Serger & Craft Table

I must have been mostly good last year, because for Christmas Santa brought me a serger and a craft table.  The craft table fits nicely in my bedroom under the window.  I'm excited to have a serger to add finished seams to my projects.  I love having my own spot where I can leave my project of the day out and not have to clear it off the table when it's time for dinner.  I also like that I can look out the window at my backyard while sewing.  I have been good so far about not leaving it a complete mess each night, as I do end up stacking some of the pillows off of the bed on it.  And the craft table has a storage spot for my sewing machine.  I keep the serger in the large armoire to the right of the table along with most of my other sewing and craft supplies (fabric lives under the bed in bins, so it's easy to get to too).  It's also nice to use my silhouette on since it is right by the computer desk too (I used to just set it up on the floor when I wanted to use it).

  

The door opens out and then there's a leaf that swings up to sit on the door and it lengthens my workspace.  There's not quite enough room with where the computer is now, but when I want to use it I just slide it out from the window at an angle and it works out.  If we move the computer upc to the other side of the desk, then there will be plenty of room.

Last night, I threaded the serger with white thread and used it on a real project finally, a fabric strip skirt I'm making for K*.  I had been playing with the settings a little on scraps using the colored thread it came threaded with. 

Sauder sewing/craft cart

Brother serger

My sewing machine is also a brother (XL-6562), my mom bought it for me when Sam was one and I wanted to sew him a dinosaur costume for Halloween.  Nothing fancy about it, but it does everything I need. (Thanks Mom!)

Summer Breeze table runner

 Made this table rummer today out of Summer Breeze II by Sentimental Studios for a friend as a birthday gift.  It's about 51 1/2" by 20".  The strips are 2 1/4 " and the back strip is 4 3/8" and is 10 1/4" in from the edge.  I used a zigzag stitch to quilt between the strips (yellow thread) and to attach the binding (blue thread).  I was a little hesitant to attatch the binding by machine, but gave it a whirl, and I'm so glad I did.  I'm pretty picky, but it all lined up nicely on both the front and the back and only took like 15 minutes. Yippee!!  Hand stitching the binding to the back would have taken me over an hour at least. 

The colors & prints are just so fresh and happy.  There are also some greens in the line, I just didn't use them for this.  I love the blue print I used for the binding.  I might use it and the white print with little blue flowers to make a dress or shirt for K*. 

I totally ran out of yellow thread when I was about 2/3 done with the machine quilting, so I had to stop and run to the fabric store.  When I was almost done attatching the binding, I ran out of blue thread with about two inches left.  Luckily, I had enough on the bobbin left to wind some back onto the spool and finish it up.  I also broke two needles while attatching the binding.  One time the tip totally bent sideways and the next time the tip snapped off.  I put the denim needle in after that.

It was cloudy yesterday and today, but about 10 minutes after I took the pictures, the clouds cleared out and the sun is a shining as it gets ready to set. So refreshing after it's been so rainy, cloudy and drab the last few days.
I made another table runner as a Christmas gift, a top of a table runner and have enoguh scraps for another one out of Sweetwater's Hometown that I'll post about all in one post when I'm done with all three.