The wind is still blowing cold off Lake Superior, and there are yet piles of snow in the shady places.  But the snowdrops are blooming!  These brave little flowers are happily nodding their little heads on our compost pile.

My husband noticed them.  They’re one of his favorite flowers, so he was thrilled to see them.   They’re a complete surprise; we didn’t even know they were there.

I saw a couple of robins the last day of March.  Haven’t seen them since, so maybe they gave up and went back south! 

I found this really neat tutorial for a water bottle carrier.  My hubby has several health problems and is on a lot of different medications.  We’ve found out the hard way that he gets dehydrated very easily, especially in hot weather.  So I usually try to carry a water bottle with me when we go anyplace, but it gets old, having to hang onto a water bottle.  So when I found this tutorial, I thought, how cool is this?

The tutorial calls for Insulbrite, which is an insulated batting that helps to keep your water cold.  I looked for it locally but could only find it packaged in a one-yard length for $7.50.  Ouch.  I checked out The Warm Company, which makes Insulbrite, but $100 worth of Insulbrite is a lot more than I can use right now.  Maybe eventually, if my business takes off, but not now!

So I continued looking online, and found Quilt-Kits Online selling Insulbrite for $2.45 a yard.  Much better!  They’re lovely people to deal with; I had some trouble with their shopping cart and emailed them.  It turned out to be  my problem as I had downloaded a browser update that morning, but he helped me get my order through so I could pay for it with Paypal.  The order was filled very quickly, so I highly recommend them if you’re looking for reasonably-priced Insulbrite (or anything else for that matter).

I followed the tutorial and learned that you definitely do have to cut your material a little bigger than you would think.  The batting makes it smaller.  My first water bottle carrier is a bit of a snug fit for a 20-oz water bottle, although it’s quite usable.  I tried it out when we went to an outdoor show, and it does keep your water bottle cold.

For some reason I didn’t take a picture of my first effort, and it’s now residing in Minnesota at my daughter’s house.  I made it from purple and green fabric strips and lined it with some bright green fabric I had.  It really did come out cute.  My daughter liked it so well that she immediately wanted me to make two more for my two older grandsons.

The boys picked out the material they wanted from their mom’s stash, and granny did the rest.  The brown material is a treasure map, and of course, all pirates have to have some skulls and crossbones around!  The one on the left is lined with red, and the other is lined with the skull material.

I thought about shortening up the straps, but my daughter and I decided she could just tie a knot in them to get them to the right length for each boy.  They’re growing so fast that we don’t want them to outgrow them.  This way, they’ll be adjustable as the boys get taller.

The picture on the right shows the red lining in the one bottle.

I changed the pattern a little.  I didn’t like having the bottom as a separate piece.  I thought it was too hard to sew it on.  So I added it to the bottom as a flap.  This took a little playing around with a paper pattern to figure out how to do it.  Then I made one up in muslin to see how it worked.

I also changed how it was constructed.  I layered the lining and outside, right sides together, along with the insulbrite.  Then I sewed along the sides and top, leaving the bottom open to turn it.  This is where you sew on the handles, too.

I ran a couple of lines of zigzag quilting across it, using my walking foot.  I also found that it was was helpful to zigzag across the bottom and the bottom flap so the material and batting don’t shift.  It also makes it much easier to sew the bottom flap on later, plus it gives it a finished edge.

I left the walking foot on and sewed the tube together up the side, using a scant 1/4″ seam.  This leaves a nice finished seam on the inside.  The last step is to sew the bottom flap onto the tube.  It was a lot easier to sew this seam as it was already attached about a third of the way around.

The boys will be thrilled, and their mama will be happy they can carry their own water bottles!  Now I need to make a pair for my hubby and me.  I think I’ll make Andrew’s out of camoflage material so he won’t mind carrying it.  Maybe I can find some USMC material!

I have to say that I’ve never really messed around with sewing machine feet much.  But I guess I never knew what I was missing…

I bought a walking foot for my New Home sewing machine a year or so ago.  Actually, I forgot I had it, but found it several weeks ago.  I wasn’t sure what it was, or even if it went with my machine, so I tried putting it on, but for some reason the needle wouldn’t go all the way down.  I was a bit annoyed, because by then I had remembered buying it (and how much I had paid for it), so it was aggravating that it wouldn’t work.

When I was in Minnesota, I was helping my daughter with her everlasting pile of mending (she says she saves it for when I come to visit ).  I was trying to fix a slipcover for her, but was having trouble with the slippery material, so we put on her walking foot, and it worked like a charm.

When I got home, I was inspired to try again.  And this time I figured out how to get it to work.

New Home sewing machines were made by Janome.  I don’t know if they’re still made or not.  I got my machine from AllBrands.com probably three years ago.  I was a little leery of buying a sewing machine online, but I’ve been very happy with it.  Once I found out they were made by Janome, I figured that Janome presser feet would work on them, since I can’t find anything made for New Home.

That’s almost right.  It does take a little bit of goofing around to get the Janome feet to work, but it can be done.

Here’s a picture of my walking foot.  Sorry it’s a little blurry, but my camera wouldn’t focus any better than that up close.  Look at the white handle that is just above the thumbscrew you loosen to change the needle.  The thumbscrew is black, and is just to the right and above the needle.

When I first tried the presser foot, I had the white lever underneath this thumbscrew.  When the lever is under it, the needle can’t go down all the way because it’s blocking the needle attachment.  When I put it on so the lever is above the thumbscrew, the needle can go down all the way.  I’m not sure what the lever is for, as the walking foot works just fine, even if the lever is up.

So that mystery is solved.  I didn’t know how great a walking foot is.  I used it to quilt a small project this morning, and didn’t have to contend with the material getting pushed out of kilter by the pressure foot.  Sweet!

My next sewing machine foot adventure involves a gathering foot.  I had never used one before, but I wanted to make those swirly hippie skirts that have tiers of ruffles on them.  The problem is that I absolutely detest making gathers by running lines of basting around the top of the ruffle and then pulling the thread to make gathers.  It takes forever, and the gathers always want to shift unless you use 900 pins, which makes sewing a painful experience as I manage to find everyone of them.  So a gathering foot sounded intriguing.

I used to have a ruffler attachment that came with a sewing machine I had years ago, but it looked too complicated to use, so I never tried it.  I googled rufflers and gathering feet, and the gathering foot sounded pretty easy to use.  It was also a lot less expensive, which was another factor in its favor.  I looked for one at my local stores, but nobody had one, so I turned to ebay and found Ken’s Sewing and Vacuum Center.  I bought a gathering foot from him before I left for Minneapolis.

When I got back home, it still hadn’t come, so I emailed Ken, who told me the Post Office had sent it back!  Why?  Who knows, it’s the Post Office.  They don’t have to make sense.  Anyway, Ken mailed it out again, and this time it made it to my house without any further PO-inspired detours.

I finally sat down to play with it yesterday morning.  Aughhh!  My sewing machine feet are supposed to snap on, but try as I might, it wouldn’t snap on!  Frustration reigned.

But I was persistent.  I looked at the foot, and it has a second bar across the back, which for some reason wouldn’t allow it to snap on.  I got the idea to take off the pressure foot attachment like you would if you were putting on a walking foot.  When I took it off, the gathering foot went right on.  I put the pressure foot dealie back on my machine, and guess what, it sewed!

But now how to get it to gather?  Reading the directions on the card helped.  I was putting the material to be gathered right on top of the piece I wanted to sew it to, and it was gathering both.  I finally read the directions and realized that you only work with the piece you want gathered.  Then you sew the gathered piece on in a second step.  Once I had that down, it was a piece of cake.

The higher the tension, and the longer the stitch, the more it gathers.  I had my stitich length maxed out, and turned the tension up to 7, and it made wonderful gathers.  The piece of material was 26″ long before gathering, and about 16″ after, so hopefully I’ll be able to figure out how long to cut my pieces for ruffles.

All I can say is that this is one slick tool.  I’ll be making swirly skirts like crazy now!  It was definitely worth the hassle of trying to figure out how to get it on my sewing machine.  Oh yeah, I have to remove the presser foot assembly to take it off, too.  Oh well.