The final days of my love affair

With Dong Dae Mun and Gwang Jang fabric markets that is.

Just found out this morning we're moving back to the US in May... Damn. Seeing how I don't easily embarrass in public, I'm considering making a spectacle of myself when it's time to leave. I can fake cry on demand if need be, but the tears sliding down my face are going to be the real thing in a few months. Le sigh. I don't want to leave Korea/Asia!!!!!!

Just got back from a shopping trip to DDM this weekend. I met up with some old and new friends and we all had a fun time doing DDM and then going to the lantern festival (I think that was less fun than fabric shopping though). I walked away from DDM with a box of 75/11 home machine sewing needles (100 needles for about $11), and I picked up the last issue of the current Mrs. Stylebook from my vendor in GJ. I was on a self imposed fabric diet so I walked away without any yardages but with the recent news of our impending move that will change, no doubt about it.

I'll be posting a long entry on navigating these two markets soon, along with pictures and diagrams because it can get tricky to explain in words.

On the crafting home front, I started and finished *one* child-size mitten. I'll be knitting its mate very soon, this was essentially a practice run for my own mittens. I know my perfectionist self well enough to know I need to practice my techniques first before starting on the real project. I have been known to un-do knitting/sewing projects in an angry fit when something wasn't right. Even if it took me hours of labor, I'm willing to sabotage it in an instant. I'm not always irrational, I just want my hand-made items to be the best I can create.

No pictures today to upload today but be prepare for a visual feast soon on fabric shopping in Seoul.

Here's to a productive November!

A new month, some new projects! Last week was hectic, we had my birthday party (Iron Chef style!) at a friend's house, which meant I dragged some of my kitchen pantry over to her place for a few days. I am still cat sitting for another friend for three more weeks so I had my sewing stuff at her home. It's hard having daily essentials in three different places. I have my usual sewing set up again back home and expect to pump out some gifts for the holidays and maybe a mini-wardrobe for our trip to Tokyo later this month.

In the mean time, here is Sprout with his quilt! The quilting fabrics have cars/traffic signs on them, the backing is also from the same co-ordinating series but it's a flannel. I only have white cotton quilting thread so the bias binding is ugly- I chose to attach the binding with a machine instead of hand-sewing an invisible stitch. Aren't kitties color blind anyway? I won't tell if you won't.

I like to roll the quilt into a sleeping bag for him

I can piece but I definitely can't quilt to save my life

My blogging drought is over!

I've been bad with regular postings on here, haven't I? Don't worry, you haven't missed much... I completed some projects shortly before I went to China back in September. I pumped out a dress, a skirt, and 3 shirts in 3 days before I left- I work extremely well under pressure.

I even managed to make a baby-size quilt for Sprout! I accidentally stepped on his tail and felt so guilty that I had to give him a gift. My friend Mary calls it Sprout's Guilt-Quilt. I quilted it myself on the 1600P- my quilting skills are nothing to gloat about that's for sure. But it is done, and he seems to like it.

I'm currently working on a modified version of McCall's 4728, the crochet needle holder. This project is a part of my Secre Santa gift to my exchange partner in our knitting group.  I won't post pictures of the items now in the spirit of secrecy, but I think the fabrics I chose suit her very well.

Iron woes

Last week I made two shirts (Jalie 2804), and then somehow left my gravity feed iron on top of its water hose. I can only assume it was when I was shutting down everything in my sewing room and the iron wasn't fully heated. It really doesn't matter because the hose melted shut and I'm totally screwed. The solenoid was giving me issues and now this. I'm about to rip my hair out because of all the walls I'm hitting lately. Add on my lack of progress in finding a place that sells replacement hoses, I really am SOL.

Temporary setbacks

I've been dog-sitting for a friend and haven't had much time in the sewing room. Today I went to iron out some linen in preparation for a Cynthia Rowley jacket pattern when my gravity feed iron quit steaming. I don't know if the solenoid is clogged or if it might be something else- it still heats up, just no steam. I'm soooo over my equipment not working when I need/want it to. So, off I went to Cleaner's Supply and ordered the Naomoto iron I've been lusting after for awhile, as well as a Jiffy garment steamer for DH's jackets. My sister is going to have to forward the stuff or bring it with her when she visits this summer but eventually all of my tools will be here. The dogs go home tomorrow and I'm off to DDM/Seoul this weekend. I expect lots of sewing updates next week because I don't have much else going on to keep me away from my projects.

Janome Threadbanger TB-30 review

I am heading into month 2 with my Janome TB-30 and recently wrote a review on Pattern Review on this machine. My dress form arrived yesterday, still awaiting the other toy... along with the cutting mat and some new patterns. I plan to be very productive this summer, with Korean heat and humidity combo, I am essentially locking myself in the apartment in a few weeks.

What I like about this machine
This is my first computerized machine and it took a couple of weeks for me to get used to another brain thinking for me when I sew. I am a garment sewer and purchased this machine after lots of research online/on the PR forum threads.

I went with this machine because it offered adjustable presser foot pressure as well as 6 different one-step buttonholes. I have a friend who is purchasing another Janome with similar features except her model does not offer the adjustable presser foot pressure. I have yet to use this feature on my TB-30 so I hope the feature is worth the extra money.

I have tried a couple different styles of buttonholes on scrap fabric and found that the stitch density isn't as close together as I can get with my previous White Jeans Denim machine (only one style of buttonhole vs. the six styles on the TB-30). The density issue is probably more personal preference than function though, the buttonholes I have made so far are quite nice and professional looking.

I haven't sewn on difficult fabric yet (velvet, slippery silks, heavy denim, etc) with this machine, most of my projects have been quilting cottons. I did repair a nylon back pack strap the other night and the layers slid through the machine without a hiccup.

The machine is quiet and has a nice hum. This is my first full size Janome (I have a Janome Sew-Mini) and it feels like the machine and I are off to a nice start.

This is a low shank machine and comes with a few snap on presser feet out of the box. I have access to cheap low shank metal presser feet and will work on expanding my collection. It's nice to have interchangeable feet with this machine and my White.

You can control the stitch speed at various settings, I had a hard time at the fastest setting when I first started (always used to full control using the pedal) but I'm used to the feel of the machine now. The automatic needle up/down feature is very convenient.

What I do not like about this machine
I did have some bobbin tension issues when I first started working on this machine that have since been fixed. I was having the hardest time tightening up the bobbin tension, even when the needle pressure dial was at "0" my bottom thread was still poking through at the end/beginning of the top thread. I played around with all the possible settings such as presser foot pressure, needle pressure and higher-end thread. When none of these showed significant changes, I was

This was my first machine with a horizontal bobbin and it finally occurred to me last week to take the cover plate off to tighten the bobbin casing. I don't know why I didn't make the connection to tighten the casing to fix the tension issues, I guess if I don't actually see and hold the bobbin casing in my hand like I do with my horizontal bobbin machines, in my mind it didn't seem "real" (if that makes sense). My straight stitches are now evenly looped on the top and the bottom.

The quality of the straight stitch is still not what I consider perfection but they are even and nice looking. Maybe with some more tweaking it will look a little better, this is probably an issue specific to my particular machine. I played around with some of the decorative stitches and nothing really impressed me. The star/asterisk stitch didn't look very polished and the functions where it did a satin stitch (continuous half moons and diamonds) weren't all that tight. I do want to note that these stitches were tested when I was having the straight stitch tension problems and I'll need to re-test them. Truthfully I don't have a lot of confidence that it will be significantly improved, but these decorative stitches are pretty useless to me as a garment sewer. I suppose if I want fancier machine stitching I can get an embroidery machine.

I've had the machine beep at me for doing a couple of "off limit" things by accident, guess I have to get used to these computerized warnings.

I unplug the 220V/110V transformer from the outlet every time I am finished using this machine (I live in Asia and have a regular 110V machine). I am pretty sure just the act of shutting down the machine re-sets the settings (i.e. straight stitch length goes back to a default 2.2 while I usually set it to 3) and I thought I read online that we can set our own defaults on this machine, but I don't remember seeing it in the manual. This is perhaps the most annoying thing after the tension crisis, and it is very minor in the grand scheme of things since it's easy to set the stitch length.

Overall now that my tension issues are fixed, I am starting to work more in harmony with my new toy. I think this machine would be a nice beginner to advanced sewing machine for someone who does primarily garment sewing. The additional 30 stitch variations are functional, but I really plan to use the straight stitch, zig zag, and buttonhole stitches for my sewing needs.

It's time to learn Korean....

I've been away from this blog partly because other things have been coming up these past few weeks, and partly because I kept getting the Korean version of Blogspot every time I tried coming back to update. I finally did some clicking around and found myself miraculously at the English version. Better take this opportunity for a brief update.

The recent McCall's shirt was, shall we say, a wadder. I haven't had the chance to write a PR review, but I will attribute this flop more to outside factors than problems with the pattern itself.

My Threadbanger TB-30 was giving me tension problems and it wasn't until 3 days ago it dawned on me to open the bobbin case and adjust the screw. I had been changing needle tension and presser foot pressure trying to achieve a balanced stitch but even when needle tension was at 0 (auto is about 4) I still had a loose lower bobbin thread/stitch. With the recent tightening I seem to have fixed my previous problems with very uneven stitches.

Sadly my moment of clarity came as I had already sunk in about 90% of work into the shirt for DH. Oh well. Into the scrap pile it goes.

My other mistake was using the wrong interfacing for the CF. Instead of my nicer woven interfacing from Pam at Fashion Sewing Supply, I wanted to use up some fusible hair canvas interfacing I purchased at a local fabric shop. This is the stuff the most of the local tailors use in their suits (read: crap) and I don't know what possessed me to convince myself it'll be okay on this linen fabric. Stupid is as stupid does.

In short, I will attempt this pattern again, despite the lack of of a yoke. Today I received the Islander men's shirt patterns and DVDs I recently ordered, as well as some patterns from PR. I'm trying to do all of my online shopping for supplies before it gets really hot this summer- I am hiding away once we get to 85F and humidity is 100%.

On a happier note, I wanted to post some pictures of the fabric I found for Arielle in Haiti. She lost a lot of sewing things due to the earthquake earlier this year and in the spirit of sewing and charitable giving, I found out the kinds of fabrics/prints she likes and went on a shopping spree! I was at DDM (Dong Dae Mun) fabric market shopping for about 4 hours two weeks ago, the most time I have spent at that place and boy I was tired at the end! The box went out last week to Cidell who will be packing all the contributions from the sewing community into one box for Arielle's courier. I had so much fun shopping for her and I really hope she likes the choices I made!!!

80% rayon and 20% cotton knits

100% cotton eyelet

100% silk crepe de chine and stretch silk charmeuse

100% cotton shirting

100% cotton lawn and cotton knit

Cidell had commented on my first Blog post that I should do a write up on DDM. I have a couple of posts on PR about the fabric market but those were when I was still exploring. I have a pretty good grasp of the area now and will definitely do another write up soon. In the mean time, let's hope I can find my way back to the English version of Blogspot soon so I can post more about my sewing projects!