www.LaurasSewingStudio.com

November 13, 2006

CLOSEOUT SALE

2-4-6-8 Pocket Bag Booklet with  Pattern
By Rebecca Brent Kemp
50% off while supplies last

Rebecca has co-authored a new book with
Linda Turner Griepentrog
“Machine Embroidery Wild & Wacky”

Sergers - a surprise!

Would you like to own a serger but just can’t justify it?

You probably don’t realize it but a serger can pay for itself pretty quickly. There are many sergers on the market these days with lots of bells and whistles. A basic serger is really all you need (it’s all I have). A basic serger is a 3/4 thread with differential feed. (you’ll want differential feed). The cost of a basic serger is not too dear.

Here’s how it pays for itself: -

Extend the life of your towels and washcloths. Serge off the ragged edges - makes them look like new

Save money by making your own washcloths and hand towels. Buy bath towels on sale. Cut them up with the rotary cutter into hand towels or wash cloths. Serge finish the edges rounding the corners. (That’s how most purchased washcloths are made anyway.) A bath towel will make 4 handtowels and 8 washcloths. Try to get towels without the woven band near the 2 ends. If you can only find bath towels with these woven bands, still make wash cloths out of them. I use the ones with the woven bands for dish cloths.

And who ever decided that kitchen towels and dish cloths should be made of thin fabrics? and in light colors? They need to absorb alot of water and scrub dishes. Light colored ones get stained quickly and bleaching them only shortens the life of the fabric. Make your own dish towels and wash cloths from dark colored thick bath towels. They last a long time and hide stains.

Go a step further and make deocrative hand towels and wash cloths. Serge finish the edges with decorative threads. Add embroidery and you’ve got a great gift as well.

Extend the life of your blankets and bedspreads Serge off the ragged edges - make them look like brand new

Extend the life of your bathroom rugs and other small rugs. Serge off the ragged edges making them look like new

Of course there is all the usual uses for a serger like seam finishes, serging off the raw edges of fabrics before prewashing them (including fat quarters), hems (especially jeans) is a whole lot easier with a serge finished edge (only needs to be turned under once).

I’m sure you’ll find lots more uses around your home. Once you own a serger you’ll be saying “I don’t know what I would do without my serger.”

Newest Products

Mehndi Body Art Machine Embroidery Designs

The Big Easy Purse Pattern

The Hex Flex Frame

Featured Project

For the next few weeks I will be featuring a NEW project made using the techniques and designs from my TOUCH OF NATURE book.

This is the first week in a series featuring this project

TOUCH OF NATURE: Textured Applique Machine Embroidery Techniques & Designs has been well received and I want to thank all of you who bought the book.  Of course, I could only touch on the potential of this art and still be able to get the book into print.  Therefore, for the next few issues of this newsletter, I would like to show you more versatility of the “Touch of Nature” concept.

All of the projects in TOUCH OF NATURE are embroidered as patches. In fact, all of the applique designs included on the CD in the back of the book can be made as patches. What does this mean?

It means when you hoop fabric to sew the designs you don't worry about design placement.  Just sew the design. Once the patch is made, you audition them onto your project, playing with the arrangement until you are happy with the placement.  Pin them on the project. Sew them on. It doesn't get any easier than that!

Use the applique designs included on the CD or use ones you already own.

In your book, look under “Applique Patches”. These instructions tell you how to make patches with appliques and what type of applique designs are appropriate for the “patch” technique. 

Featured Project

This is a simple purchased cotton knit top from Lands End.
 I made some organza and satin patches with fringe and a few fringe puff patches and stitched them onto the top.

One of the best things about making patches is being able to audition them onto a garment before commiting to their placement. Also if one of them gets damaged or the top get damaged, the patches can be replaced or removed and used on another project.

Rummaging through my fabric stash, I found colors that I like with the brown top - aqua, beige, gold, and brown organza and satin.  Next, I matched up some threads. I picked colors to compliment the fabrics and found some great multi colored threads.

In your copy of Touch of Nature, look in Appendix A at the pictures of the embroidery designs included on the CD. Notice the instructions for each design include what each color stop sews.  Keep your book open to these pages, so you will know what sews next.  In this series we’re going to do some mixing and matching of the designs and their parts.

For this project I made several patches and fringe puffs in various fabric/thread combinations.

After they were all made I auditioned them onto my top to determine how best to place them.

This week’s featured patch

These patches are made using the same design. All are made with an organza background. One has a satin center applique and the other 2 have fringe for the center applique

Follow the directions in Appendix A for sewing this design in the colors of your choice or use my variations

Hoop 2 layers of organza.

Following the directions in Appendix A sew the first applique without adding any additional applique fabric. Sew with the colors of your choice.

For the center applique fabric use satin or fringe for the applique.

If you chose to make the center applique fringe, make the 4x4 fringe design shown in appendix A. You’ll want to make this before you start making the patch.

Make the fringe using colors of your choice. I used Maderia's varigated polyneon threads (#1603 & #1604).

This varigated thread does not sew satin stitching in stripes like some varigated threads. This varigated thread has been around a few years so you may have some in your stash. If you don't have any try your local retailer first. You can order it toll free from Mainland Embroidery Supply 800 879 2970. I bought 1 spool of each of the 10 colors. They are 1100 yard spools

Once the patch is made you can then audition it onto your project or wait until you have several appliques ready to apply.

I attached this patch to the garment by sewing it on following along the outside edge of the center applique. The outside edges of the patch are left free.

Although I have used these patches on a knit top, they can be used on purses, skirts, jeans, etc - anywhere you want to add a little flair.

Next week I’ll feature more patches from this project.

Albert’s Cubicle

RAID Your PC

I've spend a lot of time discussing file saving tools and techniques, along with the merits of performing system backups.  A little known tool in the consumer PC world that's become quite affordable is the RAID controller. In the early days of computer storage, the PC hard drive was a relatively cheap, but infinitely unreliable storage device.  In an effort to make the technology robust enough for commercial applications, RAID technology was born. It tied together a series of drives to create larger amounts of computer storage, while offering some protection from the loss of any one drive through something called checksum data reconstruction.

The miracle of this technology is that if and when a drive in the RAID dies, it need only be replaced with a brand new drive and the data is restore to it from the contents in the remaining drives.

What does this mean for you? While PC hard drives have improved in performance, price, and capacity, so has accessibility to RAID technology.  Any PC owner can go to her local computer shop and purchase or have installed a RAID. It requires the purchase of a RAID controller card and at least 3 hard drives with which to construct the RAID.  Some newer computers even have it integrated onto the computer's motherboard. While many newer consumer PC's no longer have the internal capacity to hold an additional 2 or 3 drives, many PC tower cases will still accommodate this many drives.

As we grow increasingly more reliant on our computers to do so many things and the size of the drives grow ever larger, it's hard to imagine having to stop and wait for your PC to be brought back to life.  It conjures images of Dr. Frankenstein's monster, waiting days or even weeks as parts are scavenged from here and there to make it whole again.  It's nice to know you can recover your computer and the data on it in a matter of an hour or so, just by replacing a dead drive in the RAID.