Happy New Year!

Welcome to the last post of 2009! It's been a year of change for ZenSewing.com and our new home on Typepad. To summarize 2009: I've been working on migrating projects and information from my old sewing websites to here with the goal of having everything in one place in an organized fashion for you to use. The life of FrugalSewing.com has come to an end and that site is not being updated any longer. TheSewingDictionary.com is still alive and will continue to be updated when new, edited, or other information dictates. It will continue to be a pet project of mine and serves as a compendium of sewing and fabric terms. ZenSewing.com proper will redirect here in time. Right now, this destination is highlighted on the site.

Looking toward 2010, I have a few goals. One of them is to continue to highlight projects and how to information. That may be enveloped in projects that I myself have done or that friends who wish to donate ideas have created. Boutique clothing is coming. I did not meet a deadline for a Christmas dress for a local young lady, so she will be getting a winter one. I will continue to document how to do this or that embellishment in the event that you wish to try your luck. I will be working on inventory for a craft show toward the end of 2010, and that will provide me with the opportunity to show you how to use your stash in a variety of ways. The focus will continue to be sewing frugally and sewing because it meets a need for you, both inside and out. Another goal is to encourage everyone to teach someone something related to fabric arts, be it sewing, learning to replace a button, enjoying a no-sew fleece scarf, or embroidery. It's an art we cannot allow to die.

My wish for you is that you have a healthy new year. As with all works in progress, this site will continue to improve. I also consider myself a work in progress, and I will continue to improve too (I hope!).
Thank you for visiting and sticking with me over the years. Here's to many, many more. - Donna

And so it's just about Christmas

My daughter has a friend who asked me to help her make a jellyfish costume for Halloween. Well, that never worked out and she made it herself. Recently, my daughter asked me to make a cat Christmas stocking for the friend and I said, hmmm, wonder if I can work in a jellyfish! And guess what, I can and I did. I used striped cat fabric, silver rick-rack, fluffy white terry for the cuff, and some silver sequin fabric and silver rick-rack to make the jellyfish. She posted a picture on her Facebook and I stole it to show you here. And with this stocking picture, I say Merry Christmas to everyone!

One more stocking and then a break

It's about time to set sewing aside for holiday stuff. The Christmas tree needs decoration, the cookies need to be made, the house needs to be readied for guests. I did make one more stocking, though. How about a Hokie stocking?

Just a little something for our Virginia Tech friends. I did try something new with this - I purchased some fluffy terry from Fabric.com and found out that it sewed very nicely. I have quite a bit, so will use it for cuffs from here forward, at least till it's gone. This stocking is two sided, so the user has a choice of which way the toe points. That's the age-old question with Christmas stockings, isn't it? This stocking is not quilted, so it's very simple to make. Cut, making sure your fabric is going in the right direction (this had a one way print), stitch cuff on the top, sew the two pieces with right sides together using double seams, clip curves, turn, bind raw edge. There you have it.

I'll begin on Valentine's Day items after Christmas. By next year, I should be two seasons ahead instead of right on time. That makes for better shows and selling! Whew.

Ties for stockings take 2

Ah, Christmas stockings. Can you ever make enough? I finished three more which I made out of neckties. Wow, that stuff is hard to sew. The harvested fabrics were silky and on the bias. Two-punch - stretchy and slippery! They turned out mighty nice, though! As mentioned below, I spent an evening taking the ties apart and learning about them. I pressed them and used the strip quilting technique that I've mentioned before. I covered the seam lines with gold rick-rack, the cuffs were made of a fluffy terry fabric, and the backs were created with simple Christmas fabric.

On a side note, I put out a "wanted" on my local Freecycle group for Christmas fabrics and score! Another Freecycler had a bag of Christmas fabrics she had been sitting on and realized she'd never use. Interestingly, several of them matched fabrics I've had for years, so they're not all modern prints. They are also the smaller prints that I tend to gravitate towards. What a great find.

I'll post pictures of the stockings made of ties at a later date. Right now, I have several Virginia Tech Christmas stockings to sew! Like I said, can you ever make enough? I'm putting them up on Etsy as I finish them. It's more about the making than the selling, though.

Update - here are some pictures of the three I finished.

Ties for stockings

I've been sewing a lot lately out of my stash. I'm trying to use what I have rather than purchase more, and am having some success with that. Over the past few years, I've been collecting silk ties with an eye towards making Christmas stockings, girls' skirts, or other things I'm inspired to stitch together.

Last night, I sat down with my seam ripper, a sharp pair of shears, a small trash bag, and my box of ties. I dissected all of them that had red or green in them and set them aside. I learned quite a bit about tie construction by taking them apart. Funny how that works.

There will be more to the story as I continue to sew, but for today, that's it. I have to work till 5 and have an errand to run after that, then dinner to make, and then work a little more. I am not sure I'll have much sewing time between now and then!

Now, would someone tell me where my box of Christmas and other holiday fabrics is?

Christmas Stockings for Teachers/School Bus Drivers

I made a few Christmas stockings this week. I used the same principles that I always use - strip quilting onto a backing with batting and then using a cotton back for the stocking. These three have a school/teacher/bus driver theme. I had purchased some school fabric at a yard sale for a quarter and it was basically border fabric that I used to harvest the apples, chalkboard, and other school items in the stockings. They were fun to make. I used some silver rick-rack; red, white, and green rick-rack; ribbons; and made bias bindings for the top of the cuff. It's time to get these made and ready to give, sell, or use!

Junk jeans!

I spent an hour today gathering a huge stack of old denim (legs, pockets, etc., that had already been dissected). While I was on vacation, I had an idea for a denim skirt involving 6" strips. I ordered a 6" x 24" ruler and it was home by the time I got here (believe it or not, it was less expensive to buy the same ruler on line than in a store, including shipping!). I dusted off my cutting pad and dug out my table from behind a bookcase, and finally found my rotary cutter. It's been a while!
Then for the next hour, I cut 6" and 4" strips of denim, and sorting pockets for weighing and selling later. The 6" strips are what I was interested in for myself. Although I only did cutting today, it felt good to be doing something that involved fabric. Everyone I know brings me their old jeans, so it felt doubly good to be cutting denim with purpose. The next step in the skirt is to make strips and put the strips together to make the fabric from which the skirt will be cut.
As for those pockets and 4" strips, I think I'm going to make packages with each of those and my 2" strips and put them on eBay. I'll save enough 2" strips to make Christmas stockings, but I think I'm done with those.
So what fabric recycling are you into these days?