Sewer Sluts

Still sewing...

2012-02-05T08:19:00.000-06:00

Don't forget that I've moved...here are some recent posts over at my new blog, Spilt Milk. Update your readers!

Two aprons!

A hipster bag!

A dust ruffle!

A puppet theatre!

I've moved...

2012-01-14T20:27:00.000-06:00

Hello! I've branched out and started my own craft/sewing blog. Please visit me at Spilt Milk Crafts. It's still in the early stages and I don't even have a header yet, but I'm working on it. Anyway, here are some recent sewing-related posts:

Pillows

Topsy Turvy Dolls

Marker Roll

Baby Class

2011-10-29T14:06:00.000-05:00

So earlier this month we stopped by Crafty Planet in Northeast Minneapolis and my husband insisted that I take one of their classes, specifically "Baby 101: Diapers, Bibs, and Burp Cloths." I hesitated a bit, because I am already a bib-making maniac, but he thought I should crawl out of my cave and be more social.

So that's where I found myself last night, despite the fact that I felt a bit sickly. There were a bunch of other first time expectant mothers in the class and one of them brought her mother. We used The Nappies pattern for the diaper, the instructor gave us a bib pattern that she had created, and the burp cloth was made with a prefold diaper.

First things first: Shopping. I had grabbed some of my own materials on my way out of the house and since I rarely buy new fabric (mine all seems to be yard sold or thrifted), I took advantage of the class discount. In addition to the fun fabrics below, I picked up some light blue flannel to make future diapers. They also required us to use something called PUL, which is used as the waterproof lining of the diaper, so I bought that too.

So for my projects, I used a vintage-y yellow fabric found at a yard sale by my mother.

I used a yellow rosebud calico flannel for the lining and soaker pad of the diaper. The soaker pad attaches via velcro and it's lined with two layers of cotton batting.

I didn't want to do a bib with the flannel, so I brought one of my thrifted towels to the class. All reports that I've had in from bib recipients indicate that the towel-backed bibs are the best for cleaning up after the kid and for preventing seepage through the layers. I slipped in some ric-rac (or is it rick-rack?) before sewing the thing together.

As for the burp cloth...we did not have enough time in class to do that, so I finished it at home this morning. I bought a pack of prefold diapers and then took some of the coordinating fabric and just folded the edges over and sewed it onto the middle section of the diaper. It feels a bit thick, but maybe that just means gross drool and vomit will not penetrate.

So there you have it. The class was good, instructor was super nice, and I'll probably go back for another class to continue on this fancy road to socialization (or just to get out of the house after the baby comes). There's another fabric store a little closer to home called Treadle Yard Goods and they offer fun classes too. I'm looking forward to someday taking one of their classes on how to recover an umbrella or how to make a roman shade.

Ho Hum...Hems

2011-09-17T17:03:00.000-05:00

We've been living in our new place for about six months and have only put up one set of curtains. Instead, we have been living with all of our bits hanging out for the neighborhood to view. A few months ago we went to Ikea and picked up five packages of Alvine Rund, a lovely sheer-ish curtain for our sunroom. Five packages, you ask? Yes, our sunroom has ten windows...hence the name sunroom.

One dilemma to the sunroom...one bank of windows was something like over 150" long, so I had trouble finding the right kind of curtain rod. I went with another Ikea product, some extend-o wire thing and clips to attach the curtains. After purchasing all of the correct bits and pieces it would be another three months before anything went up.

Another dilemma...a long-ass radiator below another bank of windows. That meant that I had to hem all of the curtain panels from 98" to 66". Oh, what fun. I first went all professional, weighted the one end of the curtain panel down (with heavy dog toys, but there's no photographic evidence, so maybe that actually didn't happen), marked everything, and then used all my handy-dandy tools to cut nice straight lines, but that took forever. On the third panel, I said screw it and went with a true Sewer Slut-inspired method:

Clipping the top of the panel to a stripey rug. Measuring out 69" (enough for a little hem) and deciding that the stripe at about 70" was close enough. And then cutting along the stripe for the entire width of the curtain:

Phew. I ended up only using seven of the ten curtain panels, which means I have three more panels to stick on some of the other bare windows in the house. No rods though, which means I have to go measure (blah) and then go shopping (double blah). I also have a pile of Alvine Rund remnants, so maybe I can figure out something to do with them.

Anyway, here are the end results for the sunroom...starting with a view through the doors:

And check out that vintage yellow pillow. My mom picked it up at a yard sale and I fell in love with it when she gave it to me. Here are two little close ups:

Eleflunk? I hope not!

2011-09-09T20:07:00.000-05:00

My young neighbor is entering pre-school next week and to celebrate the occasion, I made her a new backpack to schlep all of her school supplies to and from home. I bought this KwikSew pattern (#3687) about two years ago with the idea of making them for my best friend's kids. I never got around to making anything from this pattern and by the time I showed it to my friend, she very kindly told me that her kids were a little too old for it already. Oh well.

With my new neighbor in mind, I decided to actually do a little sewing for the first time in months. Her colors are pink and pink and I really wanted to find a way to use them with the owl pattern. After staring at all of the fabrics on hand, I just could not see any of them as an owl. When my eye wandered over to a black and purple Asian fabric, I immediately thought of the elephant pattern. The only problem with the elephant pattern, and the main reason why I was leaning toward the owl or the chicken, is that it is really hard to determine that it actually is an elephant.

I went for it anyway and paired the black fabric (a remnant from Jo-Ann's) with some purple and black polka dots (yard sale fabric courtesy of my mom) and here is the result:

Not bad, right? You can kind of tell it's an elephant with the trunk, floppy ear, and stringy tail. Those little sticky-outy-things on the bottom are the straps tied through loops. The inside is lined in the polka dot fabric. And it has a little handle:

As for the pattern itself, it was pretty easy to sew. The hardest part was turning the loops for the straps and the buttons, but KwikSew had a quick trick for turning narrow casings using a bobby pin...works much better than a safety pin. They did try to get to me turn one casing with a needle, but I gave up on that after a prick or two and reverted to the bobby pin method. And in my usual fashion, I topstitched everything! They didn't tell me to, but the trunk, ears, and top flap each had a layer of fleece between the fabric layers and it just did not seem clean enough without the topstitching. As for the buttons, one is used to secure the flap and the other is used as an elephant eyeball.

As for her reaction? Well, it was hard to tell. I think she liked it...she kept putting it on her head and then she went into the kitchen and stuffed a bag of breadsticks in it. She was also very curious as to why the elephant only had one eye and one ear, which I thought was pretty cute.

As a side note: I am pleased to report that KwikSew seems to be based out of Minneapolis, MN, so that means I am supporting a local business now that I live in the Twin Cities.

Stuff This

2010-12-21T15:34:00.000-06:00

Years and years and years ago my mother made us felt Christmas stockings from kits.

They've definitely seen better days, but they are such wonderful little heirloom pieces. You can find the old kits on eBay, but the prices seem really excessive....$20.00 to $60.00 or so for one of these kits. I haven't seen mine for sale, but my sister's stocking was made by Sultana and was called "Mini-Toys". There was one for sale on Etsy, but it's since been sold.

Given the major price gouging on these little felt applique kits, you can imagine my surprise when I came across a kit at a yard sale a while back for $4.00. It was a vintage kit by Bucilla (#82065) called "On Santa's Knee" and I decided to make it for my newborn nephew. I started it earlier this year, but found it to be too time consuming and tedious. I didn't have the patience for it, so I set it aside for a number of months.

Then in October my mother showed up for the wedding with her usual haul of yard sale finds. Among her goods, she had found two additional felt applique kits. One was a vintage kit from Sultana (#1249) called "Jack-in-the-Box" and the other was a kit from 2001 by Dimensions (#8092). So after the wedding, I dragged out the Bucilla kit and started to stitch away. I had just over two months to get these three stockings prepared for the kids in my sister's family.

The kits are pretty neat. They come with everything pre-printed on sheets of colored felt that you cut out. You start with piece 1, attach piece 2, then piece 3 etc. The kits come with detailed instructions, coordinating embroidery thread, crewel thread, sequins, and needles, but they don't come with stuffing. The hardest part was attaching each little sequin and bead. It took forever!

You can see the pre-printed outlines in this mid-assembly photo. And P.S. that is Santa's bag, not a golden toilet, which is what my husband kept calling it.

I dragged the Jack-in-the-Box kit down to Southern California for the Thanksgiving weekend and spent about six hours straight working on it on the drive back home. I started the third stocking during the first week of December and finally finished it late last week. I have seriously been working on these stockings for about eight weeks non-stop in the evenings while watching television and movies. And so, here they are:

Only the Sultana stocking came with a bell, so I added bells to all the others. I mean, seriously, you really need a bell on Christmas stockings. How else will you know if pudgy little kid arms are illegally rooting around in them?

I modified just a few things on this Santa stocking from Bucilla. The little stuffed bear is supposed to be attached with velcro, but curious kids will definitely find cause to remove him and then lose him, so I stitched the little bugger on. I was supposed to use a gold cording for the name, but Mr. Parker is a String Burglar and kept making off with it and I couldn't figure out how to balance out the letters in cursive.

This Sultana kit was slightly easier than the Bucilla, either because there were fewer pieces or I had become a pro. I modified just a few things on this one too. I stuffed the head and body of Jack, because my stitching was a bit wonky and the stuffing helped hide that. In true 1970's fashion, they wanted me to attach red sequins to the pink ornaments, but the colors did not look that good in the photo, so I opted for white on the one and light blue sequins on the other. I love how the ornaments swing!

You can tell that this one is the modern one, just from the color scheme. All that vibrant blue! None of the vintage kits really have that color. This one also has a few modifications. I inadvertently attached white sequins along the top when it had called for blue. I used black sequins for the mouth and eyes...the recommended black stitching did not look much like coal. The cursive stitched name that the directions recommended looked stupid, so I gave it my own letters instead. This kit wanted me to stuff almost every single applique piece...ridiculous! I just did the ones that I thought needed some dimension. It came with purple sequins, but never said to use them, so I outlined one arm. I also scratched the pom-poms that were supposed to appear on the hats.

My sister's husband is the only one who doesn't have a stocking, so I guess I know what I'm doing next year.

Book Haul

2010-12-03T01:34:00.000-06:00

The Barbarian Librarian clued me in to a holiday promotion by Chronicle Books. All I had to do was come up with a wish list of books from Chronicle totaling up to $500.00, blog about it, and then I'd be entered to win the list and a lucky blog commenter could win it too. I made it to $497.84...whew!

Sewing Books

Applique Your Way by Katye Taylor - I love applique!
The Sock Monkey & Friends Kit by Samantha Fisher and Cary Lane - With a niece and nephews on the way and years of present-making ahead of me, I'd say this one is a winner!
1, 2, 3 Sew by Ellen Luckett Baker - Projects in groups of three.
Girl's World by Jennifer Paganelli - I mentioned that niece, right?
Whip Up Mini Quilts by Kathleen Ricketson - Someday I will make a quilt, so should start with a mini one.
Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter - Fun!
Simple Sewing for Baby by Lotta Jansdotter - One niece comes out tomorrow, one nephew comes out on the 7th...better get sewing!
French General: Home Sewn by Kaari Meng - The author "scours the French countryside and Parisian fleamarkets for vintage treasures." Um, SOLD!
The Pillow Book by Shannon Okey - This was going to be the name of my erotic bookstore, but maybe I'll just make pillows instead of pursuing that dream.
In Stitches by Amy Butler - Amy Butler; still not convinced that I like her stuff.
Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts: Fuzzy Felted Friends - I love Japanese crafts!

Embroidery

Embroidered Effects by Jenny Hart - I love Sublime Stitching.
Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts: Wooly Embroidery - My embroidery class used this book as an example of good techniques and projects.

Knitting & Crochet

Field Guide to Knitting by Jackie Pawlowski - Someday I will learn to knit.
The Sock Knitting Kit by Alyce Benevides and Jacqueline Milles - And then I will knit socks.
Creepy Cute Crochet by Christen Haden - And when I learn to crochet, I'm making monsters.
Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts: Lacy Crochet! - I love this Kyuuto! series.

In the Kitchen

I like to make aprons, so here are some food-related books

Cake Pops by Bakerella - I don't know if I'd do anything more than gaze longingly at each picture.
Yum-Yum Bento Box by Crystal Watanabe and Maki Ogawa - No patience for the execution of ornate bento boxes, but I love staring at the photos.
Farmers' Market Desserts by Jennie Schacht - Yummy!
Fresh from the Farmers' Market by Janet Fletcher - I suppose I just can't eat dessert all the time.
Let's Cook Japanese Food by Amy Kaneko - I love Japanese home cooking.
Crepes by Lou Seibert Pappas - With nutella, I hope.

And just because I love vintage, crafts, and vintage crafts, I am including Vintage Craft Workshop by Cathy Callahan, which will be available in February 2011.

Elizabeth Bennett: Zombie Hunter

2010-10-24T14:03:00.000-05:00

Zombie or vampire? These were my options for last night's themed event of "Zombie vs. Vampires". Last year, I went as a nasty zombified prom queen, complete with rotted flesh made with liquid latex, which smells incredibly similar to Parker's cat box. Not wishing to douse myself in urine for the second year in a row and also realizing that I have no recollection of ever wanting to dress as a vampire in my 34 years of life, I decided to try something a bit different.

I already had pattern 4055 from Simplicity's historical collection. This pattern covers the 1795 to 1825 period and the small print reads "Sense & Sensibility Patterns." Perfect for an interpretation of that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies book that came out last year. Admittedly, while I have not read this mash-up of Jane Austen's classic, I have read the original and feel more inclined as a zombie hunter than as a gross and hideous undead creature.

So I whipped up this dress over the course of a week, putting the final touches on it just hours before the event. The overall fit of the pattern was pretty good, though I had to sew the bust with a smaller seam allowance to accommodate my heaving bosom. I chose a heavy light green fabric for the dress (six yards of it were picked up at a yard sale last year!) and the overlay was from the remnants pile at Beverly's. Here are some close-ups of the details:

The buttons on the back are just plastic from my stash and the white is a bit too harsh, but I didn't see the point in buying anything I didn't have to for a costume.

I tried out the scallop stitch on my sewing machine for the hem of the overlay. The pattern suggested a narrow hem, but I wanted to use a darker green scallop to give the dress a little bit more decoration and to match the braid at the neckline. Speaking of which...

I sort of love how the sleeve just slightly slips from the shoulder. It totally reminds me of all of the Regency Romance novels that I love to read. I mean, can't you just imagine Mr. Darcy getting a bit too friendly with Miss Bennett, pulling the sleeve from her shoulder to place a very improper and daring kiss? Um, yes please!

And here I am about to chop the head off of the zombie Walt Whitman.

Wedding Baggage

2010-10-12T10:24:00.000-05:00

It was getting down to the wire and I had not sewn anything for my wedding. I mean, what kind of Sewer Slut would I be if I didn't handcraft some fabulous fabric item for my very own wedding? My dress was vintage and, though I did not create it myself, I did reinforce the beading, but that doesn't really count as making something new and unique for the wedding. I kept trying to think of little things to make with needle and thread for the ceremony...did people need little fabric flags to wave or what about fabric flags lining the path to the ceremony?

Weeks ago I decided that I would need a garment bag for my dress. I already had the pattern, Butterick B4156, which seems to now be out of print. I also chose the fabric...a gorgeous vintage print from my new sister-in-law. So I set both the pattern and the fabric aside, but did not touch them for weeks. I spent my time crafting paper flowers for the centerpieces and just ignored my sewing machine for the month before the wedding.

So Friday morning at 5:30, I woke up and made the garment bag. With three panels of fabric, a zipper, and loads of bias tape, I figured that it would take about two hours and that was all the time I would have to myself until after the wedding. And I was right...it was about two hours on the nose. I got a bit exuberant about ripping out basting stitches, so that I now have a small bit of bias tape to repair, but otherwise the bag is fabulous!

And here we are...

Sewing Stuff from Japan

2010-09-18T16:27:00.000-05:00

I thought that I would come home with suitcases packed with yards (or meters!) of Japanese fabrics, notions and books, but I came home with very little evidence of my trip to Japan. I don't know why. I thought I had done the right research, but I either missed the crafting stores as a result of sensory overload or I was just too tired at the end of the day (which is when we usually had time for shopping) to really focus on looking for them.

I did a little research before going and printed out a map of Nippori's Sen-i-Gai (Fabric Town) in Tokyo from this site. I dragged Brian there after a day trip to Nikko. We arrived around 4:15 in the afternoon, which was not the best time to go shopping in this district, because most places seemed determined to close at 5:00. It seemed to be a wholesale district and I didn't see any cute stores, though we did happen upon a notions branch of Tomato.

Tomato was packed with young squealing girls who spent time salivating over adorable buttons and ribbons. This girl squealed at this display of zippers:

Lacey zippers! How fun are they? I should have grabbed a bunch in every color, but I only picked up one each in pink, red, and black. I'm not quite sure how to attach them, but I'll figure it out.

I didn't really find any other craft stores or fabric stores (though there was a nice section at Tokyu Hands), but I did happen upon these at a sock shop and I think I should only be allowed to wear them when sewing:

As for books, I spent a good hour perusing the sewing/craft section at Kinokuniya, but walked away without a thing. I finally found a good embroidery book at Narita Airport. I haven't translated the author's name yet, but the book is called "12 Stitches Idea" and it's pretty fabulous.

I really fell in love with this shirt. So adorable. They also suggest doing this on a piece of ribbon for your own homemade measuring tape.

I also really liked these coasters:

Maybe I'll have better luck next time. Brian has agreed to at least one more trip to Japan and only if we go see Kyoto. He also kept asking how far away Miyajima was from Tokyo, so I think we'll have to do a Kyoto-Hiroshima-Miyajima excursion someday.

Reversible Japan

2010-09-06T03:03:00.000-05:00

Prior to going on my ten day trip to Japan, I made a reversible skirt from Betz White's Sewing Green with the idea that two-skirts-in-one equalled less packing. While that was true, it was also devastatingly hot and humid in Japan and this double layered skirt was maybe not the smartest thing to pack. In addition, the humidity caused some major thigh chafage on that first day and I had to go out and buy some leggings to wear under all my skirts for the rest of the trip. I was basically walking around with about two to three layers of fabric on my bottom half for the entire time in Japan. Yikes!

Anyway, I think Betz White makes her skirt with a vintage tablecloth in the book. I chose to use a piece of fabric that a friend gave me last summer. I had just enough of the fabric to cut out the required seven panels for the skirt. Here is the first side of the skirt at Osore-zan, or Mount Dread, the third most sacred spot in Japan.

And for the reverse, I chose a piece of muslin that I had in my sewing cabinet. I was afraid that a white cotton would be too thin and the other side would show through too much. I also embellished the plain side with some Steam-a-Seam flowers from the print fabric. I didn't have enough to go all around the hem, so I just did the first panel or so in the front. Here is the reverse at two different hilside shrines in Kamakura:

As for the pattern, it was pretty good, with the exception of the length of ribbon needed for the waistband. I needed an extra yard to feel comfortable tying the skirt at the waist. I'm not a huge fan of reversible skirts (mostly because they never stay shut and the waistband always feels weird), but I like this skirt. I'm glad I finally got to use that fabulous floral fabric! Thanks again, Sookie!

Whipped up Wallet

2010-08-22T15:39:00.000-05:00

In just a few days I'll be traveling to Japan. It's been about nine or ten years since I was last there, so I'm pretty excited to return for a full ten days of temple hopping, people watching, and mountain climbing. To commemorate my trip, I decided to whip up a wallet that actually fits my passport. You also walk around with a lot of coins in Japan, so this has a nice sized change pocket, which will come in handy.

I chose the "A Girl's Best Friend" wallet from Jenna Lou Designs. I picked this up in Minneapolis last year, but never got around to making it. And I had just enough of this fabulous vintage remnant to make the wallet.

It was pretty easy to construct. According to her website, there was a misprint in the instructions, but I didn't have any trouble fitting the whole thing together. I wish that I'd used fusible interfacing, but I couldn't find any in my sewing cabinet and was too lazy to go buy some. I probably should have used a snap instead of velcro, but the velcro will work just fine.

Oh Buttons!

2010-08-20T22:23:00.000-05:00

A few weekends ago I stopped by the Sunday Antique Street Faire and picked up some buttons from one of the vendors.

Ocean Pearl by Schwanda

Also by Schwanda...Made in Germany.

More Schwanda buttons...Made in Western Germany.

Just some shiny blue ones.

And then there are the buttons I already have in my stash. These all came from my mom's collection, which she generously donated to mine.

Le Chic hand painted glass buttons. The card says that they were made in "Germany-U.S. Zone"

Also hand painted, glass Le Chic buttons and these were made in Western Germany.

La Mode buttons. Australia is written on the back of the card.

I think I need to make a dirndl just to embellish it with these little handpainted buttons.

I Shutter to Think...

2010-08-07T11:33:00.000-05:00

I am a chronic procrastinator. I know things need to get done and I'll sit there and look at them for days, months and sometimes years, before I actually get around to doing what needs to be done. Case in point: my bathroom shutters.

They didn't have this large gaping hole when we moved into this place in January of 2009, but there was the tiniest of holes in the shutter curtain all the way to the left. And then one day there was this larger hole and then a bigger hole in the next shutter over. Hmmmmm...any idea what could cause this?

There's the culprit. Mr. Parker, in his constant quest to escape from the best life a cat could ever have, had clawed his way through the hole. Okay, so these curtains were pretty rotten to begin with and it did not take much to tear them. In addition, the bathroom has no ventilation, so there were speckles of mold and one of the previous occupants had not removed the fabric at the last shutter painting party, so there were also paint outlines on the edges. They needed to be replaced.

But instead of fixing the problem, I would just dash into the shower and hope that no Peeping Toms were lurking outside to view my bits and pieces. These curtains were still in tatters months after a friend came by and remarked that she was surprised that I had not fixed them given my inclinations toward craftiness. But last night I ended the cycle and made some replacements. I don't know why I waited so long, because the whole process took less than two hours.

I love them! I used Swiss Dot Fabric from a yard sale (my usual place to buy fabric!). And the next morning I woke up to this gorgeous glow in the bathroom. It made me happy.

Pajama Party

2010-08-06T01:06:00.000-05:00

I'm tired of wearing workout pants to bed at night (though they are comfy and convenient if one decides to just roll out of bed and go running). I decided to make some pajamas. I went through my fabric stash and evaluated them on their softness and girly floral patterns.

So I made these pajama bottoms from the Betz White Sewing Green "Lounge Pants" pattern. Size L, of course, for a nice cozy fit through the hips and thighs. The pattern is for a 29" inseam, which I do not have. The pattern also suggests some cuffs in a contrasting hue, but for some reason my seams did not align, so I gave up on them.

They're pretty comfy so far. I'm wearing them to bed tonight and if I like the way they feel, I have a few more soft fabrics lined up for some additional pairs. Mr. Kitty has already given them his seal of approval...

I also decided to try making a nightie. I had McCall's M5248 on hand, so I made a medium, the largest size my pattern offered. My bottom half is not a medium, so I added a bit to the pattern to adjust to my personal measurements. The bodice portion of the nightie turned out way too big, though I am sized correctly for a medium in that department. I fixed that problem, but I still don't like the way it fits. And besides, I don't like nighties anyway. Halfway through the night the whole thing gets bunched up around my waist. Useless!

Anyway, now that I am all outfitted with some new pajamas, who wants to come by for a sleepover? We can play the Mystery Date Game and see which stud or bozo is behind that Mystery Door...

Wedding Dress Beading

2010-08-04T15:37:00.000-05:00

In early May, after months of scouring vintage stores, I found my wedding dress tucked away on a rack of fancy dresses at a store in Santa Cruz called All Shook Up. It's a lovely champagne-colored dress, with a dropped waistline, square neckline, pleated skirt, and tons and tons of beading. And I couldn't beat the price...a whopping $52.44, after taxes. There are still some things that need some slight modifications. There are some weird shoulder straps that can be taken off and it needs to be cleaned, but before I do any of those things I need to reinforce the little rhinestones.

Rhinestones? What am I saying....they are called Rose Montees, which are basically rhinestones set in metal prongs that you need to sew onto the fabric (and it took a good hour of searching the internet to figure that out). The dress has seed beads, pearls, and these little rose montees all along the waistband, the neckline, and throughout the bodice. The seed beads and pearls seem to have remained intact after these 40-50 years, but the rhinestones are either loose or missing.

I found some for sale on Etsy and ordered them only to discover that they were just a tad too big. I thought I had my millimeter measurements correct when I ordered, but apparently not. So I tried again and the sparklies in the next batch were just a tad too small. Ugh. I've given up trying to find the perfect size. I'll just sew them on and hopefully it won't make much of a difference, though the ones still on the dress are a bit tarnished. The new ones claim to be vintage, but they are not as tarnished and seem to still have some life in them.

So how does one go about sewing a rose montee onto a dress? All of my hand sewing needles were too thick. I found some English beading needles at the place where I had my machine refurbished. These needles are so delicate and the eyes are teeny tiny.

So what sort of thread do you suppose fits this sort of needle? The lady at the store suggested a fine, strong silk thread, but she didn't have the right color. I found a fine polyester spool of thread and a transparent spool of thread at Hart's. I tried threading the needle with the polyester thread, but I felt like I had the DT's and just could not get it through the eye. So I then tried the transparent thread -- a very, very fine monofilament. After only two or three tries the needle was threaded. Yay!

I've reinforced about four of the rose montees so far and this thread seems to be working. If only I can keep this plastic stuff from getting all twisted and caught up in itself.

30,000 Stitch Tune-Up

2010-06-30T18:26:00.000-05:00

I'm taking my sewing machine to the fixer-upper's place tonight for a tune-up. It's been about three years since I bought it and I have a feeling it needs someone mechanically inclined to look at its bits and pieces so that I can get to work on some hardcore needle-on-fabric action. It's been months since I've had time to sew, what with the working and the traveling and everything else. Now that it is summer I think I need a new summer dress, some lightweight pajama pants, and I bought a sun hat pattern last year so that I could have something cute to wear when I'm out gardening. And I certainly can't start gardening until I have my cute summer hat...so do you see the jam I've gotten myself into? They said it takes about a week for them to work their magic. I can wait a week. Maybe I'll go get the case a new sticker to commemorate the tune-up...

UPDATE: The machine was back in under a week, even with the holiday weekend! Yay! There was nothing wrong with it. They recommended a tune-up once every two to three years. Right on track!

Wrapped Up

2010-03-21T13:42:00.000-05:00

I do more reading about sewing than I do actual sewing lately, so I thought I'd post a previous project that I made a few years ago. It's a wrap dress by Mccall's M5314, which I can't seem to find on their website and leads me to believe that it is now out of print.

I chose View C, the long-sleeved version of the dress. I chose a vintage print that my mom had sent me in a box of yard sale fabric. For the longest time I could not think of what to do with the fabric -- it was so bold and orange and red and FLORAL. At first it seemed that the fabric was reminiscent of some hideous vintage curtains, but when I settled on this wrap dress, I knew that I had chosen wisely. I'm very pleased with the look of the dress.

I realize that there are still some threads hanging from the bottom of the dress. I made sure to cut them off before wearing this dress at a wedding in Texas in 2008. I also wore a camisole under it, because as you can see, it is a bit, well, um, revealing!

It was a pretty good pattern. I think it may have been my first attempt at longer sleeves, so I gave them a better seam allowance to accommodate my sausage arms. You may also recognize this fabric in its green cousin.

Pillow Fight!

2010-01-24T02:05:00.000-06:00

I had a marathon pillow-making session tonight. It was all a part of my New Year's Resolution to get old projects out of the way before I start any new projects. I have had plain white pillows on my couches for months just waiting for pillowcases. I don't know why I have been putting off this project, because they are just straight seams and some zippers, but procrastinate I did. Now that they are finished, I can finally return Sewer Slut Susan N.'s Fun and Fabulous Pillows to Sew, which did not offer much in the form of inspiration, but the technical details were helpful.

I started with the butterfly pillow. I found this velvet at a yard sale (where else??) two summers ago. It looked like it had been taken off of a footstool or something, but there was enough unmolested fabric to make an 18" pillow. I used a faux cream suede for the backing. I used the same backing for the next pillow, which was paired with a piece of bark cloth (also a yard sale find). I had enough of this fabric to make one more 18" pillow, but I messed up in my cutting, so I have to find a smaller pillowform.

Last June I posted about some matching velvet pieces I found at a local yard sale and at a vintage store in Minneapolis. I decided to pair them with a really nice piece of green upholstery fabric from the remnant pile at Harts Fabric in Santa Cruz.

I still have two 18" pillowforms left, so there's still work to be done, but I think that is enough for one night.

Resolution: Finish Projects!

2010-01-18T18:29:00.000-06:00

I've had these two unfinished shirts sitting in my sewing basket for a long time. One was started in the Summer of 2008 and I got hung up on the buttons, because my button-holer decided to keep jamming every time I attempted to use it. The other shirt was started in the early Summer of 2009 and got shoved in the sewing basket, because the dog ate my thread. I decided that I would finally get around to working on all of these unfinished projects, so I tackled these two shirts last night.

I used Kwik Sew 3436, View A, for this shirt. I had made View B previously, but wanted to make something with the long puffy sleeves. It is a really quick and easy pattern and I love the fabric that I used with this shirt. I don't remember where I came by the fabric, but it is definitely a yard sale find! The buttons were purchased from a little store in Felton, CA that is now out of business. I was not keen on them at first, but fellow Sewer Slut, Susan N., and our former sewing teacher convinced me that these would work and they were right! Here's a close-up of the buttons and the print:

Next up is a vintage Simplicity pattern, #7983 circa 1977. I found this pattern at a yard sale last year and decided to pair it with some red bandana fabric. I chose to do View 3 (the pink and yellow examples on the pattern). I opted out of the ribbon trim out of sheer laziness -- I did not want to go to the store to pick out the appropriately sized ribbon. I considered using mystery lace, but decided that was too much trouble as well. It was a pretty easy pattern. I'm not sure that I would make it again, because it is not the most flattering on me and the sleeves are a bit drafty.

Little Helper

2010-01-18T00:39:00.000-06:00

Mr. Parker decided to help me organize my sewing basket
this evening.

6 Yards!

2010-01-09T14:49:00.000-06:00

I received a little package yesterday from my future sister-in-law (Thanks, Laura!) with six yards of this fabulous vintage fabric! What should I make with this? I'm thinking a bag or a coat...

Your Mission...

2009-12-25T20:27:00.000-06:00

I have decided to make the world a better place and I have started with a one-woman war against Christmas fabric. It's not like I plan to napalm fabric stores selling holly-laden bolts, but I do plan to rescue Christmas fabric from the sewing machines of others who intend to turn it into a tree skirt or a table runner or some country-time-lemonade Christmas quilt. Yikes!

Instead, I am going to take Christmas fabric and use it to make gift bags! Hah! The idea all started last year when my mother gave me a yard and a half of holly/poinsettia fabric. Ugh! I politely thanked her, but inwardly cringed at the thought of contributing to a world already filled with too many holiday quilts. After letting the yardage sit in the back of my fabric stash for a few months, I started to think about holiday gift bags. Instead of wasting paper, I could create a pretty, reusable Christmas gift bag.

They were great! I made about five bags using this pattern. What a relief! I was no longer burdened with Christmas fabric. Little did I know that I would soon be given another half-yard of blue Christmas tree fabric. Would this cycle never end? Then, over the summer I happened upon an estate sale up the road from me. The little old lady had been a sewer and they were selling off her fabric! I found a few packages of Christmas fabric and immediately realized that I had a mission to complete: I had to make more gift bags!

I gave away my last roll of wrapping paper and used handmade drawstring bags to package presents this year. For gift tags, I cut up old Christmas cards and punched holes in them.

So, Sewer Sluts, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to join me in this effort. Rescue fabric from a pathetic fate as a table runner and make some gift bags!

Artsy-Fartsy Kitchen

2009-12-12T11:32:00.000-06:00

This piece of embroidery is heading out into the mail today. My friend's birthday was yesterday, so hopefully she'll forgive me for being a day or two late. I used another Sublime Stitching kit called Krazy Kitchen. For the lettering, I looked on my computer and used a font called Musicals that I had previously downloaded from this site. I then printed out the text, placed a piece of Dritz's wax-free tracing paper between the printout and the fabric, and traced the letters using a ball point pen. They did not come out very clearly, so I then went over the tracing with a pencil. I hope she likes it!!

Wedding Dress?

2009-12-09T23:02:00.000-06:00

I want to wear a vintage dress at my wedding next year. I intend to visit as many vintage clothing shops as I can. I've already scoured the stores in Santa Cruz and those surrounding Cary, NC. I'm sure a trip up to San Francisco is in order and perhaps a little jaunt over to Austin, TX, because I hear their vintage selection is pretty fabulous.

It's a crapshoot, I know, to go from rack to rack hoping that the perfect dress is hanging there without tears or stains. I also have to hope that it fits or is a size or two too big, so that it can be altered. I just don't want to get a cookie cutter dress from a bridal boutique, but I also realize that I may never find that one-of-a-kind dress, so I have a back-up plan: I will make my dress.

I have checked on Etsy and other internet sites that specialize in vintage dress patterns. I found some really fabulous ones, but they sell for big bucks. Plus most of them have really tiny bust and waist measurements, which would mean that I would have to figure out how to re-size a pattern. (My brain hurts just thinking about that!) I don't think I want to spend $90.00 on just a pattern, so when I got a notice that some Vogue patterns were selling for $3.99 on their site, I went to the Vintage Vogue section and found my back-up dress:

It is an original 1955 pattern reprint. If I actually end up making my dress, I think that I want to do the shorter version. I love the long waist and the off-the-shoulder design of this pattern. I'll have to find some fabulous fabric. There's a discount fabric store not far from my home, so I'll probably have to start making frequent trips there, because their stock varies. So what do you think? Any thoughts or suggestions? I'll probably do a dry-run of this dress pattern with some extra yardage I have just sitting around to make sure that it fits and that I can actually pull this off! Wish me luck!

Frame it!

2009-12-06T19:26:00.000-06:00

My mom is always trying to give me things when I go home for visits. On my last visit, she went through her old stash of embroidery and showed me two bird embroidery samplers that she had completed over thirty years ago. I suggested that we get frames for them and hang them up in her house, but she insisted that I take them back to Santa Cruz and put them up on my wall. So that is exactly what I have done:

(I had to take the pictures of them from a slight angle to prevent the flash from showing on the glass in the photo.) I really love the way they look in the blue frames!

She also gave me two Japanese Geisha samplers. One is completely finished and the other is not. I need to work on the one and then decide whether I want to frame them or hang them from a ribbon.

You're Never Too Old For Barbies!

2009-11-23T10:35:00.000-06:00

Ever since I was a little girl, making Barbie clothes out of my brother's socks from the mending basket, I have been fascinated by Barbie clothes. The years passed and Barbie was put away, but when I was nineteen I got sick and was out of commission for a bit. I had two young nieces and decided to start making clothes for their Barbies. When I had two girls of my own, I continued to make additions to their Barbie wardrobes. To the right, is a dress I made about 35 years ago. I used a fabulous metallic gold shag fabric, which over the years and after many hours of play by my daughters, has become a bit ragged.

Now that the kids are grown and out of the house, boredom has brought me back to my first love: Barbie. Now that little fingers can't destroy my handiwork, I can make fancy evening dresses with tiny embellishments. Too bad my eyes have not kept up with my desire to do the fine sewing so deserving of Barbie.

I love to search the remnant piles of fabric stores. I choose fabrics that have glitz and glimmer or fine detailed feminine prints. Another fun thing I like to do is layer one color over a another to make a unique creation. Enjoy the fashion show!

First up, we have Merrie Olde Barbie:

This dress always makes me think of Little Women or a Dickens novel. I love the fur cuffs and collar. She is only missing a fur hat!

Next up, we have Mermaid's Ball Gown. The shimmery fabric is reminiscent of peacocks, but I always think of this when I imagine a mermaid crawling out of the sea and attending a fancy dress ball.

And let's not forget the Winter Fantasy dress. The flecks of silver in the deep purple velvet have Barbie waltzing at midnight among the snowflakes.

Next, we want to wish Barbie a Happy Valentine's Day in this red lame and black tulle vision.

And finally, Evening in a Rose Garden, displays purple lace over teal satin with a row of roses along the back seam. Barbie is definitely ready for a night of stolen kisses with Prince Charming in a moonlit garden.

I hope you enjoyed this fashion show as much as we have. Don't be afraid to let your inner child loose when sewing!

When Hobbies Collide

2009-11-16T10:44:00.000-06:00

I took up roller derby a few months back and had to put most of my sewing projects on hold as a result of this new obsession. I'm trying to sew as much as possible now and some recent creations suffer from being overrun by derby:

The Derbrarian Bag

Derbrarian, def: a portmanteau (word, not luggage) which combines derby and librarian. Our very own Sewer Slut, Susan N, also joined roller derby with me and, for her birthday at the beginning of this month, I decided to make her a derbrarian bag. Using the skills learned from my embroidery class, along with the Roller Derby and Sexy Librarians (+ Secretaries) patterns from Sublime Stitching, I created the following two-sided bag for Susan N:

I also lined the bag with some blue corduroy to cover up the ugly inside stitches and to give the bag a little bit more structure.

The Injury Apron

During a conversation with one of the players who had broken a leg during practice, we discovered that a solution to being confined to crutches or to one location in a house would be to wear an apron. That way you can keep your phone, the remotes, a pen, your wallet, etc., all in one place without having to go search for them. The apron has the added convenience of being attached to your waist, so that you do not have to deal with a purse or plastic bags attached to your crutches. As a result of this conversation, I created the following personalized aprons for two injured players:

I think that Raven's name got lost a little bit with the busy skull print and I found that the red letters of Kiki's name didn't flow very well with the red bandanas on the pirate skulls, which is why I moved the letters to the waistband area. The only downside with doing that, is that the reverse side of the apron is no longer pristine due to the red thread used to attach the letters. Initially, I used Steam-a-Seam to attach the letters, but after multiple washings, I find that the letters on other projects just started to peel away from the fabric. I wanted to secure the applique a little bit more, so I ran a blanket stitch all the way around the perimeter of the letters.

Raven's apron was delivered on Halloween in a post-surgery gift basket from the team. I'm a little late in delivering Kiki's apron, because she got her hard cast off last week, but she was on crutches yesterday, so hopefully she can still find it handy. I'll be delivering her apron later today!

Tamer & Lion

2009-11-12T19:05:00.000-06:00

I recently had a circus-themed party to attend and decided on the classic lion tamer and lion costume. A lion was the only thing to which I could get Brian to agree. It was, of course, not very original, because the party was rife with tamers and their animals, but instead of wearing the classic red, I went with blue, in part because it is our team color and also because I had a lot of blue yard-sale fabric sitting around.

For the Lion

I considered using the hood portion of a parka pattern, but after assembling that, I was really disappointed how it sat on the head. The face was swallowed up by the hood. Time was running out, so I just decided to sew a tube of fake fur and then I filled it with stuffing, and sewed some elastic between the two ends. I was still missing the beard part, because I had only made the tube long enough to reach the chin jaw line on both sides of the face. I cut out some approximation of a lion's beard and just hot glued it to the rest of the mane. I did sew and stuff some little ears and it was only after I had hot-glued them to the top of the mane that I realized I should have placed them closer to the face. As a result, I think the lion took on a wolf-like appearance. I also made a tail. I sewed a long tube of flannel together and then sewed a little bit of the fake fur for the end. To attach it to the belt I just made a little loop and put velcro on it. None of the pictures show the tail, however, because Brian just looked too good in his vintage camel hair coat and the little tail was always hidden from view. In addition, Brian thought the mane was too light of a color, so I took some brown fabric paint and some gold glitter glue and combed them through the fake fur.

For the Tamer

I used one of the classic slut-tastic Halloween patterns from Simplicity, specifically 3685, for which I probably paid $1.00 at one of those pattern super sales at JoAnn's. There were so many pieces to this jacket and I only had two nights to sew it up. I cut it out one night and then I sewed it together the next night. It probably took about three to four hours of non-stop sewing to put it together. I lined it with some silver fabric, which, once it was on, you could never see. I added some silver grommets and ribbon to tie it together. The only thing that I changed was the seam allowance on the arms. Fearing that my sausage arms would not fit into the sleeves, I reduced the seam allowance to 1/4". I wanted to make the vest, but ran out of time. I also wanted to bedazzle it with plastic crystals, but I also ran out of time. As for the rest of the costume, I just wore a black feathered sweater tank and some booty shorts. Although I did not sew the hat, it was in need of some crafty magic. They were only selling red, white, and gold hats down at the local lingerie store during their post-Halloween sale. I picked up a white one and took some mod-podge and reglittered it with silver glitter. I then took the selvedge from the blue fabric and hot glued a band of it all the way around the base of the top hat. I had also picked up a giant tickle-my-fancy blue feather at the lingerie store (because the craft store did not have the right colored plume) and I hot-glued that to the hat as well.

**Top photo courtsey of nocklebeast's Flickr page.

Doodle Embroidery Bag

2009-11-11T14:59:00.000-06:00

In October I took a class at The Crafter's Studio in downtown Santa Cruz, CA. It was a three-part class, with three classes each lasting three hours on Friday nights. It turned out that there were only two of us who signed up: me and my derby sister, Barbarian Librarian.

We started by doodling some ideas on paper and then transferring those doodles onto the front of our canvas bags with pencil. I chose to do butterflies, because I am not an artist of any sort, and butterflies seemed like a pretty easy thing to sketch out. Once I had two butterflies on my bag, I decided to add a dragon fly and a bumble bee. As it turns out, I only ended up with the dragon fly.

Our instructor taught us a lot of simple stitches: back stitch, stem stitch, split stitch, chain stitch, and the French knot. I absolutely detested the chain stitch, because it just would not look like it was supposed to, so I ripped it out and gave up. Our instructor also had a lot of books with samples of embroidery designs and stitches. My favorite book, and the one I am considering adding to my collection of craft books, was called Stitch Sampler: The Ultimate Visual Dictionary to Over 200 Classic Stitches by Lucinda Ganderton. The instructor also taught me the bullion stitch and the couching stitch, both of which were used to embellish my butterflies.

Along with the embroidery, the class also focused on how to construct an applique, which is something that I have been thinking of learning how to do for a while. I chose to do a daisy that spanned both the front and back of the bag and attached it using the classic blanket stitch. After finishing up with the embroidery and the applique, we put a lining into the bag. They had a serger at the Studio, so I actually serged the ends of my lining! That was super exciting and it's too bad those sergers cost upwards of $1000!

So here is the final product:

And here are some close-ups of my butterflies. The orange worm-looking stitch was the bullion stitch and the purple butterfly was made using a spiral couching stitch.

And finally, here is the back of the bag with the the other half of the daisy and the awesome snail fabric lining that they had at the Crafter's Studio:

I had a good time at this class and am considering some different classes for the future, but they don't involve sewing. There's a jewelry making class where you learn soldering techniques...I hope we get one of those giant welding masks! I am also considering a screen printing class and hopefully I can use those skills to make favors for next year's wedding.

Sew Wrong!

2009-10-18T00:06:00.001-05:00

From Failblog

A Bit of Hand Sewing...

2009-10-15T16:09:00.001-05:00

Hello!

I don't sew as often as I like, but one of the wonderfully relaxing projects I have been working on is hand sewing a skirt for faire. (Renaissance Faire, that is.) Hand sewing it makes the costume more authentic, and honestly, I prefer hand sewing because I find tedium soothing. Yes, you heard that right - I enjoy tedium, nit-picky details... Anyway - on to the project! You can see my cat above on the skirt. I'm not sure what it is about cats (or maybe it's just my cat?) but she must ALWAYS walk all over the fabric (and sit and lay down and... you get the idea). She had been somewhat broken of the habit by a former housemate of mine who would just give Pooka a sideways glance and she'd skitter off, but I guess her memory has waned from those days.

I did a general backstitch on four panels of fabric to make the skirt.

Now, I had already decided to make this a guinea pig skirt - as I wanted to try to find some way to sew up the ends so that after a zillion washings they don't fray all over. So I folded each end inward, and pinned the fabric.

I then hand sewed another back-stitch along the seam. This will all be on the inside of the skirt. I rather like how it's turned out, and I'm sure my washing machine will thank me as well. I haven't yet decided the best approach to doing the hem line on the bottom of the skirt and the top part of the skirt. It will be a bit tricker to figure out because I don't want the overlapping part of the seam to show... Regardless, this is what the finished inside seam looked like.

It's a Crewel, Crewel World

2009-10-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

Back in June, I stopped by Crafty Planet in Minneapolis, MN and found a crewel embroidery kit made by Wool & Hoop. It was called "Love Loops" and the kit featured a way to make a greeting card, which I thought was really nifty. But I had no embroidery skills under my belt. I have lots of projects in mind and I've purchased a few of those Sublime Stitching packets, but have never really been motivated to actually sit down and embroider something. However, when I turned the Wool & Hoop kit over, I discovered that the company is based out of Marfa, TX. Marfa! I was there for a wedding about a year ago this month. Hmmmm... first year anniversary... paper... card... Sounds like a good idea to commemorate the wedding with a kit from the actual wedding site! So I picked up the kit and it sat on the shelf since June, until this past Sunday, when I realized that the actual anniversary was coming up over the Columbus Day weekend. Uh oh! So I got started and you can see the results of my hand stitching above. I forgot to take a picture of the finished card, because I was so excited to have it done and ready to send off. Instead, you can check out the examples at the Wool & Hoop site to get an idea of what it looked like.

I had a lot of fun doing this little bit of embroidery. The kit only called for two stitches: the satin stitch and the split stitch, but I know there are a lot of different little techniques out there. And as it turns out, just looking at the satin stitch directions (yes, now, after completing the project!), I have noticed that I did it completely wrong! Oh well, we all know my problem with following sewing pattern directions, so why should this surprise us? Anyway, this is why I have signed up to take a three-part embroidery class. They'll teach me all the stitches and I'll be more inspired to finish all these hand sewage projects I have waiting in the wings.

Argh! Thank ye, SADU!

2009-09-19T21:35:00.000-05:00

Thank you, SADU! I absolutely adore my apron. I love its old world pirate feel, especially with the print and color choices. I totally felt like a pirate today (did you talk like a pirate??) and, as you can see, I steered my ship in style! I am also interested in the pattern. Did you design this yourself or did you use a commercial pattern? Please tell us more! The pleats in the front are wonderful and I also really like the design of the waistband.

And don't forget SADU's cool wrapping with a wax seal and everything! Genius!

Raw Sewage: Fabric

2009-09-12T01:02:00.000-05:00

A friend gave me a yard and a half of this fabulous fabric this week. She picked it up at a thrift store (yay!) in Felton, Ca. I absolutely love it and can't decide what to do with it. Should it become clothing or home decor?? Decisions, decisions... I offered to make my friend a skirt, but she was insistent that I make something for myself. Anyway, thank you, Nikki!!

The Cap'n Bluebush Apron

2009-09-04T15:35:00.000-05:00

My partner, Sewer Slut Mel, asked for an apron that was inspired by the pin-up pirate who was the hostess logo for our Pirate Apron Swap (and would a better name for the swap have been the "Yo Ho Ho! Apron Swap"?). I tried to consider what elements from the hostess pirate would be best suited for an apron and I knew that I wanted to work a corset-like fixture into the apron and I wanted it to appear sort of like a one-piece pirate costume. She could throw it on over jeans and still feel swashbuckly and piratey.

So I looked at my apron patterns and decided on the "Summertime Blues" apron designed by Joan K. Morris and found in the A is for Apron book compiled by Nathalie Mornu. I liked that the waist piece had the shape of a corset and that the bodice and skirt could pass as a dress. So then I had to pick fabrics. My mom made a pirate costume a while back and used a gorgeous cream and gold striped fabric that she later pawned off onto me. I also had a nice, blue brocade-ish home dec fabric to use as the waist, so I decided that gold and blue would be the theme for this apron.

The first hurdle whenever one uses a pattern from this book is the fact that it needs to be enlarged. No problem, right? I had made two other aprons from A is for Apron and that was not a problem, because they each had maybe one to three pieces to enlarge. Not so with this apron. There were fourteen pieces to enlarge! I could not remember how much the blueprint place charged and I was so gung-ho to use this pattern, that I just went and got them enlarged. Yikes! The bill was way too much for what an apron should cost. I will definitely think again before enlarging multiple pattern pieces at the blueprint place. Should I have considered this as an omen? A curse by a witch of the high seas? I was blinded by the booty under the X and so I plundered ahead with this apron.

So everything gets cut out and the first problem that I encountered was that the bodice pieces were not marked very well. I needed to sew together the bodice edgings to the bodice pieces. By sheer luck, I matched the first one correctly, but then I accidentally sewed the wrong edges together on the second piece and only figured it out after I had clipped the curves. Grrrrr. This really should have been marked in a more comprehensive manner. Continuing with the bodice, I pinned the lining pieces to the front and found that they did not match up evenly at all and I had to cut about an inch off from the shoulder to make them fit together. Also, when attaching the ties to the shoulders there were no marks to match up and that was also a bit of a pain.

For the most part, I was able to assemble the skirt pieces without issue, with the exception that the bottom layer was at least three inches longer than the pieces above it. How did that happen? I did a bit of a pleat and it all came together. After they were assembled, I looked at the reverse side of the skirt and I was really disgusted that the instructions did not call for this to be lined. Without a lining, we were looking at at least four ragged seams. Not pretty. So I cut out a bit of a lining and sewed it to the skirt. There were three layers on the bottom and I only cut the lining to the second layer, because the third layer was a gold mesh that I wanted to leave exposed.

As I went to assemble the skirt to the waist, I realized that my waist piece was too short. Ridiculous! So I had to sew a little extra blue brocade patch onto the waist in order to make the skirt fit. Argh! So far this apron is on its way to walkin' the plank!

After the apron was all assembled, I just needed to install the gold grommets, some navy lace on the neck line, and I really needed to figure out what to do with that gold mesh. The mesh was really pretty and with a straight hem, the apron really seemed too Renaissance-y to me, so I started chopping away with my scissors and gave it that jagged look of a pirate lass who's been wearing the same outfit for way too long on a trans-Atlantic voyage!

After the navy lace was sewn onto the bodice, I decided that I needed to iron it just a bit and my iron was a tad too hot and the lace melted somewhat. (Mel, you can see it if you really look, so don't look!!) Otherwise, I think that is it. Sewer Slut Susan talked me out of attaching bells to the apron...she thought it looked to court jester-ish and she was right, though it sounded really neat to jingle when I walked. And so here you have it, Cap'n Bluebush's long lost apron:

I hope she likes it! I also hope she enjoys the scurvy-preventing recipes that I included. Argh! And happy pirate sewing!

P.S. While typing this post, I started looking up reviews of this book on Amazon and a lot of people said the same thing about pattern pieces not fitting together properly or that the directions were poorly written. I made "Deep Pockets" and "Twirl Girl" from this book and do not remember any major snafus (and you can view the results of these two aprons in our slideshow to the right). This is the first apron that I have had trouble with, but I am definitely going to check reviews before I make another one.

Argh! Ye Sewer Sluts!

2009-09-02T01:07:00.000-05:00

Here is a preview of the apron I sent off today to a Sewer Slut Swapper. I can't wait for her to receive it so that I can show the full pic!

Don't forget to send the apron to your partner by 9/5...that's coming right up! Please share pics of your finished work on the blog once your partner has received the apron. Likewise, the person receiving the apron can also share pics of it.

Argh! Looking forward to photos of all those sexy, creative aprons that only a pirate lass would wear!

Rah Rah! Go Harbor Hellcats!

2009-08-23T10:42:00.000-05:00

In June, Sewer Slut Susan N. and I went to our first Santa Cruz Derby Girls (SCDG) bout. It was such a close match between SCDG and the Jet City Roller Girls of Washington and we lost by about four points. Total bummer. Besides sparking an acute interest in roller derby (so much so that we are now in training as SCDG Fresh Meat), we also noticed that the bouts had themes. That night in June was a Hula-themed bout and people (mostly bout helpers) were dressed in grass skirts, coconut bras, etc. Mmmmm.....costumes.... The program indicated that the next bout would be Tutu Army, so Susan N. and I went out and bought tutus. For last night, our third bout, the theme was Black & Blue. Black & Blue? What do you do with that? So we started brainstorming and came up with Black & Blue Cheerleaders, which sent me on a quest for a pattern.

I searched high and low for a good cheerleader pattern. I could have sworn that Simplicity or McCall's had one in their costume section, but nothing popped out in any of my searches. So I started expanding my quest and came across a random auction site with a vintage 1971 Simplicity pattern. I ordered it with a whole month between my purchase date and the bout. Plenty of time to whip up something fabulous, right? Well, the seller took her sweet time sending me the pattern and I only received it this past Monday...a mere FIVE days before the bout! Grrrrrrr. The pattern was cut, but intact. The previous owner had done the long-sleeved variation. I chose to do View 3, the blue and yellow cheer outfit with the varsity letter. I purchased some blue costume satin and black fabric with little white skulls for the inserts.

This was a really fun costume to sew, though I loathe sewing on satin, because of its tendency to pucker slightly at times. I have never put in a godet before (those are the little inserts in the skirt) and it was really easy. I love how those little white skulls contrasted with the bright blue of the rest of the outfit! I decided to skip the lining and just sewed a hem, because a.) I did not buy any lining fabric and b.) I was running out of time!

I was a little wary of the sizing of the costume (I figured it would be too small) and as I slipped it over my head for the first time I realized that it was just slightly too big. Whew. That is easier to fix. The only problem was that the neck was way too high and tight and the shoulders were too big. Hmmmm. So I decided to cut some of the neck away, which then changed how the pattern facing would attach. I figured the best bet at this point would be to just bind the neck with some white bias tape. After that was done, I tried the costume on again and realized that by changing the neckline, the dress had become too droopy in front. Grrrrrrr. I did not want to risk messing up the shoulder construction with more happy scissors action, so I put in the shoulder facings as instructed, but to fix the sizing and droopiness of the dress, I made little ties for the shoulders. (Thanks Susan N. for that brilliant suggestion.) There was one other thing I did not like about the fitting of this dress and that was the fact that you could not see the little godet things. Well, I did have that tutu.... So I wore my tutu/crinoline under the costume and it was transformed! And did I mention the best little finishing touch? Instead of a varsity letter, I went to a local Santa Cruz head shop and found a little black and white skull & crossbones patch. Yay!

And here we are together in full cheerleader regalia. Here you can also see the shoulder ties that I made and a better close-up of the skull patch.
And what is the next bout's theme? Superheroes! My costume is mostly complete...I just need a cape and some red tights.

Diaper Bag is Possessed by Sewing Gremlins

2009-08-10T10:45:00.000-05:00

After all is said and done, my sister's diaper bag turned out to be a pretty snazzy specimen. Getting to the snazzy part, though, was quite turbulent.

After perusing pattern after pattern on the internet, I settled on Butterick B5005, View C. I used an upholstery remnant purchased at Hart's for the outer layer and a blue poly-cotton yard sale find for the inner layer (all part of catering to my sister's love of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle). I opted out of the optional iron-on vinyl coating and also ended up opting out of the interfacing. Now that I think about it, I think those pesky Gremlins showed up when I purchased the interfacing.

The pattern calls for something called "hair canvas" to be used for interfacing. Hair canvas? Never heard of such a thing and neither, apparently, had the clerk at Hart's. She directed me to some very heavyweight normal-looking interfacing. We both agreed to try it and she cut me the required 2 1/8 yards. While I was looking for the handle webbing, she came over with the bolt, looking a bit flustered, and showed me the price--a whopping $12.99 a yard! She had no idea and then said, "Well, I've already cut it..." Oh well. Turns out this was not even the sew-in type of interfacing that I needed, but some sort of double sided fusible thing. Ugh. I decided to cut it up and sew it in anyway. After about the third panel, I realized that this stuff was going to make the bag really stiff. Not to mention the fact that I would have to sew through all of these super thick layers, so I ripped the stitches from everything but the bottom panel. I did not want to use the recommended cardboard lining for the bottom of the bag, so I figured that this stuff would make a decent substitute.

So everything was going along quite smoothly with this bag and I kept scoffing at the one review that I had found of this pattern. Obviously that lady was not a Sewer Slut! And then I got to the point where the lining and the outer layer get sewn together. With right sides kissing, I sewed all the way around the perimeter of the bag. Then I turned it only to find that I had not turned the zipper facing toward the outside of the lining and it was now stuck between the two layers. Rip. Rip. Rip.

Okay, so let's try that again. Pin pin. Sew sew. Turn. Looks good. Let's zip it up. What's this? The zipper is UPSIDE DOWN? For about a full thirty seconds the only thing I kept saying was "Seriously? Seriously?" This was the last thing I did last night. It was 10:00 p.m. and I thought I would wake up and give it a fresh start. Then this morning, I decided that the best thing to do would be to just rip out the zipper, turn it around and sew it back in. I got about three inches into my seam ripping when I realized the folly of my thinking. This would be a near impossible task. It took me about 20 minutes just to sew up those three inches, so can you imagine how long it would have taken to re-sew the entire thing?

I turned the bag inside-out again, ripped the seams, flipped the zipper facing and sewed it up. It worked! Hah! Take that, Gremlins! I finished it up with some top-stitching, instead of understitching (because I still can't remember what that is!). It looks pretty good. What do you think:

And here it is filled with baby goodness. Looks like there's still space for some more things...

Overall, the bag is really nice. It could use a tad bit more support (curse you, hair canvas!) and slightly clearer directions. Or perhaps, I just need to follow them better. Case in point: At one point the directions wanted me to clip to small dots after sewing the pockets onto the lining. I looked at those directions and looked at the lining and thought, "Now why would I do a stupid thing like that?" Then I got to the point where I needed to sew it onto the bottom lining and realized that I actually did need to clip it. Ugh. Perhaps the problem with the zipper was the same. Perhaps I just ignored the step that said match circles or squares...I refuse to go back and check.

Bibbity Boppity Boo!

2009-08-02T15:19:00.000-05:00

In less than two weeks I will be in Florida for my sister's baby shower and I am frantically trying to finish all of these baby projects. This week's conversation with my sister revealed that she has ten bibs already and thinks more than that will be unnecessary and excessive. Hmmmm...I don't know about ya'll, but I'm pretty sure ten bibs will not be enough.

So I whipped out Sweet Booties again and enlarged three different bib patterns at the blueprint place. The three patterns of choice were "On the Town" (pg. 68) which features a boy bib with an applique tie and a girl bib with an applique necklace (I just used the pattern for the bib and ignored the applique; the bib from "Patchwork Set" (pg. 75) sans patchwork; and the bib from "Too Too Fun" (pg. 100) minus the tutu and slippers. I also chose as many different fun, kid-print fabrics from my stash and came away with sharks, watermelons, ladybugs, trains (courtesy of Slut Feed Dog), Spider Frog, zoo animals, plaids and stripes. For the suggested terry cloth linings I used old towels and I used snaps or hook-n-loop tape (a.k.a. velcro!) for the closures. I made her nine bibs, three from each pattern.

These were simple to make and I had a lot of fun choosing the different prints. I found more towels at a yard sale yesterday, so I think I'll use those with the remaining fabric to make some burpies (she only has a dozen of those--using the same logic as the bibs). I also have to make her the diaper bag and she also asked for a hooter hider for when she's nursing or pumping. Ack! More baby projects!!!!

Mysterious Lace Baffles Woman, Pets

2009-07-22T18:46:00.000-05:00

What does this look like to you?

Three small packages of lace? I'll give you that.

But what makes this lace unique? Do we have a never before seen woven pattern? Or perhaps this is a special silk lace used only in the most highly coveted couture fashions of the mid-20th century. Okay, well, I suppose we can scratch that as a possibility when calculating into the equation the traffic cone orange "Special Value" sticker... Well, let's hold on a minute. Maybe that Special Value sticker can help us figure out this whole thing. Who's in for a closer look at that sticker?

(Me! Me!)

Fiber content of undetermined origin? What does that mean? Where do you suppose this mysterious lace comes from? Should we be concerned? Should I, along with my pets, run to safety in my nuclear bunker? So many questions! Please help, Sewer Sluts, in revealing the enigmatic origins of this lace...

The Naughty Librarian Dress

2009-07-16T23:45:00.000-05:00

I have been meaning to make this pattern (Butterick 6582) for a while now. It's a retro repro from a 1960's pattern. I think I actually picked it up at a yard sale last summer and it has just been sitting in my pattern box waiting for the right fabric (and the motivation to make it!).

I chose to do View B (in blue). I did not have enough fabric to do View C (in yellow) and I really feel very anti-bow lately, so View A (in black) was also out. The problem with doing Views A or B instead of View C is the fact that I am a curvy girl. That means that my measurements for bust, waist, and hip are often out of sync with pattern measurements for a straight sheath dress. For this pattern, View B had one pattern piece for the front panel and one piece for the back panel, so I had to figure out a way to incorporate my body measurements onto the one pattern piece for each panel. The pattern I purchased was sized at 12-14-16. I went for the smallest size for the bodice, then I eased my marking pen to the middle size around the waist line, and then gradually marked a line to the largest size at the hip line. I cut the dress out of yard sale fabric, so it would not be too much of a financial setback to make a dress that absolutely did not fit.

There is quite a bit of interfacing used around the neck line. I do not know what possessed me to use heavyweight interfacing, but I did. This just means that the neck lines are a little stiffer than the rest of the dress. The directions called for quite a bit of understitching and I just could not recall the mechanics of that technique. (I think I've only used it once or twice on other dresses.) I just ended up topstitching the top seams of the bodice and the armpit holes to make up for my brain fart on understitching. I kept missing the directions to clip the curves because they just said "Trim" instead. Trim? Trim what? Curves, apparently. I also had some difficulty deciphering the directions on how to attach the shoulders of the front to the shoulders of the back. The simplest way to think of it is that you have to pin the parts with the interfacing together and then the parts with the fabric together and then sew one long line from one end to the other. (I had to read the directions a bunch of times before this made any sense.) The directions also said to put the zipper in right at the beginning. This made it difficult to sew the back facing onto the dress, because you had to open up the zipper to match and sew the seams. As for the hem, the dress was about four to five inches too long in its raw state. I ended up chopping off 3 inches and having about a one inch finished hem.

As it turned out, I did not err in my reasoning behind using all three sizes in one dress. I think the results are quite surprising and definitely accentuate the curves I spend so many hours lamenting. So here it is, the Naughty Librarian Dress:

BBQ Style

2009-07-13T15:59:00.000-05:00

Not too long ago, I saw a photo of my friend Rachel (aka Bobinette) in the cutest summertime dress. I assumed that she had made it (and was right) and had to make one for myself! I love wearing a sleeveless, comfortable, cotton dress in summer. Especially when I'm just hanging out at a barbecue (which happens quite often at my house).

This dress was pretty easy to make and the pattern (Simplicity 2801 View D) was relatively straight-forward (those of us who sew from patterns know that they are never completely straight-forward!) I did the majority of it in one night and then finished it up the next morning in time to wear for a BBQ that afternoon.

I could have made this dress one whole size smaller, so it is a little sack-like on me. However, it

is extra comfortable with all that wiggle room! So comfy, that I don't think I'll take it in! There was one part of the pattern instructions that I did not like. The directions tell you to make the front band/facing (along the collar line) of the dress very early on, but to not to the back facing until the very end. I think they did this to account for hiding the zipper, but I found it very confusing and difficult to get the facings to line up correclty. If I were to do it again, I would do all of the top facing at the beginning and leave the ends open to sew after the zipper. If you decide to make this dress, you may want to study the pattern and decide for yourself how to approach it. I also had a little bit of trouble attaching the sleeve facings. I couldn't get them to line up with the armhole (surprise, surprise!) and with a little assistance, I learned my error was not leaving the bottom (pointy part) of the armhole undone a little so the facing could be eased in.

I wish I had a good picture of the front of this dress on a person, so you could get a better idea of what it looks like in total (the drawings on the front of the pattern package do not do it justice!) Perhaps Bobinette will post a picture of hers! ;)

Happy Summertime Sewing!

-Kricket

Fun Hats, I mean, Sun Hats

2009-07-06T17:18:00.000-05:00

So, come September, I will be an aunt. Unfortunately I have just been idling away these last seven months by not making anything for my little nephew. That changed yesterday when I started making sunhats for the kid. He is going to need quite the collection as a new resident of sunny Orlando, Fl.

I chose to use the "Sprinkles Sunhat" pattern from Sweet Booties!: And Blankets, Bonnets, Bibs, & More by Valerie Van Arsdale Shrader (say that ten times in a row!). This book is filled with about thirty different baby/toddler patterns. The best part: it is not filled with things just for little girls. I cannot tell you how many times I have looked online and in stores for good baby boy patterns only to be bombarded with oodles and oodles of dresses for little girls. Whenever I open up to the baby section of a pattern book, it screams "Girls Only! No Boys Allowed!". Plus, I can feel the pink from the pages attempt to hypnotize me: "You will follow socially accepted gender norms!" My sister has refused to accept any boy things with sports or trucks. Instead, she is going for an animal theme.

I have only made the sunhat pattern from this book and I found it extremely Sewer Slut-friendly. After a minor hiccup on the first hat (sewing the inner edge of brim, when should have sewn the outer) and a minor hiccup on the last hat (missed one layer when basting four together), these four hats came together with relative ease. They are lined and the inner brim is finished with bias tape. I made one of each size (NB, S, M, L) and demonstrated, once again, incontrovertible proof that I have the smallest head in the universe (my head fit the medium size!). They do seem a little large for babies, but as I have no baby at hand to test this theory, I am going to go with my small head theory instead

I used mostly printed cottons for all of the hats except for the blue one, the outer layer of which is made out of corduroy with a red velvet ric-rac trim. I love the "Little Shark/Big Shark" fabric, so I was glad to see it take the form of something besides an apron, which is what I have been itching to make with it. The duck and bubbles fabric was a gift, so I was glad to put that to use as well. I have yet to add the chin ties with velcro closures, because I am fresh out of velcro.

So this marks the start of my baby(thing)-making craze. I still want to make bibs, diaper covers, burp cloths, and a diaper bag. If you have any suggestion for diaper bags, please let me know. I read one review of the one I've chosen, but the review was completely negative. The shower is in August. Wish me luck!

16th Century Venetian Courtesan with Flair

2009-07-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

So we fantasize...as children we all have our "something". For me it was (and still is) "dress up". With a lifelong burning desire to have the ultimate gown I began researching. I started off in the wrong direction the keywords in my researching were failing to conjure up the images I had stored in my minds eye. I was thinking renaissance, medieval....not finding what I was looking for. I broke it down into centuries, and began Google image searches of 14th, 15th, 16th...

A ha!

16th century it is! So I began to get more specific...a region, a style..."Wait a minute...where am I going to wear this dress?!" I began to brainstorm....I looked at Ren Faires, nahw, I looked at the Jareth Ball up in LA....getting closer...Italy...baby, Italy! What about Carnavale?! I sent out the feelers to my lovely and he was actually into it! We booked a hotel and I began dreaming bigger. Venezia...It was meant to be, before all of this I knew the gown would be red. Why? You ask, I still don't know. Lets say, it came to me in my dreams. Turns out the colour of Venezia is red. Now that the dress has an ultimate purpose, Venice, Red, Carnavale...The ideas are coming together...a combination made in heaven.

So that evening that we decided to "do this" I went over to my friend J's house and threw the idea out to her and her husband after several glasses of vino. They booked their hotel that night and we started shopping for patterns online!!!

So the two pictures above combined the major elements I was looking for, but no one image did my imagination justice, so the improvisations and customizations just keep on coming. With no "one" dress how am I to find a pattern? We bought many, many patterns and have been piecing them togther, using instructions for the waistband then making the skirt as we please...it is a collaborative process. We found an online corset pattern generator and started there...we found an "onion peel diagram" of what layers we would actually need... now we can begin sewing! First we made the smock (in Venice at that time it was called a "camica") and a corset.

So round one corset needed a few alterations, a slightly higher rise in front and a little more room on the back top half of the lacing area. In an effort to save money where we can we decided to use massive zip ties as the boning, as we found out boning is super expensive when the zip ties work just as well. I was determined that I would only make two corsets for my "bodies"as they are called in antiquity. J made 5 prototypes before she was happy...I just don't have that kind of patience.

Round two went well, no more adjustments needed. I learned however that binding is a bad idea with such closely spaced tabs. I had a really hard time with that!

So at this point I had had it with underpinnings! I wanted some voluptuous fabric! Big Skirts! The little girl inside me who wants this costume is getting impatient! So onto big skirts :)

I had bought in the very begining of this whole ordeal 9 yards of dark red heavy satin. I saw it, and I knew it was right for the job. I took all nine yards and prepped it for cartridge pleating.

So I spent one whole weekend prepping and pleating. The process is ridiculously simple. You take your fabric and fold over about 2 in, press and pin, then make your mark. Every inch make a set of three 1" lines 1/2" apart, starting 1/4" down from the fold. Then get your big ass upholstry needle out and stitch a long (as long as your material) thread through every 1" line. When you are done, draw it up and you are ready to attach to waistband. Every pleat needs to be whipstitched to the waistband twice with heavy duty thread.

In order to have the skirt sit properly you need a bumroll, so I made a bumroll. Two cresent shaped pieces of fabric stitched together. Usually you can use polyfill for the stuffing (which is supposed to be according to the pattern "firmness of a ripe tomatoe") but J had some leftover Alpaca fiber from her herd so we used that as stuffing instead.

Showing off my "bum".

I have now progressed to the second skirt a vision in gold and red brocade. same process as mentioned above.

Progress continues to the bodice next and then onto sleeves! I am making the two forparts tonight. Will continue posting progress! Let me know if there is any info about patterns etc. you would like me to scan and post. Thanks for reading.

Sundress Undress

2009-07-04T18:59:00.000-05:00

To answer your first question: No, there is no water in this watering can. It's a prop. Get used to it.

To answer your second question: This dress was made with Simplicity #3745 View B (minus dorky front bow).

I've had this dress cut out and sitting in pieces for about two weeks now and finally decided to spend a few hours putting it together. Both fabrics were found by my mother at yard sales in North Carolina. The floral one gives off a slight vintage aroma when ironed or wet, but it was just too funk-a-licious to remain folded up in my fabric stash.

I liked the way this dress looked in the pattern sketches, but not so much on the models. The modeled dresses seem to be made out of a stiff cotton, so I thought that a more lightweight fabric would work a little better with this pattern. I'm mildly pleased with the results. I think the dress looks great from the front, but from the side I look a bit preggers; it just balloons out over my stomach and butt.

I have mixed feelings on the bodice. I like that it is lined (the skirt is not), but I feel like it squishes my boobs just a tad (maybe I needed to go with the bigger size?). I tried it without a bra and it was Sag City, U.S.A. In addition, the placement of the straps is just a fraction off. I would have placed them right at the top points of the bodice, because they seem to buckle a bit in their current position.

Otherwise, this was really easy to sew. The pleats on the skirt look really good. It's comfortable and the length did not need any adjustments. It also looks cute with a little white shrug. And on the plus side, this piece doubles as maternity wear if I ever have a parasite in my womb.

Pattern Poop: The Emmeline Apron

2009-07-02T09:38:00.000-05:00

The Emmeline Apron from Sew Liberated (formerly Montessori by Hand) has been lurking in my pattern stash for over a year. I bought it because it was so different from the McCall's, Simplicity, and KwikSew apron patterns. The Emmeline Apron, like their website proclaims, is modern and stylish, which is what drew my attention to it in the first place, but because it is reversible and requires 3-1/4 yards of fabric, I really needed a reason to sew it up.

I finally found a reason in the form of a wedding gift. Not only does the bride enjoy baking and making a mean plate of spaghetti and meatballs, but on the night of their engagement, she thought the "present" he had promised was an apron to thank her for making a lovely meal. Instead, he went down on bended knee and produced a ring. (Oh stop your sniffling!) I'm still not sure if she ever got that apron, so I'm sending her this one:

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. The apron is very flattering with a gathered bust and darts below the bodice band. The pattern did not have directions for pockets, so I did not bother with them. I really liked that I had to topstitch around the entire skirt. I find that reversible aprons just look better with topstitching, especially after a toss in the wash. Part of the reason the pattern calls for so much fabric is that you have to make your own bias strips for the neck ties. This was my first experience with DIY bias strips and it was surprisingly easy. The directions want you to mostly hand sew them onto the bodice. I tried so hard to avoid that, but I just could not get a proper seam and I ended up taking out the stitches to just hand sew the bottom of the neck strap to the bodice band. My first attempt looks like crap, but at least the other side turned out okay.

While I like that the straps at the waist are so long that you can tie them in front, I found that actually having a pattern piece for this was a waste of paper. The package provides two large pieces of (non-recycled) paper with the patterns on them. One piece has the bodice and the skirt. The other piece has the two bodice bands and the waist straps separated into two pieces which you then have to tape together. I really think the two bodice bands would have fit on the first piece of paper and dimensions should have been given for the waist straps to be cut out without a pattern. And here's another thing about the paper that they used for the pattern pieces: it was really stiff and heavy. This made it really difficult to fold to get the lines for the darts. On my first attempt I had to sew the darts two times in order to get the edges of the skirt top to match the edges of the bottom bodice band.

The hand sewing and the wasteful attitude toward paper were the only two problems I had with the Emmeline pattern. It's cute and it's flattering, so if you want to spend $30 or more in fabric and $12 for a reversible apron pattern, this may be a good choice for you. Oh, yeah, well I guess I also did not like how much this whole thing costs. Like I said earlier, I really needed a reason to sew this up.

Ahoy! Pirate Apron Swap!

2009-06-25T09:01:00.001-05:00

Argh! Be ye interested in some sewn treasure? Sewer Sluts is hosting a Pirate Apron Swap.

Treasure Map Key: You will create a pirate-themed apron for a partner and someone else will create an apron for you. Full partner assignments will be known only to the Sewer Slut Hostess. You will be given the name and address and other relevant details about the person for whom you are making the apron, but you will not know who is making the apron for you until they send it.

Walk the plank: Sign up by Friday, 7/10/09 and receive your partner assignment no later than Monday, 7/13/09.

Collect your booty: Packages must be sent to your apron partners between 8/25/09 and 9/5/09 (in time for Talk Like a Pirate Day on 9/19). Please make sure to use a tracking method for your package -- we wouldn't want your treasure to actually become buried among other postal packages! Also, please include a note to your partner revealing your identity and a recipe for some good old-fashioned pirate GRUB. When you receive your apron, please send a thank you note to your partner. Nothing rankles more than an unacknowledged gift!

If for some reason you are unable to complete your responsibilities as a Sewer Slut Swapper, please contact the Hostess (sewerslut@gmail.com).

Don't forget to share pictures of your apron for others to see! You may either e-mail them to the Hostess or you may post on this blog.

This swap is by Invitation Only.

Tutorial: Bookmarks

2009-06-23T23:02:00.001-05:00

Have you ever looked at your stash of fabric scraps and wondered why you were saving all of them? I know I have. I sometimes just cannot bear to part with a small, but lovely scrap. So when my sexy librarian friend informed me that this year's theme for the Library Summer Reading Program was "Be Creative" and that she was uninterested in purchasing generic plastic toys from Oriental Trading to give as kiddy prizes, we started brainstorming and came up with fabric bookmarks. All you need are two different coordinating pieces of fabric, some fusible web interfacing, a ribbon (optional), and thread. These bookmarks make great little gifts, either for kids or the members of your Top Secret Snooty Book Club. You can personalize them to your recipients, by choosing fabrics that cater to their interests. I made about 50 of them in two days for the Summer Reading Program, so be careful! They are addictive!!

Supplies:

Bookmark template

Two pieces of coordinating fabric

Fusible web interfacing

Coordinating piece of ribbon (optional)

Thread

Step One> Make your bookmark template. I used a free bookmark from the local independent bookseller as the outline and added about a 1/4" seam allowance. For the template itself, I chose sturdy paper from the recycle bin (manilla envelope). In the end, my template was 2-1/2" x 7-5/8".

Step Two> Iron your fabric.

Step Three> Using your template, cut one out of each piece of fabric and one out of the interfacing. I found that it works best using a rotary cutter and mat.

You should now have three pieces cut out:

Step Four> Fuse the interfacing (according to manufacturer's directions) to the wrong side of one of your fabric pieces. I generally used the piece that I consider the "back side" of the bookmark.

Step Five (Optional)> If you would like to have a ribbon at the top of your bookmark. Cut out a small piece of ribbon, about 3" in length. Fold it in half and baste it to one of the pieces of your bookmark.

Step Six> Pin the two bookmark pieces together, with right sides together.

Step Seven> Starting from the bottom of your bookmark, sew around the perimeter with about a 1/4" seam allowance, leaving the bottom edge open for turning. I generally used the foot as a guide all the way around.

Step Eight> Clip corners and trim, if necessary.

Step Nine> Turn the bookmark right side out. Use a point turner on the corners.

Step Ten> Press the bookmark. Fold the bottom edge under 1/4" and press.

Step Eleven> Starting from the midpoint of the bottom of the bookmark, top stitch around the entire bookmark. I stitched as close to the edge as possible. Be careful at the corners; pivot and walk your needle as needed. Slightly backstitch when you return to your starting point.

Step Twelve> Trim loose threads.

And voila! You now have your very own bookmark!

Raw Sewage: Pillows

2009-06-21T12:20:00.001-05:00

I found this Bluebird on Velvet vintage masterpiece at a yard sale last summer in Soquel, Ca and fell in love with it. I thought it would make a great pillow with the right kind of fabric for the reverse. Unfortunately, due to other projects or perhaps just laziness, I put this on the back burner. And after a recent visit to St. Paul and Minneapolis, where I decided to hit as many vintage clothing and furniture stores as I could in one weekend, I am glad that I waited! At Swank Retro, a fantastic two-level furniture store in St. Paul, I found Bluebird's mate. After however many years apart, they have finally been reunited.

Please meet Peacock! I was thrilled to find this (for $3.50!) and I was immediately inspired to bring the two together for a grand pillow-making session. My only dilemma at this point is choosing a back side for them. So I call on you, fellow Sewer Sluts, to provide some insight. I'm inclined toward some sort of green retro-inspired fabric, because green seems to be the only common color. The blues and pinks are not quite the same. I could always do two different colored backings, but I would like to keep them uniform. Of course, there is always black velvet for the reverse side. Any thoughts on dingle balls for the edges?

One last question, does anybody know what this sort of technique would have been called? It looks like it definitely came from a kit. Here's a picture of the reverse. Perhaps this will help to identify it.

If you're ever in Minneapolis...

2009-06-20T08:04:00.000-05:00

...stop by Crafty Planet. I happened upon this store while doing some vintage clothing shopping in Northeast Minneapolis. The vintage place, Rewind, was not yet open, so can anyone think of a better way to kill time than in a fabric store?

The store had a cute little facade with a retro spaceship sign informing us that they were open. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was this giant red wooden robot. His belly opened up to display a bunch of wonderful craft books, one of which was Sewing Green by Betz White, which I already own. The store is painted in this wonderful hue of cornflower blue and there are white and blue shelves along the length of its walls. It is not a really big store, but it uses its space well.

They stock a lot of yarn and accessories for knitters. I do not personally knit, but if I did I think I would start here. I was more interested in the other crafts in the store. They had an impressive display of Sublime Stitching kits and I'm not talking about just five little kits, because I seriously think they featured the entire line. Moving on I found a display of crewel embroidery kits by Wool & Hoop, a company based out of Marfa, TX. I was in Marfa last year for a wedding, so I picked up one of their greeting card kits to make the couple's one year anniversary card.

Have I talked about their fabric line yet? They had so many wonderful fabrics. And not your boring, country-time-lemonade fabrics that so many other stores seem to carry. They had great animals, robots, pin-ups, stripes & dots, and Japanese imports. Oh yeah, and they had a lot of Amy Butler. They have an online store, so you can get a better idea if you browse that.

They also had a nice selection of ribbons, a significant number of books for sale, and a really nice looking space for classes. And if you have a kid, they even had a little rugrat-friendly section to distract them while you shop. They feature a weekly Friday night sewing workshop from 6pm to 9pm and they also had a bunch of classes for beginners (be you sewer slut, knitter, or embroiderer).

They had a number of patterns from Amy Butler and some other smaller designers. I picked up a wallet pattern by JennaLou, a local Minnesota designer. Speaking of locals: did you know that KwikSew is headquartered in Minneapolis? Crafty Planet had a small display of KwikSew patterns and I just happened to glance down at the label and discovered this nifty little fact. Though there were some KwikSew patterns, they did not seem to have any of the big pattern books sitting around.

Even the Boyfriend, who becomes an immediate narcoleptic whenever he enters a fabric store, was impressed. I found him pulling out bolts of fabric to show me! You know that if it can hold his interest, then Crafty Planet is in a league of its own! This place was hip and fun. It was not your usual, generic fabric store. This was not the sort of place where old-lady salespeople scoff at the idea of using woven gingham to line an apron.