Never say never

Sewing machine only

I was always happy with just a straight sewing machine.  I didn't need a serger or any of these other fancy, non-essential doodads.  Nope, not me, never.  Not gonna happen.

The first crack was my sudden, burning need for a coverstitch.  Still didn't see the need for a serger, but I was really tired of trying to do a neat twin needle hem on knits.  So I got a coverstitch, and I liked it.

Long, long stretch where I used my regular machine and coverstitch, and then mostly just the machine because in the last two years I've probably only made two garments for myself.  So for craft show and Etsy sewing, I haven't needed the coverstitch but I've used the hell out of the sewing machine.

Then I got a call from a friend that her neighbor had died and his family was liquidating all his sewing supplies, including a Baby Lock serger with jet air threading.  It was free.  It was also mine, very quickly, and we got acquainted fast.

Why did no one ever tell me my life wouldn't be complete without a serger?

Machine embroidered doll faces

Recently I started selling cloth dolls at shows and online.  I was hand embroidering the faces, which was fine when I was only selling a few of them.  I like embroidery.  I find it relaxing -- or I did until I sold ten dolls at a one show and had another show the following weekend, with no stock left.  Then I had to embroider ten faces and construct the dolls too, in a week when I was scheduled to be temping at least three days.

I started thinking idly about embroidery machines.  I knew I'd use it -- for the dolls if nothing else -- but I wasn't sure how expensive they were, or what the learning curve was like.  I did some online research and quite a few people said that the Brother SE400 was a good basic machine if you weren't planning on doing large, elaborate designs.  That sounded good.

Amazon had it for $300.  Which also sounded good, but I wasn't convinced.  I waffled a little bit more, and then got an amazing email from my credit card company.  It reminded me that I had a lot of unused rewards points, which could be turned into an Amazon gift card.

Which could be turned into an embroidery machine.

Hand embroidered face

I love this machine.  I can turn out a half dozen doll faces in an afternoon, while I'm sitting next to it sewing something else.  Since it's a basic machine, I have to change thread colors (there are machines where you can pre-load up to ten colors, which makes me hyperventilate a little) but I can live with this.  Easily.

So if there's some new kind of machine out there and I make the blanket statement, "I don't need it," just remind me that things change.

P.S.  It's getting crowded in my workroom now with all these machines.  I need to reorganize soon.

Strange Days

The Powel House in Old City 

As has been pretty clearly documented here, I'm doing many different things to try to keep myself out of a traditional 9-5 office job.

Today was definitely something different.  A close friend has another friend who is involved with the historic sites in Old City Philadelphia.  She texted me a few weeks ago to ask if I'd be available to teach an embroidery class.  I said yes, without asking for more details.  (Hey, a job's a job, and embroidery beats lawyers.)

I soon found out that I'd be teaching a group of kids who were attending a history camp at the house.  Most of them had been coming for several years, and they wanted another period-appropriate craft besides the weaving class they already had.

Now, I may make things for kids, but I don't have kids.  I don't have that much contact with kids.  I'm not really comfortable with them, especially in groups.

Eliza Powel's ballroom / drawing room, set
up for the class.  

But I said yes anyway.

Then I found out that in addition to teaching the class, they wanted me to do a 10 minute presentation to the combined group (about 15 kids and 4 adults) beforehand.  "Just a little something about embroidery generally and in the period," they said helpfully.

As Dr. Seuss would say, I puzzled and puzzed til my puzzler was sore.  What to say?  I certainly have the information, and I thought it was a nice angle for the girls that no matter what they personally feel about going to school, their counterparts who would have lived in Philadelphia at the time they were studying probably wouldn't have been allowed to attend school.  So embroidery and other "feminine" skills were really all that a lot of girls had to occupy their time, unless they had progressive parents with money.

They told me there were boys, too, so I made a point of looking up all the trades involving sewing that would have existed in Philadelphia at the time -- tailor, sailmaker, bookbinder, shoemaker.  Not to mention the fact that soldiers and sailors, away from home for long periods, couldn't run home to mama if they lost a button.  Sewing was just a practical skill that nearly everyone had.

Corner of the ballroom 

But for all my research and thinking about it, I never got around to making an outline of what I wanted to say until yesterday afternoon at the office.  I drafted something, but I spent more effort making the outline function work properly in Word than I did on the contents.  Then I put it in my bag and forgot it until this morning, when I forgot to review it again, shoved it into my other bag and took it with me, and slipped it under some of the other materials on the table in case I needed to refer to it.

Thankfully I didn't have to -- I winged the entire 10 minutes somehow -- but when I went to put my outline away later, it turned out that it was actually my 2 page to-do list for what I need to get done before my next craft show.  So a fat lot of good that would have done me anyway.

I told Mario when I got home today that I wasn't sure what surprised me most -- that I'd managed a group of 8 kids (6 girls, 2 boys) for 2 hours with no problems and no overwhelming urge to bite, or that I had spoken to a large-ish group of people without having the urge to projectile vomit in a historic house.  

Children and public speaking have always been things I'm massively uncomfortable with.  I had to do an oral report in English class in junior year, and while I did it, I also threw up afterward.  Mario suggested that what I feared in school wasn't public speaking but the judgment of the other students, which makes perfect sense.  Now.

 But isn't it strange when you realize you've just accomplished something you thought you were afraid to do, without thinking about it until afterward?

Class continues Thursday, and I'm looking forward to it.  The kids were fun, they caught on quickly and the two boys -- both around 10 years old -- did really well.  One did hands-down the best work of the group, and the other worked the hardest.

A trip to the apothecary

I started these embroidered apothecary label motifs back in the spring, just for fun.  I didn't know what I was going to do with them.

Then, in the summer, I got the bright idea to put them on bottles.  (That had something to do with finding a really cool pair of purple cotton velvet pants at the thrift store).

Idea stalled again, then I decided that they needed to be pillows, and scrounged through the remnants for something I had enough of to make 4 pillows.

Stall again, until yesterday, when I finally cleaned my workroom -- I can see floor!! -- and found the motifs, velvet bottles and olive green linen sitting neatly together, out of sight and out of mind.

Listed here.

Day of the Dead Kitty Finds a New Home

Last week, my Day of the Dead Kitty pillow cover was purchased by a dear online friend, Maria Wulf, whose blog Full Moon Fiber Art, chronicles her journey as a talented fiber artist.

I was really touched that Maria would want to buy a piece of my work -- she makes wonderful things herself -- but I was also thrilled because I know how it feels to be touched by something and want it for your own.

Maria and her husband, Jon Katz, had some bad news these last couple of days.  Their barn cat, Minnie, had a run-in with an animal, possibly a raccoon, and had to have one of her legs amputated.

Maria posted on her blog today that my pillow cover arrived just in time.  She's spread it over the cage where Minnie will be living for the next 10 days, added a few crystals that she found recently, and is calling it "Minnie's Altar."

Whatever your beliefs, I think that's a lovely thing to do.  Doing something positive and beautiful instead of worrying and feeling negative; Minnie will get better all the quicker for having someone who cares enough to make something beautiful to help her get well.  Check out Maria's post on Minnie's altar here.

No more pillowcases

Instead, they've become dresses.

I'm pretty happy with these two.  The motifs on the pillowcases really lent themselves to becoming dresses.

Not as happy with the photography on the bottom dress -- the blue facing doesn't show half as much straight on; for some reason, flash or no flash, it's much more obvious in the picture.  Grr.

The only other "grr" moment -- going through SIX boxes and cans of buttons and not being able to find eight pale blue shirt buttons.  Which I know I have a boatload of, because I used them when I made a shirt for my husband a year or so ago.  (And no, I didn't scavenge the buttons off his shirt, though the thought did occur to me.

These dresses are now available in the shop.

Pillows and More Pillows

Some of these have been well on their way to completion for some time - you may remember the Tree of Life motif from over a month back.

Yep, it took me that long to complete.  Don't know why, because when I got in the workroom on Monday to start the piecework for these four pieces, time just flew by and before I knew it, they were done.

The tree and turquoise butterfly pillows have a slightly more constructed patchwork, but for some reason the squared-off pattern just felt right for these.

The pink and orange butterflies were so bright on their own that they really didn't need much accompaniment.  I had an orange remnant (that shirt must be in at least 5 different projects by now), a piece of Hawaiian shirting from a co-worker's vacation and some hot pink scrubs fabric.  The colors are a little "hot" for my decor, but I know they'll appeal to someone.

For some reason, butterflies were on my mind when I made this recent lot of motifs - I've done the single butterfly and dragonfly before, and both have sold, so I decided to repeat the designs and change up the colors.

I kept with the summer colors for the single butterfly - turquoise, lime green and a vintage remnant with a turquoise and green fruit print.  Solid turquoise for the back, because I had a piece in my fabric stash that coordinated.

The butterfly was done in backstitch on this pillow; I generally use chain stitch, which gives a more solid appearance, but this one felt lighter, because of the colors, so I used an airier stitch.

In some respects, the dragonfly may be my favorite.  He's purple, first of all, and while that's not my favorite color, I love the excess it lends itself to - and the patchwork on this one makes me happy because it's so asymmetric and spiky.

The fabrics here are classic green and eggplant purple scrubs, with some class added by a remnant of Liberty of London's "Strawberry Thief" print designed by William Morris.

These pillows, and more, available here.

Working in reverse

I recently finished these two embroidery motifs.

Actually, I finished the peace sign made of leaves a few weeks back, and this afternoon, while wandering through Facebook instead of doing the sewing I should have been, I finished the tree motif.

Maybe I should start planning what these things want to be before I start embroidering them?  You think?


I'm assuming at this point that I'll piece around them and make a few more pillow covers.  They aren't selling as well as I would like, but I really, really like making them, and that has to count, doesn't it?  The right someone will come along soon and fall in love with embroidery, random patchwork and the idea of pretty soft things in their homes.

At least I hope they will.

The tree motif actually went really quickly, being only two colors.  The peace sign took longer, since I was using 4 or 5 different shades of green and doing all the leaves of one color, then switching off to another color.

I do have a lot of earth-tone and neutral scraps in the back, along with a few more vivid greens and maybe one bright floral just to jazz things up.  Maybe I need to go in the workroom and just lay fabrics out and see what happens.

And maybe I'm just procrastinating because I have 41 plaid flannel Christmas stockings sitting on my table, constructed, backed and pressed, waiting to be embellished.

Procrastination is my friend.

Time to take your Potion

I started working on these embroidered apothecary labels this summer.  I didn't have a purpose for them at that point, I just liked the look of them and knew something would come to me eventually.  I did three of them on a piece of ivory linen and then put them aside.

Recently they came to light in the workroom and I started thinking about what to do with them.

What I eventually came up with was somewhat obvious, when I thought about it - labels go on bottles and jars, don't they?  So I needed to find some bottles and jars.  Or make some instead.

The bottles here are cut from a pair of dark grape purple velvet pants I found at my local thrift store, purchased several months ago and stashed for just such an occasion.  The mossy green linen backing fabric was leftover from a dress I made for myself a few years ago.

These are going to be more pillow covers.  I think I need to make a fourth label, because the "Miracle Cure" just doesn't fit well on the first pillow.  But thankfully, there is a fourth label, and I'll be starting that shortly.

Apothecary label designs are from Urban Threads.

Embroidery Revisited

This past summer, due to the unbearable heat in my workroom (when the AC only takes the temp down to 85, there's a problem), I took up embroidery for the first time in about 20 years.  It was actually the first type of needlework I ever did -- I remember a pagoda-like structure embroidered on yellow satin with turquoise and red sewing thread when I was about 5 -- and it turns out it's still a favorite.

It also appears that my color palette hasn't gotten any more restrained during that time.

The only problem with embroidery, for me, is I find a really fun design and execute it and then I look around and think, "What do I do with it now?"  It's fine when I'm embellishing an existing garment or I have an idea from the get-go, but usually the idea is "cute design, let's embroider it and think of something to do with it."

Enter the scrap bag.  And hamper.  And another bag or two.  In addition to embroidery, I'm also a fan of patchwork, but I'm a terrible quilter.  I may have the patience to embroider sugar skulls until the cows come home (now there's a picture), but I can't quilt to save my life.  So I pieced around each embroidered image until I liked the effect, then I backed them with batting and muslin, and machine-quilted all all the seams.

Then I dug around and found suitable backing fabrics and turned them all into envelope-back pillow covers.  They look very snazzy with my new labels, and you can either buy a pre-made pillow form for them or use a pillow you already have.

These were out at the craft show and a few of them sold.  The rest of them are in the Etsy shop, waiting for someone to love them.

Busy Busy

The Go West Craft Fest is this Saturday (weather permitting; right now it's looking like it might rain, in which case it will occur on Sunday).

Needless to say that has meant frantic sewing, cutting, swearing and maybe the tiniest bit of imbibing to get me in line for the event.

The worst part is the finishing.  I get things 90% done, get a bright idea and start on the next item, blithely saying, "Oh, I can knock that [whatever it is] out in 10 minutes when the time comes."

Well, the time has come, and now I'm stitching labels on items, making and adding bow ties to 8 stuffed bears, running the lint roller over everything before it gets boxed up, taking photos and wondering where, oh, where I put the cash box and receipts from the last show I did.

It's somewhere in this house.

Let's not talk about the state of the house.  I'll clean it after the craft show, I promise.

I leave you with a few goodies from the upcoming weekend.  Those that don't sell will be listed in my Etsy shop within a day or two.

Fingers crossed that there's not much left to list and I have to start making all over again.

Teaching by the Seat of my Pants

Remember a while back I talked about the embroidery class that wasn't?  Well, now apparently it is.

Two autumn semesters passed without a flicker of interest.  The first winter semester was announced, and the silence was deafening.  I posted a call on Facebook over the weekend because they said they were offering a 10% discount to see if they could muster up some people before giving up on the idea.

Until today.  I got a call at 4:30 p.m. to tell me that my first class was tonight.  In 2 hours, during which I still had to finish my work, get home, get changed, get supplies together (they didn't know if the students needed starter kits or were equipped, so better safe than sorry), find a couple of books with pictures for inspiration and to get the conversation started, a few finished projects and go over the notes that I had prepped back in the summer.

Of course my notes mentioned the handouts that I'd never gotten around to making, since the class kept getting canceled.  I got there tonight at 6:15 p.m., to find out that I had one whole student (the second one hadn't paid or shown up), and that they were making a special case for her since the class had been purchased as a gift by her daughter, a frequent student at the arts league.

I was hoping for a total beginner, but she's done some stitching before, and what she's really looking for are ornamental stitches that she can incorporate into her quilting projects.  Since I wasn't quite ready for that, tonight we did refresher basic stitches, talked a lot, compared our thoughts on sewing machines and wondered what was wrong with the mostly non-crafty rest of the world.

I'd say about 90% of the class was a total bluff on my part, but I think she only caught on to about 45%.  I'll be more prepared next week, and I told her to bring along a sample of her work to get an idea of what she really wants to do.

This could be interesting, frustrating, or both.  But either way, I went, I taught, I survived and I came home and drank wine.  It wasn't so bad after all.

A Gift finds its Home

Remember back in October, when I went to the homesteading workshop in NY?  

Well, one of the stockings I made this season got sent to Jenna, the ambitious, hard-working and hard-headed young writer and farmer who hosted us.  

She wrote a post on her blog, Cold Antler Farm, thanking her readers for their cards and gifts, and posted a photo of my stocking. Please check out her post to see Maude, her grumpy sheep who inspired the sheep on the stocking.  

A little frustrated

Gratuitous Max photo - no frustration there!

I spent 2 hours on Saturday afternoon at my neighborhood arts league, where I'm supposed to be teaching an embroidery class this fall.

I say supposed to, because as of Saturday afternoon, no one has signed up.  This could partly be because of advertising, and the near lack thereof, but I also think it's a fundamental problem in people these days.  Not all people - look who I'm speaking to here, after all - but allow me to vent and generalize a little.

They've had little or no interest in any kind of handcraft classes in recent years.  There are occasional painting classes, but none in the last few years.  Pottery and ceramics have an enduring popularity, but from what I saw, most are repeat students who have no other access to a wheel and a kiln.  There's yoga, of course, and flamenco, and a raft of kids' and after-school classes.

But no sewing, no embroidery, no textile based classes at all.  Not even knitting.  And years ago, when I was in my 20s, this very same place used to cover all of downtown Philadelphia with flyers for classes that included embroidery, quilting, trapunto for pete's sake.  Trapunto.  And now I can't even get anyone excited about embroidery, much less sewing.

I shouldn't say that.  There were quite a few women who stopped by my table and were interested in the pieces I had displayed and who wanted to talk about embroidery.  Not one of them was born in this country, and every single one of them already knew how to embroider.  I spoke to Muslim women from several regions, Indians, Chinese, South American American women . . . all of whom were interested and who told me about the patterns and stitches prevalent in their cultures.

While the women of our culture (or at least the one I visibly resemble) walked past the table without even looking, and when I did speak to a few women at the snack table, their comments were that their grandmothers did stuff like that, but isn't it great now that we don't have to do all that hard work and can just buy whatever we want, already made.

No.  No, it's not great.  It sucks that most people can't see that sometimes the effort of creating something is more interesting, more fun, more worthwhile than plunking down a couple of bucks at Walmart for something embroidered by a machine, most likely operated by a child, probably in some third world country that they wouldn't even want to visit on vacation.

First class is supposed to be Monday night.  They need 3 bodies for it to go forward.

It's cooler now, the sewing room is bearable.  I think I'm going to prep a few sewing projects this weekend.  I'll need something to do Monday evenings this fall.

As the Crow Flies

Don't worry, this isn't turning into an embroidery blog.  I'm still working on my boucle jacket, I just got hung up waiting for the zipper to arrive (because I can't order these things before I start sewing), and now that the zipper is here and installed, I have to face up to cutting into that chocolate charmeuse lining.  I'm not in the mood for dealing with slippery, but it has to be done.  I keep reminding myself how good it will feel when I wear it.

** Speaking of zippers, I ordered mine from Wawak, formerly Atlanta Thread.  They promise that your order will ship next day.  I didn't get a shipping email the next day, so I wondered  if maybe they weren't as good as AT was.  Two days after that, I get an email - my package had shipped.  Which wouldn't have been funny except I'd already received the box that day, opened it and gotten the zipper installed before the email arrived.  So anyone who's worried about the changeover, don't be.  Their emails may be slow, but shipping is not.

Long weekend ahead.  Quite a few chores planned, but the jacket will be complete by the end of it.  Check back then if you can't take any more embroidery.  :)

Best thing about it: it gives me something to do at lunchtime at work.  It's a nice head cleaner on a busy, stressful day to be able to take 15 or 20 minutes and stitch.  This particular piece is called Celtic Ravens, from the Urban Threads Celtic Majesty collection.

Except I'm calling them crows.  This piece was made as a gift.  The recipient has always considered seeing crows in pairs as a sign of good luck.  I'll be visiting her in October and I wanted to take a present.  Aside from the fact that she will appreciate a handmade gift (how often does that happen, really?) I thought this would be something special that she could put up in the house.  I made it as a wall hanging as opposed to a pillow or something because she has 3 dogs, a few cats and a farm, so anything on the wall is bound to last longer.

The other reason I'm doing so much embroidery is I'm going to be teaching a class at the local arts league this fall, and I'd rather not feel like Marge Simpson, trying to stay one class ahead of her students.  I'm trying to re-teach myself what I've forgotten, learn some new stuff and just become comfortable again with a needle in my hand.  The outline work on this piece was a combination of back stitch and split stitch, both of which I can move really quickly at now.  The fill-in work is chain stitch, which I really like for less than solid (i.e., not satin stitch) fill, except for when I miss the loop bringing the needle back down and the whole damn chain unravels behind me.

Judging by tone, you know that's happened more than once.  But less often, these days.

Jacket by Monday.  I promise.

2 Projects Done

Sorry to blow my own horn here, but it's been so long since I feel like I accomplished anything, I'm happy to have 2 things done now.

First off, the Urban Threads Day of the Dead kitty, which I'm quite pleased with.  It didn't start out to be a pink cat, but how often do my projects at completion resemble my original idea?  The pink happened sometime after I started filling in the flowers, and I realized that pink was just about the only color I hadn't used for the flowers.

Not entirely sure what I'm going to do with this little guy (despite his pinkness, he's definitely a boy kitty), but I'm getting an idea.  It's not a me idea, so I'm resistant at this point.  We'll see where it goes.

** For Kathi G, who asked, I used a tight chain stitch to fill in the pink.  The solid areas are satin stitch, and the outline is backstitched.  Nothing earthshaking here, but it does the job.

Second project: a remake of an old dress, Burda 5/2008 #121.  I loved the dress in its heyday, but the fabric in the bodice really started to stretch out and show its age, so I knew it wouldn't get any wear as it was.  The dress spent a week or two marinating on the workroom table, and then I took scissors to it so I couldn't change my mind.

After that, it became the cowl version of KwikSew 3036.  The resulting top somewhat mimics the original Burda design - kimono sleeves, black contrast fabric.  Obviously it's not cut down to there, but sometimes that's okay.  Especially for work.

Despite how much fabric there was in the dress, there wasn't that much to work with after cutting it up.  Obviously the top wasn't salvageable, so that left the skirt.  Because of the cut-on sleeves, the pieces needed to be wider than anticipated, and somehow I ended up shortish on length.  I had planned a black bottom band anyway; I just made it a little wider and then ruched up the sides for interest (which of course shows not at all in the photos).

I wouldn't go to this much trouble remaking any old dress from my wardrobe, but I bought this fabric in Paris in 2008 when I met up with Trena, so it was a special dress.  And now it's a not-quite-as-special top, but that's better than sending it off to the thrift store.

Now I just wish it would cool off a little - the idea of wearing a cowl right now is enough to break me out in hives.  And probably that's why it took me 2 weeks from start to finish on something as simple as a knit top.

If nothing else, finishing this top has forced me to remember that I do know how to use my sewing machine, and that it's not 110 degrees in the workroom right now, just a balmy 85 or so.

Still here

And there's even been some sewing.  Hopefully I'll have something to show by tomorrow.  It's just a top, but still, it's the first time I've been in the workroom for a significant period and accomplished anything in the last 2 weeks, so yay me!

I had off from work Thursday and Friday, and had all kinds of grand plans.  And karma bit me in the butt, in the sense that Max had an episode Thursday after lunch that caused him to be carted off to the vet (by taxi), to be poked, prodded, tested and sent home with several potential diagnoses and some medication that would control most of them.

I came into the bedroom and he was panting.  Panting is generally a stress reaction, so I got him up and made him walk, just to see how he was acting.  He hugged the wall and was swinging his head from side to side in an odd way, almost as if he couldn't see.  His back legs seemed weak.  He wasn't really interested in food and water.  Because of his diabetes, I was thinking any number of alarming things.  I called the vet, they told me to bring him down to get checked out.  He continued to pant and cry in the cab, and got sick twice.

At the vet, his blood glucose was normal, so it wasn't a standard diabetic reaction.  An x-ray was clear for tumors or anything pressing on a nerve.  So what was it?  Their two best guesses are an asthma attack or a pulmonary embolism (blood clot to the lung).  Diabetic animals do throw clots, and that would explain the respiratory distress and possible the other weird symptoms.  Of course, panic from not breathing could explain some of them as well.  Asthma?  He's 14, and first he develops diabetes and now asthma?  I'm almost hoping for the clot; it's more of a one-time thing.

They could do a bunch of tests and give me a more definitive answer, but then I'd have to put Max through all those tests and me having a definitive answer wouldn't really do anything to help him out.  I don't want him tortured with tests and medicines and chronic stuff.  He's old; he's getting tired; and he deserves an easy end.  If it's a little sooner than I'd like, then so be it.  I'd rather let him go than keep him going, for me.

All that being said, by last night he was eating okay and climbing the steps again, so it seems to be resolving on its own, at least for now.

And this is also by way of introduction to my latest piece of embroidery, El Gato Muerto from Urban Threads. If not for Max, then it's a tribute to all the wonderful cats who've passed through my life over the years, and the many still to come.  There will be colors - lots of them - but for now it's just an outline.

Down Mexico Way

There's a little packrat problem in my house.  I came by it honestly, last in a long line of packrats.  Mario's more minimal, but I think I'm rubbing off.  And our housemate, well, her level of acquisition could qualify her as a blood relative.

We've been trying to clean out a bit recently, and when she came downstairs with a few bags loaded for the thrift store, I naturally had to rummage through them to see what she was getting rid of.  (Needless to say, she was doing the same thing with my boxes).  Turns out she was getting rid of some old linens.

I have a weakness for old linens.  And because I have to choose the most difficult thing to try to make work, the one piece that really called out to me (though I took 4 pieces) was a 1950s-60s era kitschy Mexican-themed tablecloth, square, 4x4, with several spots and a nice tear in it.  But I loved the print and I wanted to try to save it.

I used Simplicity 5204, my TNT blouse pattern - it's a basic shape, doesn't use too much fabric, and it has vertical darts in the front which, as it turned out, could be finagled to lay right over the tear so that I could use the motifs around it.  Somehow, I managed to cut the entire blouse from the tablecloth - I only had to piece the under collar and the very bottom of one of the facings.  I do wish I'd been able to place the motifs a bit better, but again, the fabric limited what I could do.  When I was finished, there weren't enough scraps to make a matching dinner napkin.

Once I got the blouse constructed, I knew I had to go further.  The colors, while still good, were somewhat faded.  I decided to indulge my latest obsession and got out the embroidery floss and outlined the motifs with red, yellow and green stitching.  The final touch - little red buttons that look like candy.

And the result?  It's kitschy - good grief, it's almost choking on its own kitsch - but it makes me smile.  I think it'll be a rainy day top, something when I need a little brightening up.

Back in the Saddle

And back at the sewing machine.

The heat wave didn't exactly break, it just sagged down in a corner, exhausted from its own effort at trying to fry us all.  But the other night it was cool enough to get into the workroom for a couple of hours, and damn, but that felt GOOD!  It felt so good, I made a knit dress and a skirt.

Obviously during the time I was unable to sew, I was not going stitch-free.  I can't; the heat made me crazy enough, but taking all forms of needlework away from me isn't wise.

So I started embroidering again.  Mario's spaceship reminded me how much I enjoyed it once upon a time, and after PR Weekend I ordered Diana Rupp's book, Embroider Everything Workshop, which, if you're just starting out or need a refresher (as I certainly did) is a great book.  I'll do a full review soon if anyone's interested.

I decided to make an embroidered denim skirt.  We have jeans day every Friday now, and I don't do jeans in the summer and I'm tired of hearing that they finally relented and gave us jeans day, and hey, where's your denim?  This skirt is basically intended to say, "It's denim, get over it."

I found a nice remnant on the shelf, eyeballed it, decided it was enough to make a skirt and cut it in half.  I chose a design from Embroider Everything and transferred it to the denim and started stitching last weekend.  It was over 100 degrees on Saturday and I spent it in front of the fan, stitching a few miles of split stitch, satin stitch, leaf stitch and conquering the dreaded French knot.

Of course, being me, I got only so far before I decided to change the pattern.  The book's design is much more folk-art-tulips and I decided that wasn't the direction I wanted to go, so I used the stems and leaves and then changed the blossoms.  I stitched most of Saturday, in between runs to check on the chicken-cooling-system and emergency tomato watering, and I finished on Sunday.

Wednesday night, when I got to spend that quality time with my machine, it occurred to me there really might  not be enough denim to make a skirt.  Thankfully my panic was for nothing; there was just enough for the skirt and the yokes.  I got most of the skirt constructed Wednesday night and did the facings and hem last night.

I also managed to knock out a quickie knit dress that I wore to work on Thursday.  No photos of it on me, because I forgot.  So here it is on Evelyn, and it's one of those times where I can say in all honesty it looks better on me than on her.  But you get the idea.

It's KwikSew 3036, the kimono sleeve t-shirt that I just made, lengthened into a dress.  Fabric from Metro Textiles, PR Weekend 2012.  Nothing complicated, but like I said above, damn, it felt good to get back to it.

Retrofit

Sometimes a project needs a little tweaking.  A few years ago I made a shirt for Mario that has gone almost unworn (as in once per summer, to humor me).

This may be because I think the fabric is fabulous and he does not.  I think it looks like Jackson Pollock in Space and he does not.

I jokingly asked if it would be better if I embroidered a rocket ship on it.

He said it would.

Really?

And could it be the rocket ship from Futurama?  

So I did.  I found a picture online, copied it and drew it onto some scrap fabric, and embroidered it in odd moments this weekend.  Then I cut out the ship, got him to put on the shirt and pinned the applique to the left front.   

I stitched it on with the machine, then added some final embroidery - the gun turret on top.

He likes it now.  Go figure.

The Rooster Crows at Midnight

I feel like my sewing is changing.  I've always loved prints but I now think that maybe part of the reason I love sewing with them is because they serve the purpose of embellishment without having to go to the trouble of actually doing anything.  Who would embellish a garment that already had that many colors or patterns going on?  But lately I've changed - I'm enjoying the work of making my garments more interesting, not relying on a print to make a statement.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up on prints - you only have to look at my stash shelves to realize that's not happening - but I'm thinking about ways to make my garments speak softly, and say interesting things, instead of being a somewhat loud and rowdy party.  Does that make sense?


In that regard, here's my latest skirt - certainly not a print, but definitely not just a boring blue linen skirt either.  The pattern is Burda 8677, and it's one of the first patterns I bought after I joined Patternreview and discovered there were pattern companies out there other than the Big 4.  It's a pretty good skirt on me - not a full circle, so I don't have to deal with all that bias sag, and from a wide yoke rather than a waistband, which is always more comfortable.  And since I generally wear my tops untucked, no one will be the wiser, except you all.


Why a rooster?  Why not, I guess.  Because even though I don't have a great emotional attachment to my chickens, I think they're cool-looking and there are even more interesting looking ones than my girls.  I've also been looking at a lot of vintage embroidery lately, though most of that has been linens.  And I've been doing a lot of picky handwork because of the 1912 Project but I didn't feel like working on one of their patterns.


The original idea was to do a reverse appliqué (a la Alabama Chanin, whose projects are all over the internet these days and whose work I like, though I don't know as it's totally me).  I've tried reverse appliqué in a knit and didn't much like it, but I thought about doing it on this linen skirt (which is sturdy enough to have holes cut into it), and then when I was rummaging around for an appropriate background fabric - I wanted loud stripes - I ended up finding this vintage yellow cotton from my great grandmom's remnant bin, and it had chickens on it!  Perfect, right?


Except as I started outlining the stencil (which I made), I started liking how just the red outline of the rooster looked on the linen.  I chose red initially because there's some red in the vintage cotton; I also think it looks good on the gray/blue - it perks it up a little.  When I realized my bright idea might be going sideways, I just kept going.  What else was there to do?  When I finished the rooster, I decided I really liked him plain.  Then I added some green "grass" on either side of him.  Then I got another idea.


I could still do the reverse applique, but in a less obvious place.  How many people are going to look at this skirt and think "rooster?"  They're going to think "chicken."  And chickens lay eggs.

Coolest vintage fabric EVER?

So I drew an egg on the back of the skirt, embroidered some more grass around it, and outlined the egg in red thread.  I backed the egg in the vintage chicken print, and this time I cut the linen away - an egg with a chicken in it.  I guess that makes it a fertilized egg, and I guess that means the rooster needs to be there after all. So where's the chicken?  Maybe that's the subject for another skirt.