My Sewing Space

Right after I finished this coat , I made one more just like it for another new niece. I really liked the pattern and having it all out and being familiar with it made it come together very swiftly. For the second version, I used a corduroy fabric that I have been hanging onto for awhile. I really like the fabric - both the print and the very soft feel of the corduroy - but I was having a hard time knowing what to do with it. This coat pattern seemed like a good match. I used covered buttons on the front and the sleeve tabs. The lining is a lighter shade of the pink flowers in the corduroy. You can see some of the lining fabric used for the under collar to reduce bulk. Ideally, that wouldn't peek out. Oh, well. Such a great pattern. I'm sure I'll come back to it again sometime. What? Another coat that fits me but isn't for me?!? Oh, the injustice...

Continuing with my new styles/silhouettes kick, I tried a skirt style that is a little different for me - the straight skirt. Now, this isn't something that is entirely new to me, but I haven't made one in a few years. I thought it was time to try it again. My pattern of choice was as basic as could be. I wanted to get the fit good without working around a lot of details and since I wasn't sure I would really like the shape on me, I didn't want to invest a lot of time in it. Enter McCall's 3830 . For the first try, I used a piece of corduroy leftover from this jacket . I had just enough of both the corduroy and the lining left for the skirt. In the past, I have been unhappy with how the front of straight skirts fit me. This time I left out the front darts. While I do curve out quite a bit from waist to hip, I don't really curve much at the front - it's all on the sides and at the back. I was really happy with how the fit turned out. This was posted ear...

My youngest daughter turned three yesterday. So hard to believe. I mentioned in this post how she only likes to wear dresses, skirts, jumpers and nightgowns. So, I made her another dress (because I thought she would like another and because I thought I would like fewer tantrums when there are not any clean dresses in her drawer). Both the dress and the leggings are from Ottobre 1/2010. The bubble sleeves are unique and the pleats on the leggings are a nice detail. In order for the outfit to be a surprise, I did all of the work while my daughter was sleeping and I was nervous about how or if it would fit. The leggings are a little looser than I would prefer, but they are a good length. The pleats don't match up well because I was in a great big hurry to finish them. The dress turned out to be a pretty good fit. I used size 98 and added 0.5" in length to both the bodice and the skirt. The neckline is gathered with an elastic casing. It looked too loose when I was making i...

It was cold here today (-26C when I took the kids to school this morning- brrrrr!) but I stayed warm inside working in my sewing room. Back in July , I started knitting a cardigan for myself - Rosamund's Cardigan by Andrea Pomerantz from the Fall 2009 issue of Interweave Knits . I finally finished knitting it while we were away for Christmas and today I finished the finishing - refining the shape and sewing on buttons, hooks, and eyes. Now I am happy with it. Before today, I wasn't sure about it. While I was knitting, I knew that I was going to want the sweater to be longer than what the pattern said. But, I added the length at the very bottom (the sweater is knit from the top down) when I should have added it in between the waist decreases and increases. It resulted in a sweater that had a shape very different from my own. Ripping out half of the sweater didn't sound appealing to me (remember that it took me six months to knit this!) so today I decided to try steam...

I made pajamas for each of my kids. They’re so happy because they got to pick out the fabric. My older daughter wanted “pajamas that have the top and bottom connected and have feet.” Kwik Sew 2704 was the answer – sleepers for big kids. My son wanted the same thing, and was quite insistent that they be cozy. In his mind, cozy and fuzzy are synonymous. I think both of them are surprised how warm these are. My younger daughter only wears dresses, skirts, and jumpers for day and nightgowns at night. She’s cute about this as long as there is a choice she approves of in her drawer. If everything that suits her is in the laundry, she’s not so cute. So, here we have another nightgown for her. I modified an out-of-print Kwik Sew pattern to make it. Oh, and I made her leggings to wear with the nightgown since she doesn’t keep the blankets on at night. Sleep well, kiddos!

Another new style for me… The fabric is a bamboo jersey that I think works pretty well for this design – very soft and drapey. I would have guessed that I wouldn’t have liked all that fabric between my arms and my body, but I didn’t really notice it. Before cutting the fabric, I added 2” in length to the sleeves and 1.5” in length to the bodice front and back. While  putting the top together, the only sizing change I made was to decrease the circumference of the cuffs by 1.5”. They were much too big for my wrists and slid down over my hands, looking very sloppy. I wasn’t all that impressed with the neckline of the top. I bound it instead of applying a neckband like the pattern suggests, but I’m still not very excited about how it sits on me. It shifts around and I feel like I need to readjust it too much. When I wore it with a scarf, it didn’t bother me. The skirt in the picture at the top is also a recent make, but I’ll have more to say about that later.

I’ve been interested in trying some silhouettes and styles that I don’t currently have in my wardrobe. I’m not a big risk-taker by nature and I really value my sewing time, so I generally stick to fabrics and patterns that I’m pretty certain I’ll like. It is starting to feel like everything I wear is pretty much the same, just in different colors. Much of the time I’m okay with that because I only keep clothes that I really like, but I’ve been wanting something different lately. For this tunic, I combined two patterns: Kwik Sew 2856 and New Look 6731 . I used the neckline and raglan sleeve seams from the Kwik Sew pattern. I used this pattern before for a sweater and remember really liking the neckline (the sweater didn’t stay in my closet for long – I loved how the fabric looked, but despite pre-shrinking, it kept getting shorter and wider). The length and style of sleeves came from the New Look pattern as did the bodice length. After checking the pattern tissue against my ...

After making the changes that I mentioned here , I made another apron. This one was a belated birthday gift for my mom. I didn’t get any pictures of it on, so it is hard to compare to the first one, but I like it better. The reverse is a blue/green/yellow stripe. Similar to what I did for this project , I made some other kitchen goodies to go along with it. For the potholder, I used the wonky log cabin tutorial from Quilt Dad . This was a first for me. I’m pretty sure I over-wonked it because the center square should still be in the center, but mine isn’t. I’m pretty sure a large (12.5”) square quilting ruler (which I don’t have) would prevent that sort of thing. The apron fabrics and the yellow flower print in the pot holder and tea towel were purchased at a new quilt shop in town. I’ve been there a couple of times now and I think it holds a lot of promise – a good selection of traditional and modern prints. My Christmas stocking held a gift certificate from The Preacher s...

It feels like I'm getting to this pretty late. How can it feel like the new year is well underway only three days into it? I considered just getting on with other bloggy things and forgetting about revisiting the goals I set for 2010, but that didn't seem right. So, here we go... Sewing Goals for 2010 1.  Go fabric shopping in Toronto. INCOMPLETE I could have made this happen, but honestly didn't feel the need to. I have lots of fabric that I would really like to sew. I need more time, not more fabric. I certainly still would like to go sometime for the experience, but I don't feel badly for not going in 2010. 2.  Knit  the owl sweater . COMPLETE Absolutely my proudest knitting accomplishment so far. 3.  Make a modern quilt for our living room wall. COMPLETE The quilt that I chose to make isn't exactly what I was thinking when I said "modern quilt," but I think it is a good fit and works with the rest of the room (which isn't modern at a...