Sewing for Dollars

I have started back sewing for dollars! I sew home decor items for The Muse in Amarillo. I have also been doing some sewing from my store in Canyon, The Bee's Knees. I do not advertise that, but will do some projects on request if they fall within my skill pool.

This is body pillow. The challenge was learning if my machine would sew easily through painted leather.  The middle turquoise piece is real leather that has been painted. The brown on the sides is crushed velvet. The trim in the middle of the brown velvet is really three trims combined or I should say five trims as the bottom two layers were stitched top to top to form a wide trim then layered on top of each other with a single velvet looped trim on top to cover the connecting stitches. That was a challenge also, getting through all those trims. 

I own a Viking Designer 1 machine that I primarily use for embroidery design work. I usually do all my home decor sewing on my Viking 1+ as it is a real work horse in my opinion. I had it packed up as I am showing my home and wanted my studio to look neat, not cluttered. 

I was very pleasantly surprised that my D1 zipped through the leather even with the trims on the top with no problem at all. I used the leather setting and a new 16/100 needle. I also made sure to use my walking foot. What a joy when everything works! I just love my machine.I plan to still use my 1+ in the future, but will use the same setting, new needle and walking foot to assure an easy and great outcome.

Oh, this is an empty pillow form.....It will look great once they put the insert in it. The back of the pillow is in the zebra fabric you see above and below the leather piece. When I get a drawing of the design, I get excited because it is like a puzzle. I cut the fabrics and begin to put the puzzle together. I have a sketch of what it should look like when finished, but the end product with the real fabrics and trims is always a delight to me and I feel I have really accomplished something when the puzzle is complete.

I also made some Euros for a lady that turned out well. The fabric was a nice high quality burlap...not the JoAnn quality, but a little tighter weave. I have done drape panels and pillow with burlap before, but this was easier to sew since the weave was smaller. They were to have a "slightly ruffled" ruffle around them. I did not want the ruffle to have any seams except at the four corners, so used the width of the fabric for each ruffle side. This allowed for a very "slight" ruffle indeed; however, they turned out with a very elegant look. It is hard to get that impression from the picture, but they do look nice. They have an envelope backing.

Well, that is all for now. Happy sewing everyone!