New To Me Serger

Today, our small town held its annual "Big Flea," which gives people the opportunity to set up folding tables on the common and sell all the unwanted stuff they've accumulated in their garages since last year's Big Flea. We didn't see anything interesting until we came to a table with a serger. I've never used a serger, but I've always been curious about them. This one was a White Speedylock 1600 and it came with a box of accessories, a manual, a plastic cover, and four spools of thread. The only thing missing was a little plastic tray which is meant to snap on the front and collect the pieces of fabric as they're cut off by the serger's blade. The person selling it seemed to think it probably worked and she had it priced at $30, so we decided to take a chance.

The Bird's Eye View

We got it home, cleaned it a bit, oiled it, threaded it, and lo and behold it works fine. Now all I need to do is think of a reason to use a serger.  Happy sewing (and serging) everyone!

Hidden Gems

Last week, we were on our way into an office building when we spotted two giraffes. Giraffes??

E is a little less than six feet tall, so you can gauge how tall the statues are. According to one of the tenants in the building, the building's owner saw these on his travels in another country, fell in love with them, bought them, and shipped them to the United States. We are grateful he installed them where lots of people can enjoy them. 

Unexpected art is always a treat!

Dogs in the Garden Quilt

In looking through my remaining flannel scraps, I found flowers, lady bugs, butterflies, salamanders, birds, and dogs. There were some scraps of pink, too. I jumbled all of these together to make squares for the quilt I finished today – Dogs in The Garden. This is another small quilt, 36 x 42 inches. I pieced the top with my Singer 201 and finished it with my Singer 401.

The back of the quilt is a piece of flannel from my stash and it continues the garden theme. No dogs on the back, though.

I used a polka dot scrap for the binding and had less than one inch left over. There was just barely enough to join the two pieces of binding. Yikes! Someone asked me how to join the two ends of the binding with a bias seam and this photo shows how to do this. One end needs to overlap the other end by the width of the binding. My binding was three inches wide, so I needed to overlap the ends by three inches. Right sides together.  Make sure the folds in the binding are as shown in the photo and also note the twist (or lack of twist) in the ends. Sew on the diagonal along the pins in the photo. That's all there is to it. 

Frieda enjoyed exploring the scrap bag while I sewed.

I hope Spring has arrived where you are. Our high temperature today was 45 degrees with stiff winds and spitting rain which is supposed to change to wet snow later this afternoon. Perfect weather for a lap quilt.

Happy sewing, everyone!