A little throwback

In the 80s, I did a lot of hand embroidery. I was at a friend's house the other night and saw this on her wall:

I so remember doing these stitches. I copied the oriole out of a book and drew the flowers and logs. She is from Maryland, so an oriole seemed right. The background is a little discolored, but the floss colors have held up beautifully.

This is one I made for my sister. Her partner's name started with M and my sister's name starts with W. Not sure where I came up with the color scheme!

I don't have a lot of pictures of my embroidery. I spent hours with my boxes of floss and just the right needle. For some reason, I just wanted to share these today.

Recycling an ugly skirt part 1 (is it really this close to Christmas?)

First, let me remind you that there is a strip quilted Christmas stocking tutorial on ScrapStitching. You can find it here: Christmas stocking how-to. I hand drew the pattern, but you can trace the edges of one you already have. The question always comes up about whether it should be hung with the toe to the right or left. I don't know the official answer! If you do, holler.

Last year, I went to an ugly Christmas sweater party. I won! I had a sweater vest that looked like someone had thrown up a bunch of undigested Christmas.

What you can't see are the green tights and red shoes. Hah! I don't mess around. The skirt was made with strips of candy cane fabric, hemmed with snowflakes, and had some green/white/red piping at the bottom edge. (That's Susan sitting behind me; she had an ugly sweater on too.)

I knew I wasn't going to wear the skirt again, so came up with recycling idea number 1. I have part 2 planned, but you can't see that yet.

Fast forward to now. A friend purchased her first house and there's a housewarming on Sunday. I will so be there. I really didn't know what would be a good gift. Should I make something that matches her house? Then I remembered my skirt. How about a Christmas pillow? She wouldn't feel obligated to display it all year long and it would be unexpected and fun. So that's what I went with.

I used the stripes as is for one side:

Believe it or not, I used a hat box as a template for the circle. I like to look around and see what I have when I'm looking for circles, rectangles, and squares.

For the other side, I cut 2" strips of the striped fabric and placed it on a circle of muslin using a log cabin design (you can hardly tell it's a log cabin!):

It came out nice and random looking and that's sort of what I was aiming for.

Next came a trip to my Christmas trims box. I kept the red theme and grabbed some red lacy ruffle and added that to the edge.

I think it's kind of cute! And guess what? I don't have that ugly skirt anymore :)

A jacket walks into a bar....

Okay, no jacket really walked into a bar, but it got your attention!

Last year, I bought a seriously ugly knit print. I have no idea why I bought it, but I did.

This year, I have an obsession with making cardigans to go with all my tees and tank tops for fall and then with blouses for the winter.

Boom! Ideas started brewing and then I got to thinking. I'll make a knit cardigan. I dread sewing with knits so tried to simplify the process as much as possible. I chose not to cut a facing, opting to go with hem tape (a lacy seam/hem tape) that matched the fabric. I stitched that on around the front opening and turned it under, then top stitched. Voila! Well, voila until I put it on. It fit right, I loved the pockets and the weight of the fabric, but that front was all wrong. It kept rolling out from wrong side to right, making it nigh on impossible to wear.

Dang, now what? Then the light bulb went off again. Yes, it did. 

I had ordered a tank top to wear (under cardigans, of course!) and really didn't like the way it fit. I'm not a fan of wearing what look like painted on clothes. I wore it once and decided I'd shelve it forever. 

Now I had two items that I was never going to wear. Not acceptable in my book. 

I cut the front off the tank top and then folded it down the center. I cut about 4" from the center on both sides, giving me about an 8" strip of shirt that included the neck opening, snaps, and a good amount of shirt. Then I pinned that to the inside of the cardigan with the wayward facing. I had to be extremely careful to not stretch to the left, right, up, or down; remember, I hate knits! I did this flat on a table with the cardigan front carefully placed over the pink tee. I used probably 3 times the number of pins I needed, but I really wanted it to not shift. 

And guess what? It worked. I actually have a two-fer that I love. You never know what your mistakes can be turned into. It wasn't a hard thing to do, just exacting. I don't mind exacting if I know things will come out okay. And here's the star of today's show:

It's not as frumpy on as it is on the dress form. You'll just have to trust me on that one. Totally machine washable and a toss it over your head kind of top. 

Now, someone stop me from buying a knit piece of fabric again!

Sewing something for myself, Simplicity 8426, Jacket/Cardigan

It's getting a touch chilly on the east coast, so it's time to go through my jacket and cardigan patterns and see what I want to make. That's how this got started. It snowballed from there.

Using junk jeans is a hobby of mine. I'll turn them into place mats, potholders, doll clothes, blankets, and now into clothes for me.

I chose an older pattern that had no darts, Simplicity 8426. Then I gathered up my pile of blue jean legs.

This picture of the unfinished jacket back gives you an idea of how I put the jeans legs together higgledy piggledy. I made a piece big enough for each of the two front pieces of the pattern and then started stitching legs together to have a piece large enough to cut on the fold for the back. I used jeans legs that had been opened up at the inseam for the sleeves. (The right sleeve is not in this picture.) That's the only place I left on the original blue jean seam. 

Here's a shot of the front. Again, no rhyme or reason for the positioning of the fabric. I just kept adding pieces till it was big enough to cut what I  needed to cut. You can see the pockets on the front in this picture. 

I found some gray bias tape in my goody box and decided to use that rather than more denim for the front facing. The layers of denim get very thick, and this bias tape did the job just fine. Here's how the front looks from the inside. 

And the pockets! I got the handy dandy seam ripper and took pockets off the back of a couple pair of jeans. I was able to salvage two. The placement is as shown on the pattern. I did not line the pockets. 

Here's a side view and you can see how the sleeve has the original side seam in it. 

I need to add the second sleeve and hem the cardigan and the sleeves. I took great care not to stretch the fabrics too much so that there wouldn't be puckers. Denim is a bear to work with, but I think this is going to be a cardigan that gets worn a lot! I'll add more photos when it's done. It looks better on me than the dress form!

Halloween Sewing (with an update!)

I have a lot, I mean a lot of Halloween fabric. I've been collecting it for years from fabric stores, yard sales, trades and swaps, and pretty much anywhere I can snag it up. Did you know it's almost impossible to find scary fabric for Halloween now? All the pumpkins, witches, and skeletons are smiling! Not so much with my older fabrics, but anything acquired in the past 15-20 years, yup, they're smiling.

This year, I wanted to try a bunting. The way I've hung it is not mainstream, but the idea is simple. I made a simple triangle pattern, gathered my fabrics, and used pinking shears to cut the triangles for the bunting. I zig-zagged the triangles onto a piece of grosgrain ribbon, leaving tails of ribbon at the ends.

I did not leave space between the triangle flags, but if I did this again, I would absolutely leave a half inch or so for tacking it up, maybe even a little less than that. My ribbon is about 1-1/2 times the width of the mantle. I made it, I hung it, and I have learned a little something from it. You should ry it yourself. It couldn't be easier. I have made bunting with spaces before and they do hang better. This was kind of an experiment. 

Update: I hated the way it was hanging, so I tried something different. Much better!

My other project this year is a set of four placemats with a Jack o'Lantern, smiling of course, appliqued onto a skeleton fabric. I used store bought bias binding that I had on hand. The back is a complementary fall fabric which makes these reversible. If you are not interested in drawing a pumpkin, you can Google "Halloween coloring pages" or "Jack o'Lantern coloring pages" and use what you find as your pattern. I borrowed my design of the pumpkin and stem from a coloring page search. When I do this kind of applique, I do a straight stitch around the shape first to hold it in place. 

For the process, I appliqued the pumpkin and the stem onto the skeleton fabric. I then made a sandwich of the fall fabric, flannel, and the pumpkin decorated piece, and did some wide machine quilting on the diagonal to hold it all in place. I machine sewed one side of the bias binding in place (on the pumpkin side), pinned it, and hand sewed the back binding. You can use your machine; I prefer the hand stitching. (If you have it, use some kind of anti-fray liquid on the appliqued stitches.)

Last year, I was heavy into making trick or treat bags with Halloween patchwork. If you want to try one of those, simply make some patchwork fabric out of 4" or 5" squares of Halloween fabric, and make a simple lined tote bag. Here are a couple of last year's examples:

Have some ghoulish fun with your sewing for Halloween. Your kids will love placemats and tote bags that you made for them and they also make fun items to give away or sell at a craft show or online. Or do like I do and just make stuff for yourself.

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Something different

Sometimes, I think I have too much time on my hands, but then I think again and decide I have just enough time. No time, no sew.

As some of you may know, I have diabetes. I have to check my blood sugar a lot. I have a box I've been using for about a year. It contains my 'works' - blood sugar meter, alcohol thingies, pokey thingie, and some extra needles for the pokey thingie. All very technical. I got tired of looking at the black box yesterday. And then I remembered some special fabric I have that's just over-the-top enough to work as a cover.

The lighting is a little off, but you can tell it's my blood spatter fabric. I had some left over from a  placemat project and you know I couldn't let it go to waste. It pained me to toss the smidgen I had after covering this box!

Box covering is pretty simple. There are tons of sites that give step by step instructions, so I won't really repeat it all here. Basically, I cut the fabric a bit larger than  needed to cover and fold into the inside. I applied Mod Podge to the box and spread out the fabric with my hands, smushing out air pockets as I went. I let the top dry before tackling the sides. When doing the sides, I pretty much worked with the fabric like I would wrapping paper, again using Mod Podge on the box to hold the fabric permanently. I put a little inside for the folded over fabric. The tool I use to hold everything in place while the Mod Podge dries is the lowly plastic clothespin. Wooden ones stick too tight and are hard to get off. I used clothespins all the way around and turned the whole mess over so that the clothespins were the feet of my little blood spatter table until it dried. 

It's not beautiful, but it's ironic and unique. And I would guess you could say it's me. Not all scrap stitching has to involve stitching! 

The smallest of things put a kink in my sewing day!

This is driving me crazy.

I helped my daughter with a school project. We did some color blocking on a tee shirt. She did the design and the planning, and I did the sewing. We both did cutting. Along the way, I needed 1" strips, so grabbed my handy dandy 1" x 6" Omnigrid ruler.

You probably have one or something like it that you use often. I have a 2" ruler, a 4" ruler, a 6" ruler (all widths); a curved corner template; wedge rulers; diamond rulers; 4" square ruler; and others. Each is used from time to time, often enough that if one disappears, it's the one I need right now.

Okay, back to the school project. I've taken to cleaning up after a project or cut out immediately so I don't have to face the mess in the morning. If I leave it too long, it becomes invisible and just lives wherever I left it. I know I'm the only one who does that, right? I gathered up scraps of fabric, papers bias tape, and other remnants of goodies left on my table. 

The next morning, I went to grab my 1" x 6 " handy dandy Omnigrid ruler and it wasn't where it is supposed to live! Argh. I made do with what I had on hand - a sort of 1" wide ruler. It wasn't the same. The wooden substitute was a bit wider than an inch and I had to eyeball the correction. It was probably 1/16" inch too wide. 

Then the "woe is me" set in. My handy dandy 1" x 6" Omnigrid ruler was gone. I don't know if I threw it away with the fabric scraps from the school project or if it was hidden behind something, but it's nowhere I can find it; that's for sure. 

God forbid I cut a thick piece of cardboard an inch wide. That just wouldn't do. 

It's a small piece of my sewing arsenal, but man, it is missed. It's like my last Clover seam ripper took a walk. I can't sew without that little gem being handy, even if I don't use it. I have 3 spares!

As I continued to obsess about my 1" x 6 " handy dandy Omnigrid ruler's disappearance, I decided it was time to fix this dilemma. Guess what I ordered this morning? I'm going to chain it to my table. And I will never do a school project with my 30-year-old daughter ever again. I'm sure there's a way to turn this around and make it her fault.