Summer sewing

It's getting really hot outside here in Virginia, and I'm spending a bit of time inside. Add to that the fact that I've officially retired, and you know how I'm going to spend that extra time - s e w i n g!

I think I'm done sewing baby balls for a while. I got into a potholder binge and have made several recently. Here's some of what I've been working on:

You can never make enough tote bags, right? And if you have a wedge ruler, it's fun to make a Dresden plate design. The cotton is from my stash of interesting calico type fabrics and the blue cotton edging the plate is a cotton faux denim that I also use for bias binding. 

A potholder using scraps of denim and some M&M fabric. I back my potholders with what started as a 9-patch recycled denim piece. I'm all about upcycling jeans, ya know.

 

 The front of these potholders is near and dear to me. I worked for years doing a hand pieced hexagon quilt top and then made another one! They came out to about twin bed sized, but we don't have a twin bed, so I made a decision to put the two together and make a larger coverlet/quilt with them. I ended up with some extra hexagon fabric, so I reinforced the pieces with zig-zag over the hand stitching, used the 9-patch denim back, and created some bias binding with the faux denim cotton. 

With all potholders I make, I use InsulBrite as the filling. It is not heat-proof, but it's about as heat-resistant as you can get. I also make the circles about 8-1/2" in diameter. The denim squares I use for the back start as 4" squares. I prefer round potholders because you can machine stitch one side of the binding and then hand stitch the other.

I also have made a doll quilt using M&M fabric triangles with denim triangles, and just yesterday, finished a lap blanket with patchwork and using fleece as the backing. I don't call it a quilt because there's no batting; the fleece serves a dual purpose of batting and backing, and it's super warm. 

Lastly, I'm working on my Cathedral Window quilt every day. I don't plan on finishing that for 5 years. 

Whew. What are y'all sewing?

The dress of the damned (updated 07/11/14)

I have called this the damned dress more than I would care to admit. I shared with you the beginnings. My goal is to make a couple dresses and to refashion a dress I made into a skirt. That should pretty much take care of summer clothes with the items I already have. As I'm losing weight, I don't want to spend a lot of money on clothing right now, so making things out of fabrics and patterns on hand is the deal.

It looks a little plain and frumpy on the dress form, but it looks great on! I need to hem the sleeves and the dress itself, but other than that, the damned dress is done. 

For the next one, I need to lengthen the bodice about an inch. The neckline fits almost perfectly. I have a summer dress! The fabric is super thin. That's what made it so difficult to work with. I had to put in one sleeve since I caught the sleeve itself in the seam the first time. Argh. No matter how long you sew, you make mistake that just make you want to shake your head. The skirt attached to the bodice has a few seam errors, but they really don't show. I need to avoid this type of fabric in the future. 

Lesson learned is that even if you are calling your project in progress lots of nasty name, go ahead and finish it. You just may be amazed. 

Update 07/11/14 - this dumb dress ended up in my crocheted rug; it became the finishing lavender edge that told me it was done. It sucked as a dress anyway :)

Summer sewing has begun

I used to have a couple empire waist dresses that I wore in the summer. They were flowy, comfortable, had pockets, and could be worn with sandals. I loved those dresses. They're a) too big and b) long since given away. I set out to find a similar pattern and found a fun one by McCall's:

McCall's 8249 from 1996, which is when I had the two dresses mentioned above. 

I bought three runs of fabric, so I want to make the dresses each a little different. My first dress is made of extremely lightweight fabric. It probably wouldn't hold up to buttonholes, so I decided to cut both the front and the back on the fold and made some bias tape for the neckline rather than a facing. I rarely use a facing; I'll line and item or make bias to either surround the raw edge or apply it and turn it to the wrong side and hand sew it on the inside.

I added a wide trim to the center front and used some of the bias tape I had made to weave through the holes rather than using ribbon. 

This shows the neckline a little better. 

Next, I will do the sleeves, apply the pockets to the skirt, and then attach the skirt to the bodice. I think I'm going to like this dress a lot! More to come.