Tuesday, January 25, 2011

my how time flies...

I attempted the impossible the other day. I taught my sister how to make a bag. In the past I have shown her how to knit..about 5 times and she still cant do it, crochet..she caught on but isnt so good with keeping the direction, it ends up twisted, hand sew..she lost the needle, and cross stitch where she knotted the cotton and made a huge mess.

Despite this, she does know how to use a sewing machine and had a fine old time trying out all the stitch selections while she practiced sewing in a straight line.She learnt how to use it at school but got a D...maybe because she cant sew straight. Oddly enough, she grumbled about rotary cutting because she couldn't get it and then miraculously picked it up and was doing my cutting for me for the basket weave bag you'll see at the end.

So there you go. Something that usually take about 45 minutes to cut and sew took almost 4 hours and hers still needed fixing later. Practice dear sister practice.

trying to drum in the need to line things up perfectly and match her lines
practicing her straight lines. dont you love the fluro nail polish?
handle-making
trying to turn the bag right side out. thats her 'you're kidding me right?' face

After some creative discussion about where her handles should go she top stitched around the completed bag and discovered...that her handles were too close to the edges and didnt aid in opening the bag at all, in which case she could have just had one large strap instead. she also wasnt so terrific with sewing so close to the edge of the fabric and ended up with something uneven with handles that werent stitched in correctly and frayed edge hanging out.

This is her the next day after she let me fix it.
The brown bag is a FQ one I made as I was showing Jess how to do things and the other is some jelly roll madness that she expertly cut now she knows how.

1 comment:

  1. Lovely bags!
    You're such a nice sister and think of all the patience you're developing for when you have kids :P.
    Would a 1/4" foot help your sis achieve a straight line of sewing? With edge stitching I usually use a zipper foot as I find it easier than using a normal width foot. Sort of depends where the edge stitching is and it's purpose.

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