Sewing Room & My New Toy

I was pretty upset when my Babylock broke, again.  Turns out the belt had fallen off and the shop didn't charge me to fix it, but in my impatience and need to sew, I looked at Bernina's.  I was thinking about getting a mid-line model, but the shop had an offer that was hard to pass up on the new 780.  Here it is!

The deal was for the Bernina 780 with the sewing table with lift and matching cabinet.  When I started looking for a different machine, I really started thinking about getting a better sewing desk.  I really wanted to finish my design, but since we don't have power tools at my house, it just wasn't happening.

Here's the sewing table.

I'm really enjoy having the machine level with the sewing table.  Just starting to play with the 780.  I've been having issues piecing, but I really think it's the project I've been working on.  I just took the quilt off the wall prior to these photos.  It's lighthouse by sweetwater and it has strips of biased pieced strips.  I made a serious beginner error with it and I'm just really frustrated.  Right now it's in a pile waiting for the seam ripper before I make another attempt with it.

Anyway, here is my sewing area in my basement.  Love it.  In the day, it's night and light and peaceful.  Please excuse the poor iPhone photos.  I need to find my digital camera and charger.

 The cutting table is a kitchen cabinet from IKEA that I got on Craigslist.  It works very well.  I buy mostly fat quarters (I don't do enough sewing for yardage).  I keep them in plastic containers on the shelves along with plastic containers for scraps.  I also have wire shelving that has baskets of fabric.  I'm trying to get my husband to cut a board to go on top for ironing so I don't have to drag out the full size ironing board all the time.

Since the quilt isn't working out right now, I've cut out the pieces to make an Abby Bag by V & Co.  Pretty excited about it.  It should give me a chance to really try out the 780 and hopefully not have issues due to unstarched/stabilized bias edges.

Off to bed, work in the morning and then birthday weekend!

Oh, Ellie's gotten pretty big, about 25 lbs.  Here's Oliver & Ellie at the vet.  They were both so good and tired from a day of doggie daycare.

Thanksgiving, Dog Collars and More

I passed my PoTS test and started taking Claritin and Zantac.  Since then, I've started feel back to my normal dysfunctional self.  It's good to be making progress.  I see my cardiologist and allergist tomorrow so I hope they will agree with what I've found and help me to continue getting better.

Dog Collars:

I had mentioned earlier this month I wanted to make my dogs new dog collars.  Of course, I put it off for a variety of reasons, but decided I had to have them made for Thanksgiving.  The night before I started the project, but I was too worn out to complete it.  Surprisingly, I woke up on the morning of ready to complete them.  I am not a morning person ever unless my PoTS/MCS is in check.  So it was definitely something to be thankful for.

Unfortunately,  my sewing machine died just as I was finishing Ollie's colar.  As I was sewing the colars, I could tell my machine was not really up to the task.   I have a Babylock Quilters Choice and it is supposed to be capable of it.  It got stuck on a particularly thick area and acted like the needle broke.  It didn't, but when I went to start sewing it make a motor spinning sound, but nothing else moved/made noise.  Not good.  Really hoping the safety device isn't resetting because it's broken or there's a giant thread tangle I can't get to or something easily fixable.  If not, then I guess I'm getting a new machine.

Here are the collars:

My husband used his company's laser engraver to engrave the dog's name and our numbers onto the metal buckles.  The buckles turned out well (I blurred out our phone numbers and part of the last name for privacy - that's not really how they look).  I need to re-make Oliver's collar because it's a little too small.  Once I get his collar fixed then I'll put them on both dogs and see how well it all holds up.

New Sewing Machine?

I've never been thrilled with my Babylock.  It was a class room model so I got it used.  I really liked it when I first got it.  But then after a bit of sewing it didn't sew very well.  Then I got busy and put it up for a while.  When I finally got back to it nearly a year later, it had massive tension issues.  I couldn't get the upper tension right at all so it when in for service.  The service tech found the upper tension inside very loose and fixed that.  It can back better, but I always felt like something was off.  Now it's pretty broken.  So I dropped it off at the dealer and then headed to the local Bernina dealer.

The first time I looked at Bernina I was supper excited about the entry level model.  Then I ended up getting a Singer from a big box store.  I took a class at the Babylock dealer and really appreciated the quality of the Quilter's Choice.  So when the dealer had the class room sale, I splurged and got one.  I had looked at the Bernina's as well, but they were so much more expensive and didn't come with all the fun toys the Babylocks come with.  Plus the Bernina dealer doesn't have late hours so about the only time I can go there is on Saturday, which rarely works for me.  But with my sewing machine at the shop, I figured I should stop by the Bernina dealer and see their machines.

Because of the expense, I was looking at the basic machines.  I was thinking about getting a back up machine, hopefully used, to use when the Babylock is out of commission.  But then I saw the 7 series with dual feed and how easily it sews over pretty much any weird combination of fabric I threw at it.  Now I want it.  I think I've got the husband convinced to let me get it after the house is re-financed.  I spent a lot of time on the internet reading reviews about machines with dual feed and decided it's between Babylock or Bernina, but the Crescendo looks weird as does the accessories.

Olivers New Harness

I saw this tutorial for a dog harness at Sew Mama Sew. I am one of those weird people that take their dog to daycare and I'm always looking for ways to improve the car ride. The daycare workers and my husband have a lot of trouble figuring out how to attach the side straps to Oliver's current harness and this new one completely eliminates that step so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I decided to make a matching bow tie out of scraps. It attaches to his collar with Velcro. Since this is for a car seat, I did a lot of re-enforcing. I serged the lining to the top piece, mostly to use my new serger. I'd never sewn curves on a serger before, definitely going to have to work on that skill. I also had a lot of trouble with the binding. I should have cut bias binding and I bet that would have made it easier. I also used some really cheap fabric from Joanns. If you look closely, you can see the mistakes, but it's a dog harness so I don't care. I prefer to make something functional while learning rather than scraps.

Here's the finished product:

Sewing Desk/Cutting Table - Conception

So I have been on a mission to turn my sewing space into an actual sewing space.  I'm fortunate to have a spare bedroom to make a sewing room/guest room right now so I have the room for an actual desk at the very least.  Right now, I have my sewing machine set up on an adjustable folding table.  At full height, it's too tall and and the next lower notch it's too low.  Plus the lack of drawers drives me nuts not to mention it shakes when I sew fast (usually on accident).

After much searching online, I decided that I would either have to shell out hundreds if not thousands of dollars for a reasonable solution or figure out how to make something on my own.  The engineer in me, of course, says design it yourself and after finding this site by Ana White with instructions on how to build your own furniture, I had decided to try.

Here it is.  The table top is 4' by 8' and it's 27" tall.  I'm 5'4" so it should be a good starting height.  If I need to raise it another inch I should be able to add something to the feet.  I putting books and other such items on the two shelves on the sides.  I may decide to add a shelf to the top section to for baskets to store sewing machine things.  The bottom shelf in front will probably have a giant bin for scraps.  I'm also going to cut a hole in the top for my sewing machine.  It's not shown, but there's a shelf underneath the top for the machine to sit on.

If this goes well, I hope to make a cutting table next based on the Varde Base Cabinet from IKEA.

My table is a bit smaller and right now 32".  It's designed to have two drawers, not shown.  I'm still working on the exact details.  My intent is to store fabric and projects on the shelves below.

Neither my husband nor I have a truck and our tool selection is very limited so my dad is going to help me with the project.  Hopefully it goes well!

Cost Break Down So Far:
$40 on a new fine tooth saw blade for my dad's saw
$20 for some roller stand thing to cut the wood
$40 for a Basic Kreg Jig Kit (it's how you make neat pocket holes to hide the joins for the wood)
$20 for the Kreg Jig Clamp to clamp the kit to a table.
$8 for two different sizes of screws for the Kreg Jig

It's feels like I've already spent a lot (which I have), but the IKEA table alone is $350 and most sewing tables are $200 plus.  I alway have the tools (minus the saw blade and screws) so $80 isn't really towards the project.  The wood should be around $100 total for both projects and depending how it goes it will either get stained or spray painted white.  If my estimate is right, I'll have a sewing table and cutting table for around $200, which would definitely be winning.

Introduction

This is Olie, Oliver, or "The Wookie."  He's a pretty cool dog.  He likes to bark at the neighborhood dogs, guard the house from such threats as Fedex and USPS, and rip out the stuffing from his toys.  

This is me at work.

My face is dirty from inspecting some equipment during a maintenance outage.  Lots of fun.  I work in a refinery as a Process Engineer.  Right now, I support two units that upgrade low octane gasoline to high octane gasoline and two units that produce hydrogen from methane.  I enjoy my job, but it's very demanding and stressful.

And here is the husband.  He's an Electrical Engineer who runs a business out of our house so we have all kinds of crazy things like a 3D printer and an oscilloscope.