Adventures in Cross stitching

As well as sewing I like to do cross stitch, especially as it’s something I can do while watching TV in the evening.  Miss C really likes Tatty Teddies which is always called Little Bear in our house.

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A while ago I found a free cross stitch pattern for a Tatty Teddy image and Miss C nagged me to make it for her.  When I say a while ago it turns out it was over 2 years ago!!!!!  I finally finished it a few weeks ago and today I framed it.

 

She’s very chuffed with it and finally getting it finished meant I needed a new project.  I remembered a project I’d seen ages ago and saved the details of.  To make a cross stitch family! So I got some graph paper and coloured pencils out and the girls got to have their say in deciding what colours things should be and how their hair should be!  And this is what we came up with…

(Family name has been photo shopped out!)

You can’t see very well but hubby has LFC on his shirt as that's his team!  Miss C isn’t quite so short in relation to the rest of us but otherwise it works well and it was completed in less than a week rather than 2 years!

I think that's because the teddy has lots of graduated colours which do my head in like the Baby Sampler I did in the past. So cartoon things are much easier! 

Next I want to make something for my sewing room, some sort of sample with a quote.  Something like…..

• Sewing mends the soul
• Any day spent sewing is a good day.
• Keep calm and sew on.
• Measure twice, cut once.
• May your bobbin always be full
• Stitch your stress away (not sure about this one as sometimes my stitching is very stressful!!!!)
• Sewing fills my days, not to mention the living room, bedroom, and closets.
• Sewing: A creative mess is better than tidy idleness.
• Sew much fabric, sew little time!
• As ye sew, so shall ye rip.
• I'm itching to be stitching!
• Memories are stitched with love.
• Keep Calm ~ and get the seam ripper.
• My soul is fed with needle and thread.
• I’m sew very happy
• I cannot count my day complete ‘till needle, thread and fabric meet.
• Stitch your stress away.
• Sewing mends the soul.
• Sewing is the New Black
• Veni, Vidi, Velcro

Italics are my favourites at the moment, what do you think?  Which are your favourites? Do you have any others?

WIP - Simplicity 2588

So I'm working on this months dress which is Simplicity 2588 which is  a Project Runway pattern so it has loads of options.  I'm making the fuller skirt with the thinner yoke.  The bodice has princess seams which I've never done before but really like.  I cut size 18 using Susan Khaljies 1" seam allowance which allowed me to let the side seams out quite a bit but I also pulled the princess seam quite a bit in at the top.  I probably should have cut the size 20 but I was trying to go by my upper bust size.  I extended the width of the bodice where it meets the yoke to cover my bra strap and I'll have to add a bra strap holder as it has to sit slightly wider than I naturally wear the strap.  I did my usual Hunchback of Notre Dame adjustment which wasn't as much as usual on this neckline as its a little lower than most. I wasn't sure which size to cut for the skirt so I marked both the 18 and 20 on my muslin thinking I would grade it to the waistline but actually the 18 is ok.  Using Susan Khaljies method of disregarding the cutting line with seam allowance and concentrating on the sewing line makes this a lot easier as you can have as many sizes markings as you want and adapt things as you go.  Of course I've made the bodice slightly bigger so the size is all academic.  The skirt has a centre pleat and then 2 small pleat on the front which looked good I felt.  The back has 2 sets of pleats which just didn't look right at all!  I changed them to gathers and it looked a lot better with less puffiness and general weirdness going on.  I ran out of normal calico for the muslin so used some cheapo Fabricland poly-cotton I picked up last year for £1.99/metre so its a bit of a unwearable muslin!

No I'm not pregnant!

Sorry for the rubbish photos, I've been using the web cam recently and I think the settings have been changed or maybe the light was rubbish on a rainy day!

So now I’ve started on the fashion fabric, I’ve cut it out and now in the process of transferring the markings. I’m lining it with white poly-cotton. 

I’ve been debating how to line the skirt and I’ve decided to make the shell skirt and then use the finished waistline to cut the lining, so that there would be no pleats/gathers on the lining waist and the lining skirt is more of a trapezoid shape rather than a rectangle shape which has been pleated.  Does that make sense?  Is that the accepted way to do it?  I was thinking of underlining the skirt but I want the bodice lined and wasn’t sure about if I could join a lining to an underlined fabric if that makes sense.   When I made the fuller Cambie Dress the lining is an exact copy of the shell but I find there's too much bulk at my waist especially for my pot-belly!  I have a self drafted a-line pattern which I’ve made 4 skirts from  which I love and wear to death and I keep intending to combine that with a bodice I like to make a more streamlined dress.  Maybe I’ll use this princess bodice on that pattern in the future.  Will have to see how this one comes out.  

Just need to get my butt in gear!  As usual!

Things I've learnt from Susan Khaljie!

Well I finally got round to finishing watching Susan Khaljies Couture Dress course on Craftsy.com, I started it ages ago and for no real reason stalled in the middle.  I had already started using some of the techniques she teaches in the muslin stage (BIG seam allowances, transferring all the markings etc) but I didn't finish the sewing stages.  Today I caught up.  Well what can I say other than the woman is a sewing goddess!  She obviously knows her stuff and has so much experience behind her, when she tells you to do something in a particular way, well you just better well do it that way, she's telling you for a reason! I've had lots of duh moments when I've finally got something I'd previously read about (lapped zips) and lots of lightbulb moments when I realised how much better that method would be (ignore seam allowances and concentrate on the sewing line)! So this is what Susan has taught me.....

• its much easier keeping pins in a box rather than pin cushion
• plan, plan, plan!
• muslins are your test garment which then become your pattern
• mark lines with carbon paper
• 1 inch seam allowance
• spend time working out fabric patterns, checks/plaid etc
• Baste seams prior to sewing
• sew intersecting seams first NOT whole seam!
• silk organza!  Where can I get some and how much does it cost?
• beeswax to strengthen thread
• not to be scared of hand stitching!
• how to make a bra carrier

Now I'm not convinced that couture garments are going to feature all that heavily in my future plans (not very practical for SAHM, a bit overdressed for the school run!) but the techniques can be applied to all levels of sewing or at least that's my plan.  Seriously if you haven't already followed this course, its is very much worth it.
I know Gertie also has 2 courses on Craftsy.com which have had a very popular following but my reluctance with those was the end garments weren't my cup of tea but if the level of knowledge is as good as Susan then I might reconsider. I have also purchased the Sassy Librarian Blouse course but I'm not sure when I'll get round to it to be honest.  Might have to wait till after the summer!

Makes you proud to be British!

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So did you watch the Jubilee Pageant yesterday!  What an fine example of Britishness; trumpets, bunting, red velvet, Monarchy, rain rain and more rain!  The stoic behaviour of the British people was never in better display than yesterday, it might be raining (a lot) but we'll still wave our banners, cheer our Queen, have a cup of tea and eat cake!  In case you missed it all here's a precis....

Blood Sweat and Tears!

How come I’ve already made Simplicity 2209 yet this version was a right pain in the a**e?  I thought things were supposed to get easier!  The original version gave me a major headache on the neckline due to the changes I made so I made a new bodice muslin, sewed it up and it all looked ok so I cut out the fabric, sewed it up and it looked bloody awful!  The darts, which on 2209 are a bit unusual, just wouldn’t work, I had to take it apart about 10 times, I tweaked, snipped, unpicked and eventually I got there.  I also took out the pleats from the front skirt but left the back ones.   This meant I had to take the width in slightly to take up the slack.  And here it the finished article……

Instead of the facings on the neckline (I HATE facings, don’t get them, yuk yuk yuk!) I used a gingham bias binding. 

(Cheesy grin!)

(Still a little excess in the back but by now I’m past caring!!!!)

I originally wanted to make a pink linen version of this but couldn’t find the right shade of pink but when I saw this poly/cotton I thought I would give it a try.  Given the stress I had with this dress I’m glad I didn’t use a linen as I put it away for a couple of weeks just so I didn’t have to look at it, if it was linen I would have felt guilty about it!  I’m glad I used the bias binding as I think it breaks up the impact of the dress a bit I was a little afraid it would be a bit too Barbara Cartland!

So that was Mays dress onto June, after pondering if I was too old for gingham I decided to go for it, so next up is Simplicity 2588 in navy gingham.

I’ve been making a muslin today and I’ve never sewn a princess bodice before so its very interesting.  So far after a number of tweaks I’m liking it!  Next onto the skirt………

Time vs. enthusiasm

I am a SAHM with school aged children so in theory I have more time on my hands than some sewers although sometimes it doesn’t work that way. 

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ATM I’m not too challenged in the time department but I’m really challenged in the enthusiasm department. 

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I’ve got half finished things on my table, I’ve got plans in my head, I’ve got requests from the kids but I just can’t get my bum in gear.  What do you do when you’ve lost your sewing mojo?  Do you just wait for it to return or do you force it?

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Sewaholic Cambie Dress

Ok so its May already and you might have noticed that I didn’t show you a dress for April.  Well I was actually doing a top-secret, can’t-tell-anyone pattern test for Tasia at Sewaholic.  That's right when Tasia put out the call that she needed pattern testers I jumped at the chance and pinged back an email straight away.  Then I panicked, what if I wasn’t able to do it, what if I ran out of time, what if the dress wasn’t something I would like or normally buy?  Well I needn’t have worried on that score, this is Tasia we’re talking about.  When I got the pictures of the dress I literally swooned, I was so happy because it was perfect, I am of course talking about the Cambie Dress. 

After consultation with the family I decided to make version B, the full skirted dress.  I made a muslin of the bodice which was pretty much perfect straight away, the only change I’ve made is to shorten the sleeve caps, which is easy enough to do on the fly.  Let me warn you, this is a very full skirted dress with a full lining so there was a LOT of fabric to wrangle.  I went to Ditto fabrics and found a lovely red cotton/silk mixture.

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I lined it with cotton, in hindsight it might have been better to line the skirt with a silkier fabric as I think there’s too much friction between the layers. 

So ta da!

 

what a dreadful picture!

Its such a lovely dress and I love the shoulder detail, as Tasia said not quite a sleeve but not quite sleeveless.  The pockets have been loved forwards slightly which I was a little bemused by but they actually end up being perfectly placed for your hands!  With Sewaholic patterns there are lots of little details that you don’t find in ‘Big 4’ patterns and they just make the whole thing perfect! 

Now I need your advice, after the last request for advice I went out and bought navy gingham fabric and now I’m pondering making an a-line skirt version of Cambie.  What do you think?  I’m also in the middle of another Simplicity 2209 but for some reason having problems which are slowing me down, the original plan was to make a gingham version as well but now having these issues and thinking about Cambie again I’m considering my options.  So please blogosphere tell me what to do…..

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