making, learning & sharing a crafty life
Summer seems like a dream, but I’ve been meaning to tell you about three rainy days of sewing bliss I had at Jacqueline‘s cottage at the middle of August.
In a nutshell : 5 girls, 2 dogs, 4 Berninas, 2 irons, 14 rulers, 7 pairs of scissors, 5 rotary cutters, lots of good food and sewing from morning til night.
See all the photos here. Next summer can’t come soon enough.
I love this dress so much!
I have been holding onto a couple metres of Jay McCarroll’s Purple Drop Cloth fabric from his Habitat collection. I knew it would make a really special dress once I found the right pattern. I saw this Cynthia Rowley pattern online and when I couldn’t find it here in Toronto, Amanda picked up a copy for me and mailed it to me. It was very easy to follow and I love that I can also make a separate skirt or top using the same pattern. I’m keeping my eye out for a skirt fabric to use next. The pockets in the skirt are brilliant.
I wore this dress on our first day of classes at the Sewing Summit. We had a long break after lunch before our afternoon classes started, so Katherine, Amanda and I went to our room to hang out and relax. Of course, I noticed how lovely the light was in our room and promptly started moving furniture around to take photos of this dress, my new fabric, Amanda’s mini quilts, etc. If you ever wondered what the other side of my camera looks like, Amanda caught me in action here. I get pretty resourceful when taking photos. I stacked boxes of cookies to make a ‘tripod’ on our last day to get these group photos.
The prints from Habitat really seem to suit clothing. This drop cloth fabric is GENIUS. I made a skirt from the Grey Multi Coloured Polka Dot Habitat fabric a few months ago that I adore and I’m REALLY wishing I had more than a metre of the grey Birch fabric. What was I thinking?! Perhaps I can squeak out a tiny tank top from it.
This year was the inaugural year for the Sewing Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sewing Summit is a two day sewing & blogging conference that was held at the Little America Hotel. Since Katherine and I had such a great time at The Makerie in the spring, we knew we had to be a part of the Sewing Summit, too. It was also a chance to meet up with lots of friends IN REAL LIFE that I’ve made on the internet. Most specifically, Amanda aka Ms Mcporkchop! Amanda and I have been chatting pretty much every day for well over a year. We’ve worked on projects together, sent each other packages in the mail and video skyped with each other. You can imagine how amazing it was to meet up with her at the SLC airport and room with her & Katherine for five whole days. It was the best!!
We had flown down a few days early so that we could spend time with Lizzy House and have a chance to explore Salt Lake City. This was one lesson we learned from our Makerie trip. We didn’t schedule in time to really check out Boulder and Denver. Thursday was our shopping day. Armed with a list of local quilt and yarn shops, we headed out in our rented SUV. We took a short drive outside the city to visit Material Girls and Quilt, Etc. Both were huge shops with so many great fabrics. We had a lot of fun scouring the shelves and picking out fat quarters for ourselves. Back in SLC, we visited Piper’s Quilts, which sells both fabric and yarn. This shop is in an adorable house with quilts hanging out on the porch and a classroom upstairs. The last stop on our craft tour was Blazing Needles. It’s been a really long time since I’ve knit anything, but I always love to check out the colourful skeins of yarn. Something about this wonderful shop inspired Katherine & I to buy yarn and start knitting a cozy cowl. The owner, Cynthia, spent a lot of time with us making sure we got everything we needed and giving us advice. We left the shop feeling really inspired. I think everyone who visited that shop felt the same thing because at night huge groups of gals were huddled together in our room or the lobby knitting away.
Friday was another exploring day. This time with Lizzy and her sister, Melissa. We drove out to Sundance Resort, which is located in a gorgeous canyon surrounded by mountains. It was actually snowing in the mountains, which made them even more breathtaking. We also drove out to Park City, which is actually the setting for the Sundance Film Festival. In our wandering around we happened upon a Banksy, which totally made my day.
The Sewing Summit started early on Saturday and wrapped up Sunday afternoon. We took Handbags 101 with Bari J, Free Motion Quilting with Alison of Cluck Cluck Sew, Creative Fabric Selection with Jeni B of In Color Order, Marvelous Minis with Amanda of MsMcPorkchop Quilts, Photographing Your Creations with Vanessa of V and Co and Improv Piecing with Jessica of Urban Patchwork. That’s a lot to jam into a couple days, but I learned a lot and felt really inspired.
In particular, Jeni & Amanda’s classes were totally energized and informative. Jeni gave a really thorough presentation on how to choose dynamic colour palettes and surprised the entire class with Kona colour cards. Such a useful tool for selecting colour. Amanda brought so many examples of her minis and they were all incredible. My favourite all time mini is her Oregon Star. I felt like I was in the presence of the Mona Lisa, seeing this mini quilt in person. Incredible. Also, you have never seen anyone as passionate about getting you excited to make mini quilts and be creative. I am pretty sure everyone in her class went straight home after the weekend and made a mini quilt. I know I did.
There were so many friends that I met at the Summit that were so fun to hang out with. I’m so happy that I made sure to take lots of ‘people’ photos on this trip. Amanda J, Amanda Hall, Jeni B, Kait, Lindsay, Angela, Deedrie & Jessica – I had so much fun with you ladies! Saying goodbye to everyone on the last day was really hard, but I hope we’ll meet up again soon!
Check out my 100+ photos from Salt Lake City and the Sewing Summit here!
I’ve been wanting to try out the disappearing nine patch ever since I saw Karen’s quilt a few years ago. When Amanda mentioned that she wanted to make a patchwork canning mat and that she wanted to do a disappearing nine patch, Katherine & I cried ‘quilt along’ right away.
I had a stack of fat quarters already picked out from my Colour Theory Class that I wanted to use. I’m realizing now how autumnal my colours are. That peachy colour just looks so good with the browns.
We’re making 25 blocks that will finish at 5″ each. I was able to start putting mine together on Sunday. The nine patches came together really quickly. Once your blocks are together, you slice them vertically and horizontally through the centre. Then you rotate the four pieces and sew them back together. There are a few different configurations you can come up with when you twist the blocks. Fun!
Canning season is almost done for this year, but I’ll surely have this done before next year.
Here’s a quick project that totally made my day on Friday. The inspiration came from this awesome nani IRO scarf.
I have some bits and pieces of nani IRO double gauze, some are too small to make clothing with but I can’t resist collecting this gorgeous fabric. I had one metre of the green Fuwari print that I knew would be just right for a scarf. I made a special trip to Mokuba in search of some pom pom trim, which is clearly an essential feature of this scarf. They didn’t have true pom pom trim, but I found this golden glittery pom-like trim that seemed kinda perfect for me.
Here’s a quick run down of how the scarf comes together. Square up the ends of your fabric and then cut the metre piece down the centre fold. You will now have two pieces that are about 22″ x 1 metre long. Sew those two pieces together. You will now have a piece that is 22″ x 2 metres long. Fold the fabric in half with good sides together, it will now be 11″ x 2 metres. If you’re planning on adding trim, cut an 11″ piece for either side and baste it in place on the inside of your folded fabric. The trim will be placed good side to the front side of your scarf. All the trim should be laying on the inside of your scarf ‘sandwich’, so that it will end up on the outside of your scarf, not the inside! Sew around the 3 open sides of your fabric, leaving a space of a few inches along the longer side so that you can turn the scarf inside out. You will need to hand or machine stitch this closed after. That’s it! Think of how many of these you can whip up in a night?!
It’s been cold here in Toronto, so I’ve been wearing my scarf inside, since I refuse to turn on the furnace just yet. The little glitter pom trim makes me incredibly happy and reminds me that a little bit of trim is always a good idea.
p.s. I hope you’re thinking the same thing…. This is a great (& simple) handmade gift idea!!
Sometimes the best projects are ones that you can start and finish in just one sitting. When I make zippered pouches, I’ll often make two or three or even four. It feels like it takes just about the same time. We needed a couple pouches for the shop for receipts and petty cash. I couldn’t resist making myself a pouch with some of my Far Far Away III fabric and some horseshoe fabric I had. It doesn’t have a use just yet but it usually doesn’t take very long for a cute pouch like this to find a purpose.
I’m so excited to share my 1001 Peeps Summer Camp project with you today! Have you been following along with the other great camp projects every Friday?
Since I love making clothes so much, I thought I would create a skirt pattern that is very easy to sew. You will start and finish this skirt in a few hours! Also, I show you how to do elastic shirring with this pattern. If you’ve never tried it, this is a magical technique to learn. It’s also very addictive. You may have seen it in this dress, this dress or this dress. Since I know how much Lizzy loves bows, I had to make sure it had a big bow on it too! My Enchanted Bow Skirt features a ruffled paper bag waist, an elastic shirred waistband and an adorable contrasting bow.
It was pretty hard to choose just two fabrics from the 1001 Peeps fabric collection for the skirt, but I’m having a love affair with purple right now, so I chose the Purple Pearl Bracelet for the bow and the Scheherazade for the skirt.
You can download a pdf of the instructions to make this pattern here. I’ve added the elastic thread that I use to our online shop, in case you don’t have a place near you that sells it. Please let me know if you make one, I’d love to see it!
the workroom will FINALLY be receiving our shipment of 1001 Peeps next week. Just in time for Lizzy’s arrival. There will be sets of all 24 prints for sure! Fat quarter, half metre and full metre. If you need one, (I definitely need one), let me know and you can pre-order.
There are just two more weeks left of the 1001 Peeps Summer Camp. Be sure to visit Whipstitch next Friday and Happy Zombie on August 26th!
p.s. The bow on this skirt is totally enchanted. Take a look at the last photo where the magical bow is trying to fly away!
Finish Enchanted Bow Skirts :
- Jeni finished her skirt within a day of posting the pattern! It’s amazing with the Royal City print in orange.
- Lizzy House made TWO enchanted bow skirts while she was in Toronto. Here’s her first one made with Heather Ross’ Far Far Away 3 fabric.
Mannish Style – available at the workroom
Dress 12 : silk shibori dyed in logwood
Oh boy, was I ever excited last week when I remembered that I had this piece of silk from my Advanced Natural Dyeing class. This pattern from Mannish Style is exactly what I had hoped to find to make a dress from this shibori fabric that I dyed in logwood. I love the drapey folds.
This pattern was also very easy! There are just 2 pieces (front & back), with the front being cut on the bias to give it that nice drape. The neck and arms are finished with bias trim. The pattern was intended for a knit fabric which you can see would have even more drape. Because of that, the dress is a bit snug around the hips and I would adjust the pattern next time to be a bit looser. I would also love to make this in a fun knit fabric.
This silk is my most favourite piece of fabric that I have dyed myself. The super dark, inky purple colour we got from this logwood bath is so amazing and so much deeper than any other colour I’ve done in the past. There is still some of this silk leftover and I want to try to use every bit of it. I’m trying to figure out what else I can make with it, perhaps a tank top or camisole?
Mannish Style – available at the workroom
This is my current favourite Japanese Dress book. Firstly, it has a fantastic title that makes me smile every time I read it. The full title on the book is ‘She has a mannish style’. I am feeling this mannish style right now!
What I love about this book is that it strays from the typical sweet tunics and dresses you find in most Japanese Dress books. It’s great to see some variation in the styling. There are some super cool drapey tops and vestlets that look like they will be fun to make. I’m looking through my stash to figure out what fabric will work for one of the dresses. It will be one of the 13 projects I hope to work on over the long weekend. I need more time to sew!
No matter how busy I am, I make sure that I carve out some time in my week to sit down and do some crafting for myself. Especially right now, these little projects are keeping me sane!
You might recognize this as a Sunday Patchwork project. I had decided that the pieces needed to be hand quilted and made into a Hoop Travel Bag. I started the hand quilting back in March and I was finally able to finish it off when we went to the cottage.
Although I own a hoop bag already, this was the first one that I made. I had trimmed down my patchwork pieces to the final dimensions of the outside pieces in the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery pattern and followed the instructions from there. It came together really quickly and was so fun to make. It took me just over an hour to construct the pouch and I was almost giddy when I finished it. Sewing is good therapy.
I am doing more and more handwork. It’s perfect for trips, stitching outside, watching movies and hanging with friends. Right now I’ve got an embroidery sampler project, a cross stitch project and an English paper piecing project in progress. Ideally, I’d like to have a hoop bag for each of these. So, I think I need to make myself at least two more. (an extra one for good luck)
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