Is it just me, or do other people have sewing projects that start with great enthusiasm, drag on for ages and then end in frayed temper and swearing? Other sewists in blogland seem to be possessed of patient temperaments, or else they only show the things that went right...
I started making a dress with this lovely soft needlecord in November, using one of my ancient patterns which last saw the light of day at a wedding in the early eighties:
I had in mind an all-purpose garment that would layer over long sleeves for Spring. My big mistake was not taking into account that the full skirt would be much too full in needlecord when gathered onto the bodice. But I blithely ignored that detail until I'd put a lot of work into actually making the bodice and then attaching the skirt. Mr P. helpfully pointed out that I looked like a bag of washing, and he was RIGHT.
(No picture of that, happily.)
After the traditional swearing, I decided to salvage the acres of fabric from that skirt and make a simple a-line skirt, and the overlocker helped me make a rather snappy job of lining it.
But this has been one of those projects that fought me every step of the way, the bobbin jumping around in the sewing machine, the tension going all over the place, and the seam-ripper working overtime. I persevered though, and finished the waistband with a little ribbon loop and a button from my button tin which I think might have come from my original version of that dress. Maybe that's sewing karma?
So finally its finished, and I have some new purple boots, and the snowdrops are out, so spring is on its way.
I think I'll be taking a rest before making anything else which has to actually fit, so its back to the quilting and machine embroidery for a while. And there's also the other kind of sowing to be done in the greenhouse and garden of course.
Well I don't know when I've had so much fun, this overlocking business is brilliant! (easy to please, that's me...). While Mr P was away on the ski slopes I made a trial run tee shirt. It's turned out a bit too small because I didn't take into account that the existing tee shirt I drew round as a pattern was made of stretchier fabric than the stuff I was using. Still, sewing with jersey will be a learning curve as I've never been pleased with the results I could achieve with my sewing machine.
I still have the overlocker threaded with rainbow colours at the moment, but I rather like the effect, and it looks quite professional, especially on the inside! Maybe when I make a 'real' one I'll keep it like that and wear it inside out?
Although to be honest I'd be quite happy just chuntering away on the machine for the sheer pleasure of watching it neatly finishing the edges and slicing off the excess. It has a nice solid munching noise to it, too.
I've also finished the quilt I made from two and a half inch squares, and I'm pleased with how its turned out. After finishing and washing you can't guess that the squares were laid out by fusing then onto soft interfacing, and its a technique I'd certainly use again.
I machine quilted it in nine-patch squares, and apart from the interfacing and batting I already had all the fabric. The blues are from Mr P's old shirts and from charity shops and the bright batik squares were given to me by a friend.
The back is made from big strips of fabric. The blue flowers on the left were the most enormous old lady's nightie, complete with pin-tucked hem which I have left on the finished quilt. There is a bit of a shirt pocket on the back, too- I like the idea of the ghost of the garment showing through in the finished quilt, after all patchwork has always been made as a necessity from whatever is to hand, and carries its own history with it.
I had a lot of help from Molly with these photos, as you can see!
Have you finished yet, Mum?
Mr P's jeans
He had jeans like this when I met him in the early seventies, when he was young and beautiful,
and now of course he is old and beautiful...
A few months ago a friend very kindly gave me an overlocker which belonged to her late Mum. I was thrilled as its something I'd always wanted but wouldn't have lashed out on myself.
It has been sitting waiting for me to have time to tackle it, as it all looked rather daunting, especially when you open the doors and peer into its innards!
I found a really helpful tutorial on youtube, featuring this very machine and also featuring lots of Trendy Young People with massive 1990's hairdos and stretchy neon coloured clothing, disporting themselves to the sounds of the Pet Shop Boys or similar. You can find just about anything on youtube, marvellous!
After hoovering out all the fluff, the threading process involved special long tweezers, standing on your head and peering into the workings, and quite a bit of swearing, although the lady on youtube didn't do any of these things, but remained calm and unruffled, with her shell pink nail varnish and soothing tones.
I wasn't convinced I was doing it right, however, as I couldn't get it to sew and I was thinking I might have to take it to be serviced/fixed...
And then help arrived in the form of a two-hour 'love your overlocker' session at Sew Creative in Petersfield:
http://sewcreative.org.uk/
Six of us arrived with our machines, five ladies who had been given shiny new ones, and me with my heavy beast (Mr P had to carry it in for me) which I thought might not work, but the lovely Sharon had soon sorted out my glitches with the threading (the rabbit goes round the tree, down the hole, oh why didn't I pay attention to learning knots in the brownies before I was expelled...?) and off it went! The four different feeds are colour coded and she had the brilliant idea of threading our machines with the right coloured threads so you could see what was what.
So now I can overlock anything, as long as its rainbow coloured... although the good news is that having threaded it once you can just join another reel of thread to the existing ones and gently pull it through to change the colour!
The world of stretchy knits will be my lobster, tee shirts! Pants! Boob tubes! (ooh err maybe not) Jogging bottoms for Mr P to do yoga in! I have already been eyeing up the delicious jersey fabrics at the Eternal Maker so watch this space...
I'm not sure where the time has gone since Christmas, but I have been keeping up the cultural outings. I recently went with a friend to the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey which is a fascinating part of London, apparently the centre for the leather and glove-making trade in the past. This horse and his twin were above what is now a car repair garage, but was once a stable. The happy mechanic showed us that it hadn't changed inside, apart from the introduction of piles of greasy car parts.
The knitwear exhibition at the museum was less interesting than we had expected, although the wacky looking building (mustard! pink! sparkly floors with stars in them!) which was founded by Zandra Rhodes is always worth a visit, and a very nice lunch may be had in the cafe.
After lunch we walked along past St Thomas's Hospital and spotted this astonishing skull hanging in the foyer of the Old Operating Theatre Museum. It is the oldest operating theatre in Europe, dating from the days when a surgeon would saw a leg off without anaesthetic watched by the crowd around the galleries. A definite place for our next London visit!
I have also become part of a new quilting/ sewing group, and have to make a nine inch block to take to our second meeting next month. Cunningly I am using the log cabin squares I made before Christmas- just the binding to finish, and I hope nobody notices its a bit bigger than nine inches....
I'm also hoping to have this quilt finished by then- Molly says it will be a lot more cuddly once its quilted to the backing!
... and a New Year's promise to myself to post here more frequently- even if nobody else is reading it, I like the diary of projects finished and unfinished.
I have been thinking about making a quilt from Mr P's old shirts, and other bits of blue from my pile of charity shop finds, but it needed a few bright bits to make it sing.
Then a kind friend visited the National Quilt Museum in America and brought me back these lovely zingy batiks.
Somewhere on the marvellous internet I've seen this method of quickly making a quilt with small squares, so I thought I'd try it.
I cut my squares to 2.5 inches, as the batiks were 5 inch squares (although if you were more nimble fingered than me you could make them smaller), and then carefully ironed them side by side on to a piece of very lightweight interfacing.
So now the little dears can't move about!
Then I folded along the joins, and sewed along them using my trusty quarter-inch foot...
Here's how the back looks when its all sewn together...
A quick press, and then I sewed it all together the other way...
Et voila! Very fast, and all lined up, which might be a first for me! This is a 12 inch square, so I need to make a few more to have a respectable sized quilt. I don't think the interfacing will make a difference to the feel of the quilt once its all sandwiched and quilted, as its the lightest-weight one I could get. I'm aiming for a lap-quilt kind of size, and then I'll wash it to see how it feels after that.
Or I could just leave it hanging in the window to make the grey weather seem more bearable...
