Stitching the pieces together

My four grandkids, as well as a niece and nephew, have learned how to sew on a machine. The boys are especially intrigued with workings of the sewing machines. I love that they've grown up wanting to "make things." I had been told by a friend who was a teacher how to instruct them to work the machine. She advised positioning the standing child between me and the machine. This worked great! The child felt like he had total control from turning the machine on, to lifting and lowering the presser foot, to pushing the button for reverse stitching,and of course stepping on the foot petal. All the while my hands were at the ready to make any corrections as well as to help guide the fabric. Also, I could talk/instruct quietly right into their ear.

There are a number of posts on my blog featuring each of those children sewing their projects through a period of years. Here's the link to access them:

http://nelliedurand.blogspot.com/search/label/kids sewing

Had great day yesterday. Friend is here and she is a quilter supreme. Have pieced the top of a quilt for DD. We had to get very greative as I was using some very old fabric and didn't have enough of some colours so had to adapt but it looks good. Will take photo later. Now we just have to work out the borders today.

pegging pants is making them skinnier at the bottom...my kids are 38-43

I think we did it back in the 1950s on the east coast of US

Alyson - beautiful quilt!

And Gus is TOO CUTE. I miss my kitties.

I would have to see the way it's finished now and the shape of it to give a definite answer, but I think your idea of cutting and machine zig=zagging then hand-stitching would be the way I'd go.

Wren, how much are you shortening the sleeves? If its quite a bit, you will probably be happier shortening the sleeve at the sleeve cap, but that's much more involved as you know. If the sleeve is very tapered, you will loose some of that tapering if they're shortened from the bottom. That generally doesn't bother me, but it's something to think about. If you just cut them off at the bottom, be sure to zig zag the lining and fashion fabric separately, then turn the fashion fabric up to desired length and press. Press the lining shorter than the fashion fabric by at least 1/2 inch, and slip stitch it to the fashion fabric hem. This will avoid the wrinkle problem caused by the sleeve bottom being smaller than the sleeve width at the point where you tack the hem up. Of course if you've got a totally straight sleeve (no taper) then you can hem both pieces together to the sleeve lining. Hope this makes sense.

wow that is beautiful!!!

Here's a tongue in cheek project ... something to do with the bras we are no longer wearing ... or better yet, the bras we wish we could.

Two years ago a friend and I made a bunch of these as Christmas presents. We ended up calling them "pin-up potpourri pouches" since we thought few of our friends would carry these suggestive beauties as evening bags. Although, one friend called hers the "boob bag"

If you'd like to see all that we made, I wrote about them and posted pictures on this blog post:

http://nelliedurand.blogspot.com/2010/01/bra-bags-from-bag-of-bras.html

nope Meece I don't!!

I should get them all together and take pix of them....George's is right here will take one of that!!

Sandy

Lol Meece I know how you feel.  It's exciting to accomplish something using a new technique.  I was also inspired but had to go to the internet to find some patterns.  Luckily I found a site that had loads.....lol.  Now all I need is the time to actually make some!

Meece they are beautiful!  You have done them perfectly!

Lol........Im sure you will work on the consistency but there are loads of people who can't get the tension correct let alone the consistency.  The more you make the better you will get.......you'll see.......lol.