A few pieces of black clothing

It's been awhile since I posted anything. I have not been really busy so I'm not sure what has kept me from writing. It snowed here just after the new year. It was a beautiful couple of days.

I finished the Red Fox Quilt and gave it to our friend Chuck.  I used Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Fox pattern...great pattern by the way. The quilt is about 48x40. I used a very soft flannel sheet on the back with a very modern pattern.

A couple of weeks ago I spent a Sunday afternoon making several pieces of black clothing. I had some knit/fleece fabric that I bought sitting in the studio and wanted to try to make a warm shirt. I have made several of the Jalie 2805 tee shirts and I think these are my favorite. They fit nicely and go together in about an hour. I bought a couple of cotton jersey bed sheets and practiced with those to make sure I really liked the end result. I have posted about making these shirts previously.  This time I made the shirt with a knit/fleece type of material that I had in my stash. Since the fabric is thicker the shirt is nice and warm.The only thing I would have done different is make it a crew neck instead of a V-neck, for some reason the fabric stretched out quite a bit around the neck. I had enough of the fabric left that I made a pair of leggings. I had some issues again with the elastic waist band again…but they fit and are nice and warm. I need to read about sewing with elastic then do a bunch of tests. I hate muslins or testing materials...even though I know it will help me in the end. I also made another little bag, this one with some of the left over Pendleton that I use to make my husbands Christmas shirt this year. 

I then pulled out some black rayon type fabric…again not sure where it bought the fabric or what the exact content is but it flows nicely & has a nice drape. I had a cotton slip that I really loved but the slip was falling apart. I made a difficult decision to take it apart so I could make a pattern. I had made a slip from the pattern a couple of years ago but since i used a quilting cotton the slip/dress was a little stiff. I made it again from a seersucker type of material and I loved it. Though I think the shoulder straps were a bit too thin. I felt the rayon type fabric was perfect, I could wear the slip/dress under a sweater in the winter or as a nice summer dress.

When I made the pattern the first time I felt the underarms were a little strange. So I looked a the original pieces and decided to add about 1/2" to the underarms. Well that was a little too much because now the underarms are too large. I think I have to use a facing or hem the neck and arms to make it fit better. That of course did not stop me from wearing the dress under a warm sweater last week. I'm always looking for simple summer dresses because I live in them all summer long. I think this pattern will work nicely after a few more tweaks. I guess I have to get out my pattern making books and read up on how to make the pattern to fit properly.

Happy 2016

Getting ready for 2016....I have been very industrious this last year. Orders for my screen printed bags went up to about 100 a month through the summer. For the Holidays I sold about 800 bags. That can be a little hard on the arms screen printing all those bags. This last year I also had the chance to sew more. I feel really lucky to have a decent sewing area, it's a little cold during the winter months, but we are working on that. I would like to get a dehumidifier the space since it's in the basement but really I have not had a problem since I have a small space heater that keeps the area at about 65. I also put up curtains and tapestry to keep the heat in the small area that I actually work the most. People who lived in large castles used tapestries on the walls to keep warm back in the day, though I do not have any large beautiful tapestries I do have some nice heavy fabric and curtains to close off my sewing area. 
Anyway for the Christmas I made my husband another Colette Negroni from some Pendleton wool that I bought a couple years ago at the outlet store in Pendleton Oregon.

 I was able to get about 12 yards of wool fabric for less than $100. I was very happy to score such a deal. In 2013 I made 2 shirts from some of the grey wool..one for my husband and one for my father-in-law.

There are several things that I made this year that I was was very proud of:

All the bags I made for Christmas from fabric I had collected over the years. The Red Fox quilt that is for some friends who are expecting their first baby in April of 2016, the Alabama Chanin Skirt that I printed and sewed while camping, the A line dress from Alabama Chanin...WITH POCKETS & the western shirt from a really lightweight gingham...it fits perfectly.
There are also a couple of other things such as all the pants I made for my husband this year. It was great to learn how to make pants and make something that he would wear everyday. Next I want to make myself a pair of jeans. My goal this year is to make me a comfortable pair of jeans and a few more pairs of leggings. Of course there will be several more quilts made as my husband bought me the couple of really cool quilt patterns from Oh Fransson…the sasquatch quilt pattern and the kitty pattern. 

Bags for Christmas

I'm kind of hooked on this bags that I learned how to make on Craftsy. It's a free class by Kristin Link who runs the very successful website Sew Mama Sew. I have a lot of upholstery fabric scraps. I had about 4 yards of some black suit wool that I bought at Scrap in Portland. The interiors are all from my fabric collection. The flower fabric above is a piece of barkcloth that I have had for a very long time. I kept thinking I would make a pillow to show off the print. The gold fabric is a piece of upholstery fabric that has a dragon on it. I used some gold lame fabric that I bought at garage sale several years ago (I have about 1/2 a bolt of the gold lame). I was not sure what I would make with gold lame but this is the perfect project to use up the fabric as liners for the bags.

 I put my label on the inside of a couple of the bags. This was more as a way to show the person I'm giving the bag to that I actually made the bag. These are the labels that I put on the clothes I make. I like that the labels match the gold lame fabric. I used some old white handkerchiefs that belonged to my father for one of the bags above. I try to use up as much textile scrap as I can, I really had to see any textile go to waste.

I had a very cute linen table runner and thought that it would make a great bag too. So I cut out the a piece to show off the print on the fabric. The tapestry bag is another piece of heavy upholstery fabric, it really feels like a needlepoint. This was another piece that I have had for awhile and I was going to try to use it to recover a small chair. I instead decided that it needed to be used for one of these bags.

My neighbor gave me several different pieces of fabric with birds that she had bought on-line for curtains. She was not sure which pattern she wanted so she bought a few different pieces of fabric. The fabric above was a little stiff, it feels more like a canvas and more then likely would not have made nice curtains. I made a couple of different bags, one with the black wool fabric and one with jean material (another gift from a friend that knows of my textile hoarding problem). I like them both, the jean material bag on the right feels a little more casual then the black wool bag.

And another bag with the black wool and some bark cloth. Again I was going to make some curtains from the bark cloth but there was not really enough, so it has sat in my stash for some time. These bags are a great way to highlight a small piece of lovely fabric. And they take about an hour or less to make. 

I have collected a few needlepoints to use in future bags as the focal point. I often look for needlepoints at thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales. You can find some interesting things at estate sales. This year for Christmas everyone is getting a home made bag filled with home made preserves.

Another shirt

Have I talked about how much I love this pattern for a long sleeve t-shirt? Well I had another jersey sheet that I got at the Goodwill and wanted to make a winter shirt from the jersey, but I thought the lavendar color washed me out too much. So... I decided to try to do some Shobori Dying for a little more color in the material. I had some blue gray from Dharma Trading that I had yet to test on any fabric & I was hoping for a nice interesting pattern of the blue gray on the lavender. 

I did an accordion fold that I sandwiched between a couple of boards. The fold was about 5 inches wide and I folded it over on it's self before sandwiching it between a couple of boards. I only used a few rubber bands because I did't want a lot of lines across. This is my dying tub and I know it looks fifthly, but it gets a lot of use from dyes and screen printing ink. 

The design was very sparse, I think I should have used a smaller fold or maybe even use an eye dropper to add the dye to into the folds a little more. I really liked the blue on the lavender. 

I really liked the blue on the fabric but I thought I didn't get enough of a pattern on the material to make a difference. You can see the blue on the lavender material as well as on some white cotton jersey and some random white material that I found in my studio. 

So I dyed the material again. This time in a amethyst color.  I did an accordion fold again but wrapped it in rubber bands. You can see that the folds are about 2 inches this time and I wrapped rubber bands about every inch across the folded piece of material. I did not sandwich the material between boards this time.

The first thing my husband said when he looked at the piece of fabric was it looks like a hippy wedding. I did have to agree. But I also thought that once I cut out the pattern it would look a lot different. I liked how this came out even though I think it's still a little sparse. There are some really nice colors that came from the lavender sheet, the blue gray dye and the amethyst. I still have another half of the this sheet I think I will practice some more with the Shobori dying techniques. 

I wanted more of the color on the arms so made sure to get the blue and pink dyed pattern  on the top of the  sleeve.

I did a rolled hem on the neck line and the bottom of the shirt. I like the way the rolled hem finishes the shirt. I also like the really long sleeves. This is a very warm & comfortable shirt that if I get it dirty or rip it at work I know I can make another one really easy. I think next time I will make the shirt then do the Shobori wrapping and dye. My husband said he was amazed that it came out so nice, he didn't think the shirt had a hippy wedding look anymore.