Tuesday, March 27, 2012

the importance of pictures

I'm so annoyed with myself.  I made an awesome pillow for a friend of mine, for her birthday.  I took a couple of pictures during it, because I wanted to write a nice blog post about it.  And now I can only find one of the pictures.  And it's not even of the completed project.  Grr!  Well, let this be a lesson to me, to keep my photos better organized.

My friend loves scrabble.  So I thought it would be fun to make a scrabble pillow!  I took her and her husbands name, their 'theme' of happily ever after and some other important words, like love and hope and made a fabric scrabble board.  Here's how the pillow top looked.

The letters were stenciled on with hand made stencils. I sponged the paint on, but if I made this again, I would probably draw the letters with a black sharpie. It's not an exact replica of a scrabble board, but not too far off!

I'm bummed I don't have a completed picture to show off right now.  One of these days, when I go to my friends house, I'll take a picture there.

In other crafty news, I found my next sewing class.  It's at Vogue Fabrics and the class will start in May.  It's a 'beyond beginner' class that will focus on cuffs, and sleeves, and darts and all sorts of good things.  It'll be a trek, the place is in Evanston, which is a half-hour drive, but I'm sure it'll be worth it.  Especially since it will get me closer to my goal...

Which is this.  In six months, I want to be able to make a Jane Austen dress. I already have the pattern.  I couldn't resist once I saw all the patterns at Sense and Sensibility.  Now I just need the skills, which I'm slowly acquiring!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

So Many Projects!


I had a fantastic crafty weekend.  Not that I actually completed any projects, but that I got the goods for a whole bunch of new ones!

As I've said before, I really want to learn how to make clothes.  *ahem* construct garments.  Luckily, I have a few friends that are willing to be giunea pigs for me.  So I have a top and a dress to make.


A friend of mine planned on getting a sewing machine this past weekend, and let me tag along.  One of the stores we went to was A Quilter's Paradise.  It was an absolutely beautiful store.  Big and airy and so much fabric and so many ideas.  Of course I couldn't walk out without buying something.  I got this jelly roll to make a lap quilt.  It's Christmas-y fabric and all lovely and vintage looking.  It was love at first sight.


So now I have that lovely problem of simply too many projects to work on.  Here's my current list.

1. Finish t-shirt quilt
2. Finish the boys baby sweater
3. Finish the two baby sweaters
4. Friend's top
5. Friend's dress
6. Jelly Roll quilt

Not too mention the two other projects that I want to start but haven't yet.  A summer quilt for myself and the Guild Wars 2 Engineer's backpack.  However, I have put my foot down.  I'm absolutely not allowed to work on any other project until my t-shirt quilt is done.  I'm so close.  I only have to finish the bias on two sides.  It's hand sewing and that always feels like it takes forever.  But I have plenty of TV to watch while I sew, so there's no excuse!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Project Idea

I desperately want to make this:
This is an engineer's healing backpack in Guild Wars 2.  How cool is that?  There are just so many details that I love about this.  The buckles, the hinges.  The way it's stitched.  Love!

This will probably end up being a long term project.  I've started searching for faux leather and suede to use, as well as vintage buckles and hinges.  This will be an absolute blast to make once I have all the pieces.  Not to mention educational!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

I can haz pincushion?

On a whim in my local Joann's, I saw some fat quarters on sale.  So I decided to make a pin cushion.  And I decided not to use a pattern and instead improvise.  Here's what I started with.

All I knew when I sat down to make this was that I wanted to use piping.  I had never made or used piping until I had made my cape, and thought that a pincushion would be a good way to practice with it.

This certainly wasn't the easiest thing to make.  I had hoped to make most of it using my machine, but I ended up making most of this by hand.  Took me a few times, not to mention several uses of the seam ripper until I got this looking the way I wanted it to.



Cute, huh?  I desperately needed a pincushion, so at least that's off the list.  In other news, I posted on facebook about organizing a facebook quilting bee.  Basically I would supply the fabric and the notions for a block of a quilt, then send them to whoever wanted one.  Then they can send me back a completed block.  I think it sounds like a lot of fun!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Oh baby!

Got a couple of cute baby hats that I finished up recently. Both of these will be given away as gifts.


Is that fun?  The faux hawk cracks me up.  This was really simply to make and I'm currently working on a matching sweater.


This one is just absolutely adorable.  It's supposed to be a newsboy cap, but look almost more like a sunbonnet.  I love the flower with it.  Adds just the right touch.

In other news, I joined the American Sewing Guild yesterday.  It looks really interesting.  There's a Chicago Chapter and I'll be able to go to meetings and hopefully learn more about sewing.  And there seems to be a whole lot of webinars and online classes that could be very helpful.  I'm about to watch one on 'must-have notions.'  :)

Monday, March 5, 2012

Guild Wars Cape



One day I was talking to my fellow guild members in vent.  I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I do remember that I told them that I was thinking of making our guild’s cape. 

Which wasn’t exactly true.  I hadn’t given it one moment’s thought.  The idea simply popped into my head and I blurted it out before I could stop myself.  I chalked it up to one of those random things that’s said in chat and I expected to forget about it quickly.  But the thought didn’t go away.  I found myself thinking what I would need to make the cape real.



And so the next day I went to a fabric store and got the supplies I thought I needed.


The first part of the cape went smoothly.  I got the pattern from an apron pattern that had the right shape.  Painting the silver on was easy.  I made a stencil and was done quickly.



The part that I knew would trip me up the most was the emblem on the cape.  I went about this a couple of different ways.  First, I was going to make a stencil and then cut out the fabric and sew it onto the cape.  I quickly realized that wouldn’t work with my fabric, as there was no way I would be able to press the emblem and keep the detail that I wanted. 

So I thought perhaps I would cut the fabric right on the line and sew it on the cape.  That wouldn’t work either, as the fabric frayed horribly.  It was back to the drawing board.

What I decided to do was make the stencil and paint some plain muslin fabric gold.  Once it’s dry, I’d cut about ¼ of an inch around the paint and then sew where the white and gold meet.



That didn’t quite work out the way I wanted.  I couldn't sew underneath easily, like appliqué.  Luckily, I realized the fabric wasn’t fraying at all because of the paint.  So I cut directly around the painted area and sewed that onto the cape.

Next was the top of the cape, including the part that goes around the neck.  I was very excited, because this would be the first time I was going to use my sewing machine’s buttonhole feature.  Set everything up, pressed the ‘go’ key, and quickly discovered that the combination of my fabric and thread was no good for buttonhole making. I therefore hand made quite possibly the world’s worst buttonhole.  But there was a hole and it was for a button and in the end, isn’t that all that matters?

After that it was time to quilt the cape itself.  I took the same grey thread that wasn’t good for buttonhole making and quickly quilted around the silver lines.  Then I added the black quilting bias.

Everything was going so smoothly until that point.  I was really happy with how it was going.  Then I realized I made a logistical error.  I made my piping, and promptly realized I should have attached it about 5 steps beforehand, when I was sewing the grey top part.  There was no way I was going to go back and fix that error.  So I made a work around.  I already knew that this cape was for displaying, not for wearing, so I just stitched it to the back.  Works for me!

I learned a lot making this cape, and I made notes throughout the process, figuring out what I would do differently next time.  I had an absolute blast making this.  It has been a while since I made something for myself, just because.  Lately, most of my crafting has been for other people, which I love, but it is nice to make something for me.