My Sewing Space

A couple of days ago I was talking to The Preacher and telling him that I had a lot of things to sew (M and S have both asked for more for their shops and the art sale is the beginning of November). Then I said, "But first, I need to make the little man a couple more long-sleeved T-shirts." To which The Preacher said, "Maybe you should just go buy the T-shirts. You've got a lot to do." Um, hello? Are you new around here? We don't really "just go buy" clothes. Especially T-shirts. Please. I wanted to use a pattern from the Spring 2010 Ottobre issue that I purchased. Since I'm not so familiar with Ottobre , I took more than the usual number of measurements of my son. He did not enjoy this. After I got the shoulder seams sewn and the neckband on, I asked him to try it on to see if it was going to fit. He came over reluctantly and said, "Why do you need to measure me AND have me try it on? I thought you did all the measuring so that i...

A few months ago, I purchased the Gathered Clutch pattern from Anna of Noodlehead . Similar to the Buttercup Bag pattern I used here , the purchase of the pattern includes a limited commercial license to sell what you make with it. This is great for people like me who have good sewing skills, but aren't great designers. Someone else thinks up something cute and I can make it and sell it. I'm adding these three to my art sale inventory . The pattern was really easy to follow. The only thing I thought was strange was that she has you sew that front band as a tube (RST and then turn), press it flat and then sew it on the gathered front. I didn't see why that was necessary. I pressed the long edges under and sewed it on that way. The inside of the clutch has a divider and two credit card pockets. The overall size is about 8.5" x 5". As far as a handbag goes, the clutch has never appealed to me. I wear a cross-body bag because I need to have my hands free. A ...

During the summer, Heidi of Handmade by Heidi  generously gave away some of her scraps. I was the lucky recipient of one batch and was thrilled with what I received. One of the things in the box was a partial charm pack. If you aren't familiar with quilting, a charm pack is a set of pre-cut 5" squares - one from each piece in a fabric collection. Every time I'm in a quilt shop I look at the charm packs and am tempted to buy one, but I've never been sure what to do with them so I've never bought one. Several weeks ago the Sew, Mama, Sew blog featured back-to-school patterns and tutorials. One from The Polka Dot Chair caught my eye and after looking at it further, I decided to try making it with the charm pack from Heidi. I really liked the T-shirt with the owl applique, too and decided to just copy the whole outfit. My daughter is really happy with these clothes, but you sure wouldn't know it from the picture. Since I was working with only a partial charm...

I'm feeling much better today. The antibiotic is doing its job. To me it seemed that it took awhile to start being effective, but I think I was impatient after not feeling well for weeks. Yesterday I had confirmation that the medicine was indeed circulating in my body because I started having an icky metallic taste in my mouth that wouldn't go away. That is one of the side effects of the drug. It tastes like what I imagine having a dirty penny in my mouth would taste like. Blegh. But, enough about that. Let's talk sewing, shall we? Over the summer I ordered two Oliver + S patterns - the Jumprope Dress and the Music Class Skirt and Blouse . I have admired their modern, but classic patterns with great details for awhile now and decided to work them into my fall sewing for my daughter. First, the blouse: I combined the Peter Pan collar from the short-sleeve version with the rest of the long-sleeve version. The yoke and pintucks keep it from being too plain. Unfortu...

It's been awhile since I posted anything here. Our household has been really busy and I've been pretty worn out. I was blaming it on getting back into the school routine and adjusting to the Preacher working more again (the summer workload is lighter for him). Having a cough and cold symptoms since the end of August didn't help, either. Earlier this week I was hardly able to make it through the day without laying down to rest and felt like things were getting worse rather than better so I made a mid-week visit to the clinic. The doctor thoroughly listened to my lungs and said I had "a bit of pneumonia." That was a surprise for me, but it helped explain why my cough would not go away, why I was winded so easily, and just so tired. He prescribed some "heavy-duty" antibiotic that should take care of it. Now I'm optimistic that I actually can handle this school/ministry year schedule and hopefully I'm feeling better and more energetic soon. Here ar...

Earlier this week I made sixteen small terry cloth drawstring bags for holding bars of soap or soap slivers ( more here ).  M sells these in her shop.  She calls them "soap socks." I really like the names she comes up with for the things I make.

I made this top before I made the swimming suit , but was hoping to make a skirt to go with it before I posted it. Now I see that it just isn't going to happen. I suppose there is always next summer. The pattern is my well-loved Butterick 3344 and I made this same version in white earlier this summer. I didn't like the bias-cut of the white one and the back facing keeps flipping out, so I changed both of those things. There is plenty of stretch with it cut on the straight grain rather than the bias. The back of the neck opening is finished with bias tape. The arm holes are finished the same way. This fabric has been in my stash for a few years.  I purchased it as a remnant, so there wasn't much of it to work with. I'm not sure what the fiber content is, but it is a jersey and the stripes are created with a burn-out pattern. I underlined the brown fabric with an ivory knit fabric that I'm also unsure of the fiber content, but it was also a remnant about th...