A sprinkling of fresh-picked women’s skirts are now in the shop!
And buyers, beware; I’m expecting a hefty influx of brand-new (vintage) sheets at any moment. Let the wild rumpus start!
Archive for July, 2010
Can I introduce you to a friend of mine? This is Lara.
Well, okay, actually the picture is of me, but Lara crocheted that amazing shawl. Pretty, isn’t it?
Unfortunately she doesn’t have a blog or a shop (yet!), so I can’t actually introduce you to Lara…but her work is just so incredible that I couldn’t keep it to myself.
She’s even so nice that she made me two.
And I keep telling her that she should totally do an Etsy shop — and she keeps telling me that she thinks about it sometimes, because she loves the creative process so much — and I think that if she got enough encouragement, she might think about it a little more.
Amazing work, huh? Thanks for the shawls, Lara — I can’t wait to use them this fall!
More coming, but I just wanted to post a couple of photos of the quilt blocks I made for the do. Good Stitches quilting bee. August’s theme is red + aqua + straight lines, and I absolutely love it! I’m thinking that the craft/reading/play room in NY might get a hefty dose of red and aqua.
The aqua is a little darker/richer than it looks in the pictures (oh well!). Photos of the other blocks in the bee here, and instructions for the block I used (it’s called Bright Hopes — very easy and very fast) here.
1. Claudine embellished blouse
2. Ballerina flats in lime green
3. Gillian hat
4. How You Like Me Now poster
5. Hemp bag with flying swallows
6. Butterfly dance prints
7. Daisy spring dress
8. Sunglow print
9. Make Do and Mend print
Even though it is still months away, I’m starting to think about our new home in New York — paint colors, decorating styles, stuff like that — and there is so much cool art on Etsy that has been catching my eye. I am thinking seriously of getting the “How You Like Me Now” poster for the man for our anniversary. He likes to say stuff like that.
p.s. Does anyone know how to make a clickable mosaic of Etsy favorites that’s easy to blog? I used bighugelabs but I’m thinking it was way more complicated than it needed to be.
All done! I am pleased as punch with the way this turned out; this is the first top I’ve made for myself that, rather than just fitting well enough, actually fits well — especially at the neckline and across the back of the shoulders.
As rumored, the fit is indeed a bit potato sack-ish, but given how well it fits in the shoulders/neck/sleeves, I’m thinking that was just a choice on the designer’s part (besides, Japanese women have the good fortune to look good in sack-shaped dresses). The only change I made to the pattern was that I added three rows of shirring in the back, just above the gathered part, to give the dress a bit more shape (I had to smile the other day when I saw Hillary’s post about how her latest sewing method is to shirr until it fits).
A few minor notes — I used Pellon pattern tracing paper, which now has a place of undying devotion in my heart. It was in the interfacing section at Jo Ann; I bought a yard just for kicks, and am so glad I did. It is very sturdy, very easy to see through, and all-around way better than messing around with tissue paper, which is what I was doing before.
Initially, I decided to finish the neckline with self-made bias trim — very bad idea. It looked wretched. So I ripped it out and submitted to using interfacing instead, which for some reason I don’t really like doing, but it wasn’t hard, so I might do it more in the future.
I’m looking forward to using more patterns from this book; conquering this pattern was a major confidence-booster. It’s too short for me to wear by itself, but I love it with jeans (which will have to wait until Fall — it’s way too hot here for that) or with a gray skirt that I have. I might try it with leggings, too, although I haven’t decided how I feel about the modesty factor of leggings + short(ish) skirts. Any thoughts out there on that?
I’ve been meaning to do this for-ev-er…
Scrap packs! Now available in the shop in three different flavors. Yum!
Also, this probably deserves its own post, but oh well — if you haven’t already read Three Cups of Tea, you really, really should! I learned so much about the cultures, customs, and landscapes of rural Pak/Afghanistan, felt majorly inspired to do some good in the world, and thoroughly enjoyed every page.
Also-also, R and I saw Inception last night. Loved it. We hated Dark Knight (way too much gratuitous violence), so we were a little skeptical about seeing it, but we are still thinking and talking about it. Fab movie (and it doesn’t hurt that Ellen Page has a really cool wardrobe and is just generally totally awesome).
I finally crumbled and bought the first Stylish Dress Book, a Japanese sewing book that’s been bumping around blogland for the past couple of years.
R laughed really hard when I first showed it to him and said, “But it’s all in Japanese! Why on earth would you buy a book that’s completely in Japanese?!”
Yes. Yes it is.
Fortunately, each pattern is illustrated with lots of simple line drawings. I love how clear and concise the drawings are; I like the Japanese-style format much more than fiddling with the large, unruly papers you find in American patterns.
I found a lot of really, really helpful blog posts about sewing with Japanese patterns — here, here, and here. And when I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed — with the pleats, for instance — I turned to my copy of Vogue Sewing, compliments of my rad sister in-law, Bev. That book is so awesome. It gives you way more information than you’d ever need on every sewing technique imaginable, so you can kind of pick and choose how fancy schmancy you want to be.
The pattern (there are 26! 26 beautiful dresses and tunics!) — dress E, which is on the cover — is a lot simpler than I thought it would be. I almost didn’t choose that dress because I thought it would be too hard. I’m glad I stuck with it, though, because it’s coming together really quickly!
So, sewing with a Japanese pattern was a little nerve-wracking in the beginning, but I guess sewing techniques are the same in any language. I just have a few little details to finish up before it’s ready to wear!
If you liked the look of the baby shower skirt but are lacking the time or inclination to whip one up — today’s your lucky day! I’ve just added a nice little stack of skirts to the shop, ranging in size from 12 months all the way up to a girl’s 8-10.
There’s lots of vintage sheet goodness to be had, so hop on over!
This message about motherhood gave me peace and courage today. I hope you, too, will find affirmation in it.
tutorial: the baby shower skirt
Published July 16, 2010 clothes , crafty , sewing , tutorials 11 CommentsHow about a little tutorial for a cutesy blink-and-you’re-done baby skirt? These have been my go-to baby shower present lately…so much so that I have accidentally given skirts I made using this method to two different friends who were in fact expecting, um, boys. Whoops.
This quickie project is well-suited to all levels of sewists; even the beginningest of beginners can tackle this little number with confidence. You’ll be cranking these out in 20 minutes flat before you know it. To make this skirt, all you need is:
Main fabric – 3×30 in.
Coordinating fabric (for the waistband) – 4.5×30 in.
17 in. of 1/2 in. elastic
Safety pin
Thread
All the seams in this project are 1/4 inch unless otherwise specified. Ok, let’s go!
First, sew your two pieces of fabric together, right sides facing. You don’t have to pin, no matter what your mother told you. Really.
We don’t want that pretty little seam to fray after it goes through the wash, so let’s give that little sucker a zig-zag finish. Set your machine to 1) the widest zig-zag stitch possible, and 2) to the narrowest stitch length possible. Sew along the seam so that the “zig” part of the stitch (as the needle comes down on the left) lands on the fabric — and the “zag” part of the stitch (as the needle comes down on the right) lands just beyond the fabric, like so.
It’s an extremely inexact and very forgiving technique; if you don’t get it perfect, no one will ever know. Here’s how it will look when you’re done.
You’ll notice that the fabric I’m using has frayed edges; that’s because they’re cuts from vintage sheets. When I’m using sheets as fabric, I always rip the fabric instead of cutting it — it’s so much easier than wrestling with a giant sheet on a cutting mat. Ripping fabric is also an extremely effective stress-reliever. Ahem.
Next, we’ll go to the ironing board. With the skirt wrong-side up, press the seam towards the top of the skirt (just a matter of personal preference; I think it looks prettier from the front this way). Now press both the top edge and the bottom edge in by 1/4 inch. I just eyeballed it.
Press the top edge down again, this time by another 3/4 inch (this leaves room for you to insert elastic later). Then fold the bottom edge up by another 1/4 inch and press.
Now we’ll stitch down both of those hems. But when you do, start your stitching in a couple of inches from the edge, like this.
Leave a few extra inches at the end, too.
Now we’re going to sew the sides of the skirt together to make a tube. Place the short ends of the skirt right sides together, and flip out the hems, like so, before you sew up that seam.
Zig-zag finish that sucker!
I forgot to take a picture of the next step, but it’s simple: flip the bottom seam back in place and stitch it all the way shut. When you’re done with that, attach a safety pin to one end of your elastic, then thread it through the waistband.
Once you’ve got the elastic threaded all the way through the waistband, overlap the ends and sew back and forth across the elastic a few times to make it good and strong.
Now you can stitch the waistband shut, adding a tag (I used a tag from a vintage sheet) if you’d like.
All done! About as simple as it gets, right? Now you’re ready to whip up a whole stockpile for all those baby showers! (Just be sure they’re having a girl first.)
It’s easy to adjust the size of the skirt by using slightly wider pieces of fabric; just keep the length of the fabrics at 30 inches (or longer, just not shorter) for any size you want to make. That way, you can make these sweet little skirts for every little girl on your list.
I know there are about a billion little girl skirt tutorials out there — I just thought I’d add my voice to the chorus. Hope you enjoy!
