My Sewing Space

We celebrated my younger daughter's 8th birthday in January. Eight! Sometimes in my mind she still looks like this . One of the things she wanted for her birthday was a bean bag chair. Her brother got one for his birthday last year and she likes to use it whenever he isn't. I used Dana's Rollie Pollie pattern to make a bean bag chair that was a bit more interesting than one I could purchase. This was not my first time using this pattern. I initially purchased it last spring and used it to make a bean bag chair for a school auction. We used fabric paint and put the students' hand prints on the cut pieces and then assembled it after they were dry. It was a good project and brought in more money than I was expecting. The pattern and instructions are both good. I'd suggest reading through all of the instructions before starting - some things seem a little out of order to me, but it's all there. The only real change I made was to put a zipper in the insert an...

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...

I like to make a Christmas-y dress for my daughters. In an attempt to be reasonable about how much time and money I have to spend, I decided not to make my younger daughter a new dress this year as the Christmas dress I made for my older daughter three years ago fits her now and looks quite nice. (I am well aware that I probably seem to be begging for comments full of bitterness and resentment from younger sister types that suffered through years of hand-me-downs).   So, this saga involves my older daugher only... The Fabric I didn’t have enough time to order something online and wait for it to be shipped to me, so I was at the mercy of my local Fabricland. A few weeks ago I saw some taffetas that would have been nice for a Christmas dress, but I was thinking that it would be wise to make something not too dressy and not too holiday-ish so that it could be worn longer into the winter. When I got around to shopping for the fabric, not only were the taffetas were gone but I had a...

Since it's been awhile since I've posted anything, I would love to be able to say I have lots to show you, but I don't.  Really all I've been working on are these: They're someone else's drapes that needed hemming along the sides and bottom of the drapes and the lining.  There were five big, heavy panels and it was a rather long and tedious job.  However, it gives me great pleasure to say that I am now finished with them and right after I post this I'm going to call for them to be picked up and I will be happy to have that corner of my sewing space back. Since that project is finished, it would be nice if I could get back to my jeans , but there is actually more sewing for other people that has jumped in line.  It's good to make some money from sewing, but wasn't I just saying that I wanted to make something for ME?!  I'm a selfish sewist.  I won't deny it.

A woman I know asked me to make these for her son who lives alone in a large, old, drafty farmhouse.  It sounds like the heating bills can be a little tough to swallow.  These will sit on the floor in front of the closed door to block any drafts that normally would come under the door. They're just a tube of fabric, sewn closed at both ends.  I wouldn't have picked this fabric, but that's what she gave me.  It is some sort of knit fleece, with a fair bit of stretch.  It was smooth on one side, but very fuzzy on the other.  I wouldn't have picked white for something that sits on the floor, either, but it wasn't my call.  I wanted to get rid of the stretch, so I underlined (that seems like a much too sophisticated word for this application, but I guess that is what I did) it with bleached muslin. I haven't made this sort of thing before, so I did a little online research about them.  My biggest question was what to fill it wit...

My most recent work has been a long way from exciting. I really don’t like home decorating sewing very much. I find it is usually a lot of long, straight and really boring seams put in a lot of fabric with a lot of pressing. Handling all that fabric gets cumbersome. This type of sewing feels like a chore to me. The fact that I don’t think I have much of a gift for decorating probably adds to my lack of enthusiasm. However, sometimes it is necessary. And now is one of those times. I made a valence for the girls’ bedroom out of this fabric: And a curtain for a bathroom out of this (cream-y colored cotton gause): Pictures of them up and in place would probably be more exciting, but they won’t go up until we move back in. So, it wasn’t so bad once I did it, but I’ve had this fabric since November and have just been putting it off since then. I do have a couple more curtains to do, but I don’t have that fabric with me. I also did some sewing for the girls’ group at our church. They need th...