Bebe`s dust-cover

Hello everyone, welcome to my new blog! I will be writing about my projects, experiences with various textile techniques and equipment (oh I looove gadgets!), designing, historical costumes (I like to call them clothes because that`s what they were) and other nerdy stuff. The blog is still under construction, I will be adding material as I get to it. I hope I will be able to offer you some tips and tricks to use with your own projects. :)

My first post, Bebe`s dust-cover

I cannot stand the plastic dust-covers that come with sewing machines today. However I think machines should be protected against dust. Take good care of your machine, it will serve you longer, right? ;)

So here is what I made for my new overlocker called Bebe (Bernina 800DL):

Quilted top with 7 stripes of various cotton quilt fabrics. Embellished with yo-yos, ribbons and decorative stitches. 

I used some home dec fabric left-over for sides. And I added controlled pockets to hold Bebe`s notions since the machine doesn`t have a locker of its own to hold them. Controlled pocket means that it has a piece of elastic on its top to hold the items inside but you still have the easy access to the items.

And finally... My latest gadget- tape binder and binding presser foot. I bought the whole set-four tape binders, presser foot, tailors awl and pins. Surprisingly the presser foot fits exactly to my Singer machine. I didn`t have much hope that the tape binder would actually work, but it did! It works great, making your own bias tape is so much faster with it. The binding presser foot takes practice to master. Feeding the tape and the fabric simultaneously into the foot and taking care the fabric (in this case a thick one) doesn`t slip away. I was taught to sew one side of bias tape with machine, fold it over the edge and sew the other side by hand. This attachment method is invisible. When you use the binding foot, you will always have visible stitching on your bias tape. But for this project that`s exactly what I wanted. I used the narrow zig-zag stitch to make the stitches even more popping out.