Wednesday, February 12, 2014

It's a Really Good Day in the Studio

Though I am happily retired, I still find snow days to be spirit-lifting. Today it was the ice that shut down a large swath of the southeastern US. You cannot go anywhere and no one expects you to do anything. And everything is quiet.

We haven't lost power. That would be another thing all together.

I've enjoyed the gift of time in my sewing studio. Making things I've already sort-of made in my head. That includes Louise Cutting's Of The Moment (OTM) jacket. Also I've finally finished a Sunday School quilt that languished too long in the back of the closet.

OTM contains a kimono-style jacket with a slightly shaped neckline and easy lapels with a clever finish. That is one aspect of Louise Cutting's patterns that I always enjoy - the counter-intuitive and carefully drafted details.

The fabric for this jacket is (mostly) silk. I found it on the silk table at Gail K and the bolt indicated it was silk. It has some chunky threads and some that are very fine. This creates a plaid but also has another pattern beneath it. Almost a floral. The iron did not glide as it should with 100% silk, so I pulled some threads and burn-tested each. Mostly silk.

One feature of this silk piece - I washed and dried it and saw almost no change in the fabric. I do love a washable jacket. It's too light for winter but I think it will get lots of wear when spring arrives.

This funky little quilt was an exercise in just going with the flow. The kids wrote with permanent markers and used fusible material to fuse shapes to each square. As I began to attach the squares, the shapes began to fall off. We probably didn't follow the instructions. Quilting took care of it though.


Once I freed myself of the desire to sew perfectly, I had a great time with this. I decided to try a quilt-as-you go technique. That is, I sewed the horizontal squares together, added batting and a backing. Then I quilted just one horizontal panel. Each horizontal panel is quilted separately and then attached with binding on both the front and the back.

4 comments:

  1. Love the jacket and loved the fabric. The quilt looks like a lot of work. Tonight we embark on a 28 hour snow and ice event. As long as we have power I don't mind it either. Time to do some blog posting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My parents are in Atlanta and siblings in Charlotte. Bleh. I hope everyone remains safe and sound!!!

    That fabric is stunning. Absolutely stunning. Loving the jacket.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautify OTM. I've had that pattern forever and never made it up. I've been looking for the "perfect fabric" which hasn't seemed to come along just yet. You definitely found the perfect fabric for yours!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Martha I posted a comment last Wed but it never showed up. Anyway I like everything you did with your fabric and jacket. My same fabric came in one of the TSW kits and included neat square chartreuse buttons that I would never have picked. The good thing was that the Liberty jacket I made has french seams that enclosed that ravely fabric. Looking forward to seeing you at the Expo next month.

    ReplyDelete