Gadget

I finally broke down and ordered this rotary arm gadget for my Olfa rotary cuttern.  It's called a Removable Rotary Arm Guide and I first saw it on a blog post by Sew-4-Fun.  I cannot find her post where she used it, but I did bookmark her answer to my question about it.  I had never seen anything like it in my area and since her post, I've really kept my eyes open for it.  I had found and bookmarked it at an internet store, but figured I had all the time in the world to buy it or get it as a gift.  Fortunately, I noticed that it was going to be a discontinued item and since it's been more than a year since I learned about this wondrous gadget, I figured I'd best be buying it.

Isn't it neat when you learn on the internet from other sewists?  I can really see that this will be useful for patterns that don't include seam allowances or where I want to add more to an existing seam allowance on a pattern--what a time saver!  I can't wait to try this new tool out!  I bought 2 of them, just in case!

Biscornu

Biscornu means irregular shape.  In this case, it is a pincushion with 8 sides made to demonstrate all the fun stitches you can make on your machine using its decorative features along with a variety of needles like a wing needle.  My youngest dd made this one during a sewing guild sew in earlier this year and I finally got it sewn together for her.  It is rather awkward to do that which is why I did it for her.  She had the best time sewing the decorative stitches and it was an excellent way for her to become very comfortable with threading and unthreading her machine.  She knew how, of course, but when you have to thread and rethread many, many times in a couple of hours it becomes almost automatic!

She loved stuffing her pincushion!  I got a perfectly sized stuffing freebie during our guild's shop hop this year. 

Finished!  She chose the strawberry button for the center.

Bras

Long time, no posting!  I have been sewing quite a bit, off and on, between the kids' activities and a very long illness.  Some of the things I'm sewing will have to be shared later, like after the holidays!  I am doing an extremely poor job of focusing on sewing for myself which was supposed to be my resolution for this year.  However, I have enjoyed the gifts I've sewn for Christmas, but will wait to post them until after the recipients have gotten them so as not to spoil things! 

As the post titles says, I have been sewing bras.  I sewed up 2 of them which were leftovers from my bra workshop class at last year's American Sewing Guild conference. 

2 sets of bras all cut out and ready to sew.

Bra cups pinned and ready to sew.  Unfortunately, I found all the pinning awkward and annoying, so I undid it all and hand basted instead.  I will do this for future ones!

Bra strap with one edge scalloped.  These are time consuming to make!



2 completed bras!

 I have a few more bra kits that I can sew and hope to work on those soon.  They are more fun and colorful, too.  Bra sewing is a rather tedious endeavor to tell the truth, but the comfort and fit can't be beat by any that you can buy!