Sergery–Common Stitches

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Categories: BERNINA, Learn to Sew, Sewing Machines.

Sergers are very misunderstood machines. They seem so intimidating–all that thread, all those needles and loopers! They can be easy and fun to use, versatile, and can take your work from looking home sewn to professional. Sure, threading them may be *slightly* more complex than your standard sewing machine but they are by far easier than they used to be, believe me. Even without an air-threading system, these BERNINA sergers are delightful to use. Think back to the first time you sat down in front of a sewing machine and how it took a little while before you threaded that without concentration. It’s all about time and practice for sure. So look for several upcoming posts about sergers and my attempts to demystify this wondrous tool.

the BERNINA 1150MDA

Most sergers have a variety of stitches its capable of producing. I use 3 regularly and keep the others in my back pocket, to use when need arises.

1. The 4-thread overlock–what I call the “construction stitch”. I use it when seaming because both needles are used and it is extra secure.

2. The 3-thread Overlock-Narrow–It’s not as bulky as the 4-thread and I use it when finishing raw edges. Plus, it using one less cone. Savings!

3. The 3-thread Roll Hem–A beautiful clean finished edge on light to medium weight fabrics. Remember to remove the stitch finger or bring the lever stitch selection towards to you.

A great reference that I recommend to my Serger Basic students is The Complete Serger Handbook. She has detailed photos of multiple machine brands, thorough descriptions of applications and a handy troubleshooting section. We always have copies in stock!

The 1150MDA, featured above, is the last of our current classroom sergers and is being sold at a great price. Is it time to step up to a serger?

Etsy Global Craft Party this Friday!

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Categories: BERNINA, Parties, Quilting.

Friday is the annual Etsy Global Day of Craft Party and we are getting our sew on! Not only will we have in house $10 all day open sewing and snacks, but we will also be providing sewing machines for the I Heart Art party at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. They are hosting a all day benefit party for the Quilts for Quake Survivors Japan Relief efforts and we are bringing over 6 fabulous BERNINA 330′s for your sewing pleasure.

You can work on quilts, or participate in many other crafty endeavors over at the Museum, and the festivities go all evening long. If you attend either event, you can grab a special BERNINA loves Etsy coupon for 20% off one item (excludes machines and classes) and pick up something awesome for yourself to keep the party going till next year.

Remember, the classroom machine sale is currently underway at MD, and the 330′s that are going to the museum as well as a few Aurora 440QE’s and one last sweet serger are still available at smokin’ classroom prices. This sale goes until our current models are gone, so Friday is a great chance to try one out!

More Ruffle Love with Amy Karol

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Categories: Apparel Sewing, BERNINA.

Amy Karol has another quick use for the wonderful ruffler! Also, yesterday’s post from Michelle is an awesome ruffler tutorial that takes you through the in’s and out’s of this great little foot. Remember, these sweet feet are 20% off all month! Hot stuff!

Attach a ruffle to a skirt hem ALL IN ONE STEP!

I serged the bottom edge in white (you can also hem it) and then, hold on to you seat, both ruffled the fabric and sewed to the green skirt it at the same time! I know! You can see how this is done in the video here from the Bernina site.

Skirt hem+ruffle=fabulous!

It’s crazy easy and makes me a bit out of control with the ruffles. My middle child also would like to point out the fuller ruffles make twirling much more fun. Word.

Oh my, I Want to Ruffle Everything: Ruffler Tutorial

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Categories: Apparel Sewing, BERNINA, Home Decor, Sewing Machines.

Excuse me while I geek out on my new favorite toy… I am not sure who to blame, Amy Karol of Angry Chicken or all of the cute new girly things I am craving to buy this season, but I am absolutely mad for this Ruffler Attachment! I took one home last weekend and even though the sun was finally shining, you found me sitting in my sewing room marveling at how cool this foot is.

It’s quite easy to attach onto your machine and very similar to putting on a walking foot. One piece of advice – thread your needle first! It’s a bit harder once the foot is on. Otherwise, simply wrap the U shaped piece around the needle tightening screw and then attach as you would any other Bernina foot.

You are able to gather or pleat one layer of fabric by itself OR you can also do this while sewing it onto a separate non-gathered piece of fabric. As shown below, I am getting it set up to sew a ruffled strip onto a piece of denim. The piece of fabric that will not be ruffled goes under the entire foot while the piece that you want ruffled slides right above the bottom plate. I have found it easiest to insert your ruffle fabric when the forked pusher assembly is moved as far towards the back of your machine as possible. It allows you to place the start of your fabric directly under your needle. If you start it back further, the pleating mechanism might not catch the fabric.

Push this piece forward.

Note that you have a maximum seam allowance of 1 1/8″ due to the curved metal guide on the right-hand side.

The pleat distance is easily adjusted from 1 to 6 to 12 stitches per pleat plus you can control the depth of each individual pleat by loosening or tighten the front screw. Amazing! You can also set it to 0, giving you no pleating, which would be used if say you wanted to pleat for a given length and then have a section where it is only joining the pieces, then you wanted to begin again.

Here are 3 different samples displaying the difference between the three stitch settings. I used a 2.5 mm stitch length on all of them, but I noticed that when you are set for gathering 1 pleat every stitch, it creates some crazy tight gathering! There are two ways to amend this if that is not what you are looking for: increase the stitch length to 4 mm or more OR get out the handy little screwdriver that comes with your foot and decrease the depth of your pleats. Much better.

I wanted to whip something up immediately so I grabbed some scraps, a bit of linen trim and a couple of zippers and came up with this cute ruffled pouch. You can ruffle trim, ribbon, frayed-edge strips, serged-edge, the possiblilities are endless! Oh, I am just getting started.

Potholder Tutorial and the Fusible Thread Trick!

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Categories: BERNINA, Free Mini Classes, Home Decor, Quilting, Tutorials, Uncategorized.

If you weren’t able to make it to our free mini-class on how to make potholders, or you just want a reminder of what we covered in the class, check out the tutorial below. Potholders are a quick and easy way  to brighten up your kitchen decor!

To make these cute-as-a-button potholders, you’ll need:

  • Two 12″ x 12″ squares of plain 100% cotton fabric (we used white muslin)
  • One 12″ x 12″ square of 100% cotton batting
  • One 10″ x 10″ square of cute 100% cotton print fabric
  • Two 10″ x 10″ squares of Insul-Bright batting
  • One yard 1/2″ double fold bias tape
  • Thread in a color that will stand out against your plain fabric, we are currently loving the Mettler Neon threads!
  • Fusible thread
  • Scissors
  • Water- or air-soluble fabric marker
  • Seam gauge

The first step to putting the potholder together is to free motion quilt your muslin and batting together. Once completed, this square will be used for one side of your potholder.

Get ready for some free motion quilting fun! Start by placing your 12″ x 12″ square of batting in between your two squares of plain muslin to form a quilt sandwich.

You’ll want to thread your machine with a thread color that will pop against the plain fabric background. If you need design inspiration for free motion quilting patterns, check out this super handy site. Lower the feed dogs on your machine and put your darning foot on.  In our mini-class we, used the Bernina Stitch Regulator (BSR) for this step.

The BSR foot guarantees a more even stitch length, which is especially handy if you are new to free motion quilting and haven’t mastered the smooth movements required when free motion quilting with a darning foot.

You will want to cover your square with the free motion pattern of your choice, but don’t worry about getting to close to the edges. We purposely cut this piece larger than ultimately needed so that you wouldn’t have to try to quilt right up to the edges of the square.

Next, you are going to make an even bigger “sandwich”, now incorporating your cute printed fabric and Insul-Bright squares, along with the square you just finished free motion quilting. Make your new sandwich by laying your squares down on a flat surface in the following order:

1. free-motion quilted square, face down

2. two Insul-Bright squares (we originally used only one square, but two is better to make extra-sure you’re protecting your hands when picking up hot things!)

3. printed fabric square, face up

Your free-motion quilt square will be larger than your Insul-Bright and printed fabric squares. Trim your free-motion quilt square so that it is the same size as the other squares.

Using a water-soluble marker or chalk, draw a line 1/2″ away from your cut edge. This will be your basting guide.

Use a lid or something similar as a guide for drawing on rounded edges.

Baste all layers together along the line you just drew.

Trim seam allowance to about 1/4″.

Next, wind a bobbin with fusible thread and place that bobbin in your machine. Your top thread does not need to be changed.

Unfold your bias tape and line it up so that the top of your unfolded edge lines up with the cut edge of your fabric.

Baste in the fold line all the way around, stopping right before the bias tape meets the end you started with, leaving a bias tape tail that you will later turn into a loop for hanging your potholder.

If you flip the potholder over you’ll see the fusible thread from your bobbin, you are about to see its magic, as it glues your bias down, while you get ready to stitch over it again.

Fold your bias tape around the edge of the potholder and position the edge of the folded bias tape so that it meets up with and just covers the fusible thread stitching. Set your iron to a high heat setting and use lots of pressure and steam to fuse the bias tape down. This will hold the bias tape in place and line it up perfectly with the bias tape fold on the other side of the potholder.

Next, change your bobbin thread back to your regular thread, and change your machine stitch to a wide zig zag.  Position the potholder under your presser foot with the bias tape that you just fused facing up, lining up the center guide of your presser foot with the edge of the bias tape.  Sew a zig zag stitch all the way around the potholder.

When you get to the bias tape tail, unfold the tape and fold the raw end over once.

Then re-fold the tape and place the end that you just folded over the spot where the bias tape tail and bias tape end overlap in order to create your potholder loop.

Line up the folded edge of your loop with the edge of the bias tape.

Continue your zig zag stitching over the loop edge, securing it in place.

Congratulations! Your gorgeous new potholder is finished! Huzzah!

More and more machines…

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Categories: BERNINA, Sewing Machines, Uncategorized.

…keep arriving. And as it turns out, it’s a little something for everyone.

Take a spin on the new top-of-the-line bernette for BERNINA, the bernette 25. Pretty.

Saddle on up to the newest entry level BERNINA, the 215. Prettier.

The clouds in the heavens part to reveal sunlight directly aimed at this beauty, the BERNINA 820QE.  Prettiest.

Time to start saving pretty pretty pennies!

Ruffle Love with Amy Karol

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Categories: Apparel Sewing, BERNINA, Tools and Notions.

Amy Karol, of Angry Chicken craft blog goodness has been up to some ruffling. She is a BERNINA owner, and you can read all about why she loves her Artista over here. She has been hankering for a ruffler for awhile, so I though it was a good time to get one in her hot little hands to make ruffle magic happen, right in time with the BERNINA Ruffler Sale! That is right, ruffler foot #86 is 20% off all month long. Keep checking back for more of Amy’s Ruffle love.

A crazy contraption that will cover you in ruffles.

What you are looking at here is  Bernina ruffler/pleater foot. Not to be confused with a gathering foot. This short and very helpful video clearly shows how awesome this foot is.

I have been wanting a ruffler foot for a long time so when Modern Domestic asked if I wanted to try one out I just about got a speeding ticket getting over there to pick one up. It’s so easy to use and has me thinking about trims and pleated ribbon and ruffles in my sleep and ways to use them. With 4 girls in the house there is a strong need for trims and ruffles.

Purchased cardigan, ready for ruffle love.

So, a project for myself first, I thought this purchased cardigan needed some love and something special. I had just the right patterned fabric to go with it in my stash.

Newly fashioned embellished cardigan.

To make this I cut strips of fabric, finished the edges by serging them and made the ruffle with the foot. You could also hem the edges or you can skip the hemming step altogether if you use ribbon, but I wanted a pattered fabric for the ruffle. Then I pinned and stitched the ruffle onto the sweater, sewing down the middle. Done. I have more projects to using this foot coming soon.

2-for-1 Open Sewing this Weekend!

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Categories: Apparel Sewing, Bags and Accessories, BERNINA, Bolt, Knits, Tutorials.

What? A rainy Memorial Day weekend? If you can’t stomach camping in the rain, or you just have the urge to make some totally cute new summer frocks, or even have friends in from out of town, consider sewing this weekend! We have a smokin’ hot 2-sewists-for-the-price-of-one thing going. Choose a project, grab some fabric, get a friend and sew.

For some project inspiraatioin, check out this recent list of free patterns over at Grosgrain, which includes our much loved Colette Patterns and a free download for this darling tank. Perfect to keep the dreams of warmer weather alive!

Meet Tony.

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Categories: BERNINA, Machine Maintenance.

Please allow me to introduce MD’s new favorite man in the house, Tony. Tony the Tiger or Mr. T as we lovingly call him is our new sewing machine technician. We felt so lucky to find him and his 40 years of machine tech experience of servicing every machine brand there is! He has been fixing all of the machines at MD for the last three weeks and we are pretty much in awe of Tony’s small miracles he manifests everyday.

He shows up every morning with his kind smile and his brown bag lunch in tow and heads upstairs to quietly work his magic. Every now and then we hear a chuckle coming from the mezzanine as he overhears the conversations we have below. We yell up and tell him how appreciated he is and his humble manner doesn’t quite know how to accept it.

We haven’t found a machine yet that Tony can’t troubleshoot and fix to perfection. So rest assured, if your beloved machine takes a turn for the worse, bring it on into Modern Domestic and leave it in the trusting hands of Tony, excuse me, Mr. T.

Anna, Zanna, and Etsy

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Categories: Bags and Accessories, BERNINA, Machine Embroidery, Parties.

There is an etsy love fest going on tomorrow with two of our favorite teachers! Anna Joyce and Susanna Scott are vending at West Elm for a one day only pop up shop curated by Lynn Russell of Satsuma Press. There will be drinks, snacks, and tunes, but also the beautiful wares of two women (actually more than two, but two that we are especially fond of) that are making their living doing and teaching what they do best, their art.

If you have had the chance to learn from Zanna in a silkscreen class or Anna in an applique class, you can clearly see their passion as well as their ability and skills with design. We absolutely love their aesthetic and are so pleased that they are such an important part of MD. Show your love by a stop to their etsy shops: Ann’s is here and Zanna’s is here, or sign up for a class with Zanna or Anna.

Anna has been at MD getting ready for the show and playing on the embroidery machines. Check out this little video of her stitching up stuff on the 830LE. So fun to watch embroidery in action.