For the past couple of weeks, I had been fighting oil spots on fabric every time I stitched a seam on Janet's old Mitsubishi industrial at the studio and I couldn't figure out why or where they were coming from. (I think all the rubber seals and gaskets are just old and wearing out or something.)
So instead of calling the repair guy and spending $400+ to try to fix it, we decided it was time to upgrade to a Juki DDL-8700 with a quiet servo motor like I have at home. And because I had been planning to eventually get another one for myself to have at the studio anyway, we got two, traded in the Mitsubishi (which covered the delivery charge), and had the guys from Sunny Sewing Machine in Dallas do all the heavy lifting up the studio stairs!
They were delivered yesterday, which was almost exactly four years since I brought my Juki ("Thor" ) home on June 1, 2019 after sewing on the same model at the opera for a few years. It's always interesting to see the tiny changes made from year to year. Thor was made in China, but these two new machines were made in Vietnam. And the ruler printed on the table surface has changed somewhat.
Sadly, that means that Gandalf and his desk came home with me again, but honestly, I prefer sewing on an industrial, especially for work stuff.
I spent the day priming things for paint and then I remembered to shoot a quick video. #SewingStudioBuild
I started cutting all the edges while Janet was away yesterday morning. When she got back after lunch, she pulled out a roller and started filling in. I'll put a pic below in the comments. #SewingStudioBuild
We broke for lunch and then came back with a portal ac unit plugged in to an extention cord from the house. Can't wait until they finished hooking up all the electrical and we have the mini split cooling the room for us - it was stupid humid today! #SewingStudioBuild
I thought you all might be interested to know what happened to the original treadle base on my antique Singer. This was all my husband’s doing, as he’s wanted to try this project for years. He’s gotten into woodworking this past year, so he’s got more of the skills now. The table portion is from a fold-down IKEA table that used to be my cutting table, back in the pre-kid days when I had a whole room for sewing. (It’s been living in the basement folded up for years, mostly used for garden seed storage and a few small tools.) He added the sink basin and faucet. We’re debating about me making a small curtain underneath that would hide the pipe work, while still showing the treadle base.
This project sparked another room makeover, though this one is our half-bath so it isn’t nearly as involved as our kitchen and kids’ rooms have been. Several of the other items in the picture came from a couple of local antique shops, though the old milk crate belonged to my husband’s ...
I haven't been sewing since a big project finished about a month ago - I'm just burned out (will post photos at some point).
After a couple exhausting weekends of installing a new dishwasher because my 29 year-old mechanical stopped rinsing properly 😥, I was motivated enough to start reorganizating the rest of the kitchen. It's always a domino effect, and I'm still not finished, but I washed the curtain I made a million years ago and properly dusted/washed all the pitchers and decorations on the window shelves. (I even polished the formica tabletop!) So the window area was photo-worthy.
Back when made the curtain, I was smart and used velcro instead of a curtain rod. I put a male sticky-back strip on the top of the mini-blind housing and sewed a soft female strip of regular velcro onto the curtain. The curtain itself is all one piece gathered to that strip of velcro - easy to pull off and throw in the laundry (not that i overcome laziness and actually wash it regularly but whatever).
I ...
Been so busy, I forgot to share photos of the final Paquita costume! Well, most of these photos are “semi-final”—after the photoshoot and first dress rehearsal, his teacher asked me to tweak the front seams below the waist so they would stay close to the body (not flare out like in the photoshoot) when his arms were up. This involved re-doing the bottom trim but the final result was worth it, so! The full sleeves were not as dramatic as we thought they were going to be, but still a nice effect. I really love the elbow sleeve detail and maybe will post more about it later.
