My Sewing Space

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We did at our house. Christmas tends to be a busy time for preachers due to extra services, but there are some other areas of responsibility that lighten up at the same time, so both  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day actually felt pretty relaxing here. Later today we are leaving to visit family for a week and we're really looking forward to that. I'm rather behind with blogging. Things have been busy and while I've still managed to squeeze in the sewing time that I need, the blogging time didn't make the cut. I do find writing about my projects helpful for myself, so I'm going to try to get caught up relatively soon. I've been thinking about aprons lately. I really like aprons. It's not unusual for me to wear one most of the day if I'm home. It seemed like it was time for me to have another one. I looked at a lot of patterns, but didn't find one that I really liked. My personal apron preferences: a ful...

Several months ago I made a mini sweater . Now that sweater is on our Christmas tree and I really like it there. I decided to look for some other miniature knitted things to put on the tree as well. My search led me to these Mini Mittens . The grey pair were the first ones I made. I like how they turned out, but grey isn't a great color for a Christmas ornament - not very festive and hard to see on the tree. I also wanted them to be even smaller, so I made another pair from multi-colored sock yarn on size 1 needles. These were just what I was hoping for (they're about an inch long). But, they aren't on our tree because I tied them to a Christmas card envelope and gave them away. Now I have to make another set. But, this is fun, fast knitting. I might make a couple more sets.

When I first saw this skirt about a year ago, I thought that my daughter would loooove it if it was pink. I was right. The “pattern” is really just a set of instructions, but they are pretty good. The size of the different tiers is determined using a set of ratios, so there are an infinite number of sizes that can be made, including for women. Attaching the ruffles is done with a lack of precision. The instructions say, “Don’t pin; just sew.” I’m a little embarrassed to say how nervous that made me. I like precision. One side seam is sewn before the ruffles go on and the second is done after. The ruffles don’t match up all that well on the second side seam, which I thought “ruined” the skirt, but when this skirt is on my daughter I can hardly find the side seam, much less notice unmatched ruffles. So, I think the instructions are good and maybe I should be a little less hung up on precision. Non-fraying chiffon is the fabric recommended for the ruffles, but I used polyester org...

...on my couch! These were all requested by S and most of the fabric is from her stash. Two of the dark grey ones are for her to give as a gift and the others are for her shop. Individual pics: This is a decorator fabric. Half of the points are cut from the "right" side and half from the "wrong" side: Also a decorator fabric, the points are cut from two different sections of the same fabric: The purple fabric is from S. I combined it with this strange greenish-gold dupioni silk that I had. It looks much more gold in the pictures than it does in real life. This is kind of a strange combination, but it's good to try something different once in awhile. The textured fabric was my compliment to S's crimson fabric. The raised rows are strands of recycled silk spun together. The colors are fascinating to look at, but it isn't an easy fabric to work with.  I'll drop these off tomorrow and that will make her shop very well stocked with s...

I'm so pleased with how this little coat turned out, I hardly know what to say about it. It is a gift for my newest niece and I had so much fun making it!  The pattern is in the Spring 2010 issue of Ottobre magazine. This is the third Ottobre pattern for me - the other two ( here and here ) were much simpler than this one. I was so impressed with this coat pattern that I cancelled my subscription to Threads and started subscribing to Ottobre. I've been subscribing to Threads continuously for 10 years now and haven't been impressed with the last couple of years at all. There are a couple of reasons for that. I'm not completely dissatisfied with Threads, but it seems like a good time for a change. Threads and Ottobre are entirely different sorts of magazines, but the funding for them comes from the same place so I had to choose one or the other. Okay, back to the coat... It is fully lined with a printed plaid (aka difficult-to-match plaid). The buttons came home w...