Adventures in Sewing Vinyl

Rain held off until yesterday evening, but the temps never got above 50F. It was overcast and raw outside. I half-heartedly did some string trimming in the garden, then came in and sewed. I need to clear some space to be able to work on my BU jacket, and the best way to do that is to finish up some projects that are in the way.

The byAnnie Place For Everything Tote is far from being finished, but I did move it down the pipeline a ways. I put a nonstick needle in the machine, attached the Teflon zipper foot, and proceeded to sew the first set of vinyl zipper pouches to the quilted “pages.”

The needle and foot worked beautifully together. I had zero sticking issues.

The pouches have to be sewn on in a specific order. I attached the first one and breathed a big sigh of relief. Sewing something like this for the first time is a bit nervewracking. (Apologies for the washed-out photos—it was late afternoon in the sewing room.)

The second pouch was sewn on so that its top covered the line of stitching from the upper pouch. I chose to divide that pouch in two.

The pouches on the other side of the page were sewn on in the same way. Some of the zipper pulls are going the wrong way, but I call this a win.

I have another page to make that will look exactly like this one. Two full-page pouches will be sewn on the reverse sides of each of these pages.

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I broke 1000 downloads on the May 6 podcast episode. That’s the first time that has happened, and I’ve been told by more than one person that 1000 seems to be a magic number. We shall see.

On the drive to Seattle, I listened to my backlog of podcast episodes (by other content creators), including an episode of Bernina’s Sew and So podcast that included interviews with Bernina dealers about how their businesses have evolved over the years. I was struck by the fact that two of the dealers, in two different parts of the country, said that they began teaching classes at their local community colleges as a way to get people into their stores.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Initially, I found it odd that students didn’t just come to the stores for classes. I suppose, though, that some people want to learn to sew but don’t necessarily want to learn to quilt, and many Bernina dealers are quilt store owners. I’ve been kicking this idea around with the owner of our local store, her daughter, and the class coordinator. They all think I should teach some classes at the college. Unfortunately, I missed the May 1 deadline for the fall term, so any classes proposals I submit to the college will be for next spring term. We may also try having some beginning sewing—not quilting—classes at the store and advertise them more broadly.

At least one of the classes I signed up for at Bernina University is about how to build a base of garment-sewing customers. I’m excited about that one.