Another Super Buzzy Weekend

Well, we have had another Super Buzzy weekend here as Seams Sew Gay.  Between checking out the new release of Bernina Machines, finding new fabric stores in the Ventura area, and theatre tickets, were were go go go.

We started out our Saturday with Trudy at The Quilter's Studio in Newbury Park.  They showed us what's new from our friends at Bernina.  They just released the new 560 and 880 E.  These machines are wonderful and have tons of features.  We had a chance to play around with them, check out the features and do a little shopping while we were there too.  If anyone is looking to purchase a Bernina, I would suggest a stop by The Quilter's Studio.  Ask for Trudy and you will be in good hands.  She is my go to gal when it comes to quilting.  When we ended there, we headed to Ventura with Trudy to visit some fabric stores on Main Street that we never knew were there.

We hit up Fabric Town first.  My initial thought was WOW!  They had everything someone could want in the areas of fabric.  I spent most of my time walking around and just taking in the sights.  We found some beautiful wool fabric to make some slacks, a soft geometric Minky fabric for a dog bed, and some heavy black out fabric for drapes.  I'm sure we will be back with Ben's mom in the future to buy out the store.

The next stop was a store that Ben found though Pinterest.  It's called Super Buzzy and it just made me smile.  We meet Kelly and her mother.  Kelly had so much knowledge of Japanese designers.  I have always been a fan of Japanese artwork and their style of animation, so this is the store for me.  They specialize in Japanese and Modern fabrics.  I was checking out their website on Friday and found a Christmas fabric that I wanted to make a runner out of.  I found it and it looks even better in person.  They were so friendly and helpful with any questions that Ben and I had.  Ben is a fan of anything London and he found this fabulous fabric that he is going to dress our bed up with.  There will be throw pillows to come.   I also bought the black London inspired design.  I am thinking that one of the dogs is going to have an outfit soon.  I also bought Making Magazine and can't wait to start making some of the Asian inspired projects from that.


After our busy morning, we had just a little time to hang out with the dogs and have a quick bite to eat before we had to head out to the Ahmanson Theatre to see The Sunshine Boys.  It stars Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, and Justin Bartha.  It was non-stop laughing from me.  I told Ben, some of the scenes could be played out by our family members and that made the connection just a little closer.  Danny DeVito was exactly what I expected and the slap-stick type humor is MY type of humor.


Sunday, we planned to just hanging around the house.  I have some embroidery ideas that I want to get programed out on my Bernina V6 software.  I also need to put my quilt dimensions into the software and try to do all the quilting though the software.  Ben has a queen size quilt that he is working on and there are a lot of strips that need to be pieced together, so he will be getting some of that done.  I was going to get samples of the Christmas coffee sleeves done but alas, Ben's mom invited us over for dinner and we couldn't pass it up.

While spending an evening with Ben's parents, I took was able to get some pictures of Karlyn's (Ben's mom) latest project.  She is a lover of all things Halloween and she put together an appliqué project.  The day we introduced her to The Quilter's Studio she found some fabulous fabric to use for her appliqué.  She has the Slice cutting system and used it to cut out the moon and a witch.  She appliquéd the moon, did some decorative stitching then added the witch.  Her final step was to add some glitter to give it a little more POP.  She also dressed up the collar.  On the front of the jacket, she appliquéd some jack-o-lanterns and coordinating fabric.  She finished off this with a wonderful whimsical cat button.  She has a great eye and imagination to dress up anything and is my go to sewer for quick questions.

I am hoping to have some patterns done for my Christmas coffee sleeves soon and will get some pictures up.  I have had multiple people ask about purchasing one and  I was thinking, what a good idea for a Stocking Stuffer attached to a Coffee Gift Card.  I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend too and I will be back soon with my completed Winter Charm Pack Runner.

Sleeves were a Hit

First thing first, the coffee sleeves were a hit at work.  This is my coworker loving her Starbuck's cup now that she is not burning her hand.  I was a little nervous that they would not really block out the heat, but they did!  People saw them and now I am getting orders for the Christmas season.  I have been thinking about different patterns that I can make and have three different versions in my head.

I have been working on a hand embroidery project the last few days.  The mother of another coworker of mine makes these adorable quilts for friends and family of hers that are having a baby.  She does all the piecing and appliqué by hand but needed someone to do the embroidery on it.  Luckily, I was taught how to do a bit of embroidery a few years ago.  When I was initially asked to do the embroidery for the project, I thought it would incorporate my machine, but, alas it didn't.  I can't get over how cute these blankets are.  They come from vintage patterns that used to belong to my friend's grandma.  I have seen a few of the different patterns completed (sheep, dog, cat, elephant) and they kill me with cuteness every time.

One last thing, this is what I came home to at lunch today.  This is Simon enjoying the crocheted throw I completed last winter.  I used the Katherine's Wheel stitch in 5 colors.  It was the first throw that I completed and I was very happy with the outcome.  The stitch is a yarn eater but it makes for a very heavy and warm throw.  Perfect for the chilly winter mornings.  I'm glad that someone can enjoy it when it's still a brisk 85 degrees outside.

Busy Weekend

Well, you can see we had a busy weekend.  Ben made a quilted pillow and I was busy learning our new embroidery software and making coffee sleeves.

It was Ben's grandma's birthday, so we left to Redondo Beach early Saturday morning.  On the way down we had to make a stop to meet our friend Trudy who works at The Quilter's Studio.  I call her my "Quilting Fairy Godmother," she is wonderful. We got to see some of her projects and award winning quilts. She is such a talent.  If you can make it to The Quilter's Studio, make sure you tell her Hi.

After leaving her, we had to pick up our Jumbo Hoop for our Embroidery Unit.  I haven't used it yet but I am very excited to.  I am planning on trying it out today.

Finally, we headed down to Redondo Beach to celebrate Ben's grandma's birthday. It was nice to hang out with the family in nice weather. 

On our way home we stopped by a local quilting shop in Redondo Beach, AAA Sewing and bought some Halloween fabric (seen on the pillow and coffee sleeve) and I bought a pattern for a lunch bag.  We finally got home and started on our new projects.  Ben started in on the pillow and I started on coffee sleeves.

Starbucks sells a reusable cup for a dollar but it gets very hot if you don't have a sleeve, so I decided to make one.  I told a friend at work I would make her one too, so I found a pattern by Crafty Stacy and made a few. They turned out really cute and got me thinking of other designs that I can make for the seasons.

Today, after work, I stopped by Strawberry Patches to check out their Halloween Fabric.  We wanted an orange fabric with black polka-dots to complement the black with orange polka-dots on the other pillow.  I also tinkered around in the V6 software and am now stitching out another spooky house to try out the multiple hoop design needed to work on our machine.  We will have pictures of that as soon as it is completed.

A Special THANK YOU to Trudy for the wonderful embroidery and inspiration!!!

Halloween Project

This is Ben, I'm writing my first post for the blog.  Adam and I love Halloween, A LOT!  We were given this awesome embroidery on a really pretty orange fabric by our friend.

Clearly, there wasn't enough time to make a quilt before Halloween, given my schedule with work and grad school, but the Bernina "weallsew" blog had a pillow project that I really liked, so I adapted it.  The original project can be found at http://weallsew.com/2013/10/03/geometric-pillow-by-megan-bohr-for-weallsew/.  I made the embroidery the center piece and bordered it with a really neat black fabric with orange polka dots.  I quilted squares around the embroidery in orange thread and I really like the way it turned out, especially given that the whole project was complete in a couple of hours.  I love that the bernina instructions included a zipper, I'm not a huge fan of envelope back pillow cases.

 On the back I used a black charcoal Moda fabric with a modern print.  I quilted it with the same orange thread diagonally, straight lines, one inch apart.

 If I had decided to spend a little more time I might have considered cross quilting the back, or pulling some of my quilting and straightening it up, but overall I'm really happy.  It looks great on the sofa, we're considering embroidering the same design on black fabric in orange and making one more.  I can't say enough about how easy this was.  I would recommend anyone looking for quick holiday decor give it a try.  Happy Halloween!

A Few Completed Projects

We have been sewing on our new machine for two months now.  During this time we have completed some projects.  I wanted to take a little time and post some pictures of the projects we have finished.

Pincushions

My first project was a set of pincushions.  I bought the pattern for the pear a few years ago before our old machine started acting up.  It was never completed because of this, so when we bought the new machine I thought, what the heck.  The patterns are by Heather Bailey and I think they came out super cute.  I gave the turtle and elephant away as gifts and they were a hit.

For patterns visit :

http://www.heatherbaileystore.com

Hippos

My next project was from Bernina's Through the Needle Magazine Issue 18.  It was a way to check out some of the stitches and features of the new machine.  I also thought my nieces would love them.  The patterns were fun to make and I found some fabulous fabrics at Bolts to Bindings in Bakersfield.  Of my two younger nieces, one likes pink and one likes purple, so these fit them perfectly.  You can see from the looks on their faces that they love them.  It was fun to watch them play with them and funnier to hear them tell everyone how much they loved their "COWS?"  I can't wait to see their faces when I complete the other animals that I have found.

See the link below for Through the Needle Issues:

http://www.bernina.com/en-US/Experience/Through-the-Needle-Online#

Thanks for visiting and 'til next time

Adam

Why We Started this Blog

Hey to all of you out in Blogverse,

This is Adam and I wanted to take a bit of time to tell you a little about us and what this blog is all about.  It is going to be a way to document our skill level, projects created, and provide inspiration to others.  Ben and I both work in stressful careers and coming home to the sewing machine is a way for us to calm our nerves down and give us a chance to use a different part of our brain.

A few months ago, Ben came to me and decided he wanted to start sewing.  His inspirational project was making drapes for our bedroom.  We had an old machine his mother gave to me a few years ago but it was in need of a good servicing.  His mom recently bought a Bernina and we decided it was time for us to get a new machine, so we started the search.  We looked at different machines and had a lot of discussions about what we wanted from a machine.  I have tried quilting in the past and that is one area we both wanted to continue to do in the future.  We also wanted to acquire the skills to make clothes that we could wear to the office (not there yet).  After a lot of thought we ended up with this..

A Bernina 750 QE and we are in love.  We decided on the 750 QE because of the extra room in the throat (right of the needle), so we could use the machine to do our quilting on larger projects.  We also decided on the 750 instead of the 710 because we wanted the opportunity to embroider in the future (we ended up purchasing the embroidery module with the machine).  

Now two months later, we are sewing a lot and learning everyday.  We have both completed a few projects (pictures posted soon).  I have also spent some time with the embroidery module, trying to learn what I could before our class and I am amazed at what can be done.  After attending the "Learn Your Machine Class" yesterday, we are excited to try new things and use more of the potential built into the machine.

I also have to say that we have met so many friendly and helpful quilters out there, and have links to some of our favorite quilting stores for all your fabric, sewing, and Bernina needs.

Thanks for visiting our blog and be sure to come back for our progress on projects and new features we learn along the way.