A Little Yarn On The Side

I didn't sew at all yesterday, but I did remember it was Me Made Monday, so I wore one of my favorite sweaters  in an effort to remind myself that there are often about 10 days in the entire year when cotton sweaters actually fit the temperature because the catalogs are coming.  There is no bigger pain than trying to splice cotton or weave in cotton ends, but every spring those bright colors of cotton trying to suck me in with their promises of bright colors at 12-year-old models frolicking on the beach.  Thank heavens, there is cotton fabric.  Theo has rediscovered the joys of sewing, and has become quite a determined sidekick, which has slowed down progress--as if I needed any help with that. The pants I'm making have a drawstring, which I usually don't actually make as turning long, skinny tubes of fabric inside out ranks just after frogging mohair on my list of Activities to Make One Drink, but thanks to Nancy Zieman, I  now own a set of these: ...

It's now 70 days since I last bought fabric.  I have lost count of the number of catalogs and fliers I've received, but I'm obviously loved by a LOT of vendors--all of which are betting on my buying fabric before the end of the year.  It's a safe bet as I've never yet done it, but I am really, really trying.  And going through my shelves and finding fabric I have completely forgotten, it IS sort of like getting a lot of new fabric anyway.  Lots and lots and LOTS of new fabric............ It took a while to get the next sewing project underway as Theo has rediscovered the joys of sewing--or the joys of preventing sewing.  Luckily, yesterday was briefly nice enough to open the sewing room window, which is his favorite spot in the whole house.  With two cats in the house, I've learned to pin and cut REALLY quickly.  Call it a crafting survival skill.  Everything is cut, marked (which takes forever with these particular shirt and pants patter...

The dress is almost done: So close, in fact, that I have decided I can count the yardage but not the finished object yet.   The only thing missing is the zipper, which I did insert, and then hated how it looked so ripped it right back out.  I've never been really happy with the way zippers look on things I've made, so I have decided that it is time to try the couture method:  put the blasted thing in by hand .  It HAS to look better, and considering the time I've already spent on this, I don't think it's going to be much slower.  I have started it, so I'm not too worried about it getting set aside in Project Never-Never Land, so I feel okay adding the 2.375 yards to my tally.  That left me with sewing time but nothing else in progress, so I decided to try out that kimono pattern with what was left of the dragon-print fabric.  It's really poor fabric, and the remaining yard has flaws like this:  which are REALLY obvious in person, s...

With an extra day in February, I was hoping for one more finished project, but it didn't happen.  I got a little pinning and ironing done on both current sewing projects, but my hip was REALLY bad yesterday, so the rest of the time my little sidekick and I rested.  I have these days pretty rarely now, which is very nice, although never would be great, too.  I did remember Me Made Monday, and dug out this I made it in 2009, I think, and the fabric just had a bit too much body for the pattern, and some of my stitching in the darts is actually coming out.  I wanted to see if it was worth repairing the darts, and it isn't.  Some projects just aren't fixable.  I think I actually have more than 52 handmade items to be worn, so when we went to the Idaho Artistry in Wood show on Sunday,  I wore a new finished project: It's a keyhole scarf that I made last January and finally blocked this year.  I love this pattern.  It's so nic...

So while I did manage to finally get a picture of the finished tunic, and discovered that the neck opening is slightly crooked, there are no other finished projects yet.  My hip was finally feeling really good yesterday, so I cleaned the laundry room and we ran some errands.  I also took some time to regain more of my sewing table: There's still a small pile of stuff to deal with at the very end, but I have a LOT more working room than I did, and tools are back where they belong.  Then, while it was cleaned off and kitty-free, I cut the fat quarters   into strips before I could change my mind and decide they weren't exactly what I wanted.  Do you ever do that?  I bought these for no purpose, I want to try bargello quilting, but I was in serious danger of putting them away and not using them because they might not be quite right.  I find myself doing that a lot.  The black and white dress I recently finished fell victim to that as well....

I have finished Andy's Valentine shirt before the end of February!  The might-be-lions buttons look nice, and it's washed and in Andy's closet!  I finished the tunic for me earlier in the afternoon, and seem to have forgotten a picture of it.  Oops.  But between them, another 3.625 yards are out of the stash! The fabric stiffener worked well and washed out perfectly, but it does seem to wear off with handling.  I managed to put a hole in the shirt with my point turner, and there's a part of the tunic where the fabric just separated when I was trying to smooth out a pucker in my serging.  This was pretty old fabric with no information in my notes, so I'm guessing it was pretty inexpensive and might be the fabric equivalent of Fun Fur.  I didn't put a pocket in Andy's shirt.  He does tend to use them, and the first time he put his phone in a pocket on this stuff would probably destroy the shirt.  But it's DONE, looks fun, and it was finish...

Yesterday was my 60th day without buying fabric, so I felt strong enough to stop by Hancock Fabric after my dentist appointment.  If you can believe it, I wanted some buttons. Since Andy's Valentine shirt has dragons on it, I wanted to see if I could find some unusual buttons for it--though ones that can be washed, because let's not be stupid.  I admire a lot of the hand-crafted buttons I find, but for clothing, they just aren't practical. I was a bit worried, and there was some really great gauze fabric for spring/summer that did catch my attention, but I still have at least THREE colors of gauze fabric in my stash from the last time that happened, and I still haven't quite worked out how to sew with gauze.  I've made 2 projects from it--one successful, one not--and no one I've talked to seems to have any idea how to handle the crinkled/wrinkly texture.  I always prewash fabric, but if one irons gauze, it stretches flat--which means you're cutting everyt...