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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

After School Classes March 2014


Greta and her Simplicity blouse


     The children are on spring break this week and about half of them went out of town.  Because of that I cancelled classes for the week.  I did schedule a mini-camp to make personalized pillowcases but no one signed up for it.

Lindsey and her peasant nightgown


     In Monday's class Ellen is continuing work on a Simplicity pattern dress.  She has the bodice finished and is now seaming the skirt pieces.  The fabric she chose for the skirt is a double layer knit. She has to do a lot of pinning to keep the layers from shifting.  Cara meanwhile is making good progress on her Butterick pattern tote.

Natalie and her nightshirt


  In Tuesday's class Kate is working on a pair of denim shorts as is her sister Christine.  They should finish them next week.  Nonie is working on the square neck blouse in a eye popping black and white chevron print.  Greta finished her Simplicity pattern blouse the end of February and is now working on the blouse from the Kids Can Sew book.  She has chosen to shorten it and make it from a sheer fabric to wear over the tank top she made earlier.  She is learning how to do French seams to create a nicely finished blouse.

Julia with her cross country sweatpants


     In Wednesday's class Lindsey finished her peasant nightgown and is working on a pair of shorts.  Natalie finished her nightshirt and is working on a back slit denim skirt.  Julia finished her sweatpants.  She had fun making the buttonholes for the twill tape.  She opted to not hem the pants as that is the current style.  Nick worked on a quilt for a while but is now making a coat for his little dog. It is lined with fleece and has rip stop nylon for the outer part.

Najiyah and her pajama pants
   

     Najiyah finished her plaid pajama pants.  She did a great job matching the plaid.  She is now working on a striped nightshirt.  Bella is working on the round neck blouse made from a pretty batik fabric.  Aviva finished her flannel nightshirt.  She had mistakenly cut up part of the front when cutting out the pattern.  We turned it into a design opportunity.  We took a long piece of the fabric, turned in the ends and sewed it over the cut front.  She then added a bow from the strip of fabric.  It turned out really cute.  Maddie is working on a peasant nightgown.


Aviva and her nightshirt

Detail of the 'design opportunity'

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Quilt Retreat March 2014

Presents quilt by Joni


     This past weekend was my annual quilt retreat.  I meet several of my friends up in Hillpoint Wisconsin at Homestead Quilt Retreats.  We have been doing this for several years.  At first all the meals were cooked for us and man they were delicious.  The past couple of years though we have been on our own for food.  No one contacted me to contribute this year so I wound up just providing meals for myself.  I was only there for two nights though while the majority of the women were there for four nights.  On Friday night Nancy made a delicious vegetable soup that she shared with everyone, me included.

Honeymoon quilt by me


     I got up there around 2:30 on Friday afternoon after stopping at Patched Works in Elm Grove WI and Millhouse Quilts in Waunakee WI.  I left there on Sunday just before 2.  I spent the entire time sewing except for a quick 8 mile run on the hills on Saturday morning.

Another of Joni's quilts


     The first day I pieced blocks from a kit I had bought about 9 years ago.  I had cut all the pieces at home and by the end of the evening the blocks were all sewn.  They went together much quicker than I thought they would.

Nancy and one of her scrappy quilts


     The next day I worked on the honeymoon quilt for my daughter.  While they were on their honeymoon she collected fat quarters from various shops that reminded them of their travels.  She is not a quilter but does a great job picking out fabric.  I had cut and pieced the blocks at home and then took advantage of the large design wall to lay them out.  Got several suggestions for moving a few of them and then I started to put them together.  By dinner they were all together.

Quilt by Lori


     After dinner on Saturday evening we had a little ceremony to remember one of our fellow quilters that had died recently.  Things did not go quite as planned.  We wound up laughing so hard.  We figured Denise would have loved it just the way it turned out.

Looking good

Aloft!

Oh no it hit a tree!


     I wound up piecing together the blocks I had put together the night before before going to bed.  That meant I had no other projects to make.  I had even pieced a block for Eileen for her block of the month quilt.

Lori's house quilt


Book used for house quilt 


     The next morning I cut the fat quarters I had purchased before to make a Turning Twenty quilt for the last niece's high school graduation (which won't be for a few years).  Afterwards I cut out 6 pillowcases for my grandson.  I am making him one for every holiday.  I didn't sew any of them because I need to embroider his name first.  Just before leaving I decided to get the borders on the honeymoon quilt.  I was going to do it at home where I have a larger cutting table but I didn't want to waste my time there.  I got the borders on and then it was time to quickly pack everything up and head home.  I wish I had had more time but with all my teaching classes I couldn't get away any earlier.

Chevron quilt

Detail of chevron quilt

     I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the quilts that were made that weekend.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Patio Cushions

Bright Sunbrella fabrics


     Spring and summer will be here soon, as least they say it will come.  We bought a patio set several years ago and while the chairs are comfortable they are metal.  In the cool weather they can be quite chilly to sit on and in the sun of summer they can burn your backend.

     I decided I needed to make some cushions.  I bought this Sunbrella fabric a few years ago and finally got around to making the cushions this winter.  After doing some research I decided a waterfall cushion would be the best choice for the chairs.  There is no seam in front and no cording to trap dirt and water.  I bought special outdoor foam for the cushions and did not wrap them so the water could drain through if the cushions happened to not come in during a rain storm.

     Then came the search for directions.  I found this site on-line and went to work.  The construction wasn't as easy as I thought it would be as the fabric has no give so getting it smooth into the curve was work.  Also since I had changed my mind from when I bought the fabric until I actually made them I didn't have enough fabric to make all the cushions the same.  Not really a problem since two of the chairs are different and we don't usually have them pulled up to the table unless we need them.

   
Six cushions all ready for summer

     As you can see the fabric is a bit puckery.  I have four stripe cushions with solid sides and two solid cushions with stripe sides.  I didn't wind up using the yellow fabric since I didn't make cording like I had planned for originally.  I am planning on making some placemats with the yellow fabric and the scraps of the other fabrics.  I wasn't happy that the covers were as loose as they are either making the front edge more square than I thought it would be.  

Cushion from Cushion Pros


     Compared to some cushions I could buy on-line they don't look that different with the puckers.  I see they chose to keep the side panels square at the front.  This is the difference between a waterfall cushion and a bullnose cushion which is what I actually made.

It's March not January  Needing sunshine


     Not too sure when I will be able to use the cushions as we got more snow again today, March 12th, and this is what my patio looks like right now.  The calendar says spring is coming but I'm not sure Mother Nature is paying attention.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Vintage Dress

     Back in January I blogged about how I was helping a mom make a vintage dress for her daughter. We learned some very interesting things about vintage patterns including there is no printing on the pattern pieces.


Pattern front




Pattern back



Fabric

     Well with a couple of intense weeks of sewing she completed the dress and slip.  I did a little of the sewing towards the end to help her finish  it but otherwise she did the whole thing herself.  

     Here is what she wrote to me in an email after the talent show was over:


Just wanted to thank you again for all your help and encouragement in making Rosie's dress!  You helped me feel like a great mom and Rosie felt very special to be wearing something that her mom made just for her with lots of love!  I felt so proud.  I really enjoyed working with you.  You made me feel calm despite the deadline and you were so very patient and kind.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I am sending pictures for you.  I will put them in 3 quick emails so I don't send too large a file.  Feel free to post the hanging photos of the dress and slip on your blog if you want.  I could not have done this project without you and everything went so smoothly.  I am eternally grateful!  Rosie's performance went wonderfully, as did Will's.  We got so many compliments and Rosie just looked so wholesome and beautiful.  See the photos in the 3rd email.

Warmest Regards,
Jennifer M

     
Dress and slip fronts
   

     I have to say this was a lot of fun and I learned quite a few things myself about using vintage patterns.  It really makes me appreciate the modern day patterns with their complete instructions.  The vintage patterns seemed to assume you knew about sewing and thus not everything was explained completely.

Dress and slip backs


     I have to say thank you to Jennifer for trusting me to help her with this project.  I think she did a great job and deserves many kudos herself for persevering with a difficult project.