Quilting

I thought I’d better post something before the end of October, just so my poor old blog didn’t fall into the category of lost-and-forgotten and start falling off everyone’s reading lists.

I did start a number of blog posts over the last month and a half, but they either got too boring, or something else interrupted, and I could never quite finish. The same could be said for most of my sewing and crafting projects!

However, I did have one success, at least in terms of completion.



A quilt!

This was a multi-purpose project. Originally, its raison d'être was to use up the acres of quilting cotton in odd colors that had inexplicably accumulated in my stash. Then, as I piled up the bits of brown and gold and plum and rust, I saw a nice trend toward earth tones (my version of earth tones), which started me thinking about living room décor rather than bedding. So the quilt’s second purpose was to camouflage the couch.



My couch in its original state

My dog in his preferred spot on the couch back

 

The couch after 7 years with the dog
(that's the other dog - she can't believe it, either)

 

I recently added a couch cover
(hard to say whether this is an improvement, but at least it's washable)

 

Quilt totally distracts from misshapen couch back
and tacky cover!

Matching pillows

 

And just a general comment on quilting: now I remember why I don’t do it. It’s a huge pain! The planning, cutting, and sewing together are all very enjoyable, but the quilting itself? It’s a horror of lifting, turning, pulling, puckering, running out of thread, and getting stuck by pins. I can see why most people use long-arm quilting services, but it’s too expensive for me. I priced a few local services and even for this small (48” x 80”) piece, the very lowest price I could find was $58. Imagine doing a bed-sized quilt!

Anyway, my next quilt will either be done by quilt-as-you-go, or a rag quilt, so there will be no dragging of gigantic, heavy pieces through my little home sewing machine.

 

Katrina

 

An Unflattering Dress

Here’s a dress I sewed up as an interim project while I was caught in a conundrum with another dress (to be explained in detail next week).  

 

The cotton fabric is an odd mixture of colors and patterns: an uneven pink and orange plaid-like design, framing turquoise cacti, all on a taupe background.

I can’t decide whether this represents 50s kitsch or 80s clash. Anyway, the print somehow looks cute and I like the cacti, of course.

 

This was a very simple dress to make, but I should have taken some time to at least think about fit. The fact that it was a wrap-front made me lazy. Or maybe the fabric’s psychedelic colors threw me off course.

 

The bodice is too long, which makes the waist drop too low. The skirt is too full, although it might have looked better if the fullness hit at the waist and not on the outward angle of my hip.

I managed to match the pattern perfectly at the skirt side seams, but completely ignored the neckline. I didn’t even realize the problem until I had the thing put together.

Now it’s always going to look higgledy-piggledy unless I decide to do something about that 1-inch difference between the right and left bodice fronts.

 

Still, it’s not too much of a disappointment since it was meant to be a house dress, and that’s what it is. I used up my cactus fabric, some lining scraps, and several yards of bias binding in an odd peach color, so this was a good stash-busting project too.

and an orangey-pink button!

Next time, I will share my perplexing project predicament.

 

Katrina

A Fine Mess

It was such a simple plan: I’d move some of the stuff off the shelves so I could brush the feather duster over the top layer or two of grime. Then drag the fabric bins out into the hall and run the vacuum around. A good couple of hours and I’d be done, with a nice clean room.

That was Tuesday morning.

This was the situation by Wednesday afternoon:

 

My simple plan did not include allowances for investigating the contents of each and every container, deciding I didn’t want half of it, then deciding whether I wanted to throw it away, give it away, or sell it, and then reorganizing the remaining half.
 

The good news is that as of Friday night I had all of the to-go stuff out of the room, and it’s looking pretty clean, open, and conducive to creativity again.

 

The bad news is that all of the stuff I took out hasn’t really gone anywhere, it’s just sitting in the hall. I guess that’s some sort of progress?

 

Katrina

Mauve Madness

It doesn’t matter how many times you reorganize things, if there’s simply not enough space for the stuff you have, there’s always going to be overflow and messy piles. This is why my sewing room and fabric are never completely under control.

Not pink, not rose, not lilac, not lavender...I'm calling them all mauve.

In one of my recent attempts to get all the fabrics into the bins, shelves, or hangers, I noticed that things were not only messed up but they were not in their proper color categories. Horrors! There were blues in with the grays, and pinks in with the purples, even some browns in with the greens. Ugh! Actually, it was mostly those troublesome colors, like russet (between green and brown), slate (between gray and blue), and mauve, which is an odd color all around. Is it rose? Is it violet? Well, it just wouldn’t do. All the mauves had to come out and sit on the floor while I thought about it.

(l) vintage 80s rayon, (r) raw silk

While I thought about it, the fabrics started looking kind of nice together. Now, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about mauve. Do I even like it? I don’t wear much true pink, but I do wear all the purples, from pale lavender to dark red violet. I think dusky shades are very elegant but I don’t know how well they suit me. Still, it seems I have rather a large selection of this odd in-between color. I might as well try it out.

(l) calcutta cloth, (upper right) ribbed cotton knit, (lower right) waffle knit

So, instead of working on things that I need (like new pajamas), or things I should make (like holiday gifts), I’m busy preparing fabric and patterns for a Mauve Madness Collection. So far I think there will be 3 skirts, 2 blouses, a cardigan and a pullover sweater, a dress, and possibly one other blouse. I don’t need any trousers, as the color looks beautiful with all of the dark neutrals that I already have.

cotton voiles

Most of the fabrics are lightweight, and should get me through our so-called Fall, which consists of one month of over-100 degrees, one month between 90 and 100, and then finally November-December which usually gives us a bit of relief in the 70s and 80s. (Yes, this is why our population increases substantially in the winter.)

That’s my plan. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of it. Do you have any exciting sewing or crafting plans for Fall?

Katrina

The Not-So-Big Reveal

The reorganization is finished and although the sewing/craft room is clean and fairly neat, it isn’t something you’d see on HGTV or a design magazine. I left the walls white, because although I love color to the point of an unhealthy obsession, I need a relatively blank background on which to do my color “thinking.” I didn’t buy any new furniture, so the skinny shelves meant for books are now holding rolls of fabric and stacking supply boxes, and my dresser from 1974 contains paper, pens, and bookbinding supplies. Still, I think it is an improvement.  

The good news is that everything is very clean. The carpets look and smell better, at least temporarily. I cleaned the windows, walls, shelves, and everything else as I was moving things around, so there had better not be a speck of dust in there.

The better news is that I accomplished my goal of dividing the room between sewing supplies and art supplies. The only exceptions are the dressforms, which move around as needed.

The best news is that I took three truckloads of craft supplies and small furniture to various donation centers. This freed up some space, but not much, as you will see.

The sewing table looks HUGE now that I have the piles of fabric and pending projects put away. I can even open the shutters, although not for very long, since the light will fade fabrics in no time.

I finally have all my books and patterns in one place! All the notions, linings, interfacings, and various cotton fabric types have their own shelves. The larger fabric collections are still in plastic bins on the floor.

The much-reduced paper and paint collection is better organized but still takes up almost one whole side of the room. Again using only what I already had, I’ve made extensive use of rolling carts on the floor in addition to the dresser drawers and various types of stacking bins. The big blank space on the wall is waiting for a cork board.

The last section is a no-man’s-land between the door and the closet. Here’s my 35-year-old stereo cabinet with what must be the last surviving TV/VCR combo so I can watch my yoga tapes. I put the ironing supplies here as well.

I admit that I did slack off in a few areas. For example, I did not sort through my thousands of collage paper bits as I was transferring them into a drawer. Also, the closet is still a bit of a dumping ground for the things that just don’t fit anywhere else, like all the pre-digital camera equipment, a big basket of toys, and empty boxes I might want to use again (hoarder alert!). And let’s not forget the queen-size airbed, my sole concession to the fact that this room is also a guest room. Imagine the poor guest who has to lie down in this place and risk bashing his or her head on so many hard corners and sharp poky things.

And so, the final result does resemble my “reorg chart” (thanks Lilly Forever for that hilarious reference). The new setup will certainly make it easier to find what I need and I should be able to handle some of the larger projects without having to haul them around the house looking for a big enough table.

Now I think I’ll just leave it alone for a while. It’s too nice to mess up!

Katrina

More Garden-Themed Skirts

Here’s a quick project I sewed up right before the madness hit and I went into demolition mode on the sewing room.

I had this citrus fabric, which was actually a tablecloth. It’s not really vintage, in fact it was labeled “Charter Club” (Macy’s brand) so it’s pretty recent. But I can’t resist citrus, and I can’t resist $1.99 items at the thrift store.

Also I had this skirt, which is paneled and pintucked and has an interesting drawstring waist in addition to the button front. I call it the Ladybug Skirt, even though the ladybugs are barely visible next to the huge daisies.

I got it last year from an Etsy shop, Call Me Chula. It fits great and I’ve wanted to make more in a similar style.

The citrus fabric seemed perfect for this kind of skirt, but it turned out I didn’t have enough for all the tucks and the extra panel for the button front.

I ended up just making an 8-panel skirt with a back zip. It turned out pretty well.

Nothing more summery than that!

Next week we’ll take a look at the now quite clean and somewhat organized sewing room.

Happy weekend,

Katrina

Reorganization Time Again

Back in the old corporate days, we dreaded our company's continual, arbitrary reorganizations, because so much time was wasted and the result seemed to be so much disorganization.

Now that I find myself regularly reorganizing my own workspace, I don’t think the effort is much more productive, but I do have a few moments of feeling quite accomplished as I view the clean surfaces and the color-coordinated supplies stacked on shelves.

This time I’m going all out and taking everything out of the sewing/craft room, including furniture, so I can clean the carpet and then reconfigure the layout. Due to the piecemeal acquisition of things, I’ve got five bookcases on three different walls, two rolling desks, a table and two chests of drawers, all randomly placed. Plus my creative activities have to get their own storage spaces. Currently there is no single area to go to for paper arts, or even sewing for that matter. Every drawer and shelf contains a jumble of unrelated items.

This is the current situation:

It’s hard to see my scribbles, but the basic theme of disorganization is probably visible. There is actually much less open space than the drawing indicates, since I didn’t bother drawing all the miscellaneous boxes and bags on the floor.

So the first step is to get everything out.

Next, go through and discard everything I can.

Getting the carpets cleaned will be a high point of the process.

Then the furniture goes back into the room. Hopefully this time it will be in a more logical and utilitarian layout:

My goal for the supplies is to put all sewing and fabric-related items on one side, all paper and book-related items on the other. The plan doesn’t show the ironing board or the dress forms, since those tend to move around in response to my immediate needs.

Check in next week to see if I can actually accomplish any of this!

Katrina

Finished Objects!

Dear Readers, this week I struck a blow for procrastinators everywhere by finally finishing four huge projects. See, we do get around to it eventually.

First, the Plum Pleather Purse.

Yeeesh. At some point, I must have found this textile appealing. Maybe I just liked saying “plum pleather purse.” I don’t really like the color that much now, but since it was all cut out and ready to sew, I decided to go ahead and put it together.

I used this pattern, view A. (Clearly it’s meant for quilted fabric, but I was never good at matching pattern to fabric, as we'll see below.)

Textured lavender chenille-like fabric for contrasting trim.

Lavender polka dot lining, with a couple of pockets.

The top opening has a magnetic snap closure. I got several packages of purse hardware last year during a sale at JoAnn’s.

The pattern suggests cardboard as an insert for the bottom of the bag. This seems odd, especially when the pattern is actually for a fabric bag. But since I don’t ever plan to put this in the washing machine, I went ahead with the cardboard.

Although this fabric is nice-looking (in the right light), I must say the quality is absolute crap. I don’t know where pleather falls on the faux continuum, but I’d previously thought it was a thick, plasticky substance for use in raincoats and handbags. This particular pleather should not be used for much of anything. It was like sewing with Swiss cheese. It is thin, floppy, mars easily, and cannot be folded, pinned or pressed. Sewing causes it to pucker, and creates a line of perforation which is highly susceptible to tearing.  

Well, it was an interesting experiment. On to the next one.

The Leopard and Antelope Bag.

The fabric came from a potential wadder/charity candidate. It’s upholstery-weight linen, but I fell in love with the print and just HAD to make myself a skirt about a year ago.

The skirt was way too stiff and scratchy so I never wore it. I just couldn’t give it up, so I decided a large, flat bag might make good use of the print.

I found some brown nylon for the lining and a heavy-duty zipper for the top. It has a bunny pocket inside! 

I used thin sheets of polyester batting to give some body to the sides of this bag.

You can sort of see from the top pictures where the sides of the bag are extended to make a loop to hold the D-ring. The brown shoulder strap is from another bag.

And finally, two Bird Pocket Totes.

You may remember this dress from October. I used a Marc Jacobs fabric, sort of denim/canvas weight.

It was cute and it fit well, for about a month. Then my lower torso expanded the dress shrank somehow and I could not get into it any longer. Good news though, it was a straight rectangle, so all I had to do was cut a tote bag-sized piece off the bottom.

The pockets are Premier Prints “Bird Sketch.” The two front pockets have magnetic snap closures.

The side pockets, for umbrella and water bottle, have elastic at the opening.

It's funny how this bag strongly resembles view D on the Butterick pattern, but I never noticed it until I was putting these photos together!

The front of the dress became the back of the bag.

Nylon lining with pockets.

The base and sides of this large tote are reinforced with buckram, which I happened to have for making belts.

D-rings and a luggage strap from an old computer bag.

The second, smaller tote is from leftover fabric.

The outside is the Marc Jacobs canvas.

The inside pockets are the bird fabric. I wanted this one to be more organizable, so it is divided into two sections by an inner zip pocket.  

The flap closes with a magnetic snap.

I used scraps of medium-weight sew-in interfacing to stabilize the fabric for this bag. You can tell that I was really digging through the stash: cardboard, interfacing, buckram, batting. I was grabbing everything I could find!

 And what happened to the top of the dress? It’s a bolero!

I opened up the front, put a pleat in the back, and wrapped the edge in bias trim.

This will be great with my black pique pants.

  

Here’s what I accomplished with the completion of this week’s projects:

• 4 unfinished objects (bags) finished, plus bonus bolero jacket
• 2 potential wadders (skirt & dress) rescued
• 4 yards fabric + 3 zippers + various trims, snaps, buttons, etc used from stash
• Vast amounts of storage space and work area reclaimed.

I also learned that my Singer 4423 Heavy Duty machine can plow through NINE layers of canvas plus buckram without a hiccup. I can’t say the same for my hands, which are sporting broken nails and bandaged wounds, but my fingers will have a long rest from heavy-duty sewing now.

I feel quite virtuous for finishing all these.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Katrina