"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud." ~ Emile Zola

19 September 2011

Curtains- My First Machine Project!

My first real sewing project- kitchen curtains made from vintage fabric in a bright pattern of veggies and pansies, which I found at Creative Reuse Pittsburgh.

I thought the vibrant colors of the fabric were much too loud on the white background of the original fabric, so I put my new tea-dye skills to work! After washing and drying the material, I dropped it into a lighter tea using only half of the tea bags as in my previous dye sessions, letting the fabric soak half the time. The results are perfect, dulling the colors a bit and giving the white background a slightly worn look. They work great in my kitchen, which I prefer mostly neutral with little pops of color in towels and cookware/dishware (I love reds).





As a brand newbie sewer, I have to admit that I find the measuring and cutting of the fabric is much more difficult than the sewing part and figuring out the machine! I feel pretty good about my machine work during the project, actually, and ran into only a few challenges: thread coming out of the needle while sewing, keeping a totally straight seam line, and finding my stitches were very loose. My Mom helped me figure out that I was threading the machine slightly wrong and that I needed to increase the machine tension to make my stitches tighter.

So how'd they turn out? You judge for yourself! Some slightly lopsided seams, a few loose stitches, but overall I am quite happy!


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