Pants, Shirts and a Tin Ceiling

My husband has been asking me for another pair of wool pants for a couple of months. So last September when Pendleton Wool was having their annual sale I picked up some nice grey wool to make a pair of winter pants for my husband. I used Vogue 8719 again as I have come to perfect this pattern for him over the last couple of years. Each time the pattern gets easier and easier. 

Again he wanted welt pockets in back instead of the patch pockets that are on the pattern. I'm getting a little batter as the welt pockets, the last couple of times I had cut the hole too large and had to do some funky repair so they didn't get any larger. That included adding some interfacing the the sides to bond the fabric back together. This time I really took my time and paid attention to how far I was cutting and where I was cutting. I also used a light weight material for the pockets which I think helped make the pockets lay flatter and not bunch up like the cotton material did on the last pair of pants. 

After the pants I was able to get the Hawaii Shirt made. I cut this pattern out back in June and it sat on my sewing table for several months. I was able to get the shirt done on one afternoon. It's an easy pattern, Butterick 6015 from about 1980. I have made this shirt several times before for my husband and he really likes this pattern as it's slightly snug but not tight, it has 2 breast pockets and small slits on the sides. He picked out some nice ivory buttons and now he is wearing the shirt with his new pants. If you don't remember this is the fabric that we bought back in January of 2017 in Hawaii. I let my husband pick out material for a shirt or pants when we travel. That way I get to shop for fabric while we are on vacation and it makes the piece of clothing a little more special because it reminds us  of our vacation. 

Last month we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Since Tin was the traditional gift for 10 years I bought a tin ceiling for my husband. The funny thing is we have been looking at 3 different patterns for about 3 years, we just could not come to an agreement on which one we wanted. I wasted a softer more organic look, husband wanted a more square art deco type of pattern. We put up 3 different tiles and had all of our friends tell us which one they liked. It was always a toss up on who got the most votes. So when I saw that Tin was the gift for our 10th anniversary I decided to give in and buy the tin tile that my husband wanted. The good thing about this ceiling is now I will get a hood for my stove. Which has to go in before we complete the kitchen. SO...now my husband has a project to complete this winter and that means I will have more time to sew.

A friend gave me an old shirt that he was going to toss out. I cut up the shirt using a Jallie pattern 2805 making it a more feminine shirt. Once I made it over I realized how grungy the white material had become...so I dyed it. I did a string wrap of the shirt and set it in some dark blue dye for 24 hours. It came out a little darker than I wanted but it's still a cool shirt & really comfortable. 

A friend recently asked me if I could do a small upholstery job for him. He had an old Telephone Table that the seat had ripped and the stuffing was coming out. With a lot of these older vinyl chairs the vinyl gets dry and brittle, I for one have cut my legs on older vinyl chairs where the material has become ripped and is sharp. I had a head liner from a 82 Volvo that a friend gave me, I had made a couple of bags with that material and it looked perfect for the seat of the table. I took it over and left it on is porch. He called me later as he was happy to see the seat repaired and thought it looked great. 

And last but not least...I want to say Thank You to my mother..who would have been 81 yesterday. She sent me to sewing lessons when I was about 12 years old. She encouraged me to sew as she came from a family of women that sewed. My great Grandmother made quilts and my grandmother made clothes for her and my mother. My mother in turn made clothes for my sister's and myself. When I turned 18 my parents gave me a sewing machine. I used the Montgomery Wards sewing machine till about 6 years ago when I finally bought a new more up-to-date machine. I still have the Montgomery Wards machine to this day. I miss my mother and every day think of things I did not get to ask her, she was a wealth of knowledge when it came to sewing and gardening. 

3 Quilts and a Pair of Sushi Pants

My husband gave me the Legendary quilt pattern from Elizabeth Hartman a couple of years ago. I kept putting it off when it came to making it as there were sooooo many pieces. About 180 half square triangles for the background of the trees. Well I finally  cut it out and finished it in late April. I like the quilt top,  now I want to make it was a dark blue background and the  Abominable Snowman or as some people call it a Yeti in place of the big foot. The pattern actually goes together quickly its the cutting that killed me. I spent 2 days cutting and you have to be very organized and accurate or you will have issues when the whole thing goes together at the end. I saw a woman that made this same quilt but staggered the trees and had a sun in the corner. I liked the way that flowed. It had a much more organic feel to the quilt top then lining up the trees and big foot. I love Elizabeth's patterns but they are all very precise, I tend to like randomness in quilting...like the quilt below. 

I love Pendleton Wool. Living in Portland I'm close to one of the mill outlet stores and I go there often to get wool scraps. I have been collecting cream with yellow and black stripes for the last couple of years before I finally got enough to make this all wool quilt. It then took me a year to figure out the back and what I was going to do to quilt the piece. It's heavy so I knew I would not need a batting. I wanted a simple fairly lightweight backing that would not take away too much from the front of the quilt. 
I found a bolt of yellow wool fabric at a place called City Liquidators, they usually do not carry fabric but they had bought out a fabric store that closed about 5 years ago. The fabric store had a strange mix of polyesters from the late 70's, batik fabric from India, Cotton Jersey and strange uniform looking shirts. City Liquidators was selling the bolts of fabric for $25-$100 a bolt. There was a lot of fake fur and upholstery fabric that was the $100 bolts.  I found a bolt of yellow 100% wool fabric (about 16 yards) for $30. I'm not a fan of yellow but I could not pass up that much wool fabric for such a cheap price, I figured I would find something to do with that yellow fabric. 
After I finished the quilt top it lived on my wall for about 6 months. Looking through my fabric one afternoon I realized that the yellow fabric would be a great backing for the Pendleton Wool Quilt. 
I decided to tie this quilt because I thought it was too thick to put through my sewing machine. My husband cals this the Canadian Winter Blanket, it has been kitty tested and kitty approved. It's a 52"x 72" 100% wool quilt.

I found this quilt top at a resale store called ReRun in Portland. I think it was about $15, maybe $20, it was 88"x88". I liked the turquoise color and the Sarah Jane  Mermaid fabric that was used in the quilt. I was going to take this to the long arm and quilt the piece but in the end decide to tie this quilt too. I used a fluffy polyester batting so it was a little thicker, but not too heavy. It's a nice bright quilt that we used at the end of summer on our outdoor bed. 

 I finally finished the Sushi Pants for my husband. We bought the fabric in Hawaii last January and I kept putting off making pants for him as I made other things (like more quilts that we really do not need). They are a simple elastic west pant, with larger pockets. The pattern is Simplicity 3645, it very easy to sew. Needles to say he put the pants on as soon as I was finished & wore the pants the rest of the summer. 

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. 

Pants, Totes and a Bunny

My husband wore his pants the other day to the bar. Of course they all know I make almost all of my husbands clothes and area always amused at the loud clothes he will wear. This outfit I think was very reserved compared to others. The pants fit but there are issues with the waist. As I stated in a prior post I had made the pants too small. Now they are too big. They are kind of baggy when he tightens his belt. The issue is the beer gut, it drops down in front. We use to joke that pregnant lady pants were the way to go because they have a stretchy front. But he wanted pants, big boy pants. Not just the light weight baggy pants with an elastic waist that I have made him in the past. But nice cotton pants that look good. I decided to break down and make a muslin. I have it all cut out and I will start putting it all together...making him try the pants on every chance i get.  

I love Martha Stewart. I still read her magazine, watch her cooking show and browse her web site. I like all the suggestions she has for crafting. I have a problem with the amount of $$$ she will spend on supplies or ingredients to make something. Such as the Felt Tote Bag. She suggested making it from heavyweight felt. The bag it's self is about 36" x18", so you would need a 36" x36" piece of felt. The nice pieces I found start at $70, of course there are some cheaper fabric for about $30 for a 3x"x36"...but really anything more the say $20 for a tote bag is kind of ridicules. One comment on the martha stewart site suggested jean material. What a great idea, I tried it..see above. The jean tote is kind if rough, I think it's better if the seams are enclosed instead of exposed. I thought it would look nice but now that I look at the bag it looks messy. I bought a bolt of yellow wool fabric from City Liquidators (see prior post about Fabric World). I thought I would try to felt the wool and make a tote bag. It worked in a way but the wool fabric is a little too lose. I may need to wash the bag a couple more time to make it felt up. I do like the bright yellow color and the black bias tape together..I call this my Bee bag. I want to try some free motion stitching on the bag, an out line of a bee. I'm happy because the City of Portland has 
recently banned the use of insecticides believed to be harmful to bees on city property

Sunday we went to my sisters for Easter dinner. I decided to dress up in my bunny suit. We had a nice dinner with the family. 

Death of a Fabric Store

I have a special place in my heart for Fabric World. When I moved to North Portland in 1988 there were no fabric stores in the area except Fabric World. Because of the missing letters in the sign I often referred to it as abic orld. I use to go there to pick up thread or zippers if I didn't want to drive all the way out to Fabric Depot or over to Mill End Fabrics.  Fabric World was one of the strangest fabric stores I have ever been inside. Half the store has kids clothes from the mid to late 70s' still on the rack with plastic covers over the clothes. The other half of the store was filled with polyester fabric from the same era. There were some gems in there every now and then. I was able to get some cotton jersey for really cheap when I started to sew with knit fabric. The price was decent and I was able to make a couple of nice Alabama Chanin dresses. One afternoon I went there for white thread, on the counter was a stack of what looked like some nice batiked fabric. There was a sign that said "recent imports", the price was about $5 a yard. I remember asking about the fabric and the woman behind the counter said the owner likes to travel, she buys "weird" fabric and sends it back to the store. I bought some very soft blue cotton batiked fabric, it felt like a voile. I loved that fabric. I want back a few more time, but never found the any more of that great fabric. I remember there were two very different women that worked there, one was an older very friendly woman who I would talk to about her grandkids and what I was working on, the other woman was not as friendly and always had conservative radio playing very loud. 

Last summer I went to Fabric World to get a zipper...but it was closed. There were several notes on the door and it looked like the mail had piled up. It looked like they had been closed for a couple weeks. I stopped by a couple more time to see what was up, there was still a store full of clothes and fabric, but there was no indication of why it was closed or if it was ever going to open again. 

In early March a friend told me that she was at City Liquidators and was told that they had bought the contents of Fabric World. WHAT!!!? I was told the woman that owned Fabric World passed away. Either her kids or her son (not sure if which) didn't want the store and just wanted to turn over the building. 

Searching the internet I could not locate any indication that woman who owned Fabric World had passed away. Her name is Rose Mary Gospodinovic, it's not a common name so you would think if she passed away there would be some record that would pop up. In fact the only thing that came up was the case against a Curtis Gibson who was found guilty in 2013 of stealing $1million from Rose in 2007-2009. He claimed she was a friend and he was inventing the money in property.  Rose Mary is about 88 years old so it may be that she is getting too old to take care of the business. She also had or has several other pieces of property that come up in her name. From my searches it seems that the property and business was put into a trust. I'm sure there is more to the story but this is all I have for now. 

As a fabric addict I decided to check out what City Liquidators had bought from Fabric World. I was told that Rose Mary had traveled a lot and often sent things she bought back to the store. That City Liquidators had taken out of the store a lot more than just 70's clothing and fabric. There was reported to be some expensive Gucci bags and shoes. I did not see the bags or shoes but I did locate an entire room of polyester fabrics. City Liquidators is selling the fabric by the bolt. There are some gems in the mix. I found some yellow 100% wool, some 70% wool and 30% nylon white, blue, green and red plaid and a bolt of burgundy plaid fabric (when I got it home I realized it was 100% acrylic). Several of the bolts are being sold for $29 a bolt, which for 10 yards of wool is excellent. But several of the bolts are not full bolts, so you are getting about 5 yards or less of fabric. The other problem for me is that I do not really need 10 yards of fabric, but I bought the bolts anyway. Some of the larger bolts are being sold for as much as $59 a bolt and the fake fur is being sold for $250 a bolt. I mean really!!!!...this fabric is about 30-40 years old. Polyester has come a long way, the polyester/acrylic they are selling is not a good kind....it's thick and very scratchy. Think of those nasty polyester pants with the elastic waist band that your grandmother wore...that's the stuff they are trying to sell. There are boxes of craft items, zippers that are $.99 (almost new price), tons of lace and some nice cotton rope that may be great for macrame. 

If you are like fabric this is worth checking out, but don't go there with high expectations. The price's will have to come down, in fact some of them have already dropped since I first went in to see what was available 3 weeks ago. They have re-priced 1/2 bolts of fabric to $10, but most of the 1/2 bolts are acrylic. If you have time to dig..you may find some great deals. I did locate some cottons and wools in the mix, so there are still some great fabric to be found. 

Sometimes I just need a jump start

I started a new job a couple weeks ago. I'm the Tool Coordinator for the North Portland Tool Library. It's a lot of fun but I'm also realizing how much I don't know about tools. You would think that with since I spent a lot of time in the tool department at Sears as a child with my Father I would know more. It's kind of nice to know that I do not know everything. The job is only about 10 or 11 hours a week and it gives me a chance to get out of the house and talk to all kinds of people that live in my neighborhood. 

Since I started my new job I have not been sewing very much. I kind of hit a funk. So to get me out of that funk I made another quilt top. My husband asks me if we really need another quilt...I say of course we do. But I must admit I have about 4 or 5 quilt tops that are just sitting in my studio. So really what is one more going to hurt. It got me out of my sewing funk so it's a good thing. 

I started by pulling out my scrap bin and just sewing pieces of fabric together. I tried to stick with blues and reds. The idea was I would make the blocks with a white sashing between all the blocks and call it my red,white & blue quilt. Well it really did not happen like that...once I started to sew I just pulled pieces that looked good next to each other. I used a lot of pink, some nice blacks and purples too. I used all scrap from my scrap bin. All the squares are 12.5" x12.5" I would sew till the block was larger than the 12" and then cut it down. I would than use the cut scraps I cut off to start the next block. I was able to use some really small pieces of fabric with out going crazy while sewing. Once I got the squares completed I liked them all next to each other, I don't think I will put a sashing between the blocks. I like the fact that all the blocks run into each other and it's hard to see where one block starts and the other one ends. This quilt will be about 5ft by 4ft and if I get a backing done, I may try to free motion quilt it on my home machine. I still have a HUGE scrap bin and I know I need to tackle that part of my studio...but that is for another day. 

I'm still making rugs. This is one of the latest. As you can see Arty loves this one. She jumped up on it right away (of course that may have been because my husband put some cat nip on the rug). I was lucky enough to get some red last time I was at Pendleton Woolen Mill, it's a nice bright color. I dropped off some samples at a couple shops. One shop already contacted me saying "it was not the right fit" for their store :(. Oh well there are other shops that I think these rugs would do great. I'm thinking of making smaller rugs for cats, as our cats love sleeping on these warm wool rugs. I can change directions and hit all the pet stores in the ares. I also like the rugs unfelted, they feel very lush. Felting the rugs means I have to wash them in hot water with Murphy's Wood Soap and dry them on high. It adds a step that may not be necessary. Of course folks that want to felt the rug can and it makes the rug look a lot different. I make these while we watch movies at night and I'm getting quite a stack of rugs. If I don't start selling some of these soon....everyone will be getting rugs for Christmas this year. This red, black and grey rug is about 45". 

Sample Rugs, A New Swing Cover & A Band

I made some samples of my Pendleton Rugs to take to some local shops. You really don't get a good idea of how textural these rugs are from photos. They are thick and soft, kitties love these small rugs. As you can see Artemis wanted to lay down on these gems while I was trying to take some photos. These samples are about 12" around and would make nice little cat beds. 

I finally pulled the old cover off the swing in the back yard. The original cover lasted about 5 years before I cleaned it and painted it, it then lasted for about 5 more years before it was completely gone.  I had replaced the cover in June of 2011 with some nice outdoor white fabric.  As you can see the white lasted about 4 years and since it was white it got dirty very fast and looked terrible. I bought some blue outdoor fabric at Mill End last summer but never got around to making the cover. The fabric feels like has been covered in a plastic on one side so I'm hoping that it's waterproof. In one of the last wind storms the top of the swing blew off and bent the metal frame, that forced me to take the cover off and finally pull out the blue fabric to make a new top. I also used a heavier fabric for the sleeves on the underside of the top, the area that the metal frame goes through and holds the top tight. I was unable to get the top really tight because the frame is bent (as you can see from the final photo of the swing..see how it dips down on the right in the back?). Last time I used some cute cotton fabric that quickly disintegrated. I used some upholstery fabric on the long sides and some scrap of the blue fabric on the corners. I pulled my Morse sewing machine out to the yard and stitched up the top for the swing. It was nice sewing outside on a sunny day in February. I used my Morse machine because it's a work horse, this is the machine I found in the dumpster outside a hoarders house that was being cleaned out. I took the machine in for a tune up at Montavilla Sewing, it cost about $100 and I have a new PINK sewing machine. It's a very heavy sewing machine but it is a great machine, I used it to quilt a jean quilt that I made a couple years ago. Anyway....back to the swing...even though the metal frame for the top is bent the swing is now ready for summer. I may have to make new covers for the cushions as the fabric has really faded. But that is a project for another time. 

  

We went out to the World Famous Kenton Club to see a band that a friend recommended, they are called the "Git Rights Gospel Revue". They are a cross between gospel and punk rock, my husband loved the band so much he "testified" by dancing all night. They are a lot of fun to see, the female vocalist Heather Jo Cahill has an amazing voice, she can bring you to tears when she sings.