I found myself in need of a pair of small storage bags this evening. With a few charms of Etchings (that I don’t actually remember buying… hmmm.) and a couple of inches of Velcro, I managed to fulfill that need very quickly (in under 20 minutes, I think). Here’s how…
In the month’s span where I haven’t put my Regency outfit on for photos, it’s spent time stuffed in a bag on the couch, thrown on my sewing room floor, and then finally hanging on the wall mocking me about staying at the office so late recently. (I found the wool is rather forgiving with wrinkles, but the cotton petticoat and ramie chemise are a mess.)
While I still claim that I will get photos, just as soon as Carl and I can coordinate time at home together during non-raining daylight, I realized that I should figure out a storage solution for keeping the gown and accoutrements together.
The Dreamstress to the rescue.
Speaking of scraps, I made a (very small) dent in mine yesterday.
First, we’ve started Cathedral Windows (on machine) at Sew You Want to Quilt, and we made one using one possible technique in class yesterday. Since I haven’t decided what I want to do for my project, I just grabbed some coordinating scraps that were large enough, and ended up with this pincushion/pattern weight/thing-that-takes-up-space:
… of the artificial type.
Have you ever done needle felting? The Mohawk Valley Quilt Club had a women give us a lesson on it at this month’s meeting. From my 45 min. introduction to it, it seems the basic premise is to take wool rovings and poke them with a very sharp, burred needle while shaping the fibers (sometimes against a block of sturdy foam) to eventually give you the shape you want (you can also poke them into fabric, like to decorate a sweater). The poking causes the wool to felt—that is, to stick the fibers to each other. Certain ladies at my table used some very colorful words to describe their opinion of it, but it was an interesting event, I think.
After making proper drawstring channels for my gown and sewing my petticoat straps on (they were pinned on TV), I decided that my outfit needs one more addition: a reticule. After all, I need a way to hide my very un-period keys and cell phone.
So, I spent a bit of time browsing, and came across this one in the V&A collection.
There must be something in the water at Carl’s company, because many of his coworkers have become or are becoming parents recently. I made one of these elephants in the craziness of the week before Christmas, but forgot to take photos.
This one, I made this week.
Happy New Year! I can’t believe it is already 2012. 2011 went by so quickly. We’re en route back to New York today, but I have one more Christmas reveal—an eyeglasses case that I made for Mom (to go with reading glasses I purchased), who claimed she only wanted to see us for Christmas, but constantly comments on Facebook that she doesn’t have her reading glasses, so she couldn’t really see everything well. Now she has glasses to see the small-scale of this glasses case!
I initially wrote up a tutorial, but then when I tried to follow my own tutorial, it just didn’t make a lot of sense, so I’ll simply have to leave you with a few photos. I promise to fix up the tutorial sometime this month!
Welcome back to another Vacation Christmas reveal. I was far busier over the past two months than you might have guessed based on the frequency of my posts here. Now that we’re traveling to Missouri and delivering gifts, I can show you what I’ve been working on. These were the last of three types of gifts I made for the 10 nieces and nephews Carl and I have between our two families.
The two youngest nieces were a bit of a challenge for me. I made a bag for the older one (four) for her birthday a few months ago, so didn’t want to duplicate it, and the youngest isn’t yet two, so I wanted something else appropriate for them.
Welcome back to another Vacation Christmas reveal. I was far busier over the past two months than you might have guessed based on the frequency of my posts here. Now that we’re traveling to Missouri and delivering gifts, I can show you what I’ve been working on. These were the second of three types of gifts I made for the 10 nieces and nephews Carl and I have between our two families.
Boys are hard to sew for. I never know what to make. It seems like 90% of the projects out there that are age appropriate (6–10y.o.) are also very girly. But, when I came across Chez Beeper Bebe’s Nature Explorer Bag, I knew I’d found my project. In the right colors and fabrics, it’s perfectly boyish, but still useful. It’s also relatively quick and painless, which was awesome, because at Thanksgiving, Carl’s sister announced that she’s engaged and he has two boys of his own, so that upped the number of these bags to five!
Welcome back to another Vacation Christmas reveal. I was far busier over the past two months than you might have guessed based on the frequency of my posts here. Now that we’re traveling to Missouri and delivering gifts, I can show you what I’ve been working on. These were one of three types of gifts I made for the 10 nieces and nephews Carl and I have between our two families.
Over the summer, I saw the Summer Reading Bag posted on Sew Mama Sew and knew it would be a great gift. It was quick to make, simple to put together and overall seems to be a great hit. I made these bags for the five oldest nieces, who range from 4–13.