Sew What's Next

The PMK Crossed Panel Top

2012-01-17T14:23:00.014-06:00

As I mentioned before, back in September I drafted a pattern for a knit top using Wild Ginger's patternmaking program for knits (PMK). The style I chose was the CROSSED PANEL. This has front shoulder princess seams and overlapping center panels which create a V neck.
Since the final outcome is not one I would repeat, I won't go into my drafting choices, but here you can see my pattern:

I WILL tell you that I had the bust level too high, and the bust points too close to center.

Also, the upper back is too short...as is the upper front! sigh.
I chose a beige textured knit from my stash to use for this top. This is a fabric I really liked and had been saving until I was sure about my pattern's fit. Apparently, I didn't save it long enough!

I had limited yardage, so had to be creative about the layout. Both center panels are supposed to be full-sized, but I decided it was unnecessary to make the underpanel reach the hem. By cutting the left panel shorter, I was able to fit the pattern onto this fabric.

BTW, although that is a pattern for a short sleeve, I DID cut a longer sleeve...3/4 length was all I could fit, though!

The contruction order of this style took a few minutes to work out! I decided that the first step was to partially sew the front princess seams...just above the bust.

That way, I could sew the front shoulder seams, which needed to be done before the neck edge was finished.

This looked really odd...all these pieces going off in all directions!

I basted around the neck edge (using red thread!) so I would know how much to turn under for the coverstitch.

Then I used the coverstitch machine to finish the neck edge.

Once the neck edge was finished, THEN I could sew the remainder of the front princess seams. After that, the contruction order was pretty normal.

I was not thrilled when I first tried this on.

Those sleeves were awfully twisty! barf. The lower edge is just folded under...there is no hem on the sleeves. I was just checking to see how it looked before finishing up. Needless to say, those sleeves came out!

But remember, i was short on fabric! I didn't have extra to cut more sleeves. I had to make these work.

I went back to the drafting board and created new patterns and compared. This is when I realized I had made a big mistake by choosing a C cup in my measurement chart! The front armhole is too long for me...I need more difference in the size of the front and back armholes and this is accomplished by using a bigger bust cup size.

Hmmmm.... I began to wonder if I could use the DART OVERRIDE to save this one.

The Dart Override tool makes the front armhole smaller and the bust dart larger (it will also do the opposite, depending on the setting choice).

So I redrafted using the DO and printed only the sleeve.

I just barely had enough room to recut the old sleeve using this new pattern. The cap mound of the new sleeve (paper pattern) is more 'forward' than the mound of the old sleeve. This is better for my body and will relieve the twisting.

To sew this sleeve into the existing armhole, which was NOT cut using the dart override, I had to ease the armhole to the sleeve in the lower front area. But this is a knit, remember? Knits are more forgiving of stuff like this!

The final shirt is just ok. I love the fabric. I like the neckline. The crossover pulls and causes folds because the dart position was not properly located for my body.

Also, the armholes are still not just right. I think instead of reducing the size of the front armhole, I needed to increase the size of the back one. But that would have called for a larger sleeve that could not have been cut from the first sleeve fabric. When I wear this top, I am aware of the armholes.

I am toying with the idea of just sewing the armhole deeper. I am torn, though...will it make it more difficult to raise my arms?
Overall, it isn't bad looking...despite that little bobble in the front hem that I created when coverstitching the hem and ran into a thicker area at the princess seam!
I really will have to fix that if I intend to wear this shirt out of the house!

PMK, darts vs no darts

2011-12-15T19:45:00.000-06:00

Before, I mentioned that I generally choose the DARTED silhouette instead of using the NO DART choice, even when I plan to sew no darts. Here, I hope to show you why.

Below, I have superimposed two patterns...each using the identical measurements and settings EXCEPT, the RED one chose a SIDE DART and the blue/green one used NO DART.

With both pattern sets aligned at the shoulders, you can see that the front pattern is almost the same, with or without the dart.

But look at the back patterns. The no-dart pattern (in green) has a shorter back armhole depth than the darted one (in red).

But that isn't all...look at the overall length of the back patterns.

When I align the pattern sets, matching at the waist and hem, you can easily see that the back pattern of the NO DART set (green) is actually LONGER than the one that uses a dart (red), even though BOTH pattern sets were made using identical measurements!
PMK shortens the back length when a 'dart' is chosen.

I have adjusted my BACK length measurement to be longer than 'real' so that when it is shortened to use with the darted pattern, it will still be adequate.

Of course, this was NOT discovered before I sewed that last 'dud' I mentioned before...

I had assumed the overall back length of my newly-sewn top would be just the same length as the back of the previously sewn knit tops if I used the same measurement!

But no, that isn't the case when darts are chosen for one pattern but not the other.

But as I said, this is a recent discovery... sigh.

But to me, the real issue with the no-dart choice *is* the change to the upper back...that raised back armhole level. The upper back is now shorter from the underarm level up to neck.

My no-dart garments will pull to the back, trying to borrow fabric from the front. This happens because the back armhole height is too short...the distance from underarm level to the back neck on the pattern was reduced.

Also look at the sleeve. The shortened back armhole creates a sleeve with a smaller back half. This contributes to the "pulling-to-the-back" and a general feeling of tightness. When the back armhole is smaller, the back of the sleeve is smaller...there is less fabric there.

Also, this narrower sleeve's cap height would need to be made shorter to maintain the same bicep measurement across the sleeve as on the darted one...and that lowered cap height can introduce pulls that might not be there if the darted bodice were chosen. In the example above, I did NOT change the cap height on the sleeve...and you can see that the two sleeves are NOT the same width.

But here, below, you can see what happens when I change the cap height on the DARTLESS top...reducing the cap height by 0.25" so that the bicep width on the sleeve is nearly the same as before. The patterns are aligned at the front underarm point (because the front armhole on both patterns is nearly the same, I choose that as my point of alignment for comparison).

Anyway, THAT is why I choose to use the DARTED silhouette, even when I plan to sew NO darts! YMMV.

PMK and shoulders

2011-12-03T21:16:00.021-06:00

Edited near end for clarity, bold

I bought the knits program from Wild Ginger when it came out, but have not taken enough time to really use it as I'd like.

I told you previously about 3 of the knit tops I made, trying to work out what settings and measurements I should use. While those tops are wearable, they are not representative of the choices I'd make if I had the chance to do them over again!

I have since done yet another knit top that I am also less than thrilled with...it is not as wearable as these others!...but I have learned a lot from this one, too, and think I have finally nailed down MOST of the choices that I need to make.

Before I show you the latest 'dud', I'll show you what I have learned.

I have tried to explain this before on the chat list and forum, but as we all know, a picture makes things SO much easier to understand!

Here is the basic knit top as it drafts with my measurements...almost.

I did lower the armhole depth by .25" on this, and as you can see, I chose the DARTED version (because I am a D cup--More about that later).

You can see that the shoulders are very slanted, both in front and in back. This is critical to notice. When the program first came out, many people were surprised to see those sloped shoulders, but were assured they worked...just try them. Well, after trying them, many were still not satisfied with the fit, so the company added settings to enable adjusting the shoulders as desired. This company does listen to its customers and tries to please.

Here you can see the basic pattern with the front and back superimposed on each other, with neck points aligned.

Notice that the shoulder angles, front and back are the same.

The shoulder WIDTHS, front and back, are the same. The program uses the back shoulder width to draft...there is no measurement for the front shoulder width. So the upper chest area in front is the same width as the upper back area in back...you can see the upper armholes are superimposed. Right away, I know that is a problem, because my body is wider in the back at that level than in the front.

Here you see the same basic pattern with the front superimposed over the back, but this time, it is aligned at the waist and hem. You can see that the front pattern is LONGER than the back pattern, because I am using a D cup in my measurement chart. If I used a C or less, the front would be the same overall length as the back.
Now, I have made some changes to my shoulders using the settings that were added to the program.

I used a SHOULDER HEIGHT setting of .75...this raises the shoulders up on BOTH patterns by .75".
I also used a SHOULDER POINT setting of .5...this moves the shoulder point (at arm) forward by .5".

The net result of these settings is that the front shoulder is still pretty slanted, almost like it was with the original draft. But the back shoulder is much more 'square'.

Here you can see the new pattern IN RED superimposed on the original pattern (in green/blue).

At a glance the new pattern doesn't look all that different...nothing remarkable about it.
But look what happens if you flip and superimpose the new front onto the new back.

Immediately, you notice that the shoulder angles are NOT the same, but the back shoulder is higher.

But look at the shoulder WIDTHS. While the actual seam length of the front and back shoulder seams ARE the same, the width of the patterns across the upper chest and upper back are NOT the same! The back pattern is wider...you will see that the back armhole is farther out than the front armhole is...by about 3/8". Now, I don't know about you, but that looks more like how MY body is shaped!

Here you can see those same new front and back patterns (flipped and superimposed) aligned at the waist and hem. Again, you can see that the upper back pattern is wider than the upper chest area, and the front pattern is still longer (at the neck point) than the back pattern (because of the D cup).

The new back shoulder angle looks more like the shoulder slant on my regular (non-knit) pattern. Can't you just see those shoulders sewn together and curving forward on my shoulders which also just happen to curve forward (like the shoulders of many of us!)?
How does this affect the sleeves? Well, the original sleeve is below.
And here is the new, adjusted-shoulder sleeve.
It takes some careful observations to see the differences! But if I superimpose them, it will be easier.

Below, the RED SLEEVE is the NEW, adjusted shoulder sleeve...and the green one is the original. I have aligned them at the front underarm.

Because the front armhole on the NEW pattern is not very different from the front armhole on the OLD pattern, the front of the sleeve is not very different. the new armhole has a slightly more-square shoulder...not much difference, so not much difference in that area of the sleeve.

You can see that the new, RED sleeve is bigger in the back of the sleeve cap. Duh...the back armhole of the new bodice is longer than the back armhole of the original bodice, because the new back shoulder is taller! The RED back cap line is about 3/8" outside the original sleeve, which means it will provide about 3/8" more fabric in the critical 'forward-movement' (driving room!) area. (edits in bold)

I also mentioned that I use the DARTED basic silhouette, rather than the no-dart version. I don't plan to actually SEW this dart...it will be eased in the seam and will disappear...so I consider this my dartless block.

More about WHY I use the darted instead of the no-dart, later...

Retreat Centerpieces

2011-11-16T12:52:00.024-06:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I was on the Hospitality Committee for my quilt guild's annual retreat, so it fell to me to make the centerpieces for the dining room. The theme this year was SEW HOT...hmmm.

I didn't want to go with the expected hot chili peppers or 'south of the border'- type imagery, but also didn't think using candles with actual flames was a good idea either. The idea that kept coming into my mind over and over was that of flaming pincushions. Eventually, I decided to go with that.

To begin, I needed a pattern. I went to WILD THINGS, a free pattern-drafting program by Wild Ginger for making accessories. I chose the crown of the BASEBALL HAT pattern to make my tomatoes, drafting the pattern over and over with various measurements until I finally got one that seemed like the right size. I sewed about 6 or 7 prototypes in a stash fabric before I was satisfied with the size and shape. Then I went to the red satin.

I began sewing the sections together, but soon decided I should add sewn eyelets to the sections before sewing them all together. That way, I could insert giant pins into the pincushion without causing the red satin to run or pull. I just used a piece of paper napkin as a stablizer under the fabric as I sewed the eyelets...it pulled right off.

Once the tomatoes were sewn together, they needed a base. So I went out to the garage resource center and pulled out some 1/2" plywood and began cutting. Using the circular saw, I first cut strips, then cross-cut them into squares.
I had used a ruler to draw lines plus a template to draw circles onto the plywood, so I would know where to cut.

Next I took the squares of wood to the band saw and cut the circles free-hand. Precision wasn't totally necessary here!

Back in the sewing room, I pushed a plywood circle into the bottom opening of each stuffed tomato and used an electric staple gun to secure the fabric to the wooden base....like doing upholstery work!

Here you can see the stuffed tomatoes. The pattern I used is there in front, as well as some of the ideas I was working on for embellishment.

Once the tomatoes were stuffed and stapled, I used the green yarn to wrap around them, like a real tomato pincushion. The little 'blossom end' was cut from green felt.

I bought some plastic skulls at Michael's...it was before Halloween...and I used craft paint to paint flames in their eye sockets. You can see the difference here...before and after flames.

While this seemed like it would be easy, it was more difficult that I thought! I had to use a tiny paintbrush with very few bristles! I also had to keep reminding myself that precision wasn't necessary...these were for a centerpiece that might end up in someone's garbage!

These tomato pincushions needed LARGE pins. I used some bamboo skewers and spray painted them with chrome paint. Since I wanted to put balls on top, I grabbedt a variety-pack of Sculpy clay from my stash and began mixing colors to make the balls. As each one was formed, I pushed a painted skewer into it and stood it up in a thread spool to allow the clay to dry.

To harden, this clay must be baked in an oven for 15 minutes at 250 degrees. So I put a cooling rack on a jellyroll pan and placed the pins on their sides on the rack, with the balls hanging off the side (so they would stay round) and baked them.

Well, as any fool would know, when you bake a painted surface, the paint bubbles off!

This was no exception. My chrome paint bubbled.

So I had to hand-sand each pin and repaint. Only now, I had to keep from getting paint on the clay balls. I made holes in a layer of newspaper and pushed the pins up from below, so only the skewers were visible and tried to repaint them that way. But they flopped here and there, making it impossible to evenly paint all sides. I ended up pulling them out and holding each one (by the ball) in my gloved hand to paint...but of course, over-spray got on the clay balls!

So then I had to use steel wool to rub off the over-spray off the balls...sheesh!

Eventually, the pins were painted and the balls were clean, so I could paint on a layer of clear varnish! Making these pins took days!

Now it was time to figure out how I was going to add flames. I had purchased some yellow organza and used Dyna Flow paint to make it more 'flame-like'.

Then I cut it into a flame shape, angling the flames toward one end, rather than making them stick out to the sides. I wanted to stitch these flames to a floral stem (wire) to make a trail of flames running up one side of the tomato, so the flames needed to 'reach upward' as they climbed the side of the tomato.

This seemed to work better than anything else I had tried, so my plan was solidified...I could proceed.

I painted longer strips of the organza, to make many more flames!

Then I could cut these into smaller pieces to use on the pincushions.
The flames were attached using hot glue.

One thing I have learned over the years: ALWAYS have ice nearby when working with hot glue! See the little boo-boo bunny in the foreground?

The boo-boo bunny is made from a white washcloth which holds a plastic Easter egg. Open the egg and put in an ice cube. When the ice cube melts, it is contained and doesn't drip all over the place. I just left the egg open, so I could touch the actual ice if needed. And, of course, it was needed!
I drilled holes in the skulls and ran green yarn through them, to hang them on the pincushions where the little emery/strawberry might normally hang. I used craft felt to make various hats for them. The skulls were inspired by tattoo designs by Ed Hardy.

There was the "Gambling Man":

The "Blooming Skull":
And the "Love Kills Slowly"Heart:

All in all, there were eleven of these pincushions, as I was told there would be ten tables and one serving station.

To add a little height to the pincushions, one of my committee members used colored yarn to wrap various-sized cans to look like over-sized spools and bobbins. We used double-stick tape to stick the cans to the bottom of the tomatoes, which, BTW, had been covered with a circle of red felt to hide the plywood and staples.

She also came up with the idea to add NEEDLES to these pincushions. Using chopsticks, we cut an 'eye' into them using my Dremel tool, then I sprayed them with gold paint. I threaded a length of black rat tail cording through the needle and let it drape around on the pincushion.

Using the hot glue gun, I glued on large colorful plastic buttons. Two packs of foam stick-on sparkly letters provided the SEW HOT words to decorate the pincushions further.

I bought some black fabric to put on the table under the pincushions and searched my stash for sequins that I could toss around to add sparkle...like sparks.

Since there was one extra square of the black fabric and lots of extra letters, I decided to make a sign to hang at the retreat as well. I arranged the letters as desired, then drew around them, then removed them. I layered this with batting and backing (from my stash) and loaded it onto my long-arm and quilted the areas around the letters, then just used the serger to finish the edges.

Then I tossed it into the washer to let the quilting puff up.

Well, the BACKING fabric had been pre-washed, but the front and batting had not been. All the puffiness is on the back! Oh well...lesson learned. I will think about that next time I chose a backing! That is why it tends to roll to the front at the bottom...
I cut off a yardstick and stapled the sign to it. Then I put rat tail through some buttons and glued them on to cover the staples. I made the giant flat-head pin by gluing together 2 foam shapes. The foam's sticky backs had lost their stickiness, so I used hot glue to hold them together. Of course, it oozed out, so after it dried, I tried to clean it up a bit with a scalpel-type seam ripper and slashed open my thumb! Sigh. Fortunately, it healed nicely in a few days.

To carry these to the retreat, I used shopping bags and placed each tomato inside its own bag. This worked nicely; I could carry many more tomatoes per trip to the car/building than if they were not in bags.

Once at the retreat center, the assembly was pretty fast. Down goes the black cloth (which we folded a bit at the corners since it was on a rotating Lazy Susan) and on goes the centerpiece! We did have to stick the cans to the bottom of the tomatoes but the double-stick tape had already been applied to the cans, so we only had to peel and stick!

Then we tossed around the sequins and left-over letter, to give everyone something to play with!
And play with them they did!

Several people enjoyed playing with the stick-on letters! Okay, yes, that's me, but I wasn't the only one!
In the end, there really were not 10 dining tables as we thought, so the serving station got two tomatoes and there was one for the coffee table in the sitting area. We had about 70 people at retreat.

I worked on these for about 6 weeks or so and am SO glad to be finished! Retreat was fun and the people who got the centerpieces as door prizes seemed glad to have them. Yay!

hair on fire

2011-11-11T09:39:00.003-06:00

I feel a bit like I have been running down the street with my hair on fire! I've been hurrying here and there, with little time for normal day to day activities. My cupboard is bare! But my clothes are clean...

I went to the International Quilt Festival in Houston last week...I was gone 7 days! I returned on Monday and have had activities every day this week. Now it is Friday and I am off to retreat! Uncommon Threads Quilt Guild has an annual retreat each November and this year, I am on the Hospitality Committee...which is responsible for the centerpieces and small room gifts. Our theme this year is "SEW HOT". When I get back, I'll share more about it, but above is a sneak peak at a centerpiece.

Busy in the sewing room

2011-10-21T20:30:00.000-05:00

I have been busy in my sewing room, as you can see below...the room is a mess!

My cutting table is loaded with stuff....fabric and rotary cutters, fabric paints and even a glue gun! I've had a strange variety of projects lately.

You may have noticed that my sewing room has been rearranged again.
yep.

I was going nuts.
Remember? I bought a longarm quilting machine that was delivered in late July. While I love this machine, I was NOT in love with the way it looked in my sewing room.

The end of the machine was my view each time I entered the room....all the knobs and pipes and straps, oh my! I was trying really hard to get used to this (and LIKE it!) but it was not fitting well with my sense of order and aesthetics. But I was trying to get past these feelings, telling myself that it was just something new...I'd get used to it.

However, the lighting was very poor in this area of my room, so DH and I bought and installed some narrow black fluorescent lights over the quilting machine.

Well, I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back!

I HATED the look of the room once the lighting went in! See for yourself...my view:

I was filled with dread and anxiety every time I looked in there! And it wasn't about the money. Yes, this was an expensive machine, but I did want it. But I also wanted (and needed) my sewing room to be conducive to creativity!

This was not doing it for me.

So I measured my stuff and DD created a few alternate arrangements for me to consider and try. Yes, it was a lot of work,, but the new arrangement is SO much more pleasing to me now! I don't have quite as much usable floor space in the new arrangement, which meant the striped chair had to go (boo hoo) but other than that, the new arrangement is far superior!

I ditched those black fluorescent lights. I HATED those! in the beginning, DH was not willing to rewire a fixture that was intended to be hardwired to the ceiling, which limited my choices to those I could plug in with a cord. Well, those dangling cords from these lights and the extension cords that went with them are gone. (yes, I had planned to tack them to the wall, to control the 'dangle factor', but there was still excess cord length bundled on TOP of each light...ugly!)

In this new arrangement, you can barely see a fluorescent fixture that hugs the ceiling over the quilting machine, because the ceiling fan is in front of it....PLUS, it is white, so it blends in with the ceiling. Yes, you can see the one that hangs over my sewing machine, but that one doesn't bother me...it wasn't right in front of my face each time I looked in the door!

There are cords from both these lights that travel down the wall but I put them in channels that I painted the wall color, so they don't bother me at all.

Finally, with the room arrangement determined and the lighting improved, I was once again able to work on the quilt that I had long-ago loaded on the quilting machine!

This is the first quilt I have tried to do since purchasing this machine. I did a couple of throw-away practice pieces then went straight to a real quilt.

Almost immediately, I realized I had jumped the gun. I had NOT worked out the tension issues as I thought I had. When I advanced the quilt to a new area, I could see that the part I had already done was NOT good...there were loops on the back where the top thread was coming through.

I had had trouble with the tension balance right from the start. To make a long story short, the problem ended up being the height of the needle bar: it was set too low. Here, you can see a picture of the needle at its lowest position...notice the relationship of the eye of the needle to the hook arm above it. You can see part of the needle above its eye.

Now, after resetting the needle bar height to raise it, you can see that there is almost no needle showing above the eye...this is how it should be. Sorry the exposure is so different...hopefully you can still see.

Once I got the machine to sew as desired, I was ready to go. I ripped out the bad quilting...that took about a day and a half. By this time, the new quilting threads I had ordered had arrived, so I was all ready to go!

The actual quilting went pretty fast and was fun! I was making it up as I went along.

Here are a couple of sneak peaks:

Although I am finished with the quilting, this piece isn't 'done' yet. I might paint on it...and I might add beads! We'll see...

Frustration

2011-09-24T13:42:00.004-05:00

For some reason, my blog format changed between June and July. The stuff on the side...about me, my archives and blog list, etc...is all down near the bottom of the page, instead of all along the right of my posts, near the top. I don't know how it happened or how to make it go back to the way it was.

I hate this.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, scroll to the very bottom of this page. There you will eventually find the archives/list of previous posts. Choose one in June 2011...A Tale of Three T-Shirts, for example. Click on that one, then notice the overall look of the page. My 'stuff' is there on the right--right there at the top. No need to scroll down the whole page to find it.

But in the posts starting with the one in July, the stuff is at the bottom of the page.

I am wondering WHAT I did to make this happen...or did it happen without my help?

If you are knowledgeable in this area, please give me a clue, because currently, I don't have one!

Editted to add: When I viewed this post, the stuff was there, at the top! But as soon as I clicked on HOME, it went to the bottom again...arrrrrg!

New Project, part two

2011-08-24T02:11:00.001-05:00

This is how the quilt looked after all the blocks were sewn together.

Some people who saw it thought it was a sunset...some thought it was mountains out west.

I am calling it "My Place or Yours".

I wanted to add a band of flying geese across the upper part. So I layed a piece of exam table over the quilt and drew a curve, erasing and redrawing until I got it to suit me. Then I removed the quilt and refined the curve, adding a second line to form the other edge. I added vertical sections and drew in triangles...geese.

Then I cut this into manageable sections and began paper piecing.

The narrow sections were the hardest, as the pieces were so small. Who thought this was a good idea? Hmmmm...yep, that would be me. sigh.

The wider areas went fast and were no problem.

After seveal days of working on this (on and off) the string of geese was complete!

Now it was time to trim the edges and remove the paper from the back...always fun!

I pinned the geese to the quilt top, auditioning fabrics to use along the edge. Initially, my plan was to put a narrow piping along the edge of the geese...this would make it easier to attacch to the base. I decided on a dark red/maroon fabric and cut a strip, slipping in behind the geese. Here it is only on one side, either the top or the bottom, depending on the curve, and it doesn't really go across the whole thing (it is just a sample).

I tried putting the strip along BOTH edges of the geese (far right).

This went on for hours...on with the strip of dark red...off with the strip...moving it here or there. Eventually, I decided I really preferred the geese WITHOUT the strip, so no piping will be added. That will make application a little tougher, but I can do it.

The bottom edge is NOT square but is curved...like a ~ (only backwards!). I did that on purpose, but will probably need to add a strip of temporary fabric to the bottom so I can square it off so that I can load it onto the quilting frame to quilt!

New Project

2011-08-18T01:03:00.001-05:00

While cleaning and sorting through my stuff, I came across a bundle of fabric that was purchased this year at Paducah. It was a roll of fabric that was in a brown paper sack and only the outer fabric was visible. Like buying a pig in a poke...

Anyway, I had purchased this bundle because the outer fabric was part of a collection I was using on a quilt and I had hoped it would have other pieces of the same collection inside. No such luck! but the fabrics were nice enough...just not part of the collection I had hoped for.

So I began looking at these fabrics...sorting and putting them in order. I noticed a bunch of oranges. Hmmmmm... Didn't I also have another bundle of orange strips that had been given to me? Yep. I pulled them out too and began cutting the strips into wedges.

I had purchased a box of wax paper sheets at my local Sam's Club...these are for wrapping deli sandwiches, but to me, they seemed perfect for paper/foundation piecing! I began sewing the wedges to the wax paper sheets, starting with the one pink fabric and moving to the more red colors before using the oranges.

Once completed, the first row looked like this:

For the second row, I decided to make it a bit scrappier, and intentionally mixed up the wedges so that I would NOT end up with a row of a single fabric across the 6 blocks (this later turned out to be a mistake, but I didn't now it then).

I pulled other fabrics out of my stash to be used also, transitioning from orange to browns then greens then blues.

After completion of the 3rd row, it looked like this:

As you can see, the blocks are not sewn together, but are just pinned to a cardboard cutting mat...I don't yet have a real design wall.

I wasn't exactly thrilled with the way this was looking....the browns were all jumbled up where they met the oranges... there was no smooth transition.

I rearranged some of the blocks in that second row. Hmmm.... ok, better, but still not great.

I decided to rip and rearrange some of the wedges on the lower portion of the second row...the browns...to make a better transition. So much for the 'scrappy' look that I had intentionally done! No, I was much more satisfied with the look when the pieces were placed according to choice (as opposed to randomly).

Now, this was better.

I began sewing the blues, although at this point, I kinda liked it 'as is'...without any blue... but I continued making blocks.

Once the entire 4th row was finished, I was glad I had continued...the blues looked good.

Now on to row 5! As I layed these out, again, I was tempted NOT to sew them, thinking it was good enough already. But the wedges were cut and layed out in order...I might as well sew them.

Once the 5th row was added, I was ok with the blues, but the 2nd row was still bothering me!

I finally decided to rip and rearrange several of those random oranges in that second row. Here you can see the before and after...not a huge difference, but I was more pleased. There was one particular orange fabric that seemed out of place, and it appeared in every blockk in the row. it was removed entirely.

The blocks on the left haven't been joined together yet, but the blocks on the right have, so that does make a little difference in how they look as well!

PLUS, on the right, you might notice that I added another pink as well as a pale lilac to the upper edge. The pink on the top really bothered me and I considered cutting it off, but then I decided what it really needed was MORE pink! I wish I had had a large piece of that lilac, but that was all I had. Perhaps I'll find more.

Once I was pleased with the blocks, I began joining them into columns. My original plan was to cut each block to the same size, and there would be horizontal as well as vertical seams between each block---but I ended up joining the blocks (vertically) using the wedge angles so the horizontal seams are not really visible... they look just like all the other wedge seams! The vertical seams that join each column will be visible, however.

Once the blocks were joined, the strips were trimmed along the edges to make each column the same width.

I joined the strips ONLY as far down as the 'horizon'...where the green fabric met the blue.

I wanted the blue area to have a straight horizontal seam, like the surface of the water, so I sewed the upper blocks together using the wedge angles UNTIL I came to the bottom of the green fabric. Then I squared off the lower edge.

The lower (blue) blocks were also joined to each other using the wedge angles. But I squared off the upper edge of the blue sections so that when the upper strip was sewn to the lower (blue) strip, each column would have a horizontal seam there. Then, when each completed column was sewn to the next, the horizontal seams created a 'water level'. Or at least, that was my plan!

Stay tuned for part two.

Tiered-Flounce Top

2011-08-10T20:20:00.009-05:00

This Spring I bought a top that I really liked. It was a tiered-flounce top from Coldwater Creek. It only came in two colors and I wasn't crazy about the other color they offered, so I decided to try to make myself another one by copying it. It seemed like it would be fairly easy to do...after all, it appeared that it was just a bunch of strips of fabric sewn to a knit base. Kinda.

For my base, I found a men's XL T-shirt that was willing to be sacrificed...I mean, 'improved'. I straightened it out and folded it in half lengthwise. Then I did the same to the flounce top, which I layed on top of the men's T-shirt, aligning the center folds. Then, using my rotary cutter, I cut all around the outside of the top, leaving about a .5" seam allowance. I wasn't exact.

I cut the neckline for the higher BACK neck, but drew on the front neck, to be cut later (single layer). I also marked where the tiers should go.

Then I put this new 'base' onto a doubled sheet of paper and cut it again, so I'd have a paper pattern. I used ONE of the copies to create the tiers...I cut it apart on the lines I had drawn. To add flare to the tiers, I just slashed each one in several places and spread them open as I layed them on the fabric...I didn't bother to insert paper into the openings, as this wasn't a top I planned to make more than once.

Here you can see where I have spread the top tier...the one that includes the neck and shoulders. I was really just guessing at how much I should add...I wasn't even sure the original was flared! But this one would be.

Before I started cutting fabric, I suspected that I wouldn't have enought fabric...actually, I KNEW I wouldn't have enough! But I cut anyway...as if cutting would somehow create MORE fabric!

duh...
Sure enough, there was not enough fabric to cut all the tiers.

I went back to the store where I'd bought the fabric originally, but it had been many months and I didn't hold out much hope.

They didn't have any more.
But they did have this black and white spotty print and it was kinda neat so I got some of that to mix in.

I used my serger to put a lettuce-edge on the tiers, and used my coverstitch machine to attach them to the base fabric. Once all the tiers were added to the front and all the tiers were added to the back, I sewed the front and back together.

The neck and armhole edges were turned and coverstitched. I did trim away the base fabric in the neck and armholes so it wouldn't get too thick there.

Taking pictures of this top has been a trial! I have tried several times, and have yet to get any good ones! Sigh. I'll just share these...

Changes in the Sewing Room

2011-08-04T12:20:00.010-05:00

Recently I have been doing some rearranging in my sewing room. I pushed my large cutting table off-center, toward the back wall.

I cleared out the pile of junk that had accumulated in the corner, and brought in a chair from another room.

The front wall, between the dormers, is completely void of furniture...the treadmill has been relocated as has the press.

The table that was under the window, which held the coverstitch machine, has been eliminated...it was just a card table and was always intended to be 'temporary', but at my house, 'temporary' sometimes is a long time! Now the coverstitch machine is sitting right beside my serger.

The whole wall is 'open' now...like a dance floor!

I removed all my fabric from these green cabinets and sorted through it... what I kept was rearranged/grouped and placed inside purchased bins for a neater appearance. The 'isle' between the cabinets and the cutting table is much narrower now, but I can still get the bins in and out, as well as open the doors on the island/cutting table and pull out the bins kept within.

I used to keep my ironing board right in front of the green cabinet, to the left of my sewing machine, so I could just pivot left and press when I was sewing. Now that the isle is narrower, I must find a new place for the ironing board!

The new light over the sewing machine is SO much brighter than the two mismatched lamps I had on my table before! I am no0t a huge fan of fluoroescent, but the light is bright and cool and it could be hung and plugged into an outlet. I REALLY wanted recessed lights, but that is a much bigger deal to provide!

So, "WHY," you ask, "are you doing all this rearranging?"

Because I have made a new purchase for the sewing room and it takes up space!

Yep, I got a long-arm quilting machine! Isn't that exciting? Well, it is to me! I have been dabbling with quilting for the last few years, and enjoy the piecing and designing but doing the actual quilting was always a challenge. Before, I have showed you the HandiQuilter frame that I was using with a Brother 1500 sewing machine...including the PVC handles I made to enable me to quilt from the front side.

But even with that set-up, I always dreaded the 'quilting' time, because I knew I would have trouble...skipped stitches, uneven stitch lengths, etc. It seemed to take forever to sew a tiny area.

Plus, the scale of the designs I could stitch was very small due to the size of the throat space on the machine.

So now, I can stitch larger designs!

I am still practicing, but am having fun!

I am now considering what lighting I will get for over the quilting machine. The fluorescent light made SO much difference over my sewing machine that I am considering getting a couple more to put over the longarm...but I hate the thought of all those cords and chains hanging down! But it is very apparent that I will have to get/make something...perhaps a light rail! :)

Summer Fun (?)

2011-07-04T20:12:00.017-05:00

I'd rather do anything than alterations.

I may have started out the month of July by playing, but I ended the month of June with alterations.

Sigh.

Now that my son has finished Pharmacy school (and passed his test, BTW...hooray!), he needs to wear the longer lab coats that signify that he is a doctor, as opposed to a student. But his body-shape is as hard to fit as mine is! He also has wide shoulders that are out of proportion with the rest of his frame.
Yep, to fit his shoulders, he must buy a size 48...yet his chest is really only 44". His hips are 41" and his waist is 34" (strange, but his numbers are curiously close to mine!).

The size 48 lab coat is NOT an athletic cut. Instead, it appears to be made for a big man. My son is not big...he just has broad shoulders. I did not go with him to shop for this coat (nor any previous lab coats)...there are people there who know how to fit a coat (or so one would think).

Anyway, the last time he bought a lab coat...the shorter, student version...they altered it for him. It was hilarious. Apparently, all they did is take a bunch of pleats through the back waist...released pleats sewn right through the back waist band, that, from the back, made it look like he was wearing a full skirt! He did NOT want it altered that way again and asked me to please adjust the new one for him.

How could I say no?

Please...tell me! I HATE alterations!

But I agreed and told him to bring it over...the night before we were leaving town for the lake!

He put it on and I pinched and pulled, pinning and letting him move...trying to figure out if there was any way to bring those huge armholes any closer to his body. His range of motion was inhibited by the armholes being too far out on his arm. The TOP of the armhole...the shoulder point...was in the right place, but the armholes angled outward at the bottom and his body angles inward there, putting the mid- and lower armhole out on his arm.

Eventually, I realized there was no way I could really tell what I needed to do without ripping out the sleeve.

So I did. That was a bit scary!

In this picture, I have pinned in (on his left side) the alterations I hoped to make...to the right in the picture (the arm holding the pin cushion)...and the other side is unchanged as of yet.

I have pinned out 1.5" inches of chest width at underarm level. I pivotted the existing armhole shape inward to this new chest width and redrew the armhole, then pinned the sleeve to that. at this point, I had not CUT anything. I could still put it back like it started out! But he liked it and wanted me to continue.

Although you cannot see a huge difference yet (because only one side is pinned yet), you CAN tell that the underarm area is higher and closer to his body. And he could FEEL a huge difference/improvement!

From the back, the pinned-underarm looks higher, but still not as close as we desired. However, the sleeves weren't enough too-long to enable me to reshape the sleeve cap into one that was flatter (like adding a cut-on gusset)...so I couldn't reshape the armhole too much and still reset that same sleeve.

In this picture, the (adjusted) left arm is on the left side of the picture (still holding the pin cushion).
Also notice that there are pins in the center back at waist. I decided to change that straight center back seam into a shaped center back seam.

Crazy, I know...

...but I needed to remove so much fullness at the waist, and taking it ALL from the sides impeded his arm movement. He NEEDED the extra body dart that a shaped back seam provides. So the back waist had to be nipped in, too. I was NOT looking forward to that, because there is an applied band across the back waist, as well as a vent at the hem!

I needed to take in the side seams all the way from underarm to hem...1.5" at underarm, 1.125" at waist, and .75" at hip/hem. Once I began, I realized there are also inseam pockets...well, not really pockets so much as openings to allow access to one's pant pockets. I had to rip and reposition those inward too! Nothing was simple.

Here's that pocket:

Here is the back...you can see the applied band across the back waist as well as the vent at the hem. Both had to be ripped and redone.

I ended up having to also rip out the entire HEM so I could take in both side seams and redo the vent!

Below, you can see how I reshaped the center back seam...I have drawn my new cutting line with a blue pen. I moved it inward .75" at the waist, continuing straight down at hip/hem. That removed 1.5" of excess waist fullness across the back.

The front armholes were not reshaped nearly as much as they needed to be, but I couldn't enlarge the sleeve head to fit a larger armhole, so I had to work with what I had. I just traced the original armhole, then pivoted it from the shoulder point until the underarm point was at the new chest-width point. The blue lines are my cutting lines...using 3/8" seam allowances.

The back armhole was also adjusted just as the front...by pivoting the original ah shape from the shoulder point.

Here you can see how much chest width I planned to remove at the sideseams at underarm. Removing 1.5" on each side takes out 6" total!

Once I got it all put back together (just about 10 pm!) he was pleased with the improved look. He had more arm mobility than he started with, but not as much as he'd have with a properly fitted coat. So, of course, he wants me to make him one!

We'll see...

A Tale of Three Tee Shirts

2011-06-02T23:38:00.016-05:00

It seems like every year when the weather begins to turn warmish, I start making knit tops. Generally, I use PMB, even though it is not designed for knit fabrics nor for dartless styles. But ever hopeful, I try again and again to modify the measurements and settings within the program, trying to produce the perfect knit top pattern.

Fast Forward: Earlier this Spring, Wild Ginger came out with a new pattern drafting program for knit fabrics, Pattern Master Knits. Well, duh…of course I had to get it!

I read the WG forum for a few weeks before I actually started using the knit program and learned which setting choices were being used by those who were having success with the new program. Eager for success, I drafted and printed a pattern.

For my first test top, I used some purple cotton interlock from my stash. I cut it out and quickly sewed the shoulders and sideseams, then tried it on. The shoulder angle seemed fine; the shoulder placement seemed fine; but I had the shoulders too wide and the CBL too long, AND, I felt like the sleeve cap was WAY too low...the sleeves were 'winging' out! (I had used +.75 for the cap height).

So I drafted a new pattern and recut the garment and tried again... reducing the shoulder width by .5” and the center back length by 0.5”; plus, I increased the cap height to 1.25”. Well, it was better…but then I thought that the underarm must be too high…the bodice was folding over, forming a pleat under my arms! Because the armhole was out on my arm...the bodice was encroaching on the sleeve's territory...I decided that I needed to reshape the F-ah by clicking downward about 10 clicks to scoop the lower front ah. So I made those changes within the drafter and reprinted and recut my top again. I continued to use the original fabric.

After sewing this new pattern, I began to think I should restore the wider shoulder I had originally started with!

Plus, in order to get enough front-length, I had to increase the CBL again…after reducing it before!...then move the shoulder-seam BACKWARDS (using the shoulder and neck-point settings) to put all the extra length into the front. There had been several updates to the program in the days/weeks between when I started on this top and when each iteration was done, and this made it hard to determine WHICH settings to use after each update! I was hopeful that, once Lisa (the programmer) got the bust-cup problem worked out, I would be able to get more front length without first adding to the back length (and eventually that WAS the case).

For all these patterns, I had used the NO DART option.

During the course of these trials, I also decided that the original shoulder angle was actually NOT fine as it drafted; even for a knit, the shoulder angle was way too steep for me. This seemed to be a common problem among the users, so in a subsequent update, Lisa added a shoulder height setting to allow the user to raise the shoulder tip on the front and back patterns. It's a good thing!

She also added a setting to allow forward-backward movement of the shoulder tip, to change the angle of the shoulder seam without moving the neck end. Another good thing!

Oh! The sleeves... As I said, I had read MANY posts on the forum to see what settings were working for the various people, and I read a post from tech support that said she was using a 2" cap height because she likes a higher cap. Well, the PM-KNITS program DOES draft with a really LOW cap height to start with, so I had also increased my cap height after that first iteration (where I had used +.75"...which, even at that, was 'raised' over the default cap height of 'zero'). I was using 2" cap height on my sleeves. Note: this is a clue to the eventual solution! :)

I was also aware that the back of the sleeve seemed to lay on my arm (a problem I have had before). I wondered if scooping the back armhole lower might be the key to getting a fuller back-half on the sleeve...?

By now, I was running out of this purple fabric...I only had enough scraps left to try ONE more set of short sleeves, still using the same bodice pieces which were getting shorter and shorter as I pulled them up at the shoulder to recut each time.

So, I decided to pull out a new fabric and try starting over! Based on my evaluation of the previous iteration of the purple top, I made various changes to my numbers and settings and set about drafting the new pattern for use with a pink floral fabric (which, BTW, I HAVE used before!).

On the purple top, the armhole seam was farther out on the arm than it should be, and the top felt kinda tight-ish across the high bust area. So, for this new pattern, in an attempt to reposition the armhole seam to get it OFF my arm, I had scooped the front armhole inward/ downward (using the armhole shape tool) and this made the length of the front armhole seam longer. When I added the sleeve, it was obviously wrong. The hem of this short sleeve was NOT level when viewed from the side. And like the others, arm movement pulled at the bodice.

Sigh.

Rotating and pinching and repinning and evaluating that sleeve, I could see that if I trimmed off 0.75" at the front of the sleeve, it would be more level.

But then I'd have to EASE the lower front armhole to the sleeve to control the size of that large front armhole.

I decide to look into using the DARTED style, instead of the no-dart one I had been using.

Here is the deal:
I had decided I needed more height in the front bodice, above armhole level, to eliminate that ‘armhole encroachment’ on the arm. So I ended up lengthening my CBL, (which lengthens both front and back, just as cup-size change does)...but then I used the tools to move the shoulder seam BACKWARDS. This put all the extra length into the front armhole.

But who wants a giant front armhole? Not me.
But I needed the height in the front pattern. Hmmm.

My solution for the giant armhole was to (manually) remove 0.75" off the front sleeve and then ease the front armhole to the lower front sleeve. It seemed to be the solution to the larger cup-size/big armhole issue, and it worked ok.

But that got me to thinking…If the sleeve I need should be .75" smaller in front, then the front armhole should also be .75" smaller…which just happens to be exactly what happens when I choose the DARTED version instead of the no-dart one!

So, rather than ease that extra fabric in the 'no-dart' style's front armhole to a modified sleeve, I decided that it would be better to use the DARTED STYLE and ease the fabric from the bust dart into the sideseam!

So I went back to the drawing board...drafting another new pattern.

I had been using the C-cup in my no-dart tops. For the darted top, I decided to use the D-cup draft, which produced a smaller front armhole than the C cup draft (bigger dart but smaller armhole).

*(Remember, this was early in the program's release, and the drafting bugs were still being worked out..however, 'we' the users, never know what will change in the future and what will stay as-is within the program, so I always assume that this is the way it will work and go from there. But since then, the cup/armhole issues HAVE been addressed/ changed since these patterns were drafted.)*

Ok, so I drafted with a D-cup and used the side bust dart. Better, but not perfect. There was still this weirdness at the front armhole. It didn't feel quite as tight across the high bust as the purple one did, but it still pulled with arm movement. For this one, I used a cap height of 1.25" and a D cup/darted. I also used the wider shoulders again...16.25" BSW.

To change from the no-darted bodice to the darted bodice required me to align the new pattern at the front armhole of the originally-cut bodice, since it was lower. This meant the top would end up shorter than originally cut out. This happened many times when I made changes...the overall length was variable according to what was originally cut out.

Determined to get these armholes and sleeves worked out, I decided to do some comparing…to see what numbers I would have to change to duplicate the fit of my last PMK top (the pink floral) but with a reduced dart size. I wanted the armholes to remain the same height as on that one, but I was willing to lose a little front length in order to make the bust dart smaller, as the gathers at sideseam seemed too apparent to me.

WELL, LO AND BEHOLD…after that April update was installed, all I had to do was change the bust-cup letter to get the desired changes! Apparently, going from C- to D-cup will no longer increase the back length! Yay!!! Only the front length was affected!!! This was gonna make drafting so much easier!

After the April meeting of the Memphis Sewing Guild, I came home motivated to sew! I removed the less-than-perfect sleeves from my very first PMK test top (purple cotton interlock) and recut the shoulders and armholes a little, cut new sleeves, and re-sewed. Better, but still, there was this 'pulling' at the front armhole. I have tried a higher ah, a lower ah, scooping and not scooping! Yet still, the bodice wants to encroach on the arm's territory, there in front where I move my arm. Rats!

I decided to do another top...not just new sleeves, but starting over! I created a pattern that 'scoops' the front armhole LOWER, not inward...then I cut and sewed that one from some periwinkle cotton interlock.

Again, the f-ah bugged me.

FINALLY, it hit me...perhaps the cap height of these sleeves is the problem!!!(?)

Because I had read on the forum that WG's tech support person was raising her cap height up to 2", I had been raising the cap height of all my sleeves to 1.5"...this made my sleeve's bicep line 'level' when viewed from the front (no 'winging' out), so I assumed that cap height was 'correct' for me.

But then I got to thinking...
Perhaps that bicep line NEEDS to be unlevel in a pattern where some of the bust dart is in the front armhole? Perhaps this armhole NEEDS a sleeve with a lowered cap height? Perhaps these sleeves were just too narrow across the sleeve cap, and THAT is why the bodice is out on the arm...it is being pulled there!

So, I cut and inserted some new sleeves into the periwinkle top, using a cap height of 'zero'.
Yuk...they looked awful and had lots of folds of excess fabric!

But the 'pulling' at the front armhole was gone!!! Yay!!!
So I removed those sleeves and cut/inserted more new sleeves, this time with a cap height of .75". Better!

These new sleeves still had some excess folds, but I had chosen the STRAIGHT underarm seam. If I use the tapered seam to make the hem more narrow, it did help control the excess and made the sleeve look better...but I knew I was going to make these short sleeves even shorter, manually curving the hem upwards in the middle...kinda cap-like. Doing that removed any traces of the excess folds! Hooray!

At this point I was thinking that some of that scooping that I did to the front armhole might NOT have been necessary! Sigh. But that couldn't be undone.

I made the shoulder width narrower than my usual for these...15.5". Even though it started out wider (16.25" ), all the various alterations I did to that first (purple) one caused it to get narrower across the shoulders (due to cutting off the top of the shoulder to lower it)...so I had to go with what I had when drafting new sleeves to fit that armhole.

Because I had run out of the purple fabric, I couldn't make a new set of sleeves with the proper (lower) cap height for that top. I was hoping I could perhaps cut up some of the rejected sleeves to create a set of petal sleeves, but alas...there just wasn't enough fabric there to be used. But I decided to go ahead and finish up this top and wear it, despite the fact that the armholes and sleeves aren't just what I'd like them to be. Knits are very forgiving!

I pulled some polka-dotted rayon challis from my stash and cut a bias strip to trim the neckline. I did a twisted binding on the scooped neck...I quite like it! My first time to try this.

Because the top had gotten shorter and shorter with each iteration, I sewed a band with ties to the lower edge instead of hemming it. I used the coverstitch machine to hem the sleeves.

Even though I wasn't thrilled with the pink floral, I decided to finish it and wear it, rather than take it apart and try to make improvements...I could improve on the next one! I cover-stitched the sleeves and hem, as well as the turned-under neck edge.

The periwinkle top was finished with a band of self-fabric at the neck, with cover-stitching at the sleeve and hem. But it looked so plain...so sporty. And it had gotten kinda short, too. There was nothing I could do about the short length, but to combat the plain-jane sporty look, I added folded flowers made from ovals of the cotton interlock along with some same-colored beads (both round and cubes). I like it a lot better now!

What did I learn?

Well, although the front armhole does need some reshaping, I did way too much. I can see (now) that lowering the sleeve cap height to +0.75" adds about the same amount of fabric to the front of my sleeve as I was scooping off the bodice at f-ah...and having that extra fabric on the sleeve would prevent the sleeve from pulling the bodice up there!

Also, when I overlay my F and B shoulder seams as if they were sewn (so that you can see the whole armhole shape), the armholes form a 'V' at the shoulder. I need to manually extend the shoulder seam to smooth the armhole curve. [I explored increasing the shoulder width measurement (which would extend the length of the shoulder seam) and reshaping the armhole with the tools, but I can see that I am better off leaving the BSW at 15.5" and manually redrawing the shoulder to add .375" at the tip (front and back), because the ah shape is just not right otherwise. This is easy to do, if I can only remember to do it! And actually, 15.5 is what my BSW *actually* measures if I measure as directed in the guide...straight across at the top of the back shoulder. That doesn't account for my shoulder blades, but it is a 'real' measurement!]

Over and over, I have increased the cap height to correct the hang of my sleeves, both in PMB and in PMK. But if I just extend the shoulder tip (manually) to eliminate that little V that forms, the sleeve won't have to reach up so far and I won't need a taller cap! If only I could go back to the very first iteration, where I actually started with a cap height of 0.75"!!! Sigh. Although, that one had other issues...

I think I like the waist higher than usual on my knit tops, which means using a reduced CBL.

And finally, I have learned that it is really hard to remember what I did when I wait so long to blog about it!

Although these tops were really 'lemons', I made lemonade of them all and do wear them in public!

And if you made it to the end of this very long post, then THANK YOU very much!

Come Hell or High Water?

2011-05-13T17:32:00.003-05:00

Today DH and I played tourist. We drove down to the river, which is about 20 miles from our home, and walked beside the submerged Mississippi River Greenbelt Park on Mud Island. The water actually crested on Tuesday morning (3 days ago) and has dropped about a foot since then. But it is still about 13 feet ABOVE flood stage!

There is a road that runs north and south on the island. The city of Memphis dumped/piled sand and gravel on the two lanes on the river side of this road, just in case the water rose enough to cover the road. The northern end of this road has been underwater for about a week, so presently, this southern end is the only access on and off the island, where many people live.

Above, I am standing on the driveway to one of the parking areas, which is submerged behind me.

Below, water, water everywhere!

Looking north along the ridge, you can see the driftwood that was deposited in previous days when the water was higher. Amazing how much stuff there is floating in that water!

The trees in the distance that are sticking up out of the water are pretty close to where the usual river bank is. Beyond that is the actual river channel.

The knit top I am wearing in these pictures is one that was recently made using my new drafting softward (Pattern Master Knits by Wild Ginger). I'll tell you more about this one as well as a couple of other tops in my next post.

Just trying to give a bit of perspective, but these pictures don't do any kind of justice to the magnitude of the flood. This water is lapping at the bank like the ocean on the beach! Farther toward the bridge (background), there were white caps!

We drove around to the Harbor side of the island to see how things looked. Above you can see the harbor between the island and the city of Memphis, as well as the bridge that provides access to Mud Island. The Pyramid is just on the other side of this bridge. Of course, with no knowledge of what this SHOULD look like, you probably don't appreciate how high this water is. But a few days ago, this parking lot was also flooded.

Here, you can see the debris on the side of the house, marking a previous water line from when the water crested. Normally, this home on the harbor side of the island is a bit farther from the water than it currently is!

These condos on the opposite side of the parking lot have placed a wall of sandbags all along the garages in an attempt to keep the homes dry. I hope it worked!

We enjoyed our walk, followed by lunch at Tugs, a restaurant in the Harbor Town area, also on the island.

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-07T21:12:00.012-05:00

Whether you ARE a mother, or have a mother, or have had a mother,
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

I decided to go 'green' for Mom's gift this year:

I recycled a NIKE paper bag to use for the gift wrap, using bits of tissue paper and fabric to cover (somewhat) the Nike symbol in the lower corner. I wrapped the handle with fabric and added wooden beads to the ends.

For her gift, I decided to make a pair of pot holders, similar to the ones I made Joyce just a couple of weeks ago.

I like making gifts for people.

I tend to think about that person during the time that I am working.

Yes, I could go out and BUY a gift in much less time, but that is much less personal.

This time, I used the Insul-Bright that I had purchased at the quilt show in Paducah last month. Even though this 'batting' is supposed to prevent the heat from reaching your hand, you STILL have to add a second layer of cotton batting on the heat side of the holder, so the Insul-Bright will not come in contact with the hottest heat. I am wondering if just using cotton batting and flannel isn't just as good (?).

I layered one piece of the Insul-Brite and one layer of cotton batting between two layers of batik fabric. I had fused a leaf cut-out onto the top layer.

Before I stitched the layers together, I decided to satin stitch around each leaf first.
Then I put the layers together and used a 3-step straight stitch to do the veins.

Next, I stitched over the original leaf outlines again; this made the satin stitching fuller and quilted the layers together.

Then, like before, I cut this 'sandwich' to the desired shape and stitched a folded bias strip around the edge. I stopped the stitching just as I reached the original, so I could fold the underlayer over to the front.

To finish that cut end, I folded over about 3/4" and pressed it before folding it back in half.

Then I pressed that 1/4" seam allowance down.

Lastly, the loop extension was pressed in half...no raw edges.

While this worked really well at eliminating raw edges, it was a bear to sew across all those thicknesses to stitch down the loop!

But the end result turned out really well.

I think I might like these even better than the first ones I made!

Shhh! Don't tell Joyce...

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! :)

Pot Holders for Joyce

2011-04-30T11:08:00.015-05:00

My friend, Joyce, showed me her favorite pot holder which was quickly wearing out. She had looked for replacements, but was unable to find anything made like this one, which was just perfect for her. It fit her hand well and was flexible enough to easily grasp pots. She wondered if I could possibly make her a new one...? I decided to try.

The back of her pot holder was a single layer of a terrycloth-type fabric; the front was a twill.

Finding the right fabrics to use proved harder than I had expected. After weeks of procrastination, I finally decided to buy some cheap washcloths to use for the back and just use quilting cotton for the front.

I was concerned about what to use for the inside. I had heard of Insul-Bright, but didn't have any. But knowing that people have been making pot holders for a long time before that was invented, I decided it wasn't a requirement. So--- I used one layer of cotton batting sandwiched between two layers of cotton flannel. I put all this between two layers of green mottled fabric and did a bit of free-motion quilting to hold all the layers together. I didn't want it to get too stiff, as Joyce had been very clear about the reasons why she liked the old pot holders, and the flexibility of the fabric was way up there on the list!

I cut two wash cloths in half, then attached a folded strip of bias-cut fabric to each cut edge.

Then I folded the bias binding over the edge and stitched it down by machine to conpletely enclose the cut edge of the washcloth.

Next, I drew a free-form design on the now-quilted fabric layer and cut it out.

I put the washcloth over the quilted piece with the bound edge at the center...sort of! I added about .5" ease to this edge; it would extend beyond the center if smoothed flat, or would stick up above the surface. I wanted this back layer to be larger than the front (quilted) layer so it would be large enough to go over the hand without causing the front layer to bend backwards (toward the hand). Likewise, as I pinned around the edge of the quilted layer, I scooted the washcloth to add ease to this outer edge, too.

When turned over, you can see the washcloth appears to have 'ease' around the outer edge of the piece. Then I repeated with the second half of the washcloth...pinning it in place.

When both sides were pinned, I took it to the sewing machine to sew around the outside edge.

Here, you see the piece after sewing, but before trimming. Hopefully, you can see what I mean about the washcloth side being larger than the quilted side!

I flipped it over and trimmed away the excess wash cloth.

Now for the binding: I sewed the folded bias strip to the BACK side along the outer edge of the pot holder, leaving a 4" tail at the end.

Then I folded the bias binding over and stitched again from the front side, creating a loop at the end.
THe front and back sides:

Here is a close-up of the loop...I turned the raw edge to the inside before I stitched the binding to the front side (when I continued the stitching onto the loop part)...then I just stitched across the loop to hold it down.

As a side note: Since finishing these, I have purchased some Insul-Bright but have yet to use it. Apparently, one is supposed to use cotton batting along with it...cotton on each side for a total of 3 layers...which would make the pot holders quite stiff, I think. But I'll let you know after I try it!

Fixing PMB's 2pc sleeve

2011-03-31T17:39:00.009-05:00

In PMB, I chose the 2pc sleeve.

I kept the HEM CIRCUMFERENCE at 8" to get the maximum cap width and elbow width. Drafting a wider hem will make the cap more narrow.

I used ZERO CAP HEIGHT, hoping to eliminate folds in the back sleeve cap.

To get a bigger BACK CAP AREA, I chose ARMSCYE UNSEWN as the back dart position, but DID NOT use that on the bodice.

This is how the sleeve pattern looked:

To begin, I located a point on the underarm 'arc' that was 1.5" from the notch that represents the sideseam...the UnderArm notch.

I cut the arc on that new point and moved the lateral portion to the front of the Oversleeve. I also extended the HEM LINES on both pieces to get my desired hem circumference.

Actually, my instructions are on each picture, so perhaps a picture really is worth a thousand words?

Square Peg, Round Hole, part 4

2011-03-09T00:25:00.000-06:00

After washing the quilt, I was pleasantly surprised that the bleeding had indeed disappeared! But the quilt had shrunk a bit. So I had to stretch it out and block it into shape.

This quilt is slightly wider than my cutting table. I pulled out one of those cardboard cutting mats...the kind that you can buy in your local fabric store...and put this on top of my cutting table. I used clamps to firmly attach the mat to the table on one side. This way, I could pin my quilt to this mat to block it.

But the quilt was WIDER than this cardboard mat. So I pushed my ironing board up against the table and pinned the opposite side of the quilt into the ironing surface. Not high-tech, but it worked to allow me to pin this quilt into size/shape and keep it there until it dried.

At this point, I r.e.a.l.l.y wanted to be finished with this quilt but I knew I had to continue as planned and couch on this black sparkley thread that had been patiently waiting for its turn to shine.

Using a needle-threader and needle enabled me to bury the ends of this thread into the quilt before couching it. I cut long lengths and layed them approximately in place and used the needle to run both ends of the thread into the quilt surface, leaving long tails sticking out at each end. These were cut off after couching that thread.

Then I used a narrow zigzag stitch on my regular sewing machine to couch over the thread.

I covered every seam of the checkerboard with this couched thread...between each wedge and around each concentric circle. I also used it around the golden center circle (with the nipple).

It was hard to handle this heavy quilt on my sewing machine at first, but then I had an idea. I ran down to the garage and pulled out a pair of clean garden gloves that had a rubbery-grippy palmar surface.

These gloves worked GREAT for manipulating the quilt under the machine! I was better able to pull the surface taute so the decorative thread would lay in the seam...plus, the gloves helped me to assist the feeding of the quilt under the machine.

Yeah, I did have to pull them off each time I needed to cut with scissors or thread a new length of the decorative thread onto the needle, but even with the repeated on and off, the gloves were a big help!

So that is pretty much every single detail I can think of regarding the creation of this quilt! Too much info, maybe?

The end. Maybe. ;)

Square Peg, Round Hole, part 3

2011-03-07T16:19:00.000-06:00

After adding the background to the checkerboard area, I also cut and added the borders. The challenge rules stated that there HAD to be an outer black border that measured 3" wide...then a 1.5" border that was one of your colors...then a 3/4" border that was also black. This way, ALL the quilts would have the same 'frame'.

I had already quilted the majority of my quilt, but had yet to decide how to quilt the borders. I removed the quilt from the frame and layed it on my cutting table to audition various designs. I folded paper and cut curves, then unfolded to see what it looked like. I decided this one would work.

So I unrolled some freezer paper to a length that was as long as my quilt and cut strips from it that were as wide as the outer border.

After drawing the design onto one strip of the freezer paper, I used the tip of the iron to stick two strips together, so that I could cut two at a time.

I only pressed the strips together in the areas OUTSIDE my design area...in the waste.

When all the sides were cut, I ironed the freezer paper templates to the quilt border all around.

Then I put the quilt back on the HandiQuilter frame to quilt the border area.

I stitched around the paper templates first, then tore them away a little at a time to do the stippling. I found I could stipple more easily once the paper was removed, and by then, it was no longer needed.

I have never used this method before, but it worked well, and if I am not too stupid to remember it, I will do this again!

I DO wish I had used double batting, though, to give a bit more of a 'trapunto' effect. Next time.

Now the quilting was done! But remember, ONE of my indigo fabrics had bled onto the adjacent goldenrod fabric, so I knew I had to wash this quilt to hopefully rescue it!

As you can see, the center had not yet been added to the checkerboard. I didn't want to add that until AFTER I had washed the quilt.

I put on the binding and prepared to toss this into the washer, not sure what it would look like when it came out!

Here you can see some of the quilting BEFORE it was washed. It was kinda lumpy.

Below is the back-side of the border area before washing. Remember? There are white pokies here, where the batting poked through the back fabric.

I knew I had to throw this in the wash, but I didn't want to add the center piece (the square peg) until AFTER washing it, so I just scabbed-on a lovely black and pink scrap to protect the exposed batting in this area.

This black/pink piece would be removed after washing and replaced with the golden nipple...I mean, 'square peg in the round hole'.

This is what it looked like as I prepared myself (mentally) to toss it into the washer, hoping the bleeding would not be made worse, and hoping the blue lines would come out.

Up close, you can see the blue lines that I had drawn on the fabric to direct me in my quilting...and if you look closely, you can see where the blue fabric has bled onto the yellow fabric in those two inner rings.

This is the back of the quilt, before washing but after the binding was put on.

Then I washed it...

Square Peg, Round Hole, part 2

2011-03-05T23:15:00.005-06:00

I narrowed down my fabric selection to just these fabrics. Yes, there was still SOME variation in value within many of these, but I was hoping that in the end, the fabrics would read as being the same as my crayon colors.

I cut graduated chunks of each color as I wanted them to appear in the expanding checkerboard, and used hair clips to bundle these chunks together in order.

When unbundled, below is how the fabric looked when layed out in the order to be sewn. I call these 'chunks' because they were not always squares...some were the same length as width, but some were not.

When sewing these together, I just matched the center of each square to its neighbor's center, but since each one was larger than the one before it, the edges do not match along the sides.

After pressing the assembled sets, I used a 9-degree ruler to trim each set into a wedge. As you can see, there was very little wasted fabric.

Still fretting over some of my fabric choices, I was aware that there were some blue dots in one fabric that might be interpretted as a little too 'turquois'...and NOT as indigo...so I used a permanent marker to color these dots purple, which was my complementary color choice.

After cutting all 40 wedges to size and coloring in all mis-colored dots, I was ready to assemble the wedges into a checkerboard. I layed them all out on my cutting table and just picked them up two at a time and sewed them in order.

Once all the wedges were connected, I 'squared' off the corner using my rotary cutter and ruler. Again, you can see that there was very little waste. That was by design!

Next I slipped a solid(-ish) fabric under the edge of this part-circle and drew around the outer edge of the checkerboard. Then I drew another line that was 0.5" away from this first line and cut on that line...this gave me enough extra fabric for 2 seam allowances. Then I pinned and sewed this checkerboard to the solid background, which was also trimmed to size.

Next, I added the borders...

Square Peg, Round Hole, part 1

2011-02-23T22:55:00.012-06:00

At the late-September meeting of our quilt guild, we drew 3 crayons from paper bags which were to determine the colors for our quilt. As luck would have it, I was going with the Memphis Sewing Guild on a day-trip to Paducah in mid-October! I took my crayons along and scoured the isles of Hancock's of Paducah for any fabrics that matched my crayon colors. I scored big! I wasn't sure what I would make yet, but I had the fabrics!

Then, at the next few meetings, the rules were clarified a little...we were NOT to use lighter or darker values of our crayon...this was about saturation. There was some leeway as to hue...like, if we drew a red crayon, we could use orange-reds and bluer reds, but not pink or maroon. Don't go lighter or darker...try to match. Hmmmm.... The stripes were ruled out, as they had large amounts of the lighter value. Rats! Actually, I was worried that MANY of my fabrics would be deemed unacceptable!

I had already begun thinking I would do an expanding checkerboard design, but when I realized my fabric choices were growing smaller, I decided to try other designs.

I considered doing a play on boxes...and this is where the original 'peg' was born.

But this design really didn't trip my trigger! It was as if I was married to the idea of the expanding checkerboard...I couldn't fall in love with anything else! So I picked out SOME of the fabrics that I thought would pass and went back to the idea I liked best!

But I DID like the 3-D element I had created for the 'box' quilt.... the 'peg', or 'nipple' as we like to call it around here! ;) The expanding checkerboard would need a center circle, so I decided I could still use this 'box' idea, but make it circular instead!

Also, I made that first box (above) 1" tall and deep and wide. One inch is the maximum amount any embellishment can protrude from the quilt suface. I was afraid that the box might bulge a little after stuffing, so I reduced the size of the next one to 3/4" high by 3/4" deep by 3/4" wide. This way, even if it bulges a little, it will still be within limits.

To create the box pattern, I used the CAD portion of my pattern-drafting software (the Pattern Editor of Patternmaster Boutique). But any cad program would work...turbo cad, whatever.

I first drew the overall square to the size I wanted, then placed the 1" box in the middle. Then I made it 3-D and added seam allowances.

Below, you see the start of the square one, but the finished pattern is the round one...only the outer shape is different.
I fused interfacing to the back of my fabric and cut these pieces out. After sewing, pressing, and clipping the corners, the inside looked like this:

I didn't want this little box to collapse or become misshapened once it leaves my hands, so I needed to find a way to stuff it securely. My friend, Linda Wilson, suggested I use felt. Perfect! I cut 3/4" x 3/4" squares of acrylic felt and ran a needle with thread through them several times until they were stable.

I stuffed the felt stack into the box and grabbed 3 layers of batting...I wanted this area to be a little fuller than the rest of the quilt. I stipple-quilted this area on my sewing machine, getting as close to the nipple as I could (yes, by now I was calling it a nipple!).

When I was finished, I trimmed the batting around the edges, then began turning under the outer edges so I could applique this onto the quilt. Well, duh, it is way too thick around the edges! What was I thinking, using 3 layers of cotton batting and taking them all the way out? I had to start over!

So I cut new nipple pieces and new felt squares and batting...and put together another nipple. But this time, I used only 2 layers of batting...one was smaller than the other, and the larger one was stopped about 1" from the outside edge. When I quilted it, I stopped the stippling where the batting stopped.

Below, you can see my nipple collection! The original square one, the newest one with pins, plus the too-thick one, which, BTW, makes a great Frisbee! That sucker will fly across the room better (and more level!) than any plastic Frisbee I have!

Before I sewed the new nipple to the quilt, I added the ring with the bead. I used a monofilament dental-floss threader and ran it through the golden earring (with the ear wire removed) and used it like a needle-threader: I put thread through the loop then pulled the thread through the ring. Then I put sewing needles onto the ends of the thread that was sticking out each end of the ring, and pierced the nipple, stitching through the felt stack and tying the threads securely on the back.

Now the new-and-improved nipple was pinned onto the center of the expanding checkerboard and I stippled around the outer 1" to secure it.

But there was a visible ridge at the edge of the batting that bothered me. I needed to soften that ridge...so French knots it is! I did a series of knots around the outer part of the batting area.

This is looking more and more 'anatomically correct'! My DD calls the French knots the 'no-slip grips'...a term that was new to me, but I liked it!

More later, so check back!

Square Peg, Round Hole

2011-02-22T22:41:00.011-06:00

Today is the day...the challenge quilts were presented and voted on, to decide WHICH 8 quilts would represent our guild at the AQS Ultimate Guild Challenge in Knoxville. And once again, my quilt was chosen! Yea!!!

I even won a prize for Viewer's Choice:
this lovely crayon toothbrush set! :)

As you may remember, we blindly chose 3 crayons, which would determine the colors for our quilt. We could also use black, plus the complementary color of any ONE of our crayons, for a total of 5 colors.

My crayon colors were:

Goldenrod (light)

Tumbleweed (medium)

Indigo (dark)

As a complement, I chose Purple.

I decided on an expanding checkerboard design, with a twist.

This is my challenge quilt, 'Square Peg, Round Hole'.

Yes, that is a broom handle and duct tape loops that are holding it up!

Ok, so maybe quilt display is not my best skill...

The challenge rules stated that the quilt HAD to have at least one bead or button as embellishment.

So I put a single bead on a gold ring.

And I put this gold ring through my square peg.

To add a bit of texture, I also did a series of French knots around the outer area of the 'round hole'.

I couched on some sparkly black thread over all the seams.

I'll go into more detail in my next post, and show you how I made this quilt.

Jeanie Velarde made the participation ribbons...isn't this cute?

The next big thing...

2011-02-18T13:10:00.004-06:00

OK, maybe that is not really the best way to describe my clothing!

But, yeah, I am once again working on a GARMENT! Yay!
It has been a while since I worked on any clothing, as my time has been spent on other fiber projects. But my 'challenge' quilt is finished now; I have LOTS of fabric for garments, and my wardrobe is sorely in need!

I drafted my pattern using my PMB software, then decided I would TRY the banner printing feature.

Back when I was using Windows XP and earlier OS, I always printed my patterns 'banner style'...long strips of fan-fold paper than were then taped or glued side-by-side to create a full-size pattern.

But with the acquisition of Vista, my ability to print 'banner style' disappeared, even though I was using the same printer as before.

I have been using Windows7 for a while now and hadn't even thought to look for the banner ability, but recently discovered it WAS once again listed on my printer's settings. So I decided to give it a try.

At first, I was thrilled!!! The pattern was printing just as it should! I was so excited I grabbed the camera! :)

But then it began skipping sections...it would print registration marks and skip 2 inches, then print new registration marks and continue the pattern lines. What the...?

Sometimes it just omitted the vertical lines altogether.
Sometimes it printed the top half of a waist dart, but not the bottom half.

Then I ran out of ink.

Are you believing this? Apparently, my plan to print, cut and sew a blouse to wear the following evening was a pipe dream! sigh.

A new ink cartridge was the easy fix for one issue, but still, the banner-style print option refused to play fair! It printed a column of 3 pages for the right side of a sleeve just fine...but then totally screwed up the column of pages for the left side of the sleeve...printed part of the slleve cap, then skipped a page and a half before making a few diagonal lines!

In the end, I went back to printing individual pages for the sleeve, so I could tape them together and just move on. Eventually I may investigate this further, but my goal was to SEW...not troubleshoot the printer.

That was yesterday.

Today, I have cut-out the fronts and backs and am in the process of sewing the darts.

As you can see here, I hand-basted a dark thread across the waistline, so I can evaluate the F-B balance of the pattern without actually drawing lines on this.

I suspect that the level of the bust will need to be changed, because I made some changes to the neck/shoulder area...I am using V5 now, and this is my first garment with this version.

Previous to this one, I was using V4.

Wild Ginger made a few changes to the draft in this new version, and those changes primarily affect the neck and shoulder area.

In order to draft a pattern where the front and back NECK WIDTHS are equal, one must have nearly identical shoulder angles on the front and back patterns. That has not been the case with former versions, and was not usually the case with my patterns, as I have forward shoulders and erect head carriage...which means my shoulder point is more forward on my body than my neck/shoulder point.

But for V5 to work, I have to move the neck/shoulder point more forward, to keep it in balance with the shoulder point.

The bust level is measured from the neck/shoulder point.

Moving that nk/shp forward on my body means the distance to bust level will be different than it was before, when measured to a more-posteriorly located landmark.

So I am about to BASTE those front darts so I can try this on, and see just how much I will need to move the dart up...(if any).

Snow day

2011-02-10T13:55:00.008-06:00

Yesterday we were once again beset by accumulating snowfall, an event which is not all that common here in southwest Tennessee...although this year has NOT be the norm! Like much of the rest of the country, we seem to be getting more than our usual flurries!

I generally stay home when it snows, as we don't have snow plows here...the snow melts and refreezes on the streets, making driving an unofficial demolition derby.
I am not into that.

I have been spending my snow days cleaning up my sewing room! Earlier this week, I finished the challenge quilt...well, all but putting the label on back...so I figured this was a good time to clean up before I started any new projects. I have accumulated mulitple 'piles' of stuff on every horizontal surface...including the floor! This is NOT conducive to creativity!!!

But as is typical of my projects, this one has grown beyond the initial scope. As I look for places to put the 'can't-do-without' stuff that has been piled up in the room, I find myself also reorganizing closets and cabinets, deciding what I can give away to make room for those other 'precious' things. It's a vicious circle! Clear off the table, then immediately cover it with more stuff! I hate looking in there!

I am making progress, though! I went through all my old patterns (self-drafted with PMB) and tossed out MANY that I know I will never make again. This alone made a huge difference, and was really the goal when this began! I had patterns hanging on the outside of the closet door, because the inside was already so full! I have whittled the pattern supply down to a manageable number, and now they ALL fit inside the closet! Yea! They generally hang on the inside of the closet door, as you can see in this picture. When the door is closed, you don't see them. That's the way...uh huh, uh huh...I like it...uh huh, uh huh!

I'm also sorting through various other crafting projects, trying to decide which should remain in the sewing room and which could live elsewhere. But this means I am opening closets in OTHER rooms, looking for available space. And oh, how distracting that is! After a few minutes, I realize I am now cleaning out a close in a different room! That is NOT today's task...I must focus!!!

One of the things I really need is book/magazine storage. I have lots of those piled up around, and have still not quite decided how I will organize and store those. I have some ideas, but am still thinking. I intend to do some remodelling in this room and put built-in cabinets in the front knee-wall between the dormers (left of treadmill in this picture--not shown), which will help. But that isn't done yet and I need to find adequate storage in the meantime.

Well, break time is over...I better get back to it!

Success!

2011-02-01T13:04:00.007-06:00

"There's no such thing as a failure who keeps trying; coasting near the bottom is the only disgrace."

I love this sentiment, lyrics from the song, 'JUST WAIT' by Blues Traveler.

By this measure...in spite of my best attempts...so far, I am not a failure where this quilt is concerned! The blue lines and bleeding DID come out in the wash! Yea!!!

Look at these Color Catchers. The 3 darkest ones on the left were in the initial wash. When it was finished, I removed them and tossed in 4 new ones, then selected a Rinse~n~Spin cycle with an extended rinse. These are the 4 on the right. They were still blue, but much less dark. I was afraid to put the quilt through yet another cycle...I don't want to wear it out before it is ever finished!

I had another major scare when I removed this from the washer. Even though the washing did its job, the quilt was now much smaller! Yikes! This is a 'challenge' quilt, and to qualify, it has to meet all the criteria of the challenge, including SIZE.

I quickly spread it out on the sewing table and began measuring...sure enough, it was too small. But I could pull it and stretch it back out...block it. I was hopeful but not confident.

PLUS, I wanted to dry it in the dryer just a little while, to kinda get the outer fabrics dry enough that no more bleeding would occur (just in case!). So I went ahead and tossed it into the dryer on med-low heat...for about 10 minutes. Then I took it out of the dryer and began smoothing and coaxing it into shape on the table, pinning it to a mat and stretching, then moving the pins and smoothing/stretching some more. When I left it last night, it was pinned out squarely...diagonal corners measured equally...and it was overall big enough to meet the challenge! Whew!

Now that it is dry, it is time to begin work again...my plan for today is to couch on some threads.

Crossing fingers (except when sewing!)...

It's in the washer!

2011-01-31T19:42:00.002-06:00

Today I finished hand-sewing the binding on the challenge quilt.

I tossed it into the washing machine along with 3 Color Catcher sheets.

It is VERY nerve-wracking to watch all your hard work being sprayed with soapy water and being forcibly tumbled around the drum! I cannot help but wonder what condition this will be in when it comes out!

Half-way through the cycle, I looked inside to find that the color catchers were completely blue! Oh dear...I should have used more. MANY more! But it is in the rinse cycle now...so I will wait until it is finished and perhaps do another rinse~n~spin with a few more color catchers in there...then I'll take it out for drying/blocking.

Cross your fingers! (Yikes!!!)

Making Progress

2011-01-28T16:43:00.004-06:00

Since I haven't been whining each day about my quilting problems, you probably figured out that I was busily stitching!

Yep.

I am using a size 18 needle.

There is still some poke-through of the batting to the backside, as seen here, but I will have to live with that.

I am ready to cut and apply the binding. After that, I'll be able to toss this whole thing into the washer, to wash away the markings I drew with the wash-away marker, and also, to see if I can resolve the earlier problem where my indigo fabric bled onto the adjacent goldenrod fabric. I bought some COLOR CATCHER to throw into the wash and I am hoping that will prevent the excess dye from settling where it shouldn't.

I am not sure what is causing the batting to poke-through.

The batting is Warm and White.
I did use the (previously mentioned) basting spray to hold the layers together, and...
I am using the size 18 needle. The larger needle is needed to penetrate the batiks on the face, but the backing fabric is not tightly woven like the batiks. Perhaps that is the problem...perhaps the backing needs to be more similar to the face fabric!

In any event, I am hoping that everything will come out in the wash...that the little specks of batting will 'disappear' from the back, the blue lines will disappear, and the indigo bleed will be a thing of the past!

Love Letter to Liz

2011-01-22T16:48:00.004-06:00

a.k.a. 'Hooray, My Quilting Has Improved!

A big thanks to Liz A. for all the tips and advice she has offered.

While I cannot undo the spray basting on this one, I will NOT use it on the next one.

But her best advice for me was the "permission" to use a size 18 needle!

I would NEVER have seriously considered this, as it just seems too big...I rarely use a 16, let alone an 18. I didn't even have any!

I ran out today and got a pack of 18's...although they aren't titanium (I don't think they are, anyway) but they are "universal". I popped one in and started sewing.

Things went just fine.
I kept waiting for the thread to pop...nothing.
Then I got into the thick area where the seam allowances are.
There was a slightly different sound, but the stitches held...NO SKIPPING!!!
I am blown away!
And so happy!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, LIZ!

Quilting Advice

2011-01-21T15:04:00.024-06:00

I received several helpful comments on my last post and answered several of them in the comments there. But rather than answer another one in the coments, I decided that since the conversation was a bit long, I might as well post it here!

Liz A. commented:

>>are you using batiks? I've found that the tighter weave of the batiks tend to cause me to have some issues when quilting them. I usually use a larger needle.<<

Liz, with your batiks, do you use a needle larger than a 100/16?

I considered trying an 18, but I don't have that size on hand...not sure they are even available locally!

I DID look around and I found a small package of ORGAN needles, so I pulled out a size 100/16 to compare and try.

The Schmetz Topstitching needle was actually a tiny bit longer than the Organ, and the eye was much larger.

I turned both needles sideways and poked them through a small piece of fabric to hold them in a position to allow a side-view.

It seems that the Schmetz needle has a larger, deeper scarf on the back...hard to evaluate for sure. I am not sure what that means...perhaps the smaller scarf would be less likely to skip?

Who knows.

So I put in the Organ needle and tried it.

This needle made absolutely NO DIFFERENCE as far as I could tell. So I went back to the Schmetz needle with the larger eye.

>>I also like Superior Threads So Fine on batiks.<<

The Superior Threads So Fine...what size is that? So far, I have had the best luck with Gutterman Cotton thread, which is 50 wt. (the C~n~C polyester thread I tried was 40 wt.). My mind tells me I want to be using a larger thread so the work will show...but maybe not?

>>as for how taut your quilt should be on the frame, we generally say you should be able to grab your fingertip when poked from underneath. on batiks this is especially important. you don't want to be able to bounce a coin off the top -- that's way too tight. <<

Thanks! I need a guideline/rule of thumb, and this will help.

>>also, is it better going one direction than the other? sometimes some threads will only seem to quilt going from left to right and break when going other directions.<<

Yes!!! Yes, definitely the breaking thread is more likely going backwards and away from me. I am not sure about the skipped stitches though. I kind of think the larger needle is breaking the thread, but the larger needle is needed to pierce all the layers!

>>if you're using a very thin batt AND used batting spray, it could possibly be contributing to the problem. the thicker batts help give the batting spray someplace to go as the needle goes thru. I've had some brands gum up my needle and others not back when I used basting sprays and my sewing machine to quilt.<<

I definitely think the basting is a contributing factor to the skipping stitches, at the very least! I have used this basting spray before, but this time, I was on the phone with my daughter while layering the quilt, and was distracted from the task at hand. Suddenly I realized that I might be using way too much of this spray...but by then, the deed was done. It is wise to pay attention to what you are doing! duh...

I think the basting spray is making the needle and thread "lift" the quilt as the needle comes up and out of the fabric, which causes the skipped stitches. I could be wrong, but that seems likely.

The fact that the problem is worse in some areas of the quilt than in others also makes me suspect the spray...as I most certainly sprayed some areas heavier than others.

And the issue I mentioned about the needle poking the batting out on the backside of the quilt ONLY happened when I used the polyester thread. As soon as I changed to the cotton thread, this issue stopped completely! Now, occasionally, I started getting a little timy bit of batting being pulled UP to the top of the quilt, but as soon as I used some of the Sewer's Aid, as Etta suggested, that stopped.

>> if you're using your handiquilter, you shouldn't be using a basting spray.<<

I know...(grin)...but remember, my HQ is only a 'frame', not a quilting machine. I use a Brother PQ1500S mounted on the HQ frame...and this is a SHORT ARM machine. So, if I want to do any anything other than 'channels' or a narrow panotograph, I must stop stitching with the needle down (in the quilt) and roll the whole thing back and forth to do larger designs/areas. I was afraid that with all this repositioning back and forth, the batting would not lie smoothly, since it is just 'floated' between the layers. So, using the spray basting was my answer to doing larger areas and still keep the sandwich nice and smooth.

Basically, I put the layers together, then mount the quilt sandwich to only 2 of the 3 rails, one on each side, so I can roll it back and forth as I need to.

This quilt is not a bed-sized one...it is 48" by 58"...for the wall. I wouldn't try to do this with a large bed quilt...I would just stitch smaller designs! I think...

On Wednesday, I did finally make enough progress on the stitching so as to run out of thread! Although yesterday was a 'meeting' day and I knew I wouldn't get much done, I DID manage to run out (in the falling snow!) and get more thread, so I'd be ready to begin quilting bright and early today. Well THAT didn't happen!

I had lots of correspondence to catch up on, so I have made exactly NO progress on the quilt today...none!

Well, not yet!

But the day is not over.

Wish me luck...

And, P.S. I appreciate the comments, everyone! Thanks!

Quilting Woes

2011-01-18T15:23:00.016-06:00

Tell me again just *WHY* I make quilts? Grrrrrr......

Right this minute, I am taking a 'break' from my quilting...mostly so I won't throw things!

I have been having trouble quilting this one since the onset!

Tension issues, skipping stitches, shredding thread...I fix one issue and create another!

First, it was the tension problem I mentioned in my last post.

Then, the bleeding hand-dyed...which has still not been addressed.

Once I changed thread colors (and types) I started getting skipped stitches. I would go along just fine, then change directions, and wha-bam! Long stitches.

According to Diane Gaudynski, the causes of skipped stitches are almost always caused by one of the following:

• the needle being too small for the thread

• the batt being very thin and flat

• the presser foot pressure too low

• a defective needle

• threading done incorrectly

• hands too fast for the speed of the machine

I was moving so slow my stitches were tiny, so I could rule out that last one.

I rethreaded a thousand times, so that could also be ruled out.

The needle was changed ad nauseum...so I was pretty sure that wasn't it either.

But the pressure foot pressure? Hmmm. That is a possibility. So is the thin batting. BOTH of these work together...a thinner batting needs more pressure on the foot than a loftier batt. And duh, I am using a very thin batting! So I increased the pressure on the foot by quite a bit...there are no index marks, so I just turn the knob at will.

Also, on another forum (but I cannot remember which one) I read that it was NOT necessary to keep the quilt so tight than one could bounce a quarter off of it! Just keep it tight enough to be stable. Hmmm....I do tend to really keep the quilt taut on the frame, so I loosened it up a little.

The skipping stitches seemed better...and I sewed for a few minutes, feeling like maybe I would finally make some progress. Then the shredding began...

So, back to the internet to do more reasearch. Basically, shredding is usually caused by using the wrong needle. A TOPSTITCHING needle has a larger eye and is less prone to cause shredding. Plus, the larger needles have a larger scarf (groove) for the thread to ride in. But I had tried a larger needle (100) before and it was actually causing the batting to appear on the backside of the quilt!

That's right. Little white blobs on the black background fabric...not acceptable.

I had switched to the smaller needle (90) to prevent the batting poke-through, and it seemed ok until I reached a corner of the piecing, where the seam allowances were thicker...the thread would shred and break. But not every time! Good grief.

I decided that, in spite of the fact that I have now quilted several areas using this polyester embroidery thread, I was going to have to return to using cotton thread like I started out with. I only bought the polyester thread (Coats and Clark) in the first place was because the color I wanted was not available in the cotton (Gutterman). But I thought the shiny nature of the poly might be a nice accent. However, it is thinner and obviously less-strong.

So I changed the top thread and did a bit more stitching, still using the poly in the bobbin. Again, it worked for a few moments then wha-bam! breaking and shredding and skipping stitches.

So, back to the internet to do more reasearch.

Some suggestions for eliminating the shredding:

Turn the spool over to allow the thread to unwind in the other direction.

Don't put the thread through that last guide right above the needle.

Change the needle to one with a bigger eye, bigger scarf...a larger needle.

Loosen the top tension, and...

Use a HEAVIER thread in the bobbin.

This last one got my attention. While I had messed with the tension already, NOW I was using a thinner thread in the bobbin. So I changed the bobbin, putting in a cotton thread that was equal in weight to my top thread. I put my sample fabric back on the frame and stitched for quite a while...all fine! Stitch quality ok, no skipping, no shredding! Yea!!!

So I began stitching on the quilt again. Immediately, the shredding began again.

And that is where I am now.

Currently, quite frustrated.

I am wondering if using the basting-spray has anything to do with this?

I know, I am grasping at straws. But SOMETHING has to be causing it!!!

a hot mess, aka the challenge quilt

2011-01-12T21:06:00.007-06:00

Well, I started quilting on the challenge quilt today. I have been working toward that end for days now.

I loaded the quilt on my HQ frame several days ago.

After MUCH thought, I finally settled on a stitching/quilting design.

Then yesterday, I spent practically the whole day trying to resolve tension issues. This was tough...I tightened tensions and loosened tensions...rinse and repeat. I flossed the tension dial. I brushed out the bobbin area and bobbin case. I poked around with a pipe cleaner, to free any obstructions that might be there. I held my tongue just right. Still, the tiny loops occurred. And it was not just loops on the top or loops on the bottom. The loops would alternate between top and bottom, depending on the direction I was stitching or the speed with which I moved the machine! How can that be resolved? Eventually, after gettting the sample stitching as good as it was gonna get, I decided that the BEST option for overcoming the potential for these tiny loops was to use the same color thread in the bobbin as I was using on the machine...despite the fact that the back of this quilt is BLACK and despite the fact that I had already wound TWO black bobbins!

Next, I decided I needed to make some marks on the quilt to use a guidelines for stitching. I don't usually do that, but this quilt needed some. I started marking with my Dritz Wash-away blue marker...but it was nearly dried up. So I grabbed my keys and ran out to the store to pick up another one, so I'd be ready to start actually quilting in the morning.

Ok, so today, I used the new marker and marked off the areas to quilt...then I actually started stitching ON the quilt! At first, it was going quilt well. Then I stopped for lunch. When I came back, suddenly I was having 'issues'. The thread would break or there'd be skipped stitches. I thought, maybe the needle is tired...so I changed it. I tried a bigger needle...then back to the smaller needle. I raised the fabric and lowered the fabric...the poles which hold the quilt have to be raised or lowered to keep the target area on the bed of the machine as the rolled-up quilt gets fatter. Finally, I found that it was the straight stitching that was the most bothersome, so I'd stitch straight for a short bit, then, if a stitch skipped, I back up and start stippling! Eventually, after lots of starts and stops and ripping-out, the section I had marked off was done.

Time to change thread colors.

I figured this was a good stopping point for the day, as it was dinner time. I wanted to take a look at how this was turning out, so I grabbed a wet paper towel and began sopping at some of the wash-away markings, to make them go away so I could better evaluate the design I had stitched. Well, guess what?! One of the hand-dyed fabrics I have used in this quilt is bleeding!!! Yep...and of course, it is the INDIGO...which is right next to the very light Goldenrod...so basically, my blue is bleeding on to my yellow!!! I am pissed.

Library of Congress fun

2011-01-08T14:43:00.010-06:00

Well, no sewing for me today...I just sliced open my right index finger on the rim of a tomato soup can! It is still bleeding, 30 minutes later! Even typing is awkward, so I'll keep this short.

On the Wild Ginger forum, I was alerted to THIS site, which has a must-see movie for anyone who sews clothes! Made in 1948, the actors won't win any awards, but if you sew it is fun to see how sewing and fashion and attitudes have changed since then.

Also, on Kathleen Fasanella's blog, KF mentioned a free Italian pattern-drafting book that is available for download (from the Library of Congress site also). Though the book is Italian, it is translated into English, too.

I DID get it, and having looked through it briefly, it reminds me quite a bit of the German drafting system that I have spoken of before. It looks very nice!

There are collars and sleeves, coats, jackets, pants, blouses, lingerie, swimwear...even men's and children's wear!

So if any of you are interested in seeing how to draft various styles, check it out!

I got the PDF version.

You can download this Italian pattern book for free! But since it is a fairly modern book, 2004, it is possible that it might have been posted by mistake and could be removed soon...who knows!?!

KF also mentions THIS BOOK, so I got it too. I haven't skimmed it yet, but maybe that is just what I should be doing, since my finger is all boo-boo'ed up!

It's a challenge.

2011-01-04T16:30:00.010-06:00

Once again,, I am choosing to participate in the ULTIMATE GUILD quilt challenge. The challenge issued by my local guild is~
Color Saturation: Stay within the Lines.

At our meeting in September, 2010, we were to blindly draw a crayon from each of 3 bags, one containing light colors, one medium colors and one containing dark colors.

These are my colors.

Goldenrod (light)

Tumbleweed (medium)

Indigo (dark)

So in October, when I went on a day-trip to Paducah, KY, with my local sewing guild (a different guild from the quilt guild!), I visited Hancock's of Paducah and picked up LOTS of fabrics with these colors.

Now I am working on a quilt. But I can't post many details until after it is presented to the quilt guild for competition on the 4th Tuesday in February. But I'll try to sneak in a peak every now and then!

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T18:26:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year, Y'all!

Treasure Beyond

2010-12-27T14:21:00.003-06:00

This year, I decided to make wall/art quilts for my adult children as Christmas gifts. I had made my son an art quilt a couple of years ago when he first moved into his own place and had no decorations...my daughter openly covetted that frog quilt! So this time, I decided to make 2 quilts and make them just alike.

I actually started these quilts back in MARCH, but couldn't blog about them, since they were to be a secret.

After completing SHOULDA PUTTA RING ON IT, I still had lots of scraps of the wonderful batik fabrics. so, I decided to continue with the weaving theme I had used on that challenge quilt, only this time, I used two black strips to each strip of batik.

For this design, I created a more-open weave than before, and inserted small blocks at the warp/weave intersections. This meant that I would need to sew partial seams...which turned out to be a pain in the neck. Due to the small size of the blocks, the 'partial seams' were only about .5" long! But the effect was worth it. I used GOLD and SILVER lame' fabric (backed with fusible interfacing) for the little blocks...hoping to give the illusion that the gold and silver was beyond the screen-like woven piece. The treasure beyond...

Once the black strips were sewn to the batiks, I began working on the design. Once satisfied with the layout, I needed a way to make this portable, as I sew away from home some days.

I used a roll of drapery fabric as a 'tote'...laying the pieces on the fabric, then rolling it up and securing the ends with rubber bands. I could carry the project without losing the layout.

I notched the center of each strip on the side and end, so I could match the pieces. When sewing partial seams, I couldn't just sew from one end to the other! The quilt grew in rows, but they were slow rows!

Once the strips were assembled, I needed to add borders. But I didn't want the strips to just 'dead end' at the border...I felt like each strip needed some black across its end, too. But I didn't want to put a black border around the whole thing. So I made little TABS to insert at the strip ends!

I folded pieces of black fabric and sewed down each side...then I turned them right sides out. After a good pressing, theses little tabs were inserted into the seam between the 'weave' and the border, so that there was a little black tab at the end of each strip!

These tabs were like the period at the end of the sentence...they prevented the strips from just fading into the border. Nice!

These are not sewn down, but add dimension...like little flaps.

After adding the borders, I layered both quilts onto one piece of batting and backing so that I could quilt both quilts at the same time. I used a variety of colors of thread to quilt this, and doing all the reds, all the yellows, etc, at the same time would keep the thread changes to a minimum.

I used a brown batik to bind this...again, a left-over from the previous quilt.

I really like these quilts...probably more than SHOULDA PUTTA RING ON IT, which is MY quilt. These will not be living with me, though, so I hope the kids like them as much as I do!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T00:03:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas from my sewing room to yours!

Kimono Ornaments

2010-12-21T20:12:00.000-06:00

Recently, our sewing guild had its annual Christmas party. Just for fun, we made these cute little kimono ornaments. They were quick and easy...here's how we did it!

Cut your Feature Fabric (FF) 3 ¾” x 10 ½". This will be the outside of the Kimono.

Cut your Accent Fabric (AF) 4 ¼” x 10 ½”. This is the lining and trim.

1. Put FF onto AF, right sides together,and sew along the 2 long sides w/ ¼” s.a.
2. Finger-press s.a.s toward center w/equal amounts of AF on each side beyond seam, then...
3. Stitch across this one short end & turn right side out; Press.

Now comes the folding...this is easiest if you remember- the WIDER piece is the lining!!!

Using starch with your iron will give you crisper folds...just don't burn your fingers!

4. Fold the unstitched end (toward the AF) ~ 3/8” twice to hide the raw edge and form collar.
5. Turn over. Locate center of folded edge and Fold collars diagonally to form a point at center.
6. Fold bottom (stitched end) up ~ 2” to form shoulder/sleeves. Press.
7. Fold lower edge backwards until the previous fold meets the bottom edge of the collar in back-this forms shoulders. Press.
8. Locate center of lower edge and Fold both sides in to meet. Press below sleeve level.
9. Open out the 2” sleeve and form a triangle/fold at shoulder; tuck under collar points; Press.
10. Finish with an 8” ribbon tied at waist.
11. Make a hanger by attaching a loop to the back or attaching a toothpick & loop to the back.

I used some soft wire to make some quick and dirty hangers...just put on a few beads and made a few loops.

However, I have decided these would make really cute tags for gifts, so adding a ribbon to the top of the collar is a great way to tie one on!

Christmas sewing

2010-12-19T17:38:00.006-06:00

This weekend, I did some quick and dirty sewing...the kind that is really the most fun! No worries about finishing seams or even maintaining a consistant seam allowance. Just cut and sew fast!

DH gives a few Christmas gifts at work and this year he purchased gift cards. As in the past, he was counting on me for gift wrap. The gift cards came in cardboard packaging, so they were bigger than just card-sized...so the treasure boxes I made before would not be large enough.

What about a little stocking? That should work.

I drew a stocking shape on some thick paper, making it just barely larger than the card package. Then I pulled some fabrics from the stash and began cutting.

To make these, you should cut the LINING taller/longer than the STOCKING...mine was about 1.5" longer. I used different fabrics for LINING and STOCKING.

Lay 2 LINING pieces right sides together.

Insert a loop for hanging and pin in place. I used a 6" length of ribbon and placed in the upper back seam of the lining, about 2" from the cut edge, so it would be below the folded cuff.

Lay 2 STOCKING pieces right sides together. Stack these 2 STOCKING pieces on top of the LINING pieces.

Sew through all layers around the stocking.

Trim/clip as needed. If you only use a 1/8" seam allowance, this is not needed.

Put your fingers between the 2 STOCKING layers to turn this right side out, which pulls the LINING into the STOCKING.

Fold down the LINING extension to form a cuff. You can finish the raw edge if desired...or you can pull a few threads to make it ravel. Or just leave it as a cut edge!

stagnation

2010-12-16T17:29:00.003-06:00

I have been taking some good-natured ribbing about the lack of activity on my blog.

People are tired of dropping by and seeing that big green worm.

I know.

I had good intentions, but somehow they got derailed.

Remember that jacket that I was working on? Well, my goal was to continue posting about that, so I was holding off on other stuff. But the jacket became so underwhelming to me that I put it on the dress form and ignored it. It is almost finished...just need to put cuffs on the sleeves! But... HO, HUM. I was so bored with it.

So there I was...in limbo. Knowing that the next posts SHOULD be about the jacket, but not really wanted to mess with it. So NOTHNG was posted.

And I have had a fun several months!

In October, I took a little day trip with my sewing guild to Paducah, KY, where we visited the AQS Quilt Museum as well as the studio of quilt artist Caryl Bryer Fallert. Lots of fun, lots of pictures....but no blog post.

In November, I had several quilts displayed in a local show at the Davies Plantation...again, no blog post.

Now it is nearly Christmas... I will try to do better.
Thanks for reading...if you are!

Garden Pests

2010-09-21T14:32:00.002-05:00

While waiting for water to boil so I could have my morning tea, last month I looked out the front windows to find that my Moon Flower plant was completely defoliated…overnight! I put on some shoes and rushed to check it out…wondering if a deer or something had come through the yard. Everything else looked fine…no other plants were damaged…but this one was completely void of leaves.

I was pissed.

I began looking more closely. Sure enough, there was a tiny green caterpillar…a tomato hornworm! And then another…and another. And then a HUGE one! There were three small ones and one HUGE one, just chomping away on my plant.

I grabbed a ruler to see just HOW BIG that largest one was…over 3.5” !!!

I put on some gloves and removed and destroyed these unwelcome critters.

Fast-forward one month and look at my Moon Flower plant now. It has fully recovered and is loaded with blooms! Each bloom lasts only one day (or night, I should say, as the blooms open at night!), and I have 8-10 blooms daily…so that is a lot of blooms!

So now I am feeling guilty. If I had NOT destroyed the caterpillars, would they have stopped eating once the leaves were totally gone (as they almost were when I discovered the worms…the only remaining leaf was no longer attached to the plant!)? Or would they have sucked the life out of the stems, too? And would they have turned in to some lovely moth or butterfly that I would admire?

TOO late to find out…but I am enjoying the beautiful white blooms and the delightful scent they fill the night are with!

Jacket Challenge

2010-08-29T16:09:00.028-05:00

I may (or may not) have mentioned that I need to make a jacket. My local sewing guild issued a challenge to all members to make a jacket for the September meeting in honor of national sewing month. It is the end of August and I am still in the muslin stage!
I am making progress toward getting a good pattern, but it is slow!

This is the pattern I tried recently...call it Jacket 2.
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In the beginning, I wanted the princess seams to be over toward the side of the bust, rather than crossing ON the bust points, so instead of using a PMB Princess draft, I started with the SIDE DARTED BLOCK and created my own princess lines.

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But these seams were too far off the bust to be so 'curvy'.
I wasn't fond of the look.

I didn’t' like that the jacket had 'points of its own' ...but they were NOT 'way up firm and high'! :)

It had boobs to the side of my boobs!
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Also, I was NOT fond of how wide my bum looks with the
back princess darts set this wide!
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I started again, this time using the PMB princess pattern, as it drafts, for the Front.

This moved the front princess seam toward the center a little bit. MY old pattern is blue; the newpattern is green.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In back, I still created my own princess seam from the basic darted block, but this time I used the medial waist dart postion (instead of the lateral one, as before). That REALLY moved the back princess seam, much more than the front one moved.
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This is how I created the back pattern:

I used a single waist dart.

I rotated HALF of the shoulder dart to the armhole.

I located the MIDPOINT of each upper dart leg.

Then I drew arcs from the armhole to these new mid-points on the dart legs...the arcs intersected the armhole on each side of the 'opening' created when the shoulder dart was rotated to the ah, so the shoulder dart was basically transfered to that princess seam.

I wasn't sure the single waist dart was the right choice...might be too large...but decided to try.
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THE REASON I created my own princess seam in back, rather than use the PMB ah princess, is because of the back shoulder dart. When PMB does the ah princess, they remove the dart, making the upper back width much narrower. Here is my pattern (red) and the PMB one superimposed:
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You can see how much narrower the PMB one is through the shoulders and upper back...MY (red) pattern's armhole is farther out than the PMB one, in green and blue.
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So this is jacket 3...better, but still too poufy at bust level for the seams to be OFF to the side.
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Bad wrinkles and fullness at bust, off to the side!
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The back looks better, though, with the seams closer to center.
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So I replaced the side front pieces,

using Dart Override (-.375),

to get a smaller dart which produces a smoother seam.

Better!
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But there was still 'something' bothering me.

The Dart Override smooths the seam, but it DOES make the front armhole larger...and I wasn't sure I'd like that or not.*
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I began to wonder if the fit would be helped by more back length. Increasing the CBL (center back length) would change the draft, making the bust dart much smaller (and thus, smoothing the front seam without using D.O.).
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I decided what the heck, I will try it! So after changing the numbers in the program and comparing the patterns to see what pieces would be impacted, I SLASHED my muslin across the upper back and inserted a piece to increase the back length by 0.5".
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Whoa Nellie! This is SOOOOoooo much better!
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This waist position is much lower than recommended by the users guide and my CBL is now 2" longer than my CFL, as opposed to the 1.5" longer that is 'normal'. But it immediately felt 'right'. The upper back feels wider, although no width was added. I think my shoulder blades just needed this!

* Using a CBL that is 2" longer than the CFL makes the bust dart much smaller, so I don't think I'll need to use the D.O. after all...good. That is where I am now...ready to try again.

* I also added some width to the shoulders...even though using 5" bust ease DOES widen the shoulders, I decided that I might like to have them a tiny bit wider still.

* I also decided I had moved the BUST POINT too far toward the side, so tweaked that setting just a little...and will try it in the next muslin.

And FYI, I am actually using septic paper instead of muslin for these test jackets. It sews fast; I can see through it, and it is available in my closet!

But my sewing machine is messed up. :(

I used this machine (Pfaff 7550) to do the quilting on my pictorial trash-bag quilt. I lowered the feed dogs and put on the appropriate foot...etc. This machine has a built-in walking foot and I raised that to disengage it for the quilting. No big deal. When I was finished, I put back on the regular foot and raised the feed dogs and lowered the walking foot. But now, for some reason, the feed dogs and the walking foot are out of time...the feed dog pushes backward as the walking foot moves forward, resulting in no feeding of the fabric! I can sew if I raise/disengage the walking foot, but I will need to have that looked at! Darn it! This has happened before...and that time was also when I had done free-motion work. I might have to consider NOT using this machine for free-motion

Trash Bag Quilting, done

2010-08-22T21:17:00.004-05:00

"If you are a perfectionist, this is NOT the class for you," I heard her say. Oh dear. I sucked air between my teeth and several around me looked at me and grinned.

I have done my best to 'loosen up'...

Ok, maybe not my best, as I DID create a landscape, which is certainly not as 'loose' as one might get with this technique. But I tried.

I have now finished the stitching on this and trimmed it around the edges. It is ready to be backed and bound. Yep, that's right...the quilting is done BEFORE the backing is put on. Odd, eh?

I DID use the dragonfly. I agonized over that decision, and actually saved the 'sky' area for last, so I could change my mind if I desired. At one point, I decided definitely NOT to use it...then promptly changed my mind again!

Anyway, it is done. I don't know if you can see the stitching in the picture or not. I'll put some close-ups at the end, so you can see how bad my stitching is! Don't judge me. :)

I started my stitching on the ground areas on the right side using black thread and HATED IT. I changed to a brown thread for the left side...immediate improvement. So I spent the next few HOURS ripping out the black thread. Ok, maybe it wasn't hours, but it seemed like it. When ripping on tulle, one has to be VERY careful!

I had to rip other areas, too. I tried using a zigzag in the treetops, but it pulled up way too much bobbin thread, even with a loosened upper tension, so I had to rip. For the sky, I had chosen a lovely light greenish blue thread, but after stitching a little, it read as white...so I ripped.

Being a perfectionist doesn't mean I get everything perfect...far from it! It just means I agonize over every single little detail!!!

Trash Bag Quilting

2010-08-22T13:10:00.018-05:00

Yesterday I attended a class taught by Diane Herbort. In town to give a presentation to our local quilt guild, this talented fiber artist is also teaching two workshops. I signed up for both!

Yesterday's class was on 'trash bag quilting', which is Diane's signature technique. Basically, you lay all your various scraps on a piece of batting in a pleasing arrangement, then embellish by laying on bits of lace, yarns, threads, buttons...whatever...then cover the whole thing with tulle. You use a gazillion pins to pin the heck out of it, then take it to the machine.

THEN the sewing begins!

And THAT is where I am now...ready to begin the sewing! While some in the class finished TWO pieces (Jeanie, I am talking about YOU!), *I* wasn't able to finish even ONE! Yes, I work slowly. But I also, I cut my batting to the size in the directions, while others made theirs smaller (grin) and it takes longer to do a larger piece! But also, I am way too ambitious...instead of just doing a nice abstract piece to learn the technique, I decide to make a landscape.

Crazy!

I don't know why...it was like a personal challenge or something! I just wondered *IF* I could do it, I guess! I dunno...but that is what was in my mind, so that is what I attempted to design with my piece.

In order to bring it home, I had to cover it with the tulle and pin every other inch or so, all over the piece! I had to have help and borrow pins (thanks, Etta!), because it took WAY more pins than I had imagined and I hadn't brought even half as many as needed. Also, my tulle was precut at home, and darn if it wasn't a little too small once I had covered my whole batting with fabric (as opposed to leaving a border around the edges, as I had planned. So in placing my tulle, I had scooted some of the fabric pieces out of position. But it was time to go...I had to pin it down.

Also, standing back and looking at the piece, I was NOT thrilled with the left side. It was too heavy.

So once I got home, I removed all the (thousands of) pins and took off the tulle. I removed the embellishments/yarns/threads from the left side and began replacing some of the background pieces, changing the colors, to bring some 'sky' down to the horizon to be seen through the trees (rather than just have a big blob of landscape that goes from foreground to treetops...a solid blob). This sort of lightened up the left side and allowed the eye to move past the trees, giving more depth. Or, at least, that is my story and I'm sticking to it! I also redefined the shoreline as it apporached the horizon, adding some rock-shaped bits and outcroppings. And I added some darker areas to the top of the sky.

You can see the 'before' and 'after' here:

Although I am still not sure about using that dragonfly...it is quite 'cutesy'!...I decided to leave it there, as I do like having a bug in the sky. I have a frog and lizard in there, too. Originally, they were quite brightly colored, but I put a thin layer of brown paint over them and let them dry while I rearranged the background. Better! Still visible, but not "in your face".

I also added several old metalic buttons and geegaws from my resource center (a.k.a.stash) that I had not had with me at the class.

I cut a new (read: larger) piece of black tulle and again covered the piece, being more careful this time not to dislodge anything underneath. Then I once again began to pin the heck out of it. But this time, I don't have to transport it anywhere....just move it from the cutting table to the sewing table. My home sewing machine is in a table so the sewing surface is flush. The piece will lie flat during the quilting, so it shouldn't require quite so many pins as it would if I were transporting the piece or if I were sewing on a machine with a raised bed (where some of the quilt would hang over the sides, and thus, gravity might dislodge something). To move it, I pulled out a large piece of cardboard and slid it under the piece...this enabled me to easily carry it the 3 feet from table to the machine.

So now I am ready to sew!

Wish me luck...I usually quilt by moving the machine, not the fabric!...so this will be a new experience for me (lower your expectations!).

Frustration with sleeves in PMB

2010-08-15T21:39:00.007-05:00

I have been drafting for two days, trying to finalize my settings for a jacket, and getting quite frustrated! It’s those little things that drive me crazy. I determined the appropriate underarm depth (ah depth) and sleeve cap height. Then, I decided to make the sleeve hem wider than the 7” it started with. Well, making the sleeve hem 10” makes the sleeve 1” narrower across the top of the sleeve! A full inch!!! That is just ridiculous! I’ve known it was like that, but it just made me mad! There is no reason that widening the sleeve hem should narrow the top. The underarm seams SHOULD pivot at the underarm point, not several inches lower. PERIOD.

So I messed around with the cap height setting until I returned the top portion of the sleeve to its previous shape and size (as it had been with the 7” hem width). Good. Now I know I can use an ah depth of -.75 and a cap height of -.5 as my 'basic draft (with a 10" wide sleeve).

Then I considered using the SHOULDER PRINCESS style line. Well, that raised the underarm depth .25”!
And--- it changed the sleeve’s cap height, too!
So, once again, I had to mess with armhole depth and cap height settings, just to duplicate the sleeve that drafts with my basic side-darted bodice…the sleeve with a 7” hem!

So basically, I cannot say what underarm depth is good for me, nor what cap height, because that varies with every little setting I choose! And that is just ridiculous!!!

It just shouldn’t be this hard!
Rotating a bust dart should NOT change the armhole or sleeve!
Widening the sleeve hem should NOT change the top of the sleeve!

(Can you tell I am frustrated?)

Sorry.

Ok, so then, I get everything finally decided on and saved. But the jacket design calls for a 2pc sleeve. My PMB 2pc sleeve is awful….the under-sleeve actually curves the wrong way! As if my elbow bends forward…I am not double jointed! :)

So I have spent HOURS trying to figure out how to make a 2pc sleeve for this jacket.

I have an old McCall’s jacket pattern with a 2pc sleeve, so I pulled it out. I figured I would compare the armholes of the Mc jacket pattern to my PMB pattern and if they were similar, I would use that McCall’s sleeve. Well, the armholes were NOT even close!

So I cut out the Mc pattern and pinned the tissue together to try on, thinking maybe I would just try to use that whole pattern instead of my PMB pattern.

What a laugh!

No, I am better off using my PMB pattern, for sure! I would have to severely alter every piece of that McCall’s pattern…and truly, I don’t even know what size to start with! I haven’t used commercial patterns in years, because I have used PMB. The reason I bought PMB in the first place was because the commercial patterns didn’t fit me and I didn’t know what to do to make them fit me…this was 10 years ago, before the internet brought sewists together for sharing such skills! I have never really learned what to do to alter a commercial pattern *for me*. I have depended on PMB. And most of the time, I get a decent fit.

But sleeves continue to be my Achilles heel! I can make sleeveless things in PMB all day, but when it comes to garments with sleeves, I get so frustrated!!! It takes twice as long to create the pattern, because every little variable changes the sleeve…when it just SHOULDN’T be that way!!!

The next version of PMB is in the works…ready for an October release. I hope the sleeves have been stabilized; hope it includes a decent 2pc sleeve!!!

Quietly busy

2010-08-10T15:40:00.014-05:00

In spite of the lack of commentation on my blog, I *have* been working on things!

I had LOTS of fabric left over after making the quilt for the Repetitive Consequences challenge. I had collected many different pieces in order to get a large variety...so now I have a large variety of leftovers!

But never fear; these leftovers are not going to waste. I have another 3 quilts in progress, in addition to the little color-story piece that was made BEFORE the challenge! Two of these are assembled and ready to load onto the HandiQuilter for quilting. The other one is still in the piecing stage.

Addtionally, my local sewing guild has issued a JACKET CHALLENGE for September...which means *I* need to have a new jacket completed to bring to that meeting. The deadline is the 2nd Thursday of September, and I have yet to begin!

Today, I have been looking at jacket styles, trying to decide what *I* would like to make and wear. Those are both key...I have to want to MAKE this thing, and when finished, I need to want to WEAR it too! I have spent way too much time making things that I don't want to wear after they are completed...I need to stop that.

My best look is a low V-neck, but I am not crazy about making a 'formal' jacket (like, with a lapel), as I am more of a sporty-type. I dress casually most of the time, so my jacket needs to be somewhat casual, too. Loose...unconstructed? Well, I am busty and kinda boxy...an H shape...so things need to have a more structured shape or I look like Spongebob.

I am thinking a Chanel jacket might be the way to go. I have fabrics that I could use...although I am not sure I have the lining fabrics on hand. I have never done one before, but have often CONSIDERED doinng one. It seems like a good idea.

Then I saw THIS.

Now I am not sure.

Right there in black and white, she shows a Chanel jacket on the the WHAT NOT TO WEAR page for H's!!!

Maybe if I leave off the pockets at waist level that style will be ok on me?

AQS Quilt Show in Knoxville

2010-07-21T20:04:00.026-05:00

Last weekend, DH and I drove to Knoxville, Tn, to attend the AQS Quilt Show. The show started on Wednesday, but we drove up on Friday, arriving around dinner time.

After checking into our hotel, we headed over to Market Square.

We strolled around to see what was there. Many of the restaurants were tempting, but in the end, we decided on Cafe 4 , where we ordered Fried Chicken and Waffles! Yep, that is really a dish...and it was good! The waffles were served instead of bread with the meal...two 'quarters' of a circular waffle...not a big 'ole plate of waffles smothered in butter and maple syrup! Although that sounds good right now...

But I digress.

There is a greenspace/park area at the southern end, with shops on each side. North of the 'park' area, there is a concrete mall. There is an interactive fountain, which was turned off that night, plus a performance stage set up at the north end.

This is the southwestern end...the building with the awning and lights is Market Square Kitchen.

This is the western side of the square.

There were several tempting restaurants on this side!

Many of the resaurants had seating areas outside, too, with colorful plantings and/or lights.

Ok, imagine this is a panoramic view...chopped up!
I will start on the southwest corner and turn clockwise.

I am standing near the middle, and this first picture is looking southwest, toward the market Square Kitchen.

Turning clockwise, this is the northwest side.

These tall buildings are just beyond the north side.

You can see the stage set up on the north end (lights near the ground, behind people walking).

When we arrived, there were musicians playing and singing, but then Shakespeare on the Square began. However, street musicians were scattered about here and there, playing softly.

This is the view to the northeast. We visited a couple of shops in this area.

And the southeast side. That last awning with the lights on it at the far right is Cafe 4, where we ate.

It was a lovely evening and a lovely place to visit!

On Saturday, we walked to the convention center to see the quilt show. While I cannot post pictures of all the quilts, I will share the display of the guild that mine was a part of.

This was the ULTIMATE GUILD CHALLENGE, where guilds across the country compete according to a theme. Each guild has a different theme to interpret. There were 8 quilts in each group.

Our theme was REPETITIVE CONSEQUENSES. We were to take a block or shape, and change it in some way...size, shape, orientation, color, etc...and repeat it at least 3 times such that it is a recognizable element in the quilt. The quilt had to measure 180 inches around its perimeter, but no single side could exceed 60 inches.

This is the view oif our quilts from one end...

And the view from the other end.

I couldn't get enough distance to photograph the set straight-on without a wide-angle lens, which I didn't happen to have.

Here I am standing next to my quilt. I really wished to remain annonomous, but did pose for a few quick pictures when no one was looking.

I took a break for a moment to send a text message, and Dh took my picture! But then I noticed that the quilts in the background are also from a local guild...the Davies Plantation guild in Bartlett. Theirs was a nice display (Theme=Log Cabin in the Woods).

My favorites were the ones where all quilts in the set were the same size and shape, and had a recognizeable theme. While our quilts were each beautiful in their own right, they didn't seem to have much in common, like some of the other sets did.

The Pleated Dress, completed

2010-07-06T15:01:00.024-05:00

As promised, here are some pictures of the completed pleated dress.

The fabric I used had an all-over print (feathers!), which made the pleating a bit hard to see in photos. Here is a close up, but it still doesn't show the details...I guess you had to be there!

After cutting out the front pattern and marking all the dart/pleats, I fused a piece of interfacing to the 'tab' area, to help give it a bit of support. I extended the interfacing to what would be the dart/pleat's center 'fold-line' on each side of the tab, so that when the pleats that create the tab are folded, the interfacing will fill the fold on each side of the pleat, to avoid a knife-sharp edge. However, pressing the pleat while it is basted created a pretty sharp fold there anyway!

Once the horizontal pleats are basted closed, I could then baste the 'dart' on each side of the tab. After basting the dart/pleat closed, I then sewed (permanent) again about .5" away from the basting, to close the dart/pleat permanently. You can see how the tab's dart legs on each side of the tab are now of equal length.

Since I decided to do an all-in-one facing, I block-fused some rough-cut interfacing to my fabric before cutting out the pattern pieces.

Here is the completed dress. So much for the lighting...

I really struggled with deciding what length to make this dress. I was encouraged to go shorter...so I did. I wasn't uncomfortable wearing it, but it is shorter than anything I have worn in a while. I don't generally wear high heels, as my DH is not much taller than I am and I don't want to tower over him.

Here is another close up...from the other side/angle.

You might have noticed that I did some contouring under the bust. Remember in my last post, when I did the muslin, I was aware of a bit of excess fabric under the bust and so, decided to move the Bust Points closer to the center? Well, as I said, that was not the solution...and it actually had a negative impact on the fit in the bust area! What I really needed to do was a bit of contouring under the bust.

Here is my front pattern. I have indicated where I made changes...in bold hot pink (although I DID shorten the dress 2"...that is not shown!)

Look closely at the front (vertical) waist darts.

Basically, first I located the level that was 5" below my Bust Point, then increased the width of the front waist dart between that 5" level and waist level...offsetting the dart leg on each side by .25". This removed an additional .5" on each side of the front... a full inch of fabric across the whole front. But, notice, the original waist dart was not a 'normal' dart to start with...it was not a '/\' shape. I had already drawn that dart straight up from the waist to a level that was 3" below the BP. This was done to provide some contouring, but apparently it was not enough.

In my design choices, I had selected a SIDE/WAIST POINT position of 1...which means I made the total width across the front pattern 1" larger at waist level than the total width across the back pattern at waist level. That turned out to be too much. Increasing the size of the front waist dart would be the equivalent of a SIDE/WAIST POINT position of .5...meaning the front pattern's waist measured .5" more than the back pattern's waist, instead of the 1" as before. Better.

For the lower end of the waist dart, I drew curve lines to blend with the original dart legs (full tummy).

On the full front pattern above, also notice the hot pink lines at the sideseams at hip level. I had to reshape those during fitting, removing about .25" on each side (front and back), which means I lost about 1" of hip ease. But THE POINT of the reshaping was to smooth the curves there. TAPERING the hem created a point on the sideseam that my body doesn't have! Perhaps the start of the tapering should begin at a level just below the hip...? I just used the TAPERED HEM choice...there is no HIP SHAPE adjustment available on the SHEATHS, as there is on the PANTS.

Using the Tapered Hem choice creates another problem...the tapering extends all the way to the hem, instead of stopping 2" ABOVE hem level and drawing straight side seams to the hem. The way it is drafted, when the hem is turned under, the cut/free edge of the hem is smaller than the circumference of the dress at that higher level... something I forgot to consider beforehand.

I drafted this dress at 40" long, but then decided to hem it 2" shorter...at 38".

Here is a back shot...not terribly flattering but you can see the kick pleat.

In both the front and the back necklines, there was a bit of gaping. This gaping was NOT there in the muslin, but I had not cut the neckline away (wider) on the muslin as I did on this 'real thing'. I forgot to compensate for the contouring of my shoulders, which are curved lower in the middle than on each end of the shoulder seam. While my books tell me that I should have lowered the shoulder end of the neck seam, I can't help but wonder if I should also have raised the arm end of the shoulder seam...like a see/saw! I know that makes no sense...but that is just how I think! :)

I did use the facing and lining patterns that I showed in my previous post. Here is the dress inside out on my paper-tape dress form:

Yes, it is wrinkled a bit from sitting/wear but not too badly. I LOVE wearing things that are lined in Bemberg Rayon!! It feels so luscious to the touch...my skin just loves it!

I *hope* my dress form has posture that is much worse than my own!?! Those shoulders are very uneven...I hope mine are not as bad NOW as they were then! But I suspect they are...

The Pleated Dress...creation

2010-06-29T16:49:00.008-05:00

To create the pattern for the pleated dress, I started with a basic sheath...a dress with darts but no waist seam. (I'll post my PMB style sheet at the end of this post).

I copied and mirrored the FRONT piece so I would have a complete FRONT pattern.

Next I created the 'tab'. I located a point on the neckline that was 1" from the center front. I wanted my tab to be 1.5" wide, so I created a circle around the bust point that was also 1.5" in diameter. Then I drew a line from the point on neck to the side of the bust circle. I OFFSET that line by 1.5" to create the other side of the tab...then I decided to shorten the ends to be 2" away from the bust point (after the muslin, however, I reduced this amount to 1"). I rotated the right bust dart to this tab, putting half of the dart on each side.

Next I had to decide on the location of the pleats. This was kind of trial and error, using what looked right. Once I was happy with the location of the pleats, I rotated the left bust dart to the lowest pleat line. I KNEW this would create a pleat that was much too large, but once sewn, the excess fabric in the back could be removed, so that this pleat would have a seam instead of a fold.

I had a harder time with the placement of the 3 smaller darts on the right of the tab. To be sure I liked the way they lookeed, I printed my front pattern in quarter scale and folded the little darts and pleats closed. I could tell I didn't love the first attempt (on the left), so I respaced the pleats and moved them closer to the neckline. Nope, that wasn't it either (middle one)...so I respaced them a third time...better. Now it was time to try this is fabric.

I marked all the darts/pleats on my fabric and began sewing. First, I basted the horizontal pleats and sewed the vertical waist darts.

Then I put a row of stitching about 0.5" away from the basting on that large pleat that is also the dart...that stitching will be permanent. At this point, I wondered if it might be a good idea to stitch close to the fold on EACH of the pleats, so they would tend to be neater...(?). Not being sure, I did go ahead and do that stitching. On the 'real' dress, I omitted that, though.

Once the pleats were done, I could stitch...baste...both sides of the 'tab'. Like the big dart, this one also had to have 'real' stitching (permanent) that was about .5" away from the basting, because this pleat is also a dart.

At this point, it occurred to me that once the basting of the tab is removed, it will 'spread', and that is NOT a good thing...so it would need to be stabilized. I used hand stitches to keep the dart folds close to each other, to prevent the spreading.

This is the muslin on my dress form. It was a good fit, but I felt like there was a but too much fullness UNDER the bust. I wanted the vertical waist darts to be closer to center, so I decided to reduce the distance between bustpoints...which meant I had to completely redo the pattern! And FYI, this turned out NOT to be a great idea...I should have left the location alone, or at least, not move it the full INCH that I did! :)

Here, the pleats are still basted closed. But you can kinda get the idea, I hope!

Next time, I'll show the 'real thing'!

Here are my design choices:

Style Details

Style Name: 100615_basic_sheath
Date: 6/15/2010
Last Update: April 1, 2010
Chart: Trish 050710_waist_HIP

Garment Type: Sheath
Style: Classic Sheath
Closure: Back Zipper
Front Neckline: Jewel
Back Neckline: Jewel
Hemline Sweep: Tapered
Back Kick Pleat: Yes
Front Darts: Side
Back Darts: No Darts
Sideseam Shape: Fitted

Front Waist Darts: 1
Back Waist Darts: 2

Front Neckline Depth: 1.5
Back Neckline Depth: 1.375
Neckline Width: 2.5
Neckline Point: 0
Back Neckline Shape Right: 1 clicks

Armhole Depth: 0
Dart Override: 0

Side/Arm Point: -1
Side/Waist Point: 1
Side/Hip Point: 0

Cf/Extension: 0
Cb/Extension: 0

Shoulder Pad: 0
Shoulder Point: -0.375

Sheath Length: Knee
Finished Cb/Hem Length: 40
Hip Depth: 8
Kick Pleat Height: 8

Bust Pt Vertical: 10.25
Bust Pt Horizontal: 4.5
Upper Front Dart Length: 1
Upper Back Dart Length: 0
Lower Front Dart Length: 8
Lower Back Dart Length: 5.5
Back Shoulder Dart Length: 4

Sleeve Style: Facing
Sleeve Length: Wrist*** This is wrong; this was sleeveless (hence, the FACING).
Sleeve Cap Ease: 1.45
Sleeve Elbow Depth: 8
Sleeve Elbow Circum.: 10
Back Armhole Shape Up: 0.2 clicks
Back Armhole Shape Right: 0.2 clicks

Seam Allowance: 0.375
Hem Allowance: 2
Facing Width: 2

Chest Ease: 1
Waist Ease: 2
Hip Ease: 4.5

Body Measurements

Chest Circumference: 41.5
Back Shoulder Width: 15.75
Neck Circumference: 13
Natural Waist: 35
Hip Circumference: 41
Crotch Length: 29
Height: 66
Weight:
Bra Cup Size: D
Center Front Length: 15
Front Shoulder Width: 15
Front Shoulder Slope: 18.5
Shoulder Length: 5
Center Back Length: 16.5
Back Shoulder Slope: 17.875
Bicep Circumference: 12
Notes: increased waist and decreased hip to 'real' (1" each)
USE MORE HIP EASE ON BLOUSES!

sneak peak

2010-06-15T23:40:00.008-05:00

I have been working on a new pattern lately. It is a bit more complicated than my usual fare...my DD refers to it as my 'origami dress'. Here is a pattern picture:

The two sets of pieces on the right are the lining and facing pieces...I haven't yet decided if they will be used as is. I am thinking the facing...an all-in-one...will be fashion fabric, and the lining will be bemberg rayon (I hope).

My fashion fabric is from the stash...a mystery fabric that was in a collection I obtained from a garage sale several years ago. But the entire collection was good stuff...lots of silks and wools...so I am pretty sure this is 'good', too. I suspect it is a cotton and silk blend.

Today I printed the front and back patterns. I began assembling the front pattern...which took 20 sheets of paper to print! At first , the assembly went fairly well, but gradually, the registration marks began to be further and further 'off'...and by the time I got to the last column, it was nearly 1/4" longer than the first one! Needless to say, I was sorry I had used glue...I had to pull the sheets apart and start again, trying to 'make it work'!

I have been using PATTERNMASTER BOUTIQUE by Wild Ginger for over 10 years, so I am not new to pattern assembly. And I have had this same printer for most (if not ALL) of that time! Every now and then, it happens...usually when there are LOTS of pages to be printed.

I am using Windows 7 these days. I had installed PMB4 on my computer while using Vista, then installed it again when Windows 7 was loaded. That used up BOTH of my installation keys for PMB4...you are only allowed to load it twice. But I also now have a 'virtual computer' (loaded on Windows 7) that runs in XP mode, so I need to uninstall the PMB4 version that is loaded on the drive that uses Vista so I can get a new key...then I can load it on the 'virtual computer' and run PMB4 in XP mode, so that, HOPEFULLY, I will once again be able to print my patterns on banner paper. The printer drivers for the newer operatings systems don't support the 'banner' printing option, even though the printer is capable! Duh...I guess all the new printers are more geared towards photo printing.

But I used to print on banner paper and it was SOOOO much easier and quicker. When this pattern assembly messed up today, I was once again reminded that I REALLY SHOULD move that to the top of my to-do list!

The Red Floral KK knit top

2010-06-12T19:59:00.010-05:00

Here is my latest knit top:

This pattern was made similarly to the black and white one, except this time I didn't lower the front shoulder angle.

I DID reduce both the CENTER FRONT LENGTH and the FRONT SHOULDER SLOPE measurements by 0.5", though, because I knew the knit fabric would stretch to accomodate my body's curves in front...and using a shorter CFL produces a smaller bust dart, so there is less dart to 'get rid of' from the start.

I also INCREASED my BUST measurement from 41.5" to 42"...not much, but this also made the bust dart smaller, so there was less dart to eliminate in the process of going 'dartless'.

Also, I INCREASED the SHOULDER LENGTH measurement in my chart for this one...because when I rotate that remaining little dart closed, it increases the width of the neck opening on the front pattern. By increasing the SHL I have created a more-narrow front neck to start with, so that when I rotate the little dart closed, the resulting front neck width matches the back neck width.

I DID NOT scale this pattern at all...I used it as drafted, with zero bust ease. In hindsight, I *should* have used MORE hip ease, then scaled it smaller, because I had increased both the shoulder and bust measurements! duh. But it is very wearable...the ladies in my sewing guild liked the extra ease. BTW, the back neck depth is 0.75".

There is a bit of 'drapery' under the arms, both in front and back. Part of this is the excess bust ease, but also, part of it is due to the shoulder angles being the same as for WOVEN fabrics. I should have lowered the shoulder angle after all! I have decided that for next time, I will lower the back shoulder angle by .375" and will lower the front shoulder angle by .75"...twice as much in front as in back. You can see by the picture below that when I pinch the shoulders UP, the drapery is lessened.

So, I *think* I have finally figured out how to get a good dartless pattern using my Patternmaster Boutique software! Yes, it takes some manipulation, but not alot...and certainly much less manipulations that I have to go through to alter a commercial pattern! And it only took 11 years to figure it out! ;)

Oh, and the 'KK' in the title stands for Klassy Katz...the fabric store where this fabric was purchased!

Here are my drafting choices:

Style Name: 100520_4_dartless_tiny_dart
Date: 5/20/2010
Last Update: April 1, 2010
Chart: Trish 050710_4Drtls_tinydt

Garment Type: Blouse
Style: Blouse
Closure: Front Zipper
Front Neckline: Scoop
Back Neckline: Jewel
Hemline Sweep: Straight
Hemline Shape: Straight
Front Darts: Side
Back Darts: No Darts
Sideseam Shape: Fitted

Front Waist Darts: 2
Back Waist Darts: 1

Front Neckline Depth: 4
Back Neckline Depth: 0.75
Neckline Width: 1
Neckline Point: 0

Armhole Depth: 0
Dart Override: -0.625

Side/Arm Point: -1
Side/Waist Point: 0
Side/Hip Point: 0

Cf/Extension: 0
Cb/Extension: 0

Shoulder Pad: 0
Shoulder Point: 0

Finished Cb/Hem Length: 24
Hip Depth: 8

Bust Pt Vertical: 10.25
Bust Pt Horizontal: 5
Upper Front Dart Length: 1
Upper Back Dart Length: 1
Lower Front Dart Length: 4.75
Lower Back Dart Length: 4.75
Back Shoulder Dart Length: 3

Sleeve Style: Set In
Sleeve Underarm Seam: Tapered
Sleeve Hemline Shape: Straight
Sleeve Length: Short
Sleeve Cap Ease: 0.35
Sleeve Underarm Length: 2
Sleeve Overarm Length: 7.849
Sleeve Hem Circumference: 15
Sleeve Elbow Depth: 8
Sleeve Elbow Circum.: 10
Sleeve Cap Height Adj: -0.75
Front Armhole Shape Down: -0.3 clicks
Back Armhole Shape Right: 0.2 clicks

Seam Allowance: 0.375
Hem Allowance: 2
Facing Width: 2

Chest Ease: 0
Waist Ease: 0
Hip Ease: 1

Body Measurements

Chest Circumference: 42******increased by 0.5”
Back Shoulder Width: 15.75
Neck Circumference: 13
Natural Waist: 35
Hip Circumference: 41
Crotch Length: 29
Height: 66
Weight: 98:)
Bra Cup Size: D
Center Front Length: 14.5***reduced by 0.5”
Front Shoulder Width: 15
Front Shoulder Slope: 18***reduced by 0.5”
Shoulder Length: 5.375**********increased by 0.375”
Center Back Length: 16.5
Back Shoulder Slope: 17.875
Bicep Circumference: 12

Notes:
duplicating/improving NOVeDrtls6 CSL2

DARTLESS 4 has 42 bust and longer SHL...which makes Fneck .5" narrower than Bneck...so rotating bu dart closed will equalize the neck widths

2010-06-08T20:13:00.011-05:00

As happens every summer, I am once again sewing DARTLESS knit tops. I am once again trying to create the perfect dartless pattern, which will create the perfect dartless top. Again.

This one is very similar to a pattern I created a few years ago which pretty closely duplicates a Coldwater Creek short-sleeved knit top.

Basically, the pattern's front shoulder point is dropped severely, as if the side bust dart was scooted upward and removed at the shoulder! Of course, that is NOT what I did. No, I spent hours (days? weeks? years?) figuring out which numbers to change so that the program would create this shape for me!

The RED pattern (below) is the pattern for the above top. The blue/green patterns are my basic block, using similar drafting choices as were used for this one...for example, with the bust dart in the front armhole. You can see how the RED pattern has a very dropped front shoulder, yet the back shoulder remains unchanged. To prevent that front armhole from being WAY too small, I used the DART OVERRIDE tool to put some of the bust dart into the front armhole. As you can see, there is not much change in the sleeve, which means there is not much difference in the armhole lengths between these two patterns.

Below, the same two patterns are aligned at the hem/waist. As you can see, the front pattern is shorter on the RED one than on the basic block...this is because I reduced the CENTER FRONT LENGTH measurement to account for the stretch of the fabric.

I know that the front of my body will stretch the knit fabric more than the back of my body, so I can get more length from a knit fabric than I would get from the same cut-length of a woven fabric. So I can reduce the length of the front pattern to start with.

Also, as mentioned before, to lower that front shoulder point I reduced the FRONT SHOULDER SLOPE MEASUREMENT even more than I reduced the CFL...to increase the angle of the front shoulder. This is to prevent 'sagging' of the knit on the side of my body.

But as you may have noticed, this pattern is NOT dartless. There is a little dart there in the front armhole. Yet, I want a DARTLESS pattern! So the rest of the patternmaking was done in the PATTERN EDITOR.

I simply extended the dart to the CF line then rotated out HALF of the dart width. Then I drew a new CF line to connect neck and hem. The remaining dart will be eased to the sleeve...or ignored! This dart-rotation DOES remove a little width from the front pattern at bust level. And if you look back up at the top two pattern images, you might notice that the RED pattern is narrower at bust level than the basic block to start with! That is because I also reduced the BUST CIRCUMFERENCE measurement by 1.5". As it turns out, that was too much, especially when combined with this alteration which also reduces the width at bust level. But the top is wearable, even if the fabric is not gorgeous.

Speaking of not-gorgeous fabric, I am thinking I will over-dye this, and maybe print/paint on it, too. I mean, really, with my brown hair turning grey, I really don't need to wear a little black and white print that kinda reads as grey! Actually, this is not as bad on me as some shades of brown are these days!

This method DOES create a wearable dartless knit top and, as I said, it is VERY similar to the size, shape and fit of Coldwater Creek's knit top (size L). But it DOES ride backward some (just like the CWC tops) and I would like to eliminate that phenomenon.

I have created and sewn another knit top since this one, and I changed the way I treated the shoulder angles...stay tuned!

FYI, here are the drafing specs:

Style Name: dartless_with_tiny_dart
Date: 6/8/2010
Last Update: April 1, 2010
Chart: Trish 050710_2Drtls_tinydt
Garment Type: Blouse
Style: Blouse
Closure: No Closure
Front Neckline: Scoop
Back Neckline: Jewel
Hemline Sweep: Straight
Hemline Shape: Straight
Front Darts: Armscye
Back Darts: No Darts
Sideseam Shape: Fitted
Front Waist Darts: 0
Back Waist Darts: 0
Front Neckline Depth: 2.5
Back Neckline Depth: 0.75
Neckline Width: 0.625
Neckline Point: 0
Front Neckline Shape Up: 0.4 clicks
Front Neckline Shape Right: -0.4 clicks
Armhole Depth: -0.5
Dart Override: -0.625
Side/Arm Point: -1
Side/Waist Point: 0
Side/Hip Point: 0
Cf/Extension: 0.5
Cb/Extension: 0
Shoulder Pad: 0
Shoulder Point: 0
Finished Cb/Hem Length: 24
Hip Depth: 8
Bust Pt Vertical: 10.25
Bust Pt Horizontal: 5
Upper Front Dart Length: 1
Upper Back Dart Length: 1
Lower Front Dart Length: 4.75
Lower Back Dart Length: 4.75
Back Shoulder Dart Length: 3

Sleeve Style: Set In
Sleeve Underarm Seam: Tapered
Sleeve Hemline Shape: Straight
Sleeve Length: Short
Sleeve Cap Ease: 0.19
Sleeve Underarm Length: 2
Sleeve Overarm Length: 7.182
Sleeve Hem Circumference: 14
Sleeve Elbow Depth: 8
Sleeve Elbow Circum.: 10
Sleeve Cap Height Adj: -0.75
Front Armhole Shape Down: -1.8 clicks
Front Armhole Shape Left: 0.3 clicks
Back Armhole Shape Down: -0.5 clicks

Seam Allowance: 0.625
Hem Allowance: 2
Facing Width: 2
Chest Ease: 0
Waist Ease: 0
Hip Ease: 0

Body Measurements
Chest Circumference: 40
Back Shoulder Width: 15.75
Neck Circumference: 13
Natural Waist: 34
Hip Circumference: 42
Crotch Length: 29
Height: 66
Weight:
Bra Cup Size: D
Center Front Length: 14.5
Front Shoulder Width: 15
Front Shoulder Slope: 17
Shoulder Length: 5.125
Center Back Length: 16.5
Back Shoulder Slope: 17.875
Bicep Circumference: 12

Silly Chenille

2010-06-04T16:00:00.007-05:00

After seeing this technic demomstrated again at the April meeting of a local quilt guild, I decided to play with it at home. 'Faux Chenille' is basically mulitiple layers of fabric that are stacked, then channel-quilted on the diagonal (bias). The layers are then slashed between the rows of stitching, leaving only the bottom layer intack. Because the fabrics are cut on the bias, they will ripple, but usually not ravel too badly. This creates a 'chenille' effect.

For my sample, I chose a dark purple cotton for the bottom layer. I stacked several layers of rayon challis and a layer of what is probably polyester chiffon, followed by a green cotton and finally, a snake-printed polyester organza (or chiffon...I am never sure of these things!). I drew a line to guide my first row of stitching and becan.

Then I slashed between the rows with scissors. Now, there is a really cool tool that makes cutting this a cinch...but I didn't have it. I thought, "This is only a small sample...it will be fine." But boy! did my hand ache after all the cutting!

To make it more interesting, I cut the piece into quarters and rotated them then stitched them back together with a multi-stitch zigzag. Then the whole thing was washed and dried to make it 'bloom'.

Meanwhile, I had begun creating some silly flowers using various interesting fabrics from my stash...a velvet, a lame' (don't know how to get the ' in the right place on my keyboard!) and another scrap from my friend, Etta.

But the flowers were too large...or rather, the background was too small for the flowers!

So I layered up some more fabrics and began stitching again...this time, creating a V shape with my stitching. This way, I could get more interest without having to cut and rotate.

Once the stithcing was completed and this piece was washed and dried to make it 'bloom', I cut it into strips and added them around the outside edges of the first piece.

Then I began to work on the stems and leaves. I cut bias strips from a dark green polished cotton for the stems, and the leaves were cut (free-hand) from a sample swatch of upholstery fabric.

I roughly pinned the pieces in place until I decided what to put where...then I removed the pieces and added the stems, one at a time. The leaves were satin-stitched around the outside edges, as were the flowers.

Then I cut and sewed some black felt around the outside. That is as far as I got...it isn't finished! The felt isn't even cut well...just kinda whacked. But I will finish it eventually...

Catching up...Show ~n~ Tell!

2010-05-07T20:31:00.008-05:00

I can't believe it is taking me so long to catch up on my life! April is just a blur...

It is already MAY and I still haven't shared my loot from the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah!

Ok, here goes:

I bought some books and special rulers. This book-- http://creativecurves.com/curvesaheadb.htm --and these rulers-- http://creativecurves.com/cc_mruler.htm --are to do some curved piecing. The rulers look like a 'hood' pattern piece to me! Vanessa, my companion at the show, already had the oval rulers and stopped in at the booth to ask how to use them (as she had forgotten). As I watched the creators explain to her how to use her rulers, I decided that *I* wanted some, too! Of course... :) So I bought the curved (radius) rulers, so as not to duplicate the ones Vanessa had...and I got a book as well so that I could remember WHY I had wanted these and what I planned to do with them!

I also bought this book from Elisa's Backporch...the Crazy Curves book and the 7" Crazy curves templates, as well as the 3½" Small Paths Template. She was in a brick warehouse across from the museum...and had laryngitis! http://www.backporchdesign.com/backporch.htm

I bought these fat quarters to go with a scrap quilt that I have started. Because I am not sure that I have enough scraps for an entire quilt, I bought more fat quarters in those colors to mix and match with the fabrics I already have. I might end up with WAY more than I need!

I got these fabrics just because I like them! some of the greens might go in the scrap quilt with the fabrics above...that one is a block of the month quilt...but they were to lovely to pass up! The bird print is like from an encyclopedia of birds!

I had decided to collect animal prints for a quilt, and so in each shop or booth, I looked to see if they had any and picked them up where I found them. Well, I now have SEVENTEEN animal prints—all different! Amazing that I got no duplications (of prints, not animals!). I hadn’t realized I had found quite that many! I am not exactly sure what I will make with them...perhaps a New York Beauty quilt?...but I have them now! :)

These were a couple of intersting Japanese fabrics that I couldn't pass up, along with a leaf and vine trim that was also calling my name.

The black roll is CHALK BOARD fabric! One can write on it with chalk and erase it, just like on a blackboard! I will make a small quilt for my neice with this.

The CHARM PACKS are Kaffe Fasset fabrics that I picked up at Hancock's of Paducah. They will make something interesting, but I am not sure what just yet!

I looked at several quilting aids at the show and the one I decided to buy is this one, the Fabulous Fabric Glide... http://cgi.ebay.com/FABULOUS-FABRIC-GLIDE-FREE-MOTION-QUILTING-GUIDE-/270544865325 ...two semi-hoops to use when doing free-motion quilting (but *not* on my HandiQuilter...on my regular machine, where I would be moving the fabric). These help grip the fabric and give you something to hold on to, rather than relying on finger tips and friction. This 'hoop' was taller than some of the other hoops...some of which were stacked 3 tall in order to better get a grip on them!

The underside has tiny little rubber grippers that will hold on...not foam rubber that will eventually wear out and crumble.

I also bought quite an assortment of 'stuff'...wonderful NECESSARY stuff! :) Like these blue foam blocks...they can be heated and molded around small items and then they become a rubber stamp! Just heat them back up to remove the molded imprint...and remold them at will!

The rubbing plates of insects and leaves are to be used with those paintsticks that I still haven't used, as could be both of the animal print stencils. And the tjanting tool is for batik...the soda ash is to prepare fabric for dying! See? All very necessary items!

These BAREROOTS things are actually kits for candle mats. I just thought they were cute! I got the recommended needles for hand sewing them, because that is polite...but I might do them by machine! I do love power tools, you know... :) The disappearing thread has already vanished...it is somewhere in my sewing room, I am sure!

I picked up several patterns that I couldn't live without...one in particular is for a purse insert. That just sounds like a good idea!

Who knows when I will find the time to do any of this...let alone ALL of it!

Currently, I have been working on creating a pattern for a new dartless top.

WHAT? you say.

Yep, every so often I feel the need for a little self-torture, so I go at it again! :)

And to make matters even MORE interesting, I decided I needed a new pants pattern (as my old one is now a bit tight across the middle! 8-0

I'll let ya know how that goes!

Back from Paducah

2010-04-25T12:17:00.009-05:00

I'm baaaack! And I had a great time! This was my first visit to the quilt show in Paducah, and I hope it won't be my last. Paducah is a wonderful little town. I was quite impressed with the area around the convention center near the river...many quaint little shops and restaurants to visit, and everything was so pretty, with flowers blooming and all the landscaping looking quite well-attended! It felt 'safe'. Everyone we met was so helpful and friendly...nice.

My birthday fell during the days I was in Paducah, so my friends all helped to make it special. In addition to Vanessa and Marilyn (above), at the show, we met up with Etta (the one I went to Houston with last fall) and Charla and several of their friends and we all (10 of us) had dinner on my birthday at a wonderful little place called Patti's...
http://www.pattis-settlement.com/

Patti's serves bread baked in Terra cotta flower pots, along with strawberry butter! Yum! Plus, 2" thick pork chops are their specialty...although I got the salmon instead. There are white Christmas lights nestled with silk flowers and greenery along the ceilings and walls...I would hate to have to clean it, but it provided nice atmosphere!...hardwood floors and lace curtains, old oak furniture and antiques.

The waiters brought me a cherry cheesecake tart with a candle and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me! Ordinarily, I wouldn't have wanted that public singing, but what the heck...no one there knew me!...it was fun. The food was wonderful as was the company and the environment. It was a nice birthday!

The girls surprised me with this engagement calendar that everyone had signed...how cool!

This is what the inside looks like...a quilt picture on the left and seven days on the right...nice!

I'll take some pictures of my 'loot', too, to play show~n~tell!

No puzzle swap just yet...

2010-04-20T17:19:00.002-05:00

Well, the puzzle swap had to be postponed. A family emergency has kept me out of town for the better parts of the last two weeks, so everyone agreed to wait until May to swap our puzzles. I'll be sure to post pictures when we do swap, though!

For now, I am planning a visit to the quilt show in Paducah, KY. I have never been before and am really looking forward to it! I don't know exactly what to expect...but I am open to being amazed! :)

More later...

Puzzle swap

2010-04-11T16:15:00.000-05:00

After visiting this blog, I suggested to my Fiber Arts group that some of us might wish to do a similar swap. Well, surprise, surprise...Fourteen ladies wanted to participate!

We set the first Monday of April as the day of the swap...this was decided back in January.
However, the community center where we meet decided to close that Monday (MLK day) so we will swap these tomorrow...on the 12th of April.

I finished my pieces in March, but needed to keep them secret until now!

Remember when the Carol Duvall Show was on HGTV? She had a variety of guests demonstrating a variety of crafts and usually there was SOMETHING on each show that I enjoyed and wanted to try.

One of these demonstrations was origami using fabric.

The guest, Rebecca Wat, had published a book called Fantastic Fabric Folding and she demonstrated this one little flower. I followed along and folded a flower using a piece of paper.

I have kept it all these years. I decided THAT would be the theme of my puzzle pieces!

The first few flowers I made used the light pink fabric, and I used the iron to set the creases...but I decided the fabric would perform much better if it was starched...and my fingers would appreciate not getting burned! So I mixed up some boiled starch and drenched the remaining fabrics then ironed them flat and stiff.

Then I cut the fabric into squares. I wasn't particular about the size of the squares, making a variety to fit my scraps. After all, there weren't going to be sewn together, so the squares could be different sizes.

I folded the purples, pinks and magenta squares back and forth, just as I had done with the paper 'sample flower' I had saved all these years. It worked in fabric, too!

Next I rounded up some of the blue/green scraps of hand-dyed fabric left over from "Shoulda Putta Frog on it" (a.k.a. the Blue River Quilt) as well as some additional fabrics to use for the background.

Once the flowers were made, I attached the blue and green scraps 'log-cabin style' to the flower center. The object of the game was to get a background large enough to fit the puzzle piece template onto.

I layered these pieces onto some off-white felt and stitched the background...mostly stippling, although I experimented with other stitch patterns at first (the stippling looked best!). Then I used my puzzle template to mark these pieces. I had downloaded the puzzle piece used by this blog and shared it with the other participants in my group. One of the ladies in my group had laminated this and cut the pieces apart to provide each of us with a laminated puzzle piece to use as a template for drawing around...a nice help! Then I cut out the pieces using scissors. More than once I thought how nice a die-cut machine would be!

To give them a nice backing, I used Wonder Under to attach TWO layers of sew-in interfacing, then cut them into squares and painted them with acrylic paint. Once dry, I used the template to mark and cut these into puzzle shapes also. These were them paired with the pieced puzzles...I glue-basted them together, then stitched around the edges with variegated thread.

This is my final product!

I made 17 pieces, although I only needed 14. I wanted to have a few extra in case I messed up!

The hardest part was cutting these out. That is why I cut the top and backing separately...I had tried basting the top to the backing BEFORE cutting on 3 of them and was SO glad that I stopped to test the cutting before sewing them ALL together! It was easier to cut twice as many thinner ones than half as many thicker ones!

I have a variety of colors and flower sizes. The hand-dyed fabrics make nice things! I think I will have to start dying fabric...it is so much fun to use this stuff!

The tabs don't all interlock, but that is to be expected. Even if they did, once swapped, will mine interlock with those of others? Who knows! I will show you the result of the swap later...check back!

The Blue River Quilt, FINAL Answer!

2010-03-28T17:55:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I went to a warehouse sale being held nearby. Arlene Blackburn, a local fabric artist, has opened an internet fabric store, and she invited the local guild members to come by on Saturday when she opened to the public for a few hours. I did. And I bought several pieces! I first selected a bundle of fat quarters by Robert Kaufman...the Elementals Collection: Nature (lily pond colorway). Then I also pulled several bolts of batiks off the shelves and got a yard of each.

When I got home, I layed my new fabrics on the cutting table to admire them...and take a picture, of course. I walked into another room to get the camera, and as I returned to the sewing room, I had to laugh! I was struck by the similarity of the colors of the wonderful new fabrics I had just brought home and the quilt I have recently finished...they were practically the same!

I am not very good at cutting out pictures, so please excuse the jagged lines! But look at the similarity between these new batik fabrics and the hand dyed fabrics of my quilt (which hangs on the sewing room wall)!

Come to think of it, I am not sure I ever shared pictures of the *final*, final quilt. I know...I *thought* I had this finished several times, but truly, NOW it is finished!

The last time I showed this, it had lots of beads in the river in several curling swirls.

Well, I wasn't happy with the look, so I scattered even MORE beads on it, until it looked like it had blue chicken pox!

Not good...

To me, the swirls and sequins in the river were over-powering the quilt...that was all I could see!

I removed most of the river's swirls as well as the scattered beads and immediately liked it better! I slowly began to add bugle beads in a more orderly pattern. I wanted to create continuity between the orderliness of the beading at the top of the quilt and what was in the river. This is the finished product:

The final result still has beads, but not so much that that is all you see!

The placement of the beads was intended to represent reflections on the water.

There is still one swirl that is more heavily beaded, but the other swirls have more bugle beads than any other type of bead and are less heavily beaded.

This is the label on the back: I named this "Shoulda Putta Frog on it"...sort of tongue-in-cheek! Over the many months that I have worked on this, one of the girls in my Monday group kept asking where the frog was...so I put one on the back. Plus, "The Blue River Quilt" sounds so boring..."Shoulda Putta Frog on it" sounds more intriguing...at least for NOW. Having just finished "Shoulda Putta Ring on it", this can be part of my "shoulda putta" series!

Of course, in years to come, this name will no make sense to anyone.

Red and 'just wrong' again!

2010-03-27T14:37:00.000-05:00

This week at my local quilt guild meeting, we worked on charity quilts...basically, we had a 'sit and sew'. I brought my machine in and was given fabric to sew on. My table's quilt wasn't finished at the meeting, so I brought it home to finish. This is the result.

This is one of those "quilt as you go" quilts...basically, once it is assembled, you are done.

The fabric was pre-cut into 13" squares, then stacked into sets of 3...two 'fashion fabrics' and a 'batting'. The FF's are placed right sides together, then the 'batting' is placed on the bottom of the stack.

Instead of traditional (fluffy) quilt batting, we were using cotton flannel. However, the set of squares brought to me didn't even have flannel...the inside layer was just a thin cotton, like white muslin.

A large circle was drawn on the back/wrong side of the top FF square. I was to sew around this circle, then someone else was trimming around the circle of stitching and making a small slash in the top layer (only), then turning it right side out. Then another lady at our table would press these circles. Next a square template was used to draw lines on the circle so they could be sewn together.

These circles were sewn together into rows, then the rows were assembled into a quilt.

Because some of the backing fabrics were the same as the top fabric, there was very little definition of the 'pattern' that is to be the result of this technique. In order to TRY to create some definition, I had used a blanket stitch when stitching down the 'flaps' that are created when the circles are sewn together...basically, this is a "faux-cathedral window" quilt. The blanket stitch was an after-thought, so the quilt was half-assembled when I started this.

I quickly realized that it would be SO much easier to do some of the blanket stitching when the pieces were still in the 'row' stage.

In the picture below you can see that I have already done the blanket stitching on the last row and it is ready to be attached to the quilt. This way, once the 'row' seam is stitched, it can then be blanket stitched across the quilt without having to go in all four directions around the circles.

Also in that picture below you can see a tiny slit in the FF near the lower edge of the circle on the right. Well, THAT is a problem. Yes, that is the slit that was used to turn the circle right side out. But this is the LAST ROW...there is nothing to be sewn to the botton edge, so that area will not be folded over like on other rows. That circle should have been rotated 90 degrees when that row was sewn, so that the slit was covered in the first stage of sewing.

Too bad I didn't catch it until that row had been assembled AND sewn onto the quilt! This was the last row...I was almost finished...ready to blanket-stitch that last seam...and suddenly, there it is. A slit. Right there on the corner circle.

Dammit.

And here's the deal: After sewing these circles together to make a 'row', I would lay the row on the table and place a ruler across the top of the seams and draw a line which would be the stitching line for assembling the row to the others. And I used a SHARPIE to draw that line. It wouldn't show after the flap was folded and stitched.

So that corner circle had a slit in the bottom edge and a permanent black line across the top edge. It couldn't be rotated and reused, because the corner needed two ADJACENT edges to be 'blemish-free".

Great.

So I had to rip and remove that last row, then also rip out the blanket stitching around-- NOT ONLY the corner circle, but the next-to-corner circle also--so I could switch their postions, placing the corner circle toward the middle of the row where it wouldn't need two adjacent blemish-free sides. This added hours to the construction time!

But it is now finished.

Overall, I am not fond of this thing. The charity to receive the quilts this time is a hospice center. Well, to me, this quilt looks very funereal...black and red roses?

How cheerful.

The only way it could possible be more macabre is to perhaps include some of those DAY OF THE DEAD skeletons wearing sombreros!

Or perhaps this:

But fortunately, there are no skulls or skeletons on this. There are red roses, though...

I dunno...it just doesn't say "hospice" to me!

I did learn a few things when making this quilt...for one thing, the circle they drew on the quilt for me to stitch on should have been treated as a CUTTING line instead of a STITCHING line. I should have stitched 1/4" INSIDE that circle, because the square template that was provided was smaller than the finished circle. This means that the flaps are not all the same size...the vertical ones are larger than the horizontal ones. No big deal, but still....

Pressing is very important. The circles need to be well-pressed before assembling.

And when sewing those rows, be sure to include the slit side in the first stage of construction, so there will be no problems later.

Ackkk! Today I was going over this finished quilt with a lint brush, to remove stray threads, etc, and what did I find? There is a little 'snip' on the back side of one circle! Judging by the location, it looks like it might have been snipped when they were creating the 'slash' on the opposite side for turning the circles right side out. It is small...less than 1/4"...but it is 'there'. I have put some Fray check on it, but I can't leave it this way. I'll have to stitch over it somehow. Either a bar-tack kind of thing, or possible some hand stitching...although, truly, the machine bar-tack will look less like a repair, because my handwork isn't great. I think this would be a good time to have some of that Bo-Nash powder...