Last night my home was filled with making, laughter and heart-felt conversation as we met for our first session of Sewing Through the Year.  All six friends showed up, and boy did we fill the space! 



Happy, happy!  With the heat and all those machines whirring, I had my own little sweat shop indeed. For those of you who might be planning to hold sewing socials in your home, I'll try to share tips I pick up along the way.



This month we made fabric dish covers, a reusable alternative to plastic wrap and foil.  In preparation, I set out all the fabrics they would be choosing from ( Florence by Denyse Schmidt) and created a cutting station for myself nearby.  I cut all the fabrics myself for efficiency and sent them off to the larger cutting/marking station I had prepared with rulers, marking tools and cutting devices.  Since this project was pretty compact, we actually had all 6 sewing machines at one long table, stocked with elastic and pins.  I did notice that it would be better to have multiple pin cushions.  Those babies need to be everywhere at once!

It really seemed to work well to start with a tutorial preview.  Before we got to work at all, before any fabric was cut and the chatter began in full force, I walked them through Alyson Hill's web tutorial from start to finish.  Getting a bird's eye view of the project all at once made it easier for folks to go at their own pace.  Of course, we were all there to help each other when someone asked, "What's next?"



Dish covers were an excellent first project.  Soooooooo easy.  Of the six ladies, everyone finished a cover, and three friends finished two covers each!  We chatted about our book while we sewed and then settled in for some good conversation for the last (late!) hour of our meeting.  I couldn't imagine it working out better!



One issue arose when sewing with the plastic coated fabric - the blue dot lining shown here with a Florence Malachite Lincoln Log outer.  Some machines had a lot of trouble feeding quilting cotton and the plastic coated fabrics evenly, so that bunching occurred.  Sewing with a walking foot attached eliminates that problem.



Of all the fabrics, Florence Carnelian Jagged Stripe was the most popular.  It is such a cool stripe, and the red looks great with all sorts of bowls. 

I'm looking forward to doing the patchwork dish towel project with them next time.  It'll be a little more involved, perhaps, but I'm excited to get to share my scraps and see their patchworks emerge.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!