Sewing Fun

When I sew, I normally set up my machine on the kitchen table and take up more than half the table with all my stuff. So when the machine gets put away and the table is actually clean (which, let's face it, even when the sewing machine isn't there, the table is still a mess), I usually don't break out the machine for awhile. But I've been in the sewing mood lately, so out came the machine and the subsequent mess and it's stayed there for the last month. But at least now I've got a few cute sewing projects completed to show for it.

Now that this has been delivered to its recipient, I can share the baby quilt I made for my sister, who is expecting a boy in May.

I turned to my fabric stash and Oh, Fransson!, my favorite site for quilting inspiration for a quick project. She does beautiful, modern quilts and I just bought her book because I love her stuff so much. I really wanted to showcase the fun car fabric I bought awhile ago and I loved the punch of color and contrast the panel of blocks provided. (Fabric is by Riley Blake, whose fabric collections I love and always pick out without even meaning to.) I cut out pieces on Friday, sewed all day Saturday and Sunday and bound the quilt on Monday. (Which shows me that it doesn't take a year to make a quilt, like my last baby quilt took me....) Here's the finished product:



I machine quilted the entire quilt along the road. The binding was a pain but I think with more practice, I'll get much better at it. I machine sewed the entire binding, and I think in the future, I'll hand sew it which will leave me with better results. But, this is only the second time I've bound a project this way and I can already tell I've improved.

My sewing group has been working on sloper patterns. Basically, it is a very simplistic pattern that is fitted to your exact proportions which can then be modified and tweaked to create any number of garments that will fit your measurements each time. This is an ongoing, long-term project (it's really hard to get garments to fit well) so we've started making short goals that have to be finished in a month. Our project for the month of March was to make a skirt.

I used a fun sunburst fabric in my stash (again from Riley Blake) and designed my own skirt. I played around with pleats (never done them before) and put in a waistband with black piping. Since I didn't use a pattern, I had to improvise as I went along and my waistband doesn't fit as well as I'd like. I learned that wide waistbands are generally cut along a curve so that they are narrower at the top. I'll have to try that next time.

Otherwise, I'm quite pleased with my results. We had to wear our skirts to church on Sunday but since David had to work, I didn't have anyone who could take my picture, so I snapped this one in the mirror. I'll have to get a better photograph next time I wear it.

And I had to make Zara a coordinating outfit. I used this tutorial for a onesie dress which was fantastically easy and fun.
It's so fun to see something you made being used by the people you love. I have so many other projects I want to work on, I just wish I had more time to sew each day.