Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Cloth Napkin Bonanza



In my nesting efforts I have been finishing little projects that have been on my list for, oh let's say, the last two or three years. Today I moved some books from one shelf to another. I pass this shelf of books at least 10 times per day and every time I think it looks messy and needs to be moved or straightened. It took me all of 4 minutes to do today.

We've been doing a lot of home decorating as well. Talia got a bunk bed and Alex got Talia's old bed. I bought bedding and lamps and curtains for both. We ordered an entirely new living room from the nicest furniture store in Madison. Yesterday I bought a pillow for the new couch for $150. I could have totally made it myself-- if I didn't mind stealing a local artist's ideas. Today I bought coordinating fabrics and pillow forms so hopefully I can make a bunch of pillows to match. I also have been looking for an awesome tablecloth (for our new dining room table, gifted to us by my in-laws as they have recently downsized) and haven't found one I loved so I bought some fabric and fabric paint and am hoping to hand print one a la Lotta Jansdotter. I know, a lot of projects with a baby coming in less than a month-- especially considering I have totally stalled on her quilt...

Another thing I did today was sew up 22 cloth napkins. I've been wanting to use cloth exclusively for a long time but you really need a lot of napkins to make it work. I decided to take an entire collection of fat quarters and serge the edges. This is a collection I got at Joann's and I totally love it but... it's not the highest quality fabric. I made one or two quilts using this type of collection before and I think the fabric is too thin and slightly see-through so I don't want to go through all that work again and be disappointed with the final result. Now I get to look at this fabric collection every day anyway so I'll get to enjoy it! Truthfully, all I did was serge the edges of the fat quarters so if I change my mind and need a quilt, the fabric is still completely intact. Hopefully the serged edges will hold up to repeated washings.

Most importantly, I threaded my own serger today! Originally, a friend did it for me (by tying on new thread to the old thread's ends- I got a used and therefore previously threaded serger) and that worked fine. Then when I had a problem with it I took it to the repair shop. They didn't charge me but they did keep it for two weeks. A few days ago one of the needles came unthreaded. I tried to re-thread it but it kept coming undone. It worked fine as a three-thread serge, especially since I was just finishing edges-- not using it for actual construction. Today it just messed up completely in the middle of the cloth napkin project so... I got out my manual and re-threaded the whole thing. It took about 30 minutes and Alex was really trying to "help" me but I did it and I can DO IT AGAIN! I pride myself in being skilled at following written and pictoral directions. I think that's why I was able to teach myself to sew, cook, put furniture together and I'm great at reading maps. Taking on the serger, however, always scared me. Now I know I can do it. I love having a serger and would be lost without it. Imagine double hemming 22 napkins = that's 88 edges (meaning you would have to press them each twice for 176 edges). Even if the serged edges do not hold up after repeated washings I should still only have to single hem them. Isn't that great?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello!
You may probably be very interested to know how one can manage to receive high yields on investments.
There is no need to invest much at first.
You may begin to get income with a sum that usually is spent
on daily food, that's 20-100 dollars.
I have been participating in one company's work for several years,
and I'll be glad to let you know my secrets at my blog.

Please visit my pages and send me private message to get the info.

P.S. I make 1000-2000 per day now.

http://theinvestblog.com [url=http://theinvestblog.com]Online Investment Blog[/url]