The Other Blog

I am not sure if you are following my musings in the other place I write: The Natural Kids Team blog. I hope you do, or you might miss important stuff. LOL

Like this great article I wrote on some useless sewing gadget I received for Christmas.

What is your favorite present you received for Christmas? I am especially interested if you got something related to sewing. My husband always fills my stocking with sewing gadgets. For example, one year, I received 150 new bobbins. I really needed them. You can never have enough bobbins, right?

What is the most useless sewing gadget you ever bought or received as a gift? I'd really like to know.

Guess What Tool!

Have you ever seen this tool? I thought I share about it in my "Tools of The Trade" series on the NaturalKids Team Blog today. Hope you get a chance to pop over and check it out. I love this little tool. It's so pretty and useful!

Hope you have a great day crafting and making art! And if you are not a Maker of things, I hope you get to enjoy the art created with this beautiful tool!

Why would you use a Bobbin Sidewinder?

Yes, I have seen this gadget around sewing machine shops for many many years. I often stared at them and wondered what they were for. What is a bobbin sidewinder? My mother certainly never owned one. Why would you buy a $100 gadget that does something your sewing machine already does?

But the more I thought about it during the course of this year the more I thought this gadget may be a very useful thing to own when you sew a lot.

Me, figuring out my new gadget...

Now here are my top reasons to justify the cost of owning this little machine:

1. In some sewing machines - especially older ones - the bobbin thread process actually uses the same guides as the sewing process. Luckily in my machine it does not! But for those folks: here you are working on a project and are getting low on bobbin thread in the middle of it. It's very annoying to have to set your project aside, unthread the top thread, change the settings on the machine, wind new thread, change setting back, and then you get to go back to your project. Despite the fact that I have a better sewing machine with a get-up to wind thread apart from the sewing guides,  I still find that I have to unthread because I don't own that many spools of the same color thread. Being a small business I can only afford to keep so many spools of thread around... Sigh! So I mostly end up unthreading the machine and then rethreading it when I am done winding the bobbin. Big pain in the neck!

2.On days when I sew a lot my foot gets really tired of pushing the foot peddle. Believe it or not: I sometimes get problems with my ankle from it. I get cramps in my foot and the ankle really hurts...The sidewinder means less peddle pushing. Just push the little switch and you are back in business with the bobbin.

3.Why burn up the motor of your wonderful high-class sewing machine to do this low-class job?  Does the queen do her own dishes? Pffff...

4. Lately my machine's bobbin winder has been giving me a bit of trouble. It sometimes creates horrible little nests of thread when winding a bobbin. What to do with those nests? They are really for the birds and pretty much wasted thread. Could it be my fault because I am pressing down the presser foot unevenly or could it be that my bobbin winder is actually breaking? I am afraid to take it to the sewing shop to find out. I have read on various sewing websites that it costs $100 plus if this mechanism actually breaks on your machine. So one might as well invest in the sidewinder.

5.Now I could actually sit down and wind a number of bobbins for the next project because it's so fast and easy. I could tell my 10-year-old to do it for me.

So  you can imagine how very happy I was when Santa brought me a Bobbin Sidewinder. It's really easy to use and works so fast from what I can tell. But I will let you know how it goes...

Thank you so much, Santa! I think my new toy is the best in the house. Shh. Don't tell the kids or they will all want to play with it. LOL

Glueck im Unglueck / Lucky in the Midst of Misfortune

Remember that lesson in elementary school about magnifying glasses, and what happens when we bring magnifying glass together with paper or flammable object? Well it was too long ago. So I completely forgot that lesson!

My husband gave me this wonderful Ott-Lite sewing lamp for my birthday last year. My sewing corner is in the entryway to our house. There are great big windows all around my little desk/sewing table. Of course, I had the lamp with magnifying glass parked right next to that table.

Yesterday, as I sat down at my desk to check my email, I saw smoke rising next to my computer. I thought: "What in the world is that? Is it my computer or the sewing machine smoldering?"

Well, you guessed it: The magnifying glass from my lamp was pointed just in the right direction to burn a hole in my desk (see pictures). Good thing my arm wasn't laying on my desk or I could have ended up like James Bond in the movie where he gets lasered...Or I could have ruined my sewing machine and the computer. In fact, after closer inspection I realized that I had previously singed the back of my laptop screen...Oh boy! Despite the annoying hole in my desk - I feel very very lucky indeed.

Wow! How stupid can you be? I guess I never read the package instructions. I was so excited about my new lamp when I recieved it. Mind you, I received this gift over a year ago. I suppose I was just superlucky that this didn't happen earlier or at a time when I had left the house. Who knows what could have happened...I think I will sew a cover for my magnifying glass. For now it is wearing a black hood. Bad Magnifying glass!

The Best Sewing Machine Ever. Or Ode to my Bernina

Oh, I cannot tell the many ways in which a good sewing machine makes the life of a seamstress better. I struggled for 5 years with various machines. One was DH's grandma's hand-me-down, an old Singer from the sixties. I loved it simply because it came from his dear old grandma and a lot of good memories were tied to it. But one day we tried to make sofa cover out of sailcloth with that poor old machine. Bad idea! It died instantly.
After that experience I started looking for a new model to cherish. Soon enough a friend came along and offered to sell me her new(er) Singer machine. Wow, for 150$ I got a Singer Millennium including every attachment you could ever think of. It was fun - for a while.
But when you are a professional and spend 3-4 hours a day sewing let me give you a piece of advice. Don't try to safe money when it comes to your most important tool! Get yourself a good work horse. I am not much of a computer person. I wanted a good, solid, mechanical machine. Not a fancy computerized one. So my first trip was to the Library to do some research on sewing machines. Unfortunately I cannot remember the title of this wonderful book that I found. But it was something cheesy like: How to choose and buy a sewing machine. With the help of the book I was able to figure out what I needed. The book also had great tips on how to set up your machine, and how to take care of it so it won't break again.

I played with the idea of buying an old industrial type machine. Lots of praises were sung about those. I looked at various models for sale on Ebay and etsy. My husband was wringing his hands. Honey, why would you buy someone else's problem? Just get yourself a good new machine from a reputable store in the area where we live. Well, I hate to say it. But as usual, the man was right. He gave me the best advice of all. In the end I went to a local dealer and bought a Bernina 1008. I absolutely love it! It runs as smooth as butter. Over are the days of cursing like a sailor or washerwoman...I am a much happier person. I can rely on this Swiss miracle every day! It has never given me any trouble whatsoever!
It works well on all kinds of fabrics I use for my doll clothes. I work with cotton, flannel, linen, and velour. The velour fabric used to cause the worst problems. The Singer Millennium would get clogged up and eat my fabric ALL the time.
The Bernina is like fine Swiss watch. I did not know that sewing could be so much fun and easy until I bought this machine. Gone are the days of running to the repair shop because of tension problems...Gone are sad days of not being able to get to your custom orders because of a broken machine
If you love sewing: Spend the money and buy a Bernina! And I swear they did not pay me to say those things!

Happy Sewing,
Your German Dollmaker

More Kawaii Fabrics...

So check out this adorable green mushroom dress! I made the dress of a Japanese Fabric ordered recently on etsy. I hear they are also called Kawaii fabrics. I found the following definition of the word "kawaii" on Wikipedia in an article on Cuteness in Japanese culture:



" Kawaii is a Japanese term which means "cute". Cuteness (kawaisa) seems to be a highly valued aesthetic quality in Japanese society and particularly Japanese pop culture, and overpowering cuteness seems to carry less of the stigma of infantilization as it does in many other cultures. Kawaii is pronounced Ka-wa-ee (not to be confused with "kowai", Ko-wai, the Japanese term for "scary"). Kawaii can be used to describe animals and people, including fully grown adults; while attractive women are usually described as kawaii, young men are more likely to be described as "good looking" or "cool". Kawaii is also used to describe some men who are considered to have"cute" personalities."


When surrounded by some of the harsh realities of life. what better way to distract oneself than working with this cute fabric? One look at it makes me happy, HAPPy, HAPPY.

Like those CraZy dancing rabbits in my last post. =) I think the fabrics are just beautiful in design and color. I also found the name of this particular fabric quite humorous: it is called "The fungus among us". Cute wordplay!



Unfortunately I could only get a hold of one yard of this fabric. It will be used sparingly on special dolls only! I love the bright green color. The little mushroom shoes I made earlier this month go perfectly with this ensemble.

I hope you enjoyed my little exploration into Japanese culture today!

Have a happy day - blessed and surrounded by cuteness and beauty!