Judy L's UFO Challenge

Sunday, March 08, 2015

Ms Fix-It


If you have read my blog for any length of time you will know that I am drawn to fixing textiles.  I was at my church sew-in Friday and a lady teased me that I wouldn't know what do do with a new piece of fabric.

 Last week a friend asked me to look at an afghan she had purchased at an estate sale.  She had even located a matching skein of yarn.  There were just a few seams that had come loose.  I seamed them up and reinforced a few other spots.  I regret not taking a picture.  It is a beautiful piece of work and will be gifted to a friend of hers.

Next up, a neighbor had asked me shorten a pair of king size pillow cases to standard.  I asked her to give me a case that is the size she wants.  Well I misplaced these cases for quite some time.  I am not even sure how long I have had them.  I thought for sure I had returned them.  She insisted I had not.  She came down earlier today and on a whim I looked through a box I hadn't touched in some time.  There they were.  She was delighted and I was a bit embarrassed but relieved.

I went straight to work on them. I'm sharing my process in the event someone wants to do the same.

First I cut the case to be altered one inch longer than the target sized case.


Leaving it right side out I sewed an1/8th inch seam.  I turned and pressed the seam.



Here I sewed a 1/4" inch seam although I had intended to sew a 1/2 inch.  This isn't rocket science folks.  I turned and pressed the new formed French seams.  Voila!  They are done and will be delivered tomorrow.



Another project that I have been working on is a shawl of a former coworker.  She hag gotten it caught on something and tore a hole in it.  It is thread crochet and the ripped portion was in the first 1/3rd of the body.  No easy way to fix it.  I used regular thread to catch the loose pieces and bind it together.  I ended up using some DMC 12 thread as well which worked better.  There was no way to make it match the rest if the shawl.  I stabilized it and touched frayed spots with fray check.  She is going to have to handle with great care going forward.


I noticed some if the fringe was broken and torn away.  I removed a lot of bad thread but it seemed never ending.  I finally stopped and knotted my replacement pieces and tied those into the existing pieces.  It looks better but the thread seemed like it had rotted away.  DMC 8 was used in this part.  Usually I am quite proud of the work I did.  I was not going to be happy with the outcome unless I had pulled it all out and reworked the entire thing.  That was not going to happen.  I hope she is satisfied with the outcome.



Up next is the baby quilt I showed you a few weeks ago.  All the holes are patched and it is pin basted ready for quilting.  I have my machine setup and ready to go tomorrow.  Will be glad to get that one off my plate too.

Happy quilting!


1 comment:

  1. Are you doing something different with your images? The last few posts they have been all pixelly for me. This post the pillowcases are fairly clear but the rest of the photos are blurry and pixelly for me. I'm looking at them in Chrome browser.

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