Sewing · Simple Sundays

Not So Simple Sunday Sewing

I thought I’d change it up a little and share a sewing post, so you wouldn’t get too tired of book posts. Gotta keep your interest up for the third book sale next week!

Also, I had a lot of sewing pictures building up. I finally did some sewing that was not super secret and I liked pretty much all of it. Today, I finished my grey cardigan and almost made us late for the book sale, because I had to just finish the end of the edge.

I did finish it though and wore it to the book sale. It was perfect for today’s weather, which was in the 60’s, as it is made of a silver/grey cotton lycra. Cotton lycra is much more breathable than the polyesters and it has a bit of stretch from the lycra. It’s a very smooth fabric, although you can tell by the arms that it does wrinkle a little. This was after wearing it all day. It’s super comfy and fills a gap in my wardrobe, so I’m excited to have finished it.

I have also finished off some tea wallets, a batch of Star Trek ones and some miscellaneous ones from my hand projects box.

Oh, and a random Halloween one. Earl Grey, hot, anyone?

Here are the other ones, which happen to be nice and springy.

Aren’t they cute?

Doll clothes have also made another appearance. I had a really bad evening unexpectedly at work last week and came home jangly and upset. Working on these doll clothes helped me settle, although I still didn’t get much sleep.

This one is a Made for Mermaids Dolly Paige shirt.

It was made specifically go with these space pants!

This pattern is Patterns for Pirates Bonny Leggings with the attached skirt. My machine hated this fabric and kept coming unthreaded, which cased ridiculous thread nests on the inside and there’s a part of the skirt in the back that wasn’t caught in the stitches. They still went into my office though because I wasn’t in the mindset to unpick or try to make my machine behave.

The Bonny leggings is pretty much the same as the adult Peg Legs pattern, except the doll size takes me 10 minutes instead of 20. Here are the other Bonny Leggings I made:

Your eyes do not deceive you, those are white lace leggings, although I think of them mostly as tights. That fabric was in a bag of scraps that a friend gave me from her theater department. It was actually a lace bodice that had been traced, but not cut. You can see a little bit of the blue marker yet on the bottoms. I think the little girls who play with these will be thrilled!

This Audrey dress/shirt pattern from CKC patterns is a good one because it combines woven and knits. Knits for the bodice, wovens for the bottom. It gives me a chance to play with scraps. I made two, and fudged the gathers both times.

I’m super annoyed that my necklines on these look better than some of my shirts I wear! But it’s all practice. These both close with velcro in the back.

And last, but not least, as the little girls keep asking for jackets for the dolls; I finished this starry jacket which was at home thinking about what it had done (otherwise known as it got messed up and I hated it.)

This is the Ellie and Mac Emmelyn Cardigan. I do not like how it turns out most of the time, so I may try a different pattern. It ends up wavy and crooked no matter how I do my seams. But it has pretty stars, so I’m good with the finished product at least.

I have a couple more doll clothes cut out ready to be sewn. I have a white lace and gold lame Audrey dress that I think will make the girls fall over, and a woven jacket pattern to try. I’ll probably be making pjs and a few more “prom dresses,” as they have been requested. I brought my second doll that I got from a friend into the office, just for fun.

In other news, I did buy fabric. I had plans for it and also a gift certificate for my birthday from my inlaws. It was 5th Saturday bag day at the local quilt shop and so I got my present early, also 20% off everything in my bag, including patterns.

The Husband saw this pattern and said “Well, we need this” so it ended up in my bag. It is super cute, but our house might be a little bit more eclectic in decor than originally anticipated. Although, it currently has fairy tale items and Legos as the main components, so I’m not sure how much more whimsical it could get. 🙂

Here’s the pattern.

It is lovely and I’m slightly intimidated by it. I’m sure I’ll enjoy figuring it out though. (Side note: The otters are holding paws!!)

These fabrics slipped into my bag and have been washed and are in the stash. The polka dots may be used for the flying geese quilt that I am having trouble finding a good border for.

The white fabric will probably be a bag lining or pockets. The feature picture today is of a grey fabric that will be pants and the birds needed to be a shirt. The shirt will be knit on the front and have a woven lower back. I’m excited to wear them together actually.

I have been working on some more scrap pieces too from this quilt. It will be going to my friend Cassie, who works at a hospital to be a comfort quilt, but it needed to be larger to be closer to twin sized. I had to make 5 more blocks to make it work. They are done, but not sewn together yet. I needed a break from knits for a little while.

It’s been a fairly productive sewing time for the last couple of weeks. I have had a couple of migraines, but can normally sew, as it doesn’t require reading or screens. I’m starting my list of things I need to sew for spring and trying to weed out my closet too. It’s a large task, but I’m still working at it.

Right now though, I need to work on dinner. We had a late lunch after the book sale, but now we’re both getting hungry. I’m using a new recipe from the 9 x 13 pan cookbook and it smells really good. I may be focusing on that book for the next week or so. I’ll update you on how it goes!

Have a great night!

Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

A Fishy Tale

I was super excited to find out that I accidentally uploaded all my pictures from the last 30 days to the Cloud. While I didn’t have all of them back, I ended up with the quilt show pictures at least and a ridiculous number of adorable Fancy pictures. 🙂 

If you’re not sick of them, you might see some more quilt pictures after all! There are some pretty cute baking themed ones that would go perfectly with some recipes from my 25 recipe list. 

One of the coolest things we saw at the quilt show was a demo on fish leather. I had absolutely no idea this was even a material that you could get! 

The presenter, Pam Manthei and her husband Joe, import the leather from a tannery in Iceland. Their company is called Fiskur Leather and all the skins are made from fish that were caught for food in the wild and are not farmed fish or caught for their skins. They are dyed with environmentally friendly dyes and the water is heated by geothermal energy. How cool is that?! Apparently the fish skin is fairly neutral in color and takes dye really well. 

How amazing are these colors?

The leathers are made from cod, wolf fish, salmon, and perch. There were so many different textures and colors! The perch had this lovely large textured scale pattern and the wolf fish had these cool spots on it. The salmon has a very small scale pattern. K bought some black salmon leather to make a wallet for her Dad, who is an avid salmon fisherman. I believe he black piece in this photo might be a salmon leather. 

The vendor, Pam, was very nice and extremely knowledgeable about her craft. She was so excited to hear that K and I were sewists! That was actually a pretty common dynamic we heard a lot there. Apparently we’re part of a new trend for younger people to get back into sewing. It’s fun to be trendy sometimes (although I was sewing before it was cool.)

Pam makes lovely things, most of which you wouldn’t even know were made from fish skin! Some of her purses really embrace the natural fish shape and other things completely catch you unawares.

These pictures all have elements of fish leather in them. See if you can tell where they are. I’ll tell you in the captions/

The bright silver strips in this picture are the fish skin.
This one is a little easier! All of it is fish leather, except the blue background square, which was felt, I think.
The hills in the windmill picture are fish leather and I think all or most of the birds.

If you’re interested in knowing more about the fish leather, especially since K and I only heard part of the demo, please visit the Fiskur Leather website. http://www.fiskurleather.com/about-us.html

The whole expo, but especially this interesting material, reminded me how much I don’t know. I’m excited to learn and discover more!

Life Posts · Wordless Wednesdays

Wordless Wednesday- Original Sewing Expo Pt. 2

See? My flamingo habits aren’t this bad! 🙂 
This is all thread work, except the middle aqua medallion. 
This is by the same quilter as above. I asked about the glitter thinking it was  a very elegant touch and it turns out she didn’t like the quilting there and it was to hide it!
The Husband wasn’t convinced this one was a quilt. He thought it was a painting.
This one is called Polka Dodo! 
Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Sewing Expo Pt.1

“Fabric doesn’t make exquisite dresses, it is the stitches.”
― Treasure Stitches

“I couldn’t sew on a day like this. There’s something in the air that gets in the blood and makes a sort of glory in my soul. My fingers would twitch and I’d sew a crooked seam. So it’s ho for the park and the pines.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne Of The Island

“Isn’t it curious how in so many of our pastimes and hobbies we play at supplying one or another of our fundamentally creauturely needs—for food, shelter, even clothing?”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

“Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn’t do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.” -George Eliot

Sewing · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday

“A good use for me is to let me go away with my sewing machine and come back with some really new stuff.” – Betsey Johnson

“People who assume my books are only about quilts obviously haven’t read them! I’ve always known that my books are about quilters – in other words, people – rather than quilts or quilting.” – Jennifer Chiaverini

“I am certain that a Sewing Machine would relieve as much human suffering as a hundred Lunatic Asylums, and possibly a good deal more.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

“All creative people want to do the unexpected.” – Hedy Lamarr

Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

Fancy and Sewing

Fancy has decided to monitor my sewing and bedtime in a more active capacity lately. She decided the quilt in the quilting hoop was actually a dog tent and a wonderful place to nap.

She doesn’t try to bite it or anything, so I thought it was funny, but then she decided napping on my lap wasn’t good enough and proceeded to climb up my torso until she was tucked in under my chin. That made it very hard to keep quilting, so I just had to stop and cuddle the dog. This quilt is a secret, so I can’t show much of it yet. Oddly, it matched my leggings perfectly. 🙂

Last night, I was quilting again and she decided that 11:30 pm was too late and I should be sleeping, so she did this. It’s a little blurry, because she was moving, but she kept pawing at me until I put down the quilt and then she took over my lap and wouldn’t move.

She will also hang out by my sewing machine, especially when the Husband was out of town. I thought the machine might be scary for her, but even my Grandma’s machine doesn’t seem to faze her. This was her from last week.

Luckily, she didn’t try to guard the pedal.

I got the fabrics for all the quilt tops I need to finish last Friday and since we were dogless, I was able to get the two bigger ones pinned. Here is the second one.

I have started putting the Rainbow Rail Fence quilt together. It’s on the machine, so no pictures yet.

Fancy is currently snuggled up next to me on the couch with her paws draped over my feet, so I can’t get up. 🙂 She’s snoring as usual.

I’ve been working hard on these couple of quilts and haven’t really sewn anything else. I did get grey satiny fabric to go with my grey and purple lace. I think I might make that into a dress for the wedding. I have enough for a fancy slim fitting dress.

In other news, I’m excited to say that I was included in a roundup post about sewing and mental health on the Sewcialists blog. I have been reading the blog for a little while now and when they put out a call for stories of how sewing has helped your mental health, I knew I had to write my story. Check it out if you are interested! There are some inspiring stories out there. I’m planning on writing a longer post about this issue as well.  https://sewcialists.wordpress.com/2018/03/12/who-we-are-sewing-with-and-for-mental-health/

Now, I’ve got to get some quilting done before work. It’s my late night at work, so I won’t have a lot of time tonight. Have a great day!

Crafty

Hello again sewing machine!

I haven’t had to cook much over the weekend. Friday and Saturday were busy with party prepping and partying respectively. We’ve been busy eating all the party leftovers since then. I did make cheesy polenta with sautĂ©ed veggies for dinner tonight and will post the recipe details on Thursday.

I’ve been sorting and cutting fabric for my first official craft project for the year. I’ve not sewn anything in a few weeks and it’s funny how much I miss it. The project is a Strip Pieced Snowball Quilt, from the book “Making Scrap Quilts To Use It Up!” by Lynne Edwards. I have another project from this book that I started long go that’s about half done which I want to finish as well. I desperately need to use up my scraps. I have three overflowing boxes at the moment. The project in the book is made of blue strips, but I wanted to use rainbow colors. It will have cornerstones of black fabrics and black sashing. So far I’ve made 14 blocks and need to find some more yellows, oranges, purples, and greens to make the plan work. Here are some of the untrimmed blocks:

I’ve included a picture of what the finished quilt should look like below. Obviously my color scheme will be different, but it should still look pretty neat. It will be about twin sized.

I’m not sure what I am going to do with all quilts that I make during this challenge. Some of them I will keep and some may find their way to other people. I looked up some places to donate them to as well, so I should have enough places for them. Not all of the quilt projects will stay as full quilts. I want to experiment with making some quilted bags or other items to go on my Etsy store, Twinflower Fancies. No matter where the projects end up, or how many quilts I make, the point of this is to just keep making new things, and to finish the projects I have already started. I think I’ve made a good start. Now back to sewing!