Giftcard Pockets - Crafty Goodness

Here are some more crafty gifty things. I made two gift card holders for iTunes cards. The pattern is super easy. I just cut two rectangles, sewed them RST (leaving an opening for turning), and turned the rectangle. Now you have one very long, skinny rectangle. You fold up part of the rectangle and then topstitch the sides. And then you're done.

I used my snap press to apply little brass snaps to the front. I figure they can use the little pockets for something else once they use the giftcards.

Before I stitched the two layers together, I embroidered the outer fabric for a little texture. I used the Embird Font Engine and used one of the dingbat fonts to add some curliques.

KS 2605 Girls' Swimsuits

First off, let me just say that I have no idea what these poses are about. They are both a bit crazy.

This is KS 2605. Their sizes in the envelope go from 4-7. My girls are three and skinny for their age. I downsized the pattern by one size and it fits really well. The only thing I should have done is increased the length of the torso by about 1/2" My girls are skinny but tall. This red suit is snug but will certainly be fine for January. I plan on making four suits total and giving them to the girls for Christmas. They'll never remember this suit until they open it on Christmas day. Then it'll be a Gift and that will make it exciting.

Here's another Vogue pose. Weirdos.

It is a nicely designed kid suit. The only change I made is to line the entire front of the suit with swimsuit lining.

I really like the racer back on it.

I have the three others cut out and sewn together but, in my wisdom, I only bought enough elastic for two swimsuits. So the other ones are partially put together. When you assembly line items like this they go together really, really fast.

Happy Turkey Day to my US friends!!

Hawaii bound again!

That fantastic man I'm married to is taking me to Hawaii again! We are going Outside* in January. But, this time we are going with another couple and bringing the kids. I wasn't so keen on the idea until he told me that the nanny is going too. We are splitting her costs with the other couple that is going. It sounds extravagant but the tickets were only $300 and we were renting a house anyway.

To prepare for this trip, I've decided to make the girls swimsuits for Christmas. They will each get two. I went to my local fabric boutique, Seams Like Home, and found this pattern and bought my elastic. Swimsuits are really fast to whip up so I should hopefully have these four done by the weekend. I'm planning on two full suits and two, two-piece suits. I still have a bunch of swimwear fabric from last year. Blogger is not letting me link right now to that post but I will later.

While I was there I also snagged two yards of this fantastic ITY jersey knit. It's it fab? It's a rather big print. Did you notice that it's not purple? Maybe I'm coming out of the purple phase?

*Outside is the term that Alaskan use for the rest of the United States. We also call it the Lower 48 but that doesn't include Hawaii. You often hear Alaskans telling other Alaskan, "Oh yea, we're going Outside for the holidays." Then they say You Betcha and wink. No wait, that's just Sarah Palin.

Burda 12-2009 #115 The alterations . . .

I really like this new issue of Burda. I am going to make these pants but have to figure out how to alter them. I usually make a size 36 for bottoms and then take in the CB for a swayback adjustment. I sometimes take in the side seams just a bit. If I have to do that with this pattern, how would I do it???? This has a side seam for the waistband and the yoke but the leg sections do not have any side seaming. Don't worry, I am planning on making a muslin.

I may get lucky and only have to take in the yoke piece and waistband. If I'm unlucky I may have to take part of the leg piece. How would ya'll tackle this? I put down, in red, what I'm thinking. I do realize the leg section would have to be sliced to the bottom hem, leaving a small piece attached, so I can use that as my hinge.

Hmmmmm, ponder, ponder, ponder.

All of the bags . . .

Here are all 17 bags. I love all the colors! I finished all the blue and snowman ones today.

I used up a bunch of bright zippers. I may have to buy some more on eBay. That is where most of these zippers came from. My husband bought them when my sewing obsession appeared a few years ago. He also bought be a lot of buttons and other notions.

Erica asked about washing these bags in the last post. To wash these you put them in a garment bag and wash them in the washing machine. My girlfriend, S, just rinses hers out everyday and leaves it to try on the dishwasher rack.

Ziplock bags . . . sort of

Are these not cute? One of my work friends, S, is an eco-friendly/green sort. Instead of plastic ziplock bags, she carries much of her food in little fabric bags with water proof liners. I think it's a fantastic idea and so I'm making up a bunch for Christmas. S will get some too. S, if you are reading this, pretend to be surprised, okay?? I used the Split Yarn Zippered Wristlet tutorial (it's a link over on the right under the heading Favorite Sewing Tutorials). Today I made 10 but I have about seven more to whip out tomorrow. I used a random assortment of reds and browns. The other seven are blues and winter-themed.

Some of them are lined with ripstop nylon. The fun part of this nylon? This is nylon that has been to SPACE. Yes, you read that right. My grandfather is one of the founders of the Poker Flats Research Range. My grandfather proposed a rocket range in the 1960s that would shoot rockets into the aurora and deliver payloads of various chemicals to the high-altitude regions. You can read about it here. He has a shirt that says, "I AM a rocket scientist." He's a funny dude. Several years ago, they dedicated a building to him and gave him the parachute of the most recent rocket launch. Being The Fabric Queen, I ended up with some of it. My dad will be getting the baggies that are made with the parachuting material. He'll think it very fitting.

The majority of the bags are lined with XLT Burlington outerwear fabric.

The best part is that I got to use oodles of fun, old zippers.

Let's talk embroidery, shall we?

Remember this embroidery from the other day? I have been playing around quite a bit with my embroidery machine. I love big, bold designs. I bought the Embird software quite a while back so I could place several embroideries together and make stitching faster and easier. When my girlfriend asked me to embroider her Christmas stockings the other day, I went ahead and bought the Font Engine plug-in that goes with it. I figured that I could either pay for each individual font or buy the Font Engine and convert my own fonts. My favorite font site is http://www.dafont.com/. They have oodles of nice, good, and free fonts. With Font Engine you can download any font and digitize it for an embroidery machine. While not all fonts digitize well, the ones I have tried do work very well. For each character there is an outline and a fill stitch. You can modify each of those options so you get just the look you want. I often choose to do away with the fill and use only the outline instead. For example, let's look at the designs in this picture. I omitted the fill in the three designs. On the leftmost design, I used a Bean stitch for the border. On the middle design (my favorite) I used the Redwork stitch. The bottom one is one I just messed up on. How fun would it be to have overlapping stitches, colors, and designs? With Embird software, you can do all of that.

So here is where I found the loops for the above designs.

Here are some other fonts that would be fun on jean pockets.

I've used this already on a knee patch for my son.

Even this curly alphabet would be fun with big, outlined, enlarged letters. With Font Engine you can skew, slant, enlarge, and change the letters. You can make your letters up to 12" big.

And, by the way, I'm not affiliated with their business, I just really like the products. Enjoy!

ETA for Beth: All you have to do is download the font to your computer and, once in Embird, click "Insert Font", type your text, change it to your specifications, and hit okay. Then you just save it like normal. Without extensively tweaking the fonts, you could do this in a matter of minutes. I haven't played with it much but I think it would be easy to have it from font download to embroidery design in about five minutes. I 've been doing mine in about 10 minutes but that is because I'm tinkering with all the options and then looking at it in the 3D mode to see if I like it. The 3D view is a surprisingly accurate way to see if you'll like the design once it is stitched out.

The Whole Kit and Kaboodle (Jalie 2215)

You guys should know by now how much I love Jalie. This is the third and fourth time I've made this pattern. The first two times were running shirts (here and here). This is the first time I've made the pants. Unsurprisingly, they fit well straight out of the envelope. First, let's talk tops. I made this turtleneck by sewing the top together and not slashing the polo opening. Then I made the front of the scoop a little bit deeper. When I measured the circumference of the top it totaled 16" so I made my neckband 15". I wanted it to be snug versus really slouchy. Then I quartered the top and collar and attached it. This is a fabric my husband bought for me during one of his many Houston trips last year. It's an organic cotton with little holes in it (scroll down on the link above and you can see a close-up). It is a dense enough weave that I don't have to worry about any bra peekage. Pardon the funny faces but it's 3° outside right now. ETA: I should add that the shirt is just an undershirt. I don't run in cotton shirts. I would freeze my everything off.






Next, the bottoms. The bottoms are a size S which is two sizes bigger than the top. I'm a true pear-shaped woman. These pants are made out of a very thick bottomweight four-way stretch knit I bought from the Fabrics and Notions coop group run by Ressy (thanks EFQ!). The only change I might make next time is to flair the legs just a little bit more. These are also a cotton mix so I wear them at the gym and as lounge pants. I won't wear these when I run outside either.





And the requisite butt photo.



I really like how the pattern is lower in the front and higher in the back. No one wants butt cleavage on the track.





Hmmmmm, next up? I'm not sure. The kids probably need more winter stuff. It's been chilly, chilly here.

Burda 09-2009 #130 Cropped Vest

Remember this little ditty from 09-2009 Burda? I love vests and I needed something different for my wardrobe topper. I have decided that I'm not a jacket kind of gal and maybe I should stop making jackets that I will never wear. Instead, I used the remaining wool twill from this recent jumper and made this vest. This, I will most certainly wear.

I went with the mother of pearl buttons that so many of you suggested. I really like how they are neutral but kind of dressy at the same time.

The back is my favorite part with that high slit.

The buttons were made with my Greist buttonholer on my Necchi BU Mira.

I finally conquered that Burda technique that they show with the wooden spoon. It's pretty easy when you actually follow their directions. You pull the vest right side out through a 6" slit in the CB lining. Later you hand-stitch that puppy back together.

Let's see, some details for ya'll. I took in the side seams about an inch on both sides. I made no other alterations except leaving off the topstitching, tubular braid, frog closures, and snaps. Brian, it took me almost no time to make this vest. It's only six pieces (three fashion fabric, three lining) with no challenging sewing. I think it probably took me four hours of solid time from tracing to buttonholes. Like everything, the pressing and finishing things like buttonholes and hand-stitching took the majority of time. Actual time at the machine might have been an hour but I doubt it. I highly recommend making vests because they don't require much fitting and they are simple and fast to put together.

Buttons - Better pictures

I realize that those last photos suck. I took some on the front porch. It's a cold but bright day. I think I'm leaning toward the mother-of-pearl ones now. They are the top ones.

As soon as I get it done, I'll take some pictures and answer Brian's question. Stay tuned.

Buttons -- Help!

Man these photos are horrible. I decided that I'm just not a jacket kind of girl. I am going to take the Chanel jacket out of my Wardrobe Contest plans and use this vest instead. It's a Burda pattern and I'll show it to you in detail once I figure out the buttons. What do you think readers? My favorite is #2. I did a close-up of the buttons at the very bottom because these pictures are so horrible. I may have to brave the weather and take a photo outside. It's about 8°F out there.

#1 is a lavender-y plastic button. I am debating the number of buttons too. I could do three or four.

#2 is a plastic button that is made to look like those leather buttons. There is a close-up below.

#3 is a black/mother-of-pearl button. You can't tell anything about it in this photo except for size.

I also put in two other potential buttons: black and gray. And, of course, I could go buy some but I'd rather use ones from stash.

I've been dreaming of jeans again.

My router is dead so I am forced to post via my iPhone. I'll keep it short and sweet. Look at the fun pocket embroidery designs I've been testing out. Won't these fun on a back pocket? Details coming with links as soon as I can get to a real keyboard.

I am trying to see if mobile blogger works with my phone. This is just
a test of the emergency broadcasting system. Or whatever. Daughter #2

Kwik Sew 3576 - Another jumper

Remember way back when? The first time I made this jumper in February of 2008? I loved it then and I love it now. My sewing skills have come a long way since then. When I made it the first time, I had only been garment sewing for six months or so. The fit and construction are much better this time. I made this out of a gorgeous purple twill wool. I bought it from Ann over at Gorgeous Fabric a long time ago but never wanted to cut into it because I liked it so much. It has pockets and a belt. I do not have a belt buckle for it yet. I made this jumper at the original length. The first time I lengthened it. The more I sew, the higher my hemlines seem to get. I think this is a great length for boots and tights though. With the other one, tall boots seem to be too much. I'll wear it with a turtleneck like this. It could also be worn sleeveless. I also lowered the front neckline by about a 1/2" and raised the back neckline by the same amount.

Here I tried to lighten the colors a little so you can see details. Now that it is darker earlier, I am reduced to taking inside photos again. I used Coats and Clark Heavy Dual thread in a gold color.

Here's another light one that shows the bust darts. It is shaped by two front waist darts, two back waist darts, and two bust darts. The waist darts are all partially concealed by pockets and belt loops.

The true color is just a bit darker than this.

I'll try to get some natural light photos but the sun sets by 4:30pm and it's twilight-y for an hour or so before that.

Must. Buy. This.

I absolutely love this new pattern from Hot Patterns. I have never tried any Hot Pattern before but I am sorely tempted with this one. Part of it is the styling. I LOVE the grays and white. Love. It. If my local fabric boutique has it in stock, I'll buy it. Paulette, is it there?? I have some rayon knit that would be perfect. I would use self-fabric for the rib knit sleeves, neck, and hem. I love it and now I'll have to keep my eyeballs out for ribknit. My favorite is the elbow length sleeves.

Burda 10-2009 #104 Hooded Knit Dress

Here's the line drawing and model photo thanks to Kim. She posted a link to the German version of the website with the October magazine (thanks Kim!!). Like I said before, the model photo is cute but the line drawing is a bit mehhhh.

And here is my version. I used the reverse side of this fabric. I love this fabric. It's wool on this side and poly on the reverse side. It's like wearing a soft, cozy blanket. It's a very loose style which I am not used to but I do loooove tights and boots. I found the construction to be interesting. At first look at the line drawing, I assumed there would be a zipper but there is not. You use twill tape to finish the seam allowances. But, you also use the twill tape to make an underlap that attaches to your original ribbon facing. I used grosgrain ribbon instead of twill tape. Then you sew snaps to the underlap and the facing. I decided to whack it a few times with my industrial snap press and put on shiny silver snaps. I thought it needed a little bling.

You can see in this photo that there is very little shaping. I debated trying to make it a little tighter but decided, in the end, to leave it alone. I do like it but it is not a style that I usually wear.

Here are some detailed photos of the facing and underflap. You cut the front on the fold but then slash it open from the top the CF marking. Then you sew together the CB hood. After that you face it with twill tape (I used ribbon).

Here's the underlap. You create it by putting the ribbon together, sewing the sides of it, and then attaching that to the facing strips. Finally you fold the facing under and topstitch from the top. The underlap part extends into the CF. I hope that makes sense. I had to read, read, and re-read the directions to finally figure out what was happening.

Here's a close-up. It will either completely explain what I'm babbling about or it will confuse you.

I can totally see this with skinny jeans tucked into boots too. Aaaauuuugh, I love sewing with knit.

Early Morning Sewing II and Next Up

Well, dag-nabit. I wanted to show you what I was working on today but Burda is being uncooperative. Ya know that in-between time on their website? When they are showing the current issue (November) and the archives shows two months ago (September) but last month's (October) issue is no where to be found? I am making 10/2009 #104. It's that red and black sweater dress. It's kind of shapeless in the line drawing but it's cute on the model? Well, I'm making that. Hopefully I'll be able to finish by tomorrow so I can wear it to work on Monday. I love quick weekend projects. I love dresses that I can wear with thick tights and boots.

Speaking of quick, I cut these out last night and finished them this morning. All the ribbing is random stuff from my husband's grandmother that I inherited when she died. The mittens themselves is made from Polartec 200.

Chanel Jacket Close to the End

Ninety percent of the jacket is done. I have to either stitch down the pockets or find some buttons that will work with all this color. I used sleeve heads but no shoulder pads to help the sleeves not collapse. I put in three hook and eyes along the CF to hold the jacket closed. I think a zipper would have been a better choice.

The bottom hem is a bit wonky. I'm not sure what to do there. I did not add a chain to the bottom but that might really help it hang better.

It looks extremely cropped but isn't really. My natural waist is at the bottom pocket line. However, these are my low-ish rise Jalie jeans and make my torso look very loooong. Hmmm, the jury is still out on the jacket. Do you know, readers, that I don't wear any of the jackets I have made? I feel like I would like jackets if I could ever get one to fit. I have never worn this one, this one, or this one. I thought that my couture jacket class would help out with fitting issues but I got so bogged down in the construction aspect, that I didn't do much fitting. Or maybe it's just that I'm just not a jacket kind of gal. I don't know. I just know I have several jackets that I have spent a lot of time on, that I never wear. Not even one time. The most I have worn them is to take pictures for you guys. I guess we'll see if it is the same with this one. I think it would look much better with pants that are at the waist. I'll finish up with buttons and then take a few more pictures for my final review.

Chanel Jacket Progress and Denim

Here's a picture to prove that I have not given up. The flaps are on and the lining is in. I still have to hand stitch the sleeves and hem. I will slipstitch down the flaps because they keep flipping up. As you can see, I ditched the zipper idea a while ago and decided to go with hook and eyes. Hopefully tomorrow you'll see the whole thing presses, hemmed, and done.

Looky, looky who just got eight yards of denim from the Fabric and Notions Coop. There's a beefy red, a shiny brown, and two blues. At first, I didn't think the brown and blues would work for jeans because they are a tad on the light side. But, after washing them, I think they might work. I think the brown would make a great faux-leather pair of pants.

I've been feeling a bit stomach flu-ish so I'm not going to attempt anymore sewing tonight. When I get tired, I start to make stupid mistakes.

Slow and not so steady

Man alive, can I go any slower on this jacket? I've hit the wall and just want to throw the whole damn thing away. The trim is completely on the jacket and the pockets. All I have left is the lining and the finishing stuff like hemming, understitching, etc.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . .

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

One of my girlfriends wanted me to embroider the tops of her Christmas stockings with their names. I have Embird, the embroidery software, already and like the program. When my friend asked me to do the embroidery I figured I would also buy the Embird Font Engine. It's a bit spendy but I think I'll use it quite a bit. It enables you to turn any font into embroidered letters. Some fonts turn out well when embroidered and some don't. I found these two fonts at www.dafont.com. That is my favorite site for finding free fonts for my computers. These two are Fontdinerdotcom and Faux Snow. After several explicatives and many, many trial runs, I came up with this combination. If you have Font Engine I used Plain Fill (Fill 1) with the Triple Bean Stitch for the border of the letters. For the snowflake font, I chose No Fill and used the Redwork for the border of the "letter". I used a tear-away interfacing on the bottom with a strip of mid-weight Solvy on the top so they letters did not sink into the fleece fabric.

Here's a close-up where you can see the triple stitch along the outside. I think they turned out quite nice.

What my friend doesn't realize (or won't until she reads this) is that I had to take the fleece off the main stocking to make it lie flat in the embroidery machine. So, she'll have to sew them back together and sew them back on the stockings. I would have done it (it's a 20 minute machine job) but my transport system (my mom) was leaving to get on a plane this afternoon so I didn't have time.