Sewing serviettes

 For some reason, I have a thing about fabric serviettes. I sew them from recycled fabrics - old bags, old sheets and the like and I just love having them around. Oftentimes they act as finger wipers say when I'm having morning or afternoon tea - they are rarely big enough to sit in your lap and catch lots of sauce. When made from scraps, they are also oftentimes odd and mismatched sizes.

So I trimmed the old linen sheets, mitred their corners and hemmed them.

Then I went with my wing needle and a hemstitching stitch on the machine and stitched these lovely daisy-like edges. And I now have five more mixed size serviettes to take back to the cottage!

Things aren't always smooth going with me and my sewing, and after the first two, I went to try and sew the next couple and things went seriously awry. I have never seen this happen before and was a tad perplexed. All that bobbin thread pulled up and off the bobbin? 

An impressive tangle that's for sure.

I ended up using my quick unpick to slice the strands off a few at a time and thus release the bobbin. What a sight! To remedy things I simply took all that thread off, wound another full bobbin and set off with fingers crossed that it was simply a case of a poorly wound bobbin. Which I think it was, because the rest of the sewing and hemstitching went smoothly.

I was also gifted some lovely hand embroidered ones from a friend, which we have in Scotland. In a funny turn of events, she asked how they were going; I said we used them every day over there and washed them frequently and they were still going strong. And then. 

A couple of them got caught in a huge wind and a blow as they dried on the washing line at the cottage and the overlocking got shredded.

I brought them back and after having my overlocker serviced, I edged them back together. I had to apologise to her - because I remain somewhat intimidated by my overlocker, I never change the thread. I  overlock anything and everything with grey thread. So this pair will stand out a bit, but they can return to use and that is fine thing!

I do love me a fabric serviette!