The Shoemaker's Shoeless Children.

on the sofa

It took me a really long time to get around to it, but I finally made new pillows for the living room.

on the red chair

My next project is helping Miss Jane make a shirtdress. Heaven help us both!!!

I am Skirt Crazy

I wear skirts almost all the time. I'd say half of the real estate in my closet is taken up by them. And I keep making more.

I made this skirt to fulfill the my Designer III "Lets Strip"challenge. (You can see the pieced fabric before I cut it up there.) I used the same pattern (Burda 8261) that I just used for The Shower Skirtain.

The Hops Skirt

First, I pieced 3 fabrics together. Then I made about 10 yards of bias tape from a fine red and white strip. Let me tell you, I almost went blind!! I made the bias strip continuous, then I used my unthreaded serger to cut the strips. After I recovered, I sewed the bias strips down in wavy lines over the vertical seams of the pieced fabric, then layed out and cut out the skirt. I put in a center back lapped zipper and hid it under one of the bias strips. I love how the red and black and turquoise and black fabric looks like hops, so this skirt is going to be called "The Hops Skirt". A little crazy, but yes, I do name some of my clothes.

Where's the zipper?

After that, I switched gears and patterns and made this from McCalls 2255. Its a simple bias skirt. It uses a kind of a lot of fabric, so I went through my collection for more candidates and cut out 3 more. I like that kind of stash blasting.

But wait, thats only two more. Alas, one didn't make it. The fabric had a bit of stretch to it, plus I cut it on the bias and the two things together resulted in the worst narrow rolled hem ever. Oh, well. I did do something new with the hems on these skirts. I used the little curleque rolled hem foot on my regular sewing machine. I don't know if its possible to ever get that thing to work when crossing a seam, so first I hemmed the front and back seperately then sewed the side seams. I think it turned out much better that way.

This pattern has you use a casing for the elastic, which I did for the first one, but the decided to try the elastic technique I use for knit skirts. I like it a lot better. First, divide the elastic and the skirt into quarters and pin the elastic to the wrong side of the waist at the quarter marks. Stretch and serge the elastic and the fabric together just at the raw edge with out any cutting. Then fold the elastic to the inside and strech flat and sew a zigzag stitch through the right side fabric and the elestic.  



with casing



serged and zigzaged

 Then I went back to Burda 8261. I made this shirt out of fabric that was a groovy maxi dress I got at the thrift store.

You know how zebras look all graphic and black and white up close? But from far away they blend in? Well, since I still had some of that bias left over, I decided to finish the bottom edge of this skirt with it. I love how it looks.

I do have another new skirt pattern, but I think I'll put it aside for now. There's something I really need to make for the house.

The Shower Skirtain

I made this as a muslin before I cut up the pieced fabric I made for the Designer III Group. The fabric is a shower curtain I got from a thrift store. A cheap shower curtain. It had buttonholes, not grommets on it. I used the top border with the buttonholes along the bottom of the shirt and sewed some assorted buttons over the holes. The pattern is Burda 8261. The skirt is nice and simple, but I'm sure I bought the pattern for the dress.

Unicorns

Like Unicorns, there is no such thing as a Lutheran Nun, but if there were they could wear this dress. The nuns, not the unicorns.

This is my new favorite top again, this time dress length  with sleeves.

Double Trouble

Just when I had really learned to love my old camera I had to replace it. I'm not sure how I feel about the new one yet. Oh, and thanks, camera manufacturer, for not giving me a printed manual. If  I ever happen to see Bigfoot and have any questions, I'll be sure to consult the pdf file on the CD. Again, Thanks!

I made another of my new favorite tops. I bought this fabric 12 or 15 years ago and made a dress out of it. The dress had been way too big for me for years. Normally I would have just thrown it away, but this was really beautiful fabric. Its a medium weight crepe from Haberman fabric. Then, after all that time hanging on to that dress, as I was serging the side seams..well...guess what? In and instant I had put a two inch slice into both the front and back armholes!! But I didn't come that far to give up, so I patched it up and I'm pretty sure the civilian non-sewing public would never notice it!