Colette Sewing Handbook

Sarai Mitnick, the creator of Colette Patterns has a book coming out!  You can pre-order through Amazon at this link; the book will be available later this year.

The formal announcement says that the book will be for the beginner to intermediate sewist.  It will cover 5 core elements:  Plan, Pattern, Fit, Fabric and Finish, and, best of all it will also include patterns!  The five patterns are: a scalloped-hem skirt, flutter-sleeve blouse, sweetheart neck sheath dress, asymmetrical flounce dress, and a lined dress with gathered sleeves.  Each pattern designed to further cement one’s sewing skills.

If you’ve never seen Colette Patterns, they are just the nicest things.  Besides the styles having a wearable but retro feel to them, the packaging is lovely with well written instructions, and even a place for your notes.

Maybe something to put on your wish list for the holidays?

I get no kick-backs from Colette Patterns, I’ve never met Ms, Mitnick and am not affiliated in any way.  This is just a public service pattern announcement.

Passionate Pomegranate

This is a quilt I finished a while ago:  Passionate Pomegranate.  It’s based on the One Block Wonder books by Maxine Rosenthal.  It was my first attempt at something like this.  I was amazed that you could get this lovely kaleidoscope effect with just straight seams.  1001 design permutations, too!

The blocks are tracked as hexagons, but when you start to sew them, they’re done as strips.  Make sense?  Well, it helps to read the books or take a class at your local quilt store.  Once you do, the whole design principle becomes quite obvious and simple.

The blocks at left were quilted with stitch-in-the-ditch.  You can see how the design replicates to create the spirals.  It’s a great way to use some of the lovely large  prints available in quilting stores.

The whole thing was machine quilted with simple straight sewing.  It took a bit of doing to man (woman?) handle the whole thing through my sewing machine, but I managed.  The batting is bamboo, which seems to be a bit softer than the standard Warm & Natural.  I’ve read about both a wool and a silk batting which I’d like to try some day.  I bet the silk would be yummy!

The back of the quilt is also pretty colorful.  Claire approves! The fabric along the sides is a companion print to the main pomegranate fabric.  I put an uncut strip of the primary pomegranate print (say that three times fast) in the center as a reminder of what it looked like originally.  Quite a difference, don’t you think?

Simplicity 2554: Flutterific

Flora flutters in a butterfly top

Another take on Simplicity 2554, this time view F, the top with butterfly sleeves.  It’s basically the tank top with some half circles sewn into the princess seams, then tacked at the neckline binding.

This fabric was just wonderful to sew.  Both the print and the solid are rayon jersey knits that feel just lovely:  soft, silky and so smooth on the skin.  Yum! The top itself was all sewn on the serger.  I imported the fitting changes I discovered when I made the first version.

Since the pattern has been around for a while, I checked the reviews on Pattern Review, and found a lot of comments about the under side showing.  The more I looked at the pattern, the more it said “Color Blocking” to me.  So, color blocking it is.  Using a solid color for the sleeves meant I didn’t have to worry about the underside of the print being exposed.

The sleeves come down quite a ways on the front of the top.  On the back, they pretty much stop at the shoulder blade.

Even though the top fits nicely, and feels lovely, I find I am still of two minds about it.  I want to like it, but there’s a little niggling voice in the back of my head saying it makes me look like a matron trying to recapture her not-wanton-enough youth.

Then again, I may just say to hell with it, and be a Flutterific Wanton Matron.

Sew-In 2010

Sew-In 2010 was a rousing success!  On Friday the doors opened promptly at 9:30, and everyone zipped in like a herd of thundering yertles.   Bet you didn’t know yertles could thunder, did you? There were dollys and hand carts loaded with machines, fabric, project baskets and treats.  There were hugs and high-fives for friends not seen since the previous year.  There was oogling and petting as we envied each others’ creations-to-be.

Besides the usual sumptuous meals, of which there were many we had a special cake-worthy celebration.

Can you believe that blonde youngster in the photo at left turned 80? Neither could I!  She doesn’t look a day over 39.  Everyone sang Happy Birthday.  Some of us sang slightly off-key, but what we lacked in tone, we made up for in volume!

The cake, by the way, was delicious.  So much so, I got my hand slapped for fingering the icing.

In addition to hours and hours of sewing, which there was aplenty, we also had several demos and projects that we could sign up for.  One of the ones I took was learning how to make pin cushion teacups.  My first thought on this was why would a pin cushion need a teacup?  Do they drink tea? Well, it’s not that the pincushions are thirsty, but more a great way to use those lovely china cups that seem to gather dust in the cupboard.There was a lot of picking and sorting to find just the right teacup decoration.  Some of us thought the floras made for a lovely chapeau, and tucked them behind our ears, in our hair and well, other places.

Nary a scrap was wasted either.  One person’s bag-making cast off auditioned as a stylish headband.

First time attendees are sometimes subjected to good-natured pranks.  A completely different meaning to the sewing practice of draping, don’t you think? While the sewing machine was unscathed beneath its adornment; it taught the owner to take a little less time fabric shopping!

Every day at meal time (lunch and dinner) there were goodies at our place settings.  All of these were made by attendees.  Can you believe it? Quite the talented bunch, I must say.  A steno portfolio, scissor fobs, luggage identifiers, pin cushions, stationary, mylar envelopes for patterns and quilting pieces, and note pads.  You’d think it was Christmas!

Whew!  What a weekend.  And of course, I absolutely did not get a picture of our Day of the Dead silent auction pieces.  Suffice to say they found a wonderful home with someone who will be spreading them around the globe.  I was told the pin cushions will be going to Germany, while the placematts and pot holders are a housewarming for a daughter and grandson setting up new digs.

Now it’s time to recuperate, and plan for next year.   Sew-In 2011, here we come!

Holy Potholders!

Holy Potholders, Batman!

I used the Memorial weekend to wrap up the last of the Day of the Dead items my friend and I are making for the Sew-In Silent Auction.   This year’s theme is making something for any holiday you like, so we chose Dia de los Muertes.  It’s quite well know here in the southwest.  A time to pay homage to one’s ancestors.  Seems kind of fitting to work on it during the memorial weekend.

The potholders are done!  Ta da! I was surprised they took longer than expected, but I guess that happens when you end up making your own binding.  There are 2 layers of something called Insulbright sandwiched between the surface fabric, and the silver heat-repellent backing.  I hope that is enough to prevent someone from burning their fingers.  If not, well, I guess these could always be “display only” accoutrement.

Yes Virginia, I had to free motion quilt through all 4 layers to stick everything together.  Whew!  Can you tell I am not a quilter?

Two of the designs are just Day of the Dead fabric, while the other two are embroidered candy skulls from Urban Threads.  This is a larger version of the pincushions I wrote about here

Urban Threads is a funky site that sells machine and hand embroidery designs with a bit of a twist.  Think Goth meets Steampunk meshed with Calico Katie.

Off the Deep End

This arrived in today’s post.   A nice manila envelope all the way from Italy!  I’ve put the ruler in for scale.  As you can see, it’s not too terribly large.

This is what was inside.  Two, count ‘em two Marfy patterns.  Small, prized (I hope) bits of fashion tissue.  Now, what are Marfy patterns, you may ask?  Ok.  Go ahead and ask…

Marfy is a pattern company out of Italy (didn’t I just say that?) and you can only order them online, through the Vogue pattern web site.  Or take a trip to Italy, but I couldn’t do that.  Nice idea though.

These are the two styles I got.   A short summer jacket at left, and a nice raglan-sleeved shirt at right.  I’ve been coveting the shirt for at least 2 years, always amazed it was still in print!

Marfy is, how shall I say, not for the faint of heart.  You have the fashion image from the web site, and the pattern.  That’s it!

No instructions.  No cutting layout.  No seam allowances.  Oh, and the pattern is European sized to boot, so there’s another little translation to handle (hmm, maybe it’s a good thing they don’t come with instructions, I don’t see myself translating Italian).  I have either grown much more confident in my abilities, or I’ve stepped Off the Deep End into one of Dante’s Circles of Sewing Hell.

I was thinking I would work on one of these at the upcoming Sew-In, but now I’m not so sure.  I haven’t yet been brave enough to unfold the tissue.  Eeek! To quote Talking Heads, “My God!  What have I done?”

Vogue 8598: Max and Matelasse

Vogue 8598 is a princess seam shirt with sleeve variations.  This pattern struck me as classic and stylish.  One of those wardrobe staples we’re always reading about, and that’s exactly what I was after.

I chose view D: straight long sleeves.  I made a couple of changes from the standard pattern.  Once again, I altered the collar á la Louise Cutting, so it is all one piece.  My fabric was fairly textural, so I opted to serge the edge of the front and fold it under once, rather than doing a double fold.  Other than those two changes, the shirt went together very easily.

What is it about black cats and white shirts?  Max inspecting my sewing skills.

As you can see from the fabric photo at right, this has all over embroidery.  In fact, it was very flat when I purchased it off the bolt.  After washing, the embroidery pulled in, and the whole fabric took on a matelassé look.  I rather liked this, and didn’t want to lose it when I started sewing.

This meant some experimenting with interfacing.  I usually use iron-on, but this would have flattened the texture.  I also didn’t want to lose the translucency that the  white had.  After pawing through the stash, and trying different things I had a eureka moment.  Silk organza! So, the collar, front and sleeve cuffs are all interfaced with this.  It’s sewn in, so doesn’t affect the embroidery loft, and provided enough stability for button holes.

Now, remember back to all those fitting muslins in the New Look shirt?  I actually used those changes to measure this pattern, which saved me from having to do a muslin, as well as knowing which of the multi-sized cutting lines to use.  I knew that extra work would come in handy!

The other cool thing? The way the embroidery shrank also gives the fabric some stretch, even though there’s not a lick of lycra in it!

New Look 6407: Finished!

It’s finally finished.  All the pattern adjustments are complete and I think I have a working pattern.  Whew!  I sewed the buttons on last night, and wore it out to visit with Prince Charming’s co-workers.

Since I was already in the throes of pattern alteration, I revamped the collar a la Louise Cutting.  This method cuts both the upper and under collar as one, swapping the collar side seams for a single seam in the middle of the under collar.  This also puts the under collar on the bias, with the upper collar still on grain.

I changed fabric for the facings, as you can see with both the sleeve photo and the collar band above.  I think this gives a nice design touch.  The body fabric has some lycra in it, and the facing does not.  I don’t know if this sort of stretch stabilization is really necessary.  I didn’t take that into account when changing the facings.  It’s just something I like to do.

While the back is a little wrinkly it really does fit much, much better than the original pattern.  Trust me!

I know some folks may be saying Why bother with all this fitting?  Why not just try another pattern? I must admit, I sang this chorus to myself several times.  Still, when all is said and done, I now have a nice shirt, and a basic pattern to compare other patterns to.  This should save some trials and tribulations further down the sewing road.

Dia de los Muertos

This time of year, it’s Dia de los Muertos in the Southwest.  Time to celebrate our ancestors, family and friends who have passed, and contributed to our lives in many different ways.

I decided to celebrate by embroidering these sugar skulls.  The ones with the pins are pincushions, and the white one is filled with catnip.  Can’t forget the kittens, after all!  These embroidery designs were freebies (woohoo!) from Urban Threads

I did a little experimentation with the pincushions, one is filled with repti-sand and the other filled with crushed walnuts.  Both these fillings can be found at your local pet supply store in the reptile section, believe it or not.

To continue with the Day of the Dead theme, I fell for the fabrics at right, courtesy of EQuilter.com

I’m not sure what I’ll make from all of them, placematts for the off-white in the center left.  The rest fall under the infamous heading “To Be Determined“.

Homage to an Unknown Quilter, Part II

Tra La! Tra La! It’s Done! It’s Done! O Happy Dance!

The quilt is done.  I am so happy!  I  had to whack off (that’s a technical quilting term) some of the edges of the stars to even things up around the perimeter, but overall, I think it turned out well.  At 61 x 84 inches, it also turned out larger than I expected.  The back and the binding are just cotton scraps pieced together.  I knew I saved them for a reason!

I think the quilt will get some use this winter, keeping us, cats, kittens and anyone else who passes through warm.  It’s just the right size to use while sitting on the couch.

Everything is a cat toy!