Holiday Decor

Remember how my 13-year-old son Lars took the Advanced Drawing EQ7 software class with Barb Vlack at Quilt Week over the summer?  Well, we need a new tree skirt for one of our Christmas trees, and I asked Lars to design one for me in EQ7.  This is what he came up with:


48" Diameter Christmas Tree Skirt, Designed by Lars

Hmmm...  Joy to the world, anyone????  I think it looks like that German Krampus devil that supposedly comes to punish all the bad kids who ended up on Santa's Naughty List:

See the resemblance?  Anyway, back to the drawing board, because that creepy dude is NOT going under my Christmas tree!

This is more of what I had in mind:

48" Diameter Tree Skirt, Designed by Mom

The fabrics are not to scale and the color is a little off since they are snapshots taken with my phone rather than scanned images, but you get the general idea.  I wonder if this is too ambitious to try to make before Christmas?  It's for the Christmas tree in my kitchen, which is decorated with ornaments that look like candy, gingerbread men, toys, and brightly colored balls.  It has a blue star on top.  I have novelty print fabrics with Christmas cookies, peppermint candies, hot chocolate, and some pretty blue fabrics with snowflakes, as well as a red, green and pink stripe fabric that reminds me of peppermint sticks that I'm planning for the binding. 

Now that I drew this lovely tree skirt on the computer, I wonder if I can figure out how to actually MAKE it?

I'm going to link up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and with Anything Goes Monday at Stitch By Stitch.

In Which Bernie Masters the Art of Cornice Upholstery

Built-Ins and Window Cornice By Bernie

So, we made some progress on Lars's New and Improved Bedroom last weekend that I wanted to share with you.  I finished this quilt for his bed in September 2012, and then repainted his bedroom this darker shade of blue about a year later.  Excuse me -- I SELECTED the paint color, and my darling husband did the painting.  Bernie also made the built-ins and the window seat to my specifications, designed specifically to house Lars's LEGO collection.  Previously, his bedroom floor was a labyrinth of assembled LEGO sets and no one but Lars and Spiderman could get through the room without tripping over Hogwarts or knocking over the Millenium Falcon.  It's nice to see the carpet again!

I finished the boxed cushion for the window seat a couple weeks ago and I made the welt cord for the cornice and seamed scraps of fabric together for the cornice face at that time, but Bernie built the wood cornice frame and upholstered it for me.  The only sewing I loathe more than upholstery cushions is the non-sewing, back-breaking, heavy-lifting-pneumatic-stapler-cornice-flipping kind.  But I think the cornice was needed to make the room look "finished."

I have a vague, half-hearted impulse to make some throw pillows to cozy up the window seat, but it's hard to get motivated when I know Lars is just going to chew the pillow trim and destroy them.  I have to remember that when I decorate the kids' rooms, I'm only PARTLY doing it for their benefit -- it's mostly for MY benefit, because it's MY house and I want it to look nice.  Which is why the budget for Lars's bedroom was pretty much nonexistent, making use of some fabric scraps left over from a client's project several years back.  There are several very carefully matched seams in that cornice, what my drapery workroom would call "creating the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes" when the designer has not ordered enough fabric to complete the job.  Hah!

Happy Thursday, everyone.

Chubby Welt Cord: Another Reason to Love the Dual Feed on the Bernina 750 QE

Half Inch Welt on Window Seat Cushion

In true Gemini fashion, I've been vacillating wildly between hand sewn invisible applique, my vintage Singer Featherweights, and my shiny new Bernina 750 QE over the past few months.  When I decided to purchase my new  'Nina  machine over a year ago, no one at the store did a very good job of explaining the integrated dual feed feature to me and it didn't factor into my purchasing decision at all.  However, I've found that the little Dual Feed footsie that scoots along behind my presser foot really DOES improve all kinds of sewing, from piecing quilt tops to matching prints on drapery panels.  I recently discovered another situation where the dual feed is a huge help: covering welt cord.

Lars's Window Seat Cushion

Most of the time, if I'm making a project that requires fabric-covered cording, I'll use a 5/32" or smaller diameter cord so I can whip it up on my serger with the raw edges perfectly even and overcast, all in one operation.  However, for this bench cushion for Lars's bedroom window seat, I preferred the look of chubby 1/2" diameter welt covered in orange chenille upholstery fabric.  Now, when covering cord on a regular sewing machine, the biggest problem to watch out for is uneven feeding of the two fabric layers, which can create a twisting, spiraling effect to your cord and make it pucker unattractively on your finished project.  Normally this effect is more pronounced and more difficult to avoid with the larger diameter cord, so I gritted my teeth and prepared for the worst.

I used my #4D (the D denotes that it's a foot with a special cutout at the back to accommodate the Dual Feed mechanism) Zipper foot with dual feed engaged, and I was delighted with how well my machine handled this task.  Since I will be using this cording on an upholstered cornice as well as on the boxed cushion for the window seat, I had to make 12 yards of cording.  With Dual Feed engaged on my 750, I was able to sew this cord accurately with no twisting or shifting of the fabric layers, and at FULL SPEED, 1000 stitches per minute, with my pedal to the floor.  It was almost as fast as covering skinny cording on the serger (except for having to go back and overcast the edges in a separate step with Foot #2A). 


Overcasting Raw Edges with a Zigzag Stitch Using Foot #2A

Here's a Bernina video that better explains how and why to use the Dual Feed feature, demonstrated on a 780 sewing machine:

Now that Lars's window seat cushion is done, I need to upholster his cornice (a job I loathe) and make a few throw pillows for him to snuggle into with a good book.  Then I can get back to my quilting!

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Meet Pantone's Color of the Year for 2013: #17-5641 Emerald Green!

Emerald Green Peacock Feathers

I know I'm a bit late with this announcement, but normally, when the color authorities at Pantone announce their Color of the Year, I don't get too excited.  Color forecasting is useful for designers, but only up to a point.  After all, redecorating an entire home in the hottest color of the year is a sure-fire way to date the interiors -- literally -- such that people say, "Ugh; her whole house is painted that hunter green and burgundy that everyone loved back in 1987!"  I generally advise my interior design clients to choose colors that speak to them personally rather than chasing the latest trend, with a few exceptions.  Since manufacturers around the globe worship faithfully at the feet of these Pantone folks, rushing to churn out products and stock inventories with the colors Pantone predicts will be popular, it's somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  At any rate, I know that the Pantone Color of the Year and the Pantone seasonal color palettes will be widely available for home goods and accessories across a wide range of price points, in just about every retailer.  Obviously clients who are willing to pay premiums for custom orders can get any color they want in just about anything, but for those on a budget, it really helps to work with colors that are easy to find everywhere from the most expensive showrooms right down to more affordable places like Restoration Hardware or even Target.

Emerald Green Bath, from Architectural Digest France

But for 2013, Pantone's color of the year is Emerald Green #17-5641, and I'm in LOVE!  Brighter and more vibrant than Hunter Green, but more sophisticated and subdued than Chartreuse, Emerald Green feels both fresh and timeless.

Emerald green looks modern and edgy mixed with black, white, and contemporary furniture shapes.

If the bold, dramatic impact of an all-green space is too much for you, experiment with Emerald Green as an accent color:

Emerald Green Draperies and Lampshades, photo from Brittany Stiles

Emerald Green Planters with Tangerine Front Door, from The French Tangerine

(Interestingly, Pantone's Color of the Year for 2012 was named Tangerine, but it was really more of a reddish orange than a true Tangerine).

One reason that Emerald Green appeals to me as more than just a passing trend is that the color is found in nature and will always be associated with the gemstones by the same name.  Consider this 1928 Cartier Indian Emerald necklace, once owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post and now in the Smithsonian's collection.  This statement piece is just as breathtaking today as it was nearly a century ago.  Emeralds will never go out of style.

Post Emerald Necklace, Cartier c. 1928, Smithsonian Collection



Floor Tiles by Claesson Koivisto Rune


Have I gotten you excited about Emerald Green for 2013 yet?  I'm already looking around my own home for opportunities to introduce some deep, rich Emerald Green, and I think I'll challenge myself to incorporate some of this color into at least one of my quilts this year as well.

Loving the Bernina Dual Feed for Pattern Matching!

Eleria fabric by Robert Allen, Graphite colorway, 24" repeat

I have a very full schedule today, but I had to share this.  When I set my heart on the Bernina 750QE sewing machine, I was aware that the 7 Series machines had a Dual Feed feature, but I thought it was just a silly gimmick, to be honest.  It wasn't a major selling point for me.  However, Bernina recommends engaging this little dual feed footsie for precise matching of plaids and stripes, or for "taming hard-to-manage fabrics." 

Yesterday I had to seam several widths of a Robert Allen drapery weight linen fabric with a weave just open enough to make it shifty and cantankerous and a large scale, high contrast pattern that would be very obvious and unattractive if it did not match carefully at the seams.  I decided this was a good opportunity to test drive the Dual Feed footsie.

Bernina introduced the Dual Feed feature on the 8 Series line and incorporated it into the new 7 Series machines as well.  It's an extra little "footsie" that comes down just behind your presser foot, like a little baby upper feed dog that tugs the top layer of fabric along each time the bottom feed dogs tug at the bottom layer of fabric, to help the layers feed evenly and to prevent shifting and misalignment of seams.  The Dual Feed only works with special "D" feet that have a groove cut out at the back to accommodate the Dual Feed footsie. 

Now, I should say that, if the seam in this fabric was destined to be in a visible location on the finished window treatment, like if it was a seam on the front of a flat cornice or a flat Roman shade, I would have carefully matched the pattern EXACTLY from the right side and hand-basted this seam before machine stitching it to ensure that it was as close to perfect as is humanly possible.  However, this seam has been plannned to fall inside of a box pleat, so it won't be directly visible -- it just needs to be a close enough match so that the pattern looks balanced from a distance when your eye sweeps from one width of fabric to the next.

So I used the eye of the brown birdie as a reference point, measured from the selvage on both sides of the fabric, and discovered that the pattern match occured 1 1/2" in on this particular fabric.  If this had been a solid fabric, I would have trimmed the selvages prior to stitching the seam, but again -- this linen weave was open and shifty enough that I wanted to keep that edge stable, and I woud be stitching far enough from the selvages that I wasn't concerned about puckering.  After sewing and opening out the seam to verify accuracy of the pattern match, I trimmed the selvages away with my pinking shears.


"Blind" Pattern Match with Dual Feed Function Engaged

I call this a "blind" pattern match, since I just matched up the pattern and pinned carefully at the cutting table, and then sewed the seam without basting it first from the right side.  I attached the metal seam guide bar to my presser foot at exactly 1 1/2" from the needle, put on my 1D presser foot, pulled down the Dual Feed footsie, and sewed this seam fairly quickly, only slowing down when I came to pins so I could remove them.  I am DELIGHTED with how well the pattern matches on this seam.  This is good enough for a drapery panel, in my opinion, let alone for a seam that is going to be hiding away in a valance box pleat where no one can appreciate it.  I almost want to put the seam smack dab in the MIDDLE of the window treatment and decorate it with beads or something, to make sure everyone notices how beautifully the pattern was matched!  ;-) 

Seriously, this is going to eliminate hand-basting in many of my projects where pattern matching is crucial.  I also felt that the dual feed gave my machine a little more muscle to pull the large, heavy fabric pieces through as they stitched.  Compared to my old sewing machine, I felt like the 750QE was doing a lot more of the work of handling the weight of that fabric bulk and I was just guiding it through the machine.  It also seemed to me that the dual feed was helping me get a straighter straight stitch on this 9 mm machine, more like that of a 5 mm or smaller sewing machine.

Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE my new sewing machine?
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Rebecca's Tips for Sewing In-Seam Rope Cord Trims

If you're looking for a quick decorating fix for your home, you can't beat decorative throw pillows.  Since pillows use so little fabric, they are a great place to splurge on fancy fabrics and trimmings without breaking the bank, and they are not difficult to sew. 

In the Samuel & Sons ad above, all of the top-applied ball fringe trims have been hand-stitched to the pillow covers, and that is absolutely the way any high-end drapery workroom would apply trims with a decorative header.  The rope cord trims, on the other hand, have a twill tape or knitted lip attached to the cord so that they can be sewn successfully by machine.  I don't do a lot of this type of sewing anymore, but I made an exception recently in order to deliver a set of throw pillows to one of my favorite design clients before the holidays when my drapery workroom was backed up.  I know a lot of home sewers have difficulty achieving professional results with decorative rope cord trim, so I thought I'd share a few tips and tricks of the trade.

Kravet Frontier fabric, Habaneros Colorway

When I'm making a throw pillow, I cut two squares of fabric to the size of my pillow insert plus 1", to give me 1/2" seam allowances on all four sides.  I round off my corners slightly using a corner template from M'Fay Patterns.  Next, I like to overcast the raw edges of my pillow top and bottom pieces on my serger, especially when I'm working with a difficult fabric like this one from Kravet -- it has an intentionally wrinkled, puckered surface, and the little motifs that appear to be embroidered are actually a jacquard weave, leaving long floating strands of thread all over the back side of the fabric.  Once the edges were overcast on the serger, this fabric was totally well behaved throughout the rest of the project.



Ruffled Rouche lip cord from Robert Allen

When you're selecting your decorative rope cord, you can save yourself a lot of headaches by avoiding those that are very stiff and/or large diameter.  Why?  Think about it.  You're going to use a zipper foot to try to sew as close to your cord as possible.  If your cord is a rigid 5/8" diameter cylinder and you're sewing it against the flat bed of your sewing machine, there is no way you can get your sewing machine needle to stitch right up against the cord because the cord rolls inward onto the lip in order to lie flat.  With that kind of cord, I just machine stitch as close as I can and then supplement with hand stitching from the right side (after turning the pillow right side out) to ensure the cord is hidden.  With the Ruffled Rouche cord trim I was using for this project, I was able to push it and smoosh it out of the way sufficiently that no additional hand sewing was necessary.

Now, 1/2" seam allowances are standard for home dec sewing, but the header on my rope cord was a lot narrower than 1/2". If I just lined up the cord lip with the edge of my pillow top, my seam allowance would be too small and my pillow cover would finish too large.  I attached the seam guage to my zipper foot, set at 1/2" from the needle, and used that as a guide for my pillow fabric.  Then I just smashed the rope cord trim up against the left side of my zipper foot as tightly as I could as I stitched the trim to the pillow front.  Oh, and I did use a longer stitch length for this, to reduce puckering. 

Cord Ends Unraveled and Woven Together, Ready for Stitching

I should also mention that, when I start sewing on a rope cord, I try to stop and start in an inconspicuous place, on the bottom of the pillow between the corner and the start of the zipper.  I leave the first few inches of trim loose as I begin stitching, and when I get all the way around the pillow I leave a few inches of trim loose to overlap the starting point.  I carefully unravel the trim at both ends and weave the two ends together (this is easier with some trims than with others), pulling the yarn tails into the seam allowances and flattening them as much as possible.  Then I simply stitch across the yarn tails to secure the cord join.

Stitching Across the Yarn Tails to Join the Cord Ends

After Securing the Joined Ends, Trim the Yarn Tails Even with the Seam Allowance

Ta da!  When this pillow was finished, it was impossible to tell where the cord join was.

A few more tips: After I sew the cording to the pillow top, I insert my invisible zipper and then I sew all the way around to secure the pillow front to the pillow back, right sides together.  Then I flip the pillow over and sew around the perimeter again from the opposite side -- this helps get even closer to the cord.

Unfortunately, I was rushing to get these pillows delivered to my client and I forgot to take pictures of the finished pillows once they were stuffed.