Every Nine Years - Upholstery!

Honestly I hesitate to call it upholstery - this project is so simple! However, handling upholstery fabric is very different from the fabrics I usually manipulate. It's heavy. It's stiff. It does not want to ease. It barely fits on my sewing table.

But, evidently, every so often, I get a bug to do a simple home improvement project. I'm planning a little party in a few weeks so I found myself motivated.

version 1

These wicker love seats are maybe 25 years old. They sit in the sunroom and do not see a lot of action. The last time I recovered them was 9 years ago. I covered them with Home Depot drop cloths. 

version 2.

The previous covers were so dark and dreary that I went a little wild and chose white. And that worked out great until 3 years ago when we adopted 2 black cats.

Since the arrival of our sweet kitties, I have kept them mostly covered with old white sheets. From time to time, I wash and dry the sheets to remove the cat hair. And, then, when guests are on their way, I whip off the sheets and pretend we keep perfectly white seats despite our black cats.

version 3.

This time around I chose a more practical fabric. I hope. It is probably some kind of polyester. I find that most upholstery fabric is polyester and I did not want to make this a hugely researched project, so I just popped over to the local big box store and found a roll of pretty upholstery fabric.

Because I bought everything they had, it was a bit nerve wracking to cut the cushions. And they had 1/2 yard less than I actually needed. As I've mentioned, I am the queen of buying-too-little fabric. And I got lucky again! Though most upholstery fabric is about 56" wide, this one was closer to 60" wide, including the selvedge.

I cannot believe how many times I measured and plotted on graph paper. I even got outside counsel from Mr. Now Sewing on the final cuts. It should be simple. The project is basically composed of 8 box-shaped cushion covers.

When I finally finished the last boxed corner, I was thrilled! And ready to move on to more satisfying sewing, like the on-going k3n weekly project. All in all, it took me about 3 days. So, really not bad.

And I am quite pleased with the final result. Now that I've taken pictures, I will replace the sheets until the party guests start to show up. Or maybe not.

Roaring into the Twenties

My intention is to record my every sewing activity here, but somehow December has almost disappeared with no entry at all. In fact I did very little sewing during December. There is just too much going on to set aside significant times for sewing. So I worked on small, mainly mindless projects in the sewing room.

There were a few UFOs finished including these placemats, plus napkins that don't really match. It was one of those projects I jumped on and then lost interest in, once it became repetitive. That's why I'm not a prolific quilter. The napkins were made from remnants of a previous project. Teresa Daily gifted me some of her wonderful hand-dyes and I made a CLD jacket.

The placemats were constructed from the remnants of a lengthened Cottage shirt (TSW). I originally bought the fabric (from TSW) thinking they'd make wonderful placements and then got distracted by garment sewing. So I was only able to manage 4 placemats.

Actually each placemat is a little quilt. I used the quilt facing technique I learned in a class I took from Cindy Grisdela back in May. I really like the frameless effect.

Making rope bowls is a soothing activity for me. I made these 3 as a gift to take to newly married nephews in Austin.

And then I needed more soothing, so I made this one for myself. I almost have one for every season!

Then DDIL admired an old naked rope bowl during a visit. That was all the encouragement I needed to make a few of those. Here is hers:

This one was intended for DD2.

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And I couldn't leave out DD1 either, but I failed to capture a picture of it. It was really lovely, so simple. Trust me.

There was a request for a flannel pillow case in the Starwars porg theme, by one grandson. This led to a small Joann's Fabrics debacle. 

On a generous day, I am no fan of Joann's. I know that I am lucky to have better fabric stores nearby and so I don't malign anyone who is a fan. I dislike their stupid coupon schemes and the quality of their fabrics. But they have a monopoly on licensed fabrics, so I really had no choice but to shop there.

In order to limit my time inside Joanns, my work-around was to shop online at Joanns. This seemed to allow me to select my fabrics online, let them find the bolts and cut it, and then I would pick up the fabric in the store.

I received an email telling me that my order was received, but to wait until I received the next email telling me it was ready for pick-up. And then, crickets. Meanwhile my CC was charged. After a week, I called the store and was informed that my order had been cancelled because I did not pick it up. The CC charge was not reversed, of course. 

A manager did try to be helpful by finding the bolts, cutting it and setting it aside for my immediate pick-up. But when I arrived, a different manager wanted to charge me for the fabrics. My husband wanted me to just grab it and run, but I'm not that brave so I waited them out. They tried to reach the website humans and failed. After waiting and waiting, they finally gave up and let me leave with the fabric, saying "It's not that I'm taking your word for it. I'm just tired of waiting on the phone." Yes, a completely missed opportunity for them to display a modicum of customer service.

My final gift-making attempt was almost as snake-bit as the porg adventure. But by now I was taking it all in stride. The youngest grandson wanted me to make him a Power Ranger's costume and I did briefly consider making him one. Every time we saw him, or talked on the phone, he reminded me that I was making him a Power Rangers costume. So I bought one for him at Walmart.

My work-around for this request was PJs in the Paw Patrol theme, also large in his world. Unfortunately I was not paying attention and made a Sewing 101 mistake. I don't think he noticed, do you?

Despite these slightly challenging sewing activities, I had the best Christmas. We had some tiny visitors - a cat family my granddaughter is fostering. They were out of town for a few days and I got to cat-sit. It was fantastic!

And then, my youngest son, my baby, made a surprise visit. The six of us were together - what could be better?!?

Daughter Summer, son Paul (surprise!), hubs Jim, daughter Julie, me, son Mel

And so as the twenties roar into the world, I am grateful for so many things - family, hands that sew, time to sew, and, of course, you, because you're reading this! I hope you have a creative 2020!

A Little Alabama

When BSF and I visited the Alabama Chanin store in Florence AL, I decided I wanted to make a simple knit dress.

Maybe I was inspired by the adorable young woman who waited on us. She wore a high-low hemmed black knit dress and a black shrug. And she described how she had just started on her wedding gown, designed in total AC style. Oh my.

Or maybe I was a little inspired by the local college girl, modeling AC dresses for an upcoming fashion show.

Maybe I was inspired by the store, classroom and workroom (no pictures allowed in there).

The AC store front is not too inspiring, is it?

But mostly I was inspired by pure Alabama Chanin knits, chocked full of hand-sewing, mesmerizing and seductive. They have a newer line that is machine made but, of course, the hand-sewn pieces are the main event, IMO. Garments sell for lots of $$$, as they should. Many hours and lovely materials go into their construction

I purchased 2 yards of dark navy blue. It's so dark that black thread is the best match in my stash of threads. Yikes it was expensive - $26 per yard, maybe? I've blocked it. It is organically grown a stone's throw from my birthplace, processed into knit yardage and dyed, all here in the USA. So it's expensive. This makes sense.

The pattern is the Swing Tee extended into a dress, as described in a tutorial from the Sewing Workshop. I followed the tutorial fairly closely on my first version of this, including the interesting pockets invisible in this print.

I was short on fabric for the 2nd one, so no pockets at all.

And on this 3rd one, I decided on patch pockets.

I added some AC touches to it though it's not full-on AC style. The leaves are hand-drawn using a white gel pen. Then I placed patches of off-white AC knit behind the drawn leaves in order to stitch and cut out the reverse appliques.

I also added some sashiko outlines to the neckline and sleeve edges.

The process is fun but a little hard on my thumb, for some reason. It's a little harder to push the needle through two layers of this cotton knit than I expected.

By AC standards, this is plain. I think it'll work for me just fine. I've worn the other two quite a lot. Yep, this must be the summer of dresses for me.

There has been a bit of other sewing going on. I made a ga-zillion (made=serged) napkins for Pentecost Sunday at my church.

And then there were left-overs just begging to become a rope bowl. Creating these makes me unreasonably happy.

Makers gotta make. Sewers gotta sew. Right?

Goodbye to 2016

December went by me in a blur of travel and illness. Luckily the illnesses were not serious - just temporarily debilitating - the flu and shingles. And the travel was fun - one trip to NH to see our son and family and then on Christmas a trip to Charleston to see our daughter and her family. Both great trips.

But I sewed very little this month. And here it is the last day of the year and I'm finally back in my sewing space making clothes for me! We have some fun plans tonight and so I'm making Quincy pants to go with a top I made a while back. The top is Vogue 9063 and I see that it is on sale today over at ClubBMV. I made it from one of those interesting Asian silks - actually 2 pieces that seemed to go together.

The Quincy pants are made using this mystery fabric. It's been in my stash so long I do not remember buying it and I have no idea of the fiber content. Seems a bit like tencil or some other kind of rayon. Drapey. Soft.

Vogue 9063 made over a year ago. I just love the fabric!

The Quincy pants are from the Sewing Workshop (TSW). They are narrow leg pants which leaves me hoping that I do not end up looking like a top-heavy golf tee in them. TSW also has the Helix pants - narrow leg for knits. The Quincy is intended for woven fabrics and so should work this tencil (?) fabric. I've made the Quincy pants twice before - once was unsuccessful due to poor fabric choice but the second pair was more useful. I have high hopes for this 3rd pair.

I'll be omitting the artsy buttons on the outside seam this time, but it is kind-of cute, isn't it?

I did manage to make a few more clothesline bowls as gifts, many wrapped in pretty cotton batik fabric. But I still like the naked ones. Have I mentioned that these are entirely addictive to make?

This one was given to daughter but her MIL liked it so I re-gifted it to her. It'll be no problem to make another!

This one I kept. I like the beehive-like structure and use it as a tissue holder.

Lastly I made PJ pants for two grandsons, and a jacket for one granddaughter. Then I ran out of time.

Onward to 2017! I'm closing out 2016 with a wish that we all spend more time making and creating in 2017. Life is shorter and shorter - here's to being happy where we find ourselves each day.

Martha