Come Stitch With Me

It’s easy – peasy, especially if you are sewing on relatively flat 2 or 4 hole buttons!

Machine settings:
Presser foot:  All purpose or button sewing foot
Stitch:  Zig Zag   W= 4.0 and L = 0 – .2

Some manufacturers suggest lowering your feed dogs when attaching buttons, but all of my machines seem to do better with the feed dogs up and the stitch length set at .2 (just a smidge above 0).

Use clear tape to hold your button in place while you sew, or just wing it. Test to make sure the needle clears both holes and stitch away.  Tip:  if your button will have to go through thick material,  place a toothpick on top of the button, but position it between the holes prior to stitching.  You will zigzag over the toothpick and slide it out when you are finished attaching the button.  This will form a shank – makes it easier for the button to go in and out of the buttonhole. I usually count to 8 and then tie off. My machine does this automatically, but you can leave a tail to pull the threads to the back to tie them off.

Tip: If the wearer is particularly hard on buttons, consider putting a dab of Fray Check on the stitching on the reverse side.

Occasionally, I will sew on a button by hand, but it’s so much easier to do by machine, if you can.

Ever had a looming project deadline, but you find yourself unable to move forward because something else is literally in the way?  Mental or physical clutter that has brought your creative energies to a screeching halt?  For me, it came in the form of a pro bono project that literally took over my sewing room.

My main sewing machine was threaded and dedicated to the project we were working on. Parts of the project were scattered around my sewing room in various stages of completion.  Adding to my frustration was the fact that the part of the process that was holding everything up should have been completed a few weeks earlier, thus freeing up my sewing space (and my mind) to complete my quilt for hire project well in advance of the customer’s deadline. Life has a funny way of derailing the best laid plans. Crazy schedules of those involved. Challenging fabrics. Not enough experience with this particular type of project.  You get the picture.

The looming quilt deadline is what finally prompted me to take action. I gathered up all of the pro bono project materials and put them together in one location.  I cleaned up the studio while I pondered how to solve a problem with the pro bono project that was holding up the works. Sunday morning, I sat at the sewing machine and just dealt with it. My solution wasn’t the most glamorous, but surprisingly, it did work.  At that moment, the dam burst and my creative mojo was back.

That Sunday afternoon, my pro bono project collaborators left with part of the project completed and the segments that they could complete outside of my studio over the next two weeks.

I worked like a mad woman, but managed to get the full-size t-shirt quilt mosaic completed in less than 10 days.  The customer was THRILLED with her quilt and will happily refer my services to others. “A couple of my friends ordered tshirt quilts from online companies that turned out to be crap. Yours are SO much better.”  I was happy to hear this because there IS a difference in quality. You do get what you pay for. And she willingly paid a fair price for the amount of work involved to make the quilt to her specifications.

Now that the studio has been cleaned yet again, it’s times for Easter egg placements for me and a memory pillow/wedding hanky gift for a coworker. Then on to the next quilt project.

Why do we have such a hard time uttering this word?

It’s only TWO letters  – an N and an O – as in nuh-uh, nope, not gonna happen.

Learning to say this one short word will help put you back in the driver’s seat of your own life.

Unless it’s something really important to you or an emergency/major milestone event for someone else, lose the guilt when you decline to do something someone else asks you to do.

Can you bake cupcakes?  Sew costumes for the school play? Buy Girl Scout cookies? Stay late at work for the third time this week because your boss caught a 2nd wind at 4:59 p.m.?  (Yes, there is a difference when you have a big project /major deadline at work. I am referring to those jackass bosses who repeatedly drop “top priority – do it before you leave today” projects (which turn out not to be) in your lap at quitting time and then they scurry out the door.)

Teacher-librarians are considered exempt employees (meaning anything past 3:00 p.m. is on my time or unpaid). I still stay late 1-2 days per week just for my benefit, or to help out a coworker, but if I need to leave promptly at 3:00 p.m., I do so without feeling guilty.

Same for the sewing biz – if the minimum class size doesn’t materialize by close of business two days before, we cancel the class.  It’s simply not worth it to teach the class for less than a minimum number of students. (And it took me a long time to feel comfortable doing this!)  Occasionally, I have had only 1 student in my kid’s club sessions, but that’s because a confirmed attendee/sibling pair got sick overnight.  When we first started the kid’s club, we let students pay and select fabrics the day of the class. After being burned 2x with no-shows who had verbally committed to the class, students must pay in advance and select a precut kit or bring their own fabrics cut and ready to sew.

Your takeaway from this missive: It’s your time and your life. Claim it back. Learn to say, “No.”