Looking ahead

It may be cold and snowy outside, but here in the workroom, it is all about summer. Piles of patio cushions to cover, cottage chairs needing new clothes, and pillows to make.

These chairs are ready for their makeover! There are a pair of these blue chairs, plus the ottoman; they will be getting slipcovered in the circle fabric.

 

For this job, we are using all outdoor fabrics. These small cottage arm chairs will be slipcovered in the fish fabric, the small wicker chair cushions in the banyan leaf, and some pillows in the stripe. The brown stripe is for yet another set of cushions.

  

The current project is for a boat, we are recovering all the cushions from the V-berth and salon areas to the topside seats.

 

This is the fabric for the V-berth and the salon cushions, very soft and comfy.



The topside cushions are a bright white vinyl, a nice new clean look. They are also more exposed to the weather, so they will be completely rebuilt with new foam.

 

These are the fabrics for the pillows and wicker chair cushions in the top photo. It will be fun to get into these next after all the white for the boat.

Hiding in plain sight

Breaking needles is not an uncommon occurance when you do a lot of sewing, especially when you have to sew through many layers of fabric, or in this case, trim for draperies. Normally for something like this, I would be using one of my industrial machines and would breeze right through it. This trim though, besides being bulky, is also really bumpy. I needed to stitch it slowly, which is sometimes difficult with the industrial, so I opted to used my trusty old domestic, which also has the advantage of a wider foot. You can see how thick this trim is; to start my line of stitching, I had to use the little doohickey that came with yet another machine for sewing over jean seams.





So it was not unusual that I broke a needle, the problem was that I couldn't find the tip that had broken off. I thought it had shot off to the back of the machine; not there, not stuck in the trim, not down in the bobbin case. So I gave up looking, thinking it was probably on the floor. Then as I went to take the broken needle out, I saw this.

Definitely a first.