The Sewing Bee

[Ombud]

I want a Navy skirt but under $100. Guess I'll make it. Don't have a machine but there's 2 at DS' house -- his & DDIL

[Sharon]

I mostly do quilting but when DD was younger did PJ's and cutesy dresses for holidays.  I have also altered many a dance costume in my day.  My nightmares were Daisy Kingdom dresses when DD was like in 1st, 2nd grade.  I think one of the dresses had 70+ pieces.

Since I am short everything always needs to be shortened to fit properly.

[Sharon]

This is a quilt that DD was going to make but she wasn't getting around to it.  As part of cleaning things out I made it up for her.  It is flannel and a very nice watching TV type of quilt.

[Green Eyed Lady]

Mar 26, 2016 16:51:07 GMT -5 Sharon said:

I mostly do quilting but when DD was younger did PJ's and cutesy dresses for holidays.  I have also altered many a dance costume in my day.  My nightmares were Daisy Kingdom dresses when DD was like in 1st, 2nd grade.  I think one of the dresses had 70+ pieces.

Since I am short everything always needs to be shortened to fit properly.

I know, right? I made a Snow White costume for my friend's daughter and the sleeves alone had 12 pieces each. Those things can be brutal. Red insets on yellow sleeves if I recall. It's been awhile.

[Blonde Granny]

Love the quilt Sharon, especially the snowflakes.

[CCL]

Mar 25, 2016 20:06:03 GMT -5 @empressspunkles said:

Mar 25, 2016 19:54:05 GMT -5 @xmascookie said:

Yes curtains!

Some look fairly simple but I know I would mess it up and waste $ on fabric and they would look crummy.

Flat bed sheets. My mother made me some using flat sheets and I was thinking about doing that too, to practice anyway. Can get some cheap sheets just about anywhere. I do have fabric stockpiled all over the place but it's hard to find decent looking skulls on fabric so I would rather wait until I know what I'm doing before I sacrifice it. Don't ask.

I've used fabric shower curtains before, too.

[CCL]

Mar 25, 2016 14:23:16 GMT -5 Apple said:

I'm doing a bunch of work on the house next month (get 12 days off for just using 8 hours of vacation time!!)  Part of my plan in that time is to set up the spare room with a sewing machine, and have my mom come over and start showing me the basics.  I figure I'll start with totes and pillow cases.  I used to know the simple stuff (I've made mini quilts and a windsock), but it's all been so long ago I don't even remember how to thread a sewing machine.

I want to make aprons   They're "old fashioned" but some are so cute!  I really want to make a Jack Skellington apron, but the fabric is no longer made

Love that little bow.

[Pants]

I can sew a button, mend or hem. I have a sewing machine but it's been in a box for years - need to get it repaired, there's something wrong with the tension. Speaking of tension, one of the great mysteries of my sewing career is how to decide what tension to use for what fabric.

My next project is to make fleece pockets for a winter parka. The pockets in there shredded after only one winter, so I figured I'd replace them with fleece so they would be functional and cozy.

[Pants]

In terms of memories, I don't have a ton of memories of my mom sewing, but I do remember asking her to make a pillow for my ponies when I was little. It's just a 10 in square with some batting and rainbow fabric. My daughter now sleeps with it.

[gracendignity]

Mar 25, 2016 14:02:19 GMT -5 Green Eyed Lady said:

Mar 25, 2016 14:01:15 GMT -5 @xmascookie said:

Damn I wish I could sew.

You can. Anybody can. If you can follow instructions, you can learn. After you learn, you can do away with those instructions.

Sweetdreams,  sewing is not really that hard.  Many pattern catalogs have patterns designed to simple, fast, and for beginners.  My mother (who is a wonderful seamstress) told me when I was a kid and starting to learn to sew that as long as the pattern was cut out correctly, then pretty much any mistake could be corrected.  I found that to be true, for the most part.

[gracendignity]

Another quilter here. I can and have made garments, aprons, pillows, curtains, etc, but nowadays it's pretty much quilts. I'm probably going to make curtains for my new place in the coming months, though because I really haven't found any in the store that I like. 

My mother taught me to embroider, knit, and to sew clothes. I learned to quilt from my paternal grandmother, though. I used to stay with her in the afternoon after Mom went to work and she always pieced while watching her "stories," and I used to just beg and beg to do it, too. She used to tell me that she would teach me when I was 4. I must have worn her down, though, because about a month before my birthday she sat me down with needle, thread and fabric. It was a horrible mess but I was in hog heaven anyway. My pleasure in plying needle and thread have never wavered, but I will say my skill has improved. lol! Eventually I grew up and I have fond memories of sharing the craft with my daughters. Teaching the 3 oldest grandchildren tops that, though. Granddaughter #1 lives nearby and she is my quilting partner in crime. #2 lives far away so our quilty time is sparse but we enjoy it. The grandson wanted to learn but he didn't care to stick with it. Little miss granddaughter is 3 and I don't think she got the gene. I'm not sure, though, because it would involve actually sitting down and being still for 5 minutes and that's not happening with her!

[ilovedolphins]

Mar 25, 2016 14:23:16 GMT -5 Apple said:

I'm doing a bunch of work on the house next month (get 12 days off for just using 8 hours of vacation time!!)  Part of my plan in that time is to set up the spare room with a sewing machine, and have my mom come over and start showing me the basics.  I figure I'll start with totes and pillow cases.  I used to know the simple stuff (I've made mini quilts and a windsock), but it's all been so long ago I don't even remember how to thread a sewing machine.

I want to make aprons   They're "old fashioned" but some are so cute!  I really want to make a Jack Skellington apron, but the fabric is no longer made




My daughter wants me to make her an apron off a pattern that she found.  I will start on it when I get back from vacation since the next two weeks until vacation I will be concentrating on deep cleaning my house.

[ilovedolphins]

I want to make a quilt but find too many other projects to work on and haven't gotten around to a quilt yet.

[Sharon]

I need to get going on a baby quilt for my nephew and his wife.  The baby is due at the end of August.  I am pretty sure that I will be doing a crazy quilt.  They both like more modern designs and a crazy quilt done with brights, batiks with maybe some blacks and grays thrown in should be good.  Karla Alexander is a quilt designer in our area and I love her stack the deck patterns.  Every block is different yet it goes together so quickly.  I have made this baby blanket 2 or 3 times already but using different color combo's it always works well.

[Sharon]

Stupid fabric manufacturers.  I started cutting out my baby quilt tonight.  I need 6 7" squares from 12 different fabrics.  Because of the stupid wide white selvages and the fact that most fabric isn't as wide as it used to be I am only getting 5 squares out of the width.  Fortunately this is a crazy quilt so if I throw in a another fabric it will still work just fine. 

[Apple]

This photo is a cross-post with my quilting thread, but it fits here too...

This will be the first large quilt I do.  I bought the fabric, took photos, and "designed" the quilt using excel.  Pretend the cloud puffs are shamrocks (in green thread).  It will be all hand-stitched, looking forward to starting it!  Probably will be a twin size so I can use it on the couch.  When I actually make the quilt, I'll post the real photo (so, give me about a hundred years, lol).

[Apple]

My mom is going to sit me down with one of her spare sewing machines  We'll make a bag for me to carry my quilt stuff, and get me used to a machine again (I want to do the quilts hand stitched, but I also want to learn to sew other stuff).

I went to Salvation Army today and found a cute tote bag panel (actually, two of them).  I'll probably machine sew it, unless I can learn how to sew 12-14 stitches per inch (recommended for strength)!



I also got a piece of "kid fabric" to learn stitches with the Senior Center quilting group (just met them Monday, they all know my mom, one kind of worked with my dad, and one is 99-years-old!).  They told me to bring in a piece of fabric for top and bottom, and some batting, and they'd get me started (I'll also bring in needle, thread, scissors, but they said I could use the cutting mat, rotary cutters, etc that they have there as well).  The fabric has a "road", school, grocery store, cars, etc, so I'll be able to follow both curved and straight lines to get my hand stitching down.  It's also small enough I should be able to get it done fairly quickly, which should keep me motivated.  It was a remnant size, so only 24" wide, so I may have to put a top and bottom border on it to make it a little wider, but it would make a good floor for a baby.

I'm really excited

[Sharon]

This is a quilt top that I finished piecing today.  Next weekend will be the sandwiching and quilting.  It is a baby blanket for my nephew and his wife.  I still have reservations about the colors but this is totally outside my comfort zone for colors.  To me baby quilts should be pastels   They are a young, modern couple so hopefully they like it.  When we were discussing it the Mom said she really like Orange and Gray.  Dad (my nephew) said he really like red and black.  Then we found out it is going to be a boy so I threw in the turquoise.  They haven't seen any of what I picked out.  This is a couple that custom ordered high top converse tennis shoes to wear for their wedding.  Nephew wore a tux and tennis shoes.  His wife had a beautiful traditional wedding dress and tennis shoes.  They are a fun couple so hopefully they like this.

This pattern really isn't as hard to make as it looks.  This is the 3rd or 4th one of these that I have made because it goes together so well.  It is the colors that have me worried.

ETA:  The pattern calls for 12 different fabrics which is part of the reason there are so many different colors

[Apple]

I think they'll love it, and the colors make it quirky

[Apple]

My mom sat down with me and showed me how to use her old sewing machine yesterday.  Today I started on the cow tote.

Not sure exactly how many hours I have into it (six maybe?), but I have everything done on the machine, I just need to turn the straps and tail right side out, stuff and attach the head and udder, then stuff the legs and make sure everything is stitched closed.

I wanted some internal pockets, but I forgot to grab extra fabric, so I used some of the scraps to make a pocket, and the cow's "story" to make a second one.  I wanted the bag lined, so I did that in red fabric.

I'm not sure this was the most beginner project to work on (the bottom of the bag is a curved "pointy oval", so I had to stitch the straight bottom of the bag to a curve, etc), but I figured it out







It's definitely messy on the inside, but it should turn out ok for my first project!

[dannylion]

That quilt is gorgeous, Sharon! Very bright and lively.  They are sure to love it. 

The cow bag is very cool, Apple! Well done. I like stuff that looks like other stuff. It will be fun to use.

[Apple]

I finished!

One of my coworkers (a guy) was watching me stitch the cow head together and he said it would look cool with "googly eyes".  I agree  They didn't have googly eye buttons, so I sewed on regular buttons and superglued the googly eyes to them.  Hopefully they'll hold!

Before googly eyes:




After googly eyes:




It's not perfect, but it's my first sewing project since I was a kid.  My mom realized she let me borrow the wrong sewing machine--the one I borrowed has a few issues that made it more difficult than it should have been.  I can make one more with the printed fabric I have, but I'll wait until I have the better machine.  

[Blonde Granny]

It's adorable! Great job, I love how creative we sewing enthusiasts can be even after a long time away from it.

[Deleted]

Love all of your creativity ladies! I can mend/hem/sew a button but that's pretty much the extent of my abilities. I inherited my Mother's singer *circa 60's* but didn't learn, unfortunately. I have bought beautiful fabrics  through the years because....well they were just so beeutiful and always in the back of my mind I was hoping to one day learn...never say never!


Sharon love your nephews quilt! you incorporated the colors they both like, plus the turquoise just put it over the top! Also love your multi-blue one..sigh..

Apple.....apron, cow and quilt- to-be= adorbs!! me thinks you should start an etsy shop..moooo! Seriously...how cute are those?!

if I've missed any others' pics, I love yours too! Love them ALL!

[Deleted]

oh Blonde Granny....!!!!! LOVE that precious quilt of yours, too!  Beautiful...

[Apple]

The fabric store took all my money this weekend!  However, I now have a couple super adorable panels I'm going to quilt for baby/kid blankets (since it's a panel, minimal sewing, just have to make a couple wider with a matching material since  the panel is only 24").  I have one with Donald Duck, two with a castle, knights and dragons, and two holloween ones with a haunted house, ghost and vampire.  The coordinating fabric is expensive, so I'll back with something different and only use it for the border (except the halloween one, there was a fabric with bats on clearance).

I also found some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fabric, some Nintendo Mario Brothers, and Pac-Man.

I also found some chicken fabric I want to use as the liner for a chicken tote for a friend's daughter.  No pattern, but I saw a photo and can figure one out.

[Apple]

Took me a few hours, but I hand stitched the top and bottom pieces on to my first baby blanket tonight.  Tomorrow night I'll press the seams (and try to get the center better), then make my sandwich.  I may or may not begin hand quilting it tomorrow.  I'm trying to learn the "Aunt Becky" technique, which could take a while, so I'll probably start with a smaller practice piece from some scrap fabric and a fat quarter. 



Video to see the Aunt Becky technique:

[Blonde Granny]

Way to go Apple!  My Mom always hand quilted her quilts.  Me? Gotta love my Bernina.  For DHs Quilt of Valor, I used the embroidery of my Bernina for the quilting, and the outer border had it's own machine embroidery done to it.

[Apple]

I'm probably going to do some machine quilted and some hand quilted, I just really want to do some all by hand.  I'm already a lot faster than I thought I'd be, so that's a good sign!

I did find a fast, easy, "quilt as you go" scrappy baby quilt I really like.  For that, I can use the machine and hopefully knock most of it out in a night or two.  Since you sew all three layers at once, and it doesn't have to be super accurate (just vertical stripes), it should go pretty fast.  I think the hardest part of those will be the binding and appliqueing some sort of animal in the corner.

[Blonde Granny]

My favorite part of quilting is doing the final binding and sewing it on by hand.  The front side of the quilt gets the binding sewn on by machine, but the back gets the binding done by hand.  I love sitting in my recliner ( I usually do this on weekends and watch movies on TV), and stitching on the binding.....