Exciting news - a friend of mine is giving me her sewing machine for a very small price! I'm hoping it'll be with me this time next week. I went to Regent (fabric shop) and took a quick look at the sewing machines they're selling - all good quality but beyond my current means. A total stroke of luck that I asked for some sewing machine advice on Instagram and my friend saw it and kindly offered me hers 🤩
This week I've been making facemasks according to the instructions provided in the DIY kit I purchased recently. I bought some new dark blue fabric from Regent the other day and have been practicing:
Hopefully once I get the sewing machine and learn how to use it I'll be able to make more of these. I like embroidering them / decorating them with beads of different kinds of knots and stitches. I started this the other night; it's a flower pattern that I traced from the embroidering book I have by Shao Xiaocheng:
Yep, you can see I have made the same error in all three, two petals blending into one! The gold was sewed first, as this thread being cotton is easier to work with than silk, which the pink and orange flowers were embroidered with. The pink I didn't get the tension right at all, but by the third attempt (orange) I had at least got the stamen to a relatively distinct circle. The beads of the gold and pink flowers were put there to detract from the uneven stamen!
(Apologies for the creased fabric - need to dig out the iron that I've never used). The small orange one also had the same issue with 2 petals not being distinct from each other. The other orange and yellow ones I abandoned because the silk kept on getting tangled, or getting caught in the tiny dry patches on the tips of my fingers and fraying. Finally, I think I got it - the largest one at the bottom has good petal definition and tension (the thread isn't too loose or too tight). The stamen was also a good circle, which I filled with gold-coloured beads because it was looking a bit too pale for my liking! This flower I embroidered using cotton crochet thread (my beloved Coats Mercer 20) which is much easier to work with than silk thread. Maybe I'll have this larger flower as the motif on facemasks, although I guess a snowflake would be better seeing as Christmas is coming up.
I'd really appreciate your thoughts! Is there anything you'd like to see on facemasks, or is plain better?
Thank you so much for reading,
Lingling
PS. I will keep plugging this video until I hit 5 million views :P Here I am in conversation with MC Driweave. 😎