Having practiced my straight lines on paper, I've moved on to fabric! This is another recommendation from Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp, found in the intro section, not the project section. She suggests that we get to know our embroidery stitches by stitching up some tea towels, decorated with lines of stitching. Not having any fabric on hand that I wanted to use for tea towels, I decided to make cloth napkins instead with some lavender fabric that I bought and never figured out what to do with.
(Readers will soon learn that I have an admittedly excessive passion for lavender.)
This is also where I got to try cutting on the grain. According to the book, the selvage edge can be used as a guide because it is straight. Of course, mine was not at all straight - it bowed in the middle - maybe because of pre-washing? I tried to straighten it as best I could. I'm not sure what disasters might befall me if I'm not exactly 100% on the grain, so if anyone out there can enlighten me, please do.
Instructions call for turning each edge up 1 inch, pressing, then folding the raw edge under halfway and pressing again. I've done two so far. The first one I did exactly as described, and for the second one I pressed at 1", unfolded, folded again up to the crease line (so in theory, 1/2"), pressed, then folded the whole thing up twice on my two creases and pressing together one last time. Of course, in both cases at the end when I measured I was slightly smaller than my desired size of 13" square, which concerns me somewhat looking ahead to patterns where that sort of thing matters. But hopefully with practice this will improve (she says optimistically).
(I realize that all this measuring and pressing sounds really boring, but I actually enjoy it. I like these sorts of slow, meditative tasks - I much prefer baking, with its precise measuring and careful mixing, to cooking with it's frantic chopping and sauteeing. Maybe I'll make a seamstress yet!)
As per instructions, I turned up two opposite sides first, then the remaining two sides. Obviously the corners gets bulky when you do the remaining two sides, since you're also folding up the previous hems, so I figured out that I need to clip the corners when I do that. I was proud of that little deduction, which I think was brought to mind by something I read in my Denyse Schmidt Quilts book.
Since I only have two thread colors, neither of which is lavender, I decided to make two hemlines so they would look decorative and as though I used contrasting thread on purpose. In retrospect, I might want to save that technique until my lines are a little bit straighter...
But my embroidery lines are oh-so-pretty! On the first one I just tried to use them all so I could see what they look like.
But on the second one, I picked my favorite stitches and alternated them, a thick stitch with a thinner one. Very nice. I found that for the most part these look prettiest with a tiny stitch length (about 1/2) and a large stitch width (like 4).
I also decided that something is definitely up with my sewing machine. I noticed before that sometimes the bobbin thread gets tangled at the end of a seam, so that when I try to take the fabric out, there are two or three threads underneath instead of just one and they don't want to pull out. I have to cut them close to the machine and then fish them out. But it's annoying, especially now that I've done enough lines that I can tell it's happening almost all the time. (And even when it doesn't, it seems to leave large loops of thread at the end instead of nice, neat stitches.) I think it's something to do with backstitching. Am I doing something wrong? Is my tension off? Or does my machine need to be serviced? Anyone know??
NOTES TO SELF:
Most embroidery stitches look best with a small stitch length (ex. 1/2) and a large stitch width (ex. 4).
It is possible to burn oneself with a steam iron even when one's fingers do not actually touch said iron.
Clip corners to reduce bulk when hems are folded over at right angles to one another.
IMPROVEMENTS TO WORK ON:
One of my folded edges had partially unfolded during sewing, so it looks messy underneath.
Finished size is smaller than planned.
Bobbin thread tangles and I don't know why.
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