Sewing Away

The tuxedo shirt is now completed and sent to my sis.  Looking really smart, with all the bells & whistles on how a shirt should be.

French cuffs!

  Then an A-Line Yoke denim skirt.  Just love the top-stitching in jeans thread and the contrasting facing and pockets.  Makes me wish I wore skirts!

The simple prim applique design was fun to do.  Love Note (freebie). And Jess W takes credit for suggesting the word 'fleur'!

 

I also sewed a 3/4 sleeved knit blouse.  The collar was not done well.  Because I winged the length of the neck band.  My printer was out of toner and I could not print the actual neck band.  Of well ...  The Craftsy course on Sewing with Knits helped immensely. 

 On the quilting front, I am enjoying the hand quilting on my CW quilt.  This will be the quilting design for each block.  So far I've only completed 1 block.  Hah!

The hand quilting for the Valentine doll quilt is completed and I love it. Just simple straight lines criss-crossing the quilt.

And there's the very little cutie quilt top from Lori's Abundance QAL.  I pride myself that I've done every single QAL run by Lori but I know Lori will quickly remind me that none of them are quilted!  That will change ... hopefully soon ... :)

I made a boo-boo with the hour glass block.  But it's staying ...

 When I saw Lori's completed 'A little porch time', I had the yearning inspiration to do some prim applique.  Didn't you applique this 'House Pillow' too Lori?  I remembered that I kept a Jan Patek design that was a free download sometime back.  It's not available now though.  I got my friendly photocopy lady to shrink the applique pieces to fit a 14" pillow form instead of 18".  I've only got the star to complete and and I want to do some stitchery between the tree top and the star.  Maybe 'Pineberry Lodge' or something?

I had a LOT of help from a series of wonderful applique videos by  MSQC featuring Jenny Doan and Jan Patek herself!  The first of the 4 part series starts here on YouTube. 

Design:  House Pillow by Jan Patek

Welcome!

It's still me.  This blog will be more of the same.  Sometimes familiarity is good?  I hope you'll bookmark my new blog or add it to your reader.  Thanks so much for sticking with me. 

Here's what I've been up to this past month.

Beige cotton-linen blend short sleeved blouse

Some running stitches detail and love those flower buttons

Satin bias binding hem

Running stitches along the sleeve hem

 Very happy with how the collar turned out.  The hand stitching just makes the garment special.  And of course my favourite hem treatment.  I used French seams.

Pleated A-Line skirt

Invisible zipper, my favourite

In-seam pockets

Jump pleats lining

 Self-drafted A-Line skirt incorporating pleats and in-seam pockets.  I thought I'd try lining the skirt using a jump pleat at the hem.

 

White cotton long sleeve shirt

Flat felling arm hole seam

This shirt was an interesting experience with flat felling.  But I used this method only for the arm holes and hem.  I freaked out for the side seams.  The results were not good, I had to unpick it. 

Short sleeved men's shirt

Only the pocket cut on the bias interested me in this shirt.  It was fraught with mistakes :(  Well at least it will be a wearable muslin!

On the quilting front, I pieced 6 Jacob Ladder blocks.  This will be a very slow project.

With the 2 sides not added yet

Belgian Waffles by Moda Bake Shop

With Christmas so near I really wanted to do some Christmas quilting.  I got it all pieced in record time and I'm currently machine quilting this 47" square quilt top.  But the stitches are not regular.  I think I may have to tweak with the tension dial.  I'm using a Crazy Eight turnover with Kona Natural.  The inner red border is Kona Rich Red.