A quilt, a dress and fabric love

Hello Sunshine!  The sun was shining brightly here today after a long week of dreary rain and cold weather. On my knitting needles I’ve started a new Honey Cowl (free pattern on Ravelry) and I have been hunkering down under blankets knitting.  But not today!  Today was filled with outdoor activities and friends and a playground. It was only 55 degrees this morning but both children woke up and put shorts and t-shirts on.  There may have been some whining (from me, not them) to PLEASE put on a jacket but after the hostile replies, I threw my hands in the air and hastily shoved a sweatshirt in one child’s backpack.  We are all ready for the heat here.

I’m still plugging along at my ‘Half Square Triangle (Scrappy Strings Style)’ quilt (from Blooming Poppies Blog).  It is slow going and I’m ok with that.  For some reason, I had the thought that I needed to focus all of my sewing time on getting the quilt made and that seemed very overwhelming.  Especially since I am making a queen or king size quilt (not sure which yet) and I’m a quilting newbie.  After talking with some experienced quilting ladies, I realized that I have been looking at the quilting experience all wrong!  My action plan is to work on a few blocks a week.  Since I have started thinking about it in ‘parts’ and taking it much slower (while still having time to do some garment sewing), I feel excited about it again.  And inspired.  Here are some photos:

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These squares will eventually become….

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…these squares.

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Eventually I will have enough for a quilt top.

I’ve also recently finished my Fitted Top from the Alabama Studio Sewing + Design book (see here).  This top was my muslin and I used two mens XL navy blue T-shirts, thrifted, to see how I liked the pattern.  I didn’t follow the directions precisely as again it was a muslin and I wasn’t sure I wanted to fully commit to hand sewing.  The book called for hand sewing all of the seams with button craft thread.  I didn’t have this and just used my sewing machine to sew the pattern pieces together.  I used embroidery floss (as called for) to embellish the neckline and seams but didn’t have a lot of different colors on hand so I used purple.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked hand sewing this top!  I worked on it some evenings when I was catching up on Outlander (Do you watch this show?  Oh, the delicious clothes!!!).  Needless to say, my muslin is in full rotation in my closet and I love it!  The pattern is great, in fact I would like to make every pattern in this book.  I do love the fit and the calming feeling of sitting still and hand sewing.  I love this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to try hand sewing or just to look at the gorgeous works of art, being the clothing, that Natalie Chanin has designed.

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In navy blue.

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Taken with a funny filter so you can see the stitches.

Since the muslin was a success, I have started making this top in the dress size, using Alison Glass knit fabric.  Before I ordered all the supplies I needed,  I did a lot of searching online to find a review or two about this fabric but couldn’t find any.  I’m going to give a quick review right now for anyone searching.  🙂  I was looking for a jersey that was not paper thin, something with a little substance that doesn’t show every lump and bump.  This is that fabric.  It is lovely and I would describe it as a medium weight jersey.  It doesn’t have any stretch in it, just 100% cotton.  It is extremely wide so you may not need as much as you think you do for what you are sewing.  I chose the Cyprus color.  Although the cyprus is a bit dark, it is a very rich color and I’d like to think I will be able to wear this dress all year round (with sleeves and leggings underneath in the winter).  I thought this fabric would be great for another Alabama Chanin garment.  I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out!

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Alison Glass Knit fabric in Cyprus. Pardon the wrinkles.

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A picture of Me for MeMadeMay2016!

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