Monthly Archives: August 2012

This Weekend

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Hope everyone is looking forward to a long weekend! We are headed out of town tonight to spend the weekend with my husband’s sister and her family, and I know we are ready for some relaxing family time.

Here’s what on my agenda for the weekend:

  • Figure 8/Infinity Cowl- free pattern from AMH. This is a present for my sister-in-law’s 30th birthday. Hopefully she doesn’t read my blog today! Of course it’s not done yet, and we leave tonight but I am thinking that it should be a quick project. Pictures to come when it’s complete. 🙂
  • Gender Reveal Party tonight for a friend who’s expecting twins!
  • Enjoying a cookout with an entire smoked pig- My SIL has a friend with a smokehouse, and we are excited about bringing home some smoked pork.
  • Hopefully getting some knitting/embroidery WIPs done during the short car drive there and back.

Note for all you local readers: the first official GMQG meeting was a HUGE success, and I am looking forward to many more fun meetings. We have the fall schedule planned out and posted on the blog for anyone who is interested.

And just in case you need some fabric inspiration for the weekend, Pink Castle Fabrics is having a Labor Day Sale- 20% off your total purchase with the coupon code LABOR20.

Do you have any fun plans for this weekend?

Washi Dress #2

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Are you sick of washi’s yet? Well obviously I’m not because I have another one to show you. 🙂 When Pink Castle Fabrics was having their huge $5/yard sale a few weeks back, I immediately thought that would be a good opportunity to pick up some yardage for another washi dress. I have loved Flea Market Fancy for a long time and never had a reason to buy any so I picked some out for my dress. I la, la, love the way this fabric looks as a dress! Now I wish I had bought more fabric during the sale because I really want to make another tunic. Alas, my fabric budget is way overspent and I must embrace some self-control. Boo! Plus, I do have quite a few other projects lingering on the back burners while I have been having so much washi fun.

Without further ado, here is my dress. I decided to forgo the u cutout on this one to give it some variety from my other ones. I also raised the neckline 1/2 inch so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it being too low. I think I could have left it the way it was, but I didn’t want to have to worry about wearing a tank under it.  I also took the sides in an additional 1/4 inch because it was a trifle big.

The only problem I have is the gapping in the front bodice. If I stand straight and pull the shoulders out, it lays nice and flat. As soon as I move around, though, it starts to gap a bit. You can see it in the pictures. I would like to figure out why that happened but it’s not enough of a problem to keep me from enjoying the dress. I thought the shot cotton was comfy. This is even comfier!! Seriously folks, I may start putting shirring in all my clothes because it makes the most amazing fit! I love that this dress gives me the opportunity to wear my red shoes. 🙂 I am also excited about being able to wear this dress all throughout the fall with my red cardigan and some leggings!

I have learned so much from making these Washis. With this third one, I feel that I have finally hit my stride. It is the most professional-looking garment that I have made, and I am very proud of it. Who knew making your own clothing could feel so rewarding? One word of advice I would give is to make sure you buy quality fabric. I can tell the difference in good quality fabric just as you can when you buy good quality clothing. I have now become a fabric snob and would rather save up for the better quality than buy cheapo quality and have it fall apart on me! I am looking forward to expanding my skills into other garments and would like some suggestions for clothing patterns you have used and liked.  Now to find someone to donate the money for the fabric all these clothes require. 😉

Reminder: Washi Dress and Tunic Pattern can be bought here.

 

The Creative Process

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I thought that I would show you a little behind-the-scenes tour of my etsy shop and the creation of my embroidery hoop art. This past week I received a custom order for 3 hoops.

The client wanted to buy this red and blue striped balloon hoop shown above that I had listed in my shop and asked if I could make 2 more hoops in varying sizes to coordinate with her nursery colors. She sent me a picture of her fabric swatches for the nursery.

fabric swatches

We communicated back and forth about hoop sizes and design and settled on a 8″ and 10″ hoop. The 8″ hoop would have one balloon with grass and clouds, and the 10″ hoop would have a group of balloons in the clouds- with at least one balloon far back in the picture. I sketched out a quick picture of each on a sheet of paper placed under each hoop for sizing guide.

After determining what type of hoops I would design, my next step was to decide on fabrics. I needed to coordinate her swatches with the hoop she had already bought. I pulled to some coordinating fabrics to see which would work best.

I struggled a bit on my final fabric choices. I thought my hoop was a bit off in color from her fabric swatches (red instead of burgundy) so I needed to make all three mesh nicely while not clashing with her colors. After some trial and error, I picked out some stripes and chevrons that I thought would mirror her theme well. Then came the cutting out of the balloons, grass, and clouds (using templates I had made previously); applying the fusible webbing to the fabric and felt; and ironing the web-backed fabric to the background fabric. My last step in this process was to machine stitch around all the designs in order to ensure their durability.

Now to back the hoop with a second piece of background fabric for a nice clean-looking back and, voila, a finished set of 3 hoops, custom designed for a little boy’s nursery. I hope he and his mommy are very happy with their new art!

This Weekend

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Just a little newsy post where I ramble on about all the big plans I have for this weekend. Maybe if I write them down for all to see, I will actually get them done! 🙂

First off a WIP that actually got completed last night. Woot, Woot! This is a little scarf I began back in the winter and never finished. It is my lovely grandma’s 77th birthday tomorrow, and she is a lover of bright, happy things so I quickly finished this up in order to give to her tomorrow at her birthday lunch.

Next up, a custom Etsy order that I need to finish up. Here’s the fabrics that I pulled for it. It’s a collage of 3 hot air balloon hoops and I am pretty excited about how it’s shaping up.

Another item on the old weekend list that I can’t post any pics of is some pattern testing for an upcoming quilt book. I was happy to be picked as a volunteer especially since she is sending up fabric as a thank you- I do just about anything for free fabric. Sorry to be cryptic but one must tease every now and then. 🙂 And I’ll be sure to post all the details once the book is published.

I have pulled out a few knitting WIP’s over the last few weeks as I prepare for fall’s arrival and am hoping to get the one off the needles this weekend so I can start something new. I am most definitely a novice knitter- and super slow at that, but every fall and winter I get the urge to pull out the needles and improve my skills a bit. This is a simple dishcloth using the Chinese Wave stitch. (I know, you’re thinking, why does a dishcloth take you so long?) Next, I want to start on a winter hat for Oliver. Got any good, easy patterns for toddler hats?

Lastly, some family fun time should also take place… who can resist spending time with my two favorite boys? We took Oliver for his first bike ride last weekend and hope to make it a regular occurrence now that it’s not so hot out.

FYI most pictures coming to you compliments of Instagram. Feel free to follow me there @brookecrook if you want to be bombarded with cute pictures of the little man as well as random fabric fun. 🙂

What are your plans for this weekend?

 

Washi Dress

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Washi #2 is complete! Have I mentioned how much I love this pattern? This Washi dress was made out of some shot cotton that I picked up while at Purl Soho. I love the lightweight feel of the shot cotton but it is quite sheer. I had a removable lining from another dress that I wore under it, but since that lining is blue you can see it under the dress a little bit. No worries, I will still wear the dress all the time. 🙂 Once Rae puts up a lining video, I will re-do the top and add a lining to the dress

Changes I made to the patterm:

  • Shortened the bodice a bit since I am short-waisted. I ended up not liking it as much this way, so from now on, I will leave the pattern as is.
  • Also after looking at all the pictures from the Washi flickr pool, I realized I was sewing my pleats wrong. (oops!) I say that I will fix them, but let’s be realistic. Most likely I will just wear the dress as-is and hope no one notices. 🙂
  • Added some length to the dress because I wasn’t sure how long it would come out, and I wanted to be able to add a deep hem to help pull the shot cotton down. My next dress (yes I already have the fabric for it) is going to be quilting cotton so I won’t need the deep hem and will use the original pattern length.
  • Raised the neckline about 2 inches so that I could have the u cutout but not feel I needed to wear a tank under it to be modest. Very happy with how this came out!

Overall consensus: I love the feel and weight of the shot cotton, but the fabric feels so fragile that I am not convinced of the longevity of this dress. I will have to be very careful in my washing of the dress. However, this is seriously the most comfortable dress I own! And I am so happy to have a purple dress! It may be a bit nerdy to admit this, but purple is my favorite color and it makes me happy to sew clothing for myself in purple.

With each dress/ tunic, I feel that I am learning more about how to sew clothing for myself so even if they are not perfect, they are all helpful lessons.   If you want to try this out for yourself the Washi pattern is available here. FYI these pictures were all taken last weekend on our family vacation to Hilton Head Island. It was a great place for a photo shoot with all the beautiful scenery!

Couldn’t resist a picture with my little buddy since we are both in handmades…check out his treasure pocket shorts.

Zippered Wet Bags

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I received another commission last week for more wet bags for cloth diapers. This client wanted zippered pouches. I have to admit, I most definitely like the drawstring bags better than the zippered ones. I just do not enjoy putting zippers in. However, I am happy for work: more jobs= more fabric money. 🙂 The first bag is a small 13×16 inch perfect for the diaper bag. The second one is a large 17×21 inch bag meant to be used in the house as a wet pail. Everyone seems to have a tutorial for zipper pouches and I have read many of them and come up with my own way to make them- kinda compiling all that I have read. I did use this tutorial to do the covered zipper ends. I have never done that before and I like how clean it makes the zipper look. I am pretty pleased with how my business both on etsy and thru word-of-mouth is building up and I hope to have some time in the next few weeks to make some more inventory to share with a few different sources. First, I need to stop making these Washi dresses! I can’t wait share my purple shot cotton one with you next week!

Washi Tunic

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Are you aware of the Washi week happening over at Made by Rae? I have been stalking her for a month anxiously awaiting the release of this pattern. And this weekend, it finally was available! Although I had several other projects in the works, I quickly brushed them aside to begin on my own Washi clothing. I was going to begin with the dress but didn’t have enough of this Lizzy House print for a dress so settled for the tunic. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love this tunic The pattern is so quick and easy to follow, even for a fairly new clothing seamstress like myself. Who doesn’t love a shirt with no closures? So proud of myself for successfully mastering shirring in this tunic! 🙂

It is a PDF pattern so you print it out and tape together before tracing it onto some sort of pattern tracing paper. That is the most tedious part in my opinion, but I did it while watching a movie which that made it more enjoyable. I traced my pattern onto some quilter’s grid tracing paper that I have. Rae recommends Swedish tracing paper and I have that on my list to buy as soon as I can because I think that would be better and easier to use than the quilter’s grid.

Per the pattern’s instructions, I made a muslin for the upper bust and when I did, the Medium was a bit tight even though my measurements were right on for the Medium size. Because of this I decided to sew 1/4 inch seams on the shoulders and sides instead of 1/2 inch- to give myself a little extra wiggle room. However, after I finished the tunic, I had to go back and add that extra 1/4 inch seam allowance back into the tunic because it was too big! Who knows what happened with the muslin?

I found some purple shot cotton from my Purl Soho visit that is enough for a dress version of this pattern and am already anxiously planning out some time to work on it! I will make a few changes on the dress version. First off, I will add the optional sleeves. Second, Rae suggested I could take a few inches off the bodice because I have a short torso and I think I will try that with the dress. Lastly, the U cutout on the front bodice was a bit lower than I wanted so I will raise the neckline a bit in order to feel that I can wear the dress without a tank under it and still be modest. 🙂

If you are looking for a versatile tunic/dress pattern, this is it! Check out all the versions Rae has made on her site! She even has a maxi version that she has promised to post a tutorial for (as a pattern add-on) soon! Also she has had quite a few pattern testers of varying shapes and sizes who have tried out her pattern and I think the dress looks fabulous on all of them! Hats off to Rae for an amazing job on this pattern. I can’t wait to see Washis begin popping up all over the blogosphere!

P.S. Pink Castle Fabrics is having a huge $5/ yard fabric sale and I scooped up some flea market fancy yardage perfect for another Washi dress!

A Wet Bag for Oliver

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You know the saying about the cobbler’s children running barefoot? Well that happens to be the case in our house quite often as well. I bought some PUL fabric months ago and planned to make Oliver some wet bags for his diaper pail liner and (up till now) had yet to do it. BUT my recent commission for a hanging wet bag put me on a roll, and I whipped one up for Oliver this week. This bag hangs in our laundry room and collects all the diapers until wash time. I like this method better than what we were doing (laundry basket collecting diapers till wash) because it is super easy to throw the bag into the wash with the diapers and all get cleaned at the same time. Ideally, I think I need two so one can be in the wash and one can be in use, but one thing at a time, please. 🙂

I made this bag in the same dimensions I made the previous one (roughly 17×21), and I love the size of it. I also love that it is drawstring so no zippers! If you know me, you also know that I am a big Dr. Seuss fan so this bag makes me happy just looking at it. 🙂 I bought quite a bit of Dr. Seuss fabric when I was pregnant with Oliver and have yet to use it all, so I am happy to have found another good use for it. I have another commission for zippered wet bags and am hoping to get those whipped up this weekend… this is becoming quite the side business for me!

New Pillows for Mom, part 2

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I have finally finished the pillows for my mom’s living room. Here is a picture of her living room with all 4 new pillows. I really like how well they complement the room.

These brown pillows have a long history. Last year for Mother’s Day my sister-in-law had the fabric monogrammed, and I made pillows out of them. In order to save some money, we used pillow forms from some pillows my mom currently had in her living room. Big mistake! These were not normal pillow forms and I had to re-sew the pillows quite a few times trying to get them tight enough to the pillow. They still ended up being kinda lumpy and I had to put button holes in the back of them to make the envelope closure stay closed. Unfortunately, I made the button holes too big so they just looked kinda tacky. All in all, not a very satisfying project, but I had spent too much time and money on them to change them at the moment (plus i had a brand new baby which meant no time for sewing) so they sat in her living room for a year.  With the advent of the blue pillows a few weeks ago, we decided to redo the brown ones (finally!). My mom bought some much smaller pillow forms, and I seam ripped the pillows and cut them down to size…much better now! I was hoping to not have to seam rip since there were about 4 lines of stitching around the pillows, but I needed to use part of the seam allowance in order for the envelope closure to be wide enough, so I watched some Olympics this week and ripped my little heart out.

The fabric used is a brown micro-suede. For future reference, I would not recommend this fabric for pillows because it shows all dirt and sticks a bit funny to the pillow form- lots of static, but I made it work for this project. I wish I had a picture of the before pillows to show you, but I forgot to take one before I fixed them. Just take my word for it that these look much better than the previous ones!

Tova Top #3 and a request for advice

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Well I am finally going to unveil my latest selfish sewing project- Tova #3. I was waiting to show this to you because I took it to New York and thought I could get some cool pictures with it, but,alas, I wore it on a very hot day and got all sweaty so no super cool pics. Here’s what I have though. These are all instagram pictures because it was too hot and heavy to carry the big camera around.

This Tova is made out of a swiss dot that I found at Joann’s. I liked the lightness of the fabric and thought it would keep me cool in the heat. It was nice to wear in the sticky heat up north. It’s a little busier than I was picturing but I still like the fabric. However, here’s my thing with this Tova. I love seeing the pics of everyone else wearing them, but I feel like when I wear one, I look as wide as a house. Look at the picture of me from behind to see what I am saying. The shirt is so comfortable that I want to not care about the fit, but then when I look at pictures of myself, I am not happy with the result. I made the size medium and was trying to follow all the directions this time, but I did end up taking in quite a bit in the waistline as it was too big. However, it fits perfectly over the bust and around the hips. I don’t feel that I can take the shirt in any more along the waistline because it has no closures so I wouldn’t be able to get it off and on. Anyone have any advice for me? It’s a bummer to see so many other cute Tovas and feel that mine is a bit inferior. Maybe this pattern is just not meant for me?