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Before my mom returned home, I was able to finish up showyourworkings’ Japanese knot bag. I am happy with how it came out though I need to clarify how to sew the sides where the two seams come together. I have almost finished a second bag, too. I used a light-weight interfacing for the body fabric and a heavy-weight interfacing for the circular bottom piece. Pulling it right-side-out through the handle wasn’t hard but it took persistence. I’m not sure how you would pull through a thicker interfacing on the bottom; cardboard would get pretty bent up.
My mom is in town this week so I haven’t done much sewing. Though I did receive my fabric from karaku on etsy. It’s rich and wonderful and most of the pieces I ordered are cotton prints of traditional designs. I plan on making showyourworkings’ knot bag. Maybe I can even make one for my mom before she returns home.
Recently completed:
Fabric doll house, superhero masks and capes, Aranzi Aronzo kitties and kitty bag.
Projects to do next: Finish the storage boxes I am making for a gift, finish my polka-dot blouse, sew a t-shirt, and finish the picnic placemat set.
Kids’ projects seem to bump aside everything else in queue.
My old Iron Horse Singer sewing machine is ready to be picked up from the repair shop. It ended up needing a new motor and that’s not surprising. I will pick it up this Friday and this weekend I will work on a little backpack for Fiona. I modified a pattern out of Lotta Jansdotter’s Simple Sewing so that it will fit the bee’s smaller size. I just need to figure out how to set up the tiling on the Illustrator file with the pattern so that my husband can print it out at work. He tried once but it came out willy-nilly on too many pages. I am tempted to go to his office and try printing it with him. Next big wishlist purchase: a home printer.
Actually, we did once have an ink jet printer but we used it so irregularly the ink would always dry out. We even kept the cartridges in a humidor-like container designed for storing them. I am wondering if we should try an ink jet printer again now that I can visualize us using it a lot more or if we should try a toner printer. I worry about the health effects of toner dust, though.
In the mean time, the bee’s backpack will be made of some nice pink canvas I found at Hancock Fabrics‘ Lincoln Avenue store. (Contrary to the jovial man at the store who spun a nice tale about the store losing its 30-year lease after it was up, it looks like Hancock Fabrics is having some financial trouble. Well, maybe both are true.) Before I put it all together, I will have to think of some sort of embellishment for the outer pocket. Maybe I can have Fiona do a drawing with fabric crayons or I could make an applique out of one of her drawings.
This weekend, I am taking another sewing class and currently, my old iron horse sewing machine is at the repair shop. Next, the gold Vegas Elvis machine will go in for a tune-up or whatever it should be called.
Now that I have retraced Fiona’s drawing of me with a fabric marker (instead of the pencil), the embroidery is coming along much better.
Fiona did some sweet drawings of our family earlier in the week and I decided to use them to try an embroidery project. I dug out the light box and the latest issue of Craft (with Dolin O’Shea’s article, Embroidery 101) and a scrap of linen fabric. I found my embroidery floss and hoops plus the fabric pencil from the sewing kit I bought at my sewing class and, without any final product in mind, started tracing the drawings onto the linen.
It’s coming along pretty well and the jewel colored floss is happy making. Unfortunately, the pencil marks are rubbing off and already too faded to work with. I will try to pick a fabric marker this weekend, retrace the drawing and try again.
Yesterday, I the mail carrier brought me Lotta Jansdotter’s Simple Sewing and I have been poring over it. I definitely want to make the backpack for the bee. We looked at the pictures together and she was all for it. Of course, she requires it be pink.
I also want to make the bed pocket for our king sized bed. The bed is crammed into a little room and there’s just no space for side tables. I wonder if I can incorporate the embroidery onto the bed pocket as a patch.
We picked up the latest issue of Craft magazine over the weekend and it has a nice article about getting started doing embroidery. I have been wanting to get started on something but so far I can’t imagine what to embroider. I need to know what something will be used for and I have a mistrust of decorative objects that don’t have a purpose. I think my first sewing project will be a little adventure bag for my daughter but I don’t have a working sewing machine yet. Maybe I can embroider a patch that I can incorporate into the bag. I need to think about this. I don’t know why I’m having trouble starting, there are so many things to embroider: sewing cases, dishtowels, a child’s drawing (and here).
I love the Clover embroidery patterns at Superbuzzy though my limited research pointed out that the Clover embroidery tool might make stitches that are a little too delicate and need to be glued on the back. I’m sure I can use the patterns for conventional embroidery, though. There are more fun patterns at Sublime Stitching; they even have gnomes and forest animals. Primrose design has vintage patterns in her store and a whole series of tutorial posts on her weblog she calls Stitch School.
One thing I would love to use as a pattern is a sketch I did a few years ago as a plan for my vegetable garden beds. I have a scrap of linen fabric (just under a yard) I bought at JoAnne’s for half-price, I have hoops, I have floss. I have ideas, too.
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