Egghead Learns to Sew, Part III

Today I thread the needle (or "upper thread," in the parlance of the Instruction Manual) of my fabulous Christmas-gift sewing machine, inching ever closer to efficiently and effectively stitching fabric and making all kinds of wonderful textile-artistic things! Yay!
Excitement is beginning to overtake the nervousness I initially felt at this prospect.

The Parts

Threading the upper thread involves a few previously labeled parts of the machine, namely, the spool pin, bobbin-winder/thread guide, thread tension knob (although indirectly), and the thread take-up lever; plus a few unnamed parts. One of the unnamed parts is located behind the the face plate cover. The others are attached to the named parts, which may explain why they're not specifically named. In any case, the Instruction Manual provides a diagram (pictured above) of the path the thread is supposed to travel through these parts on its way to the needle. While it's reasonably easy to follow, it would benefit from color photos and a bit of narrative. This is where the the current post comes in.

The Steps

Obviously, the first step is to place thread on the spool pin. (This is Step A on the diagram, in case you're following that as well.) Now you're on your way. The thread's first touch-point is the bobbin-winder tension knob and thread guide. Pass the thread under the bobbin-winder aspect of this part of the machine (the circular bit in top) and through the little horizontal hook part just below and in front of it (Step B on the diagram).

Pull the thread down to the thread tension dial. Just behind the dial itself are a couple of circular plates. The space between the plates is where the thread passes through. Attached to the tension knob/twin plates is a delicate little hooky-loopy thing. Pass the thread in-between the plates and through the delicate hooky-loop (Step C on the diagram).

Now, pull the thread up and through another hook located just above and to the left of the thread tension dial/twin plates (Step E).

Keep pulling up. Pass the thread through the thread take-up lever (Step F). It's probably easiest to do this if the lever is in its upper-most position. To get it there, turn the hand wheel clutch (the larger of the two wheels on the right side of the machine) slowly towards you.

Next, open the face cover and pull the thread down and through another hooky thing located at the very bottom of that whole inside-the face-cover section of the machine (Step G). Close the face cover.

Keep pulling down and pass the thread through a final hooky-loopy thing located at the base of the needle bar (Step H).

Now, get ready. You're about to complete the circuit of hooky-loopy things and actually thread the needle of the machine. The diagram combines this step with Step H above but I think it deserves its own Step. After all, it is the gateway Step to effectively and efficiently stitching up all kind of wonderfulness. I know you can hardly stand the anticipation anymore, so without further ado....

Find the eye of the needle. It's just above the pointy end. Pull the thread down so you have a little slack. Then pass the end of the thread through the eye and pull it toward the back of the machine.

You did it! Make yourself a cup of tea and relax for a while before moving onto the final set of precursor steps to learning to sew on a machine, namely, inserting the bobbin into the bobbin case and uniting the bobbin thread with the thread you just threaded. What?! Don't worry, I'll explain.

Until next time --

Linda

Purty Bird

Egghead Learns to Sew, Part II

In this installment of my klutzy-bookish guide to learning to sew on a machine, I explain how to wind a bobbin. For those of you who never took sewing in school, the bobbin is essentially the spool of thread that contributes the bottom stitch. While it's not really necessary to wind your own bobbin --- you can buy them pre-wound --- I thought the process of doing so would be a manageable way to introduce thread and electricity to the post-it labeled parts of my machine and thus, to dip my toe into actually using it.

I began by identifying the relevant parts: the spool pin, bobbin winder tension knob, bobbin winder spindle, bobbin-winder stop, and the stop clutch knob. The diagram above shows these parts in relation to each other, albeit from the back of the machine (which, incidentally, I found confusing; the owner's manual is my friend, but, it turns out, not the most reliable one, alas). The pictures below show what these parts actually look like.

 

It took me poking around for awhile to figure out how to extend the spool pin so it was long enough to hold a spool of thread. Once I scaled that hurdle I followed the instructions in the owner's manual and placed the bobbin on the bobbin winder spindle, pushed the spindle to the right to engage it, and released the clutch.

Next I plugged the machine in. Ack! Electricity! We're getting serious now. I paused to collect myself and then put my spool of thread on the spool pin and wound the thread twice around the bobbin winder tension knob. The owner's manual didn't explain how exactly to attach the end of the thread to the bobbin so I just wrapped it around a few times and hoped for the best.

I depressed the foot control and lo! The thread began to wind itself around the bobbin! I marveled at how evenly the the thread distributed itself. I was also impressed that the machine knew when the bobbin was full. When the bobbin winder stop stopped turning, I was done. Nothing got jammed up or tangled. Yay!

I snipped the end of the thread with a scissor, removed the bobbin from the bobbin winder spindle, and felt accomplished. And relieved.

Until next time, when I go inside the machine to insert the bobbin, and thread the upper thread into the needle --

Linda

Purty Bird

What to Do With Scraps of Felt, Part VIII: Make a Mobile

Today's How-To is an expansion of my What to Do With Scraps of Felt Part VII: Make a Festive Garland. It starts with strands of felt shapes weighted by jingle bells and attaches them to a simple frame to create a mobile.

Materials

• Scraps of felt
• Fishing line
• Scissors
• Glue
• Jingle bells
• 20 gauge brass wire
• Needle-nose pliers
• Wire cutter (most needle-nose pliers are also wire-cutters)
• Flat-nose pliers

Steps

Follow the directions in my previous post to create three or four strands of felt shapes weighted at one of their ends with large jingle bells, but make them shorter than you would a garland; for example, 3-4 shapes per strand.

Next, cut a length of brass wire about 9 inches long for each strand of felt shapes. Gather them together in a bunch and twist them together at one end using the flat-nose pliers to hold the bunch still and the needle-nose pliers to do the twisting. Twist the bunch enough times for a length of twisted wire long enough to create a hook or loop. 

Straighten out the individual pieces of wire and loop them at their ends.

Attach the strands of felt shapes to the loops. Set your brass-wire frame on a level surface so it isn't swinging around while you work. 

Hang your frame from something stable and adjust the top hook/loop and individual arms of the frame to balance the strands of felt out. (Clearly, my mobile still needs a bit of balancing!)

Stand back and admire your work. Wait for a breeze and watch it come to life.

A few tips

Leave yourself enough length at the top of your strands of felt shapes so as to be able tie them onto the brass-wire frame with ease. 

Enjoy!

Until next time,

Linda

Purty Bird

Make Your Own Lip Balm!

First, I would like to be honest…I am OBSESSED with lip balm. I have quite a number of them strewn about my apartment. There is one in all of my handbags, and I collect at least 5 of them from various pockets on laundry day.

Everyone asks me if it is difficult to make lip balm, and the answer is no. You can make a lip balm with just three ingredients! Making a lip balm that feels nice on the lips, goes on smoothly, etc. can take a bit of work. My formula took about 2 years and many, many trials before I was happy with it.

If you love lip balms like I do, then I am happy to help you get started!

The basic formula for a lip balm is 1/3 hard oils (oils/butters that remain solid at room temperature.) 1/3 soft oils (oils that remain liquid at room temperature) and 1/3 wax.

Some examples:
Hard Oils: Shea butter, Cocoa butter, Kokum butter, Mowrah butter, palm oil.

Soft Oils: Olive oil, Canola oil, Almond oil, Avocado oil, Grapeseed oil.

Waxes: Beeswax, Soy wax, Candelilla wax, Carnauba wax.

Creating a recipe by properly weighing your ingredients can avoid a lot of confusion down the road. A tablespoon of olive oil will not weigh the same as a tablespoon of beeswax, so weighing ingredients as you add them will help create an accurate recipe. This will help when making changes and taking notes. You can find basic kitchen scales at your local hardware store, supermarket, etc.

So, you will need your soft oil, hard oil, wax, a small saucepan (preferably one with a pouring lip,) a scale, pipettes, lip balm tubes, rubber bands, a clean plastic container w/a lid, popsicle sticks, toothpicks, and flavor oil (optional.)

Let’s start with 1oz olive oil, 1oz cocoa butter, 1 oz beeswax…

In the saucepan, melt all three ingredients on the stove over low heat. Mix well (I like to use popsicle sticks to stir,) remove the pan from heat and leave it to harden up. You can place the pan in the fridge to speed things up. Once it hardens up, scoop a bit off with a toothpick and try it out. If you want to add more olive oil, melt everything again on the stove, mix in (and take notes!) a bit more olive oil (maybe 1/2oz,) wait for the mixture to harden up, and try it again. It may take a few trials, but once you get the consistency that you are happy with, then you are ready to pour the balm into tubes.

Pour the mixture into the plastic container, leaving 1oz in the pan. Set the plastic container to the side. Lip balm mix can harden pretty quickly, so if you need to, place the saucepan back on the stove and melt again. Keep a close watch on the pan to prevent any scorching! Once melted, remove the pan again, wait a few minutes, then and add any flavor oils. If you are adding flavor, using your pipette, measure out 1/2ml and add to the 1oz mix in the pan.

1oz of lip balm mixture will fill 6 standard lip balm tubes. Take the 6 tubes, and gather them together with a rubber band. This will keep them steady and upright, making it easy to pour the ingredients in the tube. Slow and steady wins the race! Take your time and carefully pour the mix into the tubes. Don’t try to move the tubes, and leave them to harden up. Later on, you can clean up any spills with rubbing alcohol and paper towels. If the mix hardens up before you finish pouring all six tubes, just put the pan back on the stove, melt again, and continue.

The most important thing is to keep track of how much additional oils/wax you used. Let’s say you added an additional 1/2oz olive oil and 1/4oz cocoa butter. Now you know that your final formula would be 1.5oz olive oil, 1.25oz cocoa butter, and 1oz beeswax.

Of course, you still have more lip balm mix in the container, this will be the final lip balm base. Place the lid on the container, and store in your craft cabinet. When you are ready to make more balms, just scoop out 1oz, melt in the saucepan, add your flavor oil, and pour your balms…that’s it!

You can label the tubes with a permanent marker, or print a label on paper, cut to size, and attach it to the tubes using clear packing tape.

You can pick up some ingredients from the supermarket or health food store. Or, here is a site with just about everything you need to get started: From Nature With Love

You can make your balm with many different ingredient combinations, so have fun and experiment. Just make sure you keep proper notes, so if you come up with a winner, you will be able to make it again. You can use a combination of oils too, so let’s say you want your 1/3 liquid oils to include grapeseed oil, olive oil, avocado oil, and almond oil? Instead of using 1oz olive oil, you can start with 1/4oz of each. The possibilities are endless, so enjoy making your lip balms!

Nordea
nordeasoaperie

Tutorial: Repurpose Kid Art for a Mother's Day Gift

 
First of all, I want to thank Sarah of Sarah Jane. Her blog post of 2009 was the inspiration for this tutorial, which is a play on her original idea. Three years ago, Sarah decided to display her children’s art by cutting it into whimsical shapes and framing them.

I've always wanted to do something like this and I finally tackled a project that originated when my now fifth grader was in pre-school. In 2006 Elizabeth and Fiona were best friends. They did everything together including painting this masterpiece that used to hang on their classroom door in pre-school.

While the girls have gone their own ways, I wanted to preserve this piece in a way that they both could enjoy by turning it into TWO wall decorations.

Materials

• Artwork
• Stretched Canvas 
• Acrylic paint 
• Mod Podge or other decoupage medium 

Steps

Paint the top and side surfaces of the canvas in your preferred color.

While the canvas dries, cut up the artwork into a shape that you like. For this project, I used this stencil for the butterfly and this one for the cat. Sarah generously provided templates for a swallow, an elephant and a seal on her blog. You could also have your child draw a shape and use that.

When the canvas is dry, apply Mod Podge to the back of the image you cut out and glue it onto the canvas.

Then proceed to varnish the image by painting it with three coats of the Mod Podge. Let each coat dry (approximately 20 minutes) before applying the next layer.

If you decide to further decorate this piece and add the shape’s name like Sarah and I did, you can practice your penmanship while the glue dries and test out what you want to write on the canvas to complement the decoupage.

Once the decoupage is dry, finish of your piece by writing something fitting with acrylic paint using a very fine brush.

The butterfly will go to Fiona’s house and the cat will stay with my girl. This way they both can share a piece of the fantastic work they created when they were four.

By the way, Sarah is the designer of the Children at Play fabric line. Her work can also be found on Etsy at SarahJaneStudios.

Simone
groundsel.etsy.com

The Secret to Successfully Blowing Out an Egg

A couple of weeks ago Leslie from Astor Knot posted a wonderful tutorial on the art of Pysanky. After reading through the tutorial, I was curious to try blowing out eggs as I've never done it before, and after doing it I thought I would share some tips with all of you who might want to try it. 

1. First, I found out that it is easier to blow out an egg that is room temperature rather than one right out of the refrigerator. Leave your carton of eggs out for a couple of hours first. Another thing that I discovered is that fresher eggs from healthier chickens have a stronger shell that is less likely to break, so spend the extra dollar or two to get better eggs.

2. To poke the holes in the eggs, I used a couple of needles, one small sharp one and one slightly larger one. Using the smaller needle, I gently poked one hole in each end. Then I used the larger needle to make one of the holes slightly larger. Then, I used the larger needle to stir up the inside of the egg, piercing the egg yolk and scrambling the inside.

3. The next step is blowing out the inside of the egg. You can do this by just blowing using your mouth, but I used one of those runny nose sucking tools designed for babies that came in a baby medical kit. It's much more fun to use this on an egg than on an infant. In this case, the egg doesn't scream bloody murder and look at you with betrayal. I put the sucker thing on top of the smaller hole, then pressed the bulb to push out the insides of the egg through the larger hole on the bottom. Do this as gently as possible so you don't break the egg. Keep repeating the process until nothing else comes out.
*Note: In this project, I used a whole carton of eggs and ended up dividing the egg innards into separate bowls which I then used to cook and bake with. Thankfully my family enjoys eggs!

4. After the egg blowing portion of the activity, my daughters and I set off to paint and decorate our new eggs! We decided to paint versus dying so we could get brighter colors, but I think we'll also do some egg dying later this week. Don't want to deprive the girls of tradition.

5. I poked some glass head needles into the top of an egg carton for the eggs to rest on while they dried.

6. Finally, we ran some brown grocery bags through the paper shredder for a "nest" and settled the newly decorated eggs in the basket. The great thing about blown out eggs is that will last as long as your kids will handle them carefully. In our household, that is about three minutes, but you may have better luck in your home. Enjoy!

Until next time,

Karina

Windows of Agate