Type of needle, size of needle, and quilting thread

[Sewdreamy]

Such cute purses. I am so impressed - zips and all! I have not mastered the zip yet, it's on the 'to do' list.

Rita, Fly over here. I'll meet you at Dulles airport and take you to my house and teach you how to master the zip. We'll have a ton of fun, or is that tonne of fun. LOL :lol:

[Sewdreamy]

Oh, I'm blushing from all your nice comments regarding my coin purses! As for the zippers, I'm lucky that Grandma Nellie taught me in the 70's, how to put in zippers of all kinds, in skirts, jeans, dresses.

So, then I discovered that the embroidery VP3 file for these coin purses required you to hoop up 15x the amount of tear away cotton stabilizer as one would actually need is doing this in "sewing machine" (SM) mode (aka, NOT in "embroidery machine" mode).... because the Anita Goodesign file required you to use the same hoop size for the zipper installation as was needed later to quilt & embroider the biggest sandwich. I am too frugal to want to waste so much stabilizer for a simple task I could sew myself.

So I decided to sew all later coin purse zippers in SM mode, with my zipper foot (which on my Pfaff can be attached to the left or the right, and has a center piece that rides on top of the closed zipper as I'm sewing). I only needed a 3" wide strip of tear away cotton stabilizer that was 2" longer than the width of the zipper pouch, a pencil-drawn |-------------| centered on the stabilizer (to allow perfect alignment of the zipper centered along the dashes & the vertical |'s are spaced far enough apart to see when you place the fused-batik zipper compartment sections along the zipper to topstitch), some temporary adhesive spray to stick the zipper down (face up) on the pencil-marked stabilizer, and then to spray adhere the fused batik fabric sections to the zipper-tape and the inch of stabilizer that shows along each edge of the zipper-tape. (Note: the two batik pieces each have a scant quarter inch edge pressed under, and this edge is butted up against the side of the zipper teeth). Uh, oh... did I get too wordy again? ops:

So, the smaller coin purse's zipper was done/sewn in-the-hoop in embroidery hoop, and the larger one's zipper was sewn in SM mode as described above. After the zipper is in, you just press the entire piece in half, and because the two fused-batik sandwiches are different lengths, the zipper ends up about a half-inch below the top pressed fold. Later, this becomes one of the layers you stack onto the quilted scalloped sandwich.

Thanks for all the kind comments! What a great group of people!

[Reetzbobeetz]

Such cute purses. I am so impressed - zips and all! I have not mastered the zip yet, it's on the 'to do' list.

Rita, Fly over here. I'll meet you at Dulles airport and take you to my house and teach you how to master the zip. We'll have a ton of fun, or is that tonne of fun. LOL :lol:

:lol: :lol: BJ, I am on the way, meet me off the next flight! Oh wouldn't that be a ton, tonne, tun of fun! Sigh, someday. :lol:

[Lorchen]

Can I come too, please! I'm useless with zips.

Mmmmmhhhh...... maybe I should knock on Rosemary's door first. She lives a little closer.

[Reetzbobeetz]

Can I come too, please! I'm useless with zips.

Mmmmmhhhh...... maybe I should knock on Rosemary's door first. She lives a little closer.

Go ahead and knock on Rosemary's door - and get her to come too! She can teach us everything she knows as well. And Rosemary, bring the Chocovoc! :lol:

[Reetzbobeetz]

From fixing tent zips in the rain to 'both-sides-alike embroidery'? it could take some time :shock: , I'm not certain I've got enough chocovok to last us :wink:

[Renata]

BJ and I live a stone's throw from each other --would love to see you too--and when we run out of Chocovoc, there's always Limoncello here.

[Sewdreamy]

:lol: :lol: Wishing it could really happen. We could borrow G-Street Fabrics classroom for starters (picking up a few fabrics along the way )...then our favorite Bernina wizard would be there. She's fun too...finishing up with chocovoc at my house on my back deck (I just got new deck furniture). :lol: Come on over (includes everyone here...the more the merrier. LOL).

[Sewdreamy]

Same here! Have you got any sunshine? The weather broke last night, and it is tipping it down - and guess who left the washing on the line overnight ops: it is wetter now than when it went out :roll:

[Sewdreamy]

Rosemary, It's a beautiful sunny day today. Has been raining much of the week, but today is gorgeous! You could borrow my dryer...I don't have a clothesline. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Renata]

I think we're expecting thunderstorms tomorrow... but not for long... great weekend ahead!

[Renata]

Hope the weather is good here for the weekend, we have got a nationwide party for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee going on (mind you the original was rained on :roll: ) But then again it will be a bank holiday on monday and those are almost guaranteed to be wet :lol: