sewing

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just a few stitches by hand.

The boy requested a hooded coat for his little frog and one for his sister’s little cat. I let them pick out colors from the pile of felt (okay, not the good wool felt, I wasn’t going to sew fast and dirty with that stuff). The boy helped make and sew on the yellow covered button for the frog’s green coat. I thought they turned out quite cute, no pattern making involved, just sewed the top hood seam, then cut a little at a time until it fit. I was afraid this might lead to a request to outfit the rest of the animals but so far so good.

felt coats sewn for small stuffies

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Please excuse the over-abundance of photos and text but I’m pretty proud of this project and I want to show you all the details. First I have to admit that this is a long neglected Work-In-Progress. I actually cut out most of the fabric for these outfits LAST YEAR! Generally you can’t get away with that when making clothes for kids but luckily my kids have mostly grown taller and not all that wider. I did make a few changes. The dress got an extra ruffle for length and I changed the bodice shape completely. I had originally cut out a button up shirt out of the fish fabric for the boy and then decided not to sew it as it is miserable, nigh on impossible, to get him to wear a dress shirt. So instead I opted to let him wear a polo (only slightly less miserable) with shorts sewn out of the brown plaid from Michael Miller and embellished with the fish and seahorse fabrics from Heather Ross’s Mendocino collection for Free Spirit ’08.

The Dress:
Front:
little girl's summer dress Heather Ross Mendocino fish seahorses plaid

Teeny pocket bound with bias binding cut by hand:
Heather Ross Mendocino pacific fish pocket on seahorse little girl dress

Piped double ruffle:
piped double ruffle on girl's dress schoolgirl plaid

Back:
schoolgirl brown plaid Heather Ross Mendocino fish seahorse toddler girl summer dress

Ruffled cap sleeve and covered button with elastic loop placket:
ruffled cap sleeve covered button elastic loop placket little girl dress

The dress is my own pattern. It is fully lined with the bottom ruffle attached to the lining. The cap sleeves were made by folding a long marquise shape in half and gathering the cut edges into the upper armhole which is deep enough to allow wearing over a close fitting long sleeved shirt. The elastic loop that holds the placket shut was made from a color matched hair elastic—one of my favorite tricks—easy to sew and usually makes the dress “I do it” friendly. Except for the little pocket on the front the dress could easily be worn with the placket in the front. The dress could also be made reversible as the manner of construction makes the inside as neatly finished as the outside.

Now for the shorts:
Front:
boys shorts sewn with Michael Miller brown and aqua plaid Heather Ross Mendocino fish seahorse pockets

Pocket detail:
cargo pocket on boy's shorts Heather Ross Mendocino pacific

I used a commercial pattern for the brown plaid shorts and added flap topped cargo pockets made from the Mendocino prints and trimmed with the bias cut plaid. The placement looks low on the hanger but seems fine when worn with an untucked shirt.

The boy and the girl intent on a new Leapster game.
brother and sister matching Easter outfits orange brown aqua

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I know I’ve been busy crafting but I’m not sure what! Origami dragons and paper ballet dancer puppets, little doll blankets and perler beads. And laundry. This is the time of the year where we have all our various types of boots and coats out because we never know from one day to the next what the weather will be like. It seems to increase the laundry as well.

Off the spinning wheel: two ounces of hemp fiber spun into about 100 yards of DKish yarn. Or twine. It’s hard to call something like this yarn. It was quite rough so I kept a dish of water to wet my fingers occasionally as I spun. It was certainly interesting but I don’t plan on spinning hemp again. Maybe a hemp/cotton blend.

handspun hemp yarn

Off the knitting needles: one handspun hemp mesh and leather market bag. I had hoped to knit the hemp into the Ilene market bag pattern but there wasn’t enough yardage. So I improvised by cutting a piece of thin leather for the base and the handles and knitting the mesh pattern for just the body of the bag. I used a tiny scrapbooking holepunch to make holes 1/4″ apart all the way around the edge of an oval traced off one of my casserole dishes. I then used a crochet hook to pull loops through each hole, did a single crochet and then deposited that loop onto circular needles. I then knit up all the yarn in the mesh stitch and cast off. I punched similar holes in the bottom edge of the leather handle piece and used some commercial hemp thread to hand sew on the bag. The mesh stitch stretches easily to accommodate quite a lot of things despite not looking all that big.

handspun hemp knitted mesh and leather market bag

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drapes: finally had some uninterrupted daytime hours to do the math for the living room pinch pleat drapes. (Thank you God for MIL.) Even started cutting and seaming panels. It’s going to be tight but it will work. 21 yards of fabric. This is definitely my biggest project ever. Deadline approaching—delivery of new couch—March 15ish.

socks for me: off to a great start with a hand-dyed handspun that I really like and stalled big time on the heel. I’ve turned a short row heel several times now without incident. In fact I think I have turned this same heel as many times as I’ve made socks total. Not good. I really don’t know what the problem is. I’m about ready to give up and find a toe-up heel flap even though I don’t care for the look. Dissappointing because this is my Ravelympics project and otherwise I am confident I would have been done by now with both socks. three days left, I don’t think I’m going to make it.

mailing: I know this is ridiculous but I have three things here that need to be mailed, two of which have been sitting for more than a month. I just need to seal, label and get to the post office. We have a very nice post office here. I don’t know what my problem is. Same as Annie’s.

cleaning/organizing: yeah, lots of that. at times it seems hopeless but I think things are getting better. I’m still seriously considering borrowing a pick-up and just hauling everything to the dump. Okay, not really seriously. I can’t stand to waste anything someone could use. So I pick through at a turtle’s pace, giving away, freecycling, etc. This could be so much easier if I didn’t care!

I think that’s all I’m actively working on. There is a rather long list jumping around on the back burner of my brain as usual. It will all have to wait. I’m going to SPA Knit and Spin this Saturday and I intend to enjoy myself, meet up with some new friends and learn some new tricks.

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How awful is that? I did not sew a thing in the month of January. Oh wait, I forgot about the dance practice skirt I made for the girl. I blocked it out of my mind because although it fits, and the girl likes it, it did not turn out how I intended at all. Like the difference between turning left and turning right.

She got this sweet doll for her birthday. Originally the doll had blue and yellow socks/shoes that were sewn on which was a problem to the girl because we don’t wear shoes in our house. Therefore she does not want her dolls to wear shoes in the house either. So I did some surgery and the doll now has permanent pink tights. I also made a pink flowered dress at the same time. Apparently I neglected to take a picture of that.

So anyway, the girl has been pestering me for doll clothes. I don’t remember making doll clothes as a kid, I made lots of things but I don’t particularly remember making doll clothes. And I don’t remember my mother making clothes for my dolls either. Now I know why. It’s annoying.

But about the sewing of the moment, raglan sleeve pink shirt with picot edging repurposed from little girl’s turtleneck. White tutu made by cutting the foot off a ruffly toddler sock. No sewing. Instant gratification. Tutu wins.

doll shirt repurposed from little girl's turtleneck and doll tutu made from cut off toddler sock

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vintage drum shade floor lamp

This picture is intended both to motivate me and to show off this cool vintage lamp I found.

I now have all the materials and instructions necessary (I hope) to sew pinch pleat drapes for my living room. The fabric is Del Hi by Valori Wells. When I saw this fabric I knew right away this is what I wanted for my living room drapes. Warm grey and dark brown graphic flowers, avocado trailing vines and a sleek brown fleur-de-lis silhouette of a stripe against a khaki ground—a bold pattern in a neutral colorway. And despite my previous aversion, after reading the highly informative and funnyRetroRenovation blog and studying pictures of other houses similar in style to ours, I finally decided that nothing else would complement our ’50s ranch interior as well as pinch pleat draperies. And I love the fact that they can be opened and closed so easily and still look good. There’s really no other style like that.

But back to the picture. Here you see just the unsewn fabric hanging over the current poor excuse for a curtain rod. Because I haven’t gotten up the courage to start working on these drapes. Humongous pieces of fabric and a fair amount of math will be involved. Not that I have an aversion to math, I used to be quite good at math. I just don’t usually care to involve math in creative matters.

I am not one to buy antiques but I fell in love with this vintage floor lamp at our friend Rick’s barn, a.k.a. the Potato House, in Houlton, ME just off Route 95 before you get to the Canadian border. Usually open on weekends. If you like old stuff, you can spend hours going through old books and records, decades of furniture, knick knacks and doodads of every sort. The lamp bears no indication of when it was made or who the maker might have been. It does appear to have been rewired at some point. The metal parts need cleaning but the wood is beautiful and the drum shade is in great condition. It works well as a reading light and also casts a warm glow over the rest of the room.

Rich is “trusting” me on this one, the drapes I mean (oh, maybe the lamp too?). And I know it’s off my usual quiet track but I like where it’s headed. It’s going to be a comfortable, good looking room . . . little by little.

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I’ve got so many things I want to post I’m afraid the order is going to get mixed up here but oh well. I had the idea to make the boy and his Granddad matching lounge pants/pajama bottoms last year but didn’t think of it until it was too late. This year I was prepared and found some perfect flannel at eQuilter, a scattering of comic book sound effects on a powder blue background.

Comic Kaboom flannel from Fabri-Quilt drawstring waist flannel lounge pants

I used a simple version of the boy’s regular pants pattern and a commercial pattern for the men’s size (as usual I was reminded why I don’t use commercial patterns, sizing was very strange, glad I went by instinct and not by recommended sizing). For the waist I made a casing of black hemp jersey cinched with a black twill tape and a bullet shaped cordlock. I really liked this waist finish and I think I’ll be using it again for pajama bottoms and maybe shorts. I used a little sew-in stabilizer to make a back patch pocket out of the same black hemp jersey. Granddad’s pocket was embellished with the selvedge clearly imprinted with the words, “not for use in children’s sleepwear”. My little joke for the kid in Granddad but I forgot to take a picture.

And in keeping with my usual unfortunate habit of waiting until the last minute, these were finished the night before we left to go see my husband’s parents. We decided that they needed to open these the night before Christmas. What a hilarious treat to see the looks on their faces!

matching flannel boy pajamas lounge pants

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Or something like that. I have apparently lost the boy’s basic pants pattern, waaah. I looked high and low for it and finally gave up and drew up a new one, mostly based off the most recently finished pair. I was planning special Christmas pajamas but I needed to test the pattern before I cut into my nice new flannel. I decided to use this great moss green brushed twill and accent it somehow. But I didn’t have time to deal with pockets and patches and a bunch of topstitching, etc. so I decided for some reason that tuxedo stripes a.k.a. windpant stripes down the sides would be less trouble. You’re laughing at me right?

tuxedo stripe or windpant stripe on little boy's hand sewn pants

Guess what! I found a great way to apply these stripes using a variation of my flat-felled seam variation. You know that doubled over and double topstitched seam on your jeans? That one, except I have my own way of doing it on a home sewing machine. I probably owe you all a tutorial on that too.

Anyway, I applied these stripes in a similar manner which requires very little pinning and relies almost entirely on your sewing machine and iron to make the straight lines. Much better than appliqué turning those little stripes and then pinning and stitching them down perfectly.

close-up of tuxedo stripes on boy's pants

But of course what really matters is that the boy liked them immediately despite the lack of pockets. He even told me that he likes the pants I make him better than his other pants. Words to melt my heart. Of course I know it’s really about that soft brushed twill I use.

PS. These pants were made before Christmas. I have lots of stuff to post but I’ve been working hard at reorganizing the kids’ room. The boy has been very excited about this but the girl has been none too pleased. Such is life. You win some, you lose some, and perhaps eventually I’ll be caught up and everything will be put away.

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Our church received a request over the weekend for Christmas help for a family with young children. Several of us coordinated getting various things to “make Christmas”. I went looking for stockings and was appalled at the selection available in the big box store. Most of the stockings available were cheaply made of such grotesque fabric that I was depressed that anyone would use those as part of their family traditions. So despite the deadline projects hanging over my head I went home and started pulling out the ingredients to make some personalized stockings.

handmade Christmas stockings

I cut the main body of all three stockings out of a thick red textured fleece and then pulled together a few wintry prints to make the contrasting heels, toes and cuffs. The boy helped me with the sewing. I was planning on using a white dimensional paint to write the names on the stockings but I did not read the directions until about 10pm. Since I didn’t have 24 hours for the paint to dry flat I had to come up with another plan! After fooling around a bit I pulled out the last piece of matte shrink plastic and the permanent markers. I picked out some (hopefully) appropriate typefaces to set their names in on the computer and then printed out a template to trace. A few seconds in the oven and a quick rubdown with the sandpaper, and I had some nice thick white ovals that I stitched onto the stocking cuffs with black upholstery thread. Although putting the names on shrink plastic tags was a last ditch idea, I like how well it turned out so I will probably find some way to use it again.

Christmas stocking with shrink plastic name tag

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Birthday sewing

side panel boy pants side panel boy pants with trimmed pocket

After eight days the fever finally petered out. We had to reschedule the boy’s party but we did have cake and presents after turkey dinner. I didn’t get nearly as much done as I had hoped but I did manage these pants. Based on the same basic pattern as these brown pants and using the same soft brushed twill in grey and river blue. The deep pockets built into the full length side panels received the ultimate praise from the boy – “awesome”.

I also found this neat composition book with pages that are half blank and half lined. I sewed a cover for it with a pencil pocket and used a fabric marker to personalize it. Still a bit plain but already in use. Maybe I’ll suggest he doodle on the cover with fabric markers.

composition book with half blank and half lined pages

journal cover with pencil pocket

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hand made wooden thread and ribbon organizer

Yes, I just put that photo in at the largest size because I am that excited about this. I haven’t been sewing but I have been cutting! With the power miter saw. Okay, no angles but still. I’ve been planning this organizer for a while. I wanted something functional but reasonably nice to look at as well. I finally made this custom fit thread and ribbon organizer to the same length as my sewing table (5 feet long). By myself! Of course the kids insisted on helping me paint it. That was fun, no really, they are starting to be truly helpful. My dad helped me hang it on the wall. Plaster walls confuse those stud finding gadgets.

Almost all of the wood came from leftovers in the basement, all I bought was some screws, a skinny dowel and a piece of quarter round trim. Building the main parts of the shelf went really fast. The thread rack part did not, mostly because I was trying to recycle pieces of a store bought wooden thread rack that was too small and not made all that well. Sometimes it does not pay to recycle.

I now have twice as many pegs for thread, a space for my serger thread spools and dowels for my handmade bias trim and assorted ribbons. I can easily add some more dowels for ribbons and such later. The serger spools can also be stacked two deep so there is plenty of room.

In the glass jars above are buttons, vintage wooden thread spools and clothespins. I’ll probably add some more jars as needed. Of course there is a reason you can’t see anything else in the picture. Everything below four feet is a mess. But here is one other bit of organizing that I did quite a while ago actually but it has been working out very well. Behind the door I put up a shortened length of coat rack with a few extra nails to hold my various rulers, triangles, T-squares, etc. And the cutting mat hangs on a nail on the back of the door.

cutting mat and ruler organization

PS. I have been doing some knitting but it may be difficult to get a picture of the latest finished project. I’ll try.

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little girl wearing apron and matching headband, Alexander Henry Granville fabric

We have a little friend who is turning 7 soon and I asked the girl what we should give her for her birthday. I was quite impressed that the girl suggested a headband since our little friend does like to wear headbands. Since dress-up is a favorite activity I decided to make a matching apron and headband. The girl and I went through my fabrics and chose this sweet pastoral fantasy print, “Granville” by Alexander Henry. I chose a tone-on-tone Victorian floral in a wine color by Moda to use as the lining.

I remembered seeing a tutorial ages ago for a headband and quickly cut and sewed a scrap version to test my memory of the idea. I couldn’t find the original but here is one very similar. The great thing about this technique is that there is no hand sewing involved yet all the raw edges are hidden neatly and easily. After the test version met with the girl’s approval I cut out the fabrics for the apron and headband. The headband went together fast again and the apron went well down to the last seam which I ended up ripping out and redoing about three times. Arg. But I like the finished project. The apron is two layers of the wine floral with the pocket made from the Alexander Henry fabric which features fanciful roosters, trees and country buildings. I really like this color palette, it’s pretty and girlish but not overly “cute”. I sewed an off center line down the pocket to divide it into two pockets. Here’s a picture of the other side of the headband so you can see the elastic band that holds it snug when worn. Now I have to make a second set for the girl to keep of course.

headband sewn from Alexander Henry "Granville"

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With the machine AND by hand. Last week while we were all still pretty sick he got it into his head that he wanted to make a cube out of felt. I elicited a response that he was willing to do the work himself before we started. He quickly chose six colors and used a wooden block to trace out squares of equal size. He cut most of them out himself and showed me the placement. Since I didn’t want it to take forever and risk him losing interest I decided we should go for machine sewing. So I set him up next to me on the machine and helped him guide the squares through with a zigzag stitch. After the first try or two he could stop on a dime! After doing as many seams by machine as possible he used leftover quilt batting to stuff his creation. Then he enthusiastically agreed to sew up the open side by hand and did so, quite well, considering he’s never tried before. Then he decided to add four feet and also sewed those on, with my help, I tied the knots. He was very proud of himself, as was I. He named his creation Bobby and took it to school to show off what he had learned.

sewn felt cube

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As I alluded to in the previous post, this past week has been rather a haze. And unfortunately not all of us completely well yet. But it would seem that if I don’t share these now, they’ll lose their newsworthiness.

I love to carve pumpkins with out of the ordinary designs. Over the years we’ve done the Bat signal (Batman), maybe more than once, spiders and Jiji the cat from Kiki’s Delivery Service. This was the first year the kids were really into actually helping with the design. The girl was quite particular about her pumpkin having a “bumpy” smile. So we split up into teams and this is what we came up with. The carving on the girl’s pumpkin is a combination of me following what she actually drew on the pumpkin and copying from her earlier drawing on paper. The boys were much more scientific and drew their pattern on the computer first.

bumpy smile jack-o-lantern traditional jack-o-lantern pumpkin

One day this week I managed to make pancakes with a seasonal twist. I used tiny alphabet cookie cutters given to me by my friend Jan to quickly shape the eyes and mouth. Homemade apple syrup from Grandmom drizzled on top for a yummy treat.

jack-o-lantern cut out pumpkin

I didn’t realize this until we moved up here but New Englanders really get into Halloween in a big way. Maybe that’s because it actually feels and looks like Halloween in the movies or maybe because it’s a lot easier to decorate your house for a holiday that isn’t covered in snow and ice! In any case, people go all out and we thought we’d join in to this neighborly occasion with some sort of big decoration. We tossed around a few things and I came up with this idea of painting a big cat to fit the opening in the screen door. I looked online for tall silhouettes of black cats and chose one as reference. I unrolled paper and cut it to size and then sketched the cat on the paper. The kids did a lot of the painting. I had intended to do an all black cat but they wanted it to look like Lila, our tuxedo cat so I modified to accomodate. Not quite as scaring but still mysterious. On Halloween night we turned out all the interior house lights and strung a bulb up behind the cat’s face which illuminated the whole painting well. The large brushstrokes reminded Rich of Van Gogh’s style. An unexpected benefit. The kids were awed by their creation and I really enjoyed working together with them. It was difficult to photograph so here is my attempt at a Photoshop combination that simulates what it looks like in real life.

backlit painted Halloween cat

with flash: painted cat

And I did finish sewing those costumes despite my foggy head. But because the camera batteries were dying I only have this one photo of Mr. Mario and the leopard. We took a quick trip around the neighborhood and were rewarded with treats from the neighbors and a surprise scare from Mr. R. across the street sporting a scary ghost mask that made the girl cry.
Mr. R’s wife scolded him and he couldn’t take that mask off fast enough!

IMG_6062

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I actually made this dress a few weeks ago but the pants did not get finished until this week. I’ve had this in mind for quite a while and it all started with a very small remnant of the Ginger Blossom fabric in corduroy. I paired it with some yummy stretch baby canvas from Robert Kaufman in bubble gum pink. I then got a yard of the quilter’s cotton in the same print from an online sewing friend. The kiwi dots are from Michael Miller I think. I don’t usually buy patterns but I had wanted to try out one of Sandi Henderson’s patterns as they came well recommended. I chose Claire since the top is close to what I had in mind for this outfit.

peasant tunic and pants using Sandi Henderson Ginger Blossom fabric

I made a number of alterations to create the long sleeved tunic pattern including the wide bands of the kiwi green dot print at the hem of the tunic and the sleeves. I also made my dress without a waist seam. The pants are from my own simple pattern with slightly flared bottoms and an elastic waist. I added the corduroy bands to the bottom to mimic the bands on the dress. The girl has been delighted to wear the dress but, not surprisingly, refuses to wear the pants beyond the initial trying on. I even remembered to add a little “tag” to the back of the waist. Oh well, I don’t mind that she prefers dresses. I have some fabric ready for a second dress that will follow the Claire pattern more closely.

DSCF1799 DSCF1797 DSCF1800

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