Venus de Hilo

Venus de Hilo is on the move...

2011-03-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

Aloha everyone, I'm waving "see ya" -- to Blogger, that is. Venus de Hilo now has a site of her own, and I'll be blogging over there from now on.

A zillion thanks to the handful of kindred spirits who have been following the VdeH thing here; it's made my day every time I see someone else has joined up. My heartfelt apologies to those of you who discovered me so recently through the Blockapalooza thing. I hope you will forgive me for asking you to click on over to the new site and follow me there so soon after you went to the trouble to do so here.

I'd have moved you all over myself if I could, but that's beyond my technical skill and patience at surfing google and the WordPress forums for solutions. For your convenience I've set up Google Friend Connect in the sidebar at the new place, where you'll also see an RSS feed thingie up in the header for those who prefer that.

I've decided not to move these archives over, but I will be reposting pics of my fave projects and of course updating you on all the as-yet-unfinished stuff as I make progress on the WIPs/UFOs. There's room, too, for the handbags and home decor that occasionally amble out of the sewing room, and when I sew up something new to wear I'll show that off as well. Do expect more quilting, though, and less of the other stuff, than you've seen here if you've been following me for a while.

First up, Blockapalooza Block 15, which I made two ways. You can read all about that here.

Quilted Bark

2011-03-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally got all set up (i.e., cleaned up the awful mess on my sewing table) and started to quilt the monochrome project for the Modern Quilt Guild challenge. Got all three "tree trunk" sections done in a free-motion pointy-swoopy kind of thing that I hope looks at least a little bit like tree bark:

Took these shots early this morning. At 7am the sun this time of year the sun shines straight in my office window from a low angle, which I thought would light things up so you can see the stitching. That's a section of the front on the left; stitching shows up better on the back (right)... glad I thought to snap that one, too.

It's taken me a long time to:
1) Get back into quiltmaking after a decade of focus on other things
2) Get a few tops from idea into "finished top" mode and ready to quilt
3) Try my hand at free-motion quilting

I won't claim to be any kind of master at this... what you can't see (I hope) in the pics is how unable I am to maintain anything approximating a regular stitch length. Moving the fabric under the needle, though, visualizing where I want the stitching to go and getting pretty-darned-close to the effect I'm aiming for... that's going better than I'd imagined. I feel like I have a knack for this, even if my skill level on the technical side is a long way from expert.

Next up, I'll do the upper edge, which is intended to imply a leafy canopy. Have some ideas for how to quilt that, but will need to do some playing around on a practice piece to try them out.

In the meantime, I'm haunting the 'palooza flickr page waiting for Block 15 to turn up, and have a significant heap of admin-type tasks piled up on the desk. Being self-employed is wonderful, but I've given a few too many hours to sewing and not enough to paper piles the past week or so. Today I need to stay out of the sewing room and keep my butt planted in my desk chair until I've been in business mode long enough to get some stuff done.

More Block 12-ishes and a UFO

2011-03-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

More blocks, variations on 'palooza block 12, for my planned 9-block top. This pair features back-to-back corner geese units:

I love the blue-yellow combo in these. The resulting star and large diamond really pop.

And for this last pair I placed the "geese" facing out:

The very dark accent fabric is actually a lovely small-print tonal brown.

I've had so much fun making these, and look forward to putting them all together into a top. I have ambitious visions (still somewhat vague) for sashing and bordering these. I will play with ideas as I finish up some other projects on more urgent timeframes. These blocks are about to go into a "works theoretically still in progress but temporarily on the back burner" bin while I quilt the monochrome forest, finish up the OBW borders, and maybe even get this little cutie quilted up:

This is a not-very-large "confetti" wall-hanging I made early last summer to play around with the method and my tiny scraps drawer. I liked it enough to add a border. The border and light blue background both are leftovers from making curtains for our bedroom, so I'm planning to hang it in there. I set it aside at this stage because I did not yet have the extension-table thingie that makes machine quilting so much easier. This morning I sandwiched it up with a backing fabric and got it pinned and ready to go. Best part is it's small enough I was able to do that on the kitchen counter instead of crawling around on the floor. I won't get to this immediately (the monochrome project is a higher priority), but do hope to get it quilted very soon.

Block 14... not feelin' it

2011-03-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry dude, but Block 14 is not inspiring me. It's not a bad block. I can see a few things I'd change to do it my way, and it might be fun to play around with on its own. But in my 'palooza context (which at this point is fairly far off the main track) it's so obviously destined to sit on the sidelines of the design wall that I've decided not to bother with it. (Besides, if you're going to contribute a block to something as public as this quilt-along, lighten up about claiming copyright and just let people have fun with it!)

In the meantime I've been making more of my versions of what was originally Block 12, which of course I did not render exactly as per the instructions, so it's not really "Block 12" anymore. I liked the way my first two turned out so much I decided to expand on the theme and make a separate 9-block top from them. I've been puttering along on this all week, cutting a few new fabrics here, sewing up a few goose units there, shuffled some bits from block to block, and at last have a WIP I'm happy with. Here are a few of the new ones (more to come in another post, later).

This is a sister-block to the first one I made:

I used different fabrics for the on-point squares, the 4-patch, and half the geese, and the purple solid is a slightly different shade, but overall I kept it a fairly close match... but diferent enough to be interesting.

Same approach with this one, which is a fraternal (but not identical) twin to the second one, also here:

This one's a singleton, planned for the center of what will be nine in a grid layout:

For this one I placed the "geese" nose-to-nose, instead of in flight formation or back-to-back.

There are two more pairs to show off, as soon as the stragglers are ready for a public appearance, and I've rephotographed one. My camera is overly fond of yellow, apparently, and reluctant to properly portray blues. Indoors, outdoors, flash, no flash: the blues hardly ever come out looking like they should, even when all the other colors are right.

Plans, slightly disrupted

2011-03-11T10:56:00.000-08:00

Monochrome teaser... ready for basting:

Returned from errands the other day with over 5 yards of unbleached organic cotton batting, so no excuses for not finishing up a few projects now! Cut and prewashed batting (soak in the sink, spin in the machine, through the dryer on medium heat) for the monochrome wall-hanging, and wow, was it soft and light and scrumptious when it came out of the dryer!

Laid it all out on the hall floor yesterday afternoon during a brief window of opportunity (one cat asleep, the other outside), to start basting. Got up to the pin stage before the one cat woke up and the other came in and both plopped themselves down on the quilt sandwich and stuck their paws and noses in the pin bowl. No real mess done, although there are a couple small claw holes in one spot... nothing that won't disappear during quilting.

Had hoped to start quilting this morning, but we had some distractions overnight, in the form of the civil defense sirens going off every hour until after 3 am... hard to get a good night's sleep while under a tsunami warning! The best part was the 4.5 earthquake here while we were glued to the tube at 11pm hoping for updates! That's big enough to give the house a good shake, but nothing too serious. We get a lot of smallish rattles here, so no biggie, especially compared to what happened in Japan. Fortunately the high water has not had much affect in Hilo, although downtown is still closed. Once again I am so glad we moved up out of the tsunami zone two years ago (and this is one reason we moved!).

Anyway, all is well in my little corner of Hawaii, but I do not function well without sleep. Still feeling groggy and mentally not very sharp halfway through the larger-than-usual pot of coffee brewed up this morning. So, instead of embarking on quilting with a batting I haven't used before, which is likely to mean at least some testing and tension adjustments, I think I'll go do something mindless like sew up more bits from the scrap drawer, like these:

My "very small" scraps drawer has a lot of bits in it that are 2.5" wide but less than square. A couple days ago I used some extra minutes in the sewing room to put these strips together. No specific use in mind yet, but they will come in handy one of these days for a pillow border, or block sashing on a scrap project, or something else fun.

Haven't started 'palooza Block 14 yet, so I might feel inspired to pick fabrics for that and get the cutting done today, too. I doubt I'll have the brainpower for much desk work today, so that means lots of time in the sewing room. (Time I really should use to clean up the kitchen, vaccuum the house, or do laundry... it could happen.)

Block-a-Palooza Block 13 (twice)

2011-03-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

Block 13 (from Camp Follower) is a nice one, with tons of potential for color play. Which is kind of funny, because the original is so pale and subtle (qualities rarely used to describe my fabric choices).

I started with this one...

... because I've been wanting to use the red (in the corners) and brown colorways of "Asian Circles" together in something, and the turquoise and orange are so nice together I wanted to use them again, too. I like the detail of the floating nine-patch in the center, but that teeny little 1/8" border around it was something of a pain to produce. I said I wasn't going to do that again.

But I did. This morning I finally emailed all our tax info (there's a lot of it: we own two home-based businesses) off to our accountant, and rewarded myself with some time in the sewing room, producing this version:

I like this one even better. My original thought was to make a smaller nine-patch and frame it with a 1/4" border, but once I got going I figured "1/4", 1/8" might as well do the skinny one as the other." That purple and brown batik is a hibiscus print and one of my favorite fabrics. It sneaks into a lot of things I make. And I've been itching to use that Phillip Jacobs "coral" print in good-sized pieces somewhere. Here it is even better in the corners than I'd hoped.

Did you notice that little snippet of red leafy print in the very center? Yup, it's the other colorway of that "little green leafy" I've been including in each block. I've had the red on reserve for use in sashing/setting in some way when all the blocks are done, but couldn't resist sneaking a tidbit in here.

There are several 'palooza blocks that I like so much I want to make an entire quilt out of them. This is one of them. The temptation to exclude these blocks (and a few others) from the 'palooza quilt (whatever that turns out to be) so I can do something else with them is a strong one.

Two out of three...

2011-03-07T14:00:00.000-08:00

... borders are on the Amy Butler "One Block Wonder" quilt top:

It's a crappy day for photos here, very gloomy and rainy, but let up just a enough for a little brightness in our south-facing kitchen so I rushed to drape this over the counter for a quick shot.

Another round of sawtooth triangles will be added before calling this top "done." Those triangles are still in small units on my design wall, hope to get the final border on before next weekend. I cut the print border as wide as possible (which was about 10.5") to showcase the original fabric. I wasn't sure at all, until I got this far, that I would like the sawtooth thing; concern was it might be too circus-tent-y. But I'm liking it a lot. It adds that little bit of unexpected whimsy that I like to think is part of my "style." Without it, this is a bit more over-the-top floral than even I can stand.

Anyway, bad light, not quite done top... couldn't stop my impulse to show off in-process.

I haven't made a final backing decision yet, am waffling on binding options, and have no idea yet how I will quilt this. Lots to ponder as I sew a gazillion more little triangles together...

Block-a-Palooza Block 12, mostly

2011-03-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

I made Block 12 twice, because it's nice. As usual, I did not exactly follow the original design (sorry, Jennifer, don't take it personally, it's just how I am.)

For this one, instead of using two geese back-to-back in the center position of each side, I cut large squares from a bold Kaffe Fassett print and set them on point. I also rotated the corner geese squares so they are flying in from the edges. That lovely tonal red/orange print, BTW, is from a piece that has been in my stash since before I moved to Hawaii (in 1999). I am very, very choosy about where I use it (it began as a half-yard, and there is so little left!), and it is just right here.

I had a little bit of a bright green print loitering on the sewing table, left over from piecing a back for the monochrome project. It wanted to romp with Kaffe's "henna" in "duck egg", which has been in the "potential future block use" pile for some time:

I made on-point squares again, and paired them with teal/red/orange. This time I used the back-to-back geese idea from the original layout, and put them in the corners. The four-patch center is from the pile of extra 2.5" bits in the 'palooza fabric bin.

Although I couldn't resist cutting large squares to feature a couple of the many lovely fabrics that want a chance to shine in this project, I also really like the paired goose squares in close tones/values. This block is going to stay up on my design wall for a bit, as I think about what else I might make with back-to-back geese like this.

Today it's back to OBW borders (just as soon as I get enough desk stuff done to earn sewing time). I am very eager to get that top done so I can start quilting. Not that I've figured out how to quilt it yet. I'm weighing options. The monochrome top and back are ready to go, but I have no batting on hand (that stash went into the lap quilts project), so it's on hold until I get to my local quilt shop for supplies.

Randomizing

2011-03-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

This is my design wall today:

About 2/3 of the gazillion little 60-degree triangles that will frame a wider border for the Amy Butler OBW quilt. These are mostly sewn into 4-10-piece strips, and there's a pile of paired-up pieces out of frame for filling in any gaps. They're "darks" and "lights" of lots of different shades of mostly purples and greens, with a little pink and blue in the mix. I'm using the design wall to make sure I've adequately randomized the colors as I put the border strips together.

The four long strips are ready for final seaming, and will frame the center of the quilt top. Then there will be a border of the original fabric (width unknown: I have yet to face the quilt math of border length-width options vs. available yardage) and another row of sawtooth along the outside.

The little piles of cut fabric on the sewing machine deck, visible in the lower left corner of the pic above, are ready to be sewn up into 'palooza Block 12. A few blocks ago the task of figuring out what was or was not a "new" solid color to include in each block drove me to make these (with index cards and a gluestick):

In my mind, I'd used a lot of purple in this project, but according to these cards, I've been picking other solids instead, with the exception of a couple lavenders. So Block 12 will feature an intense imperial purple. I do have lots of solids to pick from, thanks to some FQ Kona packs acquired shortly before the 'palooza thing took off. Nevertheless, I'm running out of available favorites for the remaining blocks.

I've got more 'must-do' desk work awaiting attention today (I earned this short blogging break by getting certain items crossed off the task list). As soon as that's done I'll go put Block 12 together. Pics and a post will probably happen tomorrow morning.

Block-a-Palooza Block 11

2011-03-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

This one, from Fat Quarterly, was fun. It's a lot like Block 3 (one of my faves from the entire project), with the larger pieces in that block subdivided into new shapes.

As usual, I didn't exactly follow the original in terms of fabric placement, using my solid in the corners, and making all my geese from the same fabric pair.

I've been eyeing that orange Kaffe Fassett "Persimmons" for a while, and with this block its time had come to make an appearance. The focus here, though, is on the purple pinwheel in the center, so I played up those colors in the corners, too, and muted the orange by pairing it with the green leafy print. The hot pink solid is from the one small piece (about 4"x10") left after making this quilt. Cosmo and I are both very fond of that quilt, and I enjoyed including some of the pink here.

I really like how this block turned out, and am tempted to make another, but doubt I'll have time before Block 12 posts on Thursday.

In between 'palooza blocks I've been stitching away on some other projects. The monochrome top is either done or almost done, depending on whether or not I decide to add some applique, the pieced border for the One Block Wonder is creeping along, and I've got growing piles of stitched bits for a couple of long-term scrap projects. I keep a supply of cut scraps on the sewing table to use as "betweeners" and to sew up when I have a few minutes of time but insufficient energy or brainpower for anything requiring close attention or design decisions. One of these scrap projects is getting close to the point where I'll put the assembled units up on the design wall and take some pics to show you how it's shaping up.

March sewing goals:
1) Finish the monochrome project by the 3/31 Modern Quilt Guild Challenge deadline
2) Get the borders done and applied to the OBW center, and the whole thing layered and pin-basted for quilting
3) Keep up with the remaining 'palooza blocks, and decide on a layout (yes, a specific layout will be provided by the 'palooza team when the blocks are all done; chances I'll use that arrangement are slim)
4) Finish the blocks for the farthest-along scrap project, and get that up on the design wall so I can play with the layout

I have not abandoned garment sewing, although it might appear that way. Sooner or later I'll need something new to wear, and I'll start cutting up my quilting stash for new skirts or warm-weather dresses. Until then, I'm focused on quilting-type fun.

Block-a-Palooza Block 10

2011-02-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

I love this one so much I'm squeaking! By now you will not be surprised to see that I changed things up just a little bit, using six fabrics:

Thanks, Amy Ellis! And Philip Jacobs, who created the charming bird in the middle. I have a measly FQ of this fabric*, and almost couldn't bear to cut into it.

These colors together are so delicious, I want to make a whole quilt from them. There was a time when I thought grey was always and forever boring, but I'm learning to love it with the right playmates.

* What's that? You remember seeing a very similar print here in a fabric post somewhen? Ahem, yes, I do have more than two yards of "summer tree" in the turquoise colorway. So it's not like I'm starving for it. Today, though, I am grooving on the grey version, and I want more.

Block-a-palooza Block 9

2011-02-22T19:44:00.000-08:00

Block 9, from Scott at Blue Nickel Studios, is called "Lemonade Stand" and it's a doozy. I cringed when I saw those tiny geese in the center, but it's worth playing with the teeny pieces:

Rummaging around in the scrap piles (my large scraps used to be in a bin, but are now in heaps all over my sewing room; these blocks keep coming before I can clean up), I found a piece of Heather Bailey print perfect for fussy cutting corners. Once I committed to that, throwing the other HB candy-colored prints in the mix was a must.

The geese got into quite a state at all the excitement and insisted on fleeing the scene, so they are facing out, rather than swirling around the center. I don't blame them. I'm calling this one "explosion at the candy factory."

My inner four-year-old loves these prints, but they are so young and sugary sweet they've never fit in well with the rest of my stash. This block was fun to throw together, but it's making my teeth ache. If I'm going to go over-the-top/off-the-deep-end (as has been known to happen) I prefer a more grown-up goofiness.

Like this:

This is the "by the rules one," planned around using the last of an old Kaffe Fassett charm pack for those corner squares. I'd already trimmed these long ago to 4" for something they never got used for (don't remember what), so reducing them to 3.5 didn't seem like a big deal. I hadn't used the dots in a few blocks, and they were feeling neglected, so they got to join in the fun, too.

I wish now that I'd squared up the 9-patch center unit before adding the sides, as it is clearly not square, but I was tired and hungry and impatient and just wanted to get it done. No chance I'll go back and redo it, so I'm crossing my fingers it will look fine once quilted.

BTW: I made all the geese for these two blocks the "wasteful" way: sewing a diagonal across 1.5" squares on top of a 1.5"x2" rectangle and trimming the extra. Which is way too tiny to make HSTs from, and a few square inches of fabric, total, so hardly a big waste. No way I was going to follow the instructions, which assumed a higher tolerance for lining up and sewing (accurately! without stretching!) little bias edges than I will ever have. The squares were so small I didn't even bother penciling in the seam lines, just eye-balled it.

Block-a-Palooza Block 8

2011-02-22T19:41:00.000-08:00

It's in the mosaics, but I forgot to post a bigger pic of my completed 'palooza Block 8, a basket of geese by Angela Yosten (originally, as usual I took some liberties). Mine looks like this:

The center basket is machine appliqued using "wonder-under" fusible to hold everything in place. This was my first time doing machine applique, which just happens to be an item on my "new sewing things to try in 2011" list, so it was fun to get to do that on a 'palooza block.

Angela's block uses bigger "geese" for the handle. I cut mine in half, and used more of them. I also added the little circle at center top, and the little red feet for the basket. I also used a very small zigzag stitch instead of a blanket stitch to nail all the applique bits in place. My machine's blanket stitch, which I have not used before, and tested on a scrap, is a doubled stitch that looks impressively like a (very tidy) stitch hand-sewn with perle cotton. It's a nice effect, and I look forward to using it on a future project someday, but was not the look I wanted here.

The hardest part of this block was peeling the *&$^#%@! paper backing off the fused wonder-under. I have fingernails and know how to use them. Usually I am the person who can coax a stubborn backing off something when all others around me have failed. But not this time.

I followed the Pellon instructions to press the rough side of the fusible onto the backside of the fabric "for 5-8 seconds with a hot, dry iron." My sister, when I moaned about the peel-off hassle to her, said that sounded like way longer than necessary. It's also possible that Pellon had in mind sewists using cheap-o, wimpy irons, not a super-dang-duper high-tech iron, which is what I roll with. Mine gets really hot. Next time I will fuse as briefly as possible, on a lower setting, and hope the paper puts up less of a fight.

I used a total of 4 new prints in this block, and expect they will all make repeat appeances before the 'palooza fun is over.

My Block 7 how-to

2011-02-19T12:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a quickie tute for anyone who wants to make their own alternative 'palooza Block 7, like this one:

First, select five fabrics from your stash. You will need:

1 MEDIUM PRINT with low contrast for the edge pieces: 4 8.5" x 2.5" pieces
2 PRINTS for the "geese"; one DARK, one LIGHT. From each print: 4 2.5" squares; 4 4.5" x 2.5" rectangles
2 contrasting SOLIDS for the corners that pick up colors from the prints. From each solid: 4 2-7/8" squares

Pair up the solids and make your corner half-square triangles by drawing a diagonal line (I use a mechanical pencil) and sewing 1/4" on either side:

Cut apart along the pencil line, and press your seams. I always press my seams open (the seams lie flatter than way, and it's much easier to match up points), but if you're a side-presser do it your way. Set your HSTs aside while you prepare the Geese units.

Take 2 of your LIGHT print 4.5"x2.5" rectangles and pair up with 4 of the DARK print 2.5" squares. Pair 2 of the DARK print 4.5"x2.5" rectangles with 4 of the LIGHT print 2.5" squares. Make these sets into four Flying Geese units by sewing on the square's diagonal, just as you have for previous blocks.

BTW: If you are making little extra HSTs out of the goose trimmings, sew 1/2" away from the first seam (toward the outside corner) and cut between the two seam lines. It's easier to make those little HSTs now than to pair up and sew tiny triangles later. I draw the second seam line at the same time I do the first one, and sew them both then snip apart before doing the other side of the goose.

Finish up your four goose units. The extra four rectangles go together to make the center. Place your 2 LIGHT rectangles face down and measure in 2" from each corner on one side and mark that spot with a pencil. Then draw a diagonal line to the farther corner from each mark. You'll make a little "X" at the center of one side where the seam lines cross:

Pair up your LIGHT and DARK rectangles right sides together and sew ONE corner seam on each pair (sew two right corners or two left ones, doesn't matter, but be sure to sew the SAME corner on each pair). Trim and press. Make two of these:

Now place these units right sides together, matching the seams. (It's a good idea to use pins here, to keep everything nicely lined up. I rarely pin anything, but you might want to.) With your ruler, line up on the light-side pencil line and extend it across the dark end. Sew up that seam, and trim the corners. (Somehow I did not manage a pic of that step, sorry). Press open.You'll end up with a quarter-square triangle unit for the center of the block:

Yes, you could just cut a larger square of each fabric, slice on the diagonal, sew up and trim... but then you wouldn't have more little extra HSTs like the ones you make from the other geese to add to the pile, which is entirely why I did mine this way.

Okay, all the bits are done, now we just have to sew them together. Add a goose unit to each side of the center (light to dark, or dark to light, doesn't matter), and a HST unit to each side of the other two geese units. Line them all up in orderwith an edge piece on either side, and sew the seams:

Sew the other HST units to either end of the other two sides (make sure you get the colors in the right place), and sew up those seams and you're done.

Keep in mind it's easier to get sharp points and neatly aligned corners if you press your seams open. Here I'm adding one of the the side geese to the center unit, using my 1/4" foot. With the seam pressed open I can see exactly where the tip of the goose is, no guessing:

The best thing you can do for your sewing is to invest in a really good iron. Good heat and a lot of steam will help those bulky seam allowances stay open. (And if you prewash all your fabric, as I do, you can press with as much heat and steam as you want or need, without concern that the fabric might shrink.)

'Palooza Mid-Way RoundUp & a Sneak Peak

2011-02-19T11:32:00.000-08:00

We're halfway through the Block-a-Palooza quilt-along. Here are all the blocks I've made so far. Way more than the requried 8, 'cause I couldn't resist making more than one of some of them:

Half-way-point giveaway chances have been promised to all who post proof they've been diligently sewing along, so I figured it was time to find out how to make these cool photo mosaics. Turns out it's easy-peasy right here. Just link to your Flickr acct and insert your pics.

This is the core group of blocks. They each feature the little green leaf print, a different solid (or two), and at least one print not seen in previous blocks. My original plan was to use these for the "real" 'palooza quilt, and do something else with the others. But anything could happen. I may mix and match when the time comes. Chances that I will follow the prescribed 'palooza layout (as yet unknown) are slim, given that my brain thinks "instructions" are mere suggestions to be modified, embellished, or discarded at will.

In addition to quilt-along fun, I've also been working on a semi-secret project. This is for the Modern Quilt Guild Monochrome Challenge, and I won't be ready to show it off for a while yet, but here's a teeny preview. It started out with a whole lot of this, because I happen to have a lot of greens in the stash:

And now features a lot of this:

The brighter parts are all done. This weekend I'll be getting as much of the darker sections completed as I can. I'm making it up as I go along, so it's hard to say how much more work/time will go into it, but I think I'm on-track to make the March 31 deadline without too much stress.

This may be too "art-quilty" by the time it's done to appeal to a "modern" judge, but I like how it's turning out enough to finish it, regardless of how modern it does or doesn't look, or whether or not making the deadline remains feasible.

My Own 'Palooza Block 7

2011-02-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

I'm sure there are Block-a-Palooza participants grateful for Heather's easy, simple Block 7, but it was too easy and simple to interest me. So I used it as the basis to design my own block.

Starting with Heather's concept of a large 9-patch with 4-patches in the corners and center...

I then,
1) removed the center 4-patch:

2) added corner-to-corner diagonals:

3) added flying geese around the center:

4) removed a couple of seams from each side:

Selected fabrics following my rules and voila, a new 'palooza block that's all me. Or as much "all me" as any grid-based block design can be. There are a zillion and one variations on this kind of block, and they've all be done by someone, somewhen. Shouldn't stop you from playing around on your own, though, because it's fun.

If you'd like specific instructions on how to make this block for yourself, let me know in the comments, and I'll share my constructions notes and some pics in a new post.

* * * * * *
UPDATE: Instructions for this block are now available here.

Block-a-Palooza Block 6

2011-02-12T15:45:00.000-08:00

Block 6 joins the fun courtesy of the Happy Zombie. My first rendition adheres to my self-imposed fabric guidelines (new solid and one new print each block; repeat the green leaf print in every block), and turned out very well:

That's the last of the purple stripe, BTW, so I'll have to come up with something equally fun (from stash, of course) for the next ones. Now that I've got six blocks done from these guidelines, the blocks are starting to look more cohesive. This one, especially, helps the first two blocks play well with the others.

Meanwhile, the pile of "outliers" (anything goes versions, not required to socialize unless they want to) is growing. I made two extras of this block, because I wanted to experiment with light vs. dark backgrounds. I did a dark-background one first, with pleasing though not spectacular result:

I've been itching to include a piece of that butterfly fabric somewhere, but with dark b'flies on an ivory background it's a tricky fabric to use. It's okay here, but will be better in larger pieces somewhere else.

This light background one might be my favorite, in spite of my needing a couple time-outs during construction. I repeated the background fabric around the center so the "arrows" would pop more:

This one gave me more trouble than all my other 'palooza blocks combined. Partly due to user error: I sewed in one big unit backwards. Twice. Plus, in spite of what I thought was my usual care in cutting and seaming, nothing about this block wanted to stay square or line up. The fact that it turned out square in the end, and most (not all) points seem compliant, is due to forceful and repeated use of a hot steam iron and an uncharacteristic (for me) willingness to rip out and redo a few inches of seam here and there as necessary. I even used a pin in one spot! Folks, when I resort to using a pin, even just one, you know things are in a bad way .

I'm very glad it's only early afternoon on Saturday, because I need a day off before the next block goes "live" on Monday.

Plus, I have a secret project up on the design wall that I'd like to work on this afternoon. Don't worry, it won't be a secret forever. I'll show it off in a few weeks when it's further along. I'm also working on a pieced border for the purple and green OBW. That doesn't look like anything but a huge pile of scraps right now.

Block-a-Palooza Block 5

2011-02-09T12:42:00.000-08:00

That's a lot of little geese:

This block is all about the border, so for the central 9-patch I choose a "light" and "dark" with similar medium tones that blur the seam lines a little. The dark squares look almost fussy cut, but are not: I cut them from scraps left over from fussy cutting my first Block 3, and did not fuss over them.

Wanted to incorporate a solid light blue, and discovered I had 4 FQ or smaller pieces of very close but slightly different blues, so I used all of them.

My rows of border geese turn at the edges of the 9-patch, rather than at the edges of the block, as patterned. I made half the geese from the little green leaf print I'm using in every block, and then picked three other prints (repeated from this Block 4) for the rest of the flock. I wanted the magenta geese to be at the head of their row on each side, but didn't like the effect of having them out at the edge. Here they keep movement in the block turning around the center, instead of flying off the edges.

Miss Print did a lovely job designing this block, but I think one of this one will do for me. For now.

I won!

2011-02-07T12:13:00.000-08:00

... the January Amy Butler Style Stitches Sew Along fabric giveaway!

Seems only fitting that I use these for future AmyB sewalong projects if I can match these prints (AmyB Geisha Fans, and Alexander Henry Abstract) to good bag choices:

The Alex.Henry abstract will be a challenge, but I'm up for it. As soon as I've earned a longer break by getting some "real work" (vs. fabric fondling) done, I'm going to make a cup of tea and sit down with the book and daydream about the possibilities.

Thanks SewAlong organizer Bree, and Jan. sponsor SewSweetness!

Block-a-Palooza Block 3 Revisited

2011-02-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

Better camera luck today. Here are the two new versions of 'palooza Block 3 I sewed up yesterday. I love the bluey-greeny deliciousness of this one...

... and the pow! factor of this one:

They both go well with Block 4, version 1. Here are my 'palooza "outliers" so far:

Block 5 goes "live" tomorrow. Maybe I'll get another outlier from that one, too.

Block-a-Palooza Block 4

2011-02-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to report that my machine is back from the spa and purring along "like buttah." I sat down yesterday to sew up some of the piece sets I'd cut earlier in the week. Here's Block-a-palooza Block 4. (Design by the talented Cherri at Cherry House Quilts)

This pinwheel block features my current favorite fabric, the lime on white batik, which I've had since last year sometime, a more recent purchase (the Philip Jacobs coral print framing strips) and a Bird of Paradise print that's been in my stash for at least five years. The corner squares are all Kaffe Fassett prints from the scrap drawer. I love how this block turned out. It's very "me."

I haven't entirely given up, though, on following the tone set by Blocks 1&2 and the fabric guidelines I came up with to (fingers crossed) ensure some kind of balance between variation and consistency across the 16 blocks I'll end up with by the end of this journey.

Block 4 above does repeat a couple prints from earlier blocks (in the corners), and bring new ones in, but does not include a solid. And, as you know, I've earmarked a certain purple stripe for more "geese" (or, in this case, their close cousin, the pinwheel). Plus, I'm really liking the little green leaf print I've used in all 3 previous blocks, so I've added "include the little green leaf print in every block" to my 'palooza self-challenge.

So I made a second Block 4:

I'm not as excited by this one, but since I was aiming for a transition block (in terms of color intensity and style) between Blocks 1&2 and Block 3, it turned out perfectly. It does a very good job of pulling this set of blocks together. With Block 4 in the picture, Block 3 (upper right) feels more like a member of the family:

I also made a couple more Block 3s just for fun (including my wildest block yet!), but they refused to be photographed yesterday, so I'll have to try again in a little bit when the light is better.

My sister rightly asked "how many 'palooza quilts are you making?" to which the answer is still "one." Probably. I do expect to collect extra blocks along the way, but it's too soon to say what I'll do with them. I might have enough for a second quilt top, or they might end up as pillows.

Block-a-Palooza: a new direction

2011-02-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

My sewing machine is still at the spa, so unless I undertake handsewing (no thanks, the ongoing hexies project provides enough of that) completion of Block-a-Palooza Block #4 will have to wait. I picked some fabrics for it, though, because a day without fabric fondling is like a day without sunshine:

I'm not sure I'll love the top one, although I''m confident it will be plenty nice enough to use. I want to keep open the option of including one solid and the green/blue little leaf print in each block, so the top row selection will satisfy that criteria, should I decide to stick with it to the end.

But I'm branching out into some wilder combos that are more "me." As much as I love my Block 3, it's brighter and bolder than my Blocks 1 & 2. So I thought maybe I'd make at least one more of those two, in a more muted (for me) fabric range, to fit better with the first two.

It didn't go well. My "more sedate" fabric combos came out like this:

Do those look tame to you?

Clearly my muse has spoken and there's only one thing to do: go back and make bolder versions of Blocks 1 & 2. I'm not especially eager to do that, but if I don't get my machine back soon I'll go ahead and cut some pieces for those just to keep myself entertained until sewing can begin again.

Sitting this one out

2011-02-01T18:31:00.000-08:00

I dropped my sewing machine off at the BabyLock dealer for servicing yesterday, which means all active sewing steps on various works in progress are on hold. That makes this a good time to fondle my stash and cut more of it up.

I thought I'd get started on February's project for the Style Stitches Sew-Along: the Reversible Everyday Shopper.

I like the reversible idea a lot. I like the one big pocket either-side-out thing. But once again this bag is huge: a whopping 19" high, 16" wide at the base/13" at the top, and over 5" wide. Fill that baby up and carry it around for a while and you'll be crying for a chiropractor. And Amy, sorry, but I don't much like the shape or proportions of this one, something that you usually do so well.

This seems like a good choice for mothers of multiple young children who need to carry several bushels of what-have-you around every day, and who are fit enough for pack-horse duty. I'm reasonably fit, but don't have young kids or any need to carry vast quantities of personal items with me much of the time. Nevertheless, the "sew your way through the book" appeal is strong, and as you know I have no qualms about shrinking a pattern, so I was on the fence about this... until I googled the bag and read this post . Check out those real-world photos.That's huge!
It's not that we don't use tote bags, and large ones. We do. We carry home vast quantities of local produce from the Hilo farmer's market every week, and do most of the rest of our shopping at health food stores that have bring-your-own-bag policies. So we do use market totes. Lots of them. I did a quick count and found 12 errands bags for a two-person household, and there's probably another one or two in the car.

All that aside,what really stopped me was the lack of a good fabric pairing for this one. It's made of home dec fabric, of which I have some lovely pieces in the stash. What I don't have is two lovely pieces that look good together. So I'd either have to shop for fabric (nixed by my "make it from stash" vow), or make the bag from a single fabric.

I'd be willing to do that if I loved it enough to use some of my lovely stash fabric on it, but I don't. Or if I needed another tote, which I don't. Or if I could think of a friend or family member to gift the finished item to, but everyone I know is already weighed down with more totes than they have use for. Except possibly my Mom, but she's in her 70s and giving her a bag this size could consitite elder abuse.

So I'm going to sit this month out. It's not like I need to make another bag just for the fun of it. I've got plenty of goodies-in-progress in the sewing room to keep me busy. And I might jump ahead to April and get started on the Checkbook Cover, which I really do need. It's a nice one:

... but again, bigger than necessary.

I have multiple checkbooks for our various business and personal accounts, and I want them to look nice while taking up as little space as possible. So this pattern, too, is heading for modification.

Block-a-Palooza Block #3 is a winner!

2011-01-31T15:49:00.000-08:00

Oh, man, I love how this turned out so much I want to make a whole quilt out of it.

Too bad I'm working from stash, as I don't have much left of the chartreuse solid, and only enough of the stripe for a couple, maybe three, more geese blocks for the 'palooza thing.

On the plus side, I recently got more of the Kaffe Fassett "persimmons" print in the center (2 whole yards, squeeeee! although a day will come when I'll wish I'd bought six) because I was down to about a fat eighth and the idea of running out of it entirely was unbearable.

I'm going to have to make at least one more of this block. No way am I done playing with it. Won't be able to sew them up right away, though, as I'm taking my machine in for servicing in about half an hour. Hope they can turn it around fast.

Thanks, Sasikirana Homemade, for this lovely block layout!

Repairs and a possible fix

2011-01-29T10:51:00.000-08:00

Thanks for your comments on the Cosmo Bag!

Alas, a new needle has not solved the swishy sound my machine now makes with each stitch. Best guess is the metal shank thingie that moves the needle up and down is gently brushing against something else inside there out of sight. It's not interfering with performance (yet), but it's like an ill-fitting sneaker: you can go for a run but might come home with a blister. Further investigation will be left to the repair guy.

In the meantime, since it's now the weekend and the machine is still sewing okay, I probably won't be able to resist a few more seams before I take it in on Monday. And since the next 'palooza block will go live on Monday morning, I might even do that first thing. We'll see how any further weekend sewing goes.

Marie-Christine, something in your comment on shrinking curves led me to think about (next time) using some kind of light-weight, maybe wash-out, fusible strip to hold the edges of the clipped and turned-back curves in place. Having shrunk the pattern, I was working both with a narrower seam allowance (3/8" instead of 1/2") and a tighter curve, which I clipped generously. All those little clipped seam allowance bits did not stay pressed back, and wrestling with two facing layers of that and the curve was more work that it should have been. A strip of some kind of adhesive that would not interfere with sewing would have helped a lot.

Any ideas, readers? I haven't used that kind of product before, but I know they exist. It would have to be something narrow, that would follow a curve without puckering. I could even pick some up when I take my machine in on Monday.

Meanwhile, I'm previewing February's project, the "Reversible Everyday Shopper," and already thinking about how I'm going to change/resize that one.

The Bag that Broke My Machine

2011-01-28T19:30:00.000-08:00

My "Cosmo" Bag (January's kick-off to a year of Amy Butler accessories) is finally done, and I'm about done in.

Folks, making my own jeans -- which I did last year -- was easier than making this bag!

Amy, honey, I love your style, I love your fabrics, I love your books, but you are insane to rate this one "easy."

Maybe that's partly because I reduced the pattern at 78%, so the inside handle curve is smaller and less maneuverable. (Worth it, for a bag that will be more everyday useful to me; I don't need a gigundo one very often.) But maybe not. Amy's instructions sometimes seem to be written for ease of explanation more than than for ease of construction. I may not be the most expert or experienced seamstress on the block, but I'm not new at this. I have a reasonable skill set to draw on. Even so, the final steps of this bag kicked my butt.

And messed up my machine.

I was doing the final edge-stitching along the inside handle curve -- with just six more inches of stitching to do before all that remained was hand-sewing the button -- and as we climbed a mountainous pileup of interfaced seams at the corner of the band, something made an ominous popping sound.

I thought I'd broken the needle, but it's okay. I was able to finish stitching, and all's well visually: no horrific nest on the bobbin side. But now there's this kind of swishy sound with each stitch, which means something got knocked out of alignment.

First I'll try replacing the needle (I'd planned to switch to a new one after this project anyway), in hopes that the problem is a slightly bent needle. If that's not it, I'll be taking my stalwart friend in for servicing. At least I'll have a pretty bag to tote along as I drive to the BabyLock dealer. Here's the inside:

Finished dimensions of this one are...

Width at the base: 11"

Across the widest part: 15"

Depth at the base: 4"

Depth at the top: 3"

Height to top edge of center band (at the middle, above the button): 10.5"

Height with handles: 20"

Oh, and I added a piece of heavyweight box board to the bottom, for stability. I slipped it in between bag and lining before completing the final (gruelling) step of sewing the inside handle edges together.

For those just tuning in to this project, here are my comments on:
Binding the pocket edges
Doing the center band my way
Taking a few liberties with the lining

The true test of this bag will come when I use it. I think I will like it, but no way will I make it again until enough time has passed that I've forgotten how tedious fusing all the interfacing was -- or until little elves show up to do that sort of thing for me and to erase from memory the trickiest and most irksome bits.

If you're a beginning sewer and tempted by this bag, just put the book down and walk away. Start with something simpler like the Birdie Sling before tackling this one.

Block-a-Palooza - Block #2

2011-01-27T18:16:00.000-08:00

Whew!

Good thing this wasn't block #1. I'd have clicked away at lightning speed rather than get involved in an 81-piece block!. Just cutting all those 2" squares was a chore. I briefly considered strip-piecing this, but my brain wasn't up to calculating what that would entail for one block, so I didn't. My seams are just a bit wonky, but I love it anyway.

I had to tackle this one in four sessions:

1) Choosing and cutting fabric, and sewing into 27 3-square strips

2) Pressing the strips and sewing them up into the small 9-patch units, and pressing all the new seams

3) Trimming the 9-patch units to 4.5"

4) Assembling the block and pressing again

I came this close to forgetting to trim the 9-patch units to 4.5"! Good thing I remembered, because if I'd messed that up I'd have thrown in the towel on the sew-along rather than rip this block apart or start over.

This one turned out better than I'd hoped. I really like how the darks and lights in this rendition hint at a plaid. Trimming the 9-patch units seemed like so much extra work, but in the end that subtle difference in the width/height of some rows/columns is what makes this block sing.

As you can see with the blocks side by side, I deliberately emphasized the larger 9-patch element by keeping the blue and green prints together. I placed them in the "+" position of the block 9-patch this time, to contrast with their "X" position in Block 1:

Of course I have no idea yet whether or not these blocks will end up as neighbors. They'll look nice wherever in the finished quilt they are.

This is just about the last of that pale blue Amy Butler print. I have one 12"x1.25" strip and three much smaller pieces left, enough to toss into the "small scraps" drawer for future use, but probably not enough for a future appearance in this project. I am sorry to see it go.

And I am loving the brown and magenta Kaffe Fassett dots. They play so well with the green leaf print. I do have more of both dots, so expect to see them again in another 'palooza block or two.

In spite of initial misgivings, I am now hooked on this project. That said, I hope the rest of the blocks are faster and easier to construct than this one was.

One is not enough

2011-01-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

One mystery block was not enough, so with Blockapalooza Block #2 live today, I'm still in. But Oh, Fransson, that's a lot of little squares!

My plans to do each block in one go have fallen through. Block #1 from start to done was under :90, but :90 into this one and I'm only this far along:

That's 81 2" squares assembled into 27 3-square strips, which after pressing and more sewing will become 9 9-patch units and one big block. Easy piecing, but not quick when there are so many little pieces. I need to get some desk time in today before coming back to this.

Picking fabric one ate up some time, plus interruptions by the cats.* I stuck with my guidelines to replace the solid in each block and add or replace one fabric. I kept the green and blue prints, replaced the solid purple with a reddish brown, and replaced the purple stripe with the two dotted fabrics. I do plan to use more of the stripe, and have it in reserve for the next block that features "geese."

Yesterday I finally finished sewing all the OBW rows together. Not difficult, but the kind of thing best done in short spurts over a leisurely time period. I haven't trimmed the sides yet, and am still awaiting delivery of more fabric for a border. I put it back up on the design wall the other way up, for a different view while I contemplate border options. No pic of the whole thing yet (will take one when borders are done), as it looks just like the layout but a little tighter now the interior seams are all done. Here's a detail for you :

I don't have a clue yet how I'm going to quilt this. Any ideas?

I am trying very hard not to jump right in on another one of these. Several lengths of fabric in the stash are calling to me. One "One Block Wonder" is definitely not enough!

* yes, that's "cats": plural. One bundle of furry cuteness is not enough, so this past Saturday we headed over to Rainbow Friends Animal Sanctuary and brought this little darling home:

Her name is Namaste. The first night she was here she claimed this quilting test piece (used to test thread tension, stitching) as hers, so I trimmed the edges and bound it with pink bias tape. She insists we keep her basket on the kitchen table by this sunny window.

Cosmo isn't sure what to think of her, but is more curious than alarmed at the instrusion:

I think they'll get along just fine.

Blockapalooza? A definite maybe.

2011-01-26T11:41:00.000-08:00

This could be going nowhere:

My first response to the Blockapalooza thing was "nah, not interested." What, buy a coordinated set of FQs from one designer collection to make a sew-along block-of-the-week quilt? Soooooo not my style!

For one thing, I'm not much interested in traditional blocks and settings, and have don't particularly like the result of throwing a set of different ones together and calling them a quilt. For another, although coordinated fabric sets are pretty, to my eye they just don't have that pow-factor that comes from mixing up unexpected colors and patterns. You know, the kind of affect you only get by wallowing around in a sizeable and well-aged stash. Add that mystery quilt projects hold little interest (I'd so much rather make up my own thing!), and that "Flying Geese" especially has consistently produced in me one big yawn, and you can see why my first instict was to pass this up. Not to mention that I only have about half a gazillion other projects (both of the sewing and typing variety) going on.

But.... "never say 'never'", right?

Why did I end up throwing this block together last night? Partly because I had a heap of FQs and scraps already on the cutting counter to choose from. And partly because if you throw the "follow along as we make this from Moda's new Sunkissed whatever" out the window (yes it's a pretty line; it's also a great example of the kind of stuff that makes me want to take a nap), this Blockapalooza thing is a great opportunity to move ahead on my 2011 sewing goal of using up a bunch of the scraps and FQs overflowing my stash.

Two blocks a week is a lot, but if I do each in one go, like this one (under 90 minutes, from grabbing some fabric to snapping a pic), I might be able to keep up. Still undecided if I will continue with this, but if so my plan is to:

1) Use a different solid in each block

2) Replace or add one new print for each block

3) Pick fabric for each block quickly, no perfectionism allowed

4) Maintain my usual loose interpretation of recommendations such as "close in tone" or "coordinating."

What I like best about Block #1? I finally used some of that purple stripe FQ that is almost old enough to qualify as "vintage." Overall, I rate it a "meh," but it might look better when a few more are done.

Cosmo Bag - Lining Details

2011-01-25T13:10:00.000-08:00

I took a few minutes away from desk stuff this morning to get the main lining pieces for the Cosmo Bag ready to assemble. As usual, I did a few things differently, and thought I'd share those details at the flat stage, while they are easy to photograph:

Changes:

1) As you can see, I added a band detail to the center top of the lining (Amy's version has this piece only on the outside). This is purely decorative. I cut two "band" pieces (one for each side of the lining) from the lining trim fabric. They are not interfaced. I stay-stitched a generous 1/4" inside the bottom curve, then notched the seam allowance* and pressed to the back. The bands are placed on top of each lining piece, with upper raw edges even, then edge stitched along the bottom to hold in place. I also ran a line of stitching just inside the top edge to keep that from shifting when I put the entire bag together.

* If you're just tuning in, you should know that I am making a smaller version of this bag, having reduced all the pattern pieces at 78% on our copier. This reduces the seam allowance, too, so while Amy's instructions call for 1/2" seams, I'm using a 3/8" seam throughout. For a full-size bag, the stay-stitching should be at 3/8", not 1/4" from the edge.

2) I'm using the lining trim print for the interior side of handles (exterior fabrics can be seen here).

3) I cut the pocket for this side of the lining about an inch shorter than the other one. These are deep pockets, and I thought having one side a bit shallower might be useful. On the other side I added a line of stitching in the center to divide into two equal-sized pockets. On this side I moved that line to the side (it didn't show in the pic, so that's indicated by the bright yellow line), for one bigger and one smaller pocket.

On a full-size bag this larger pocket would probably be too big, and I'd most likely have dividing one side into two and the other side into three pockets.

4) I added a fake tag from a scrap of red fabric, purely for fun. I'd say I do this on everything I sew, but truth is I often forget. I'm glad I remembered this time, because it will make me happy each time I see it. Plus, sometimes it's useful to tell one side of a bag (or garment) from the other at a glance.

So that's where I'm at with this as of this morning. I might get to assembling the lining this afternoon, but that's not a sure thing. I'll show off the completed bag as soon as it's done.

Cosmo Bag Progress - exterior done

2011-01-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

It took a long time to get to completing next steps on my Cosmo Bag for the Amy Butler Style Stitches Sew-Along, although the exterior is now done:

It will look better when I get around to pressing the side seams, which I have not done yet.

First, there was a slight delay while I contemplated the instructions for Step 5 (attach the bands to the main exterior pieces) then walked away.

It's not that piecing two reverse curves together intimidates me. Stay-stitching, clipped or notched seam allowances, getting one concave and one convex curve to make friends: I can do all that. It's Amy's method that seemed all wrong to me. For one thing, why wait until after you've wrestled the two pieces together to notch the seam allowance, when doing that first makes fitting the curves together so much easier (yes, it does mean sewing a line of stay-stitching before the seam, but she has you do that on the handles, so why not here?). And then, "ease the band around the curve on the bag exterior" ... ?!? Um, no, the way to get two curves to play nice is to fit the concave one (the bag exterior) to the convex one (the band) and sew with the convex one on the bottom. Really. It just goes so much more easily that way. Especially when both pieces have a layer of interfacing fused to them, which doesn't exactly help with that "ease" into place requirement.

I considered giving Amy's way a go, just to be fair to the instructions, but I'm not that kind of a seamstress. I came back to it yesterday and did it my way. Which, after a brief moment's thought, involved staystitching along the edge of the band, notching and pressing the seam allowance to the back and then simply top-stitching that piece into place onto the bag exterior. Quick and easy, no wrestling required. Probably not as strong a bond, but that curve isn't going to be taking much of the weight of bag contents anyway, so I don't expect it to be a problem.

Handles and handle inner edge prep were no biggie, so that's all done too, as is assembling the sides to the main body pieces and attaching the bag bottom (although I didn't exactly follow the instructions there, either).

Pic at the top is where I'm at so far: exterior done, waiting for me to get to the lining assembly.

I did add one step that might interest others constructing this ginormous bag. I like the look of the outside pockets, but they are both narrow and very deep, which strikes me as a poor combination. (Keep in mind that I reduced this bag size, so those side pockets are very narrow for my hand. I don't see keeping anything other than maybe a pen in there, and would like to be able to get it out again.)

So, I shortened both the side pockets by aligning the lined pocket pieces over the bag side pieces. Amy has you baste these in place by sewing along the sides and bottom at this stage, which is the kind of extra step I just laugh at. Plus, if you do that, you won't be able to do this:

I flipped just the top layer of the pocket up (to the left, in the pic; you're seeing the white interfacing side folded back), leaving the lining in place, and stitched a line across about 3" up from the bottom. Flip the pocket exterior piece back into place before sewing up those side seams. Now the pocket isn't too deep, and that seam is hidden, rather than having a line of stitching show across the outside of the pocket.

Cosmo Bag: bound pocket edges

2011-01-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to assemble my Cosmo Bag for the Amy Butler Style Stitches Sew-Along. As mentioned previously, I'm using a solid fabric to line the pockets. But I like the detail of a contrast fabric at the top of the exterior pockets, so I used a separate strip to bind those edges. I didn't try to match the strip length to the pocket width, and will trim the excess later.

I cut the pocket exterior and lining pieces the same height (rather than the lining being a bit taller, as the pattern dictates), and a binding strip a scant 1.25" wide. Sew one side of the strip to the top of the pocket exterior, and the other side of the strip to the pocket lining (I used a 1/4" seam), then press the seams toward the center of the binding strip, like this:

Flip the lining over so wrong sides are together, and line up the bottom and side edges. Press again, and the pockets are ready to go, like this:

If you'd like the finished contrast a little wider, use a wider binding strip and a wider seam: a 1-5/8" strip with 3/8" seams would probably do it, but I haven't tested that so you might want to do up a little sample before applying to your pockets.

The interior pockets are lined with the same blue solid. I decided to bind those top edges, too, in a different print:

More progress reports to come...

OBW OCD

2011-01-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

I have a known tendency to get sucked into the creative flow of a project to the abandonement of all other responsibilities. Folks, fiddling with the One Block Wonder layout took this to a whole new level of obsessive compulsion. I kept telling myself, "let it sit for a bit, come back to it later," but I kept seeing one more block position swap that could maybe move it one step closer to perfect. Or as close as it's going to get:

This is major layout revision #3, made from 78 pieced blocks, and 3 "solid" ones cut as whole hexagons from the original fabric. Can you find them (click pic for larger view)?

When I purchased this fabric (Amy Butler's "Bliss Bouquet" in emerald, from her Love collection), I only got 3 yards because I was feeling frugal and didn't want to buy a lot more yardage for borders and back until I knew I'd like the result. Now I know I like it a lot, so I ordered more fabric a couple days ago, which meant I could cut another row's worth of blocks from the little bit extra I'd been hoarding in case I needed it for a border. Not sure what size it will end up yet. I don't have a particular size in mind, and will let the quilt tell me how big it wants to be.

I'm ready to call this stage "done." There are other ways that work, but this is the best so far. And at this point I've played with the blocks so much their edges are starting to fray. It's time to stop messing with it and sew it up.

Well, actually, it's time for me to stay out of the sewing room for a day or two, and get some of the "real work" done that's been postponed for the past day and a half because of my inability to walk away from the design wall.

One Block Wonder progress

2011-01-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

Here's where I'm at with the Amy Butler "Bliss Bouquet" OBW quilt:

This is not an arrangement so much as a display of blocks in progress. These are all sewn to the half-hexagon stage (final hex seams are not done until the last step). It's too soon to be arranging them, because this is no more than 60% of the blocks, so as others are done things will change up here. Truly restrained quilters will wait until they have all their blocks done to this stage before playing around on the design wall, but I am not one of them. I couldn't stand having so many ready-to-go blocks piled up without putting them on the wall. This way I can see which ones play well with each other, and which ones don't get along.

So far, this block is my favorite:

Too bad it's looking like the most likely to get left out of the final arrangement. It's gorgeous, but too dark around the edges. Theoretically I could take out the seams and redo it in a different configurationbut I can't imagine bothering with that by the time I get all of them done.

Cosmo Bag preview

2011-01-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

I spent most of yesterday afternoon auditioning fabric for the Cosmo Bag (January's project for the Amy Butler Style Stitches Sew Along). Here's one of Amy's renditions, from the book:

I'm determined to "shop the stash" for as many of these bags as possible, and so far project #1 is already a challenge. The stash yielded three contenders for the exterior print, but finding good lining/trim pairings wasn't easy. In most cases the "best" combination wasn't as spectacular as I was aiming for, or I had a great fabric in insufficient quantity. I considered Kaffe's "Big Blooms" in red, which I have a nice large piece of:

... but decided to save it for the "Miss Maven Ruffled Handbag," coming up as November's project (by which time I am sure to have changed my mind). Instead, for the Cosmo, I'm using two recent purchases from Jane Sassaman's "Hothouse Garden" line for the main exterior and lining pieces, with some Kaffe "chevron stripe" in brown, and my fave green leaves for trims:

As you can see, I do not believe in pressing my fabric before cutting unless it's so horribly crumpled it won't lay flat enough to pin a pattern to. Perhaps some day I'll regret it, but so far this particular lazy habit hasn't tripped me up.

It took me hours to cut all the pieces last night, and almost as long to cut out all the interfacing this morning. This is most, but not all, of it. Still a couple lining pieces to go, but I needed a break.

I love Amy's style, but that woman must carry half her life around with her: her bags are huge. Much bigger than I have any use for. The Cosmo bag might be her largest yet. A full-size Cosmo would make a good beach tote, but I doubt I'd be willing to subject what will be a stunning bag, representing lots of time and effort and fabric investment, to bright sun, salt air/water, sand, and possibly spilled suntan lotion.

So I'm making a smaller one. I cut out all the pattern pieces and reduced them at 78% on our home copier. I measured the tote bag I get the most use from, and based on that probably should have aimed for reducing at 85%, but was not in a mood to figure out how to override the copier presets.

With smaller pieces, I was able to make efficient use of interfacing. The book calls for a whopping 6 yards, but I got all my pieces cut from 2-1/4 yards. I am not going to interface the pocket linings, btw. And I cut the pocket linings from a blue solid... why use the good stuff on the pieces that will be out of sight? I like the side pocket detail where the top of the lining is folded over to make a trim, so have cut separate trim strips for binding the top pocket edges (inside, too).

More details to come as I put the bag together. Most likely I won't tackle that until next weekend. First, I have to go plug in my iron and fuse, fuse, fuse a lot of fabric and interfacing. By the time that's done I won't want to look at this project for several days at least.

Fabric Math

2011-01-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that I have a lot of fabric scraps. Or what feels like a lot. I'm sure there are long-time quilters out there who would scoff at my paltry accumulation. But when you stop to think that the scraps, even the teeny ones, cost the same per yard as the big pieces, even a modest accumulation starts to wield some heft.

Last year I started sewing up some scrap blocks, which have eased the overcrowding in the smallest bits and the long strips drawers, but there's still a lot left. This year, in addition to bringing at least one scrap project to completion, I would like to use a bunch of the large scrap and fat quarter pieces. I've got two bursting drawers of those:

(I've left my feet in the frame for scale. You might not think we get winter in Hawaii, but it's been chilly enough for fuzzy slippers the past couple days: drizzly and damp with afternoon highs barely into the 70s.)

Yesterday I made the mistake of counting the FQs. There are 60 of them in that bottom drawer. That's 15 yards of fabric! And the "large scraps" drawer above it is the same size and just as full, so we'll call it an equivalent amount. That's 30 yards, just in those two drawers. At an average price of $6-/yard (based on 2009-2010 spending, although some is a lot older than that), that's $180 worth of fabric.

My goal for this year is to reduce this part of my stash by... I want to say half. Easily doable in a year, right?
I have in mind some scrap-busting projects like this, and this, or this.

Problem is, I've got a few other things in the works already (and by "few" I mean "too many"). I'd better stop blogging and go sew something...

Amy Butler Style Stitches Sew-Along

2011-01-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

Like I need to start any more projects.

I already have the book, though, and love the Origami Bags (the only thing I've made from it so far). Without a sew-along there's little chance I'll do other than think about making more stuff from the book. So I'm in.

First, though, I need to stop by the fabric store and stock up on interfacing. Man, that Amy loves to pile on the interfacing. And fusible fleece. I'm out of that, too.

Biggest challenge: I want to make as many of these projects as possible from stash. Coordinating prints and linings included.

We're starting with the "Cosmo" bag (that's the one on the cover). Funny, 'cause Cosmo loves to crawl into any kind of open bag. If I'm smart, I'll choose a dark fabric for minimal cat-hair contrast.

First Project of 2011

2011-01-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

I can't help it. I had to play with my new fabric. And, after marathon quilting sessions to get the deck quilts done, I needed a couple of days away from the sewing chair.

So I pulled out my new 3-yard piece of Amy Butler "Bliss Bouquet" from her luscious Love collection, put a fresh new blade in the rotary cutter, found a box of flat-head flower pins, and sliced up a whole bunch of wedges to make a One Block Wonder (OBW) quilt, hexagon version, from this book.

Three yards isn't a lot for an OBW, but this print has only a 17.5" repeat (vs. the 24" typical of many large prints), so I was able to cut 4 3.5" strips across the width, which provides wedges for about 70 hexagon blocks, plus some left over for a narrow border... or for a few more blocks, should I discover I desperately need them.

I Santa bought this fabric specifically with OBW in mind. I love the purple-green color combo, and there's a lot of motion in the leaf and floral shapes in the print. To my surprise, when I arranged my wedge sets into hexagons, a surprising number of them looked more static than "in motion:"

The book recommends arranging every block so the on-grain edge of each piece is on the outside of the hexagon. I'm sure that's good advice, but about a third of my blocks look best with a bias edge on the outside. I may regret it, but I'm going to sew them up this way:

As you can see, I am using the paper-plate method of block organization for this stage (thanks, Shelley!). This is intended as a "pick away at it in between other stuff project," so progress reports may not follow in rapid fashion. But you never know: once I start sewing these up I might have too much fun to stop.

"Venus de Hilo" is off to a great start for 2011: 5 posts in the past 3 days! That's gotta be a record, here. I hope to have lots of lovely stuff to show you this year, and will continue to post works in progress, not just finished stuff, but there's no chance I'll keep up that kind of pace. As of today I am back to my usual "post when I've got something to show or when I get around to it" schedule.

Happy, happy New Year everyone!
Hope yours will be especially awesome...

Sewing Resolutions, revisited

2010-12-31T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've just reviewed my sewing resolutions for 2010. Possibly if I'd done that on a regular basis throughout the year, rather than leaving it until 12/31, I'd have accomplished more of them. Or not. Regardless of resolutions met or abandoned, much fun was had in the sewing room during 2010:

Anyway, here's how I did:

"spend less, sew more"
I'm as stunned as you are that I can say I achieved this. Barely. $122 less on fabric purchases this year than last, although the difference in yardage accumulation is a threadbare 1.5 yards. And when fabric received as gifts is added, I'm up on last year by close to 10 yards, thanks to lovelies like these:

On the "sew more" front, I used less total yardage by a good amount but sewed more items. (2009 sewing included lots of curtains, which tilts yardage use heavily.)

Other resolutions accomplished:
"Make pants that fit"
"Sew some knits"
"Learn to machine quilt"

I did well on "delete all fabric sale emails unread" until about 2/3 through the year, with a noticable lapse in December which I blame on Santa.

"work on one garment and one quilt project at a time"
hahahahahahahahaha! Complete and utter joke.
Don't know what I was thinking.
I am just not wired that way, so why fight it?

"complete one UFO before starting a new project"
I did finish up some UFOs, but am confident I ended the year with more of them than I started. There's one on my design wall right now:

Frankly, I'd completely forgotten about that resolution (yeah, maybe don't wait until the end of the year to review the resolutions list?), although it's a good one. I might even attempt it again. I also forgot to "use stash patterns before buying more."

For this coming year, I am keeping it simple. "Spend less" for sure is a goal. "Sew more," though, is not likely. I did about as much sewing in a year during 2010 as I'm ever likely to do. I would like to maintain that momentum. Some clothes will be produced, but quilts are where inspiration and creative ideas are flowing for me right now. I'd like to end 2011 with a personal best in the total yardage used department, even if I produce fewer items. It will be tough to beat 2009's curtain-heavy total, but I see no reason not to try and if I tackle the UFO quilt projects I could do it. The 100-yard Challenge should keep me on track.

I might even aim to end the year with fewer UFOs piled up than at the start. First, though, I need to go count them.

"NTG" Quilt Details

2010-12-30T19:25:00.000-08:00

More pics of Mr. de Hilo's "Nothing Too Girly" quilt. First, the arty draped shot:

I quilted this from the Monkey Wrench side, figuring (correctly, as it turned out) that the other side could absorb contrasting abstract thread lines more easily.

The purple "monkeys" got long swirly lines down the arms and through the centers with purple thread. The orange/green background is filled in with a meander in light green. Although they are contrasting colors the orange and green are so close in tone that the green thread is less noticeable on the orange bits than I'd thought it would be (click pic for full size):

I finished the boarder in random wavy lines. Overall, my purple swirlies could be more graceful in many instances, but I'm very happy with the background meandering. Best part, Mr. de Hilo is unlikely to notice or care that the quilting demonstrates that this was a learning piece.

Pink Lattice Quilt Details

2010-12-30T18:25:00.000-08:00

More pink lattice quilt pics, for those interested in the details. The little dining lanai off the kitchen is a nice spot for artier, draped shots, like this one:

There's space for photos out there because I moved the kitchen table into the sewing room (no way could I do any actual quilting on my tiny 18x30" sewing table), and the lanai table, rarely used, came inside to be the new kitchen table.
Here you can see (click on pic for full size) that I pieced the binding from some of the rusty orange prints used for the lattice intersection squares. All the pink sashing is straight-line quilted just inside the seam.:

My original plan was to echo that with an additional line of quilting about 3/8" inside each edge line, but I way underestimated how mind-numbingly tedious straight line quilting is, even with (or maybe especially with) a walking foot. The outermost pink sashing pieces are longer than the inner ones, due to triangle geometry, and needed an extra something, so they've got a meandering vine thing going. I felt the inner sashing would not be improved by additional quilting (and couldn't face more straight lines) so left it alone once the first set of straight lines were done. Each inner lattice piece is a scant 1.5"x3", so the edge quilting is ample.

The piano-key border is free-motion quilted with a swoopy almost-leafy-in-parts randomness that was lots of fun to do. The outermost edge has one or more lines of echo quilting to fill in the gap between the swoops and the binding.

The charm squares and orange intersections were all free-motion quilted in a pale blue. I started at one end of a column of on-point squares and squiggled my way down through the 3" charm squares and orange intersections to the other end. Some are outline quilted (loosely!), others have a leafy or swirly pattern inspired but not attempting to follow the charm print, others got a meander. The orange intersection squares got a variety of spirals, loops, squiggles, and leafy shapes, made up as I went along:

And I think I took a detail shot of the back, too... where did that go? Okay, here it is:

The pink/orange floral was a great find (and on sale from Fabric.com), but not quite wide enough, so I inserted a strip of this fun grass-full-of-bugs print from my FabricDepot shopping spree. I had no idea at the time what I'd do with it, but it's perfect here, so that's a score for stash-building.

"Pink Lattice" and "NTG" Quilts

2010-12-30T13:06:00.000-08:00

Both our "deck" quilts (lap quilts, for lounging on our deck chairs on cool afternoons) are done! I test drove mine yesterday, and both Cosmo and I are very pleased with it. Both quilts are about 44"x72", a size I decided on based on best dimensions of the various beach towels we've been napping under on the deck up' til now.

I am still looking for the optimum quilt-photo location around our house. It's tricky. I like the idea of outdoors, for days when light cooperates. But our lot is extremely steep.Nice views from up here, but it's practically vertical. We have plenty of deck and railing to hold a quilt over, but in most places I'd need to rent a cherry picker to get up level with it for a photo.

The side of the house is better than the front, heightwise, so I strung a piece of clothesline between two railing supports, clipped the top of the quilt to it while crouched on the deck, then smooshed the quilt through beneath the railing, then scurried down the stairs on the other side of the house, back and around, and up the side slope to get a photo. Repeat as necessary until all sides are done. Cosmo thought this was a fascinating process. Here's the back of the Pink Lattice Quilt, with cat supervision from above:

And this is the finished "Nothing Too Girly" quilt made for Mr. de Hilo. It has two fronts, rather than a front and a back. I did the blue-green squares side first. Photo colors are brighter than actual, but you get the idea:

I did not have a back planned out for this one. While pondering options and rummaging in the far acres of the stash, I came across a large ziplock baggie of long-abandoned, half-finished, monkey wrench blocks that I had forgotten about. A little quick punching at the calculator, and I figured out that not only did I have enough extra of the orange and purple fabrics to use as borders for the front, but also that using all the mostly done blocks would fit this one as a back and qualify as finishing an embarrasingly old UFO.

Mr. de Hilo has tried it out both ways up, but has not expressed a "front" or "back" preference yet.

Using these monkey wrench blocks makes this side a winner in "most satisfying sewing project of the year" category. And the Pink Lattice "front" I'm going to call my "favorite" item made this year, even though all of the front except the outer border was made in 2009.

Both of these are (I think) worth a closer look, but I have not yet taken detail shots of the quilting, so you'll have to wait for those.

It's been immensely satisfying to get these projects to the point where I could machine quilt them, which counts as using a new toy: the extension table thingie for my machine was a much-anticipated purchase for the year.

I had fun doing the quilting, and look forward to finishing up more in-progress quilts this coming year. Hopefully by the time the next ones are done I will have found a better photo location. The back wall of the carport has possibilities... and it would be nice to have an indoor option as well.

I only wish, as I was spending so much money on fabric in 2010, that I'd remembered to save a little for a camera tripod, so I could start taking decent pictures of the finished products. I'm going to make that some kind of incentive/reward for fabric purchase restraint in 2011.

Post-Christmas Show and Tell

2010-12-27T19:41:00.000-08:00

So, the big day has come and gone and secret projects are no longer secret. Here's the pillow I made for my Mom, to go with the Cathedral Windows one from a year or so ago:

Recognize it? These are the sample One Block Wonder hexagons I made earlier this year, after seeing what Shelley was up to. They lingered on my design wall for months before I decided to go ahead and do a pillow front and back with them. I filled in the outer bits with blue solid.

All those bias edges looked like a hot mess by the time I was done piecing...

but a brutal pressing worked wonders. I quilted each side with some poly batting that was lying around, with cotton lawn for "backing" to reduce weight.

This was my first-ever free motion quilting, and I had a blast zipping around more or less highlighting various shapes in the hexagons. Objectively, I did a really a horrible quilting job: sloppy and imprecise with wildly varying stitch lengths and all kinds of "ooops, didn't mean to do that" moments. Fortunately, Mom is as forgiving of my adult efforts as she was with kindergarten art projects, and I had no illusions going in that I would be capable of anything other than an exuberant slapdash job, so we're both happy with it.

The piping, alas, did not turn out well. I do think it makes a nice defining line between front and back, but it's why the edge is so ripply. I've decided to think it looks sort of flower-shaped, and to not worry about it.

My sister got a couple of the prettiest coffee mugs (she's happened to mention needing new ones) with matching coasters I made following this tutorial:

My first one was a bit of a dud, due to user unfamiliarity with my new 1/4" foot and how it would behave, but the rest were easy-peasy. Next time I might get really lazy and machine stitch the binding.

Here's the set of six. As you can see they are a mix-n-match set from prints that play well together:

The "back" wraps around to the "front" (or could be the other way around) to make the binding, which is a nice touch when using two different fabrics for each.

Mr. de Hilo's lap quilt is done and has been put to use. I haven't figured out yet where in (or outside) this house to set up for a quilt pic, but hope to get one soon. My lap quilt is almost done. There's a bit more quilting still to do on it, and then binding. My goal is to get it done before NYear, and I might even beat that by a few days if all goes well.

BTW: Santa outdid herself this year in the gift fabric department! I'll show off some of those new goodies in a next post.

The 8-lb Christmas Ornament

2010-12-19T16:43:00.000-08:00

... and why we don't have any lights or other ornaments up on our tree yet:

So far, he's only tipped it over once, and he climbed right back in as soon as I'd set it upright. We're waiting to see if the thrill wears off. It's an artificial tree, and a bit ratty; I'm half hoping he does enough damage I'll have a reason to junk it come 12/31.

Cosmo has also been helping out in the sewing room. I'm trying to finish up a lap quilt for Mr. de Hilo to use when we lounge on the deck on chilly winter afternoons (when the temperature might plunge toward 70... brrrrr!). It's already a big hit with the cat, who naps on it every chance he gets. When he's not napping, or out chasing birds and geckos, he tries to remove the safety pins with his teeth:

This my first free-motion quilting project, and I'm having fun. My FM stitching is about as bad as it gets, but that's okay, so long as I feel I'm getting better by the time this is done. Mr. de Hilo is unlikely to notice, or to care if he does, that the quilting is a long way from gorgeous. He'll just be touched that I made something for him, for a change, after sewing so many things for myself.

When this one's done, I do also have a deck quilt for myself to finish up. Chances that will happen before Christmas morning are looking slim, but it might get done.

Hope all your Santa projects are coming along... only a week left for elfin sewing!

Amy B. Origami Bags - Set 2

2010-12-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

Here are the other two Origami Bags I made from (from Amy B's new bag book):

The larger one is 14" across the top, the smaller one 7". That's the last small bit of the orange leaf print, which I wish I had more of. Both these bags feature my fave "Persimmons" by Kaffe Fassett. I have very, very little of this left so was thrilled to find it on sale at Fabric.com, and could not resist ordering 2 yards to replenish the stash. Even though I am not supposed to be doing ANY stash-building until substantial yardage is used up.

My questionable logic is that, technically, "virtual Santa" bought it to go under the tree, but still. More fabric. 2011 will be all about stash busting, because I am close to the point of having no room for more yardage (not to mention a drained hobby budget!).

The larger bag is Amy's proportions. It holds all kinds of bathroom stuff, and got use again last weekend on an overnight getaway to Kona. Amazing how a couple hours in the car and a night at a resort feels like getting away for days. Hoping for more frequent short getaways next year.

The front one is taller than Amy makes 'em, accomplished by taking a very shallow corner seam. It is perfectly sized for those "feminine necessities" we sometimes need to have at hand. Both these have that lovely Heather Bailey print inside. I was so happy to find a good use for that print. It's lovely, but a little too pretty/girly for other purposes I'd considered. It's perfect to line these bags.

I look forward trying out more patterns from Amy's book, after I get some more XMas sewing done.

Amy B. Origami Bags - Set 1

2010-12-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

So, I'm really slow getting these pics up. Here, at last, are the first of the Origami Bags (from Amy B's new bag book) I made for corralling travel stuff. I strayed from Amy's exact sizing on some of these, as I was using whatever caught my eye from the scrap drawer, and with whatever odds and ends of mid-weight fusible interfacing I could find.

This is the smallest one. If I'd blogged this closer to sewing day I would remember more precisely how it might vary from the littlest Origami pattern in the book, other than it's made from just one piece of fabric on each side, rather than having pieced sides like all the others.

I also made it a bit longer than the pattern, partly because I only had a narrow piece of this fabric, and also to fit the intentended contents, which were my pink iPod Nano and my ancient cell phone + earpiece, as you see here. This one came along in my purse. That's a Kaffe Fasset print on the outside, Heather Baily on the inside.

These two are a bit larger. The green one in front was the first I made, so it's the most accurate rendition of Amy's sizing and proportions. That came in my purse, too, as it held the requisite 1qt. zip-lock baggie of hand sanitizer etc. Sure, I coulda just stuck the plastic baggie in my purse, but who doesn't like pretty fabric better than plastic?

This whole project started when I made the green one, thinking it would be handy to corrall all the powercords and rechargers I was taking with me. But, duh, I didn't pay enough attention to the photos and diagrams in the book when I selected what size to make, because these bags are all about 2" longer at the zipper than they are at the base. So when I got the first one done, and went to fill it up, it turned out to be just a little bit small for the purpose.

So I made another: the pink and orange one in the back. It's about 12" long and intentionally wider/flatter than Amy's design (accomplished by taking a deeper cross-seam when forming the corners of the base). From a purely design standpoint, the proportions of this one are not as pleasing, but it's the perfect size for everything I wanted to stash in it: chargers and power cords for the camera battery, the iPod, the cell phone, and my Kindle. It holds a lot of cords. This one went into my suitcase, and I was very pleased with it.

These were so quick and fun, I made two more. Which I either never took or have lost the photos of. I'll remedy that shortly. They are just like these three, only slightly different.

If you are looking for an excellent last-minute homesewn gift idea, I highly recommend one or more Origami bags. BTW: the book calls for making these from home dec weight fabric, but as you can see, quilting weight works just fine, too. And don't worry about having exactly the interfacing called for. I used probably three different kinds and weights in my not-matching set, with no problem at all.

I would have made some of these for XMas gifts, but I used up all but tiny scraps of my mid-weight interfacting stash on the ones for myself, and haven't managed to restock yet. Maybe next year.

Improv Scrap Blocks

2010-11-20T16:00:00.000-08:00

Please forgive questionable photo quality, mystery sizing, and iffy color rendering in this and probably my next several posts. I've spent the past week upgrading to a new computer (yay!) which does not yet have Photoshop installed, and am stumbling around in the freebie pre-installed programs trying to figure out if/how they will do what I want. Verdict so far: "meh".

I'm on a mission to free up some space in my scrap drawers (and yes, I will be counting scraps for the 100-Yard Challenge). In addition to Santa's workshop projects I can't show you yet (future recipients have been known to read this blog), I've been busy the past couple weeks piling up the scrap blocks. Here you see 24 Wonky Log Cabin improvisation blocks made from a combo of the "small" (inner bits) and "long" (outer parts) strip scraps on hand.

There's not much log-cabin-ish about these blocks, as the strips are all different widths and I made no attempt at light-dark patterning, aiming only for variation of color and tone within each block. I did start with a square of the same blue fabric at the center of each, but that's it for regularity of design with this batch.

Quite an eyeful, placed all together on the design wall. These have not been arranged in any way, just slapped up there one after the other as they came out of the trim-to-size (9" finished size + S/A) step. I could just sew them all together as they are and call it a quilt top, but I think I can come up with something better.

I have a plan, but nothing further to show you yet...

In the meantime, I've also been stitching away on a set of strip-pieced blocks made on used dryer sheets foundations:

First, I ironed the huge pile of dryer sheets I've been collecting from laundry loads over the past year or so. Be warned, this will make a mess of your ironing board cover, which is why I did that step before putting the new cover on my board. It may make a mess of your iron as well, but mine has some kind of spiffy space-age non-stick super-duper ceramic or teflon or something coating which resists such things, so it's fine.

Next, I trimmed all the ironed dryer sheets to 5" squares, then I placed a scrap strip face up corner to corner, and added other strips to ether side. I made 48 of these (and still have a hefty pile of foundation squares). Trimmed to 4.5" (4" finished size + S/A) and cut the dryer sheet off the back (not as difficult or time-consuming as it sounds). These are up on the design wall in random order as well.

Again, I could just sew them all together this way, but I think they're more interesting in sets of four, with a little breathing room around them.

I have a plan for these, too.
I've even started on it.
I'll show it off when it's closer to done.

The calendar says it's almost Thanksgiving, which means I need to stop playing with scraps and focus on the XMas projects. I'm not making a lot of stuff, but there's one secret project in particular that really should be farther along by now than it is.

* * *
BTW: You might very reasonably be under the impression that I have completely forgotten about providing pics of some finished garment projects that I've gone on and on about here (pants! tops!) -- but that would be incorrect. I do realize that weeks have passed without an update, but somehow I did not get pics of me in my trip clothes while on my trip, and since returning home have not managed to coodinate a day when I'm wearing some of those clothes with good photography weather. Right now the tops are in a laundry pile and the pants need to be pressed. So you'll have to live with the suspense a bit longer. (There's a chance something will happen in this area tomorrow, but if I were you I wouldn't hold my breath.)

Super-Quick Ironing Board Cover

2010-11-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

I posted a while back my "someday" intention to do something about the truly grubby cover on my ironing board. I finally got around to it a week or so ago.

Key to making this quick and easy was starting with the replacement muslin cover that had come with the ironing board when I bought it several years ago. I came across it when I was tiding up the sewing room, pre-trip, and was smart enough to set it aside where I would see it again when I got back.

This end-of-bolt length of butterfly fabric -- a bit over a yard and part of my in-person FabricDepot binge -- was a good size, so I lay it out on the hall floor, face down, lay the muslin cover on top of it, and cut that shape from the fabric with pinking shears. I lifted up the edge of the muslin as I went along so my fabric cut-out was just slightly smaller than the muslin.

Then I flipped both layers over and added a few pins to hold things in place. Here it is before pinning:

If it looks wide, that's because I have one of those extra-wide ironing boards, which is great for pressing quilting yardage. You can see exactly how careful and precise my cutting was here:

When pinned, I took it to the machine and sewed around the edge with a zig-zag stitch, equally carefully:

Lickety-split and it was ready to go.

The thin padding beneath the old muslin cover was not adequate. My iron puts out a lot of heat and steam on the "cotton" setting (which I use a lot) and the metal grate under the pad would get very hot. I sacrificed a towel from the "workout towels" pile for additional padding. I simple lay it over the board with the old pad on top (you can see the indelible grate impression below), put my new, double-layer (muslin + print) cover on top, and tightened the drawstring to pull it all into shape around the board.

Then I cut off the edges of the towel that were hanging out (didn't finish the edges, or nuthin', just snipped 'em off), and was done.

Total time for task: didn't track, but I doubt it was more than 10 minutes. That was after I waited for the cat to fall asleep so he wouldn't pounce on the fabric laid out on the floor and roll around on it.

How long it took me to get around to this quick and easy task? I'm not saying. If I'd had any sense I would have waited a couple more days and done this on Nov. 1, instead of in October, so it would count toward the 100 Yard Challenge.

100-yard Challenge

2010-11-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago my sister and I each had a lot of fabric. Here's some of mine:

Now we have even more, thanks to our buying frenzy at FabricDepot and additional indulgences at Bolt during our recent weekend in Portland, OR (partially documented in previous posts). And I bought more when I got home, too: three FQ sets of Kona solids in purples, blues, and greens. All the stash shelves, drawers, and bins in my sewing room are full or very close to full.

It's time to use some of it up, so Sis and I have issued each other a 100-Yard Challenge. The rules are simple:

Open time frame (we'd considered 100-yards-in-a-year but we both have multiple other priorities competing with sewing for our time/attention). This is not intended to be a lifetime goal, though. Some attention to sustained momentum is implied.
Only completed projects count. This is a tough one, and we may regret it, but we are both highly susceptible to the lure of a new project and have long histories of UFO production to show for it. So in addition to using up some yardage, we will be focused on getting things to "done." The exception is that projects to be sent out for long-arm quilting by someone else can be counted when they get to the ready-to-be-mailed stage (since the budget for paid quilting may not be available yet).
Only fabric used beginning 11/1 counts. If I now add borders, back and binding to an existing UFO top, I count those when it's done, but not the yardage for the top itself.
We went back and forth on scrap usage. Abby is focused on big-piece yardage, but If I don't use some scraps soon (especially the smaller ones) I will need to buy another scrap bin. Adding the scraps generated by 100 yards used for other things to my already overflowing scrap drawers is not an option. So we agreed scrap use is optional. Finished scrap projects will be counted by size of finished project + 10% for seams.
NO STASH-BUILDING until the challenge has been met! This is the tough one. There's a little wiggle room here, as fabric may be purchased if, and only if, necessary in order to complete a project. But that's it. The idea is to sew as close to completely from stash as possible until 100 stash yards have been used. I am already wishing that I had a bit more garment fabric (vs. quilting yardage) in the stash, but the quilting yardage is what I most want to make a dent in, and I wear mostly cotton clothes, so I'll make do. Maybe this challenge will inspire me to sew up some of the garment yardage I keep passing over each time I decide what skirt or top to make next.

Every good challenge needs a good reward, and we've got a great one planned: When we have both used up 100 yards of stash, we'll get together for a weekend again! This will of course involve giddy self-indulgence at every fabric store we can find. What's the point of challenging ourselves to use up so much fabric if we don't get to buy more when it's done??

How am I doing so far? Well, Nov. 1 came and went with no sewing done whatsoever, so I'm not exactly off to a full-sprint start.

vacation fabric scores #3 & #4

2010-10-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

Home again, yay! My weekend Portland (OR) hookup with my two sisters was a blast, but I am sooooooo glad to be home. (Not so glad about the fatigue, achy back/neck, itchy throat, and inflamed sinuses that yesterday I was trying to blame on vog and jetlag, but this morning must accept are likely early symptoms of a cold picked up somewhere along the way from Portland, ME, through Portland, OR, to Honolulu, to Hilo: 5 airports, 5 flights, many hours of layovers and delays, and exposure to a few more fellow humans than I typically encounter in 4 days.)

However, not jetlag nor germs, nor a combination thereof, are enough to keep me from jumping right into pre-washing and ironing my recent fabric acquisitions. At this moment washer load #4 and dryer load #3 are in the works, and a lovely pile of yardage is stacking up in the sewing room.

Highlights from Fabric Depot (ginormous) and Bolt (small), both full of goodies and worth a visit when you are next in Portland, OR...

BIG PRINTS:
Does this every happen to you: you see a fabric and part of you thinks it's hideous and awful, and another part of you falls totally in love with it? That's what happened to me with these peonies. Which are huge. Each blossom is at least 6" across. I'm seeing a long skirt, full at the ankles, fitted at the hip (long godets, maybe?), so got three yards of it. I may wake up and wonder what I'd been drinking:

This one's big, too, but only a yard, and will probably end up as part of a summer skirt:

This one, I don't know yet. Again, the print is huge; this is about half the width. I have 3 yards of this, too, and may end up wearing it. Or not.

USEFUL STUFF for the Stash (yards and half-yards):

I seemed to be primarily in orange/green mode, so these fit right in:

And I had in mind finding some luscious dots, like these. And look, there's the orange colorway of that leafy green I wished I gotten more of in Maine. Lucky me, Bolt had the green, too, so I did get more of it:

FUTURE OBW:
I love this, although it's not my colors:

If Fabric Depot had had a brighter colorway* I would have gone for it. I went with this anyway because I had cut up some jelly roll strips of other Philip Jacobs prints like this for the hexies quilt in progress, and it translates extremely well to random small bits.

*likely they did and it was in someone else's cart; the store was so huge and busy, and the cutting table lines so long, it was impossible not to wonder what beauties were overlooked because someone else had picked them up first.

And, allthough it's not my colors, it is totally my Mom's palettes (pale blue, beige and brown, ashy everything else, yawn), so I got a big piece with a future One Block Wonder in mind. It will look great draped over the arm of her (boring beige) couch.

I thought I was done shopping when I happened upon the "novelty" section and picked up some more yardage with future just-for-fun OBWs and charity quilts in mind. I haven't taken pics of those yet, and they're in the washer, so you'll see them another time.

I also have not yet added up either my total yardage acquired or the damage done to my Visa balance. I briefly considered setting a fabric budget before leaving home, but knew there was no chance I would have stuck to it, so I did the sensible thing and took along a Visa card that's been hanging around with a zero balance for a few years, waiting for me to come up with a good reason to use it again. Fortunately my quilting sister is an even more avid stash-builder than I am, so my pile looked reasonable next to hers.

I also did the other sensible thing and took my machine in for servicing while I was away. I'd hoped to pick it up today, but am feeling less and less inclined to do any kind of errands; a hot bath and a nap and a few more megadoses of Vitamin C are more appealing at the moment. Looks like fabric fondling and daydreaming about new projects will be the extent of my sewing efforts for the next few days.

vacation fabric score #2

2010-10-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

One highlight of any trip to visit "the 'rents" in coastal Maine is shopping in Freeport. Mum and I ended up there on Monday, which given it was a holiday I thought would be a zoo, but it wasn't too bad. Mum did my budget a favor by insisting on buying me this Dooney&Burke bag (super discounted; roughly 70% off), which I coveted on sight:

I also picked up an armful of plain-color (no graphics) summer-weight Ts for Mr. de Hilo at the Gap, not exciting to any of us, but he'll be pleased. We could not have had a nicer day for a drive and shopping, plus we got to stop off at Alewives Fabrics in Damariscotta Mills, which is a wonderful shop full of contemporary quilting cottons (and very little of the dull traditional calicoes which are mostly what I see around here).

I picked up a couple of FQs, some half-yards, and a fistful of colorful zippers, all shamelessly for the stash, no specific project in mind:

I already wish I'd bought a larger piece of that leaf print in the center. I am going to want to use it in everything. And here's a larger piece (just over yard) that was the end of a bolt. I have no idea what I will do with it, but Mr. de Hilo will like it. It will linger in the stash, too, as I await inspiration:

And that's not all! Mum also insisted on buying me some fabric to be my XMas present, so two large pieces of loveliness went into her shopping bag, to be shipped to me in December. Pics of those will await delivery by Santa.

On our way out (I thought) of the store, Mum (who sews only under duress, and then without pleasure) saw a "layer cake" of 42 William Morris print 10" squares and drooled over it, saying wistfully, "Gosh, I'd love to buy this, if someone wanted to make me something from it." Um, okay: hard to say no to that when you've just bought me 10 yards of Kaffe Fassett fabric. So, back to the cashier we went, and I've add one pieced jacket for Mum to the projects list. I negotiated a lenient schedule, though, so no XMas deadline for that. Plus, I've been looking for a reason to make a pieced jacket, so I guess this is it.

Here's the foliage shot of the day: this one from late yesterday afternoon, at NW(?) end of Megunticook Lake, near Camden:

I'm heading back to Portland, OR, tomorrow, where I hope to blow the remainder of my fabric budget at FabricDepot and Bolt. Reports will be filed after my return home to Hilo.

vacation fabric score #1

2010-10-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

Aloha from the mainland!

I had an afternoon in Portland, Oregon last week before my red-eye flight to Portland, ME. I used that time wisely by squeezing in a visit to Josephine's Dry Goods. This charming little fabric shop makes great use of limited floor space by filling it with a fabulous selection of garment fabrics. I have no need of anything woolen, alas, but I did snag some of this luscious stretch jersey (enough for a cap- or maybe elbow-length sleeve top of some kind), at vastly greater expense than I usually pay for fabric, but I was ready to splurge:

I also picked up these two pieces from their small selection of cotton wovens, a yard of the larger piece, and a half-yard of the smaller one. I have nothing specific in mind for these yet; don't even know if they will end up as parts of a quilt someday, or (more likely) yet another multi-fabric cotton skirt next spring sometime:

I've also blown a large portion of my vacation fabric budget on BUTTONS, which I can't get locally (other than boring basic plastic ones). My first set of pics did not come out well, and I've bought more since then, so I will post those another time.

I'm enjoying being in Maine again (it's been several years since my last visit). Here's the view from Mom & Dad's guest room, where I am staying (that's a lake at the end of the lawn, not the ocean although we are on the coast):

I've been enjoying my "self-sewn" trip wardrobe. I've been wearing my two versions of the Jalie 2908 pant daily, and am happy to report that they are divinely comfortable. Hope to get a pic of me in them one of these days. Since I don't have clothes pics yet, here's a look at the autumn foliage from atop a nearby hill.

It was COLD up there: in the 40s, but with wind chill in the 30s. Quite a change from Hawaii!

Button and Hem Day

2010-10-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

... was supposed to be yesterday, but it didn't happen, so add that to what I need to get done today before my suitcase can be packed. I'm this close to done, though: the black stretch twill Jalie 2908 "jean-style pant" still needs its button and hems, but is pinned and ready to go. I'll get that wrapped up when I'm done here. The Marrakesh pant and light blue Jalie 2908 are finally in the "done" pile. With several disappointing knit tops shelved recently, I've gone back to the Santa Monica Tee to make two more last-minute tops. On my "to do" for when I get back: catch up on postings to Pattern Review.

I am now well-supplied with self-sewn clothes for my visit to Maine (mom & dad) and Oregon (sisters). I'm pleased that I've gotten so many new pieces done, and that I am only 10 yards behind on year-to-date yardage purchased vs. used. That will change by the time I get back, as I have multiple fabric store stops planned.

It will be great to spend time with family and see autumn foliage again. I will not enjoy being apart from Mr. de Hilo, though: he's staying here to keep our business chugging along (and feed the cat). He gets along fine with my folks, but while having him along would mean a nicer trip for me, it would also be a poor use of vacation time for him and a distraction from the many things he's trying to get done for our biz before the end of the year. We'll do something together another time.

Doesn't look like I'll get any pics up today, as I still have not gone out to do errands and it's a crappy day for photos: rainy and grey and looking like it will stay that way. I'll post from the road if I can...

my best friend: the seam ripper

2010-10-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

Still waiting for that USB camera card reader. Online tracking says it left Honolulu yesterday, so should arrive in my PO Box today, but I've got too much to do to drive over to the other side of town to pick it up. Maybe I'll have some fresh pics for you on Monday afternoon? If I'm not too frantically trying to catch up on everything I have/want to do before departure for the east coast on Tuesday am.

Lots of sewing this week. A bit too much. I do best with short sewing sessions. When I keep going and going I am prone to stupid user errors. Like sewing the yoke onto my black stretch twill pants (Jalie 2908, wide legged version #2) backwards. A fixable error, but one I wish I'd noticed before I zigzag-finished the raw edges and added two rows of top-stitching. Oh well. It's all been picked apart and pressed back into shape, and as soon as I finish up here and get a little more caffeine in me I'll go put it back together again the right way.

I also produced an epic fail of Vogue 8323, the cowl-neck version:

It sewed up easily enough. I reduced the (ginormously long) cowl by half, by cutting on the "fold here" line, and stabilized the shoulder seams. But I wanted full-length sleeves, and when I tried it on the weight of the sleeves pulled the cowl neck sideways and that mid-shoulder princess seam ended up off the edge of my shoulder. The problem is that my fabric, although "light weight" as in thin and stretchy, is too "heavy" (as in weighty, not thick) for this style, and the wide cowl makes stabilizing the neck impossible. PR reviewers who've made this version have commented that a lightweight, droopy fabric (which mine is) is necessary for this view because a too-stable knit makes the cowl impossibly high and awkward.

I am very sorry I used some of my good fabric for this one. It might be possibly to save it: I'm thinking of, first, cutting the sleeve off to a minimal cap sleeve or, if that doesn't work, removing the sleeves entirely, and maybe taking an inch off each side of the cowl. I think without the sleeves it might be okay. It might even be better than okay. But sleeveless is not what I need to go in my suitcase, so any rescue operations on this one will have to wait until I get back from my trip. Unless a miracle happens and I end up with an hour or two of free time between now and Tuesday morning.

The bigger disappointment is that I had the cross-front version of this top (with sleeves added) in mind for another print in this same rayon jersey, and now I don't dare attempt it. I've had this fabric for a couple of years now, and want very much to make something with it, but finding the right pattern remains elusive. I may fall back on my TNT Santa Monica T, but had hoped to find something with a little more styling detail.

I've also made five (5!) "origami bag" zip pouches from Amy Butler's new book, Style Stitches: 12 Easy Ways to 26 Wonderful Bags

This book is GORGEOUS, one of the most beautifully photographed and designed books I've ever oogled over, and worth spending time with for eye candy fun even if you aren't much into bag sewing. The Origami bag is the only pattern from the book I've made so far, and is a nifty little design in six different sizes. I found a few parts of the instructions less than crystal clear the first time through, but having made one the rest were quick and easy. Several of mine are not to Amy's proportions, as I was working with pieces from the "large scraps" quilting drawer and using odds and ends of whatever bag-weight interfacing I could find. They all turned out great, though, and all the little crap I'm taking with me will now be sublimely organized.

Pics of these cuties will follow eventually. In the meantime, someone has posted a page-shot of the Origami Bag to Flickr here.

inadvertent fashionista

2010-09-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

In spite of my fondness for both Ugly Betty and Project Runway, I am a long, long way from being a fashionista. When I redrafted the Jalie 2908 jeans to remove the boot-cut tapering I knew I wanted them wider than I'd muslined, and rather than fuss with leg width at that point I simple ruled a straight line down from the widest hip-point (outseam) and inner thigh (inseam) to the hem. That's a wide leg for a jean.

But I didn't care. I figured I'd get the pockets and zip and crotch seam done, then baste up the legs and fine-tune the width. Then I tried them on, and whaddaya know. I like 'em wide. They seem to suit me. So I left them that way. I don't care if my jeans are in the same galaxy as "on trend" so long as they fit and are comfortable. I figure I've been ignoring fashion for decades, no reason to start grasping at trendy now.

And then I saw these...

... 3 pages torn from the Garnet Hill catalog that landed in my mailbox a few days ago, and which I flipped through this morning. Those are various twill and chino pants, not jeans specifically, but close enough. At least one pair was on a page headed "trend spotting" or something like that. Prices: $68-$88.

Let's see, I got 6 yards of the blue stretch mystery fabric for whatever $1.99/yard -20% +tax comes out to, and have so far made from it one muslin, one pair of very wearable jeans, and have enough left to maybe make a pair of capris, or certainly a skirt, should I ever get around to that.

There are those who would include the value of my time, too, but let's not go there. Assigning a dollar sign to play time is just plain wrong.

Into the UFO bin it shall go

2010-09-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

Butterick 5283 is a no-go, for now. I got the front and back of View B (lower left)...

... done and sewn up at shoulders and sides in about :45 for a quick try-on. I'd taken the risk, when cutting the muslin, of not lengthening the upper bodice. My fabric has more than the "moderate" stretch called for, and is stretchy lengthwide as well as across, so I was concerned that that V neckline might end up down at my navel. Mistake. In spite of stretchiness, I still need an inch and half more length up there to get that bodice seam to sit where it should (which is not perched halfway upslope toward the "bust point," folks). And even in a soft stretchy fabric there's something off about how the gathers sit on my chest, perhaps due to length deficiencies, perhaps not. And the back is still a bit too wide for me, even though I cut it a size smaller than the front.

I've set this one aside in the UFO bin, as it's got potential and is worth trying again. Before I do, I'll want to add sleeves to the muslin and assess those, too, but since this is no longer on my suitcase list I'm moving on. I only have a week of sewing time left, and the less fussing around with fitting I have to do at this stage, the better.

BTW, I happened no notice (when snagging the image) that this pattern is on clearance for $3 at the Butterick site. In case you'd like to try it yourself.

buttonhole relevation

2010-09-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

Oh, the joy and convenience of the one-step, push a button and watch it go, buttonhole function! My sewing projects are not buttonhole intensive, but when I've got one (or several) to do, I love that the machine does all the work for me, so almost-automatically.

My practice pair of jeans are this close to done. They still need to be hemmed. And they still need a buttonhole.

The test buttonhole was perfect (and so easy!), but when I set up to do the one on the waistband there was a snag. Literally. The back of the buttonhole foot -- which on my machine sticks out quite a way -- got hung up on the finished belt loop above the pocket, all forward motion of fabric under the needle ceased (just too much going on to fit under the b'hole foot, in spite of vigorous tugging and vocal encouragement from the machine operator) and I had to abort the mission.

Too bad I followed the Jalie assembly instructions so slavishly and slowly, making sure I'd completed each step before moving on to the next. If I'd left the beltloops unfinished (i.e., dangling from the bottom of the waistband, and not yet folded up and stitched into place), doing a keyhole buttonhole by machine woulda been a piece of cake.

Now I have to do the buttonhole by hand (snort: not hardly likely!). Or rip out a double row of tiny, narrow, zig-zag topstitching on the belt loop to make room for the machine to do its thing, and then redo it. Or make a plain buttonhole backwards -- with that pesky belt-loop in front of the presser foot during construction, instead of behind it --but I prefer a keyhole style for a shank button and am not quite ready to give up on it.

Any decision on how to proceed has been tabled until after lunch. My creative ingenuity, decision-making skills, and tolerance for fiddly little details all plummet when I'm hungry.

In the meantime, I've written a large correction to the instructions for next time: "Do the buttonhole BEFORE sewing that last belt loop into place!"

It's very possible that some helpful reviewer (or many of them) posted a comment about this somewhere on the several PR jeans threads or in the 71 Jalie 2908 reviews, but you could make several pairs of jeans in the time it would take to read through all of that info, so I've done no more than glance at it.

I've got a muslin of Butterick 5238 (knit top) ready to go, so I might take a break from the jeans and work on that this afternoon.

********
2PM update: the buttonhole is done. With 10 styles to choose from, I found one that is reinforced at the back, then sewed it in reversed position, so the reinforcement is at the zip end. Problem solved.

Jeans progress and a fabric score

2010-09-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Stopped in at my LFS to get some kind of jeans-appropriate button(s) the other day and discovered they'd gotten a new shipment of "designer" remnants in. They have a large table of this stuff in the back, piles of flat-fold miscellany, often mostly crap, but some gems in there if you dig deep. Most pieces are 1-1.5 yards or so, some up to 3 yards, mix of wovens and knits, sometimes lace and other "novelty" items. You never know what you will find.

I found this:

Cotton-lycra jersey with some but not too much stretch. Due to camera issues, I scanned this in; about an 8"x10" sample of the 1-1/8 yard piece that I got for $3.76 inc. tax. It will become a top of some kind, don't know what yet. A bit on the hippy-dippy side, but I'm cool with that.

I also got 1-5/8 yards of the most luscious pewter-colored rayon stretch velvet you have ever seen. OMG is it yummy. A small splurge, at $12.20 for the piece, but whatever I make from it will be worth it.

Discount Fabric Warehouse consistently offers a world's-best collection of aloha prints and tropical barkcloth and upholstery fabrics at very reasonable prices, but their garment fabric selection is (for my needs and taste) mostly "miss." So when they get good stuff in I like to show my approval by handing over the AmEx. This time they had a TON of nice stuff, including many textured and embroidered silks/silk-imposters. I was tempted by many, but would have to change my entire lifestyle in support of that kind of wardrobe, so got out the door with only two additions to the stash. And a fistful of zippers in fun colors for future use.

In other news from the sewing room today, who knew that making jeans would be so much fun?! Okay, yes, many participants in the PR jeans sew-along have posted exactly that, but I didn't expect to be one of them. My hopes hovered at the level of getting through the process without bruising my forehead too badly banging it on the sewing table in expected bouts of despair and frustration. But seriously, folks, I'm having fun. Something about completing each step and holding it up and thinking, "hey, this is starting to look like real jeans" is irresistable. I still have to do the waistband and belt-loops, and (eeep) hems, but am already itching to start on a second pair.

Disclaimer: when I say I get a thrill from seeing my efforts morph into something that looks like "real jeans," I am taking some liberties with language. Especially when applied to my top-stitching, which is, um, not at all professional looking. It's downright wonky in more than a few places, at least two of which can be blamed on Cosmo, who is fascinated by the sewing machine and prone to leaping onto the sewing table in pursuit of moving parts at inopportune moments.

Here's a peek at my lined waistband (in progress) and belt-loops strips (also a bit wonky). Not that I care: my pleasure in producing something that looks (to my starry eyes) like "real jeans" is completely outweighing any pride in craftsmanship, or lack thereof:

I've used my various-sized scraps of this Amy Butler print for so many different projects now that I've almost used it up. The pockets are this print on one side, and a different, coodinating one on the other because I didn't have any large enough pieces left to make complete pockets.

By using the scanner today I got a nice, sharp, high-res image of the weird, two-wrong-side fabric I mentioned previously, so here's a closeup of that:

This fabric is so stretchy across the grain that I didn't dare cut the waistband on the bias as the pattern calls for. This is a lengthwise strip: that ridged texture runs across the width of the fabric, rather than vertically as you see it here. I'm actually on the verge of liking it.

Inaccessible...

2010-09-24T12:16:00.000-07:00

... my photos, that is. I got a new USB cable for the digital camera and tried it out this morning. Alas, the camera is still invisible to my computer. Which means the problem is inside the camera somewhere. I don't know if it's the kind of thing that can be fixed, and if so at what expense. I'm going to turn the problem over to Mr. de Hilo, who is in charge of all technical details around here. Perhaps he can come up with a solution. Probably it will be easier/cheaper to just get a new camera.

Too bad we're closing in on the end of the month. I've spent way too much already on fabric, cat toys (and food, and litter) and have two more vet bills to pay before little cutie's vaccinations are complete and he's been neutered. And next month I'm travelling for two weeks, with many fabric store visits planned, plus other incidentals, including hotel rooms and meals for the several nights I won't be at Mom and Dad's. And then there's XMas to shop for (yes I'll make some things, but the AmEx will get into play, too). So I don't see where there's any new camera in my budget. Maybe if I ask Santa for one.

In the meantime, I took some pics this morning of my custom-jeans-pocket stitching and my clever lined belt-loops strips. The belt loops are the sort of fiddly little detail that is really not worth doing and a lousy use of my sewing time, but I couldn't help myself once the idea popped into my head.

Since pics are still in the inaccessible, I'll try to entertain you with my pocket-stitching line drawing. The outer line is the cut size of the pocket piece, with inner top-stitching line also marked:

I made this up to size in Illustrator (that's an "Americana" font capital V, converted to outline), flipped the arcs but not the V for the other side, printed them both out, pinned the paper to the pocket fabric and stitched right through the paper. Slowly. Very slowly.

Worked great, after I'd spent about 90 minutes fussing around with every possible top-stitching/bobbin thread combination, several different needles, and every tension setting on my machine, before arriving at a workable combination.

Anyhoo, so far so good on the jeans. If I could retrieve photos from my camera you'd see how laughably un-professional my top-stitching is. Not that I care. I consider these a practice pair, although if they turn out to be comfy I'll wear them anyway.

I need to do some "real work" for a bit, then I tackle the fly-front zip install.

Vogue 8422: nice but not quite right

2010-09-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after setting the pants aside to be hemmed when I feel like it (and playing with the cat for a bit, which did wonders for my mood) I sewed up a muslin of Vogue 8422, View B. Since I'm without photo capability at the moment, you'll have to make do with the pattern drawing:

I used a super-cheap poly-spandex purchased online with the idea of testing stretch knit patterns like this one. Turns out it's more swimwear fabric than a street-wear knit, but it's not too far off the stretch rayon jersey I want to use in terms of weight and stretch.

I lowered the waist an inch, and left off the sleeves, and it turned out well. This top has tons of potential. The lower front is a separate panel that is slightly gathered at the bodice seam, which does a nice job of camouflaging a less-then-flat belly. The ties are huge, though, and have to be because there's so much fabric gathered into them on the side. I took a tip from a PatternReview comment and folded out some of the extra fabric on the left front, to reduce bulk. When I make this up "for real" I might do the same on the right front, too.

However, I don't think it's the right pattern for the fabric I had in mind, which is this one:

Originally I'd thought the draping on this top would suit the fabric, but now I think the pattern will muffle the print, and the print will disguise the pattern shaping, both of which are worth showing off. I'm going to look for another pattern that will display this fabric better. Maybe something super-simple like the Textile Studio "Santa Monica" Tee.

I do think I'll make this top some day, but I'm taking it off the "get done before Oct. trip" list. I need a top I can wear with jeans, and I don't think this is it. It needs (on my shape) something with minimal tummy bulk underneath it, like a flat-front pant or slim skirt with invisible side or back zip.

View A might go better with jeans:

I don't love the curved edge on the lower panel, but that's easy to redraft. This version is hovering at the lower edge of my "I might possibly get to this before I go" list. I have another fabric in mind, but haven't checked yet if I have enough yardage. Or figured out what I'd use for that ring detail.

With two weeks left until I pack my suitcase I'm determined to fit a little sewing into each day (something that has not happened the past couple weeks). This morning I tweaked the fit of the Jalie jeans muslin. I've done a lot of grousing about my experience making the Marrakesh pants, but copying that (final) crotch curve for the jeans got me very close on the first try, which is awesome, and well worth the fitting headaches for the first pant. I ended up adjusting the c-curve just a teeny bit, which is no suprise given the big difference in both pattern and fabric. Plenty of work stuff awaits my attention today, but with a little luck I can start cutting out the jeans fabric before the end of the day.

Call me Mrs. CrankyPants

2010-09-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

Probably I shouldn't blog when I'm peeved, but Mr. de Hilo is officially fired from "are these pant hems even?" duty. Yesterday I asked him for a visual check of what I hoped was the final pinning:. I even stood on a little stool as he crouched down, so my ankles would be at his eye level as I turned around and around.

"Are these even? Are both legs the same length? Are the hems straight on the side?" etc.etc.
"Yes," he said.

So I pressed, trimmed the excess to 2", folded up a double hem, and pressed and pinned again, and set them aside to be stitched. I didn't get to them last night, though, and this morning I decided to check them one more time, using the camera and timer.

Aaaagck! The left leg was noticeably longer than the right in the back and to a slightly lesser degree in the front, and clearly not hanging level in the side view. The right leg was not quite level front-to-back, either.

Seriously? How could he not see that?

That's not why I'm cranky though. Making sure the hems are right is my job, not his. So I took the pants off and on a couple times, sat down and walked around in them, getting them to settle, and took two more sets of photos, just in case I'd managed to capture one weird moment of bad posture. Nope: consistent not-even, not-level results.

So then I repinned and re-photo'd. Twice more. Finally I felt confident they must be close enough. So I took one more round of front/back/side photos. And then, ta-daaaaah: my computer decided the camera does not exist. I've rebooted and reconnected twice, turned the camera on and off about six times, tried the cable in all 4 of the USB slots on my notebook, and nada.

And that's why I'm cranky. I think I've finally got the hems as close to right as they are likely to get, but the image in that little viewscreen on the back of the camera is just too small to be sure. That's why I've been checking full-size pics on the computer.

So, I'm giving up. I'm going to HEM THE *#$^%@! PANTS as they are and be done with it. When I can stand to look at them again. Which might not be 'til tomorrow.

And, believe it or not, in between all this pants stuff I've managed to sew up my first-ever knit top (yay!) and have cut fabric for another that I hope to get to this afternoon. I've been looking forward to showing them off.

I'll try hooking up the camera to hubbie's computer, but if the problem is the USB cable I'm out of luck until we get a replacement. I already know we don't have any other USB cable in the house that fits the camera, 'cause I looked last time we lost this one. And no, I don't have a smart phone to take pics with.

two wrong sides?

2010-09-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

Couldn't capture this in a photo, but perhaps you've encoutered something similar: a fabric with two wrong sides.

I'm muslining the Jalie 2908 stretch jeans in a too-stretchy something I picked up for 1.99 to test the pattern with. It's an icky pale blue, light-denim weight but not a twill; the weave on one side looks exactly like the "wrong" side of real denim. The other side looks exactly like the wrong side of something else. What, I don't know.

While cutting the fabric I changed my mind several times as to which side was the "right" side, and finally decided there wasn't one. I picked a side and decided to go with that. Today, basting up front/back for a quick try-on, I went the other way.

Not that it matters. One glance in the mirror was enough to convince me that light-colored stretch anything is not a good choice on my butt, especially in a jeans fit. Unless I wear a tunic over it, which is a possibility. I wasn't going to stay in them long enough to find out, though, as it's too hot in the sewing room for trying on pants for more than a nanosecond.

I wish I'd remembered to cut the muslin with extra-wide side seams. "Boot cut" and I are not friends, so I straightened out the taper, adding some width at the knee and bringing in the flare to a straight line. The end result would be fine if I were slimmer through the hips, but as things are now the narrow leg makes my wide parts look even wider.

On the whole, though, not bad for a first muslin. I'm already thinking these could be cute at capri length, under a tunic. If nothing else, it might be worth finishing these pants for those days when I don't feel like working out. I could put them on instead of my exercise clothes and admire my rear view for a dose of instant inspiration.

Speaking of pants, I finally got the Marrakesh pants pinned for hemming. It took about six tries, spread out over ... how long has it been? 10 days? Felt like for-frickin'-ever. Anyway, as of this morning they are pinned and ready to hem. As soon as it cools off enough to plug in my iron I'll press them and try to remember how to use the blind-hem foot on my machine.

I've heard that every blog post needs a picture, so here's my little cutie enjoying one of his favorite toys. This box had one open end for pantry use, and when he became fascinated with it I cut a large hole in the other for greater play possibilities. He likes to "hide" in there (sticking out both ends) before pouncing.

Look who followed me home...

2010-09-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

Ever since moving to Hawaii in 1999, I've been thinking "some day it will be nice to have a cat again." But with no urgency about it. It would happen when it happened. I figured when the time was right the right cat would find me: some fine day I'd go out for a walk and hear a kitten mewing in the grass, or something like that, and that would be it.

The years have gone by and from time to time I've wondered when my cat would appear. Then, this past Monday, Mr. de Hilo and I went for a walk, and on our way up the hill on our usual route this little cutie was crouched in the grass by a banana patch, mewing. I stopped to pet him, as I do any friendly cat. He's not quite a kitten anymore, but still young, about half-cat sized, and just adorable.

On our way back down the hill, he trotted out to the road and followed us (mostly me; Mr. de H could see where this was headed and was staying out of it). When we got to my street, cat still tagging along, a woman from the neighb stopped to wonder if it was the same little black stray her husband reported seeing around her house, a few blocks further down, several days ago.

Little cutie was a bit thin, very hungry/thirsty, but seems otherwise healthy. In 24 hours, he ate two entire cans of tuna and little bit of dry food, and visibly filled out. He is so adorable I couldn't believe no one was looking for him. Tuesday I went all over the neighborhood talking to whoever I could find and flagging down cars: "do you know anyone who's lost a little black cat?", and leaving notes with my phone number in mailboxes. Put a Lost and Found ad on Craigslist, and other in the local paper. Sent emails to local animal shelters, to say if anyone calls looking for a little black cat, pass them my number.

Then we (yes, Mr. de H has fallen for him, too) spent the rest of the week hoping no one would call. Yesterday was the last day of the local "found cat" ad, and the one call we got from it was someone looking for a black cat with a white throat, so not this one. Phew!!

Last night we finally allowed ourselves to believe that we get to keep him. Mr. de H has named him "Cosmo" in honor of "hipster doofus" Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld. I think that's a fine name for a cat.

No sewing got done this week, as free time was spent bonding with and playing with our little cutie. I will have pics of at least one new garment soon, promise.

One Block Wonder Distractions

2010-09-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Shelley (aka Elsie's Girl), I am now obsessed with the idea of making a One Block Wonder 60-degree triangle quilt. Who could resist turning an awesome fabric into something even more eye-popping?

My front entry/foyer features a large wall that would be perfect for displaying a spectacular quilt. So I've been planning to make one. In my mind this future project was going to be a paper-foundation extravaganza in the style of Karen Stone. You know: something that would take me a year to draft, and ten years to complete (by which time we will probably have moved again).

So when I poked around the OBW flickr group, a light bulb went on in my head: this method would be PERFECT for a foyer quilt, fun to make, and -- big plus -- something I might actually complete within a year. I started to think about what colors I would like for that space, and what scale/density/contrast of print would deliver the results I was imagining.

Being highly susceptible to distractions of the creative kind, I couldn't help rummaging in the stash for something to play OBW with on a smaller scale. You need six repeats, which I was able to cut as 15"x18"-ish pieces from the Amy Butler fabric left over from making this pillow for my Mom last year. Shelley was kind enough to email me capsule instructions, so I cut 3-3/4" strips, found a 60-degree ruler that has been lurking, unused, in the sewing supplies for eons, and produced 16 sets of identical 3" (+SA) triangles:

I played around with arranging each triangle set into a hexagon, then pinned each set in a stack with the pin in the point that would be the center of the block when I sewed them up, as you can see at the top of the pic, above. I set these aside by my "in-betweener" pile in the sewing room, with no intention of getting around to the next stage anytime soon.

Thursday evening, having cut all my teal chabray for the Marrakesh Pants, I sat down at the sewing machine to change the thread to teal, and saw that I had ivory already threaded. It seemed crazy to switch to pants sewing without taking advantage of the ivory setup to do a few triangle-hex seams to see how it would go:

How it went was speedy! By the time I paused, I'd done so many I figured I might as well finish them up. Finish meaning half-hexes, as far as it's wise to go before deciding on a final layout.

Once all my triangles were in half-block sets, how could I resist playing with them? I don't have enough to make anything substantial, but I'm thinking that arranged like this with corners filled in (or maybe appliqued to a backing fabric), I'd have the front and back of another 18"-ish pillow. Or fronts for two pillows.

So that's why I didn't start sewing up the teal pants right away. They are looking good, BTW, and fit well as basted. I also got the pocket pieces attached and the elastic and the waistband assembled. Next step is to do the fly extension and zipper. When I looked at the clock at that point yesterday it was 4:30 pm, which for me is the error hour when my energy and concentration slip and I'm prone to making stupid sewing mistakes. It didn't seem like a good time to attempt my first-ever fly-front zipper.

Marrakesh Pants Progress Report

2010-09-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

Finally moving on from the muslin stage: whoot! Here's my fabric for MPant #1 (assuming I love them and make more than one pair; not a sure thing, but I'm choosing optimism):

There's a bit of flash glare going on here, but you can see I'm using a teal cotton chambray (warp threads are bright teal, weft are black), which may or may not work well for the pattern in terms of weight (similar to linen) and drape (minimal). I chose it because I dearly want a pair of loose, light-weight pants to wear here in the winter, when it's often too cool for a short cotton skirt (but not cool enough for jeans) in the middle of the day, when I'm most likely to be out and about. I originally justified the purchase of this fabric (from Fabric.com last year sometime) by the thought that this color would be great on Mr. deHilo and that it might be nice to make him a shirt someday instead of just sewing for myself all the time. (Snort: who was I kidding?)

The pocket and waistband lining is a cotton that's been in the stash for many years, that I've been snipping away at for various quilt projects. It's a Liberty (Wm. Morris repro?) knockoff, nothing pricey. It will make me very happy to walk around with butterflies in my pockets, even if no one else knows they are there.

The pieces are now all cut out, and I will begin construction as soon as I finish this blog post and have one more mug of coffee in me. I would have started on the sewing yesterday evening, but I got distracted by something else (all Shelley's fault), which I will ramble about in my next post.

I cut the seams off my last muslin, traced the pieces onto lengths of butcher paper, then added seam allowance. I'll use the original pattern pieces for pockets, etc., my pattern for pant front and back. Here's a brief recap of fitting adjustments.

1) Back crotch curve:

These are close to the pattern 16 through the hip (I moved the HP piece a few inches up, so it doesn't cover my pattern lines). As you might be able to see here, I added about 2" in height at the center back waist, changed the crotch curve slightly, also extended crotch point a little. After all the tweaking, it came out closer to the original than I'd expected.

2) Front crotch curve:

I changed this curve more than the back, to a much gentler slope, That HP "J" shape did not fit me at all: weird pooching going on there on the first muslin. Took a few tries to get it right. Added to the height here as well, but not as much as at the back. I also added a distressing amount to the inner thigh. Maybe in a future version I will divide that extra more between front/back pieces, but this seems to work okay. Maybe in a future version I will have worked out more and not need all that inner-thigh pudge room. My front ended up at about the HP size 14 after tweaking excess from the hip.

3) Hip curve:

I'm happy to say it did occur to me I ought to make sure the outside pocket shape fits my hip curve, which it does. That's nice. Unfortunately, I forgot to add to pocket height when I cut them, so these may sit up higher than I'd like. If necessary I can nudge the pockets down a little by minimizing seam allowance at top and bottom. I doubt it will be a big issue.

The other adjustment I made was to correct the leg width. Somehow through the lengthy muslining process I'd managed to reduce the wide leg quite a bit. That's because my learn-to-fit-as-you-go method involved much trial and error, and at a couple points I tried resewing the out- or inseam to help correct the hang of the leg, when (as I eventually figured out) pulling up at the side hip works better. Anyway, as I was drafting the new paper back/front pieces I redrew the outseam from the hip point down to be perpendicular to the hem, and matching the original pattern leg width. I may decide that's too wide, but I can always taper in.

So, I'm ready to ~~sew~~ baste these up. I plan to baste the front and back together and try on one more time before adding the pockets, waistband, and fly front. More updates to come...

Self-Stitched September?

2010-09-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

I thought about signing up for SSS, but really, what's the point? I already wear something I made every day. In the morning and evening (when temps are cooler) it's usually a maxi house-dress, sometimes yoga pants and a top. The yoga pants-top combo may be all store-bought, but I only wear it for part of the day. Here's a sample of the sort of sef-sewn garment I'm likely to be wearing at any given moment during warmer midday hours. None of these are new, I'm just throwing together a quickie post here ;-):

Mid-day reliably finds me in either a short dress or a skirt and top. Skirt-top combos are most often either top or bottom self-sewn, and the other half purchased. But a day in which I did not don anything self-sewn between waking and sleeping? Hasn't happened in a long time. If I had a real job, and challenged myself to wear self-sewn work clothes daily for month, I'd be in trouble. But I work at home, so comfy rules and goofy is welcome, and I've got a closet full of that kind of stuff.

My ONE BIG GOAL for September is to finish a pair of self-sewn pants. They have to fit, to count. I'm getting closer. I might even cut out the Marrakesh pants from a "fashion" fabric today, if I have any energy left after doing errands. And if I can decide on a fabric.

Another batch of hexie backgrounds ready to go

2010-08-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

I took a break from working on hexies last week. I'd been basting a second huge batch of background blues for what felt like eons, and got to the point where every night I'd look at it and think, "I don't feel like working on that today." I would have switched to sewing blues around the flowers, but I didn't have any ready to go. I like to pick the background hexies for a bunch of the flowers, stack the blues for each flower, and baste the pile of blues to the flower with a loop of thread. When I'm ready to sew, I snip the thread loop, and sew the hexies on, working my way down the pile. This way I can sew the background ring in place without having to turn my brain back on to make a "which blue next?" decision with each seam, which really slows things down. This is a slow-enough project already.

Selecting the blues for each flower is best done with natural light on the kitchen counter, as you see here, but day after day last week I was busy with other things and forgot to do it before evening. I finally got around to it Sunday. I've now got about 30 more flowers ready to sew blues to. That may sound like a lot, but it leaves another 30 or so to go, which means I still need to baste more (a lot more!) blues. At the moment I'm feeling inspired to keep going with the basting until all the remaining flowers are ready to have the background ring sewn on.

I may change my mind about that.

Inching along

2010-08-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

OMG I got no sewing done at all, this week, in spite of waking up every morning determined to fit a few minutes on something wardrobe-related into the day. The thing is, I'm deeply into some important-to-me (but dull to you, so I won't go into details) work projects that I long to complete, and that's been keeping me busy until it's too late in the day to attempt sewing without a too-large risk of stupid sewing errors. I've ended up collapsing on the couch to watch such intellectually challenging shows as Wipeout, which is good for a few belly laughs at hapless contestant expense every time. I find the compulsion to laugh at pratfalls fascinating, and the more laughs I can fit into the day, the better.

So, onward: here's where I'm at with the Marrakesh pant:

I ran out of actual muslin some time ago, this is rendition #2 from a sacrificed set of old cotton sheets. Believe it or not, I think I almost have a muslin that might possibly result in a good-enough-to-wear fit. I say "almost" because I have not dealt with the elastic/drawstring casing at the waist. What I did was cut a very tall front/back leg (literally about 6" extra at the waist) so I could do the thing where you tie elastic at the waist and pull the muslin up/down here and there until something looks right. I tried to get the elastic at where I'd like the pant drawstring/elastic to be, then took a black gel pen and marked at the bottom edge.

You can see in the photo above that the center back seam on my almost-fitted muslin is about 3/4" higher than the side seam. I am going to have to firmly remind myself, when I cut my fashion fabric, that as wrong as this looks it is right for me. The good news is that after making several muslins, each from the last without reference to the paper pattern, it looks like the back waist casing is a pretty close fit to the pant I've ended up with.

Not so much on the front, though. I'm going to try the front waist casing at the size 14 length and see how that goes:

Next up, cut casing pieces from some one of the previous muslin-fails lying around here somewhere, and sew those on for a final (please God let this be the last one) fit. I've read all kinds of reminders that when fitting pants it is imperative to include the zipper and fly at the muslin stage, but the thought of doing that makes me want to put a gun to my head. Seriously, I've been fooling around with this pant for about as long as I can stand. Dealing with fly extensions and a zipper is just too much. Plus, the waist isn't exactly "fitted" on this one, so I'm going to wing it.

I'd really like to get this next step done today, so tomorrow I can try to figure out length (my muslins are cropped to flood level because having to roll or pin up the bottom was driving me nuts) but it's about as hot and humid and sticky as it gets here. Where's a cool and drizzly day when I need it for comfortable sewing conditions?

Speaking of which, on recent cool and drizzly late afternoon I looked out the window of my home office and saw this fabulous double-rainbow (part of it, anyway; I grabbed my camera and climbed up to the top of the empty lot next door to capture the whole gorgeous thing):

What I saw from my house was more like this:

Stash Confessional

2010-08-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

Oh, I was doing SO well until this morning. I'd actually used more fabric (45 yds) than purchased (42.5 yds) so far this year, but I just tipped that equation the other way via Fabric.com. In my defense, the bulk of my purchase was lining yardage in 3 colors, which I need for some garment fabric that, if not lined, will never see wear. That's not to say that I'll sew it up anytime soon, but it had been on my "grab some when it's on sale" list for a while.

The purely indulgent purchase of the day was these two prints. The first is one of my all-time fave Kaffe Fassett prints, in a new-to-me colorway, "Persimmons" in Opal:

I got three yards of this, which is how much I need to make a maxi-dress like this one for around the house wear. It's not the most flattering dress ever, but OMG, so comfy. I've been wearing the butterfly version almost daily and thinking, every time I zip it up, "it sure would be nice to make another of these, next time I find a great cotton print on sale." I've been keeping my eye out for something, and this is it. Came out to around $4.50/yard, which is a good price for KF. I don't think I'll get to sewing it up before my Oct. trip, though, so into the stash it will go.

The other indulgence was this ridiculous Brandon Mably (Kaffe Fassett Collective) print, "Fish Lips," in Lilac, which I have been giggling at for the past year or so:

I don't know why I love it so much, but it makes me smile every time I see it, which is a good thing. I only got two yards because this one wasn't on sale, so it won't be a maxi-dress (probably just as well; that would be a little too goofy, even for me). I envision it as a wide quilt border for... something. I can't pretend this one is anything other than stash accumulation.

While in confessional mode, I'll cop to some more pattern accumulation, too. This is entire the Vogue site's fault, as they put all their patterns on sale today. I got these:

V1177, Anna Sui dress. Reality check: on me this will be a tunic. I have some cotton lawn in the stash in mind for this one, if/when I get to it.

V8323, knit tops, also on my "grab when it goes on sale" list. I have in mind the brown stretch jersey I recently aquired, for the cross-neck view, plus sleeves.

And V1051, the very popular Alice+Olivia pants:

I know, I know, I haven't even produced one successful pants muslin yet. But I've had good luck with that kind of shaped yoke on a skirt, so hope it might be a nice feature on my figure... although it's way too low as drafted. And I'll probably cut it wide-legged all the way down, rather than nipping in at the knee. I may be delusional, but have high hopes for final results from this, tempered by expectation that it may become a year-long project to get them right. I think I even have some appropriate fabric in the stash for this, if I don't use it for something ese, first.

Anyhoo, one of the ~~perks~~ drawbacks of being self-employed is that ~~no one but me~~ every reader of this blog knows that I've now spent half the morning on stash accumulation, instead of on income-generation, which is what I really should be focusing on, given that it's now 10:25 on Monday morning...

Liverpool Shirt - in process

2010-08-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

Not so hot and stick today, but that doesn't mean I'm in any mood for modeling. So, herewith, a work in process on the hanger:

This is the popular Amy Butler "Liverpool" shirt/tunic/dress pattern. Believe it or not, this is the shortest -- "shirt" -- length, with the 3/4 length sleeve option. It's not hemmed yet (or even pinned up) but even so. It's a long shirt.

It's either going to be awful or wonderful, and right now I'm close to hating it. On the other hand, it's a muslin, so marginal fit and questionable fabric choices aren't the end of the world at this stage.

You might think I''m nuts to use such a yummy fabric for a muslin, but it has been in my stash since the dawn of time, and for good reason: it's a tightly woven, super-crisp cotton, poorly suited for garment use. I got about 3 yards of it several eons ago at the Pierre Dieux store on Madison Ave. in Manhattan (I think that location closed long ago, but I could be wrong), where they used to sometimes put bolt ends and remnants on sale at normal-people-can-almost-afford-it prices. The print is "me" in that over-the-top way, and I love it enough that I was getting sick of seeing it in the stash. The urge to use it for something, anything, came over me while I was rooting around in the stash for a fabric to test this pattern with.

The contrast trim is a kooky quilting cotton, also of ancient vintage, with abstract football-ish shapes in blue-red-yellow on brown. I like that it almost has a leopardy look to it from afar. There's a good chance I'm the only person on the planet who thinks these two fabrics go together. On alternate minutes, when I'm not wondering what the *&%$#! I was thinking.

As you see it here, it's all done except for buttons/buttonholes and hemming. The front edges are pinned together, as it will look when buttoned. I left off the sash, BTW, and the cuff buttons.

You'd think 6 darts on the front would result in good shaping, but eeesh, the shape of this shirt is not matching up to my shape very well, in spite of great efforts taken with flat measurements and pattern adjustments. I cut a size L, but used the lower, XL, dart positions, because I need more length in the torso and the L darts were clearly too high. I also moved the waist down a half-inch.

Something about the waist is still not right: the widest part of the fish-eye darts is now at my waist, but it still looks like it's sitting a little high at the side seams. And I either need to open up the side seams and put in the sash I left out, or add a couple fish-eye darts to the back, which is schlumpy and shapeless compared to the front.

Usually a size L top is huge across the back on me (and too narrow across the front), but this one is too large (though not too wide) in front, and pulling across the shoulders if I move my arms. The armscye is way high, to the point that I almost have to wriggle into the sleeves, and couldn't possibly wear anything but a sleeveless T under this. Which is a problem, as at this point I'm thinking that getting a good fit buttoned up may be impossible, but it has possibilities if worn open as an overshirt.

This may sit in the UFO pile for a bit. I think it's salvageable if I:
1) Fiddle with the bust darts, which point straight in from the side seam (odd), and I think they need to be at an angle
2) Fiddle with the fisheye darts: I think there's too much nipping in at the waist for this fabric; slightly narrower darts might ease the poor draping (although this crisp fabric will never, ever drape well)
3) Experiment with adding small fisheye darts to the back, which is huge at the waist
4) Lower the armscye (no idea how to do that, but I've got several books that cover that kind of thing) enough so it doesn't pinch, without losing mobility

Ugh. None of those tasks is the kind of thing I feel at all enthusiastic about. On the other hand, I've come this far. And look what a nice job I did matching up the print on the L/R front pieces... abandoning it will feel like a loss.

I need to focus on sewing some clothes for my trip, and I don't think this one is going to make it. Unless I get around to muslining jeans out of the sky-blue stretch twill I got super-cheap for that purpose. In a perfect world this shirt, over a light blue pant, might end up feeling groovy.

Chances are slim, at best, that both "muslins" will turn out wearable, but I can dream, can't I?

Fabric finds

2010-08-13T12:29:00.000-07:00

Went to my local fabric store/Babylock dealer yesterday to get the extension table thing for my machine, so I can learn to do machine quilting and move a few things out of the UFO piles. It was not cheap, but I'd earned it by sticking with my fabric embargo, which meant no new fabric for 120 days.

Since the embargo is over, and the store was promoting a new shipment of "designer" fabric remnants from LA, I poked around the piles on that table. Usually this stuff is fashion-fabric dreck, but sometimes there are gems in there, if you rummage deeply enough. Here's what I found:

I do want to conserve my fabric budget as much as possible, in order to maximize binge options while I'm on the mainland this fall, but I figured I'd keep an eye out for anything that might be appropriate for the kind of fall clothes I'll want to wear on my trip. Like these.

The brown stretch jersey is absolutely luscious, not the sort of color I ever wear in Hawaii, but perfect for a city weekend in October. I'm thinking a simple long-sleeved top, maybe a little ruching, or cross-over detail. There might even be enough for a sleeveless version, too.

The beige herringbone is probably poly, but very soft, nice medium weight, with good drape. There's enough of it to make a pair of pants, if I ever finish the pattern-fitting thing. I would have passed on it, if it weren't such a perfect match, in color, style, and weight, to the brown jersey.

The B/W double-knit is borderline "meh," but could go in either top or skirt direction. I'm thinking a top to go with the black stretch twill skirt I made this spring, but am not confident it will earn a place in my suitcase.

If these fabrics had required any kind of investment at all, I would have waffled on them, as dark neutrals are not my style at all these days, but it's so easy to envision what they might become, and I do need fall clothes and, most persuasive of all, the price was right: $1.77 a yard! That's cheaper than muslin! Total for the three pieces: $8.31 (inc. tax), so if they end up languishing in the stash I can always use them for pattern testing.

*****
UPDATE: I just added these purchases to the year-to-date count, and here's where I stand:
YTD in: 42.25 yards
YTD out: 45.0 yards

Look at that! I'm AHEAD on the yardage acquisition for perhaps the first time ever. And once I get into machine quilting and put the backs on some tops, and add binding yardage, I'll be in even better shape.

Or not. The quilting thing is not likely to happen before my trip, and there are sure to be some substantial additions to the "in" column when I hit the Portland fabric shops. Okay, sorry I thought about that, it kindof took the glow off my (temporary) accomplishment.

More Hexies

2010-08-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

I've got a couple of garment-type things to photo for you, but it's been so sticky here lately I keep putting it off, just too icky to be posing in anything with sleeves. You'll see them eventually.

In the meantime, here are a few of the latest batch of hexie flowers. I'm about a third of the way through adding the various blue bits around the outside of each one.

Used up the last of the ready-to-go blue hexies about a week ago, so am now busy during TV time basting up the next huge heap of blues so I can make more of these.

Alabama-style stitching - Part 3

2010-07-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

[just tuning in? Part 1 is here]

Here's a look at the completed stenciling on the back. I reused some of the main motifs from the front, in different positions, and filled in with additional leaves and some dots. The dots are stamped with one of the sponge-on-a-stick things I was using to apply the fabric paint. I've also added some dots to fill in the larger empty spaces and edges of the front.

My under layer is an identical sleeveless T in a (slightly faded) kelly green, which is my favorite color combo with this bright blue. I could have simply slipped one inside the other, but decided to reduce seam bulk by cutting away the seams, hem, and neck/arm binding on the inner layer. The two layers are pinned together with small safety pins, which I placed on the inside, so as to keep them out of the way of stitching. Here you can see the under layer pinned around the edges. I also added a few more pins in the center.

So far I've really been enjoying this process, designing and cutting the stencil and seeing that pattern emerge. Now the real fun begins: hand stitch around each motif, and cut out the larger bits for a reverse applique effect:

First I had to make a thread choice. The Alabama Stitch Book recommends button/craft thread, which is a thick, strong cotton-wrapped polyester. I have some ivory of that, and some beige. Not my first choice, although the beige is what I've ended up using.

I first tried some dark blue 100% poly upholstery thread, but decided I had zero confidence that the knots would hold, as it's quite slippery. Then I considered hand-quilting thread, which is heavier than all-purpose thread, and which I have several nice colors of thanks to my Mom, who passed most of her thread stash on to me. Alas, a brief tug test revealed that the stuff has the tensile strength of wet Kleenex, so not a good choice for this project. Probably also useless for quilting, other than it's 100% cotton which I guess may be important to someone. Not to me, though. I'll probably collect all those spools and toss 'em. If I ever hand-quilt something I'll want those stitches to last.

Final option, some poly top-stitching thread. I have two spools of purple, which would be a fun color choice. But it's a bit too heavy for this, so beige button/craft thread it is. Although the book says to use it doubled, I tried that and decided I prefer a single thread. I think that's because, as I realized when I went to pin the two layers together, what I'm working with is not a simple interlock, but a very fine single rib, which has more sideways stretch and heft. You might think that was so obvious I'd have noticed it a bit earlier on, but it's typical of me to have been so caught up in the enthusiasm for a new project that a key detail went undetected during the planning stage and into execution.

I chose to leave the knots/ends on the outside, although remembering to start from the front is a challenge. It's so deeply ingrained to bring that first stitch up from the back to hide the knot and tail. I've miffed that twice so far, but it's not really noticeable.

Here's a close-up of the reverse applique effect:

I've never hand-sewn cotton jersery before, and it is so soft and lucious to work with! It's been a couple of decades since I did any kind of embroidery, and I wasn't sure how working without a hoop to stretch the fabric would work, but the jersey handles just fine.

What I'm so enjoying about this method:
~ how meditative and relaxing the hand-sewing is; even more so than hexies, possibly because the running stitch is smooth and easy
~ the in-your-face hand-sewn effect, knots and tails out there for everyone to see, plain-jane running stitch, nothing fancy about it; yet the result is complex and elegant
~ how the reverse applique bumps the stencilled pattern toward the abstract by making the echo shape more prominent that the line of the stencilled pattern

I'm asserting great restraint to hold off on adding beads to this one. I'm eager to take that extra step toward labor-intensive excess, but will save it for when I'm working with new fabric. Because I do want to do more of these. First, though, I need to finish this one, and that will take a while.

When I've got all the reverse applique done I have one more decision to make, and that's whether to cut off and hand-finish the neck and arm edges. And maybe the hem, too.

I think I want to, but have no extra jersey to make a binding from unless I cut up another shirt and add a third color, which would be too much. So I'd have to come up with some way to stabilize the neck/arm edges. Maybe a strip of fusible interfacing on the underlayer?

That's the kind of thing that would have been easier to do before all this hand-sewn assembly, but I'm sure it's doable. Nevertheless, I've decided to wait on the neck/arm edge decision until I get the rest of the sewing done.

Alabama-style stitching - Part 2

2010-07-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

[missed Part 1? catch up here.]

8. BONDING

This was my first ever try at freezer paper stenciling, and info on what heat setting to use when ironing the freezer paper onto fabric was elusive. I took a break with the finished stencil in place, and did some research.

Of the many online tutes turned up by a Google search, only one addressed iron temp, and recommended "hot." I didn't trust that. My iron packs a lot of heat, and I was wary of scorching the paper, so I turned off the steam and tried the "silk" setting first. It was was not hot enough: the paper adhered while warm but loosened as it cooled.

I pressed again on "wool" and that worked beautifully. The paper had good adhesion, and didn't lift off as I applied the paint, but peeled off very easily afterward. Here it is pressed (edges trimmed before pressing). I pressed on a folded towel on the counter because that was easier than relocating to the ironing board in the sewing room.

9. PAINTING

I've never used fabric paint before, so wasn't sure what to expect. One reason I stalled on getting started on this project is that every time I thought "fabric paint" I thought: mess, clean-up, ugh.

I'm pleased to say it wasn't that bad. I used acrylic craft paint, 'cause that's what was available at the crafts store here in town. It's those little bottles in the pic above. The nice lady at the store advised to also get the fabric-formula goo and mix it in at 2 parts paint to 1 part FFgoo. I started with a tablespoon of paint, which turned out to be not quite enough; next time, for this size stencil, I'll mix up half-again as much.

My inner six-year-old (who likes all things tacky and bling-ish, and whom I usually keep under strict control when making wearable decisions) woke up in the paint department and insisted that we really, really wanted to use SILVER paint.

Uh huh. Metallic. Fabric paint. On a T-shirt. This is not the sort of look the grownup me goes for, so I thinned the paint with water and hoped it wouldn't be too glittery.

I used a round sponge-on-a-stick thing and tap-tap-tapped the paint onto the open parts of the stencil. Quick and easy!

I think the silver paint turned out okay. There's a teeny bit of glimmer to it (accentuated by the flash, below), but overall it's more of a tarnished silver look, which is exactly how I hoped it would turn out:

I cut the stencil into pieces as I removed it, because I hope to reuse at least some of it on the back. The stenciled shapes are nicely sharp-edged, by the way. Don't know why they look a bit blurry in the photo, but if you click on the pic for enlargement you can see the edges came out very well.

I still need to heat set it (iron again, with a press cloth), and then stencil the back and fill in at the sides for more of an all-round effect. The paint needs a good while to dry, so it will take another day to get all the stenciling done.

Alabama-style stitching - part 1

2010-07-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

My sewing plans for the weekend include collecting my courage and diving back into the next pants muslin. Shortly after my last post I got new front and back pattern pieces revised with latest best-guess modifications, then decided to set it aside during the workweek with hopes of returning to it refreshed; I'll report back on how that goes once I've sunk my teeth into it.

In the meantime, I finally stopped just looking at my Alabama Stitch and Alabama Studio Style books and decided to use my play time this week to start making something. However, I'm way past my personal-best mark on the current fabric embargo, and hope to keep on going until my eagerly-awaited Portland shopping binge coming up in the fall. Which means no splurging on lovely new organic cotton jersey until then. Old tank tops will have to do for a foundation.

I agree: it's crazy to apply such an extraordinarily labor-intensive process to old tank tops that are showing their age. But it's what I've got, and I'm not going to shop.

Here's where I am with it as of this morning:
[disclaimer: I did not do this all in one day. Steps 1 and 2 happened weeks ago, then I had to get around to shopping for fabric paint, and then I had to get around to getting back to this project. Step 3 and onward happened Wed-Fri this week.]

1. INSPIRATION
All I had to do was look at my lap. Which, at the moment this photo was snapped, was clad in my most-favorite so far Amy Butler print (it's a bit faded, as it has been worn and washed many times):

2. IMITATION
I disrobed, spread the skirt out on the kitchen counter, placed a sheet of tracing paper over it, and did a quickie capture of several motifs with a ball-point pen.

3. DUPLICATION
I photocopied my tracings at 200%, and then made another copy of the enlarged leafy one at 78%. This produced almost as many pieces of paper as one of those downloadable PDF garment patterns, but without the helpful line-up points. Tracings on the right, photocopies on the left:

I'm extremely grateful to be able to do this on the multi-function copier-printer in our home office; if I had to go to Kinko's for enlargements it would probably never happen.

4. MANIPULATION
After some fiddling, I got the various motif pieces sorted out and taped together.

5. PREPARATION
My top fabric is a blue "Haines Perfect Tank" size Large, a couple years old and purchased at WMart for around $6. I slid two open file folders between the front and back of the T to keep the fabric paint from bleeding through onto the back. Works out nicely, because they are a good width to keep the T spread flat without stretching or wrinkles. Here's how I laid out my stencil motifs for the front:

6. TRACIFICATION
When the motifs were in place, I tore off a piece of freezer paper and lay it over the whole shebang, plastic side down, and traced the motifs again. I did a super-quickie slapdash job of this, just as I had with the original tracing:

7. STENCILFICATION
The freezer paper became a stencil in many short sessions throughout most of the day Friday. My current "real work" project is at a tedious and fiddly stage, the kind of thing best done in short sessions with frequent breaks to prevent brain fatigue and stupid errors. Which, coincidentally, is the best way to approach a large stencil design that you realize (too late) could have been simpler, and which is going to be way more time-consuming and tedious to cut than anticipated. So I spent the day alternating between bouts of tedious, mentally numbing computer work, and tedious, mentally numbing stencil cutting:

I used both a craft knife and embroidery scissors on this, and came to the conclusion that there is no way easy to do it. I cannot imagine doing this with template plastic or posterboard. You'd have to be crazy.

Eventually, I got it done.

Next steps coming up, when I get around to posting Part 2...

Frankensizing

2010-07-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

(warning: another long and rambling post that may be of little interest to anyone but me...)

I spent a good chunk of yesterday "muslining" the HotPatterns Marrakesh Pant ("straight leg, relaxed fit" with one of those HP combined elastic-drawstring + zipper waists: sounds forgiving, right?).

Some of the reviews over at PR suggest that this pattern is not for pants newbies, but the fly front, faced pockets, etc., do not intimidate me. It's true that after muslin #2 I and ended up with a worse fit than I'd started with (resulting in some profanity and a creeping sense of despair), but none of the style details have anything to do with that.

I am not giving up, however. Here in Hawaii I can get away with wearing skirts every day in public, and yoga pants (at home only) in cooler weather, but pulling that off during my October mainland trip will be difficult. I dearly, dearly wish for at least one pair of medium- to light-weight pants that fit, and since RTW will never deliver on that dream, I have no choice but to keep on until I can make them myself.

After walking away from utter failure yesterday, I regrouped and spent an hour or so browsing sewing forums for advice and re-reading my two pants fitting books...:
~ Pants for Real People, which is highly praised but did not deliver good results yesterday; I got caught in a feeback loop of pulling up at the waist to resolve problem A, which made the cr.curve too high, recutting which resulted in problem A again. After going through that two or three times it was clear I was heading for no improvement in fit but with a waist at the armpit and the pants hem somewhere around my knee. I do appreciate the "real people" approach, but none of the real people in the book are shaped anything like me. Heads-up folks, some of us pudgy middle-aged ladies carry our excess in a very curvy bum, not so much the belly and hips (not as slim as they once were, but still a long way from huge).
~ Easy Guide to Sewing Pants, from Taunton Press, now available as PDF download, which is quite detailed, with many diagrams of how to change a paper pattern. More photos/diagrams to help identify the problem to which those pattern fixes refer would be helpful.
... and the Threads magazine article (#142 July '09) on fitting pants to a curvy figure, which so far has been the most helpful.

As frustrating as the unsuccessful muslins have been, I now have a significantly improved understanding of my fit issues, and that's an important first step. Here are some problems and hiccups I've encountered:

1) "Choose your pants pattern size by your hip measurement." Um, okay. I'm exactly halfway between a 12 and a 14 hip on the HP chart for both waist and hip measure. Based on my Kyoto skirt experience (and even a passing glance at my hip profile in a mirror), however, I know I'll need extra butt room. I decided to go one size up and cut a 16, figuring I could trim if/where necessary.

2) But wait, let's take a gander at the crotch length measurements. I am "long in the hip" (more distance than average between a low crotch and a high waist), but had not realized that on the HP chart my crotch length is between size 18 and 20, and cr. depth a solid size 20. My "center front" (floor to waist) BTW, is a whopping size 22! Gee, do you think maybe that's why the incremental pattern adjustments my resources recommend were not delivering a good fit? According to a flat measure of the HPMP pattern, the size 16 back crotch length, point to (low) waist, is 2.5" too short for me.

I'm not going to try a larger size because the only successful revelation of the muslins so far is that they hang better if I take at least an inch off the outseam (bringing the pant leg down to somewhere around a size 10). Going further up in size seems likely to deliver so much extra fabric at the back of the thigh (already an issue) that it won't be worth any hip/crotch improvement.

3) In the absense of one of those flexible ruler things to capture the full glory of my curves, this morning I followed an online tip and twisted up a coil of aluminum foil, pressing it firmly front and back. I don't expect it's truly accurate, but take a look at it overlaid on the pants back from my original HP size 16 muslin (no adjustments yet):

As you can see, I am not exaggerating when I say my butt is "curvy." My curve is so far off the pattern I'm not even sure where/how to line it up; either way it's somewhere between fascinating and appalling. When I am slimmer this profile does shrink some, but the basic shape remains unchanged. Where this JLo-worthy shape came from is a mystery, BTW: I am the product of a solidly WASP gene pool in which the most exotic contributing element is a scant touch of French from way, way, way, way back.

However, this does help me understand why the unaltered muslin is snug in the butt while I can pinch a half-inch or so extra out of the hip (two fitting issues that seem as though they should be mutually exclusive, a situation that utterly baffled me yesterday).

Anyhoo, now that I've taken a break to write up this post and play with the photos, I'm going to give the "Threads" slash-and-spread method another go and see how I do. I'll post more pics when I'm a little closer to a wearable solution. Wish me luck.

book score!

2010-07-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

The Hilo Borders bookstore is closing. I feel partly to blame, given my Amazon habit and the fact that I now download all fiction to my Kindle. But it's their fault, too, for not having what I was looking for the past few times I went in 'cause I was in the neighb., just every title ever published by the big names, and for giving over more and more of the store to non-book items.

So, when they announced 20-30% off everything, I decided to give them some guilt dollars if I could find anything of interest in their meager and already picked-over craft section. Which I did. This one:

... and this one:

(Yes, clicking on one of those links will take you over to Amazon. Sorry, Borders, that's just how it is.)

Even at discount I still paid more than Amazon's current price for each title, but I also got a couple nice bound journals at a very good price, two novels cheap, and was able to explore both sewing books instantly (in the car on the way home, as DH drove) instead of waiting for mail delivery.

I now have both "Alabama" books, which equals a lot of inspiration, and no excuse for not starting in on something right away. Except that there are some other items on the to-do list.

I have been sewing since my last post, but the current project is not anything I can show you yet. It's of the quilt ilk, and part of a collaborative thing I'm exploring with my sister. She reads this blog, and doesn't want what she's doing on the same theme to be influenced by my take on it. I can provide a sneak peek...:

... but that's it for now. That's a yard of a lovely, reddish, mahogany brown Kona cotton, and small squares from the littlest scraps pile, roughly 1.5-2.5". I'm challenging myself to make something wherein the brown looks chic and stylish, not just muddy.

In other news, I have decided to break my pattern embargo (but not the fabric one; I'm sticking with that), for very good reason. I am headed for Maine in October, to visit my parents and brother, and will be stopping over in Portland, Ore, for the weekend on my way back. This means I will need some FALL CLOTHES, and nothing will thrill me more than if I've sewn some of them myself. I have fabric, but the patterns I want to use are still on my wishlist over at PatternReview.

The embargo idea was a good one, and I did very well with it, but let's face it: I need all the sewing days I can get, and waiting another three weeks to order them feels like a wasted opportunity. So, a pat on the back to me for making it to day 96 of the pattern embargo. That's going to have to be long enough.

I might even extend the fabric embargo until October (which would make it 180 days!), because my quilting sister, Abby, is coming over to Portland the weekend I'm there, for a meet up, and we have major fabric shopping plans. It will be nice to feel I've earned a serious binge.

Fun with scraps - Part Three

2010-06-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

The Confetti top is done! Size with borders is about 27x37".

I'm a bit disappointed in this photo, which was taken early morning and needed major adjustment to brightness and contrast; the colors are still not right. Took some with the flash, too, but the color in those was so yellow they were useless.

But... I love, love, love how the border turned out! It looks like an ornate picture frame, and I like how it sets off the "modern" randomness and straight lines of the confetti center. I was able to cut between the rows of flowers on the print, and have just enough room on each strip for seam allowance without stitching into any of the major motifs. The binding (when this is backed and quilted) will be the same as the inner border, which is a bit closer to a sage green than it appears here.

This one is now called "Confetti #1", because there will be others. I had a lot of fun playing with this, and my brain is now humming with some variations I'd like to try.

Next time I will set aside at least 12-18" of a background strip to have on hand for making layout adjustments as the interior seams all get sewn together. All those 1/4" seams mean a lot of shrinkage, and some things that looked well apart from each other ended up a bit too close. If I'd had even a short strip of the aqua on hand I could have tweaked things a bit better.

I'm wrestling with what to use for a backing fabric. I do have enough of the border fabric for a back. But I'm feeling greedy and selfish. While I was cutting the border I kept thinking how lovely the print would be as a skirt. A skirt for me, me, me. If I use it to back Confetti #1, will there be enough left to play dress-up with?

Two options: 1) use something else (I have a plan B fabric in mind already); and/or 2) go ahead and make a skirt and then see how much I've got left. I kindof thought I would take a break from making skirts, seeing as how I've got so many of them at this point. But maybe I've got one more to go.

Part of me thinks this print is so awesome as a border fabric that I ought to hoard what I've got for future projects. Whenever I feel the impulse to hoard a fabric I try to take a deep breath and remind myself that the whole purpose behind buying it was to make something out of it, and that there will always be more great fabric available. Always. Any minute now I could fall hopelessly in love with a new print. If when that happens, wouldn't it be nice if I'd made some room for it by using what I've already got?

No hurry, though. I'm not going to quilt this until my 120-day pattern and fabric embargo is over (only 5 weeks to go!) and I've saved up enough for the extension-table-thingie-for-machine-quilting for my Babylock and a couple other small toys on the list.

In the meantime, a horrifying number of "active" projects are lurking in the sewing room, and I ought to put some attention to finishing them before they've sat neglected for long enough to be called UFOs.

Fun with scraps - Part Two: Confetti

2010-06-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

I've been at my desk today getting some work done, thinking, "Yesterday was 'rest day' on the workout schedule, so why are my arms and shoulders sore and tight today?" Oh. Right: I spent HOURS yesterday afternoon standing in front of my flannel design wall, moving my arms around and up and down as I tweaked and fiddled and played with these (micro exercise really does add up):

These are my confetti bits: the print pieces are no more than about 2" square, most smaller, each with varying width aqua strips around three sides. There are 4 or 5 that only have aqua around 2 sides, 'cause I ran out. Which means I used up that particular fabric leftover, hooray! (Should have saved a strip for later, more to come on that), but didn't. Here you can see I've slapped them up on the wall in rows by height, which I thought might make the next step easier.

For assembling a layout, I took two pieces of ribbon and pinned them at a right angle on the wall, to keep the work in progress at least close to rectangular. Then I started in the corner fitting confetti bits together, aiming for mid-size composite blocks for easier seaming later:

Having things in rows by height was helpful, as I could quickly find an alternative when the first piece I tried turned out to be too tall or short, or if the height was right but width was all wrong. Of course by the time I was midway through this stage that system had deteriorated, but it was worth doing.

I thought I would peck away at working toward a layout over a couple of days, but I couldn't stay away from it. The challenge of fitting all the pieces together was part of the appeal of this method. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, and I love (love!) jigsaw puzzles! To me, this is creative play-time at it's best, and I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon when it's too steamy to play outside.

Here's what I came up with. I've got 4 confetti pieces left over, and that's fine; I'm not going to be obsessive about fitting them all in. The strip of fabric on the right is some of the coordinating Amy B. fabric I've also got leftovers of. Seems like it would make a good border, when I get to that stage:

None of these are sewn together yet, and when they are, all those many many 1/4" seams are going to shrink it down quite a lot. Fingers crossed it will still fit together, roughly, when the composite blocks are sewn up. Then I'll do some trimming and squaring up before finishing the seams. That's what I'll be working on later today; more pics to come when I've got 'em.

Fun with scraps - Part One

2010-06-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Sewing room tidy-up is coming along nicely, and feels less like drudgery when I take a break from time to time to produce some of these from all those nicely sorted scraps I boasted about in my last post.

Cut pieces are in small project bins near the sewing machine, so I can sew a few more together each time I'm at the machine. Eventually they will add up to quilt tops, most likely for charity donation. Short-term, I just want to use up some scraps!

There are three projects represented here, which is more than I'd intended, but inspiration struck and this is what I'll be working on, in between and around all the summer garment sewing I havent done yet.

First up, HALF-SQUARE TRIANGLES (two ways), inspired by this quilt, although I don't think I'll do the on-point setting. I like the all-prints version for maximum scrap use, and how the 4-patch blocks keep the quilt from being all random.

My squares are 4" for no particular reason. I also love how easy it is to piece these from squares, so there are no cut bias edges to deal with. These are done this way, with two squares each of a lighter and a darker fabric:

I mentioned this HST project to my sister (a more accomplished quilter than I) in an email, and she said have you tried it this way?:

Well that looked like fun, too. Two sizes at once! So I pulled some blue and green solids and more 4" scraps, and started in on those, as well:

Not sure yet how I'll arrange these, but am thinking of a square center of the smaller ones (random assortment), with maybe two rows of the larger ones as a border. I'm sure to change my mind several times before these make it to the design wall.

Project #3 is the one that has really grabbed me, the CONFETTI quilt, inspired by this one, and following the tutorial here. I could not resist doing something with the pile of teeny scraps I wasn't quite ready to toss. And I have some pale aqua left over from the bedroom curtains that looked like enough for a small (crib size?) something. Here are some in-progress strips, ready to be pressed and cut apart:

More to come on this one, as it is fast, easy, and fun, and I haven't been able to keep my fingers off it today.

Basking in my new (full already!) scrap drawers: many, many, many strips in various lengths, from micro to 2.5" width. Clearly when I get bored with these new project I will have to embark on a string quilt binge. I'm going to try very hard not to start on those until at least one of these is done.

Wish me luck: my track record in the restraint department is not very good.

Inspirational!

2010-06-25T16:31:00.000-07:00

I went to WalMart this morning to get a plastic drawer unit for my sewing room, to store sorted (!) quilting scraps. These look tidy, but will soon be a mess if I keep them in those large bins (which I need for garment fabric anyway; they were a temporary solution):

Free time the past few days (plus a few hours that could have been spent at my desk, producing an income) has gone to folding fabric and tidying up the sewing room. So far I've only done the quilting fabrics. Garment fabric will be tackled this afternoon. And the sewing room isn't much tidier, as I've created quite a mess pulling stuff out so I can see what I've got.

Anyway, a good chunk of the fabric wrangling this week went to sorting through what has become a substantial pile of scraps from both quilt and clothing projects. I realize that serious quilters will laugh themselves silly at what I call a "substantial" scrap accumulation, but it feels like a lot to me. Clearly it is time to make a scrap quilt to use up some of the itty bitty pieces that aren't quite small enough to throw out but are hardest to justify keeping. I'm thinking something like this.

In the meantime, more storage drawers had emerged as an urgent necessity, so off to WalMart I went. That's twice in one month, which is a lot for me, as it is my store of last resort as much as possible. However, it's the only place in town to realiably find something like this at a decent price.

The big thrill came when I wheeled my cart back to the car, and "excuse me!"... a young woman approached. "Can you tell me who makes your skirt," she said. "It looks perfect for summer."

"I designed it myself," I replied, immensely pleased with myself.

"Oh, I thought maybe it was a Lily Pulitzer," she said. "She does such bright florals."

She brightened up when I said I'd made it, so I showed her it was just a simple drawstring a-line, very briefly described my process (I piece the main fabrics before cutting a self-drafted pattern, same front and back), assured her it was something she could do on her very basic sewing machine (straight stitch only), and suggested she Google "self-drafted skirt pattern" when she got home, for pointers.

"Go make yourself a skirt!" I encouraged. "You can do it!"

I hope she does.

* * *

PS: I also stopped at the craft store for some fabric paint, stencil sponges, and spray adhesive, so I can get creative with my old T-shirts, Alabama style. First, though, I need to finish cleaning up the sewing room.

Alabama Stitch Book

2010-06-23T17:37:00.000-07:00

It may be Day 76 of my 120-day fabric and pattern embargo, which means 44 days still to go, but that doesn't mean I forego all sewing-related treats. My playtime budget allows for the purchase of one sewing book every two months, and this month I indulged in this one, which I have been lusting after for some time:

OMG I love, love, love this stuff. Natalie Chanin is a creative genius. I have spent hours perusing this book (and the flickr group) since it arrived in my mailbox a few days ago. A very different kind of sewing from what I normally do, and something I must try for myself.

I'm thinking of dipping a toe in these waters with something small. Like that ratty old 12x16 pillow on my deck chair. A new cover for that would be a good use for some old Ts from my closet. Like that pink sleeveless one with the lemon juice bleach spots on the front (oops), and the green one soiled by an oily salad dressing spot (darn), and hey, that tissue-weight turquoise top I spilled coffee on (drat). I see great possibilities here.

Or maybe I should put all thoughts of reconstructed jersey sewing aside and make myself a bib.

Hexies in progress

2010-06-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

My plan, now that I've got all the GTG flower centers done, was to arrange them on the design wall to ensure a good "random" scattering of blues/reds/others. I don't dare just wing it as I go along, for fear I'll get 2/3 of the way done and realize I've used all the blues and the result will be lopsided, with too many reds in one corner.

I figured I'd draw up a simple grid with row and column numbers on a piece of paper, and pin a post-it position ID# to each one flower. That way I could work in some kind of sequence, get the blues added to several neighboring ones, add the greens, and start assembling larger units in chunks.

Yesterday I tried arranging some GFG flowers on the design wall, and decided that wasn't going to work. I do need to see the flowers with the blue background ring around each one, like this:

So, my grand plan to break up the tedium of sewing all those blues around all those flowers has evaporated. However, I did figure out that the aspect of sewing the blues I didn't like had to do with the assorted fabrics. I'd sew one blue hexie on, then pull another from the basted bag, assess balance, make sure not to have too many of the same in a row, etc. Each new hexie required attention and choices and made the process feel so s-l-o-w. Plus, since I mostly work on this at night during TV hours, the poor lighting made those decisions harder.

On to Plan B: Sunday morning I pulled out a pile of completed flowers and selected blues to go around each one (nice to do with good natural light). Then I picked the blues all up into a neat pile, in order, and secured to the flower with thread.

Now for each flower I have a pile of 12 pre-selected blue hexies ready to go, no decisions required. These will keep me busy for the next few weeks of TV nights:

Then I'll only have to baste a gazillion-trillion more blue hexies, and sew up about 3 more batches of these, to get this lengthy step done.

SoNP Skirt #4: not quite a wadder

2010-06-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

Summer of No Pants skirt #4: technically it is done. Hemmed and zipped and there's even a button and buttonhole in the waistband. But it's so "meh" I can't even be bothered to dig out which pattern I made it from. New Look something that's been around for eons: basic pencil and A-line versions in various lengths. Muslined the pencil version a while back and didn't like enough to make from "real" fabric. This was to see if the A-line is better (no).

The good news: I'm a more experienced seamstress now, and have (maybe) figured out what the problem is: something about this pattern is not right in the hip curve on me. It just doesn't sit well. NL are drafted for a fit model on the short side, and I have to add 2" min. length. But adding it to hem or mid-thigh is not resulting a well-fitting skirt.

I do like this fabric: another Kaffe Fassett from the stash, acquired during one of my many past Fabric.com sale binges. I think I was wrong, though, to assume it would be best as a simple, classic skirt. The only thing appealing (to me) about this is the fabric. As a skirt, it's yawn-inducing.

It needs something more: pockets? rick-rack? pockets trimmed with rick-rack? an eyelet underskirt peeking out the bottom? all of the above?

Maybe, but I'm about 30 years too old to wear the kind of look that would result in. I'll be utterly content if this shrieks "homemade," so maybe I'll get crafty with it, and add some kind of applique. A green vine with big leaves, meandering all the way around, maybe? Finding prints that will stand out against this fabric will be a challenge. Solids might be the answer, but are meager in my stash.

So, not quite a wadder. "Meh," but potentially salvagable if I get creative with it. For now, it's gonna go back in the sewing room closet.

I'm also not happy with the waistband. I made one following the pattern (when was the last time I did that!?) to test my ingrained assumption that I hate waistbands, and yup, it's not my thing. Even in a narrow width and lightweight interfacing it feels stiff and unnecessary. I'm gonna go back to facing or binding my skirt waists, as I like 'em.

Lessons learned:

1) be wary of New Look fit

2) don't use an invisible zip in the side seam (the only stash zip of appropriate length and color on hand); it doesn't hang well

3) I don't like waistbands

4) Plain vanilla clothing is not my thing

Okay, Summer of No Pants challenge has been met. Next up, my own personal challenge: "summer of learning how to sew pants (that fit)." I know, I know: I'm all talk and no action on the pants thing. But I'm going to tackle it before the summer is out. This summer. Really.