sewing Archives - Page 13 of 42

Fabric portfolios

We at the Sew-op decided to make gift bags for the two individuals who take care of the logistics of scheduling and publicity, run our meetings, keep the website updated, and are our interface with the Co-op at large. I decided to make little portfolios to hold notebooks. If project effort is measured from 0 to 10, my settings 3-7 are missing, so I made portfolios that will hold either a notepad or a notebook, 8″x5″ or 8.25″x5″ (Moleskine just has to be different), via a large pocket with both horizontal and vertical openings. There is a slash pocket on the opposite face, and three elastic loops hold a pen which in turn holds the portfolio closed. There were two prototypes before these two, and even the second is not the same as these.

I actually made these ages ago to be given at the June meeting, but then the giving kept getting postponed, so the posting did as well. We finally gave the bags at the September meeting, and as for posting, it gave way to things that weren’t already old news. I have been asked for the pattern by two of my Sew-op colleagues so I’m going to revamp it on the assumption that others might be interested as well. The version shown here is a little fussy (too much pressing seam allowances down and using half-strips of Stitch Witchery to secure them) – not that I withheld the pattern from my colleagues on that grounds!

Happy Halloween!

The BLT gang is here!

I went looking for trio costumes for Hugs, Stumpy, and Cirrus, and this one leapt out to all of us. Hugs insisted on being bacon and Cirrus said it only made sense for her to be the tomato, which left Stumpy as lettuce. It might not have been his choice, but as they say, it’s not easy being green.

Only the Hug Monster can make a frying pan look like a hot tub.

On second thought, a ride in the salad spinner was not so good of an idea.

I thought this one was a bit morbid, but Cirrus insisted it was the only thing that made sense to do. She’s the artist!

The intersection of times with good natural light and times I had available for photos this week was just about empty, but (with an assist from my nice bright lights) I think we did okay. Happy Halloween!

Hot rod hot pads

One of my cousins got married in September, to a man she met because they were both working at the Volo Auto Museum. I went looking for classic car fabric, and after a fruitless search, I asked the woman at the cutting counter, who led me straight to the perfect fabric. I decided on red binding and orange stitching, using feather stitch to echo the flame shape on some of the cars and in the background of the fabric.

The stitching was three strands of embroidery floss, one each of DMC 721, 740, and 947, for texture. The pieces were 6.5″ squares, two of fleece and two of fabric per potholder, each piece of fabric quilted separately to a piece of fleece before pairs were placed back to back, joined, and bound. I cut the fabric on the bias so that the cars would be upright if the potholders were hung, and fussy cut to center my four favorite designs. The loops were originally 5.5″ lengths of bias tape, and since feather stitch isn’t reversible, I sealed their open edge with whipstitch.

Pretty pleased with these. I have to learn to trust myself when I think something like “How about feather stitch? That’s kind of like flames.” I tend to second-guess because the representation is so stylized, but that seems to be what makes it work. In the last two years I’ve started reading about graphic design, and this reminds me of the principle of contrast, which you could phrase as “Make it the same, or make it very different.” I wouldn’t be able to match the flames exactly, so it’s better to go further in the stylized direction than to be close but not quite there.