Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Cover

I needed a cover for Viv, my vintage Singer 301 sewing machine.  I also needed to practice my free-motion quilting, and I needed a small project to fill the time until I get an order from Connecting Threads so I can finish a couple other things.


Viv may be old and a little battle scarred, but she's a trooper.  She is a good piecer and does probably the easiest and most true 1/4-inch seam.  She's also portable (there's a recessed handle at the top) and relatively lightweight compared to my other two machines.

So I've been working on this cover for Viv for a couple days and finished it up last night.  I think it came out pretty cute!

I was originally going to make a cover that had open sides and just tied closed, but decided at the last minute to enclose the whole thing.  

It was a little fiddly to sew in the rectangles, pivoting at the corners and such, but I managed.  In hindsight, I probably should have fused on some interfacing to the backs of the side pieces to give them a little more stability.  It also would have been nice to have a hole at the top for the handle to come through, if I wanted to carry it covered.  Tweaks to keep in mind for the next version.

I practiced quilting some of Elizabeth's curlicues in the red strips (those are fun!), and some double loop meandering over the aprons, along with some fairly craptastic waves in the black and white parts on the ends.

Meanwhile, I've been listening to a lot of music.  I also may have watched the Twilight movie (twice) over the weekend on the FX Channel.  While it is no cinematic masterpiece, I have to say there is some really good music in that movie.

Okay, that's kind of like saying that one reads a certain men's magazine for the articles, but I think you know what I mean.  Case in point:

Supermassive Black Hole by Muse
Spotlight by Mutemath
Full Moon by The Black Ghosts
Tremble for my Beloved by Collective Soul

Those are all pretty rock intensive songs.  On the softer side, however, I also love Bella's Lullaby by Carter Burwell. This video is a version by a different pianist who I think does a wonderful job expressing the emotion of the song without being heavy-handed about it.  Enjoy!

10 comments:

Sarah Craig said...

Oooh, Viv is looking sexy!!! Very nice cover, and I love your FMQ - I'm definitely going to have to copy some of those designs!!

Vicki @ DottyJane said...

Viv's all dressed up! Looking good:)

Pretty nice quilting designs at Elizabeth's. I'll have to bookmark those.

Shay said...

Viv looks like she's ready for a night on the town all gussied up like that. Love that cover P - it's fabulous and not one but of craptastic FM anywhere as far as Im concerned.

Sara said...

Red and black cute!!

Love how Sarah said "sexy!!" She is a keeper!

Those curlicues are to die for!

Elizabeth said...

Those double loops are awesome and the waves are definitely NOT craptastic.

Also, Supermassive Black Hole is awesome and thank you for the lovely version of Bella's Lullaby.

xo -E

P.S. I feel a Twilight movie marathon coming on this weekend. Only 16 days until the Breaking Dawn movie! Wohoo!

Miri said...

I see Viv is now hiding her plain Jane browniness under a hot new hat! Looking Good Viv!

Love the quilting...you're getting me revved up to try some new patterns.

BendingPins.com said...

Hey, I didn't know you had a vintage machine! I used to have a few and still do, one of which seems to be very rare. I have found, however, that the feed on these vintage machines just isn't like the Juki which is straight and true without any help from me. I think it's because of the box feed on the Juki. When I sew with one of my vintage machines, without serious guidance, the fabric wanders off madly in all directions.

Unknown said...

This is tooo cute...I love love the colors!

merrily row said...

very, very nice

Michelle said...

Wow! Viv is all dressed up now. Beautiful cover. Of course, I'm very partial to whole black, white, red color scheme.