Go!Baby

I have finally jumped on the die cutter wagon. Over christmas I saw a lot of people posting about Accuquilt productshttp://www.accuquilt.com/. Finally I could stand it no longer.

There are four options to choose from. I deliberately chose the smallest. There is a large number of dies for this little beauty, many the basic building blocks of quilting.

At the moment I am seeing half-square triangles (HST) together to form 3" squares. They are for some time in the future. This block is very versatile and there are numerous arrangements.

I have also started piecing Drunkard'sPath. This is another classic. Each unit is a quarter circle pieced into a square. It would be very laborious cutting the individual pieces with templates. The Go!Baby makes short work of it.  As is the case with the HST, this is a block which can be combined in a myriad of ways. Again, I am just going to piece and sew and when I have enough for a projects, be it a cushion, an apron or a whole quilt, I will decide what to do. In the meantime I am enjoying piecing the  Drunkard's Path, but it is a little tricky

I will purchase a bigger cutter some time in the future but this handy little cutter will still get a lot of use

This pic has both of the above blocks in it. Half Triangle Square is 3"

And of course, no sewing post is good without a gratuitous kitty pic. 

This is Willow. He is a Devon Rex boy of about 6 months in this picture

 above. In the image below we can see  a very sleepy Gittan being sniffed over by a curious Willow. Gittan is a 3 yo Devon Rex.  I can't say just how wonderful it is to have cats in our lives again :0)

  

Ruby III

The yoke is a Michael Miller metallic print and the  body is a sheer cotton with a silver thread running through.
I used the Bernina Flat Fell foot 71 to do the seams- the flimsy nature of the main body fabric meant it needed some sort of finishing. This is a nice alternative to a French seam. First time using this foot. The stiffer fabric was really easy to sew but the first pass through for the flimsy fabric (a flat fell seam has two lines of stitching) was a real pain in the ass. Worth it though, I like the finish. I also used the  edge stitch foot to put the bias tape on. That also made things a bit easier than normal.

Ruby

My Sorbetto plans have come adrift. There was a nasty gape at the armholes. When I went online  to find a tutorial for 'gaping armholes' I was amused to see that the  person who made the tutorial used Sorbetto ..so I am not the only one. I was really delighted to see  this top available as a free download- I have seen a number online and they looked great. But I am going to have to follow the online fix before I attempt this top for the third time.

Instead, I  bit the bullet and bought Ruby, designed by' Made by Rae.'  The pattern  download went smoothly and I was happy to see that the various sizes have different coloured outlines. The instructions were very clear and I would recommend this as a good beginner project, easily whipped up in an afternoon if you are an experienced needlewoman.  here is Ruby I

And here, under construction is Ruby II

Coming to a blog near you

I am quite often late on the bandwagon. In this case it is with the sweet little Sorbetto  https://www.colettepatterns.com/sewing/sorbetto. I did have plans to do it in a great Zombie fabric but I 'put it away' and can't find it. Never mind, I am sure there will be more than one of these on the go.

The pattern was very easy to download and piece together, I hate the thought of having to do the same with something more complicated.

I need to get some silver bias tape tomorrow and then it will be full steam ahead. I could start it tonight but I am tired and even though this is simple I don't want to have to get the thread ripper out

A walk in the woods almost at an end

I have been making a quilt. The very easiest type, wholecloth.

The fabric is printed in panels and I simply sewed the quilt sandwich by following the edges of each panel.  That being said, it is a bit rough'n'ready.

The fabric is called 'Norwegian Woods', the designer's name escapes me for a moment. The deluge of fabric at the bottom right corner is the binding. I cut straight strips (as opposed to on the bias) joined them with a diagonal seam to reduce bulk at join, and then fed it through a nifty tool which fold the fabric 'sides to middle'. Once the iron is passed over the strip, the tape is formed and ready to sew.

To be honest, my preferred method of attachment is to machine sew one side of the strip along the edges of the quilt, fold it over and then slip stitch in place. This makes an invisible attachment. Bt I paid an exorbitant price for a bias bider attachment gizmo for my Bernina, so I am going to take it for its maiden voyage on this quilt.

OK, that was a v ery rambly post, but at least I have managed to post this week!

Sewing

I am in the process of making a linen skirt. I have carefully tacked the pleats in place. It was a bit of a pita and for some reason I couldn't get the last one folded properly.

I am in a quandary. I need to lose half a stone or this dress to fit...or I could alter the pleats and the waistband. I think I'll lose the weight..

The pleats are very soft- they are not stitched down, simply held in place by the ine of sewing at the waistband

Origami Bag

So, the christmas crafting continues. I am making the Origami Bag for some of my female 'giftees'. I will add  some small toiletries to these wee bags and I think it will make a welcome gift.

I think that the houndstooth/pink combination is an elegant one. I also hope that  even those who are not big pink fans (unlike myself) will  nonetheless like the little flashes of pink.

For future reference for myself: I made the pattern 50cm x 50cm, whereas the original  suggestion is 41cm x 41cm which I personally feel is too small.
Also: the  label should be sewn on   parallel to the first vertical seam which holds down the triangle points through their long sides as soon as that seam has been done..this makes for much easier sewing and much less wibbly seaming.

A big thank you to Jill:

http://jembellish.blogspot.ch/2012/05/fabric-origami-bag-photo-tutorial.html 

Crafting

I have been busy today.  I have never previously been overly interested in 'home decor' and I don't think that I am ever going to be 'overly interested', but I have a few things which I have been working on lately and have  posted here, such as  curtain panels.

Having put up the three Amy Butler curtain panels in  our bedroom I wanted to  jazz up the bed linens a bit.  Today saw the first of (many) pillow cases.  This was relatively simple but....there's always a but...when I was sewing one of the long hems  I managed to get a hole in the main body of the  case.  A bunching up of the fabric occurred and the knives on the overlocker just went straight through. Lucking  I realised this while  there was 'only' a  hole of a few inches length.     This meant a repair before it was even finished. If you look at the bottom right-hand corner of the blue fabric you  will be able to spot it. I ironed interfacing onto the back for the piece with  the hole and  I put a new piece of fabric on the front and then did three rows of concentric stitching to hold that baby down.


Next came the trimmings. The two  were also sewn down securely. I don't know  if the pink 'bobbles' will be too bobbly and therefore uncomfortable,  but it is going to be severely tested with much sleeping tonight :0) The original pattern had the contrasting fabric  at the end folded over and sewn down. This does make for a nice luxurious feel, but it is useless in terms of keeping the pillow in the case. Therefore I did a minor adjustment which means that the folded over part now forms an envelope in which to stick that end of the pillow. I hope it is deep enough....it is deeper than the front red section.

I am going to keep my eyes open for more fabric which appeals and also for trimmings- a relatively low-cost way of adding some  luxury to   sewing projects

Fast'n'dirty Pinny Porn

Yah, boo! Suckers! Go find the  kinda blog you hoped you were getting!


Edit: Le Sigh...should of course be 'waist band' but I can't be bothered looking for all of the typos tonight...
Edit: and I just found the wrong 'so/sew'...and a grocer's apostrophe.....ACK!
In the meantime:

There has been some sewing. This apron idea was not mine...if you Google 'Fat Quarter Apron' you will get lots of results. Unfortunately I can't find the link which I used.

But.. basically...get a fat quarter and cut enough from one of the slightly longer sides which can be folded in haf with a seam allowance sewed under. This forms the waist band.

 Use a plate or  whatever circular  object  is of the correct proportions and  mark a curve at two bottom corners. Cut following this line. You can see the desired effect above.

Next I formed a pleat in the middle and hand basted it in place- takes a few seconds and just makes life a bit easier

I then  used Bias Tape to cover the raw edge of the fat quarter, along three of its sides. The great thing about Bias Tape is that it goes around corners like there is no tomorrow :0)

When I attached the waste band, which covered the ends of the  Bias Tape, I slipped more of the  Bias Tape around the front of the waste band, since I liked the effect. I also  remembered to tuck in the tape which I was using for apron ties into the  open ends of the waistband.

Sewed it all in place ..oh, forgot to mention, I also made a hanging loop which you can just see peeking out of the top left corner of the picture. This was my one 'design' feature ;0) This was pinned in place and sewn with the waistband

This was real fast and dirty sewing. I didn't have any orange thread. Not  one. So I went with the blue which I had in the machine because I was being lazy. I could've taken time to  lovingly find  the perfect contrast.. but this apron is a one-night stand, not the love of my life...even sew, some of my sewing was appalling...looks like a drunk has taken my sewing fo a walk.

But....there's alway's a but...this took an hour to make from getting the fabric out (pre-washed!) to cutting the last threads. Can't say better than that.

See what I mean about that sewing???

Screwed-over in the craft world

Further to the post below, ACM has been wound up...there's a surprise....you now all need to watch out for this phoenix company:
HANDMADE LIVING MAGAZINE LIMITED: Kerries father is now the director, Richard Rycroft

The above was added to this original post below:

if you want to avoid a lot of heartache, avoid All Craft Media like the plague.That is what Kerrie Allman calls her empire today. Tomorrow it may well be something else. This is a litany of appalling and deliberate screwing-over of the craft community. It started in the knitting and crochet community. Now we think she is moving onto the sewing and quilting world. You can read about it : here or for those of you who are members of ravelry.com, you can find details in this group:'Freinds of the group once known as...'

Spread the word. This has to stop

Making Monday, September 5th

... except that I am posting this on the 4th!

Well, I am all tuckered out. Number Guy has been away in the US for 10 days and will be home on a few hours :0) I have missed him, but I have been busy. I had lots of social things to do, which is great. I have also been doing a huge amount of tidying. So that is really what making Monday this week is about....Making Things Tidy.

It all started with my laundry room. It isn't finished yet, but much of Mount Laundry has been put away and some of the floor has been Dysoned (remember what that would have been 'Hoovered'?). Then I started on My Stash. I am not sure if I should have taken a 'before' picture, it was..ahem...bad. Here is most of the yarn that lived in the living room:




That is plain scary. There is still some other yarn in the living room and I haven't touched what is upstairs. I 'had' to throw out some Rowan Calmer because I found a dead wasp in the bag. Yep, I know it was dead but the way I feel about wasps meant I would not have been able to use the yarn. Silly, but there we have it. As i photographed the yarn and added it to my Ravelry Stash page, I also noted which box it is in, that way when I want a yarn, I don't have to rummage.

I also sorted out the cupboard near the front door. I am sure everyone has one like this- you know, the one where you open, shove something in, then close the door as quickly as possible before all the crap falls out. Well, I haven't got oone of those any more :0)

I also made a bag yesterday. I was in the middle of a migraine- the pain had abated but my mind was not functioning properly. I am unhappy with the result, so 'don't sew with migraine' has been added to my list of 'must-nots'. It was frustrating at one point because I could not understand the instructions. I am fairly certain they were not written in Swahili, but my mind just refused to co-operate. I am posting a picture here and when I make the next bag (which WILL be up to scratch) I will post where I got the pattern from. I don't think this attempt does it justice:




It looks good like that, but believe me when I say I took it from the best side. This bag involved two firsts: The first time I used the walking foot in my sewing machine. It was a bit tricky to begin with, as the fabric really gets yanked in, but for sewing through several layers of fabric it is great. The second first: I used my new crafting/reading specs. What a difference. I could actually do the hand sewing required without looking under the lenses. Even when I finally give in and get varifocals I am going to keep a pair of specs specially for crafting.

Right-o. Enough blethering on, I have a just a little more tidying to do before Number Guy gets home.

Back on the horse

I have had an overlocker for more than a year but was too 'timid' to use it. When I finally remembered how to thread the thing (no mean feat, even withdiagrams/instructions), it wouldn't work properly. Turns out the solution was very simple....I needed to be more 'brutal' in putting the thread into the tension discs. Not only have I made five project bags....well, I do have rather a lot of knitting on the go at once, I made a fantastic pair of linen trousers. Well....they were fantastic eventually. You would not believe the number of basic errors that I made. The final error involved the hem. I was rather disheartened...lots of sewing hours, no wearable result. Then I had an idea...some rather lovely Amy Butler fabric was just right for some cuffs, which solved the problem. Solved it so well that some random stranger in Zürich complimented me on them :0)

Something a bit weightier than sewing has been on my mind of late. Friendship....or rather, the end thereof. When does one stop flogging a dead horse? How can one determine if said steed is dead? This isn't 'all about me'..well, it is, but I don't mean it in ' I am the most important person in the universe' kind of way. Other people have lives, sometimes very hectic ones. Sometimes they have much more important things to do than contact me. That's fine. I usually try to keep in touch anyway, keep the link open. But what happens when they are in touch with what seems to be the whole world and not me? At what point are they thinking,'FFS, Twelfthknit, can you not take a hint? YOu have emailed me/messaged me/etc and I.have.Not.Replied. TAKE A HINT!!' !! What do I do? Do I keep trying, keep sending messages? How do I know when there is a hint to be taken? I don't want to be friends with someone who wishes I would fuck off, on the other hand, I don't want to be a 'fairweather friend'. Sigh. At the moment I have taken a few people off my mental 'friends' list. It makes me sad, but I am getting to the point where I feel a right silly arse contacting them .

On a cheerier note, we ar off to Cyprus for a family wedding tomorrow (so why am I blogging and not packing, I ask myself).

good/bad

What I don't like about Burda patterns:



Lack of seam allowances, which have to be added on either when you trace the pattern as I am doing, or added directly onto the fabric.

What I do like:
downloadable instructions in English . Particularly useful when you've been daft enough to buy a pattern with 6 different languages, none of which is actually English...

Turning Japanese

Anyone remember that song? Was it The Vapours?

Long story short, I really like some of the Japanese skirts/dresses that I have been seeing on the internet over the last year or so. Thanks to
Poshyarns for finding



this link to Amazon Japan. Of course, once I had placed the order I realised that there was a book that Roobeedoo uses for skirts that I wanted to order. Oh well, next time. I need to track that one down as well - I am sure I have a link for it somewhere, the question is just where.

I hope that this book will provide the spur I need to get the rest of my craft room organised. It is a complete tip. If this room is a mess, my mind will simply refuse to take on the challenge of a bit of tricky sewing/planning. Don't ask me why, but there it is.

On that note, off to sit on my backside and NOT tidy ;0)

Hat

We've been having fantastic weather, which may have boken today :0( so I thought I should have a new hat. A few hours, and much cursing later, here we have my new reversible hat











More bias tape. Love it.

Calling all sewists...

I took the bull by the horns yesterday and decided that I was just going to give the jerey a go. I am really pleased with the results of this plain pink tee.....except...

Do you see the way the neck isn't lying flat. The facing at the back is also rolling over to the outside. In short it is screaming 'handmade crappy job done here!' Can anyone tell me what I might have done wrong and a possible way to fix it?
Full disclosure - I topstitched the neck instead of understitching the facing. Might this plus the subsequent stitch removal have caused the problem? Is there any that I can recover the situation?

'Easy is relative'

Now, I am not completely daft. I knew that when I chose 'Butterick B4549' that it would not be the '3 hour start to finish' that my latest
Barcelona Skirt was.I knew enough to doubt what it said on the tinpacket But, come on! Easy? Yes, if you have many hours of sewing experience under your belt, but not for a relatively newbie like me.

Still, I didn't let it beat me. Some bits I really disliked doing but I got there in the end. Not too much seam ripping, but enough - I decided that when I took up the sewing challenge I would not live with the unliveable. And at least this time I only sewed the wrong bits together once :0)

I plan to make another to go with the latest Barcelona - it's the linen mix featured in my 'Biased' post. I am not going to make too many in this size, since I hope to be down to a 10 in the not too distant future, but I want to benefit from this experience. Let's see if I can make it in two nights instead of three....

More sewing

Really bad photo, but then what do I expect when I take it at 10.00pm?

I finally decide to bite the bullet and buy a size 14 pattern. Yep - size 14. Ever since my last top was dishearteningly too small, I have avoided the issue. I have been losing some weight, but my wardrobe of things which currently fit is alarmingly small. This is a 'simple' cross-over top. I say simple, but let me tell you that fitting the sleeve linings into the capped sleeeves has been a right pain in the ass. So was sewing right up the left side seam, which was supposed to be open from part way up right into the 'armpit'. I have ripped it back but I am not sure how smoothly this sleeve lining will now fit, given that I had graded the seams etc - not much left to work with. Still, I have to fit a zip in there, so I guess I'll manage somehow...

And of course, I am now discovering the problem of having a form which is only vaguely shaped like me. When I can summon up the willpower (possibly when I have lost about a stone) I am going to try tailoring the form to my body shape.

Biased

I never thought it would happen to me. When friends spoke wistfully of a new love in their life I scorned them – this sort of love was not for me.

Yet…now it is here, striking me with the force of a hurricane, I am lost to it. I remember when my son was an infant, gazing at him for hours, revelling in the silky feel of his skin, the perfect curves…

I knew the intensity of that particular love, the love of a mother for her baby, could never find it’s way to me a second time. But it’s here, now– I gaze for hours, lost in the way my love moulds itself to each of my curves perfectly, enraptured by texture, the wild array of colour…

Don’t come between me and my new love.

Bias tape