Serger tutorial...ripping out a seam

Ugh. We've all done it...had to pretend we're in love with our seam ripper and lured them with cookies and ice cream so that they'll be our best friend and comply to all our requests.... Or maybe that's just how my relationship with my dear seam ripper goes. ;)

There is nothing worse than having to remove a serged seam. Now, you may ALL know how to rip out a serged seam, or maybe you never make mistakes ;) But maybe, just maybe, a few of you are just like me; you dive into something without thinking twice and later regret it because of all the seams you then have to remove, and you don't know the most efficient way to do it!

Here's how I do it. It's not pretty, I'm warning you now :) This may also be one of the more lame tutorials around, but if it helps even one person, then I may catch a break in the seam ripping karma department ;)

The culprit today, a neckline that was too big.

So, take your trusty seam ripper, and put it through the top half of the stitch






Keep going all the way around until you are done. Then open the seam just a bit and rip out a few small stitches:



Once you start to pull it apart a little, you will wind up with one longer thread...that's the one you get to pull:



See how it removed the whole line of thread that was sewn by one of your needles?



Keep doing this until you've gotten all your threads out. And then....ugh, you're left with this:



But do not fret! This thing is my savior (have you seen me use it as a vacuum before?)



With one swift roll...



Tada!



And that's how I rip out my serged seams. Uh, anyone know an easier way? ;)

xo,
Shari

What is Fugly Upcycling you ask?

It's really, really ugly (anything with an F in front of it is baaaaad ;) turned hopefully great. :) That was the goal of the upcyclers challenge a few friends and I put on. We picked names from a hat, sent our ugliest knits to the person who drew our name, and wait for the mail lady to come with something upcycled brilliantly for our kiddos!

So it seems I understood the challenge quite well. Oh did I pick ugly. Look what Olivia (of recent etsy shop fame Olivia's Ultimate, plus a photographer extraordinaire) received in my Fugly Mailing:

Yup, that's REALLY fugly. So much so that I really don't want Finley wearing anything made from it, HA!

Now Lisa, of Ellebows, is the one who was supposed to supply me with fugly knits. I had to send her back to the drawing board 3 times because everything she gave me was too cute!! We finally settled on this:

Now, it wasn't so much fugly, but a challenge. The brown stripes is a very stretchy ribbed hoodie, and the other piece is a heavily embroidered knit skirt.

I knew I couldn't turn it into a typical SLD because of all the embroidery, so I decided to go totally out of character and make her a shabby chic two piece halter and matching capris :)

I took a panel of the skirt with some plain pink tee and turned that into a halter top, incorporating the brown stripes of course into the straps.

Then I turned the hoodie into super casual capris and turned an embroidered patch into oversize pockets.

I managed to use the fugly knits as 90% of my upcycling, which was really cool!!

Now, if you're inspired to upcycle some fugly....then get in on the action at Lil Blue Boo, where she is hosting The Great Ugly Knit Upcycle Contest! Your ugliest things hiding in the back of your closet may magically transform into something cool. Plus you may win a sewing machine for doing it. :)

Now that is upcycling at its best :)

xo,
shari

Have I ever mentioned that I just can't say "No"......

I have a really hard time saying No. I want to help and be everything to everybody. It's a character flaw, I know. :) So when I got an email from a super sweet woman who is opening up a small 'boutique within a boutique' in Wisconsin and wanted some of my SLDs for her shop...well, how could I say No? :)

She will be featuring a bunch of handmade and upcycled kids clothing items. I am really excited for her! It's been a dream of hers and I can't wait to hear what kind of response she gets to upcycled items in the non etsy world! Wow, real life world of shopping, does that actually exist offline? ;)

So she ordered 30 items. Yup, you read that right. But she's so nice, she let me get away with just 17. :) And today, I am tagging, packing and shipping off 17 dresses, skirts and tees! It's actually really cool to see a BUNCH of SLDs all hanging together. I never have this many made all at once!

Here are a few of my favorite dresses in the bunch....

(you know me, I am a total sucker for anything with a cassette tape on it!! ;)

(My husband thought this might be a good tee for me ;)

Plus, I didn't forget the boys.....

So goodbye SLDs...have fun in Wisconsin!

xo
shari

Giving is the best way to receive....

“They who give have all things; they who withhold have nothing” Hindu proverb

I've always been a giver. Sometimes a little too much ;) I'm the girl who roots for the underdog, cheers for my opponent, and will give whatever I can to help someone that I know is in need. My parents grew up with very little, especially my late-father, and the amazing stories he's shared about how people helped them out in their lives really inspired me (I'll share those another time!)

Most of you probably don't know, but I have a job. A job job; or work work.... Meaning I work outside of sewing :) I manage the philanthropic activities of a large private Family Foundation, plus some other stuff. :)

So, the reason I mention this is (I get to the point eventually, stick with me!!) ...I was inspired by my amazingly talented friend Ashley when I saw her list her gorgeous dress on eBay to raise money for our online friend Jane's and her daughter, who organized a team called Anna's Bananas in order to raise money for Down Syndrome Association of Delaware.

Well, I had to do something too to help out team Anna's Bananas! Now I didn't think I could raise quite so much per dress on eBay, so I decided I would sell a few items in my shop each week, where 100% of the sale would be donated to Team Anna's Bananas! But wait, there's more! (Feel like you're watching an infomercial?;) I asked my generous boss if he would match my sales, which I was hoping might be about $100, and he did even better! He's donating an additional $250 to the effort!

So...time to start shopping for a great cause! I am listing my first item (below) for Team Anna's Bananas today and as the week goes on I plan to list more in my etsy shop.

Thank so much for being a part of a great effort. :)

Yesterday you met my serger...today is a Serger Tutorial!

I read a serger tutorial once online, and for the life of me I cannot find the link.

Well, it seems that many of you are sewing addicts, just like me, so I thought I would share my favorite serger tip: What to do with that long piece of thread that hangs off your seams!

I used to snip mine, and then they would fray. Then I started knotting them, but I'm no sailor. Now here is what I do, it's so easy!

So here's the culprit...long serger thread:



Go find the biggest needle you can find. One that isn't all sharp and pointy. I use a size 22 tapestry needle. Then stick it under/through the seam you just finished sewing:



Bunch up your long thread at the end, rolling it between your fingers a few times in order for all those threads to fit through the needle eye:



Pull your needle through, so that the long thread tail goes under all that stitching and comes out the end:



Snip close to the end:



Add Fray Block or Fray Check:



Tada! Seam is finished, long thread vanished, and no chance of it ever coming back to haunt you!



Hope this little tip helps you!

So the post about my first sewing project reminded me....

I was once a guest blogger at Lil Blue Boo and I oh-so-generously reminded the entire world of my failed attempts at various projects. You mean to tell me blogging isn't supposed to be an embarrassment to myself? I apparently did not get the memo. ;) (hence the photos of myself yesterday ;)

It was fun to write that guest blog post, and I hope you'll pop over to see it, and then of course scroll through the amazing blog that is Lil Blue Boo.

Here is a snippet from the post:

So today I ask you: what is your craft project gone bad?

Sadly, I have a slew of items to pick from. Let me see, it could be the terrible rust colored dress I made my daughter using an old silk shirt of my husbands. Ashley said "It's cute" in an email. but I could tell by the lack of exclamation marks, it certainly was not. What was I thinking? My child looks like she belongs in Little House on the Prairie in this one!

Read the rest of the blog entry here.

Stayed up late last night....

And in my late night daze I made this SLD tank for moi. It definitely needs some tweaking, and I seriously have no clue what I think of it. I mean it. It might be the most hideous thing on earth, really butt ugly, or halfway decent. I seriously can't tell!

These were taken last night on my mac photobooth:

And today my husband (an even worse photographer than I am!) took these:

I'm such a dork, this is the absolute best 'model shot' I could come up with:

I think I'll leave this adult stuff to night time sewing and work on my daytime kids wear instead right now. At least I know I think those are cute!! ;)

The first thing I ever sewed. Ever.

Some people have been asking how I got into sewing. The answer is two part, and right now I'll just write about Part one (I'm quite long winded).

When I was in my second year of art school I enrolled in 'Fiber Art 101' and didn't really know what to expect. I was a painter but was looking to expand my horizons. :) Lots of students in the class were these amazingly creative sewers and fabric artists and I stared at their work in awe. We did a lot of silk screen printing and traditional dyeing techniques, but somehow I always reverted back to canvas and paint. It was my comfort zone I guess.

One day my mum and I were out shopping and I saw a sewing machine. I just had to have it. It happened to be just around my birthday, so I told her it would be a perfect gift! I guess it was. :) It was a Janome 1804. It's practically that old ;) And it is still the sewing machine I use today.

So I went home armed with a new sewing machine and no clue what to do with it. So off I went to the studio to paint; left it in the box for weeks, to my mothers dismay. I finally took it out one day, cut up an old painting, and decided to try and make a 'quilt painting.' It's very ugly. Like, really, what was I thinking? But it was an attempt to sew; my first attempt.

It's pretty big, like 7 feet by 6 feet. Here it is in its entirety (It's been folded in a trunk for a million years)

And here is a detail shot (or two or three):

I guess I didn't realize until looking at this piece again, after all these years, that it's kind of similar to the clothes I now create. Very eerie.

I was not a very good seamstress. Here is my first attempt at a zig zag stitch

and I think this was supposed to be a straight line (I still struggle with those ;)

This is the back. To be quite honest, I prefer it this way!

So there you have it. This is what started me sewing. Granted, I didn't sew much after this project (would you? It was not a pretty sight!) but nevertheless, it was a seed planted.