Creating the Blind hem on your sewing machine

This past Saturday, Before my daughter and I headed out for our “playdate” I did a bit of machine sewing…

 

About a week ago, I asked my father did he need anything altered. Naturally,  he jumped at that opportunity and gave me some pants that needed to have the  legs shortened.

My father has a good hookup anything related to clothing or computers he knows he can usually hand things over to me and it’ll be fixed. When it comes to anything electrical (wiring, televisions, gadgets) he can fix almost anything I give to him also.

I know I’ve mentioned that I’m not too fond of alterations. Also, I have  a short list of people that I will I’ll do them for. The rest, get the sorry… I only do alterations for a few people. Good thing he’s on the favored list, right? It’s not that I don’t know how to alter items, I do. In fact, in my early I did altering for a friends boutique. It was  great experience. That along with participating in local fashion shows, improved my sewing skills.

My father’s request was minor. He only needed to have the pant legs shortened. That’s simple. I done that stitch by hand numerous times in my 30+ years of sewing. I like the blind hem stitch and use it often with pants leg alterations.

 

 

But… if I’m pressed for time or simply don’t want to do alterations by hand, it is nice to have a machine that will do that task.

Blind hem foot
Blind hem foot

Thanks to the blind hem foot included with my Brother PC-420, I was able to alter my father’s pants without any problems. If you don’t know how to do the blind hem stitch with a sewing machine, check out the above video. I thought the lady did an excellent job describing how it’s accomplished.

I still do the blind hem stitch by hand. I find hand sewing relaxing, and sometimes it’s nice to work on a small project when I’m curled up in a chair chatting with my daughter.

 

Playing with stitches – Brother PC420

Earlier this evening, I sewed with my Brother PC-420. The fabric used was from repurposed jeans.

Repurposed clothing: These cut up jeans will be used for a few sewing projects
Repurposed clothing: These cut up jeans will be used for a few sewing projects

 

Recently, my father gave me a pair of his jeans. He no longer wears them. I cut them and earlier today I started sewing…

Having read numerous reviews about my Brother Project Runway PC420PRW, I already knew that it should be able to handle several layers of fabric without any issue… and I was right.

 

Sewing: Jean bag, work in progress
Sewing: Jean bag, work in progress

 

With this “jean bag in progress”, there were several occasions where I was sewing through four layers of fabric at a time! My Brother PC-420 blissfully sewed through all layers without any issues.

My daughter guessed that I was making a bag, and she was thrilled to learn that it was for her.  There’s still a lot to do with before it’s finished. I’m going to add an embroidered design; I’ll be using my Brother Se-400 for the machine embroidery.

You want to know something interesting, my Brother PC420 is very similar to some of the Baby Lock machines. It wasn’t too long ago that I learned that Brother manufactures some of the Baby Lock machines.

I’m already familiar with Brother sewing machines… when I was helping to make quilts at our Lutheran church. The church has sewing machines available for the quilting group. The quilting group was my first time working with Brother sewing machines, and I left being impressed with some of the Brother sewing machines. These machines were used exclusively to create machine sewn quilts and they consistently sewed through multiple layers of fabric without any issue.

 

Brother PC-420 a few of the decorative stitches
Brother PC-420 a few of the decorative stitches

 

I’ve already checked out the basic machine stitches when my nine year old daughter and I sewed a dress for her Springfield doll. I must say, this machine does a wonderful job with basic sewing stitches.

Since I got the basic stitches covered, I decided to check out the Brother PC-420’s decorative/embroidery stitches…

Theses stitches aren’t elaborate, so if you’re looking for a machine that really embroiders you’ll need to purchase an embroidery machine. For sewing machine embroidery I use the Brother Se-400, it sews and embroiders but I only purchased it for its embroidery features. Even though it can only embroider a 4″x4″ area, I’m extremely pleased with my Brother Se-400.

 

Brother Sewing machine needle plate
Brother Sewing machine needle plate

 

While sewing a few of the decorative stitches on my Brother Pc-420, I almost got the muslin fabric caught under the throat plate! Whoops! The machine wasn’t at fault, it was mine! The design I chose had a lot of stitches in a tiny area. I attempted to do this without stabilizer. If I was using a sturdier material like jeans, I might have been fine… but since I was using muslin the machine wasn’t liking that. Fortunately, I stopped the machine in time before I got a lot of fabric caught under the needle plate.  Although I’m still a new at machine embroidery, I know better.

This past week, I’ve put the Brother PC420 sewing machine through it’s paces and it’s doing an excellent job. It’s a computerized machine, which makes. I normally sew with mechanical machines, but I’m enjoying the computerized features that the Brother Pc-420 offers. Such as the automatic thread cutter and needle threader. Who knew something as simple as that, would be a big sell for me? Having the option of selecting stitches using the screen is a nice touch also.

It’s still too early to write a detailed review of this sewing machine, but eventually I’ll get around to reviewing it here on Celebrate Life.

 

 

Enjoying the journey…

Last evening I was able to knit a few rows on my knitted blanket. I haven’t posted about this knitted blanket in a while. When it’s complete the blanket will be 6’/183cm wide and 8’/244 cm long.

knitted blanket
Work in Progress – knitted blanket

 

It’ll make a nice blanket to snuggle in, when it’s chilly outside. Initially I had planned the exact colors I wanted for this blanket, but recently I abandoned that idea (even though the end result would have been beautiful) and decided this knitted blanket would be my surprise blanket. I’m really not going to think about the colors I choose. I’ll just pick up a skein of yarn and start knitting. The only requirements is that it has to be worsted weight.

Knitting-knitted-Blanket_2
Hmm… how can I claim this itty bitty blanket?

 

Well look who’s making an appearance! Mr. B! If I let him, he’d be curled under this itty bitty blanket. Sorry buddy, you’ll just have to wait until it’s finished.

 

But the yarn is so soft!
Mr. B, begging won’t work! But the yarn is so soft!

 

As you can see I still have a long ways to go, but I’m not discouraged and thinking there’s no end in sight! When I have a few moments, I pick up this blanket and start knitting.

Adventure time…

cartoon girl jumping for joyThis afternoon, my daughter and I had a play date. She hung out with one of her schoolmates, while I chatted with her friends mom.

The play date was at Chic-fil-A…

My daughter, and her friend, had both received Core Essential Awards at school. This award is given to one student in each class. Besides the certificate they receive for their achievement, the students are also given a certificate for Chic-fil-A, which is good for one free kids meal.

You want to know something? It’s nice when I  have a lot in common with my daughter’s friends parents since I don’t have to search for topics to discuss.  The good thing with this mom is, we do have a lot in common. Let’s see… we’re both physically active, we both are planning to compete in Figure competition, we both detest shopping, drama, etc.,  Oh, are parenting styles are similar. We’re not pushovers when it comes to our kids, but we’re loving, and we spend a lot of time with them.

My daughter’s friend has a brother who’s four-years old. You want to know something? They included him in their play. How thoughtful are they? Naturally her brother was thrilled, and he even cried when my daughter and I said our goodbyes. He also gave my daughter a goodbye hug. This evening, my daughte commented on how quickly the time flew by. We both enjoyed ourselves, and before we knew it, it was time to go home.

 

Time for a change

Celebrate Life has been offline for the past few days (not intentional) as I switched hosting providers. In hindsight, I would have done a few things differently…

While my site was offline, I did respond to chat with Jennifer’s email about why my site was offline. Because of my hectic schedule, I haven’t done any blog visits, but I did communicate with Jennifer via email.

This is a first for me, since once I host a site with a provider it usually stays there. There’s only been one other time when I’ve switched, and that was when I hosted my first blog. That was in 2002. The service was awful, and two weeks later I moved my site to LunarPages.

I’ve been active online with various hosting providers for over ten years.  If I really think about it, it’s been a bit longer since I’ve been active since 1995. Anyone remember GeoCities? That’s when I first started being active online. I purchased my own website hosting packages a few years later.

Regarding migration, I wasn’t really worried about having my files migrated to their new hosting provider service. After all, I regularly make full backs of Celebrate Life. It’s a smart thing to do.

I can’t claim that I moved this site to its new server home… my new hosting provider did. When I have more time, I’ll write about my first impressions of my new hosting provider and the extra benefits I’m now receiving for this hosting package.