3 posts tagged “sewing”

      As a craft-procrastinator (why I procrastinate on something I love doing? no idea.) Thanksgiving signifies that x-mas is but a month away and if you haven't started making your gifts yet, you need to ASAP.  Since this year I am very, very, very, seriously, poor and unemployed all x-mas presents will come to fruition through my super stash of yarn and fabric and my own two hands.  I've come to the realization that I can pretty much make and do anything I want depending on my level of interest and my access to materials and tools.  I know how to do a ton of amazing stuff and I'm learning more everyday.  Yesterday I learned how to nest my seams to make my quilt blocks lay flat, and today I taught myself to make doll clothes patterns with just the measurements I found online.  More importantly than realizing that I can do and make and thing I want is that I SHOULD make and do what ever I want.  That I should be contributing to the craft community and stop wasting my talent and super awesome studio space by being a "lurker".

This craft-epiphany was due to a culmination of influential women in my life:

• Mama Hughes for being an amazing mentor and for always believing in me, encouraging me and giving me endless opportunities to learn from her and really making me feel like all things are possible.
• Ayla from the Jean M. Auel book The Clan of the Cave Bear for showing me that sharing your talents with the your community enriches the lives of those around you unless you are a complete troglodyte like Broud.
• My very talented friend Katy, (she designed my website and business cards) who was jealous of my craft room and made me realize that I was wasting my precious gift of space and tools and being unappreciative of what I have.

Sewingroom

And this is what I've been up to:

      I'm making a denim quilt for my parents.  We have an "heirloom" denim quilt that has been passed down from my dad's parents no one remembers who made it, or how old it it is, it's just always existed.  While being shoddily pieced together and not very attractive, it is highly utilitarian.  We used it for going to the drive-in theater when we were kids, countless picnics, music festivals in the park, trips to the beach, camping, you name it we've used that thing everywhere for everything.  Now it's gotten pretty beat up over the years and some of the patches are beyond repair.  I've also noticed that we use it a lot less now that it's all tattered.  My parents also just got a new RV so what better present than to make a new quilt that we can use the hell out of and make memories with.  The picture above and left shows the plaid I want to use as the backing (it's from France and I got it at a designer leftover sale) and the above and right photo is a sample of the block pattern I'm using.  Cool side note about the denim I'm using, it's all from jeans that I've worn dating back to middle school.  I harvested all the denim over the years knowing that someday I wanted to take on this project of creating and "heirloom" quilt.

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I've taught myself to make doll clothes.  My cousin who is 9yrs old, loves the American Girl dolls, and Michael Jackson.  What better than to make her doll one of the most iconic MJ outfits!  I will be making the red sequined military jacket and cropped tuxedo pants that the king of pop made legendary on his Victory tour.  Now if i'm super cool, i'm going to attempt the sparkly glove and socks, but we'll see about that.  here is the jacket I'm going to attempt to emulate.
 
                                            

This week I am learning to quilt. While Mama Hughes and Co. are on holiday I have gone to her sister, "Aunt Lou", to learn how to quilt and help reorganize. Aunt Lou is an amazing quilter with decades of experience, I am very lucky to get this kind of instruction!

So far, I have found the whole process to be very interesting in its approach and its methodology. This craft my be a good one to soothe those OCD moments, in that everything is designed to be very precise and exact. Everything has a template and you use a rotary cutter. All the tools I have encountered are to assist in accuracy.

I've found in garment sewing there is a lot of ambiguity, mostly because fit and style are intended to be variable in the design process. I can't tell you how many times in the process of making a garment it morphs into something different, not that I can't make things look how I intend but that it isn't the nature of the process. At least it's not for me, and I realize that may come from general inexperience, but I'm okay with that.

For my first small project we decided a pillowcase would be good. We also decided that a hexagon would be a good shape for me to start out on since I'm not a super noob who needs to do big squares. Here is it all cut and half way sewn.

hexatop1

I have to tell you about the thing that it is hanging on, it's probably the most useful of all the tools I have encountered. It's called a flannel board, because it is exactly that. The little quilt pieces stick to the fuzzy flannel like nothin! You can move stuff around, play with placement, take a step back and look at it, and you don't have to poke your fabric. It's as easy as pinning a flannel sheet to your wall! (ok, I'm starting to feel like the billy mays of the craft world here!)  Pure genius!

More updates as the project progresses!

Apron for niece

Things Acomplished

1. hem finished on scotch's wedding dress.
2. pajama bottoms for Matt.
3. pajama bottoms for cousins K1 and K2
4. apron for niece
5. patch for paul

Things Undone (with excuses)

1. pillows for scotch (got materials, just need to do it)
2. top for lia (need to alter pattern)
   
3. apron for talia (need to just do it)
   
4. fix pillow case totes (need to just do it)
   
5. t-shirt project with paul (project still in infancy, needs designs)
   
6. something for myself? (i don't make stuff for people i don't like)

How Seattle Stole Christmas

Last night, as i was finishing my x-mas crafting i decided i should do the web-check in for my flight, only to discover that my flight from Oakland to Seattle had been canceled.  I can't get a hold of anyone at Alaska/Horizon so i decide to go to the airport anyways.  I get there and my options were to wait on standby all day to see if i could get to Seattle, only to be stuck there for two or three days until things cleared up weather wise OR stay here and wait until Friday when things will be better weather wise (maybe) and i don't have to co-habitate in an airport with thousands of other people.  So the decision was, where would you rather be stuck, alone, missing Christmas with your family?  i picked here instead of the airport.  Matt was sweet enough to cancel his plans to go see his dad in Utah to stay with me.  So I'm not alone, but I'm definitely not with my family.  For the first time in my entire life i am going to be without my family on Christmas eve and christmas day.  That was a tough pill to swallow at an emotional 5am after no sleep from an Alaska Air employee who could hardly keep eye contact with me. 

Like most of the other shitty things that have happened in my life recently, I am not alone.  4 people i know are stuck at SEA-TAC, and a few who i know are going to try and leave wednesday who might join them.  think warm thoughts for Seattle, Christmas depends on it!