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 keep meaning to cut something new out to sew, and keep not having time. But in the meantime, I thought I’d show something I started several weeks ago. About two years ago, a geography project that was in our curriculum was to create an embroidery design, the unit was on Ukraine and this had to do with traditional embroidered garments. So my oldest made this design, and asked if I’d use it in my own sewing sometime. I had to sit on this one for awhile to plot what to do, but I finally started it. Last year’s ice dyeing had this leftover sweatshirt fleece from some shirts I made when the boys were younger, but it only dyed on the back side. So I’m using reverse embroidery to put his design on the front piece of this sweatshirt, so I can also use that piece of fabric in a way that won’t look like my clothes are inside out. I also have a back yoke piece cut, but I’m only getting to work on this around once a week right now, so I’ll need to either speed this up or drop that ...
I just need to vent. I was hemming some jeans today and one leg was perfect. Did it in one try. The other? It took 4 times of sewing and picking it out! I’m done now but that was such a pain. I hate stretch denim so much. Can anyone else relate?
Almost time to start quilting panels for my jacket pieces. I have one more front section to piece and I need to lengthen the hood pattern (why does everyone always draft hoods too short?) and then I can make "sandwiches."
I took this photo before I stitched a strip of background fabric to each side of the stripes so that the pattern piece of the jacket back is completely covered.
