My Sewing Space

In this post , I mentioned that I've been enjoying more simple handmade things this year. This post is a bit of a round-up of some of those things. Potato Stamping I saw this on Made by Rae and wanted to put some extra packing paper we had to good use. I used paint from a dollar store. I would not recommend it. It worked poorly and smelled like formaldehyde. Scary. Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments Nothing new or novel here, but it was a fun project to do with the kids. Ours didn't turn out that fabulous. I think I rolled the dough out too thin and then they stayed in the oven 40 minutes too long (it was The Preacher's responsibility to take them out. He's been forgiven). Hence, they have a bit of a curl. Next time I'll be more patient and just let them dry on the counter. Felt Christmas Ornament I'd love to have a Christmas tree full of handmade ornaments. For this one I used some lovely wool felt that my MIL gave me and followed this tutorial . M...

Now that I'm done with the Christmas clothing sewing, I'm turning my attention back to my Dress Warm project. For my third dress this season, I made a lightweight sleeveless knit dress. Sounds perfect for winter in Ontario, right? Actually, it has been unseasonably warm less cold but still a long way from summer-like. On it's own, this dress is not at all seasonally appropriate. But, I made it with the intention of wearing it with a long black cardigan that I picked up at a thrift store awhile back. I liked New Look 6071 when I first saw it and have been wanting to try it out. I give the fabric pretty mixed reviews. I used a rayon jersey - very soft and drapey and nice to touch. However, it was difficult to sew and I think it will keep growing. This dress probably won't last beyond this season, but I'm okay with that. This is the last piece of this type of knit I had in my stash and I likely won't buy any more. My local Fabricland always has a lot of it ...

Item No. 3 in the Coordinated Christmas Clothing series is a vest for my son. While my girls have often had matching dresses, this is the first time he has been included. When I asked him if he would like to match the girls he was pretty excited about it. The shirt and pants were hand-me-downs from another family. For the vest, I used Burda 9990 - a good pattern for both the pants and the vest. The front has welts (but no pockets) and the back has darts with a belt. I underlined the front of the vest with a lightweight cotton because the glen plaid is fairly loosely woven and I thought some more structure would help. There are supposed to be four buttons on the front, but I only had three of the same and didn't want to buy more. I also made the black tie. It is completely opposite of everything these ties tried to be. This one is made from a crafty-type tutorial (as opposed to in-depth instructions from an expert). This one is cut on the straight grain to save fabric (as...

Item No. 2 in the Coordinated Christmas Clothing series is a dress for my younger daughter. I liked this dress in the most recent issue of Ottobre when I saw it and thought it could work for combining the glen plaid and dark red fabric. I'm quite happy with how it looks now, but when I first tried it on my daughter I was not hopeful about it. My first thought was, "I didn't know a three-year-old could look frumpy!" But, cutting off some length helped as did the addition of sleeves. This dress looks better on a body in motion than it does in photographs. Here the back looks a bit big, but it's just a very basic A-line shape. The plaids match nicely at center back, but maybe you notice that the sleeves are cut with the plaid going the opposite way. I was seriously in danger of not having enough fabric and played pattern tetris for awhile to get everything I needed squeaked out. Switching the direction of the sleeves was the only way. I think the sleeves mak...

This year I wanted to make coordinating clothes for the whole family to wear at Christmas time. I have no idea why. I've never wanted to do this before. And right now I'm having serious doubts about whether I still want to do it! When I explained my idea to The Preacher, he gave me a please-tell-me-you-are-kidding sort of look. I'm not sure he's on board yet, but that's okay. I'd say the project is 90% complete and I'm hoping to be completely finished by Saturday night. I started with my older daughter's jumper. She had a piano recital last weekend so I used that for an early-ish deadline. I chose a pretty simple pattern from Ottobre 3/2011. This is a summer issue and the pattern is shown as a sundress, but it worked just fine as a jumper. I cut the bodice on the bias and added piping around the top and at the waist seam. The piping at the waist seam made the jumper stand away from her body like she had a hoop in there. Not a good look (but really ...

A couple of years ago my mom gave me this kit to make a quilted Christmas wallhanging. This year I was determined to get it made up so I can enjoy it. I bumped it up on the to-sew list over some other things that had definite deadlines. The sewing wasn't at all complicated and assembling the top went very quickly. I followed the layout guide as exactly as I could. Some of the fabrics included were different than those used in the diagram. The red for the ornament was different from the blue and green, so I put it in the middle. But, I didn't consider how that would affect the border blocks. There is a lot of green in the lower left hand corner that I didn't notice until I had it all together. I haven't put the binding on yet, but I really like the candy cane stripe fabric included for it. The ornament tops are machine appliqued. I started hand embroidering the hooks, but it was taking a long time and wasn't looking that great so I ripped it out and stitched...