My Sewing Space

I didn't have a single blog post in December for three reasons: some of my sewing was for gifts, the rest of the sewing was not terribly interesting, and even if I could have made it interesting there wasn't time for blogging. Yet, I did do some sewing and wanted to record it here so I can remember later on. Sadly, there aren't really any pictures (I guess this post is more for me than you). Gifts: linen "picture" napkins for my mom (kids colored on them with fabric markers and I hemmed the edges) a pillow for a friend felt owl ornaments for teachers using this tutorial Other sewing in December was determined by the needs of my family: two tops for one daughter and one for the other - all very basic companion pieces for orphan hand-me-downs fleece pajamas for my son - reducing bulk in the stash four undershirts for The Preacher - he only needed a couple, but I did as many as I had fabric for and constructed them assembly-line style one dress for ...

We're just wrapping up our March break week here. Other than some sickness, we had a good week. For the most part, we kept busy with good and simple things close to home. One of the days I invited the kids into the sewing room to work on a project together. I saw these little house ornaments on Pinterest and wanted to give them a try. The kids got to pick out the fabrics, trim, button, and ribbon that they wanted to use from my stash. We made a big mess, but it was fun. I did all the sewing and ironing and did some prep work the day before to make sure things kept moving. In the interest of simplification, we left off the bird and house number included in the tutorial. The kids liked getting to choose all the parts, but they loved  doing the stuffing part. Each of the houses has their own unique mix and it was fun to see their choices (not always what I would have guessed!). Here is my house in my hand for scale purposes. The three houses pictured above are my two ...

The fourth (and final!) part of the Coordinated Christmas Clothing project is a skirt for me. Truthfully, this was the piece I sewed first for a couple of reasons. I originally bought the fabric to make something for me and I knew that if I didn't like my garment I wasn't going to want to go ahead with this endeavor. So, I actually sewed this at the end of November and it might be a stretch for me to remember the construction process! I searched awhile for a pattern that I liked. I wanted something a little more interesting than my usual plain choices, but didn't find anything from the major pattern companies that jumped out at me. I've never sewn a Knip Mode pattern before, but I've seen others make unique things, so I perused their site. There I saw this skirt that did jump out at me. I tried buying the pattern when I saw it, but I was having computer issues and couldn't get the transaction to go through. Then I started thinking more about the patter...

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...

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...

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.

S asked me to make a Christmas table runner for her shop. Her only suggestions about what it should look like were "not too fussy or busy." I decided on a simple applique of three trees on a linen background. The runner is 60" long and 13" wide. For the trees, I used a lightweight fusible product and then straight-stitched around the edges. I like the raw-edge applique look, but don't use it very often. The border and backing is an apple green color that didn't photograph well. I was happy with the mitered corners, but they don't look so good (a little lumpy) in the pictures. I do really like the narrow folded border inside the green one. I only had a small amount of the striped fabric, but think this was a good way to use it. I was so happy with this when I finished it a couple of weeks ago, but now that I'm looking at the pictures, I'm less than thrilled. I'm really hoping that it is just the pictures, but it looks wrinkly and r...

It's been over and done with for more than a week now, but I had a good experience with the art sale that I was participating in. While I didn't take an actual count, I think I sold about half of the items I brought. The other artists were fun to chat and visit with and it was neat to meet the customers and talk about some of the things I'd made. I really have no desire to join the craft show circuit and do a sale every weekend, but this was a good opportunity to try it out. I'll likely do the same one next year. In the last week, I've been working on all of the things that I'd postponed until the sale was over - sewing and otherwise. Most of the sewing is for other people. I've decided that once I finish the things I've currently agreed to do, I'm not taking anything else until January. S liked the idea of the bigger star pillow when I dropped off the other pillows , so I made one that is 50% bigger than the hanging ones. To give you an idea of ...

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 ...