Annual Christmas Outfit Wrap-up

As promised, a few photos of my daughter wearing her outfit:

To finish this wrap-up, I've had a few questions and comments regarding some of my tools, so I thought I'd answer them.

First, regarding my pinking shears, which I used to finish the velvet seams, Amy wanted to know, "What kind of pinking shears to you have?". I have a pair of Gingher pinking shears, which was a Christmas gift from my mother in-law a long time ago.

Second, a few readers asked about the pressing bars. A few different companies manufacture sets of pressing bars. Both Prym and Clovers make sets, and they're usually with the pressing and marking tools or with the quilting tools in places like Jo-ann's, Hancock's, etc. If you can't find them locally, you can order sets online, just google "bias pressing bars" and there will be plenty of places willing to sell them to you. They're inexpensive and worth having in the studio.

Third, Ladyy Jen had a question regarding the polyester shantung I used for my daughter's blouse. "Could you tell me what type of thread and thread length you used to sew the shantung?" I used both my regular sewing machine and serger to make the blouse. I preferred the serger for most of this job due to the fact that this fabric tends to fray easily. For the machine work I used regular Coats & Clark thread and a regular stitch length. On the serger, I serged with three threads, with Coats & Clark thread and a stitch length setting of "2". Since this wasn't an item to be worn everyday, I didn't bother serging with four threads.

Parting Shot: The tree has my arm! Not really, my son just being silly. It does remind me a bit of the tree on Charlie Brown that eats kites and traps Charlie Brown.