Wayside Sewing Blog

Things have been chaning around here. We are in the home stretch of our redecorating the store (yes, again). We’ve moved the threads over to the register area, add in a number of new racks for fabric, and are creating a sewing furniture gallery downstairs.  It’s coming together nicely, if I do say so myself. Next time your in the area you should check it out.

We’ve got a number of new colors of silk radiance coming new, and a few new bolts of sateen just arrived.  We also got a shipment of some beautiful new bali batiks to add to our collection. Lots of notions, books and other stuff just in, but nothing new there.  If you know of something you think we should be carrying, give us a suggestion. We are always looking for new stuff.

Now that the sun is out it is getting harder and harder to find time to sew with the ever growing grass always calling for a mow. But I’m finding that smaller projects are easier for me to work on, and finish, in the spring and summer months.  Consider starting (or pulling from your UFO pile) a project that lends itself to both hand work and machine stitching. This way you can take the project with you and keep working on it.

My tip of the day: Find, or make, a small 4″ x 8″ clear zinyl zippered pouch for holding a selection of sewing tools that are alway at the ready whenever you want to pick up a machine or hand project. My pouch  has my quilting gloves, seam roller, water soluable marker, mechanical marking pencil, white chalk pencil,  2 spools of thread, a pack of size 80/univeral and 70/microtex needles, a roll of glow line tape, and my needle case for hand needles.

Clear zipperd pouch

After my last post a number of you emailed to let me know I’m not talking to myself….I guess that means I need to keep doing this.

BERNINA was great and the trip home went smooth, we followed the rain the entire way and didn’t catch up to it until Worcester.

Now for something interesting…have you heard of http://sewingrepublic.com ? It’s a new site (well relatively new site) with loads of patterns, projects and sewing videos. There’s some real fun stuff there. If you’ve got a few minutes you should take a look at the page. Like the rest of you I’m always on the look out for something new to sew. I love quilting but I also like the “instant” gratification you get with a smaller project like a new bag or a pair of pants.

Time for me to get back to finishing my Wildflowers quilt. I’ve a few more embroideries to complete before the class on May 30th.  Here’s a picture from the pattern, it is even more impressive in person. I just hope mine comes out as well.

See you soon.

So, you’ve probably been wondering (or I’m talking to myself, who knows) what we’ve been up to. Michael has been busy tearing machines apart and rebuilding them. Me I’ve been busy learning all about Bernina. I had all these high expectations about all these wonderful things we’d have time for after classes…..but for those who know me, you know I am great at getting in my own way.

I brought a sewing machine with me and all I’ve done is play with it. Which isn’t a bad thing, it just means that we never got to do any sight seeing or too much fun outside of the hotel. Reminder to self - leave the sewing machine home when you bring the husband on a trip.

We have had a good time, it lots of rain. We’ve heard about all kinds of new products and notions that other stores have been telling us their customers love. We’ll have to give some of them a try ourselves when we get home.

And…..I’ve been told our Bernina 820 will be in the store next week!