Month: January 2014

Happy Australia Day and More

~ Michelle

I’ll start this post by wishing any and all Australian readers and friends a Happy Australia Day! My husband and I are part of the Australian Wine Club here in our town, and although I don’t drink, we have wonderful get-togethers and I enjoy them very much. We just celebrated Australia Day together and just look at our menu:

Pan Seared Chilean Sea Bass topped with Grape Tomato salsa, bedded with braised fennel

Wild Boar Consomme with Julienne green onion cake

Duck leg Confit & Port Belly, dried cranberry Saskatoon glace de viande, garlic asparagus & dilled baby carrots, and Potato & Yam pie

Sticky Date Pudding and Anzac biscuits.

It was delicious! We have such fun with our group.

But back to sewing and other crafts.

I completed my first-ever self-made pattern and sewed up the skirt. I mentioned previously the class Design and Sew an A-Line Skirt on Craftsy. Would I recommend the class? Well, I’m divided on this one.

In other classes I’ve taken on Craftsy the instructor has been great at getting back to anyone with a question. I can’t say the same on this one. I have contacted Craftsy about this, and they’ve been great, but my questions remained unanswered. That right there is why I don’t know I could recommend the class 100%

I did learn the basics of how to draft a skirt pattern myself, and how to do some basic alterations as well. I’ll be taking another go at it too, as this one sits too low for my liking. The instructor suggested a lower-sitting skirt as that’s more in fashion right now, but I’m not completely comfortable in it.

skirt

Here it is on me. It’s sitting about 2-inches below my natural waist. A pretty good fit though. So for that reason, I would recommend the class.

invisible zipper

And I’m thrilled with the invisible zipper here. Great instruction on that part.

I did use a longer zipper and shorten it. Thanks to Threads, I was able to do that easily. I found out an invisible zipper can only be shortened from the bottom. Threads is such a great resource! You can read about how to shorten a zipper here.

So will I recommend the class? I guess I will with one caveat. If you run into problems and ask questions, I don’t know if you’ll get an answer there.

Happy creating!

Conquering Crochet

~ Michelle

I’ve been having a struggle with my thoughts. As a teen I learned to crochet and knit, but by time my 20s came around, I was only knitting. I’d crocheted more than one afghan as gifts, but for whatever reason didn’t keep up with it.

Well, because it’s been so long since I’ve crocheted, I don’t really feel like I can crochet. So I’ve been challenging myself to pick it up again and overcome this thought that I can’t do it.

Scarf

Buying this pattern was my ‘jump’ back into crochet. I bought the pattern on Ravelry, and although it looked so beautiful, and I spent way more on wool than I’ll ever admit to my husband, I could not get the pattern to work. I tried numerous times.

One time was rather funny. My husband came into the room just as I was tearing out the work I’d done and the look on his face! He looked horrified. I had to assure him I could do this over and over it nothing was harmed in the tearing out.

But this pattern really frustrated me because no matter what I did, and I tried a few variations, I could not get the same look. It wasn’t encouraging to me.

I met with my friend, Valerie of Intricate Knits, and took my pattern & wool to her to see if she could figure out the pattern. She couldn’t get it either. She said she could probably take a lot of time and figure it out and re-write it but it just wasn’t worth the time.

This past year we got a PVR and I search for craft shows, well sewing, knitting, crochet and jewelry shows primarily, and record them. Just a few days after meeting with Valerie I was watching Knit & Crochet Now. I was so surprised to see them showing this pattern:

4-213-crochet-scarf-2

This is close to the original center crochet pattern, but after looking at it and reading it, and contemplating it, I decided it was too ‘thin’ looking for what I wanted. So I started searching again. However, it is a beautiful pattern, and I will add it to my pattern stash. Here is the scarf pattern on Knit & Crochet Now: Madena Lace Scarf.

So, next was to find a pattern I really did like, I felt I could do, and would make me happy replacing the original pattern. After some searching on the net, I found a wonderful tutorial with nice clear pictures to explain any changes in the pattern she’d made. Here’s her blog site with this pattern & tutorial. It was great! Easy to follow and I’m so pleased with how it turned out. Perfect for replacing that original crochet part of the pattern.

red crochet pattern

My ‘camera’ (phone) doesn’t do this justice. It’s a beautiful rich variegated red going from vibrant reds to deep burgundies and pale blushes. The wool is a blend of Merino, Cashmere and Nylon. It’s wonderful to work with, and to feel. So nice!

I’ll have the knit part done this week and sew the scarf together.

Happy Creating! And I encourage you to do something you don’t think you can!

Not So Much Sewing

~ Michelle ~ 11 Comments

I did a lot of sitting this past week. I hurt my knee just over a week ago and it started to get better and then I did too much. I drive a standard car, so all that shifting was too much for my knee. So this past week I did a lot of sitting and with my leg up and doing my best not to hurt it again. I’m able to go up and down stairs again with only the littlest bit of a twinge in the knee, so I’m almost there.

My muslin did get done though. And so did my A-Line skirt pattern.

a line skirt pattern

Pretty basic, just like an A-Line skirt should be. It looks a little off in the picture, but isn’t when it’s sewn up. Not sure why it looks this way.

I was having some trouble ‘squaring’ the pattern at the top where the waist and side seam meet. Seems there was just too much of a difference between my hip & waist to get a 90 degree angle on the pattern. So I raised where the hip line sat by about 4 inches so the curve is much less than it was, and also took the waist out by 1/2-inch to decrease that angle some more. This worked for the pattern, but when I put the darts in…

Well, before I put the darts in, I sewed up the muslin.

I’m going to break up my chain of thoughts here just for a moment to share I put in my first invisible zipper! I was quite pleased with how it turned out. The zipper is the same one I plan on using with my fabric, that’s why it’s black and not white.

zipper

But back to the muslin; I tried it on, then pinned in the darts and … (the frightening theatrical music would play right here) the waist didn’t want to go back over my hips. I tried to gently squeeze myself out of the muslin and those pins but it didn’t work.

tear

This tear is what happened – the muslin tore where the pins were for the darts. I have a matching one on the back too. But not both darts,  just the two farthest from the zipper.

dart in pattern

You can see here where I closed the dart on the pattern there is quite a difference between my hips & waist. So what to do?

I haven’t had a response on the Craftsy platform when I asked a question in this class, but wanted an answer from someone with more experience than I had. I put a call in to my local sewing store and spoke with an instructor there. She suggested I use elastic for the waist!

Well, back to my comment from last week, all my skirts are either elastic waists or they are too big in the waist.

It’s funny, I started sewing over 30 years ago, yet still don’t feel like I know it all when it comes to sewing. So am glad to have resources to call on for things like this. Even if it does confirm what I am already thinking.

She also gave me a good idea saying keep the front of the skirt free of elastic and just have it in the back for the straighter look A-Line skirts are known for. I liked that idea, but it might be too much elastic for the back of the skirt.

And will I still want a zipper if I’m going to use an elastic waist? I’m thinking not.

So as soon as my knee is up to driving again, I’ll be heading to the fabric store for some wide elastic. I don’t have any in my stash and I want a wide waist band. Which I’m going to have to draft because that wasn’t part of this course.

Happy creating!

Happy New Year!

~ Michelle

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s. Here’s a little something to remember times past and be thankful for where we are now:

Singer sewing advice 1949

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook, and I got a chuckle out of it. Just had to share.

Over my holidays, I decided to watch one of the Craftsy classes I’d signed up for during the year. Design and Sew an A-Line Skirt by Deborah Moebes.

So far, I’m enjoying it have started to design the pattern. I’m having a bit of trouble ‘squaring up’ the waist seam. Seems I’m really not very straight at all (says the woman with a 13″ difference between her waist & hips). Getting a 90 degree angle at the seam is going to be a challenge for me. I had my dear hubby watching the video and trying to help me. I think the only thing I can do about it is increase the waist so there isn’t so much of a difference between the hip & waist. Then take the extra out with larger darts.

It really must have been bothering me because I dreamt about it last night too, but didn’t come up with a solution in my dream for sure either. Deborah keeps reassuring us this is a first draft and we can still make changes. I may still have changes ahead of me. I do know from anything I buy in RTW, I either have to buy elastic waists for skirt, so or the waist band is too big.

Something I’m excited about is a really neat little book I came across last year, and this Craftsy class will go perfectly with it. The book is 27  Skirts from One Pattern. The author is Maureen Thompson. Here’s the original PDF file (page 5) where I read about Maureen’s booklet; and Maureen does have a web site here. There’s not a lot of information on there, but you can contact her.

27 skirts

I bought that book a year ago this past fall and was excited to get started doing something but our family had a few set backs. Unemployment and a death in the family both kept my motivation quite low. But time and new possibilities are great healers and I’m finally ready to try one of these 27 patterns – once I get this pattern for the A-line skirt corrected.

While I was looking at Maureen’s site, I noticed she has another booklet available now. I’m thinking I’ll have to get that one too!

Bodices by You

And one more little delight for me: I love to start new plants from clippings. This past fall we were at a friend’s home and I saw this adorable variegated African Violet. I really like variegated leaves on plants too. I asked for a couple of leaves and brought them home to plant them. I dipped the leaf stems in some rooting hormone and this morning when I was watering them I saw a new bud!

varigated african violet

Can you see that tiny bit of white at the bottom of the left leaf? That’s a new leaf just starting.

I still have that cloned bra to finish. I’m not that enthused though. The bra isn’t as comfortable as I’d like. That left wire is still not comfortable. It’s not poking through anymore, but I can still feel it every time I wear it. I’m wondering why I didn’t just clone the Fantasie one I have as it fits so much better and is extremely comfortable. But I will get it done. And maybe get my Fantasie pattern out too.

Happy creating!