Holiday Gift Sewing 2017

It was a well loved shirt.

No one remembers when he got it, but it was in heavy rotation for years.

He's my boss, and his wife commissioned me to make a new one.

The hardest part is finding a similar fabric. Not so much color and stripe, but the softness factor.

I bought the yardage at District Fabric, and started washing it.

Over and over and over.

For a month.

It stopped shrinking pretty quickly, but it took about five or six washes for it to soften up much. It's not as soft as the original, but it's pretty nice.

New yardage on the left, old on the right.

Funny, the buttons match the new better than the old.

And yes, they say "Fender" on them.

I cut the old one apart and used it for the pattern.

See that little angled notch on the seam allowance at the bottom? That's my 'the fold over is here and goes over you ninny' shorthand

I do call myself a ninny now and then. Other words more often.

It's not a match, but it works on it's own.

I have been moving this shirt out of photo range since I brought it home in September. I had to crop a bunch of choir dress rack photos because it kept peeking out and the boss reads this from time to time. Hiya boss!

I am not working with my usual photo software, the old drive is still out, so this is not the correct color. The lighter blue in the brighter photos is the correct version. But this is a pretty photo, so screw it.

The wear hole at the corner of where the top patch is consistant all over the shirt. It's almost threadbare.

Done

More done

Other sewing is the Totoro Bag and the usual Spoonflower BOGO fat quarter tea towel assortment.

Last year it was maps of Seattle.

This year it's an assortment of bespoke towels with children's art, and those kids didn't sign a release form.

Plus she'd kill me.

There is the Tototo one (for the person with the bag)

There will be a bag tutorial in the coming weeks, but I didn't want to show this before it got given.

I drew the comma textures, and color matched the body. Essentially I am using the motifs not the design as a whole.

No Totoros were harmed in the making of this bag and towel.

And because the holidays need hats and scarves

Faux fur hat and scarf. The hat is much better than the tiny head makes it look.

It is disturbingly soft.

And vacuum, because faux fur. 

I recommend vacuuming the seams of the finished item as well. Better now than wear it later.

And the rosebud ribbon hat. 

the sharp eyed have seen this in the background since last Spring and I'm just getting around to finishing the lining.

Yes, that's a scrap from last year's crazy quilt trim and no, she hasn't hung that quilt up yet.

No. Just no. Why do you need rapid champagne consumption?

Or, if you do, you have some issues that are better addressed elsewhere.

No judging here, but EW.

Yes. And that's the new machine I sewed them with ;)

Happy holidays to everyone and everybody.

End of February round up: sewing for others and pattern matching fail

What am I doing now?

Mending. Fixing. Mending.

This is the sort of stuff that occupies most of my sewing time.

Fixed straps on bike helmets. Seattle Fabrics has an entire wall of drawers of this kind of hardware. Bless you SF!

There is a whole school of sewing that involved adding funky bits on top of nonfunky things. I am not really one of those people, though I do admire and love their thinking. This is my tribute to them. My husband begged me not to wear these pants out of the house. I did, but I did keep my coat fastened, so only he could see me wearing them around the house. Lucky guy.

Added removable alterations so I can wear the wool pants right now (vs when I lose ten pounds or alter it properly). This is what I do to make winter stop around here.

That and the grey coat.

You're welcome, Seattle.

Button over a buttonhole!

Added 'circuitry' patches behind 'preripped' jean holes. Also added three inches of pocket depth to them (to MENS JEANS. Men's jeans with shallow useless pockets. Wha?)

Altered photo to amuse Julie of Jet Set Sewing. And my sister. Hi Sandi! 

Bought magnetic bra clasps for future burlesque costume. You can store them on the fridge door until you need them. Or until your family objects.

Made those overalls for the boy. He's kept them in heavy rotation.

That whole tack button debacle. That really fries me: make a nice hole, pound a crap button into it, ruin the item as you remove the crap button. Do that a couple of times and it will affect your outlook on life for awhile.

Everything in the handsewing mend pile is black. Makes needle threading easier. Also harder to see tiny stitches. Family will not see badly sewn mends in the lousy lighting in our house. They won't wear these outside, will they?

 Sewed the long promised shirt for my sister.

 Traced it off and harvested the buttons ages ago.

I even took a photo of the original shirt and printed it out for a pattern page. I had good intentions. I even made a handkerchief for my sister from what wasn't all worn out on this shirt.

I did not lose the buttons!

I did not add seam allowances when I traced this!

My intention was to match up the pattern across the front, and ate up a huge amount of yardage in the attempt.

I can see here where I went wrong; I should have folded over more, basted it up, cut out the entire front piece as one entire piece, and then got back into the center to work out the underlapped placket and facing. I am so close to being right it kinda hurts to see this. I had scads of photos of my faulty process; it's a slow motion car wreck of pattern layout fail.

 And just missed by 1/2" in the end.

Spatial reasoning is HARD apparently
It's still a pretty fabric, and the shirt looks fine. My buttonholes are better than normal.

Sandi, your shirt is done. We'll lunch this week.

I have ten more choir dresses to alter, and four more belts out of that velvet ribbon.

I should clean house.

So that's the business until the 28th, when a whole new project starts up, just in time to be that last minute project for Emerald City ComicCon.

Because what is life without an impossible deadline?

Quilting Someone Else's Family Treasure

I am not a quilter. This long post will be the only quilting post I do this year. Possibly ever, but I hate to be so self-limiting.

This is not my quilt.

This isn't even a quilt top from anyone I'm related to.

Not quite squares, 7 by 6. A mathematically pleasant rectangle.

It is going to be a wall hanging for my friend Michelle's therapy office. It's bright and aimless enough to be soothing without being distracting. And it's definitely homemade.

Yes, those are airships. Yes, I love them. This is from 1977.

I've only made one quilt. Because I only needed one, to go to college with.

I used a sheet set that lent itself to the theme, and machine appliqued the shapes.

This was done by my dad's mom. Yes, they lived in Wyoming. Yes, that says "Round Up Time"

Bless the cowgirl, she's not riding sidesaddle

All the kids were blonds

But what the devil is J.E.F. Ranch? Those initials don't match anyone.

Mystery!

It wouldn't be a family heirloom for 1930s white Wyoming people without some racial stereotypes. No offense meant, that's just what they did.

My father said he never met a Native American until he moved to Seattle and met our neighbors, who were Navaho and Cherokee, and introduced us to the local fight for tribal fishing rights. He did not use the term "Native American" at that point,  but he soon would. I have my doubts about the truth of that statement, but he was a city boy in a very white world of 1930s Wyoming. 

Is this where I say that my grandfather was a labor lawyer, and not a rancher? And that all the kids went to college? In the 30s and 40s? In Wyoming. Even the girls? And graduated? 

This quilt is made out of "Auntie" Jeanette's dad's ties.

She's the auntie of my friend Michelle, and she lived and sewed and sent me fabric from North Carolina, back when it was the textile capitol of this country. I never met her, but I heard plenty about her from Michelle. And I heard about this quilt top.

And over Christmas, it came to me.

Yes, she did a hand feather stitch in embroidery floss around all the pieces after they were machine stitched together (stitched to a white cotton square). And machine stitched the resulting squares and feather stitched over those seams.

This is the backing material. It will get edged with dark green velvet from someone's curtains. A shade lighter than Scarlett/Bob Mackie's curtain dress.

Yes, I love the Clover needle threader and we're engaged to be married. Bpfffffff!

There's going to be a lot of handstitching this to another sheet, then hemming that to the backing and the edging (making long pockets for rods on the sides).

I got two long fabric tubes from my pals at Pacific Fabrics (if you spend that much money somewhere, it does pay off in favors) to roll the quilt up on.

The idea being that I can put the rolls on the arms of the skaterondack and work in that flat gap inbetween.

Or that's the plan for the Skaterondack chair

And as soon as I get that part of the house dug out again, I will.