The thoughts, sewing projects, and fabric oglings of a dedicated sewist.

Sewing for Charity

12/19/13
On Monday night I offered a free sewing class for people in my local community.  I did the cutting with some help from Irene and Pam (ladies from my church), wrote up instructions, and organized sewing machine loans for those who didn't have them.  It was open to anyone who wanted to learn how to make a pillowcase, or folks who already knew how to make a pillowcase and just wanted to hang out and do some group sewing. ('Cuz what's better than a sewist?  A bunch of them all in one place, right?)  The only catch was that you had to donate at least one of the pillowcases to charity.

I'm so glad I did this!  I got to meet more people in my community, do a little teaching, and watch the pillowcases take shape.  Ten people came out for the fun, even though it was snowing.  And I'm pretty sure they had a good time, too.


Rhonda Buss was my main motivation for organizing this event.  Some of you know Rhonda from her blog and from the beautiful sewing that she does.  I took on making someone's wedding dress this past fall and I would never have been successful without Rhonda's help.  And when the work was done, Rhonda wouldn't accept payment for her time and support, so I had to think of some other way to pay her back.  She's been building an army of pillowcases for the Mary Bridge Hospital in Tacoma, WA, so helping her in return seemed like the right thing to do.

So these 15 pillowcases have marched off to join the other 900+ pillowcases that Rhonda has collected so far.   Onward, ho!


Things Being Various

12/9/13
Extra credit to those who can tell me from where I stole the title of this post.  Hint: One of my favorite poems.

I had a bunch of small odd jobs to do this past week - fixing a snap on someone's favorite winter coat, sewing heavy metal patches on my husband's favorite jean jacket, mending holes in jeans, bartering with my electrician (I repaired his comforter, he fixed my counter lights).  I also made yet another corsetted pencil skirt (second one for this client).





Look at that tear!  He won't let me fix it because he says it's easier to hang.

The comforter's electrician made me laugh.  He's an older, gruff guy with a little white fluffy Lhasa Apso that he clearly adores.  The dog rides shotgun when the weather is warm enough, sleeps at the foot of his bed, and travels to Mexico with him for the winter.  The damage to the comforter was due to the sleeping situation (I guess these dogs like to chew!) and one end was threadbare with big holes.  The electrician had taken the comforter to a couple of places and no one would fix it for him.  He didn't want to replace it because he can't find one exactly like it (he's almost as attached to the comforter as he is to the dog that mangled it).  So he had me chop off four inches and sew it back together.  He was so happy when I gave it back to him - it made my week!  And I love to barter since the "payment" can't be taxed!  (So far I've managed to barter for piano lessons, family portraits, logo work, business card design, and now, electrical work.)

Chopping block

Restitching ends of panels so they didn't pull apart

Slip-stitching the layers back together

I also won a copy of Lolita's Sugar Plum pattern in Lladybird's giveaway.


I've had my eye on this pattern since I saw Rhonda's version of it and I can't wait to sew this up for myself after the holidays!  I'd love to use this Italian Silk Op Art print from Mood (are you listening Santa???  I only need 1.5 yards!!):





I made some progress on my Jean-ius jeans:




And I made up a flyer for the Free sewing class I'm teaching next week in order to add to Rhonda's pillowcase drive:



Let's see what this week brings!

A Snippy Day

12/3/13
I spend the last couple days at the cutting table (aka, the large self-healing mat that lays on my sewing room floor).  This is probably why my jeans get so worn at the knees.  I hate cutting, so I sometimes do a marathon session so that I won't have to do it for a while.  Yesterday I spent about six hours cutting out fabric for scarves and today I cut out a client's skirt during naptime.  So glad I get to sew tonight and all day tomorrow!

The scarf project took a long time because I had to eke out the scarf pieces from jersey scraps and old t-shirts, and then decide what went with what.  Here's what I had at the end of the day:

Twenty scarves!

These are going to become teacher gifts and, if I'm lucky, I'll have some leftover for my Etsy shop.

Whew.  So glad that's over with  . . .