Custom Owl Hammock - Essentially Finished

 Yes, the hammock still needs grommets for hanging.  But, it's pretty much done.

 Here's the back side.  A tad wrinkly but still snazzy.

And, here you can see the front and the back.

This hammock really challenged me.  Retrospectively, it's a fairly simple hammock, but the calculations were intense to make sure that the fussy cat owl would fit, and then, the narrow striped side also had careful calculations that I tried to muck up.  I struggled with the materials, too.

But, in the end, I'm quite proud of the hammock.  And, making the simple bar side (fussy cut owl side) is so very easy for me now.

This darling hammock will become a little hamster's new bed.

Sneak Peak - IN PROGRESS - Custom Hammock with fussy cut Owl Print

Here's another custom hammock in progress photo.

Not my best photographic technique.  Sigh.

This is the front and is fairly classic and easy to do.  The fun part was carefully cutting the owl , so that he would fit properly.  I had to resize everything when I realized that the owl was taller than my original size for the stripes, but a little bit of math, and tadaa.

The back side is going to be spectacular if all goes as expected.

Turquoise hammock

Well, I'm going to try to get back into blogging.

I've been making a lot of hammocks.  And, yet, I rarely post pictures.  Sigh.

Here's one of my current projects in progress.

This is a 10 inch crazy quilt hammock for a hamster.  I'm quite pleased with the unexpected Asian flavor.

The squares of this hammock are actually sewn onto fleece.  It was a bit of a challenge arranging the fabrics.  It would have been a lot easier if I had had one or two more fabrics.  As it was, I was trying to avoid abutting the two black fabrics.  And, of course, avoiding having the same fabric abutting was important and tough.  There are actually a few places where I allowed a doubling up of the fabrics, but those instances, I think, just add to the craziness.

So, I've already turned the hammock inside out, and you can see that the turning hole is still open on the right side.

Now, to close up the hammock and quilt.  I'm thinking of doing a squared off spiral for the quilting.

Snapped the 66 belt

During the move, my Singer 66's belt snapped.  The snapped one is on the right.

According to the owner of the  most awesome sewing machine repair store, Stitch in Time, my original belt was a temporary belt.  It is more flexible and is what someone would buy if they weren't sure what would fit. The new, intact belt is essentially "original" for my Singer 66.   Since my machine is from the 1920s, I find it a bit odd to speak of "original" item when it's obvious that the item is brand spanking new.

I'd thought that I should have detached the belt when I moved, but Paul, the store's owner,  attributed the breakage to the weakness of the belt itself.

Anyways, I just wanted to mention how awesome this sewing machine repair / vacuum / home decorating store is.  By the way, the branch of the store that I frequent is a bit of a quilting / fabric store, too.  They could easily ask me to bring in my machine so that their on site (the other branch of the store) sewing machine repair guy could repair my machine.  But, instead, they have always helped me, step by step, repair my machines myself.  Their customer service is SUPERB.

So, I should be sewing today.  If not, I shall have to unpack my modern Janome to get some sewing done.

My Two Singers

So, what's the plan with the two Singers? Some of this is self-evident, but I was going to mention it anyways.

My Singer 66 is my workhorse. This weekend, as you can see from the photo, I was sewing garments. She is so reliable, and even without reverse, she's a delight to work with. For my Etsy sewing, most of it will be done on the Singer 66 or my modern Janome.




Maybe, someday, my sweet Singer 15-91 will be a workhorse, but for now, he is relegated to making liners and hammocks for my own rats. I'm anticipating that he will become my free motion quilting machine, and maybe my primary straight stitch machine. I must say that, when he's working properly, he's a delight, but his reliability is lousy right now. I'm still working on the bobbin issue and the rest of his refurbishment.

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