Stunt Sewing

a POLKA party

We've got dots, "big ones, little ones, tall ones, short ones" (love Dr. Seuss!) lots and lots of dots.

So, today I'm doing a comparison of all the polka dot fabric.  Maybe ALL is a tad too strong, I didn't include fabrics that are dotty but not JUST polka dots.  Strike that, I'm an equal opportunity dot lover so I've just snapped some more pictures!  Plus it looks like I forgot a couple, boy I sure am glad I made another pass looking for more dots :-)  So, get out your measuring tape and let's do a little dot-to-dot.

BIG DOTS

The big STENZO dot (comes in lots of colors) is the largest polka dot we have, measuring 1 1/4"

French dot shown in Aqua measures 1 1/8"

Stenzo colored dots on white poplin are still big at 3/4"

TaDot by Michael Miller measures 7/16" (just under 1/2")

Busilis KNIT, shown in orange and yellow,  is 3/8" (smack in between 1/4" and 1/2")

SMALL DOTS

 

Busilis POPLIN is 5/16" (just over 1/4")

Stenzo KNIT dots (all excepting that one on the bottom in pink and aubergine are 1/4"

Small French Dots in Aqua and lime are also 1/4"

Stenzo pink/aubergine knit, Stenzo green/pink cord and Tiny Dots are all 3/16" (half of 1/4")

MORE DOTS

Going down this picture one at a time:

Dream Dot: 3/4", 1 1/4" and a whopping 3 1/2"

Kaufman cord dots 3/8"

Vintage Dots1/2"

Meadow Dots 9/16" to outter ring of the larger dot and 1/4" for the supporting dot

Martini 11/16" and 7/8"

Happy Dots 3/8" including the outer ring of the "larger" dot and 1/8 for the supporting dot.

My hope is that by seeing all these dots together and having detailed measurements, selecting the right dot for your creation will be a snap!

The party's over

Or is it just beginning?

 FELIZ, the ultimate party dress has been discontinued and I have only 2 copies left.  I did a quick look around and finding one else where might prove to be a challenge.  If you want this as a stand alone pattern, I might suggest that you "get - while the gettin's good". 

There is a silver lining:  Sewing Clothes Kids Love is a completely inspiring book!  Would you expect anything less from Nancy, the queen of color mixing?  This book includes 10 full sized patterns, FELIZ being one of them.  Now, now, if you already have the pattern, as a lot of you do (it's the 2nd best seller at our shop - 2nd only to THE twirl skirt REDONDO) remember that I said t-e-n FULL sized patterns and right now it's under $20 at Amazon. B-A-R-G-A-I-N!

Sewing Clothes Kids Love is sure to provide you with a well spent afternoon, giving you insight to take your creativity to the next level.  Moving past that first couple of hours, the patterns serve as a creative spring board  and the embellishment ideas will certainly spark many unique sewing adventures. 

Sweet and Sweeter

If you follow my sewing adventures on facebook you might recall that long about a month ago I announced, boldly, that I was going to whip up the Amy Butler Sweet Harmony handbag.  A few things have happened since then, things that have tilted my world a bit.  Back on track my mission this weekend was to sew up the bag.

I need to say that this is the FIRST bag I've sewn.  I'm thinking I wouldn't really feel good about recommending it for your first bag, get a couple under your belt first.  I think you'd have a better time of it.  Hey wait... maybe not.  I've got a little break-down of my construction right here and maybe that'll be enough.  That and a less than perfectionist outlook and you should be g-2-g.

Here's the finished product along with a little sweetness my husband made for us.  This is is fourth straight week out of town and he knows what it takes to keep us in high spirits!

I better start with the fact that Amy does a fabulous job of detailing out every little thing.  I think I only made 2 notes to compliment the pattern.  Here are all the pieces.  Okay, truth be told:  I ran out of fusible interfacing so there are a few less here than you might have.  My strap only had fusible felt (no interfacing), one main panel was bare and the bottom was short one layer of super think pellon.  And the verdict is my strap will stand up and the bottom is hard and bottom-y and I don't think anyone is going to say, "Wow one side of your bag isn't as stiff as the other!"  It all worked out in the end!

 

Next, IRON!  love your iron and keep it filled with water.  It took half a day to fuse all those pieces together.

 

Making the piping...

 

Hey, I made piping, now I'll attach it!

 

Place the little media pocket on the main panel, this goes on one of the outside panels and will be (should be) hidden (mine is a little high despite detailed instructions on where to put it!)

Interuption 1,001: "Mom, please make me some silky p.j.s!"  Never mind that her p.j. drawer is flowing over ;-)

 

outside of bag

Make the handle, take note (as I did not) to leave the opening for turning.  Since I didn't have all the suggested fill inside the handle I was actually able to pull it all through one of the open ends.  But it would have been much easier to pull the ends through the middle opening.

 

Attach the zipper.  Have you done this before? I hadn't done a zip.  Nope, not ever (I LOVE Farbenmix patterns, you'll rarely see a zip there!)  The zip wasn't half bad and I don't know what I was afraid of.  The pattern directions were clear and the zip went in without a hitch.  Wait, one hitch:  I did something wonky with the placement or something, my pocket hung down well below the bottom of my bag so out came the rotary cutter and zip, zap, you'd think I did it right!

Place the zipper pocket upside down on the main (lining) panel to stitch on.

next is the tricky 'u' shaped part   You're attaching the lining bag to the main bag and have a whole lotta thickness to stitch through.  Buzzing along the top edge wasn't so bad but I've gotta say my machine was skipping stitchs and acting like I was asking way too much once we started the curves.  One thing I found to make the process a little better was to turn it so the body of the bag was going up; not down under the arm of the machine, like so

It never did end up perfect but it's sewn together and really, that's what I was going for!

Add a little label:

and voila!

 

-Corie

P.S.  I was rather annoyed at the directions after having you cut out your fusible fleece and interfacing it tells you to trim off the seam allowance (to make your machine happy and not have so much to thickness to stitch through)  Next time I'm going to measure off the seam allowances on the pattern and just cut them out the right size to start with, I hate doing things twice! 

And Amy, since I'm sure you read my blog (NOT!) next time could you please make a little dashed line or something where you want us to cut the interfacings, I'm sure it wouldn't be too much trouble and would save us all some precious time ;-)

now this doesn't happen every day

Lookie what came a knockin' on my door!

The stars must have been aligned just right.  I called on a craigslist sewing machine and the owner just happened to be coming right down the street from me to collect her craigslist purchase.  She brought it over for inspection and well what's a girl to do when there's a turquoise sewing machine in her house, except KEEP IT!  It's not perfect, but then neither am I.  Just wait, I've got some plans for this one.

FWIW, it's a Brother model 210 selectomatic IV.  Made in Japan and guarenteed by Good Housekeeping!  Do you know anything about it?

pink makes everything better

I'll start by saying that etsy ROCKS!  There is so much talent over there I can hardly see straight.  Thing is:  generally my best finds come from blog posts giving a shout out to one of those super talented artisans.  How does one stumble across, say, cute little clothespin dolls? 

 

Or even know there is such a thing unless someone else says "Hey, I think this is amazing and you might too!"  I know, I know there is a search button and the handpicked, and the featured artist; I think I could spend the entire day surfing around and never get where I set out to go.  Today, however, was different. 

This makes me think pink hair  might, just maybe, be a good idea!    

I've been up to my eyeballs in paint, white paint for now, pink paint on the horizon, and dreamin and scheamin the rest of my oldest girls' room.  This perfect pink hair caught my eye and the rest of the picture is just as lovely.  You might just want to take a peek!  The artisit is in Turkey but the shipping rate is extreamely reasonable.

Holy Cotton we've got winners!

Two of the three winners from the whiz-bang give away have been contacted.

Congratulations Deirdre and Tabbi!  Sarah, this Sarah...

Hey, my comment vanished! (Now, of course, they will both appear and I will look like a doofus.) I am not on facebook so I can't join you there, but I do follow the blog!

Posted by: sarah | 11/21/2009 at 09:58 AM

Please email me at corie @ banberryplace.com and we'll get your package hooked up!

In other news, I need more shelves and I think you may need more fabric!  This is a sampling of the delivery yesterday!  I've been working diligently getting Nicey Jane to Dance with Me and Leanika.  Next up I'm heading out to the woods to play with Meadowsweet, the Flora & Fauna and Woodland Delight! 

(I'm sort of impressed the way I linked all those fabrics lines together up there!)

Also, real quick, we added this neat little feature to the product description pages, now you can effortlessly tell your friends if you think it's worthy!

Fabrics waiting and I'm running out of time.Have a great day!C

Miss Sass-a-frass

Olivia in her sassy WINONA pants with a ZOE raglan top

 

Here's the handy dandy quick-link to the fabric and patterns

WINONA

ZOE

FLURRY

KIM PAISLEY

FLOWER CORD

Winona SwM

This is a tips and tricks kinda post to help you make your way through sewing the super sassy WINONA pattern from Farbenmix.  This babies have been on my list for a while now and my oldest girl is in some serious need of some new apparel.  Nancy offered up some great information on sewing these last summer but I'd like to add a little tid-bit or two also.

These are your pattern pieces all cut out and ready to go.  I'm trading in the apron for the big bunchy pockets this go-round.

 

The only thing you really need to pay attention with here is make sure you put the middle leg section going the right way.

In general I'm not a pinner, if I can get away with it.  Stitch together the 2 back pieces slowly and taking care to not bunch or stretch the fabric funky.  Set aside.

Next I joined the 3 front pieces together, leaving the gathering for later.  I found that my middle piece was just a smidge wider than the top and bottom.  Maybe I didn't do as accurate job tracing/cutting as I could have or (the way I prefer to think of it) it's cut that way, allowing for the gathering - which hasn't yet happened thanks to this modification.  So I centered the middle piece on the others and stitched that way.  I feel compelled to stress that this was only a little smidge wider.

Now you've got what look like the beginning of legs.  Run a basting stitch along the edges of the middle piece.  

Pin the outseams together I put four pins in; top, bottom of the top piece, top of the bottom piece, and the bottom.  This left the middle section free to gather up to just the right length

Now you'll want to get your pockets ready.  I just followed the directions.  Leave an opening at the top center and bottom center

Mark 3 lines: center - side and other side.  Thus making 2 casings for your narrow elastic

Since there weren't measurements of how much elastic to use to gather I inserted one end of the elastic into the first casing then the other end of the elastic went into the second casing and I pulled them until I was happy.  I messed with what made me happy a few times.  I ended up with only a slight gather because I kept trying to imagine how the pockets would lay and how I'd get them stitched if they were cinched up tighter.

 

Take note that i made my casings from edge to edge and then realized that I should have stopped short.  I adjusted my casings per the directions after this picture.

PLACING THE POCKET

Luckily I had my girl available to test out the pocket placement.  I do wish it was marked on the pattern but hey, there is so much to LOVE about this pattern that I'm not complaining.  Just sayin'.

In case you don't have your girl at the ready this is an image of how I placed mine.  This is the 134/140 size for reference.

The bottom of the pocket is just above the middle section and the outside casing line runs pretty much right up the side seam, so they're more on the front leg piece than on the back piece.

After adding the pockets and stitching up the inseam the only hurdle left is topstitching the inseam.  h.e.l.l.o.  I did ... stitch-stitch scrunch all the way down the leg.  That got really challenging toward the end so on the next leg I started at the bottom and stitch-stitch-scrunched my way to the top.  I think that worked out marginally better but still slow-going, and lots of fussing and fixing and maybe a word or two here and there, if you get what I mean.  *wink*

Man, are these pants ever cute!  And the cut, w.o.w.  I didn't really pay close attention to the description and it wasn't until after I had cut the fabric, in her regular size, that I read "a slim cut and snug fit."  AAHHH!  These are for my Olivia, who is more solidly built and was skeptical of corduroy pants to start with.  This girl likes leggings and easy on/off pants with room to move.  What have I done?  T kept reminding me that they'll fit some girl in this house at some point in time.  But what-do-you-know  They fit her perfect!  There's not a lot of growing room but then again there's not that many months of 'pant' weather here either.  These pants get a 4 star rating from both this mom and her girl!

 

whiz-bang, shazam

A pinch of this and a smidgen of that and ta-da - banberry place has it's own FACEBOOK page!

My hope is that we can have a bit of chit chat, maybe add a picture or two, and hopefully share tips and tricks about the projects we complete.  Won't you please join in the fun?

To sweeten the pot I've got some incentives.

drum roll ...

Give Aways!

1.  Your choice of any 4 farbenmix patterns (retail value $52-56)

2. $50 gift certificate to banberry place

and The hum-dinger

3. The Super Sampler (value around $100)

1 yard cuts of 

100% linen roses, amazing Seersucker, fruity knit, kaleidoscope poplin, tulips fine wale cord, Roxy velvet

and smaller cuts of the long gone

oli flower cord and la zagala in white

There will be 2 winners from the blog and one for facebook fans.  The 4-1-1 for entering is:

    1 entry for following StuntSewing

    1 entry for leaving a comment in this post

    1 entry for tweeting,blogging or otherwise promoting/linking to this post

            *make sure you tell me in the comment what you've done so that you get the proper number of                 entries

    1 entry for becoming a fan and leaving a comment on the facebook wall

I'll draw winners on Saint Nicholas Day, December 6th.  The first person drawn gets her choice and so on.

eye candy soup

This is the last bit of eye candy from quilt market.  A little super fab "Nicey Jane" mixed with some equally fab Japanese goodness, scrumptious Australian handwork and even a few European fabrics  and well, you've got a soup worth savoring!

 

The way that wide binding works out is just totally cool.

 

 

 

From the Kokka collection, ballerinas and super cool florals

 

 

 

 

 

 

These cuties are from Melly's book Kaleidoscope  are are so super cute, perfect for a stocking stuffer.

 

Sheree used some of the wonerful Hilco knits for some of her displays, do you recognize the campan and the colline knits?  She's coming out with a new line of patterns and was debuting them.

 

That was some yummy, yummy eye candy.  Thankss for coming along with me on my quilt market adventure.  Can't wait to do it again.