Category: sewing

  • things to do, places to go

    A quick post – I really have lots of things to do to get ready for Le Trip, plus it’s Good TV Night (ahhh, grey’s) so I need to get them done fast!

    I did decide (with some egging on) to make something else for Rhinebeck, a pretty awesome tote bag.

    I cut the pieces Tuesday night and whipped it together Wednesday in under an hour. The outside is barkcloth from Reprodepot, and the inside is some stripey cotton I got from Yahaira! The straps are black canvasy stuff.

    It’s nice and big, modeled after one of my usual bags from Grassroots. Perfect for filling with wool…

    Clothing is packed, but knitting…not so much. Need to go wind some wool and pack enough knitting to last me a week. You know it’s true. Also need to charge camera, gather up shampoo and such, clean out and pack up my backpack…

    See you at Rhinebeck!

  • an afternoon with denny

    Denny came over today for some fibrey fun! She brought her warping mill for me to borrow/keep, and showed me how to use it:

    And I gave her an email tutorial.

    I wove! It’s a looong way from perfect, but whatever. Fun!

    It’s…I dunno, a scarf or something. Long. All cotton, white with pink stripes. We wound two more warps, much wider ones, so those will be the next couple projects.

    And Denny took some photos of my latest finished dress – don’t mind the blurry, you get the idea, right?

    Pattern is McCall’s 5137.
    Fabric: “Carmen Paisley” in brown from Reprodepot; brown cotton twill from Fabricland. The paisley is really light and gauzey, and has a ripple texture. I thought the twill might be too heavy (especially doubled for the neckband and waist) but it gives the garment some good weight.

    Thoughts on the pattern – well, I think there are some unnecessary seams. You could cut the back bodice and centre back skirt panel on the fold and eliminate those seams. And it’s very low cut! I made the size 8 on the recommendation of Erin from A Dress a Day, and it fits fine. Very comfy.

    I decided not to do doubled sleeve ends and just did a normal hem around the sleeve. There’s supposed to be an extra panel at the bottom of the skirt, but I nixed that too and just hemmed. All in all the pattern was fairly straightforward.

    Now I’m all tempted to buy more of that paisley!

  • hey, she can (kinda) sew

    Finally, here is my first successful dress (I’ve attempted before, but that didn’t get too far). Photo taken in my sister’s room, which we painted this week. Did the trim today, so it’s still drying.


    (very difficult to get a decent photo of this, on my own anyway. looks better, and slimmer, in person.)

    Pattern is Butterick 4443, view C (the yellow) without the bow, obviously. Size 14. Fabric was cotton/linen blend from Fabricland for $5 a metre! Quite a nice fabric.

    The pattern was…well, challenging for me, queen of skirts and bags. I liked the princess shaping rather than darts, and once I figured out where to clip, they were easy to put together. I didn’t understitch the lining, which was good, because I ran out of thread…not till after I finished, but then there were alterations to be made.

    The pattern really was fairly straightforward, though. The skirt is a really nice shape. I bought this pattern awhile back, so I’d gotten the 8-14 size – I made the 14, but it’s a bit snug in the waist despite reducing the seam allowances on the sides to less than 3/8″. Wearable, though.

    Once I finished slip-stitching in the bodice lining (very tedious), I put it on, zipped it up, and….it was too big in the bodice. The back was gaping madly. So I had to make some modifications:

    Two back darts.

    Plus, I had to go and wreck my nice lined bodice by taking it in at the shoulder – with a different colour thread, too! Ah, well. I wore it out to SnB on Wednesday and got quite a few compliments.

    And since the sewing bug’s got me, I finished another dress today! Okay, it’s not totally totally done, but it will be tomorrow. I even cut yet another dress tonight, and it should be fairly easy to sew up tomorrow.

    Quick knitting update: Unfortunately, I had to rip what I’d done of the Blueberry Greek Pullover that I showed the other day! I went to count the stitches to figure out how many more increases to do, and realized I’d just cast on the wrong number of stitches. Not the smaller size or anything, just kind of a random number inbetween. I think I’m finally, finally back on track.