It's been so long!

I cannot believe how long it's been since my last post.


Much has happened (not very much sewing!) - the most important thing being that I am having a baby! The run up to Christmas was mental at work and we got the exciting news about the little one at the beginning of January. It has all been a bit of a blur since then, lots going on. I haven't really had any sewing time, and to be honest I've been a little reluctant to sew things for me (I am a selfish sewist) as my belly grows. So I think I am going to concentrate on home sewing - particularly some quilts - and knitting for now, and perhaps some baby clothes?? Though that will also be a bit tricky as we are not going to find out the sex of the baby, so nothing gender specific... though I have a seven month old niece who I can always make frocks for. Progress in all areas will no doubt be slow!

In light of my decision to do some more quilting I have been doing a little browsing of the intraweb to find some helpful sites with basic tutorials, some of which I've linked. There is such a huge quilting community in the US - we have nothing even approaching that in the UK (from an online perspective anyway!).


Some good friends of ours are expecting their first baby on Tuesday (by ceasarean, so there really is a hard deadline!) and I am in the process of making a quilt. I was pretty happy with how my first quilt turned out so I thought I give something slightly more challenging a bash. I made the design myself (as you can probably tell from how basic it is!), but it has... TRIANGLES in it! I have made eight of the 12 main blocks, so I have four left to do plus the borders for each block then all the sashing, outer borders, back, quilting etc (yowzers - not much time between now and Tuesday) to do. I think I'll call it 'Spring' as the colours are all pastels which remind me of the start of spring.


Royal Wedding fever has taken over here and tomorrow will be taken up with that, though I might get a chance to do the last four blocks and cut out the borders in the evening. We'll see!

Baby quilt and stuff

So later than promised in my previous post, some pics of the baby quilt I made for my sister's imminent arrival. It is by no means perfect (don't look too close at ANY of the blocks) but I'm pretty pleased with it because it looks like something I would like to have around the house. The back is just all one fabric. I think it's a good size for either a cot quilt or a playmat. Hopefully it will get some use.

So back to garment sewing... It is with great excitement that I await my Lady Grey coat pattern from Colette Patterns so I can get cracking with Gertie's fantabulous coat sew along. It has dispatched so should be here any day now... pretty excited about getting all the supplies ready and also learning some funky tailoring techniqiues. I have never joined a sew-along before, but I think it will suit me pretty well. I have no issues testing things out, finding supplies and resources, but what I really lack is the discipline to keep sewing regularly - even if only for half an hour a day! I'm hoping the structure of the sew-along will help with that.

I am also hoping to finish the Vogue purple dress - it needs hemming and the centre back seam finishing. The fit isn't fab (I should have made a muslin - when will I learn!) but it will do. I seem to have constructed the zipper and lining in a slightly different way to the instructions so I am a little baffled at the best way to finish everything off, but I'll get there...

I think my next project (to run alongside the coat sew-along) is going to be a simple one - a skirt based on the Jenny skirt pattern from Burda. And I am actually going to make a muslin of this to make sure the fit is right! I need a tried and tested skirt pattern - would be great to have a few for work, and this high-waisted style suits me.

Let's see how far I get with finishing my purple dress!

Recidivist

Oh, I have been remiss. It has been many weeks since my last post. There has been a lot going on here - summer fun, my poor husband (still sounds odd saying that) was knocked off his bicycle and had a nasty break to his elbow (still in a sling, poor thing), parents visiting... not much time for sewing. Until the weekend just gone! I made some more progress on my Vogue dress, but also in a fit of productivity, made my first ever quilt! A square one for my little sister's baby - which is due on September 18th, the day after my birthday! I am actually really impressed with how it turned out - pics to follow.
frustration with said dress

In an effort to get me back in the sewing groove, I am going to join Gertie's coat sew-along, and have just purchased the pattern from Collette. Hopefully it will arrive before we start!

I will try and post some pics of the dress and my little quilt tonight. I have been terrible at posting generally, but I do read all the lovely blogs I follow almost every day (though I have not been commenting) - thank you all for the lovely posts on your blogs which have made me feel I am still in the sewing loop.

I'm hexed!

While surfing the sewing interweb, I found this and thought it was such a cool picture. Then I found the blog of Texas Freckles, and read about her hexagon piece-along. And thought I might have a little go... the thought of hand sewing I could do almost anywhere was awesome - a little bit at a time whenever I have a spare few moments. And a weird and funky quilt to show for it at the end! So I printed out some sheets of 1" hexagons to cut up and found some scraps of fabric I had leftover.... wow - it is so addictive! But awesome fun. The patch of sewn toghether hexes I did just to see whether I would in fact be able to sew them together neatly, but it all turned out ok for that little sample. It takes something crazy like one thousand 1" hexagons to make a sensibly sized quilt. Maybe I will get bored before then... but it is so nice to have something creative to do while sitting on the sofa watching Hollyoaks (busted). I think I am going to piece the hexagons together in bands 3 or four wide diagonally - one strip coloured and then one made up of only off-white coloured hexagons. There are lots of ideas out there. The only thing that stands between me and a fab hand sewn quilt is about... oh, 900 hexagons??

Where are you, UK sewists?

In light of my recent foray into quilting, I have be doing a little cyber-browsing of quilting blogs and websites. Wowzers – quilting is VERY popular in the US! Not sure what other UK sewists have found, but I have noticed that sewing and quilting is much more popular in the US than it is here. Or at the very least, there are a lot fewer people who blog about it here… There has been a resurgence of crafting in the UK – particularly with respect to knitting which has become very trendy in the past couple of years (I am STILL knitting the back of a baby cardigan I started AGES ago – the bloody pattern is written in Greek or something) – a result of the credit crunch and the desire to improvise mainly, but I think people have also started to realize how satisfying it can be to make things; either for yourself or to give away. I haven't yet got to the stage where I have (a) made very many things, or (b) considered that any of the things I have made would be welcome gifts. That is something I hope quilting might fix – quilts must make lovely presents. I know I'd love to be given one! If only they didn't take so long to make… though I think that is probably just practice. And the fact that the quilt I have decided to make as my first appears to have about one billion teeny tiny pieces (I am prone to exaggeration).

A couple of my girlfriends have expressed an interest in sewing / knitting / quilting (one is making a rag rug – though I think her current rate of progress is not dissimilar to that of my baby cardigan) and we keep talking about having some sort of sewing circle. Maybe just meeting up one weekend or evening to chat and sew (or 'rug' – whatever the 'doing word' for that is) – a few cocktails, cupcakes, some Lady Gaga… Perhaps I should be more aggressive in my corralling and just propose a date.

Do any of you meet with like-minded people to natter and stitch? If so, how did you get started?

Who'da thought it?!

My new sewing machine came with, like, a zillion new feet. I have only experimented with about three of them so far, but - THESE LITTLE FEET DO ALL SORTS OF COOL STUFF! Rolled hem foot -BOOM - nice little neat rolled hem! I'm not absolutely certain I'm using it properly though - the instructions in the manual aren't the most clear... but it seems to produce an ok result... how do I know exactly how wide to finger-fold the hem??...

Tonight I have been using the 1/4" seam foot to help me sew some of the strips together for the quilt I'm making. This little baby has a little metal guide on it to make sure that the seam is actually 1/4" - so far proving to be much more accurate than my current magnetic seam guide thingy...

I am so keen to find something which divulges all the awesome ways I can use the special feet that came with my machine when I am making garments. The instruction book is informative but not very inspiring..!

Do any of you have any interesting techniques or finishes using different feet that you'd like to share with me??

Straight lines

So since my last post, I STILL haven't managed to do any sewing yet due to work / post wedding wedmin / housework. Today Husband (!) and I had yummy brunch and then went to see Clash of the Titans (meh) and this afternoon I have spent a couple of hours reorganising my sewing room our study - I thought it might inspire me further to break out the old sewing machine. I think the new layout is quite good - now two workstations (bottom left of room) and almost the full table for cutting out... we'll see.

Anyway, to get me back in the sewing groove I thought I'd start with (or really, continue with) the quilt I started months ago. Although I am primarily learning to sew to make clothes, I really love gorgeous bed linen and I thought it awesome to have some colourful quilts to chuck over plain white sheets (I buy almost exclusively plain white bed linen - looks so clean and fresh!) and a few months ago I bought this lovely book called Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam & Nicky Lintott and started a cool looking quilt called 'Sparkling Gemstones' (I know, bit lame) with some fat quarters I had bought for the purpose. Then the wedmin got me... so I picked it up today thinking I'll crack on with a few straight lines to get me warmed up before starting my next fashion proj. Though boring, sewing in a straight line is quite mindless and theraputic (in small doses!).

So for my next fashion proj, thinking the simple blouse no. 102 from this month's Burda. Do you think that would be ok in a silk? It does seem to have dreaded buttonholes though... gagh.

Has anyone made this yet?

PS for those of you who have asked, we went to the Maldives for our honeymoon - bliss!

Feeling a little festive...

It has been a while since I blogged, and even longer since I did any sewing! I've been pretty busy at work as the year-end approaches, wedmin has taken up more time than I would like and I also seem to have started a new hobby – a sort of cross between an art journal and scrapbooking! More on that later, check this and this out - how awesome. I have (very sporadically) kept a diary since I was quite young. I always revert to writing at times of stress. It is cathartic I think. So I'm going to try this...

Anyway, Christmas is now almost upon us, and I find myself in the position (yet again) of having purchased no Christmas presents. I would actually like to make some things to give as presents but I'm not sure (a) what or (b) whether anything I make would be good enough to give away! I have a pattern for a top that would be nice for my mammy… and it is quite simple – perhaps I will try that. I also thought to make quilts – but pieced ones take a while (at least, the one I am doing is taking a while!). But then I saw a great post by Gertie where she made a baby quilt just from two pieces of fabric.

Anybody have any good ideas for nice and easy to make Christmas gifts?!

I'm hoping to escape the work locker nice and early some nights this week and get that flowery top finished… promise some sewing updates soon!

Movearound!

Thought it was time to reorganise my sewing room our study and so on Thursday night I started shunting around the furniture... I managed to push together our two Ikea book cases on their sides to make a NICE BIG SPACE FOR SEWING! Hurrah! Just need to get some shelves up and my noticeboard done (I bought all the bits ages ago to make a fabric noticeboard but have never actually bought the cork / MDF to put it all together), and also hang the tonnes of pictures we have never put up. Am pretty pleased with how it has turned out - lots more room to work! You can see on the cutting mat is a load of fabric I am going to use to make a quilt. I've never made a quilt, but I love the idea of something I can pick up and put down. And also making a quilt seems for the most part to involve sewing in straight lines - how hard can that be right?! (uh oh)...

I'm going to try and finish Polly tonight or tomorrow - and maybe start something new! Got this month's Burda and there is a cute, skirt and top I'm pretty keen to make up. As ever though - I'M SOOOOO SLLLOOOOWWW!