tumbling blocks - sewing

muslin curtains are the story of my life

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:14:00 -0700

After years of execution and planning, our back family room is finally a pleasant place to be. It's not 100% done, but we're getting there. Elie did almost all the work himself—he is no joke. He figures out the things I don't. And vice versa. Which brings me to the fluffy pile of muslin.

Every so often, my sewing is a contribution and not a distraction. I made simple muslin curtains for all the back room windows, and now it's not a fishbowl. I have made these for every window in this house. We used to wonder and argue and have grand ideas about curtains, but now we know what works. This time there wasn't even a discussion.

I'll show you the back room once it gets a little more, hmmm...furnished. We need some shelves. I love this number.

PS This weekend we made awesome grilled stuff-from-the-garden pizza. Thanks Melissa.

simplicity 2601 - it has a peplum

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:18:00 -0700

Hello there. Have your days been as full as mine? I love getting home from work in the summer and feel like I still have day left, like there's part of the actual day that my family and I own. We enjoy the sinking sun, and pick things from the garden, and take too long making dinner. Why the heck not?

I've been sewing too, but really not finishing much. I suppose I might take process pics, but I've been doing that a bunch in the garden instead. One finishing exception—I did manage to sew the buttons on to this top I sewed a couple of weeks ago. I like it. It has a peplum (aka it flounces out under the waist), which is about my favorite thing ever in a button-down blouse. I made it as a muslin, but I like it as a shirt. After completing it, I almost cut into my "good" fabric right away, but then I decided that I should probably take it for a test drive. How many times have you noticed how much less comfortable a shirt is at 3:30 at your desk than it was at 7:00 in front of your bedroom mirror? A million. The shirt held up well. I had been thinking about taking it in a little at the waist, but now I don't think I will. I will make the shoulders more narrow though. I'll pinch a straight line down from the shoulders right through the bust. That will shape it up just fine.

tiny bunny pincushion

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:14:00 -0700

I'm so glad I joined the scrappy pincushion swap. There is just something so succinct about a pincushion—it's small, it's stickable, and that's about all the requirements there are. Pincushions were some of the first things I made and fell in love with when I started blogging. I loved (and still love) how diverse and how special they are. Highly detailed or not, I can't help admiring their utilitarian loveliness.

My pincushion went out to my partner today. I am at the tail end of the swap, but not late. I hope she loves it—it was hard to put in the box! The felt bunny pattern is from Japanese craft book ISBN 9784529047869, which is chock full of adorable animals you can stitch up in felt. The rest of the pincushion came from my scrap basket—it was a scrappy swap, after all. I kind of want to make an entire army of these now. Pincushion group shots really get me.

almost done tops

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:15:00 -0700

My poor Alabama Stitch top had been sitting neglected on my sewing table. I was almost done with all the stitched outlining of the printed flower pattern, but I think it was wearing on me, which is why I put it down and knit a sock instead. Yesterday, I picked it up again, finished the outlining, and even sewed some seams. Mmmm, progress.

I also cut and sewed a non-muslin muslin for a top that I've been wanting to make out of my good fabric. Even though it's just the muslin, it ended up being pretty wearable, and I wish I had taken the time to match the stripes in the back. I just didn't really pay attention.

tiny pincushion wip

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:32:00 -0700

Oh, it's the weekend! Today, I drove to Indy to send my daughter off for a week with her many grandparents. It is so quiet here. Elie and I ate a very casual, but yummy, dinner of mozz, garden basil, baguette, and some very tasty salami I brought home from Trader Joe's. When you go it the big city, it's important to stop and buy the good stuff. Also, Valencia peanut butter. Yuuuummmm.

I'm participating in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap on flickr, and this is a little work-in-progress. I think it's going to be good, like hard to give away good. I got some sewing time in today, and I'm hoping for more tomorrow. For now, I'm relaxing to a surf rock channel on Pandora currently playing a Jimbo song by the Reverend Horton Heat. Not bad.

kids clothes week

Tue, 18 May 2010 18:18:00 -0700

I thought I would make it through without participating in kids clothes week, but alas! I am an incredible joiner and you all were making such wonderful things. My child has entirely enough clothes and did not need me to make her anything, but let's be honest—my sewing of clothing is not really about need. This top (girly style wardrobe letter a) was so simple there was not much reason not to make it. I wasn't true to the intent of the week, which was to do a little each night. Instead I had one helluva pleasant Sunday afternoon. Eva surprised me by still being a little small for the size 140 cm, so the top is a little big. She thinks she will probably wear it.

Here she is doing "You love the bunny."

alabama stitch beginnings

Mon, 03 May 2010 18:52:00 -0700

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.

green in progress

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:19:00 -0700

It's a slow and rainy weekend, and the world outside is just so so verdant. It's good spring rain, not the kind you can complain about, especially because it was preceded by about two weeks of unseasonably gorgeous weather. My sewing has been green too, which isn't usually a color I sew with, but this spring it dominated my fabric purchases. Why not?

I'm sewing more clothes, and working on learning about fit (The 1966 Better Homes Pattern Adjustments book from Bethany pictured in the photo is awesome!), and generally doing a lot of thinking about where I spend my dollars clothes- and fabric-wise.

When I was thirteen, my mother started giving me a clothing allowance: I had a set amount of money every month to buy everything I needed, including accessories, coats, underwear, etc. The idea was to teach budgeting, and I think it was a great idea, although it probably would have been more effective if I didn't also have a father who bought me things, not that I'm complaining. The cool (and relevant) part of the whole deal was that my mom would buy me whatever fabric and patterns I wanted above the clothing allowance. The only restriction was that I could only have two projects going at once. I didn't sew myself a ton of clothes (not the way my mom did when her mother gave her the same set of rules), but I definitely sewed more than I would have without the clothing allowance rule. Plus, I learned how to sew.

I think I need some kind of system for now. It would probably be more of a game to play with myself than an actual budgeting tool. Things like: I want expensive shoes, so maybe I can justify them by sewing clothes from fabric I have instead of buying them. I want new, beautiful fabric I see online, so maybe I can buy it after I make X number of useful items out of the fabric I have. Or maybe I just go back to my mom's plan—a small monthly limit on store-bought items, but all the fabric and patterns I want, as long as I stick to two projects at a time. You know, it's the two projects at a time that would kill me. :-)

rosette barrette

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:15:00 -0700

I just spent the last hour catching up on blog reading, and it made me so excited! Lord, there is just so much out there. I want to use up my yardage, and finish quilts, and buy yarn in California, and make really cute things to wear this summer, and I want to do it all right now. Ah, internets, you have me again!

These are the purl bee's felt rosettes (rosette barrettes!). I did them as part of "Art to Wear" with my Girl Scouts. No surprises—I am enjoying that badge quite a bit. It is taking us some time to work through though, because I chose ambitious projects. Someone who is handy with a needle and thread could whip up a rosette barrette in 15 minutes, but it naturally takes a bit longer if you're learning some stitching basics at the same time. It may have taken time, but I'm glad we did this project because in the end, they all looked good. We all know how it feels to make something that looks good v. something that looks like we had to make it in art.

The troop and I also used bleach pens for this badge, making patterns a la angry chicken or stitch in dye. Each girl got a plain green, square bandanna and went to town. Now that was a successful project.

winter-spring transition dress: simplicity 2724

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:27:00 -0700

I don't know what to make of it all. Wake up in the light; wake up in the dark. Sixty and sunny; forty and rainy. This is what March is all about— plenty of up and downs to get us set and ready to dig into the real meat of summer.

We are now planning on planning our garden.

I am pleased with the way this dress came out. It's a dress that looks like a skirt and blouse, which could go all the wrong way, like a pants suit thing I was once gifted from Casual Corner. Sometimes you can try to--Make it work!--and it just doesn't. But back to this freshly made dress, which I think does work. The top is Liberty and the bottom is a subtle navy and black wool plaid. Mmm...Liberty and wool. I didn't really need to modify the pattern, which surprised me because I though for sure I'd be doing hip adjustments with that straight skirt. Because the neck is fairly high and pleated, I didn't have to mess with bust fit at all either. The whole entire project came from my stash, and was inspired by this Anthro dress. It was cute enough that it made me say, "Huh, maybe the whole dress-that-looks-like-a-skirt-and-blouse thing could work. I think I have a pattern for that!" (The pattern was bought (but not used) for a different View. You know how it goes.) I did get the rabbit belt from Anthro, though. Clearance. Elie thinks it's a bit much.

Thank you little blog, for being a sunny place when the world is still March-y.

for old windows

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:09:00 -0700

Our therms went up by a good amount this year (Yes, how's that for a killer conversation starter?), mostly due to heating the big family room which is halfway through renovation and which we had closed off for the last two winters. The back itself is now nice and snug, but our front windows are quite drafty. They are old, wiggly-glass single-paned windows, and I love the way they look despite their inefficiency. What we really need to do is have old-school storms built, but that's kind of low on the agenda. Enter the draft buster - AKA stuffed fabric tube that sits on the windowsill. Blair's looked all snug and cozy, and I thought it might work for me too. I feel like mine would work better if they were weighted or filled with wool, but something is better than nothing.

squeezing out the last bit

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:22:00 -0700

I think I'm going to try to write the post I was thinking yesterday.

Yesterday, we returned home from a week away with family. We hit snowy roads both coming and going and ending in a few inches of fresh snow at my doorstep. After you've been cramped in a car for hours on end, shoveling snow feels wonderfully fresh and fun. All three of us were out shoveling or brooming the snow and generally feeling glad to be home Afterward once inside, I got that feeling that I should immediately start unpacking and going through the mail, but I let myself wait. Instead, I sat in my gray armchair and knit the last ribbed inch of the sock I've been working on, as the last half-hour of sunlight-on-snow lit up my window.

I love the December holidays and the busy, merry-making parts of winter, but I've also come to love the coming months, the cozy months of winter, because there's really no reason not to sit and make things and have a little tea and watch a movie snuggled on the couch. I plan on being here plenty during the cozy time. During the busy time, there was just too much going on for me to have very much good to say!

But I did make a lot. These little sewn things were gifts for my nephews, ages 1, 3, and 9—an artist and two boys who certainly are not adverse to tossing a ball. The pencil case is of course Kathy's pattern as seen in Last Minute Quilted Gifts, and the balls were this pattern from the purl bee.

kettle handle potholder tutorial

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:01:00 -0700

It's November, and I am making stuff to give to people. Last year I was doing this some time after November, like the day in December that was the day before I was leaving home for Xmas. That was a bad idea and I won't do it again. Last year I made kettle handle holder for my knitting buddies, and these potholders might actually be the thing I make that is most requested by family and friends. I used to think that people wanted it just for the cute factor. They would say they burned their hands on their kettles, but I didn't quite believe them. That was before I got my new stove. My new stove is gas. The old one was electric. Gas burners make your kettle handles much hotter. I found this out the hard way the first 10 times I went to pull off my tea water. Each time I burned my hand a little voice in the back of my head went, "Now you're cooking with gas!" It was fairly obnoxious, and I finally put on the kettle handle potholder I had made for myself.

If you want to make a kettle handle holder for you or someone else, here id how I did it. This pattern is also being published in Lark's Quilt It with Wool, due out in January. (Drat it's not out pre Xmas—I think it has good gift ideas.) Make as many as you want, but please don't make to sell.

Kettle Handle Potholder

Materials:

8.5 x 5 in. piece of felt (I used a fulled sweater)
8.5 x 5 in. piece of pattern cotton fabric for potholder backing
1/2 in. double fold bias tape (purchased or made yourself)
1 button

Instructions

Pin the felt to the cotton fabric rectangle of the same size, wrong sides facing. Quilt the two layers together. Use straight lines that run lengthwise and are 1 in. apart. Start in the middle, then work your way out to one side, then the other.
After quilting, the edges of the cotton fabric will most likely not match up with the edges of the felt due to stretching while sewing . Trim the edges so that they are even--you will trim about 1/4 in. from each side.
Cut two 7in. pieces of bias tape, and sew the opening edge shut on each. These are your ties.
Apply the binding. Cut two pieces of bias tape the size of the long sides of the potholder. Tuck the sides of the potholder into the fold of the bias tape and stitch close to the open edge of the tape. Take the two ties and line up one raw edge of both along one short edge of the potholder on the felt side. Pin them in place. Cut two pieces of bias tape that are an inch longer then the short sides of the potholder. Fold the bias tape over the short sides of the potholder, tucking the raw edges of the tape under. Stitch close to the open edge of the tape, through all layers.
Finishing: Trim the ends of the ties on an angle. On the felt side of the end of the potholder without the ties, sew the button about an inch from the edge (or place it so it fits your particular kettle when wrapped).

the long dark satin stitch of the soul

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:33:00 -0700

Sometimes embroidery takes me a really long time. It's not because it's hard, or boring, or tedious—it's because the thread runs out. It's the whole inertia thing. When I'm stitching, I want to keep stitching and when I have to stop and thread the needle, I want to just stop. Also, and perhaps this a window into the amount of anxiety I am capable of having, when the thread is about 2/3 used up, I get a little worried wondering when I am going to run out and have to re-thread. This is so weird because threading is not hard. I still like embroidery, though, and this will be pretty cute when it's done.

chair clothes

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:38:00 -0700

I knocked a to-do project off the archive list this weekend. (Yessss!) It's part of my efforts to catch up with the things I've been meaning to do—things I'm doing for others, in some way. Although the chair will be enjoyed by everyone, I did it now for Elie because he works so hard on this house of ours. He makes it looks new and crisp while still being old and stately, using methods that are completely beyond my talents. I can sew though.

This chair is one in a set that used to belong to Elie's mom, and she very kindly gave them to us a couple of years ago. They're covered in a peach velvet that has seen much love from grandchildren, dogs, parties, you name it. They've been needing some work, but nothing structural, just prettying up the dirt. I've always liked chairs in Country Living that look like they've put on understated dresses—fitted and tied linen numbers. I've had this in mind for these chairs for so long—I don't even know when I bought the fabric. The chair has such a simple shape that it wasn't hard to fashion covers with some basic pleating. I more or less spread the fabric on the chair and pinned and cut away where it shouldn't be. Then I did the edges in piping to sharpen them up. Now, the dirty peach is still under there, and I was reminded of what the instructor of the upholstery class I took a few years ago said: Upholstery can hold ages of dirt. If you cover an old chair, your cover is as likely to get dirty from the inside out as the outside in. Gross. To combat this, I made an under-layer of blackout curtain lining. It's kind of rubbery-plastic-y, so I don't think the dirt will come through very easily.

Here's the before: