A Doll for GranddaughterStitches

This is a doll that I made for GranddaughterStitches for her birthday.  I bought and downloaded the pattern from Retro Mama.  The directions were pretty clear and well-explained.  She has felt for her hair, the collar of her dress, and her little Mary Jane shoes.

Here she is getting ready to go in her box to GranddaughterStitches.  I hope she wasn't too uncomfortable during the journey, but I doubt it was a lot of fun for her.

The only tricky part in making her was when I sewed the body/head pieces together.  While doing that I had to stuff all four arms and legs inside that area.  It got quite crowded in there!  And then pull all four appendages out of the hole left in her side!  But I did accomplishment it finally.  Whew!

I think she may have a little bit of a saucy attitude, don't you!?!

Sewing Aprons

Some friends of ours, Hilla and Margaret, own and operate Twofish Baking Company.  It is an amazing, amazing, bakery, coffee shop, lunch place, and on some nights, a great place to have yummy pizza and a glass of wine.  MisterStitches goes there every morning he can to get one (or more) wonderful morning buns.  They are like his fuel in the morning.

One day I commented to Margaret that her apron was worn beyond belief.  She told me that she would love to have a new apron!  So then the ball was in my court.  And here is what I came up with.

This apron is made from a very cute "bakerly" fabric I found while on a trip to Pacific Grove, CA.  I thought it very appropriate for the purpose.  

Margaret likes her aprons to be lined, but my pattern was not for a lined apron.  So I simply made a second apron (complete with pockets) and used it for the lining. 

And this is apron number two.  Slightly different style.

The lining for this apron is 40 Ginkgos organic cotton from Harmony Art.  Harmony is always more than happy to help me out with my fabric needs! 

40 Gingkos

I was really wishing I had a dress form to take photos of these aprons.  Alas, I don't.  But here is Margaret, showing off her apron, in their sunny, bright, welcoming bakery.

*The Sticky Rolls are my personal favorite at Twofish!*

Earth Day Celebration 2013

A little belated, but an Earth Day celebration none-the-less.  We had a fabric bag give-away last Sunday.  I've talked about Teresa, the Green Bag Lady, before in some of my posts.  Her raison d'être is to rid the world of paper and plastic bags by sewing fabric bags and giving them away.  Check out her website and read all about her art project.

Here are just a few of the many happy people with their new bags.  The Green Bag Lady sends bags to our "remote" location, which I guess makes us her West Coast Distribution Service. 

Below is a table with a selection of the beautiful bags laid out for people to choose.  

And here we are, ready to give out bags.  

(We always have great fun doing this!)  Jazz hands, everyone!

A "Number Five" Shirt for GranddaughterStitches

As I usually do for GranddaughterStitches' birthday, I decorated a new t-shirt for her this year.  I bet you can guess how old she is going to be this coming weekend!

I appliqued the number "5" onto the shirt, but I cannot take credit for the pretty ruffly flowers at the top.  That was just a lucky find.  

I fused the numeral onto the t-shirt, backed it with a stabilizer, then used a machine blanket stitch to go around it just for security.

Asilomar - Sylvia Pippen - The Process

Here is some more info about my class with Sylvia Pippen at Empty Spools Seminars/Asilomar in Pacific Grove CA.  I'm going to show you the process Sylvia taught us.

Here is the pinned-on, not-quite-finished appliqué-sashiko wall hanging that I started in Sylvia's class.  I have some plumeria leaves floating down a stream.

To begin, we started by tracing the drawing of the flower we wanted onto tracing paper.  We then traced that onto plastic mylar which is heat-resistant so we could iron on it.

We did a sort of "exploded view," so that each petal was independent on the mylar.  The individual petals were carefully cut out so that the mylar was left intact.  That allowed us to use the mylar to fussy cut the fabric for the individual petals.

For now, just look at the top two "flowers" on my mylar sheet above.  As you can see, the top flower's petals are smaller than the middle flower's petals.  That is because we needed a template for both the flower and the "lip" of the flower.  The lip is the differently-shaded part on the edge of the petal.  You can see in the close-up below the two different parts of each petal.  (These petals are not sewn down yet, which is why there are a few rough edges.)

Look at all these petal pieces I acquired.  I made two different sizes of plumeria so I needed lots of templates.

We used these templates to cut out our pieces of fabric, adding about a scant 1/4" around the edges.  Then we used starch and a small craft iron to iron the fabric around the edges of the mylar.  Note that this is heat-proof mylar, which doesn't melt when you iron it.

For the flower below I didn't need to make a separate pattern for the "lips" of the petals because I found the perfect fabric.  It had nice curved, wavy striations going through it, so I fussy cut the fabric to get my flower petals + lip/edge all at once.

After the petals are cut and then glued together to stabilize them, they need to be sewn together.  The main petal part gets appliqued to the lip/edge pieces.  Sylvia introduced (most of) us to a thread called Invisifil, made by WonderFil.  It is a very fine thread that practically disappears when used for hand appliqué.  I'd never used it before, but I love this thread!  All of us in the class loved it!  That explains why a lot of us went over to the little fabric shop (specially set up for the Empty Spools classes) and bought lots of little "six-packs" of Invisifil thread in all sorts of beautiful colors.

You really should go over to SisterStitches blog, Emmaline Design.  She made quite a few posts about our stay at Asilomar.

Asilomar with SisterStitches

I just returned from almost a week at Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, CA. I've been there before, and they have some truly awesome classes.  It is really a wonderful experience.  But this time it was even better because SisterStitches came with me! 

Doesn't she look relaxed sitting on the deck of our room!?!  We had a great time together, and we each chose the same class, too.  We were in Sylvia Pippen's class on Japanese sashiko and appliqué.  Check out Sylvia's website because there are fabulous pictures there.  She does incredible work.  And Sylvia is also a great teacher.  Lots of fun, fairly laid back, and really good at instruction.

Here is my work in progress.  I need to make some more flowers to applique, but you get the idea.  I already have the water pieces appliqued onto the backing fabric (which is a dark blue Moda marble).  The white lines are where I will do sashiko stitching.  The idea is plumeria flowers floating down a stream.  I'll let you see more of it as I progress in my work.

SisterStitches chose to work on two different designs.  (She's an over-achiever!)  The one above is very pretty appliqued waves, and you can see that she has started her sashiko stitching.

This pretty moon (or sun) belongs to SisterStitches, too.  She has begun her stitching on the waves, which will build up and splash in front of the setting sun (or rising moon).

While we've both done applique and embroidery before, neither of us had tried sashiko (although I've always wanted to and have had the materials for quite a few years now!).  The sashiko stitching is different from regular embroidery, as the stitches are larger, and each stitch has a space between it and the next.  You can see that a little bit in my practice piece below.

And here is one of the many deer that were around the Asilomar grounds.  They are actually quite used to people being around, so they don't scare very easily.  I still wouldn't want to get too close, though!

Isn't he sweet-looking!?!

You Know You're A Quilter When . . .

. . . a trip is coming up, and you spend more time planning and preparing projects to take with you, than you do actually planning and packing your clothes.

Recently MisterStitches and I went on a road trip to Arizona for the Giants spring training.  That means two fairly full days of driving on very straight roads.  

Each way.  

Coming and going.  

That means lots of time for hand sewing.  And I really did spend more time and energy on my sewing projects than I did on my regular packing!

The first thing I got ready was an embroidery project.  This one is a secret for now, but I will say that it's for someone in my Stitches family.  I had to buy the object to be embroidered, interface it, then draw on the design with my iron-off pen before we started the trip.

Then I assembled my English paper piecing project.  Which includes the fabric, cardboard pieces, thread, and my needle threader.

Now both projects are stacked on the bed ready to go.

I also have a small quilted wall hanging that only needs its hanging sleeve attached.  I included matching thread and needle pack, plus the label that needs to be attached, too.

So the orange quilt gets added to the pile of sewing projects.  That's the good thing about driving in a car versus flying.  Space isn't an issue, so I can take along as much as I need to.

Now comes the big quilt.  This one is not a super large quilt, probably a large throw size.  As you can see, it needs the binding sewn down, and also the hanging sleeve sewn down.

And so the blue quilt goes on the pile.  Just about ready to go.

And in case I run out of projects (I'm worried that this might not take me as many hours as we will be spending in the car), I throw in the baby afghan I am currently crocheting.

Now I think my stack is complete!  I'll let you know how many projects I finished.