Thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday. I woke up to some great birthday treats from Charlie and Roxanne, including several sweet and clever cards, two sewing boxes to help me get my sewing room/studio space organized, and…Adobe Photoshop (or actually a promise to purchase it during our upcoming tax free weekend here in Massachusetts). I am so excited to be getting graphics software for our Mac. Maybe I can finally make a banner for this here weblog and make some tags to go on my handmade goods. For anyone who has Photoshop and uses it regularly, am I going to be able to figure it out?
I also got the sweetest surprise package from moki. She put in all sorts of great stuff, including her tiny alien baby! Roxy and I were very excited.
And another question. I am in need of a new needle threader. For a long time I was using one like this that came for free in a hotel room sewing kit
And then I was working on a project that involved using six strands of embroidery floss to make french knots. When I went to pull the thread through the eye of the embroidery needle, the wire on the threader pulled out. So I bought a fancy new one like this
Used it for all of three days and managed to pull the wire out of both ends! Anyone have a better one they use? or maybe tips on how to thread an embroidery needle with six strands of floss and no needle threader?
Yesterday I spent some time working on a pair of bloomers for one of my mod dolls. I had made a dress for her out of this vintage print from my mother-in-law, but it was a little short ended up looking more like a shirt, so bloomers were in order. They have an elastic waistband and little black ribbon drawstring ties on each side of the leg.
I also made a duckling from Adventures in Toymaking.
Look at that mighty bill! I love his legs (they are attached in a clever way – by making a slit on the underside of the body and slipping them in from the right side), but the bill makes him so top heavy! I think it could benefit from some shortening and some topstitching. And the pattern had you attach this awkward tail feather which I promptly cut off once he was all stuffed. With a bit of tweaking, though, it is a promising pattern.
I love the bloomers! It actually reminds me of a beach outfit I had as a girl.
The duckling rocks! The long bill makes him look so adorable and quacky!
He’s lovely. He looks like he’s waiting for somebody ?
oh wow~so many things to comment about!! where to begin? first off, thanks for the threader thingy tip~i am getting addicted to embriodery right now and anything to help french knots, etc is awesome! and the adoreable duckling! the mod doll! i want to see her face…:D
That outfit it super cute! 🙂
You’ll definitely be able to figure out the photoshop program. I bought it second hand and it came without the how-to book (!!!) and I still figured it out enough to have fun and make what I wanted to with it.
a larger sized embroidery needle should help! But even once you get it threaded with all six strands you will probably have a really hard time getting it to go through your fabric unless it is really loosely woven or it is polar fleece…I did an embroidery project on a linen and I wanted to use all six strands but I couldn’t even pull it through the fabric… hope that helps 🙂
Hi! I like your bears very much. I suppose that you have already thought you could thread three threads (twice the lenght you need) in the needle and fold them in two to sew?
Some times, i use a strong thread, fold it in two, thread the loop, then thread the floss I want to use through the loop of the strong thread, and pull…
I hope I’m being understandable? Forget my english. Hughs to Roxie from my son Benoît (17 months).