Hi there!  Are there any good sewing videos?  Recently I have been watching and re-watching The Great British Sewing Bee online.  Did the American Sewing Bee TV program ever get off the ground?  Someone tell me?  What inspires you to sew?

Three books, which I have probably mentioned ad nauseum, really inspire me.

1.  Modern Home Sewing:  Modern Home Sewing by Drucella Lowrie and Sylvia K. Mager is the back part of the book.  This book starts off with pictures of beautiful 1950's ladies and children dressed in personalized, embroidered clothing.  It gives you lots of ideas and inspiration!  If you DO happen to own the Necchi BU sewing machine, then it gives you helpful sewing tips about that machine as well.  Somehow whenever I pick up this book and start reading it I find myself smiling.  It's a down-to-earth, step-by-step instruction book for making clothing, home furnishings and etc.

You can find Modern Home Sewing for sale in these places:
Amazon: (Click on the picture),

    Etsy.com Here and Here

And on eBay Here and Here  Just to name a few!

2.  Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing:  Gertie's book shows you many techniques of sewing both by machine and by hand with a lot of step-by-step photographs.  It's really helpful!  The book also includes a wardrobe of Retro style clothing.  If you need more help just visit Gertie's Blog! 

Click on the pictures to buy these books.



Below you can Pre-Order Gertie's New Book:  Gertie Sews Vintage Casual Coming out Soon!


3.  Sewing for Plus Sizes by Barbara Deckert:  Barbara's book shows you all about how to fit and sew for the plus sized woman.  She has many illustrations and step-by-step instructions.  The photos show the types of clothing that can be made for the plus size model that do actually flatter the figure rather than one's wearing a tent from "Omar the Tent Maker".   She also explains how to add variety to the commercial patterns so they are made more flattering too.  A great book for any plus size sewer!

Click on the picture to buy this book.



Thank you for reading to the end!

The Sewing Machine is Fixed and Now For Something Else...

Hi there!

The sewing machine needle punching holes in the bobbin case was a symptom of unseen problems!  The sewing machine is repaired now and it was kind of expensive.  I sewed with it the other day and it produces a nice stitch now and it is much quieter.  I haven't taken up the machine embroidery yet as they told me the needles I was using were not embroidery needles.  I was under the impression that they were embroidery needles, but it was a mislabeled eBay ad that has been my downfall this time.

Also I discovered some Sulky Sticky +.  Two packages of it in fact!  Yay!  Now I don't have to spray that awful smelling TESA (Temporary Spray Adhesive).  No more gummed up needles!  I am embroidering some very complicated designs on some aprons for my customer and since the fabric is a very heavy twill, it has proven in the past to be too difficult and thick for me to hoop so I have been using the Temporary Spray Adhesive.  It works well, but the cost is that in this cold weather we have to open the windows, turn on all the fans and air the house out!  The smell of the product is a horrible chemical smell!

My Doctor's appointment went well so I am on a good path there.

Today I visited Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing on Gertie's November 21, 2013 post or thereabouts and discovered this little gem of a book, which is also a novelty fabric, "Sewing is Easy by Sally Stitch."  How cool is that?  That book is offered on the website:  Center for Pattern Design.

The fabric is for sale from the Fabric Depo Store on Etsy :   Home Sewing is Easy...
It may also be available from other places.

Don't forget to pick up your copy of Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing!  I believe, and someone correct me if I am wrong, that Gretchen Hirsch is working on book #2. 

Recently, I have also been reading Modern Home Sewing by Drucella Lowrie and Sylvia Mager.

You can see this book here and also purchase it from this person.  It may be available in other places as well.

Modern Home Sewing Book 

This book is really great!  It shows many red and white color and black and white sketches for various vintage sewing techniques, ideas for embellishment, sewing for the home, sewing for children, sewing for women and girls and sewing for men and boys as well as a primer on the Necchi sewing machine - see below.  It's easy to read and really well thought out and researched.  My copy had one error-- an illustration was numbered incorrectly as fig. 41 when it should have been fig. 24 - the two illustrations were mismatched, but other than that I haven't found any glaring errors so far.  My copy of this book is in very bad condition with pages literally disintegrating, pages falling out of the binding and generally falling victim to acidosis as the paper they used in those days was not acid free as paper is made today.

Here's that Necchi BU Mira sewing machine spoken about in the book in an olive or sage green color.

Here is the search for the Necchi BU sewing machine on eBay if you would like to own this machine.  You may also find it available in other places.  I believe the other color for this machine would be a taupe or tan color.  This is NOT the Supernova machine -that's a different model.  The 1957 model is a later version of a different model as well.

I was unable to find the Sewing is Easy by Sally Stitch fabric; however, there are many great vintage and retro look fabrics available online and in other places.  Have a look on Google!  When I search on Google I find I get better results, sometimes, if I search by images rather than by the web.

Also Deepika Prakash has a wonderful book entitled:  1,000 Clever Sewing Shortcuts and tips from www.sewing.patternreview.com

You can purchase Deepika's book here: 


Until next time...