Shirts and Hats

I figured out why my tensions were so off on my Pro machine.  I adjusted and stitched, adjusted and stitched, etc until I grabbed the book again.  I decided maybe my bobbin case needed to be adjusted.  I have two, I actually just switched them and the tension is good.  I test stitched out my design again to be sure. Then I finished two shirts.

Started the hats. The hats are in two steps.  First is the side above the left ear. This gets hooped with my smallest hoop using the hoop master's glove or baby onesie attachment.

Then once I finished all baker's dozen of these. The Bear 2011 stitched out fast, I unhooped and clipped a loose thread, hooped the next hat, and the one on the machine was done.  All finished in about 1 hour.  I'm glad I bought two of every hoop for my machine.

 I set up the hat frame for part two.  I got one front logo stitched and will finish the others tomorrow morning. I'd like to deliver them after lunch.   

Better day

Today was a much better day.  I revisited the patches. Turns out only one of the patches, of course the one I had tried to rinse out the stabilizer from was on the wrong stabilizer.

I'm kinda messy.  I have great organizational plans, but then I figure out better plans, etc.
I have a habit of just shoving my tube of stabilizer in my cubby system, to sort later. Which is why I ended up with the wrong stabilizer. I had sewn two of the patches and tossed the tube of Wet N Gone back in the rack and then when I decided on making a third, I grabbed the wrong tube.

So first thing I did this morning was to straighten out my cubbies of stabilizer. Now I actually can find what I need and know what I need to buy.

All the open rolls now have slap bracelets around them with the name of what it is marked on the bracelet with a sharpie.  But I also tucked the label of the roll inside the tube, in case the bracelet gets separated from the roll. Like kinds of stabilizer are in the same cubby or next to each other.  While I was straighten out my mess, I stitched out another black and white patch.

Then this afternoon was all about errands.  I ran to the Dry Cleaner, dropped off the patches, they are a hit.  The niece was deciding which patch on which shirt when I left.  I told them to call me if they need more patches.  The black and pink patch looked great against her pink shirt.  I also told her I had pink fabric and could do black lettering or white.  I did remember to bring home my dry cleaning.

Quick drive through the bank for cash for the weekend, then a sandwich.  I took the car to the dealer for a recall checkup.  The inspection was good, only took 10 minutes, no needed work.  Then home, picked up the daughter. She's been wanting to practice in the stick shift car. We only have one and she doesn't want to practice with Dad. Around and around the local school parking lot, stop, first gear, start, second gear turn, stop, etc.  She did pretty good so we went down a few back roads, to have her shift into 3rd and 4th and back down.  the around the parking lot some more.  Then I had her drive me down a busy road into town to where she works. There is a stop with a small rise and a red light.  She even did really well around a truck hauling a boat whose lights were not working.  She likes to jiggle the gear shift back and forth in neutral between shifting.  I told her to stop that because she's gonna end up in the wrong gear, straight from first to second then straight from 3rd to 4th. Two minutes later she jiggled and ended up in third not fifth.  She stopped jiggling.  I can see that's gonna be a hard habit to break.  Got home at 4 pm. 

A friend of the Hubby's called and talked to him for 30 minutes.  I set up for tomorrow. Yes it's supposed to be personal sewing, but I missed a few days being under the weather earlier in the week.

One of those days

Today was one of Those Days.  Where very little went right.  Even the things that seemed to go great went bad fast.

Yesterday, I began to work on a shirt and hat order. The simple sew the logo and names on two t-shirt should have been done in an hour.  Three hours later, I was giving up and running to Walmart for a new shirt. The customer had bought the camo shirts on clearance of course.  Which meant that there wasn't any medium shirts. I bought two XL's just in case.  The embroidery machine jammed and I had to cut the bobbin thread, to get the shirt off the machine.  Leaving behind a small hole in the shirt.

This morning I picked out the thread of the two letters, an hour worth of work, slow and steady, clip and pick the threads, clip and pick the threads.  I then ironed on a small piece of no show mesh stablizer to the back after I pinched the hole as closed as it would go. I went back to the computer and added a tree behind the Name. Once the tree stitched out over the hole, you could not even tell there had been a problem. Once I finished the name, my machine gave me an error message about the wiper sensor, which is what pulls back the thread before clipping.  I was done, so I manually trimmed the thread and un-hooped the shirt.  Quick lunch break and then I placed the shirt on the machine to begin the business logo, when I got more error messages. Thankfully the stitching only did the first lock down stitches and the jump stitch to the start of the first part of the logo.

A quick call to my dealer and I fixed the thread jam, under the needle plate.  I decided that I had better do a stitch out to make sure everything was good. 

I just grabbed some twill squares and stitched it out.  You can't see it but the bobbin thread is showing on top.  So I rethreaded the machine, changed needles, cleaned out the bobbin area again, and the second stitch out still wasn't any better.  The best part was I used the serger to finish the edges. This stitch out will go in my customer file for next time. 

I also have a small job to make some patches for the dry cleaner in town. They are sponsoring their great niece in the rodeo and want patches to sew on her shirt sleeves.  Look good, except when I went to soak off the wash a way stabilizer, it didn't wash away.  Crap, Now I have to slowly trim the extra stablizer without cutting the satin edge. Tomorrow I need to add the patch attach to the back so in a pinch they can just iron on the patches.

Biscornu and Baby Announcements

Last week everytime I walked into the sewing room. I felt so overwhelmed with everything, I would just walk back out.  I would get mad at myself for not getting anything done. I'm a Virgo, so I plan.  I made a new schedule to grab my mess by the hair and drag it out of my cave.

I color coded my day. I only allow myself 30 minutes on the computer in the morning. Sewing 9-12, lunch and then Sew 1:30 - 4:30. I alternate business sewing and personal sewing. Weds and Fri mornings are devoted to Errands and Weds afternoon is for paperwork. 4:30-6 is computer time.

So far the schedule is working for me. I plotted out my business sewing into a project or two a session.
I finished two Baby Announcements.

A part of my personal sewing is, a finished Biscornu. Biscornu is an eight sided pin cushion. The Yahoo group for my software had laying out cross-stitching a Biscornu in the software. I had a good time playing in the software. So I digitized another one. I could not find my stuffing and thought I'd have to stop by JoAnn's to get some, then I was talking to my Daughter and spotted the bag. 

 The first one is 4 x 4 inches.

I love the second one, The original Biscornu pattern had alot of white space which makes it hard to count to place the x's in the right place.  I added extra designs and borders and was very careful of the jump stitches. I am ticked to death over this new pattern. I'm going to sew the pin cushion together by machine.

The new one is 5 x 5 inches.

This morning was for digitizing while I waited to the Schwan man. I got five projects done. I even stitched out the second biscornu (twice, once for each side). I stitched a third Baby Announcement, but I need to clip threads and press. After I run errands tomorrow, I can frame it, ready for delivery.  My machine hummed away while I clipped threads and cheanged thread. 

I have tomorrow's projects starched and ready to go.