alabama stitch beginnings

I have been eyeing others' pretty pretty completed projects from the Alabama Stitch books. (BurdaStyle's Alabama Stitch-inspired contest gallery is particularly awesome.) The just look so soft— comfortable, yet elegant, rustic, yet refined. When my mom was visiting, she bought me Alabama Studio Style as a little present. I already had some organic cotton knits that I had bought on sale, and so a project was born.

Flat on, it seems ridiculous to make an entire top by hand with just a needle and thread. Why would you? It goes so much more quickly by machine. Ah but, the problem with that logic is that it leads you to say, Why bother to sew at all? Because, you can get it more quickly and possibly cheaper at Target. Which brings us back to the beginning. For me, and I know this is true for many of you, I sew because I like the process of making and because having, using, and sharing something I've made makes me really happy. Natalie Chanin's focus on process is reassuring. There are many steps to these projects (copying, tracing, cutting (twice), xacto-ing a stencil, stenciling, painting, drying, pinning, and finally, sewing), but each has its reasons and explanations of technique. We're not doing this for no reason, we're doing it for every reason.

Technical note: If you one of these stenciled projects, don't buy the little spray cans of fabric paint at the craft store. They contain almost no paint and have poor control. If I do it again, I'm going to do as the book suggests and use watered down paint in a dollar store spray bottle.

Technical note 2: I made a mylar stencil, but I think a felt stencil would have been best. The sprayed-on paint beaded on the stencil and threatened to bleed. I think the felt would just absorb it. I though about doing Meg's freezer paper stencil but the thought of doing all the cutting and not having it on something permanent bothered me.