Not for me

Today in the sewing room was not for me. Well, mostly.

First up, is another make of the cardi from Vogue 8546. This time for my sister for Christmas, on request after trying mine on last winter. I cut it out today and will sew it either tomorrow or during the week. It's a fast sew, if I remember correctly.

Here's mine from 2 years ago. Hers will be purple Sophia knit. I still wear mine since sizing isn't really an issue in this drapey style. I'm sure I could make it smaller and it would still fit about the same.



For me, I did manage to eek out one Magic Pencil from the leftover purple Sophia, so that's ready to be sewn.

The other Not-for-Me is this infinity scarf for the "white elephant" gift exchange at work on Tuesday.

The rules for our exchange are to spend no money, find something, anything you already own that you want to part with, and re-gift it. We did this last year too and it was pretty funny since you start by unwrapping one gift but it can be "stolen" along the way by the later unwrappers. I've had this fabric in my stash for years and these infinity scarves seem to be trendy right now so maybe it will be a winner. If not, less than an hour was spent making it (thanks to Dawn's tutorial here) and these 2 yards are now out of the stash and can stop mocking me.

Since I'm basically a Scrooge, this will probably be the extent of any holiday sewing or crafting.

In other news, both the shoes and the fabric I recently ordered arrived. The shoes went back since they weren't immediately comfortable. Sob. Half the fabric is also going back since I'm not thrilled with it. I have too large a stash to just keep what I don't love and I'd rather have the money back to buy what I do. But that still leaves a few cuts that I did like and tomorrow they'll be pre-washed and ready to go for whenever the mood hits.

Sunshine for My Sister

Mission accomplished and I can get my sister's birthday gift in the mail on her actual birthday, even if it won't arrive until Wednesday. What can I say? I'm always late with birthdays. After FORTY-ONE years, she should be used to it. ;-)

Here's a try-on, on a human model — ME! Hey, it's only natural to borrow clothes between sisters, right? This one has just enough extra ease and length added from my versions that it should fit her perfectly. (Yes, I'm still living in my white skirt, which you can see by the wrinkles. It's unusual to see me in all solids, isn't it? So not me.)

And, of course, more bling. Arranging and then touching each crystal with the hot-fix wand took longer than making the top itself. I counted 138 crystals. I wish the camera captured how much this thing sparkles — she will light up a completely dark room. ;-)

I continued them around the back of the neckband too.

I didn't get to put the finishing touches on my dress, but it was a productive weekend in the sewing room so I'm happy.

Bread Buddy Tutorial

I know you've all long forgotten been waiting impatiently for the tutorial. It's finally up at Moda Bake Shop, here.



I never realized the scorn I'd receive about some of the bread that comes into this house, and it looks like the comments (OK, only one so far) followed me to Moda Bake Shop too. The shame!! lol

I was supposed to have Fat Quarters from Moda to offer as a giveaway in conjunction with the MBS posting, but they seem to have been lost in the mail. I've been assured that at some point I will have them and I will offer them up to my readers at that time … and again open myself up to more bread flames. ;-)

Enjoy. (Or not.)

No More Squooshed Bread

(Cue Billy Mays voice)
Does your white bread often look like this after you've gotten it home from the grocery store?

Mine too. And it has ticked me off forEVER. Ask my sons, *every* time I'm in the store I wonder aloud why bread manufacturers don't use something more sturdy to package bread. Drives me nuts.

Well, no more — I have solved my problem (and maybe yours too?).

Presenting, the Bread Safe:



Inexpensive, sturdy, lightweight and re-usable.

But strong enough to protect that bread from shopping cart and drive-home mishaps.



But wait! There's more! It can also be folded up compact and portable so it's easy to stick in your purse on your way to the store on grocery day. And it's washable.



Now all I need to do is make another because we always buy at least 2 loaves at a time. And I'm thinking these will also make unique but useful Christmas presents.

Anyone interested in the directions to make one for yourself? Stay tuned!

* * * * *

It's been a slow sewing week here. I was sick with a stomach flu mid-week (ugh!).

And then with the day-after-day rain we've been having, trees have been soaking up all the water and dropping branches left and right. About 3 AM Friday night/Saturday morning, one of our neighbor's trees fell on our power lines, creating a loud electrical explosion and then pitch darkness immediately after. And we have water on a well so our pump was dead without power too.

It took until 2 PM Saturday for the electric company to get here and fix it. And then "all" they did was string new cable. The old power lines the tree landed on are still holding up the tree and are about 6 feet off the ground, and I'm *assuming* not live anymore. I hope the job isn't quite finished and the power company is just waiting until they don't have to pay doubletime to a weekend crew. I'll be calling tomorrow to be sure.

But we stayed out of the fridge and freezer and the food was fine. And the rainy weather meant the house stayed cool too, without sun beating down on it. So, the only thing I lost was sewing time. It could've been worse.

Sewing Room Makeover - In Progress

I didn't take any real "Before" shots so all of these are going to show the room in "During" disaster mode.

In this photo, you can see there is a little table with a machine on it sitting at the end of my cutting table. What you can't see is that next to this little table, there was a Sterlite 3-drawer plastic bin thingie.



Both of those are now gone. You can also see the IKEA 4x2 shelf set up in the corner. DH repositioned my mirror, but I still need to re-hang the bulletin board.



This is the far wall where my ironing board was set up.



The ironing board is currently in limbo. But the two 4x4 units are set up and in position.



This corner was a complete mess before.



The bookcase holds all my sewing books, BWOFs, and some other magazines. There are also plastic bins and ugly shelves squished together.



My TV was sitting on top of a piece of plywood on top of a table missing its glass insert. I had plans to refinish this table, but I hadn't gotten to it yet. The best laid plans …



TV table and ugly shelves/bins gone! I've moved in a cabinet from the attic that used to be DH's grandfather's, which DH and I refinished about 20 years ago. I'm thinking of painting it and turning it into an ironing station. The TV has been moved to the top of the IKEA shelves, where I can actually see it now. The tall bookcase has been relocated to my bedroom and the sewing books will again be stored in it. My bedroom is where I read those books anyway so this will actually be more convenient and my bedroom is plenty big enough to take on the bookcase. In fact, I like it a lot in there and have decided that now (as in sometime later) I am going to make a little reading corner in front of its new home.



There's still a lot of stuff to put away, rehang, and/or remove, but I'm making progress. The hardest part is deciding on new homes for the stuff. And I will still either make or buy some bins for the cubbies to make some of the utility more decorative. And curtains, which are looooong overdue.

Actually, the hardest part will be when we put in new flooring someday. Also looooong overdue. Then I'll have to move everything out, which will mean emptying everything first – including the pattern cabinet. I don't look forward to that, but I'm not going to think about that until I have to.


* * * * *

Before I started this disaster makeover, I was digging through my pile of Stuff I Want To Do. I found these tapestry panels which I bought years ago (like before we moved into this house!) and had planned to make into deco pillows for my sister. Well, I decided it was finally time. Well, it was either that or admit defeat and toss them.

These were pretty simple. Trim the tapestry panel, cut some backing fabric to size, stuff and sew up the stuffing hole. But for this one, I decided to also add some welt cording around the edge. My welt cording foot made easy work of that. Love my presser feet!



Because I thought a single layer was going to be too thin, the backs are double-layered with khaki colored linen scraps.





This may be the only sewing to come out of this room for a while. You know how it is when you start a room re-do — a million other little "improvements" sneak in and take over, and boy do I have plans! We'll see how far I get.

Spice Girls

And the winners are …



28 = Stacey said... To quote my husband "they're free? POST A COMMENT NOW!"

52 = Marjie said... OOOHHH! Please! Me! Me?

Stacey and Marjie, please email me your mailing info, to djc@cedesign.com. If I don't hear from you in one week (by next Saturday morning), I'll have to move on to another winner. I need these boxes off of my counter. ;-)

Have fun spicing up your life!

Giveaway - Non-Sewing

ETA: Blogger's comments are goofy today. First they're there, then they're not. Don't worry if yours appears to have vanished - the comments will be back when Blogger fixes the bug. But if it's not fixed by Saturday, I have the comments saved in my emails.

* * * * *

I know this is a strange thing to be giving away on a mostly sewing-related blog, but what the heck. I'm sure there are some others of you out there that like to cook as much as I do. This collection of herbs & spices are extras I received work-related (too complicated to go into the details) and they are high quality, new in sealed jars, and pretty to look at even if you don't cook. ;-)

What you'll get:

One each of Sage, Poppy Seed, Fennel Seed, Paprika, Muchi Curry, Saffron, Ground Ginger, Black Peppercorns, Chives, 1 Vanilla Bean, Basil, Oregano.

What to do:

Just leave a comment on this post by Friday, July 9. You don't have to friend me or follow me or anything extra. But no Anonymous comments/entries please. I'll do the random number generator thingie and post the results on Saturday.

I have two complete collections so there will be two winners.

Unfortunately, I can only ship these food items within the USA, so I'll have to restrict this to those readers. Apologies to the international-to-me peeps.

Tablerunner & Napkins & Kvetching

Done! I'm sorely out of practice with the binding but some washable glue and Wonder Tape let me pretend I'm an expert. I had attached the binding to the front of the runner before the D1 died and after the meltdown I seriously contemplated tacking it on the back by hand. That lasted for about 8 stitches. I'm so NOT a good stitcher-by-hand (because I never practice, of course) and it would've taken for-freakin'-EVER.

Here's the back. Or, it could be the front too since theoretically it is reversible.



I'm still debating whether to toss it in the washer/dryer to create the wrinkly quilty goodness or to send it on to mom in its current state.

I made four napkins. If I had been more forward-thinking when I bought the fabric, I would've bought more so I could have made more napkins. But I didn't, so I couldn't. The napkins are double-sided. Each has the same backing so they can be folded as four matching napkins or four coordinating napkins. On the napkin from the "backing" print, I used the wrong side for one side, which is a solid blue.



Sewing with the Kenmore was an … adventure. (I think it's actually a Janome-made machine, since its model number starts with "385.") It's not a total bottom-of-the-line, but it's only one or two up from that. And I felt it. Even my dilapidated D1 sews circles around this machine. But hey, at least I have a backup, right? Trying to think positive. ;-)

Here's the "new" line-up. Look how small that thing is. LOL!



The things I miss most from my D1 are needle up/down, all the needle positions, automatic tension, thread cutting, and just the overall ease of the sewing experience. I had to test and adjust a lot more with the Kenmore. Some of it is because I'm just not used to sewing with it but most of it is because my D1 just does everything so beautifully without adjustment.

Oh, and I miss all my D1 feet! I don't have a stitch-in-the-ditch foot for the Kenmore and I REALLY needed it for the binding. I made do with a generic adjustable edge-stitching foot, but it's not as sturdy as my Viking feet. That plastic guide thing on the right is wobbly.



Another thing I miss — winding a bobbin without unthreading. And ALL MY BOBBINS. I think I have 3 bobbins for the Kenmore. What a pain. I wish I had thought to buy more when I was at Joann's yesterday.

The Kenmore is good as a buttonhole station and it's a decent sewer, but it's not a *great* sewing machine. The stitch quality is acceptable but not outstanding. The Featherweight's straight stitch is much, much nicer. Even my fumbling on the treadle produces a prettier straight stitch. The D1 stitching is easily as nice as either of the vintage machines. I'm beginning to dread the edgestitching I'll need to do for my sister's scrubs. I'm not used to having to work at getting a straight, even stitch. Spoiled, I know.

I did drop off the D1 yesterday at my Viking dealer, which is inside Joann's. It won't even be looked at until Monday at the earliest. Sob. But at least it's there. I'll just have to wait for the bad news.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I'm a little late on the Christmas gifts this year, but my mom and sister understand and will be happy with their gifts … whenEVER they arrive. ;-)

First up for mom, a combination housewarming and Christmas present. A table runner for her new house in her colors. I'm also going to make a set of coordinating napkins from the leftover fabrics.

The pattern I'm using is this one. It's a quilt-as-you kind of pattern but I nixed that part. It seemed like overkill and a good way to make mistakes. I'm not sure if I should review this pattern on Pattern Review. Do people actually read and/or reference quilt patterns?



I cut and pieced it today. It's really easy, trust me. Here's the top, pinned to the batting and the backing, ready for quilting. I used my Featherweight for all the piecing, which was fun.



For the quilting, all eleven straight rows of it — LOL! — I moved back to my D1 since I have a stitch in the ditch foot for it and the harp space is bigger. The quilting took all of 30 minutes, tops. I might have to make one of these for me.

Before I started on this project, I scanned swatches of the fabrics and used it to make a mock-up on paper to be sure it wasn't going to look too funky. These are so not my colors and picking out the fabrics was the hardest part.



Here it is quilted and trimmed and awaiting binding. I'm taking a dinner break right now but will finish the binding later tonight and it will be done. Definitely a one-day project even for non-quilters like me.



Next up will be scrubs for my sister.

In the Bag

I finally started, and finished, mom's by-request purse today. All of my Christmas sewing is now officially done. Hey, at least it's still 2007.

I made a few of these purses about 5 years ago, when I first started sewing. Vera Bradley bags were really "it" then, and a local sewing machine dealership offered classes for making Vera-clones, based on Simplicity 7098 (OOP).



The class pretty much followed the pattern but the instructor showed how to add pockets inside and outside since the Simplicity pattern does not include any. I was hoping I had taken some notes. But I didn't. So I had to really dig into the memory banks to try to remember what I did. Luckily, I took pics of two of my earlier bags so I could refer to those. Also luckily, nice pre-quilted fabrics are more readily available now and I didn't have to quilt the main fabric myself like I did years ago. That takes forEVER. (Mom picked out this fabric so I know she'll like it.)

I changed some of the construction for this bag to reduce bulk at the seams, and I fully enclosed the top zipper. It's hard to explain without being able to show you what I did before and what I did now so you'll just have to take my word for it that my construction knowledge improved enough since I last made one of these so that I could "engineer" it much better. ;-)

Here's the inside. Lots of pockets, which I did always really like about this bag. I also added a small zippered pocket to this bag, which is hard to see since the fabric is mostly black. It's the pocket that's closest to the "front" in the pic. That's something I remember wishing I had when I was using one of these bags myself.



When I was making this, I completely forgot that I needed to match the stripes at the top. Oops. I ripped out one of the panels and re-did it again to match stripes. Those notes I didn't take would've helped me avoid that goof.



This is the first one I made, in that class. (See, those stripes are lined up so I should've known better today!)



And this was the second. It looks saggy because it was fully loaded!



Both are long gone now. I never did take a pic of the original purse I made for my mom. I did take a pic of another similarly-styled tote I made for her in 2002 (different custom pattern from the same instructor). Amazingly it's still in service, as mom is using it on her current trip to Florida. And, it still looks pretty darn good. ;-)



Mom will be back over this way in a couple of days and then she can collect her belated gift. Meanwhile, I can think about sewing for ME again. ;-)

Quick Pics

Here's the finished shirt for my father-in-law:



A close-up of the embroidery (with chalk lines still showing):



The near-duplicate shirt for DH from the fabric leftovers:



I took the easy way out on this one and made an iron-on Bucs logo instead of embroidering. I remembered that the Bucs embroidery design I used before is quite dense and I didn't want to distort the shirt and then wish I hadn't.



The pants for my FIL are done too. The lighting was really bad so details aren't showing very clearly and colors are off. I'm hoping to get DH to agree to a modeling session before I ship these off.

I added gray flat piping down the outseams:



And I changed the pattern to a full elastic waist with drawstring elastic. The fly has a real overlap but no zipper and so is for show only. It is sewn shut at the CF seam under the flap.



The shirts are Kwik Sew 2561 and the pants are Kwik Sew 2776. I've made this shirt pattern a number of times. It's definitely a keeper. This is my first make of the pants pattern, which is now a keeper too. It's really a pattern for wovens but I wanted to make knit lounge pants with front pockets and sideseams (vs. the no sideseam lounge pants I've previously made my FIL and DH) and the style of these fit the bill. I didn't make any modifications for using a knit except as noted above for the waistband and fly. If they're extra roomy, my FIL will like that just fine. I also added an extra inch of length to the legs and arms for my tall FIL and left off all but the front pockets on the pants.

I'll write up a "proper" review when I've got better pics.

Loungewear Factory

All of the machines are whirring away today. I've got the embroidery unit going on my FIL's shirt:



While that machine is embroidering, I used the serger and coverstitch machines to put together the sleeves and back of his shirt, Kwik Sew 2561:



This pullover from the NFL store is my inspiration:



And it dawned on me that the Tampa Bay Bucs are basically the same colors so DH is getting a shirt too from the fabric leftovers. The beginnings of his is laid out on the table waiting its turn in the production line. I think I'll use an iron-on for his instead of embroidering. First, I don't think I have the patience to make another logo and then sit and watch another big embroidery stitch out and second, he's really hard on clothes and it would irk me to see all that time end up as a yardwork shirt. ;-) Except, hmmm. I just remembered I already have the Bucs logo digitized. This is a hoodie I made for DS#2 a few years (and inches) back. Decisions, decisions.



Dani is feeling almost back to her self today, as you can see by her checking out the trash basket for something fun to dig out and carry off. She's still moving slower and is napping a lot, but the devilish gleam is definitely back in her eyes. Heaven help us. ;-)