Ironing Ecstasy!

Hey Everyone! Today I thought I would post about more of my favorite sewing tools, but first things first. You will notice an icon in the right hand column called "March of the Tools". This was ingeniously started by Heather Bailey last year when she blogged about some of her favorite tools, cleverly in the month of March! This year, she decided to design a great icon and ramp up this discussion so that lots of bloggers could participate. Be sure to click on the icon, as it will take you to her site where she will be linking to several of us who will be talking about our favorite tools this month.



This week's post is about Irons....I know, it doesn't exactly make you want to jump for joy, does it? It never did for me, and I iron A LOT! I have been using Rowenta irons for a number of years and love them, but hated having to fill the water reservoir all the time. I think just about every time I was ready to iron, that thing was empty! Finally, I decided to investigate my options. Rowenta makes a steam generator iron (probably not new to a lot of you out there). I decided to give this contraption a try last fall. I admit, the whole "water under pressure" thing sort of freaked me out a little when I first got it, but now I can't imagine life without this wonderful tool. If you iron a lot, it is worth every penny and then some, and here's why....read on!

The main difference is this: the water tank holds 4 cups of water at one time and gives you 1 1/2 hours of CONSTANT steam....this means you can sew like a maniac all day and never fill it with water! The biggest benefit is that your iron makes the best, most penetrating steam on the planet! It makes for practically effortless ironing, plus your iron is lighter weight because the water is in the tank, not in the actual iron. You press the button just under the handle to get steam, but that means that you only get steam when and where you want it, which is great also. The heat settings are the same as a regular iron, but one of the best features is that you can turn down the heat and the steam settings separately, so you can use a gentle amount of steam on delicate or even synthetic fabrics (like polar fleece) without damaging anything. This differs from a regular iron in that most of them depend on a high heat setting to generate steam, thus no steam at a low heat setting. I just can't say enough great things about this tool!



Of course, once I purchased this iron, I realized that my 16 year old rickety ironing board had to go. The steam generator really needs a stable place to sit, and not just on the end of the ironing board where it may take up valuable space. So I splurged and bought the professional Rowenta ironing board as well. It is extra wide with a shelf out to the side, perfect for holding the water tank/ironing apparatus without being in the way or risking it taking a trip to the floor. There is also a handy shelf below for storing stuff if you need to. I put my extra water and a measuring cup there so that when I need to refill the tank, I have everything I need at my fingertips. The added feature of this board is that it is composed of a steel mesh under the pad so that the steam can fully penetrate the items you are ironing. This helps you to get the most of that steam, with no moisture buildup on the board itself. I bought mine at Bed Bath and Beyond with a 20% off coupon.

Lastly, my most recent purchase was for a sleeve board. It is a miniature ironing board, really. It is made for ironing shoulder seams, cuffs, sleeve bands, etc. It may sound like a silly thing to have, but it is wonderful also. What I like best is that I can get small things slipped onto it without creating a crease where I don't want it and I can dictate the direction a seam is pressed very easily. If you don't have one of these, it is worth thinking about, especially if you iron small things. I picked mine up for about $15 at a local JoAnn's, but I am sure there are a lot of other stores and online shops that sell them.

Sewing Madness and a Helpful Sewing Tool

Hello again! It has truly been design/sewing madness around here over the past month. I am knee deep in preparations for the book as well as spring market in Pittsburgh. How does time slip away so quickly? I have a LOT to do between now and May, but somehow, it will magically get done...amazing how that happens!

I thought I would post today about one of my favorite tools for the sewing room. It is called pattern tracing cloth. Ever heard of it? I could kick myself that this stuff has apparently been around for some time and I was stupidly using tissue paper instead! Pattern tracing cloth is a nylon product that is 36" wide. It is nearly transparent, making it a perfect tool for tracing patterns. It is especially helpful for me during my design process. I use pattern drafting software for my skirts, tunics, and the newest jacket designs. Basically, these drafts are printed on large roll paper for me to test and tweak. The paper itself is a bit thick and terrible if you want to pin through it onto fabric, so I started tracing specific sizes onto tissue. You can just imagine how the tissue pieces were always too small, resulting in my having to tape several together just to get one piece traced...it was a ridiculous process and one that I hated! Not only is tissue (and we're talking gift tissue here) hard to handle, it tears easily too. You should have a really good mental image of the mess I had going!

Well, not too long ago, I stumbled across this pattern tracing cloth. It is in one word, WONDERFUL! Because of its width, it is easy to trace big pieces, and it does not tear! The brand I use (Staple Sewing Aids) also has convenient red dots that are spaced 1" apart for easy expansion/contraction of pieces. I usually use a pencil or ballpoint pen to trace the pieces, cut them out, and use them multiple times. I know what you are thinking....how does this impact you if you are not a designer? Well, it is a great way to alter commercial pattern pieces for yourself. You can make the desired alterations to a piece and then lay the tracing cloth over the top and trace the altered piece. Label it, and you have a piece you can use for years to come. This tracing cloth is also wonderful for those patterns that come on regular paper that you have to trace to use anyway.

If you can't find this product locally, you can purchase online many places. Sew Thankful, a nice online shop, has it in convenient 5 yard packages for a reasonable price. There are other websites as well where you can purchase it by the yard. If you do much garment sewing, this product is a godsend, so check it out.

On the design front, it looks like there will be three new designs for spring market. I will be posting sneak peeks of those soon, as the sewing progresses. Today, I have rather cryptic photos of some things I am working on for the book...can't say a lot about them, but thought you might enjoy the fabric combinations....truly yummy!

Also, check out The Late Bloomer's blog. Elizabeth FINALLY finished her Sabrina tunic and it looks great. I secretly hope she wears it to market with a cute cardigan or something (hint, hint) so I can see it in the flesh, so to speak!

Oh, and one more thing, my new favorite place to shop online is Fabric.com.....they have a fabulous selection of all kinds of fabrics, including Dupioni silk (yum!), decorator fabrics, notions, patterns, and more. I have gotten into serious trouble over there, so consider yourself warned....

Have a wonderful weekend...hope you have time to get some sewing in!

Meet Sergei!

There's a new baby in the house! Meet Sergei....my new Bernina serger! We got together last Thursday and have been working as a team for the last several days. I just love sergers! This comes from a person who spent years not understanding why people would ask if I had one of these things because of all the sewing I do. You see, I was a late convert to the serger world. I didn't see what all the hype was about. I owned my first serger only 8 years ago after spending many years making clothes and finishing my seams by trimming and then zigzagging the edges like a good responsible seamstress, so that the inside of my finished clothes would look as neat as the outside. What I wasn't realizing was how much time I was spending to do that! Imagine my dismay as I began sewing the majority of the seams in a garment with a serger....wow! I was fast before, but now I am like greased lightning! I came to understand why people had asked me all those years if I owned one of these things....and I could kick myself for not buying one sooner!

Here's the deal. I think most of us look at 4 spools of thread hooked up to ONE machine, see all those moving parts cleverly hidden behind the lower compartments and begin to break a sweat! It is intimidating to see that thread going through all sorts of gizmos and feeding somehow through to the presser foot....I know I thought to myself, "How will I ever learn to thread this thing?". Once you understand that there is an order to the threading chaos (quite literally...they NUMBER the steps!), and that every dealer is more than happy to set up time to help you get the gist of this, it becomes much easier to think that you CAN use this machine for sewing with professional results.

The next thing to realize is how much faster you will become with your sewing. Think about it. If you sew a seam with a 1/2" to 5/8" seam, you need to trim down the seam allowance. Then you are staring at all those raw edges...oh dear! Those will fray the first time I wash this if I don't finish them! Then you finish your seams with a zigzag or some other stitch on your machine and move on. That is 3 steps on each seam: sewing, trimming, and sewing again. Serging is ONE step, because it sews, trims, and finishes the edges all at once...and it is fabulous! Take a look below at the finished edges on the scrap. The left side is serged, the right side is stitched, trimmed, and finished. Now, both are structurally sound and will wash well...but which one looks the most professional? Wow! It is the one that you only make one pass to finish! (At least in my humble opinion....)


I know there are those of you out there that bought a serger or had one given to you X number of years ago and it has just been sitting there collecting dust....if you are making clothes, get that thing out and start using it!

Even if you are a quilter that doesn't really make clothes, there are a lot of ways you can use a serger. Lots of folks use them to give a finished edge to their quilt tops before having them professionally quilted. This assures that your edges stay nice and neat through the quilting process. It is also a great way to keep fabric from fraying along the cut edges if you like to wash your pieces before sewing with them. If you ever alter denim because they make all jeans too long (for me, anyway), it is a great way to finish those cut edges before turning up for a new hem, and it eliminates your having to turn up that thick fabric twice because now you have a finished edge!

There are still some seams that I don't serge. One good example is a set-in sleeve. You are usually easing in extra fabric along the sleeve edge to fit the armhole. This is to give you extra room to move around once the garment is finished. I initially sew this type of seam with a straight stitch and then move over to the serger to finish it out. Also, I usually just do a plain seam on an edge that will need to be clipped because of curves before turning, like on a facing at the top of a skirt. These seams are hidden when the garment is finished anyway, and clipping along the seam on a serged edge is not good, as you can clip through the threads holding it together.

Sergers range in price from very economical to crazy expensive, depending on what they are able to do for you. If you are looking for a machine that will do the basic stuff for internal seams without a lot of bulk, you can be set up for around $200-$300....not a huge investment. That is what I did when I started out with a serger. I had to try it out to be sure it would work for what I did and that I would be able to get along with this new creature! My old machine was a Janome 204D and still works great. I just decided that I wanted a few more bells and whistles that it didn't have, but I would recommend that little Janome to anyone who is interested in getting their feet wet with the world of serging.

So, what are you waiting for?