A New Sweet Scarf & Free Motion Quilting Laughs

I wanted to use some more of my Alpaca silk yarn that I bought off of Etsy, so I went looking on Ravelry for a pattern. I found one and managed to get about 40 rows in before I decided it was way too bulky for this yarn and wouldn't be quite as dainty and feminine as I was looking for. I decided to just do enough rows of double crochet and then did 5 DC in each stitch on the ends. That means you have to go back to the foundation (or beginning) row and add the double crochets. It makes the little ruffle. I also put a little tab with buttons on it to give it a little more detail. I think it is pretty sweet. You could use lightweight yarn and more stitches to make a cute spring/summer scarf. Peaches and Cream cottons would be nice.

Now on to other hilarious happenings. I have been quilting quite a bit lately and loving it. I decided that learning free motion quilting on my machine is a necessary venture. It is definitely not as easy as it looks when the pros do it. It is hilarious when you use a Necchi machine that is supersonic on its lowest speed. My tension is way off in places and perfect in others. I was standing and didn't have a place properly set up to handle the quilt, but I just laughed the whole time! In the future I will be putting the darning plate on my Singer, so that I can use it instead. The Necchi allows you to drop the feed dogs with the flip of a switch and it also has an open toe darning foot which is nice. You can see what you are doing a little better when the toe is open. My Singer doesn't have a switch, so you have to remove the existing plate and put a solid plate in place in order to hide the dogs. A little more effort, but I will have much more control over the speed. Italians-fast cars and super fast sewing machines! I do know that I definitely need a class and or a lot of practice!