Sewing – Fabric, Patterns, Vintage – Page 5

The First Day of Retirement

Well, what better day to retire than April Fool’s Day? I thought it was a great idea, so at the end of January I submitted my paperwork, and today I get paid to do nothing related to work. Social security, my pension, and Medicare are all lined up. And now, my new life begins!

Today, I was taken out to lunch to celebrate! I also have been deciding a “class” I want to take. I’ve decided to study the exercises in a book on perspective for painters, so it covers not just the vanishing point varieties (one, two, and three dot), but also perspective based on colors. Tomorrow, I begin!

Besides studying perspective, I have also been painting and drawing and sewing and making pictures with both digital and film cameras. I finished my little quilt. I’ve scanned photos and edited them. I have been out to the local botanical garden and begun a sketchbook about the garden in spring. Visiting family and friends and doing fun things is also part of the program . . . I don’t think I will be bored too often, but I might over extend myself.

Here are some things I’ve been doing . . . but no pictures of the quilt – that is a later post.

Chaos Contained

Christmas and New Year are busy times of of the year, particularly if you tend to make things for the holidays. That’s me. After all the sewing and knitting and baking and such, I sort of collapsed and just didn’t do much of anything except blob along. As a result, nothing was really like I wanted it to be – this here, that there. What was getting me – and is still, to a point – are sewing supplies, material, machines. Today I made a dent in the mess and put all my patterns into under-the-bed shoe storage containers that I got here on Amazon. These storage containers got good reviews, but best of all, you can move the dividers around as you need, to fit your stuff, whether shoes or patterns! I am actually really pleased with these and recommend them – for shoes or patterns or…?

Well, one part of my sewing life is a bit neater. I also worked on the closet where the machines reside. I rearranged the machines, put a plastic tray system in the closet to hold things such as manuals, and other trivia. Tomorrow, since I freed up a whole drawer in the sewing bureau, I am going to go through it to rearrange fabric and interfacing, along with other little things. If I get really organized, I’ll even sort out the material by yardage and future usage. The studio shelves have projects in containers to work on. On a digital level, I want to make sure I have a back-up of my pdf patterns. Once this little bit of reorganization is done, my head space will be clear for upcoming projects!

A Boy, His Dog, and a Bath Robe

Here are a few pictures of the other half in his bath robe. It was a 2-hour Simplicity pattern, which is lying around here somewhere in the post-New Year debris!

We began the morning cup of coffee, and a wicked grin. Trouble is brewing – more than just the coffee in the coffee cup! Photobombing is most likely going through his mind . . . .

Do you notice the overall greenish theme – robe and coffee cup? Pretty clever of me to think ahead for the photo shoot I knew was coming.

The robe was a success! I wasn’t really sure if it would be. I felt the roll collar was a bit too stiff, didn’t know if the side pockets would be acceptable (side rather than patch), and the length of sleeves and robe were left undone at the time of the wrapping. I loved the material, which is a fluffy flannel, rather loosely woven, and rather ravelicious when sewing. Overcasting, felling, all sorts of endeavors to keep the threads from escaping the warp and woof.

And speaking of “woof” – here is the Master of the House with Smudge, a Mistress of the Canine Guard. Please admire the modesty of the pose, the fine fire guard, Italian marble and mahogany fire place, and decorative tree, along with my fine photography skills.

Happy New Year, Everyone!!

Christmas Sewing – A Bag for Marguerita

This year I made a lot of Christmas presents – hats, bags, and a robe. Here is the bag I made for my sister-in-law, Marguerita, who kindly sent me some photos of her bag as I forgot to take some.

After the complexity of the other bags I made, as well as the hand sewing they required, this was a pleasure as it was super easy to make! I was really burnt out by Christmas Eve, but also felt really good to have accomplished making so many presents for those I love! This season I knitted 3 beanies and made 4 bags, and one robe. You won’t get to see the beanies and all the bags (bean bags?), but you will get to see the robe soon enough.

The materials were, for the most part, 100% cotton. The green is duck, rather coarsely woven as is the nature of duck. It’s stiffness was both a blessing and a curse. I also ran out of thread and had to go out to buy more – the result was nothing matched what I had used originally, so I had to remake the straps. No biggy.

The bag lining was pure serendipity for the matching of the pink to the printed fabric. I felt really lucky to find it – so many shades of pink!

The Parisian scenes are some upholstery fabric, and it was the focal point of the bag. The pink and green matched perfectly!

I had enough material left over to make a sewing machine cover for the Baby Lock Presto II – it came with a lightweight vinyl cover, and I thought something more classy would be fun to design and sew.

I used my Janome 6500P to make M’s bag. I have not used this machine in a while, and since I plan to use it when I go to the class to finish up my quilt top, I thought it would be a good thing to dig it out, reread the manual, and relearn all its parts. As an aside, it is a more sophisticated machine than the Presto, but less portable simply because it is a lot heavier. The Tutto makes it easy to tote, so I am looking forward to testing it out in a classroom situation.

So ends 2018! I plan to continue sewing and learning to be a better sewist in 2019 by exploring new and different ways to sew, or things, such as using knits. Photography, painting, drawing, knitting, and designing are all in the plans. It is so nice to have time to do things – to not feel a horrific pressure to get things done! Savoring time to think, to design, to plan, to learn – those have been so absent for the last 5 years. Those 10-12 hour work days suck! And now I get to enjoy the leisurely activities of a housewife – some of which I like (cooking) and some I just tolerate (cleaning) . . .

Happy New Year to everyone! May 2019 bring you joy, health, and happiness!

Shorelines

This morning I saw a photo of a shoreline at dawn. A lake. A sunrise. Twigs. Grasses. Mountains.

I have spent the last two weeks making Christmas presents, sewing mostly, but also baking fruit cakes (brandied and bourboned), and shopping for this or that. Today I have more sewing scheduled, and a few “must do” things.

The fact is, while I love sewing, I love other things as well. I have done little if any drawing or painting.

Why do we get caught up in the “must do” so easily, so easily that the simple pleasure of an hour spent with paper, pen, and ink becomes something of a crime, one so self-indulgent that our Puritan ancestors shake their fingers at us? Pleasure? Nay!

But, I gave in! I’m happier for it!