Too Much Wool: of sewing for knitting

Yet another day with a knitless post. But today I have a really good reason.

I decided to work on making some Sock Emergency Kits to sell. I know you're all surprised (well, at the very least my friend Adelaide is, because I'm willing to bet she thought I wouldn't do it). I should explain that years ago I used to make quilter's sewing kits sometimes and sell them, a couple of different variations. So its not like this is a new thing for me.

Its been a while since I set myself up for production sewing. My old cutting table has been banished to the garage since it got warped in a leak in the back hallway. I miss it. I've been trying to set up a cutting/trimming/ironing center using the living room coffee table. It kinda works, but I've spent a lot of time with a portable cutting/ironing mat on my lap. Not the most efficient way to work, but its better than the wonky old table.

Quilting makes a huge mess. Knitting has spoiled me. In knitting, the biggest mess you (usually) make is at the end, if you happen to have a bunch of ends to sew in. You might get a little pile of snippings when you're done. Quilting produces huge amounts of waste, requires huge piles of fabric that must be unfolded, ironed, cut and then dumped on the floor and later - much later - picked up and refolded. And every time you cut or trim something, there's always a little bit extra that needs to be trashed. I long ago stopped saving fabric snippings (I decided I could be compulsive, but not that compulsive.)

Anyway, here's what's been going on here.

click - its not blurry in the pop up

These are in varying stages of completion. The one that's almost done (top left) is spoken for. I decided in the end to use an applied binding (I do a kickass mitred binding), rather than the folded over binding I did on my own kit. The applied binding takes longer, but its sturdier and gives a firmer edge to the thing. It also requires about 10x more sewing, but hey - I'm a perfectionist sometimes. Really too late to stop now.

And more:

late afternoon sunlight after a snow shower

These last three are just cut out, not sewn yet. There are a few more (not pictured) that are variations on some of the ones you see here - its easiest for me to cut two of each piece at a time. I'm trying to get more of them to the stage of just having hand sewing to do on the binding. Then I can sit and do that at my leisure instead of taking over the house with cutting mats and piles of fabric.

At any rate, this may be a bit of a waste of time. Because of the binding and the hand sewing and the fiddling with the pattern they're not particularly quick. I think I'm going to work on the batch I have cut out (although picking out the fabrics was really the fun part) and then see if anyone is interested in buying one for whatever price I decide to charge. The deciding part is going to be tricky - like I said, lots of time, huge mess - all for a little thing.

Comments

I love them, they are just beautiful!! I made one myself, but didn't look remotely as good as yours, i didn't make that piece to hold the needles in place, so they slide off ;) Have to give it a bit of thinking for reparing mine.

Posted by: Pilar | 10 April 2006 at 04:57 AM