My Sewing Space

My goodness, it's been awhile. I've been spending all my time sewing and none of it blogging. Getting ready for the art sale (this coming weekend) has kept me really busy and I'm very excited about it. I've never done anything like this before, so there is much that I am uncertain about, but I'm sure it will be a good experience however it goes. So, let's have a look at the goods... Buttercup Bags These are the same as the ones I made here . Now that I'm familiar with the pattern and made good notes about my changes to it, these come together pretty quickly. I was hoping to use some tortoise shell rings or other hardware on either of these bags, but couldn't find any locally. Tote Bag This tote bag is also a repeat . The fabrics in the patchwork strip are mostly the same, but not in the same order/configuration. I zig-zagged over each seam with an off-white thread for this version. Inverted Box Pleat Bag   (needs a new name) This bag...

After last Christmas S gave me a small star pillow. She had a few of them and used them to decorate her shop for Christmas. They were not for sale, but she always had people ask if they could buy them and how much they were. So, she asked me to make some like it to sell this year. Here's the original: It was pretty easy to copy and fun to make. I measured one of the diamonds, drew it out on paper, and added seam allowances. Each side of the pillow is made of three diamonds each from two different fabrics. My three copies: This one, my favorite, is made from two different quilting cottons. The second is a classic Christmas plaid and gold dupioni silk. The third is burgundy and ivory, both dupioni silk. It's hard to determine their size from the photos - they're 16" across from one point to another and 9" from one "valley" to another. Each has a ribbon loop so they can be hung if desired. S and her co-worker were pretty excited ...

These angels and hot water bottle covers are for M's shop here in town. I've made them before and have nothing new to say about them - just posting them here for my future reference.

It's been a few weeks since I made this dress. Like my last Oliver + S experience , I have only good things to say about the Jumprope Dress pattern. The style is as cute as can be, the drafting and sizing is great and the instructions are fantastic. But, I don't think I made a good match of pattern and fabric. The details on the dress are what makes it so cute, but with the print I used, they are really hard to pick out. So hard that I didn't even bother to try photographing them. We chose the fabric to go along with the sweater that my daughter already had and that really limited our options. The dress is still cute enough and I'm not unhappy with it, but it isn't everything I was hoping it would be. Using a solid pink for some of the details would have been ideal, but of course I didn't have the right color in my stash and I wasn't able to work in a trip to the fabric store before the dress needed to be finished. The fact that my local Fabricland is 45...

I'm not sure what prompted it, but awhile ago I decided that I needed a green skirt. The last time I was at Fabricland I saw this green wide-wale corduroy. I wasn't really looking for the skirt to be corduroy and the color was a little different than I was hoping for, but since I had my eyes peeled for awhile and hadn't seen anything better, I thought I'd try the corduroy. After looking for a suitable pattern, I settled on the Burda 2/2010 skirt that I've already used three times . Because of the weight and bulk of the corduroy, I didn't want to try to mess with too many details. I'll use another skirt pattern soon. Really, I will. One of the things I really like about this pattern is the pockets. This time I made the pocket facings and part of the pocket bag out of a cotton woven solid to reduce bulk. Since I'll be wearing this skirt with tights I added a lining. Adding the lining was really simple except that I cut the lining exactly the sam...