So 10 hours ago when I was standing in the Salvos my brain was all like, "hey, lets buy that brown silk hand beaded top with the draped back and the asymmetric hem. We can shorten the shoulder straps, take out the tag, make the drape be at the bust and straighten out the hem. It'll be fun. How long ago were asymmetric hems "in", anyway? God, that was a flash in the pan. Ohh, better hurry, we need to be at the school in 5 minutes."
45 minutes later Casey told brain that actually, I had a whole another hour before I needed to be at the school. And just a few minutes ago, my brain was like "oh, did I say fun? I meant to say "a horrible idea don't do it you stupid girl put it back just make a white top from that stretch crepe ohmygodyoustupididiotaargh!!!!" Actually, I'm pretty sure what I said. You must have misheard me."
So basically my brain is a lying scoundrel and I'm hemming a beaded silk gauze top by hand tonight.
In semi-related news, this is a friendly reminder not to sit on your bed with your legs underneath you while wearing skinny jeans, lest your legs fall off. That's a pretty important cautionary tale.
EDIT, 3.30am: I think the fact that left to their own devices, my hands are capable of beading over the shoulder join and hemming the bottom, almost makes up for the fact that my brain is a jerk.
Showing posts with label handsewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label handsewing. Show all posts
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Me ow.
The distinct advantage that quilting has over dressmaking is that the photographs, and therefore the bloggage, are a whole lot easier. But, as ever, I'm busy being too obsessed with my wardrobe to quilt. And too crap at taking selfies to logically explain the last few days worth of sewing. Also, I just realised it's 5am, which would explain why I can't words.
...Anyway. I'm still very into Community, and Britta, with my spirit wardrobe, was wearing a denim jacket with grey fleece sleeves and a hood. I still had a denim jacket in my cupboard that had survived every round of salvo-ing purely for the reason that I felt it was important that I still owned at least one, even though I haven't worn it in at least two years, due to a strong fear of coming off too double-denim-y. And I'd rather die than come off double-denim-y. But last weekend I dyed a pair of my skinny jeans black, and that means I can wear a light blue denim at the top without looking at all matchy-matchy. So I chopped out the sleeves and drafted myself a hood design and the only grey heavyweight fleece they had at Spotlight was kinda weird fluffy on one side, slightly silky on the other and it was $13p/m but hey, I wanted a denim jacket with grey fitted sleeves and a hood and I wanted it by the next day. And I did it, and I had it, and it's bitchin, and it's nice to know that after two years of just chilling in the cupboard, it's going to go back into rotation.
As well as this, it's Halloween on Wednesday. Now, for the most part, I'm very opposed to having Halloween in Australia. Good on the Americans, it seems like a lot of fun, but when it's done in Australia it comes off as a Valentines-Day-esque grab for the consumer dollar. On the other hand, we don't get to do enough fancy dress, and Wednesdays are (sadly) not really drinking days (though admittedly, I drank this Wednesday) so the initial plan for a fancy dress drinking party got canned. But there was vague mention of Woolies going fancy dress for the day and I'm pushing for it. I want this. I want costumes at work day, to the point that I have drafted a onesie pattern to make for one of the girls at work in cow print. I want this to the point that I bought 5 metres of black cotton lawn from the $1 clearance rack at spotlight to bulk churn out some capes. I want this to the point that I've offered to make some animal ear headbands, because animal-ears are a traditional lazy-person's costume.
Hey look, teddy-bear ears. And my newly altered jacket. Twofer selfie! I'm actually still wearing these, four hours later. I think when I get up tomorrow I might put them on and pretend like they're not even there, just to see people's reactions. I think they are adorbs, and plan on mauling the faces off anyone who disagrees, just like a real bear in a badass re-purposed jacket would.
But, keeping with the theme of wanting more of Britta's wardrobe, my personal animal ears option is the "cool cats" from season 2.
My sunnies are a bit different and my leather jacket is out in the car, and also on this first version they're a bit too big, but I'm sure I can pop them on someone's head. I need another cool cat to be cool with me.
The handy thing about making these is that I'm sewing the ears onto the headbands by hand, and you can still watch TV while you're handsewing.
DVD commentaries, come at me.
...Anyway. I'm still very into Community, and Britta, with my spirit wardrobe, was wearing a denim jacket with grey fleece sleeves and a hood. I still had a denim jacket in my cupboard that had survived every round of salvo-ing purely for the reason that I felt it was important that I still owned at least one, even though I haven't worn it in at least two years, due to a strong fear of coming off too double-denim-y. And I'd rather die than come off double-denim-y. But last weekend I dyed a pair of my skinny jeans black, and that means I can wear a light blue denim at the top without looking at all matchy-matchy. So I chopped out the sleeves and drafted myself a hood design and the only grey heavyweight fleece they had at Spotlight was kinda weird fluffy on one side, slightly silky on the other and it was $13p/m but hey, I wanted a denim jacket with grey fitted sleeves and a hood and I wanted it by the next day. And I did it, and I had it, and it's bitchin, and it's nice to know that after two years of just chilling in the cupboard, it's going to go back into rotation.
As well as this, it's Halloween on Wednesday. Now, for the most part, I'm very opposed to having Halloween in Australia. Good on the Americans, it seems like a lot of fun, but when it's done in Australia it comes off as a Valentines-Day-esque grab for the consumer dollar. On the other hand, we don't get to do enough fancy dress, and Wednesdays are (sadly) not really drinking days (though admittedly, I drank this Wednesday) so the initial plan for a fancy dress drinking party got canned. But there was vague mention of Woolies going fancy dress for the day and I'm pushing for it. I want this. I want costumes at work day, to the point that I have drafted a onesie pattern to make for one of the girls at work in cow print. I want this to the point that I bought 5 metres of black cotton lawn from the $1 clearance rack at spotlight to bulk churn out some capes. I want this to the point that I've offered to make some animal ear headbands, because animal-ears are a traditional lazy-person's costume.
Hey look, teddy-bear ears. And my newly altered jacket. Twofer selfie! I'm actually still wearing these, four hours later. I think when I get up tomorrow I might put them on and pretend like they're not even there, just to see people's reactions. I think they are adorbs, and plan on mauling the faces off anyone who disagrees, just like a real bear in a badass re-purposed jacket would.
But, keeping with the theme of wanting more of Britta's wardrobe, my personal animal ears option is the "cool cats" from season 2.
My sunnies are a bit different and my leather jacket is out in the car, and also on this first version they're a bit too big, but I'm sure I can pop them on someone's head. I need another cool cat to be cool with me.
The handy thing about making these is that I'm sewing the ears onto the headbands by hand, and you can still watch TV while you're handsewing.
DVD commentaries, come at me.
Friday, August 3, 2012
The Impulsive, Handsewn Holiday Quilt
Last night, while I was watching weird movies, I was bummed that I didn't have anything to do while I was doing that, so today when I was wandering around shopping I tried to keep an eye out for some little crafty thing to do while I was bumming about my motel room. You know, crochet or something.
Instead, I found some pre-pieced fabric on the clearance racks of one of the spotlights for $4 a metre. And there was some coat fabric for $3 a metre. So I got them both (150cm of the pieced stuff, since that was the width of the coat fabric, and 110cm of the coat, since the pieced stuff was narrower) and I picked some woven tape for the binding, since I couldn't find any actual binding in a colour I liked, and anyway, since this'll be going to a BnS ball, I wanted it to be tough.
While caught in the after-school rush hour I thought about it some more, and figured that maybe I should get some spray baste. So I got some of that at the next Spotlight I went to, as well as some Husky fleece as batting. The three fabrics ($6, $3.30 and $5.50) came to less than the price of the spray baste ($15.95)
What does one choose as a soundtrack to getting high on glue fumes in a motel room, on your own, 500km from home?
Well, I went with Chasing Airplanes by Gary Allen, but then, right now, that's my go-to song for pretty much everything. And once it was all glued, I switched to a bit of Dierks Bentley. That's not a band name, that's what the guy's actually called. Also, he totally looks like Waz from The Block last year.
Amazingly, I got it all quilted in 2 1/2 hours, but then, I haven't done an award winning job or anything. Big chunky stitches on the diagonal through every second row. Double thickness variegated brown cotton, if you were wondering. It took me another hour to get a bit under a quarter of the binding done, but once again, the sewing is rubbish.
And then I devoted some time to trying on all the clothes that I bought today. Huzzah for late night shopping in the 'burbs; I managed to get a lot in cause I could keep shopping till 9pm. No pics though, cause I suck at selfies.
Instead, I found some pre-pieced fabric on the clearance racks of one of the spotlights for $4 a metre. And there was some coat fabric for $3 a metre. So I got them both (150cm of the pieced stuff, since that was the width of the coat fabric, and 110cm of the coat, since the pieced stuff was narrower) and I picked some woven tape for the binding, since I couldn't find any actual binding in a colour I liked, and anyway, since this'll be going to a BnS ball, I wanted it to be tough.
While caught in the after-school rush hour I thought about it some more, and figured that maybe I should get some spray baste. So I got some of that at the next Spotlight I went to, as well as some Husky fleece as batting. The three fabrics ($6, $3.30 and $5.50) came to less than the price of the spray baste ($15.95)
What does one choose as a soundtrack to getting high on glue fumes in a motel room, on your own, 500km from home?
Well, I went with Chasing Airplanes by Gary Allen, but then, right now, that's my go-to song for pretty much everything. And once it was all glued, I switched to a bit of Dierks Bentley. That's not a band name, that's what the guy's actually called. Also, he totally looks like Waz from The Block last year.
Amazingly, I got it all quilted in 2 1/2 hours, but then, I haven't done an award winning job or anything. Big chunky stitches on the diagonal through every second row. Double thickness variegated brown cotton, if you were wondering. It took me another hour to get a bit under a quarter of the binding done, but once again, the sewing is rubbish.
And then I devoted some time to trying on all the clothes that I bought today. Huzzah for late night shopping in the 'burbs; I managed to get a lot in cause I could keep shopping till 9pm. No pics though, cause I suck at selfies.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Here I go again on my own...
Man, I have got to stay off youtube - that was 5 hours of my life I'll never get back.
Just as well I actually got stuff done during the actual day bit of today. There was the getting the car serviced, and the sorting out more car food, and the repacking of the under-the-seat-box-of-everything, and the repairs on my fur coat.
It's kinda crazy to think I've had my coat for nearly 3 years now. That said, when you look at it, you can kinda see. There's a lot of food dye on it still, and when that bloke at Longy that year put it on he split a lot of the seams at the back and I had to re-sew them, and I kinda lost it between the last time I wore it an now, and it hasn't fared all that well. A lot of the fur at the top of the back was just tearing, so I had to sew it all back together with some old towel (the one I'd cut up to clean some of the food dye off) underneath it to stabalise it, and then I even ended up just cutting out a heap of the weak stuff and filling it in with a patch of the scrap from the faux-fur roof lining of the new ute. It's not quite the same, but since quite a lot of it is still blue, and it's mainly under the collar anyway, I don't think it matters. Also, by the time I'm wearing it, everyone will be shitfaced anyway.
Tomorrow is my second roadtrip in a week. I think I'm keener for this one - afternoon travel, lone-wolfing, CDs instead of radio, my own car, no definite plans. Should be fun.
Just as well I actually got stuff done during the actual day bit of today. There was the getting the car serviced, and the sorting out more car food, and the repacking of the under-the-seat-box-of-everything, and the repairs on my fur coat.
It's kinda crazy to think I've had my coat for nearly 3 years now. That said, when you look at it, you can kinda see. There's a lot of food dye on it still, and when that bloke at Longy that year put it on he split a lot of the seams at the back and I had to re-sew them, and I kinda lost it between the last time I wore it an now, and it hasn't fared all that well. A lot of the fur at the top of the back was just tearing, so I had to sew it all back together with some old towel (the one I'd cut up to clean some of the food dye off) underneath it to stabalise it, and then I even ended up just cutting out a heap of the weak stuff and filling it in with a patch of the scrap from the faux-fur roof lining of the new ute. It's not quite the same, but since quite a lot of it is still blue, and it's mainly under the collar anyway, I don't think it matters. Also, by the time I'm wearing it, everyone will be shitfaced anyway.
Tomorrow is my second roadtrip in a week. I think I'm keener for this one - afternoon travel, lone-wolfing, CDs instead of radio, my own car, no definite plans. Should be fun.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
It's a not so bad...
If there is one good thing about hand sewing, it's that it's very easy, physically, to unpick. You still feel like a failure when you're doing it, but the difficulty is in exact reverse proportion to when you've done it by machine. I'm so used to the whole "it takes just a second to sew, and 35 minutes to unpick" thing that you get when you make a mistake on the machine that for it to be the opposite feels weird.
Still, my revised lace placement is only about quarter of the length of the old one, so really, it's not like I've created any more sewing to be done (since I was only half done to begin with) Yay for fractions!
Other than that, I have packed 95% of the stuff I need to, and plenty of stuff I don't* - all that remains is to find my bathers (yay 4 star hotel with indoor heated swimming pool) and the jeans that are currently in the dryer, but I'll be wearing them in the car on the way up so I don't know that they count. I've charged up the cameras and the palm pilots and picked about half my music that I want for my hour of designated stereo time - here's a question for you all: hard rock covers of classic country songs, sacrilege, or a clever, sneaky underhand way to have country music playing in the car without the driver knowing it? He's quite insistent that no country is to be played, but you'd be surprised how well "Goodbye Earl" by The Dixie Chicks translates. Hell, boy beats up girl, girl and friends murder boy is practically standard emo-song fare, just, you know, cooler when it's upbeat and contains a bit of nah-nah-nah-nahing. I've added it to my hour of music just to see Meagan's face when she hears it.
*I was feeling really good about not having packed a whole heap of unnecessary stuff until I found myself looking in a cupboard and thinking, "hmmm, should I pack that tent? I might need it..." (it's okay, I'm not taking the tent)
Still, my revised lace placement is only about quarter of the length of the old one, so really, it's not like I've created any more sewing to be done (since I was only half done to begin with) Yay for fractions!
Other than that, I have packed 95% of the stuff I need to, and plenty of stuff I don't* - all that remains is to find my bathers (yay 4 star hotel with indoor heated swimming pool) and the jeans that are currently in the dryer, but I'll be wearing them in the car on the way up so I don't know that they count. I've charged up the cameras and the palm pilots and picked about half my music that I want for my hour of designated stereo time - here's a question for you all: hard rock covers of classic country songs, sacrilege, or a clever, sneaky underhand way to have country music playing in the car without the driver knowing it? He's quite insistent that no country is to be played, but you'd be surprised how well "Goodbye Earl" by The Dixie Chicks translates. Hell, boy beats up girl, girl and friends murder boy is practically standard emo-song fare, just, you know, cooler when it's upbeat and contains a bit of nah-nah-nah-nahing. I've added it to my hour of music just to see Meagan's face when she hears it.
*I was feeling really good about not having packed a whole heap of unnecessary stuff until I found myself looking in a cupboard and thinking, "hmmm, should I pack that tent? I might need it..." (it's okay, I'm not taking the tent)
Monday, April 4, 2011
Speed. I am speed.
I am not good with slow sewing.
I've done one tiny cross stitch, about a decade ago now.
No embroideries.
And I machine sew my bindings.
But even that takes too long, because even on the machine, you can't do it quickly. You have to go slowly, and concentrate.
You may be wondering at this point how the hell I manage to quilt at all. Well, I direct you to my Quilts So Far list, and you may note that in the last 10 months, I've made 48 tops. 48 very quick tops. Practically flung through the machine and under the iron.
They're all fairly simple ones too; I'm under no illusions about the lack of complicated, fiddly piecing in my repertoire. That stuff takes too long for my liking. Way too long.
Feel free to say it's a side effect of the "now" mentality of the younger generation. Alternatively, it's quite possible I don't like quilting it all, more that I like having quilted. Either way, anything that takes more than an hour without any visible progress is something I usually can't be bothered with. Usually.
So then why the hell have I spent the last day and a half hand sewing a binding down? Putting it through the machine may take an hour or so, once you've made your binding and pinned it and sewn it and ironed it and sewn it twice more,* but I've watched four movies (The Bounty Hunter, The Proposal, Blade Trinity, RED) in the course of attaching this binding. And an episode of Bones. That's a massive amount of time. And, after all that, I still had to slowly and carefully run it through the machine, because even though I've been careful, and it looks very nice, even nicer than the ones I look at at Stitch and Knit, I worry that it's not secure, and well, if I've invested half a weekend into this binding, I want it to stay down.
I did all this because I am in love with this quilt. A long time ago, before I was a quilter, back when I had a boyfriend, I had a dream of making a black and red chess board quilt. And I was going to make stuffed toy pieces and he was going to teach me how to play. He never taught me, and I didn't start quilting until long after he was gone, and most of my red fabrics I'd bought for it got used for making Mama Jan's Quilt, but I think this, my red and black and white quilt, is the rebirth of that mythical quilt that never was.
The weird thing is, this was never one I was particularly hyped about. I bought the bundle of fabric that I used for the top because it was $20, and I had already bought it in blue, orange and brown, and that bundle had turned into a quilt I love so so much, which now hangs on my wall.
I wasn't even super-psyched about the top - I put it away and left it for over 3 months.
But then I worked myself out a back, and it all came together. Just from looking at the photos, the back totally wins. But in real life, away from the flash of a late night camera, the greyer front is utterly snuggleworthy too. Normally, I have no trouble choosing a favourite, and therefore I have no trouble machine sewing the binding on (by that I mean I have no qualms about it, it's still a hassle) but for this one, having used wavy stitch for the quilting and not wanting to either mess up the back with a badly done standard machine binding, or mess up the front with a straight stitched double machine binding* I went for hand sewing it.
I'm glad, since it looks bloody gorgeous all round now.
I don't like having to choose sides. I also don't like hand sewing, but the latter you have to live with for a day. The former you have to live with forever.
*Tomorrow I'm gunna post photos of the Hawks Quilt and tell you all how I do my double wide binding. If you straight line machine quilt, it could be the thing for you.
I've done one tiny cross stitch, about a decade ago now.
 |
| Shown here sitting on a DVD so you can see what a truly epic achievement it's 651 crosses are. |
No embroideries.
 |
| No, the image hasn't failed to load. There's really nothing to show for this one. |
And I machine sew my bindings.
But even that takes too long, because even on the machine, you can't do it quickly. You have to go slowly, and concentrate.
You may be wondering at this point how the hell I manage to quilt at all. Well, I direct you to my Quilts So Far list, and you may note that in the last 10 months, I've made 48 tops. 48 very quick tops. Practically flung through the machine and under the iron.
They're all fairly simple ones too; I'm under no illusions about the lack of complicated, fiddly piecing in my repertoire. That stuff takes too long for my liking. Way too long.
Feel free to say it's a side effect of the "now" mentality of the younger generation. Alternatively, it's quite possible I don't like quilting it all, more that I like having quilted. Either way, anything that takes more than an hour without any visible progress is something I usually can't be bothered with. Usually.
So then why the hell have I spent the last day and a half hand sewing a binding down? Putting it through the machine may take an hour or so, once you've made your binding and pinned it and sewn it and ironed it and sewn it twice more,* but I've watched four movies (The Bounty Hunter, The Proposal, Blade Trinity, RED) in the course of attaching this binding. And an episode of Bones. That's a massive amount of time. And, after all that, I still had to slowly and carefully run it through the machine, because even though I've been careful, and it looks very nice, even nicer than the ones I look at at Stitch and Knit, I worry that it's not secure, and well, if I've invested half a weekend into this binding, I want it to stay down.
I did all this because I am in love with this quilt. A long time ago, before I was a quilter, back when I had a boyfriend, I had a dream of making a black and red chess board quilt. And I was going to make stuffed toy pieces and he was going to teach me how to play. He never taught me, and I didn't start quilting until long after he was gone, and most of my red fabrics I'd bought for it got used for making Mama Jan's Quilt, but I think this, my red and black and white quilt, is the rebirth of that mythical quilt that never was.
The weird thing is, this was never one I was particularly hyped about. I bought the bundle of fabric that I used for the top because it was $20, and I had already bought it in blue, orange and brown, and that bundle had turned into a quilt I love so so much, which now hangs on my wall.
I wasn't even super-psyched about the top - I put it away and left it for over 3 months.
But then I worked myself out a back, and it all came together. Just from looking at the photos, the back totally wins. But in real life, away from the flash of a late night camera, the greyer front is utterly snuggleworthy too. Normally, I have no trouble choosing a favourite, and therefore I have no trouble machine sewing the binding on (by that I mean I have no qualms about it, it's still a hassle) but for this one, having used wavy stitch for the quilting and not wanting to either mess up the back with a badly done standard machine binding, or mess up the front with a straight stitched double machine binding* I went for hand sewing it.
I'm glad, since it looks bloody gorgeous all round now.
I don't like having to choose sides. I also don't like hand sewing, but the latter you have to live with for a day. The former you have to live with forever.
*Tomorrow I'm gunna post photos of the Hawks Quilt and tell you all how I do my double wide binding. If you straight line machine quilt, it could be the thing for you.
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