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!

Review of Gift-Making December

Or, why I haven't blogged in over a month.

Where did December go? Well, it flew by me. For the past month, I've been focused on making and buying presents for family members. The truth is that it was not all fun in 2017. And this was a monster of my own making, so-to-speak.

Next year, there will be few handmade gifts. I promise. I do love the idea of handmade gifts but I obsess over it. I don't think that fits with the spirit of giving. So unless it is zen sewing and gives me selfish pleasure, I must step back and allow time to breathe and enjoy the joy.

Here are the gifts I made, and honestly, some really were fun.

This jacket was requested by my granddaughter. It's made using Kwik Sew 3818, a medium-weight wool and lined with a medium-weight silk-cotton blend. I blogged about it here so I won't rehash it, But isn't she cute in it?

Next up were two robes. These were also by request. And they were so simple to make using Simplicity 1562, now probably out-of-print.

They are both made from polyester fleece, so easy to sew. The owls on white background is for my 8 year old granddaughter; the Clemson-themed robe is for my 11 year old grandson. The Clemson version was a HUGE success. He almost wore it into a movie theater. The owl version will be used too but did not garner great enthusiasm.

The last requested gift was this super-simple pillow case for a youth-sized pillow:

Here it is in its first use with 2-year-old grandson:

Now a sensible person would have stopped there. Those were requested and so pretty much guaranteed to please. I did not stop. Next I made these two (2!) patchwork pillows for another 11 year old grandson and his 13 year old brother (who wears glasses like these). They have two dogs of this breed.

If they look simple, then please, please look again. They took FOREVER to piece. Each contains half-square triangles no larger than 1 inch. Yikes! What was I thinking?

The pillows finish at standard bed-pillow size. I put a zipper in the back to allow for machine washing. When the 11-year-old opened it, he said, "Oh, look! A pillow." And he proceeded to unzip it and remove the pillow. Hmmm...

And then I could have stopped, yes? But for a long time now, I've had this great idea. My husband wanted a shirt to match one that the 2 year old had. Such a shirt simply did not exist. So I made each of them a shirt using this lovely cotton shirting from Gail K in Atlanta.

It took some research to find a man's shirt with most of the conventional details. I settled on Vogue 9220. Then I took measurements from one of my husband's shirts and tried very hard to make them match. In the end his was a bit too tight and the little one is too big. Of course, too big is not a problem with a two-year-old, so now I'm thinking about ways to remake the one for DH. Or maybe not.

The little one is from one of my old Ottobre magazines. I have used and used those patterns making many things for grandchildren with the enclosed patterns. I must say that was joyful to make.

I should probably write a separate blog on DH's shirt. I learned a lot about the fit of a man's shirt and I should document it before I forget.

As I reflect on making gifts this past month, I realize that the simplest were perhaps the most joyful to make. There's a lesson there.

So that was my December. I'm so glad it's January now.

Sashiko the Nancy Shriber way

Many years ago I took a sashiko class from Nancy Shriber. I have taken other sashiko classes since. Each one has added a bit to my repertoire. I adore using sashiko here and there.  Whenever something is needed in a piece, sashiko is my first thought.

Next month I will teach sashiko techniques to a group of quilters in a local guild. I thought it might be fun to make a few fresh samples for the class. So of course I started where Nancy started me.

• Solid indigo colored silk dupioni
• Embroidery needle
• Cotton flannel
• Design template (here it is called, pampas grass, I think)

The imperfection is what I like. It's a good thing too!

This is an easy and gratifying technique. The pattern is traced onto the cotton flannel backing. The flannel is layered on top of the silk piece and stitching is done from the back.

Silk dupioni is such a dramatic fabric. The color changes with different lighting.

To set off the 12 inch block of stitching, I framed it with plain silk dupioni. I harvested stuffing from an old stained pillow in the living room, cut out a plain back and finished it.

So why haven't ever made a sashiko pillow before? I loved making this.

Silk + Sashiko = Sweet Satisfacition

Wabi Sabi

White linen is an example of wabi sabi, I think. Imperfect, impermanent, incomplete.

It also lovely to press, fold, stitch and shape. 

These are pictures of one of two pillows I made for my daughter for her birthday. It is a technique from Stitch Magic by Alison Reid. This is beautiful and informative book, as is a similar one, The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff.

Linen is so cooperative and open to suggestion that I did not even use an iron, except to square the starting rectangles and to square up the finished rectangles. Finger pressing achieved just the right look in these intersecting tucks. No sharp creases, instead soft folds along the grain lines.

Though it was tempting to leave the intersecting tucks as seen above, I was unable to resist the urge to complete the technique by pulling the small flaps back on themselves to create the impression of knots:

I forgot to take a picture of the pair together. The other one was the same size (12x18) but the tucks are more scattered. What a fun and satisfying small project.