Sunday Sewing …….what’s under your needle today?

What is under your needle today?  By all accounts, creative people are doing just that……creating.  I have finished up my embroidered Peacock Wall hanging……. Now to get organized to put it up without making too many holes in the wall (hubby hates it when I do that – wonder why haha!)

Isn’t the fabric on the back pretty? I have been hoarding it for many years in my stash and it was high time to use it!

But quit with the back of the quilt, Liz!

I have been embroidering these tiles – 36 in total – over the last month. The embroidery design is an OESD Collection called “Picturesque Peacock” and I used my Janome MC15000 for all the embroidery. I made sure I used the yellow dot bobbin case as I really did not want any thread to creep up from the bobbin onto the top of my work. The Janome yellow dot bobbin case is a total winner for this! I did use Janome pre-wound bobbins – black – so that helped (as they are wound tighter and so do pull the embroidery thread down to the back a bit – which is all good) My Janome Mc15000 did a great job and I was super happy with the stitch out’s. It was also a lot of fun selecting the colours I would use and deciding which ones would work well together……lots of colour changes in some of the “tiles”.  I think one of the colours was a Hilos Iris Ultra Brite poly embroidery thread (available through Janome Canada and Elna Canada dealers) but most used were suitable peacock colours from my embroidery thread stash.

No prizes for guessing my favourite colours are lime green and purple, and turquoise/teal has to be a close runner up?! I wanted something bright to set off the black of my midnight peacock in a tree so I chose lime green. I know, not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love this colour and it will go on the wall in my entrance hall so should “wake up” any visitors to my home (once we emerge from isolation).

I used fusible bias tape (black) which I did not have at home and so I had to order online to complete my project. (I don’t own any of those fancy bias tape makers and I had no inclination to fiddle with skinny bits of bias tape so order online it was to be!) Did you know that many of our dealers are still operating – possibly behind closed doors? – but are able and willing to ship items to you that you may be needing to complete a project. Nearly had to order twin needles too!

I have made a short video showing how I did the twin needle work on the black bars across my window.  The video deals with setting the machine up for twin needle work and then sewing with a twin needle on my peacock project. 

I did have  a few slightly panicky moments when I could not find a wide twin needle – I specifically wanted it to be 4mm wide as I wanted to sew down both sides of the fusible bias tape in one pass.  We don’t usually use twin needles that wide but I was pretty sure I had more than one stashed somewhere. Man alive, I scratched around in the drawer that holds my needles. It was so mixed up that I had to take them all out and sort into piles of needle type.  (Good thing as it is now organized!) But still no twin needles so there was some anxious head scratching going on “Did I throw them out?” “Why would I do something silly like that?” Well, they were there…..tucked under a box I had not yet lifted out of the drawer – Whew!

I found lovely lime green buttons in my stash and then positioned a small black one on top of it and sewed a “double” button in place. Why do I have buttons on the corners at the bottom of the window? Well, just because I can and because I wanted to create a little weight so the wall hanging would hang nice and flat. Once on the wall, we will see if that was enough or whether I need to go on a similar search for drape weights. I know I bought them ages ago but where did I put them? Do you have issues because your sewing room could possibly be better organized or more tidy? I’m raising my hand!

However, I’m not very keen on opening up my border to insert weights. I think I may have to add a narrow “sleeve” at the bottom (like my rod sleeve at the top but smaller). TBD on that one.

So what is under your needle today? Post your pics to Instagram with #janomecanada and/or #janomelife.

We’d love to see what you are busy creating.