Where does the Time Go?

I can't believe it's almost been a full month since I've posted. Here's a quick run down of what's been keeping me so busy.

-Getting a part time job while looking for a new full time one
-Searching for (and finding) a new full time job
-Looking for housing (including actual viewings now that places know their exact availability)
-Looking into possible room mate situations
-Working the last two weeks at my old job while training in at my new job AND getting part time hours at my new PT job
-Eating
-Sleeping

That's basically it, I'll give you a run down of last weekend to show that I really had absolutely no time for anything other than work and sleep.

Fri. 9 AM Wake up and go to work at new sales job at 10
Fri 10-7 Sales job
Fri 9 PM Get ready for work at the hotel
Fri 10-Sat 8 Work at hotel
Sat. 8-9 grab food and head to new job
Sat 9-5 Work at new job
Sat. 6-9 SLEEP
Sat 9 PM Wake and get ready for hotel job
Sat 10- Sun 8 Work
Sun 9AM-4PM SLEEP
Sun 5-9PM Serve at part time job
Sun 10-Mon 8 Work at hotel
Mon 10-7 Work at new job

Notice the bold SLEEP bits? Notice how they total up to a whopping 11 hours over the course of that 60 hour span of time??? That is why I've been lax in posting.

Now I'm currently stealing away a few minutes of my second to last overnight shift at the hotel to let you know that I plan on returning to the blogosphere this coming week. On top of that, I actually have quite a bit of fun stuff to show you/talk about. I just need to get the time to snap some pictures and plan some project time around my shiny new daytime hours!!!

Here's a quick preview of what you can expect coming up (some sewing and some not):

• Thrift store fabric find
• Joann's shopping trip treasures
• Journeys into decoupage (decoupoging? decoupogery???)
• Papasan repair and facelift
• Unifying my existing furniture
• Graphpaper geekery
• Rubber coating trials/tests
• Defibrilating my suit project
• Playing with whites
• Spring cleaning my schedule/routines

My tentative plan at this point is to get anywhere from 2-3 posts out a week. This is mainly because some days I might only get 1-2 hours of work done on any one project, so if I get 2-3 days like those lumped together, I'll have more to show you per post and less personal expectation to get new posts out there quite as often. I also promise that if I have a busy week, I'll at least grab some time on the weekend to tell you about it, maybe brainstorm my plans for the coming week and just keep you in the loop.

Thank you for sticking with me through this and I can't wait to show you some of the fun (and somewhat strange) things that have come into my possession while I've been away.

I hope you all had a great start to your spring, and I look forward to welcoming the warmer months with you!


Matthew

P.S. Sorry for all of the lists :-S

The Good, The Bad, and The Frustrating

  I know that I can't be the only person who's had this problem before. The internet is a big place with a multitude of fun things to find, share, and capture our hopes, dreams, and even...our hearts (stage audience sigh). However, with the positive side of its vastness comes the evil twin . . . TRYING TO FIND SOMETHING AMAZING TWICE!!!

  It's impossible sometimes. In this case I'm looking for a website for a fabric designer and quilter who had absolutely oodles of free quilt patterns on her site. I had a few picked out on my laptop but, as sometimes happens, I ended up with about 20 tabs open on my browser and decided to just close them all and start searching fresh. That was at least 2-3 days ago. I've spent the last 3 hours searching on and off for the site and designer itself as well as where on earth I found the link to it! I never just blatantly seach for fabric designers online, so I am almost positive it was linked through one of the sewing blogs I read. I haven't found it in any posts going back a week on every one of the blogs, but occasionally I pop in and check out new blogs as well.

  If anyone is up to the challange or has any ideas, here's the sparse knowledge that I have from my memories of the site and colections (I was busy looking at the fabric, not the site).

   1. It's a female designer and her name is escaping me entirely, but her name was the name for her fabric line
   2. She had multiple different lines of fabric, all were very fun, busy patterns, just with different themes/motifs/color schemes to the different collections
   3. She didn't sell her products directly from her site, but had links to where to buy her products, one of the purchasing sites only sold about 5-6 different designers' fabric and one of them was Ty Pennington's (of Extreme Home Makeover) home decor fabric line.
   4.Like I said before, she had a massive amount of free quilt patterns, the list was easily 50+ patterns long, but unfortunately my home printer is out of ink, so I couldn't get hard copies of the ones I loved right away.
   5. What I do remember of the site design is that it was very minimal. Lots of white on both sides with the main subject centered, and a fancily scripted list of links to different areas of her website.

  Well, there it is. It's not much to go on, which makes my search that much more difficult and frustrating. I know I don't have a lot of traffic on here, but if you happen to think of someone that seems to match this description, I would be thrilled to find her again!

Ah well, live and live on...or in this case search and search on.

Happy Thursday!

Matthew

Decision, decisions, decisions

   Ugh, sometimes working an overnight shift can make for some interesting moments.

   Example, when you can't sleep after work, but decide to take a nap before your Oscar party, and wake up an hour before said party. This makes you have to choose between, tidying up for company or decorating for the party.

   Of course I chose to tidy up. In fact, I missed all of the red carpet coverage because I was busy throwing together my garlic bread. So instead of the promised Oscars decorations, here's a look at my new and improved sewing space. I apologize for the lighting in the pictures, it's a basement with horrible lighting, but the fact that it was after sunset didn't help at all.

Here's the current set up, I'm doing mostly pressing right now, so my little ironing board is winning the "Who gets the desktop" race against my Singer.

Just a few of my regularly used tools out in the open. Notice my sewing machine plug next to my pincushion, this means that I can easily swap out my sewing machine or my ironing board as needed without having to mess up the cables or pedal that are hidden behind the desk.

Here's the swap, notice the workplace essentials of a wine glass and candle for ambiance.

My tabletop ironing board could easily be set across that top box and the edge of my desk (that was my intention), but one of two outlets in the entire 30 ft long room, is over to the right of my cutting board and ruler. It can just barely reach, but I'd rather not have to fight the end of the cord.

     I hope this makes up a little bit for my getting your hopes up, though honestly I had only planned on a simple paper cut-out garland with some patterned paper popcorn cones, and of course Oscar ballots.

   Has anyone out there ever had to deal with a temporary or transitional workspace for your sewing and/or crafting? How did it go? Were you able to keep your space relatively well confined, or did you end up hauling everything out and then packing it back up again at the beginning and end of each session?

May your bobbin always be full!

Matthew

Time Makes Fools...

Goodness me, how long has it been?! I can't believe I haven't posted for five whole days.

I don't have pics because life has been running me ragged, but here's a bit of what I've been working on (I've had a mild case of crafting ADD, so it's mostly unrelated to my jacket :-S  ).

First off, I finally relocated my sewing and crafting supplies from our living room couch, just in time for the Oscar party we're hosting tomorrow! I found a place in the basement just outside my bedroom where I rearanged my desk and some storage boxes so that I could reach the outlet...yes, that's singular, for my sewing machine, lamp, iron, and a place to plug my computer in.

During the relocation project, I was letting my mind wander and found a small side project that I had been meaning to start creeping towards the forefront of my thoughts. I've always wanted to get into quilting, but I thought becoming more comfortable with the basics of sewing and the soecifics of my sewing machine first would be a good idea. I eventually settled on an idea that would give me the best of both worlds. I'm making a quilt out of my basic white sheeting fabric, but to embelish it, I'm hand stitching in stripes of each color of the rainbow. The quilt will be 5 blocks by 7 and each block will end up 8 1/2" wide after the seams are sewn. This gives me the opportunity to do some cutting (already done) and work on my hand stitching/embroidery skills, and eventually I will get the chance to work with piecing it together. It's going to be all squares, so here's to hoping for a moderate success, and I will be posting pictures after I have a few blocks sewn to give you a bit of an idea.

I also began a new hardanger project, though the instructions on the pattern didn't have a size requirement for the fabric, but it was in a packet that were supposed to be 9" doilies. I cut a square 13" to give myself room to work, and started counting up from the center to begin my border (hardanger pieces begin with the border and work their way in)...it was about 12 holes short!!! I got mad for about 30 seconds, then I composed myself and decided to change it into a freestyle hardanger piece. I'm working backwards from the center and taking it as an opportunity to try some new stitches for the first time.

Did I mention an Oscar party earlier? Why yes I did! Nothing fancy, and potluck style, but I will be taking pictures of what decorations I do use for you to enjoy tomorrow.

I hoe you all stayed busy this week, and have lots of projects planned for this coming week as well. I know I do. What's on the docket for you all before next weekend?



"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."  -Albert Einstein



Matthew

Pay no attention to the man behind the B̶o̶x̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶W̶i̶n̶e̶ Curtain

Hooray! I love having multiple days off in a row. As someone who doesn't have a standard M-F sort of job, I count myself lucky that almost every week I get two if not three days off in a row (the upside of working ten hour shifts!). This morning marks the beginning of one of these blocks of time, I left work shortly after 8 o'clock Tue. and I don't need to be back until Thurs. night at 11 P.M.!

So, what to do...my sweetie is working both today and Thursday during the day, so we may do something Wed, but that leaves two whole days open. I need to sleep a few times in there, so I guess I have about 20 hours or so off awake and on my own free time before I have to work again. Hmmm, what to do, what to do...

I know, I'll SEW!!!

First things first, get your supplies in order, right? Right! That meant a quick stop at Hugo's Wine and Spirits on my way home from work (my two boxes of wine that I've had for a few months each just BOTH got to the point of needing to tip them to get flow the other day!!!). Not to fear, I picked up these bad boys, so I'm set for a good while now.

Aren't they beautiful?! The White Zin. is my go-to, but the other guy was sitting all alone with a lovely "sale" sign, I'm always up to trying a new Vino!

 Next, we have to change out of work clothes and get into something comfy, warm, and fabulous. I'm relocating back down to the icy depths of the basement so that our living room can have its loveseat back, so the warm part is pretty important. Luckily I just did laundry a few days ago, so I grabbed some fluffy wool socks, pajama/athletic pants, a comfy t-shirt and an amazing robe length black shawl neck cardigan I got at Express a few years back.

"Strike a pose" -Vogue

Last, we need some entertainment. As I won't be working in front of a tv anymore (probably for the best), my two options were Classical Minnesota Public Radio or an audiobook. I've been working my way through the Game of Thrones series so today it wasn't much of a contest, sorry MPR.

I love having my audiobook library on my phone!

Ta Da, that's it, I already have my sewing supplies realtively in order (as much as they ever seem to get), now it's on to my wish/to-do list for these days. I'm definitely a list person, so this is more for me than you, don't get bummed if I don't make it through everything.

-Assemble the torso of my first jacket muslin

-Check fit and adjust pattern as needed

-Create second torso muslin to new measurements, if it fits, attach sleeves

-Adjust sleeves as necessary

-Get a "final" muslin completed

-Practice lining said muslin and practice other finishing details (buttonholes, seams and hems finished properly, basically try and make a "wearable muslin".

-Take breaks throughout to post pictures and throw together updates for YOU GUYS!!!


So what do you think? Did I miss anything? Are there any certain, distinctly non sewing items that you like to have with you whenever you work?


Winefully yours,
 Matthew

Stranded at the Drive-in...I mean Hotel

That's right everybody, never have I been more happy to work at a hotel.

Here on the frigid plains of the upper Midwest, we had a blizzard last night. It began at around 6pm, and lasted until 6 this evening. I was able to get myself into work just fine last night for my 10pm to 8am shift. However, when the worst of the weather hit us at around 1-5 in the morning, all roads in town plus the interstate were posted as "no travel advised". I decided it want worth it to struggle my way home to sleep then have to come back to work again at 10 tonight. Instead, I grabbed the key to one of our "no show" rooms from last night, slopes down on the bed, and was out cold for a solid eight hours.

Upon waking, I got up, took all the sheets off of the bed, got dressed and made my way downstairs to get clean sheets and...Bibbity, bobbity, boo! We had one more room to sell for tonight! (a good thing because we're full up with travelers stuck here after coming for presidents day weekend).

Unfortunately this means that I didn't get within miles (literally) of my sewing machine. Luckily I have my perpetual craft of my Hardanger embroidery with me, so that's what I'll be working on for the next hour until my shift.

I hope you all had a safe and relaxing holiday. Anybody have some holiday and/or travel horror stories they'd like to share?




My lovely bed from last night, after I had torn off the sheets, getting ready to make it up clean again.



Handanger, what is it and how do I pronounce it?

Folks, a few times in my posts I've mentioned Hardanger Embroidery. I just wanted to take some time and explain this particular needlecraft a bit as it is very near and dear to my heart.

Hardanger (pronounced hard-unger, like "Hunger" without the "H") is a traditional form of Norwegian Embroidery using 22 count cotton weave cloth (this is the standard, but other weaves can be used) and Perl cotton thread, typically ranging from #5 to #12 weight depending on the fabric being used, and the stitches being made. Traditionally it is done with the thread and the cloth being the same color, usually white or cream.

I am originally from southern Minnesota where there is a large community with strong Norwegian heritage. My Grandma Johnson (doesn't get much more Norwegian American than that, does it?) wasn't taught by her mother or grandmother or anything nostalgic like that. Rather, she and some of her girlfriend decided to take a class offered through the town's Community Ed. services, and after the class finished, they continued to meet up once a week to work on their various projects, share tips and experiences, learn/new stitches, and chit chat. They were lucky enough to have the lovely lady who had lead the class join them and help with any tips or advanced techniques.

My Grandmother has been gone for 8 years this coming April, and to this day, some of my most vivid memories of her involve her sitting in her armchair and working away at a doily or table runner while Grandpa sat watching TV.

So when I decided to do a "homemade" Christmas this last year (honestly intended to save a bit of money on a tight budget), I chose to begin teaching myself Hardanger in honor of my Grandmother's memory.

The basic supplies needed are cloth, thread, and needles. Typically two weights of thread are used for any given project, if your heavier thread is #5, then you will usually use #8 (one level finer) for any needle-weaving. Whereas using #8 for your blocks would mean buying #12 for the detailed work. I typically use #5 and #8 as there are more colors readily available in these sizes than #12.

A close up of my current Hardanger supply box featured in yesterday's organizing post. Different colors and weights of thread, fine point scissors, and two different sizes of tapestry needles (20 and 22) along the right side.

The basis of all Hardanger pieces is a block of stitches referred to as a Kloster Block. It looks like this.

These are places corner to corner or end to end to create "step" and "row" type patterns to create an outline shape, then further blocks are places inside as well as decorative blocks, needle-weaving, and other patterns to create the details of the design.

Hardanger today is used mostly for doilys, table runners, and decorative pillows, but the possibilities are endless. Full tablecloths, window treatments, Christmas ornaments, card inserts, bookmarks, even full bed coverings.

Here are some samplings of the simple doily patterns that I currently own.

The top is a pictured design in a book I was given by one of Grandma's stitching buddies (Thanks Kathy!) The bottom is a spare card insert from Christmas, I wanted to have one almost all the way done in case it turned out I had forgotten somebody, or one got messed up during the card assembly process.

Personally, I find hand stitching to be extremely relaxing and I always keep a Hardanger piece in progress to keep my hands busy and give my mind (slightly ADD here) a task to focus on. I am addicted to classical Minnesota Public Radio, and often prefer this to watching TV, unless there is a specific movie or show on that I want to watch. I also listen to a lot of audio books and these are great to do while stitching away because you don't need your eyes.

What sort of projects do you do for "crafting therapy" either when you're in a slump, or just on the side? Have you ever looked into the creative and cloth based traditions of your own heritage? If not, hop online and see what you find, it's great way to connect with your roots, and can lead to some very meaningful pieces to give as gifts to family members.

“Writing Sewing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write sew, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.”

-Graham Green (altered slightly)

Matthew

How to Procrastinate by being Productive

My plan for today was to get the torso pieces of my muslin sewn together. I know this is a quick process which makes it odd that I've managed to get sidetracked at this point of all points, but hear me out. If you look at my post from yesterday, you'll see my workspace in the background of the pictures towards the bottom. It consists of a couch that I sit on, a loveseat next to me with some extra supplies strewn across it, with a large ottoman in front of me that I work on top of/set my sewing machine on to work.

Due to the fact that I share the house I live in with three other people, I can't keep it all laid out like I might if it were just me, and even then I shouldn't. Therefore I decided to take some time to reorganize some of my crafting supplies into storage containers so that the process of setting it all up and taking it all down will go a bit more smoothly in the future. This will also be really helpful to already have a place for everything when I move the beginning of May.

First things first, I gathered together everything I could find for supplies, tools, materials, and appliances that I use for crafting and sewing of any sort. To give you some scope of how spread out it all was, I was simply throwing everything in a large plastic bag and it took me a full fifteen minutes to get all of the nooks and crannies checked to make sure I got everything.

Then I split it all up into categories: cloth materials, writing utensils, sewing accessories, embroidery misc, etc, etc, etc.

These I placed into various boxes and containers. It's not completely done, but I got about 4-5 boxes started and a bag full of items that could go multiple places and I haven't decided what to do with. Here are a few of my completed boxes, I still have a few desk drawers with a nice variety of office supplies all in one place that I use frequently both in and outside of craft projects. Sorry I didn't take any "during" pictures, but I had really intended to get some work done on my muslin (and the evening is still young, so who knows) but I had to make sure that I got something posted for you all to chew on.

It's not a perfect system, and it isn't meant to be permanent, but I'm in a pinch, and it'll certainly do.

Enjoy!!!

Sewing supplies, thread, cutting tools, pins, needles, etc.

My current fabric "stash" is literally contained withing this box...I will look back someday (hopefully soon) and laugh.

Mostly writing utensils, some rubber bands and ribbon to help fill in the extra space. Note: this container is a 12"x12" scrap booking box that was on sale at Michael's in Jan for around $3-$4, clear with a lid that snaps and they stack wonderfully.

The box below used to be my Hardanger supplies, it's an old tissue box with cut off plastic cup bottoms attached to separate off balls of #5 perl cotton embroidery thread. I'm going to be moving this all to the lovely Dr. Who  lunchbox that my boyfriend gave me for Valentine's Day to keep by my bedside and travel with easily.

Everything that I have packed up so far, there are also some items that don't fit in most boxes, my singer, cutting mat, tailor's curve, quilting ruler, and portable ironing board. I'm going to be putting everything into one big Sterilite tub for the move, and possibly for temporary storage in my new home until I can construct a sewing/crafting space.

Cutting my Muslin and Adventures in Alterations

Felicitous Friday Folks!

I'm thrilled to say that I've begun work on my muslin in earnest, getting all of the pieces cut out. A couple of nights ago, I had a revelation that I thought I'd share with you all. To some of you this will definitely be a "Well duh" sort of thing, but it took me a while to figure it out on my own, and there aren't a lot of resources out there for altering a pattern.

The jacket I made my pattern from is about 2 inches too narrow in the torso, I was originally planning to add these inches to the side panels, but I was worried about how this would translate to the shape and size of the arm hole. Then, like a bolt from the blue, is this. Triangles. I can add the two inches necessary in the back piece at shoulder level, but taper it down so that I don't spread my double vent to ridiculous proportions. The rest I'll add to the side seams, but in the opposite direction, the full two inches at the bottom, tapering up to a point that avoids the arm hole completely. It will most certainly take a couple of tried to get it right,  but that's what muslins are for, right?!

Today I thought I'd share with you some experience I've had recently with altering existing jackets. Specifically taking out the sleeves. I have done this to two separate thrift store gems in the last month or so in order for them to cover both my arms AND my wrists (the joys of being 6' 2" with a 42" chest).

Keep in mind, this is not following any "proper" technique, but is rather me throwing it together that is good enough to be wearable, but that I won't be getting heavy use out of.

I found this jacket (a full suit and pants actually) at a church rummage sale in town. It fit me relatively well in the chest could use a bit of slimming through the middle, but it was close enough. The sleeves were about 1"-1 1/4" too short, but it was in the last two hours of the sale and they were having a bag sale on all remaining clothing. Everything that fit in a bag for $2, who could pass that up?!

I brought it home and went to work. It should be noted that most jacket sleeves have a hem allowance right around 1 1/2" to 2", so if you find a jacket that needs a full 2" extra, or near that, you probably won't have any extra fabric to fold over for a hem, and even if you do, it will be easily visible because the hem is so short.

First thing to do is get out your seam ripper and separate the lining from the end of the hem inside the sleeve. Then rip any seams/ stitches holding the hem down and the seam at the ends of the overlap where the buttons meet. 

Seams ripped and ready for pressing. See where the old seam is in relation to the button? The one you can just see is the last of four.

With my jacket, in order to rip out the seams under the button overlap that held down the hem, I had to cut off the end of four buttons as it had been sewn through all layers of fabric and the lining (not sure if this was sloppy tailoring as it seems professionally made, or if the buttons were switched out/reattached at some point). Press out all old creased leaving yourself with something that looks like this.

The missing button was on the right of these three

The reason you want to open down the side seam where the buttons overlap a bit is that certain styles of jackets have a small amount of flare at the end of the sleeve and you want to be able to follow the line of the curve as necessary when you  lengthen it to get a nice straight seam.

Next step is to pin your fabric , I did this near the seam, but not right on top of it, you will be hand sewing the extra seam length underneath  where the side seams of the two arm pieces meet, not through from the top to the bottom, the part you see is actually a folded hem that gives a much cleaner look that visible stitches would

I drew over my pins in red so that they would show against the gray weave of the fabric, the circles are the ends of the pins, but you aren't sewing with your machine so the direction of the pins doesn't matter.

Here's the view from the inside, you can see a bit of bunching that I hadn't yet fixed before actually sewing.

That top seam in the above picture is the one you'll be sewing a long, then you can press the fold (the one next to your pins) after you're done adjusting the length. I simply sewed my seam with a quick backstitch. This doesn't have to be extremely strong as it most likely won't receive a lot of strain or wear and tear unless the jacket is worn daily and taken off/on multiple times a day.

To find your correct length, you have to put the jacket on and fit it to your wrist. The proper sleeve length of a jacket is supposed to hang where your thumb meets your wrist, but I find this is just a bit too high, esp with my long arms, it feels like any arm movement above my waist is pulling the sleeve up to my elbow. I added about a half an inch to that Then mark where your hem will go with your marking product of choice. I had a gray crayola washable marker that was barely visible and the mark will be directly on the hem's curve so I'm not worried about anyone seeing it/having to wash it out.

You can see the mark about half an inch up from the seam and about 3/4 of an inch in from the end of the fabric, it is going up and down in the picture.

I've found the best place to start your hem is right on the seam where the front and back sleeve pieces meet. This ensures that the seam lines up and that you aren't going to end up with a slanted or angled hem on your finished alteration.

I folded so that my mark was directly on the fold of my new hem (if your marking tool leaves a darker/more noticeable line try marking about 1/8 of an inch lower than you want your hem and fold your mark just under the hem onto the inside in case it doesn't wash/rug off completely).

Here is the outside seam matching up with the inside seam. Also this closeup shot gives a great view of all of the colors that are incorporated into this particular weave, blue, brown, and white makes for an overall gray look!

I then add a single stitch to hold the hem in place and provide stability, this isn't necessary if you are familiar with your fabric and comfortable with your pressing skills. I like to do it here especially because you can just quickly stitch the ditch in the seam that you just lined up and it is completely invisible.

here is my gray thread coming up out of the seam for my stabilizing stitch.

Now simply fold over the rest of your hem until you have a straight line across. Note: Your fabric's grain will most likely NOT fall along this line, don't let that be your guide! I like to take the hem that I just stitched between one set of thumb and forefinger, and the exact opposite side in the other hand, then roll the unstitched (button seam side ) between my fingers until it lays flat on both the top and the bottom when pulled just slightly taut (not stretched). I wish I had a picture of this, but two hands are needed and I don't have a tripod yet, sorry.

To be sure, always pin your seam, I like to do one pin on each side of the button overlap, then put the jacket on, see how it hangs, try moving your arms a bit in it (mimic the motions of cutting food and eating it, or a dancing pose, whatever you will be doing in the jacket) to make sure it is the length you want and that the hem isn't angled/crooked.

Funny story, I play upright string bass and my High School orchestra's concert dress for the guys was a tuxedo. My mom took me to Penny's (now JCP) to get a rtw tux my freshman year (shudder). It looked great in the store so we bought it. When I got on stage for the concert, my arm went up to play the notes ans the jacket sleeve was halfway to my elbow! For those of you who haven't seen someone play the string bass, here's how the instrument looks while I'm standing next to it at its proper height for playing.

This was me about five years ago and plus about fifty pounds!

Notice how the black part under the strings goes all the way up to the height of my forehead? Also notice how my sleeve, even with my hand only at shoulder height, is already back down my wrist about 3-4 inches? This was from my freshman year of college and it was a newer tux than my first one, but still just an off the rack Penny's buy (I was young and didn't know any better, plus they go on sale for the whole tux for $99). If I get myself involved in playing bass again here in Grand Forks (I hope to soon) I may have to look into what some of the professionals do. Do they tailor their jackets longer in the sleeve, or do they actually have that left sleeve longer than the right and only use it for performances?


Anyways, back to the sleeves on hand...I mean on wrist. Here's my finished (nearly) sleeves on me. Ignore how the jacket's bottom hem should technically be 1 1/2" to 2" lower, it's much less noticeable with the matching suit pants and perhaps a project for another day.

From the front (excuse my junky, thrown together workspace in the back)

Finally to reattach that button. Since I was adding length, I didn't want my buttons to begin a full four inches away from the hem. I had already removed the lowest button while ripping the seams, I sewed it back on, then took the highest of the four buttons and transplanted it (I'm using that term to make it sound more fancy and important) to the bottom of the row.

The right side with buttons reattached and moved around.

 

The left side before I had reattached the bottom button or move the top button to the bottom of the row, see what I mean about the buttons starting four inches up?

That's it folks. I didn't have enough lining to reach to my new hem, but the lining inside the sleeve was all ripped and torn in places anyways so I may replace that eventually also just to get some experience working with lining.


"Make do and mend." - Anon.

Matthew



Update: I forgot to add this picture of my hot date, Mrs. Suzie Q. Hanson, and I at the Mason's dinner last night, that's what I was altering this jacket for.

Aren't we just the cutest!

Glitches and Pillows and Parties OH MY!

Ugh...

Don't you just love when your computer decides to go on the fritz when you're right in the middle of a blog post? Yeah, me neither. After about 24 hours of my screen going fuzzy every time I try to turn it on/reboot it, I'm back in the game.

A bit frustrating, but lesson learned, now I'll be sure to try and get my posts written a bit ahead of time. I can hopefully also have a few spare posts tucked away for emergencies so that I can just hop online and post them in a pinch without having to type up everything on my phone or fiddle with pictures and links on an unfamiliar format.

Finally, it's time to reveal the long-awaited pillow! My sweetie loved his Valentine's day present and I was thrilled with mine in return, which means I get to show you all the pillow I've been hinting at for about a week!

Ta Da!!!

...and the back

Now, for the process, and let me tell you, it was pretty significant considering what it could/should have been. First we make a pattern for our shape.

I actually made this out of newspaper originally, but transferred it to white craft paper to be able to work with something a bit more stable.

Next I cut out two pieces of plain white cotton from a pillowcase that I had. I decided to do an inner pillow and a decorative pillow case for various reasons, so this is just for the pillow itself.

Make sure that you stuff your pillow really well, as it will be very likely to become more deflated than you want after a while if you only put enough stuffing to get it "firm enough" when it's brand new.

This picture shows the cluster stuffing and about the amount I used (2/3-3/4 of a 16 oz. bag)

Here's my pillow fully stuffed with the hole still open.

The last thing to do is finish off the seam with the stitch of your choice. I used a simple, quick and dirty blanket stitch for mine because it's going to be on the inside, and I didn't want to fiddle with the tension of the stuffing while trying to work my first invisible seam hand stitching.

Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

After that I used a tip that I found on a pillow case tutorial that suggests you make the pillow case just a bit smaller (an inch or less depending on the size of the pillow) to help keep it looking "fluffy" and firm. After my experiences here, I'd say that, if you've made your own inner pillow and stuffed it really well like I did, then don't do this. If, however, you're using a store bought pillow, this would be very helpful. Doing both is part of what caused some of my troubles later on.

I trimmed off a quarter of an inch all the way around because my pillow wasn't huge, I didn't think I needed a whole inch.

I decided to use more of the plain white cotton to make that back pieces, but didn't want just plain white, so I grabbed a permanent marker and started doodling. After a failed attempt at chevrons and diamonds, this is what I came up with.

Simple, easy, and personal.

My back is going to be envelope style, with two overlapping panels like on the back of a decorative sham in a bed comforter set.In the picture earlier of the completed back, you can see how this design was a bit flawed because my crosswords got lost and/or jumbled by the split.

For my front, I had a pile of blue and tan sweaters that I had bought with the intent of turning into a felted sweater quilt. Unfortunately no one told me that in order to felt a fabric, it has to be an animal fiber (wool, alpaca, etc.) or at least mostly one of these. All of the thrift store sweaters I had bought were mostly or completely cotton. Live and learn, then find a different project to use your color pallet on!

My stack of materials, they're folded so you can't see that I had already cut off all seams, cuffs, and collars for the felting process.

I had intended to do a more intentional design of these, but everything I sketched up wasn't doing it for me, and I didn't want to go to the extent of using a full out quilt design (stretchy fabric plus my first quilting attempt didn't sound like the greatest idea). Instead I grabbed two piece, sewed them together, added another piece of a different sweater at an odd angle and attached that, trimming the excess as I went. I guess it was sort of "freestyle quilting"and this was the result of my experiment.

Not bad, I liked it well enough, but maybe next time simple stripes would work.

I pinned down my pattern (minus the 1/4 inch I trimmed off) and cut my front piece. Then I cut out another piece of my white cotton at the same size to attach to the back in an attempt to discourage pulling and stretching when I put the front and back together.

A plus sign of baste stitches helped segment the shape in case any gathering or pulling occurred, only rip out a quarter of the seams!

I ended up with a few puckers and loose spots, so I simply added a few pleats to take up the extra fabric.

The arrow points to my pins, to the left of the yellow line is the pleat.

To finish it all off, I squeezed the pillow into the pillow case and found the back kept wanting to spread open a bit (remember the either or thing about firm stuffing and the smaller pillow case than pillow?) By now I was ready to be done, and it was coming down to the wire (Wednesday, the day of the exchange to be exact), so I took the easy way out by pinning it in place and adding three very small single stitches along the top back piece's edge to hold it in place.

This is my needle underneath one of the stitches so that it would show up in the picture, white on white and all.

To add a little icing to the cake, I drew myself the words "You Are Here" on one of the sections in fine point marker and stitched over it, because it's our first Valentine's Day together, so there isn't any such thing as too mushy ;-D

CUTE!

That's it! My first full on, beginning to end, sewing project. Somewhere a Home Ec. teacher is cringing and shaking their heads, but it was a fun learning experience and helped me a lot when it comes to breaking in my new machine!

Since I haven't posted for a few days, here a few other treats. I geeky bouquet of a dozen "Rose"s with a candy filled vase (on sale at Michael's in Jan for $3!!!) for my sweetie. I surprised him by having it delivered to him at work on Thursday (our gift exchange was the night before since that's when we both had off of work).

"Rose Tyler" is a character on the TV show "Dr. Who", Dave and I are both huge fans, so this saved a bit of money while also being really personal, unique, and a almost an inside joke.

Lastly, a picture of me and my date on the Thursday night, Suzie Q., a friend from the health club here in Grand Forks. We're the color coordinated ones, the other couple are Dusty and Caleb Miller, the club owners. We all went to a Valentine's dinner and show at the Masonic Lodge in town, what a blast!

Fun fact, this jacket is part of tomorrow's post!

Well everyone, I know it was a lot at once, but that's the last of it. I hope everyone had a fun, happy, and safe Valentine's. Now onto my jacket full time!!!

"Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life." - Leo Buscaglia

Matthew