Sewing Vloggers

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The Mini Pressure Washer

There is something about this time of year that always puts me into a dither of organization and cleaning. It could be that I am preparing my nest for winter hibernation or is it  that I am following my mother in law's rules to do a total fall and spring cleaning every year? Either way, I am on it, leaving the depths of winter for more creative endeavors.
Yes, this is gross but I bet yours are no better unless you just moved into a brand new home, right? The windows on the side of the house that face the prevailing westerly winds seem to accumulate more than their share of dead bugs and debris over the summer, right through the screens.   I am always after them but it seems the actual cleaning, while working somewhat, just pushes and condenses the crap deeper into the corners. Then the light went on!!!

Because of her work, DD#2 keeps us well in stock on the latest dental appliances out there and this water pik is no longer necessary. It has now been ordained my mini pressure washer. Sure, I have often envied DH and his big pressure washing machine and all the magical power it has. But now I have one of my own. I took the the Mini PW, aka, Water Pik, to the window and spread towels on the sills and floor. Then I sprayed the sill with some cleaner and let that sit a few minutes. After that I just let my machine rip. The crap goes flying all over so you really need those towels but wowsa, instant spotless window sills. Wipe it all up, let dry, put a new coat of paint on the sills and looky here: Magic

All clean and pretty and ready for the screens to come off and be shut for winter. My mother in law would be very proud.

I then proceeded to use my mini PW on that nasty area where the faucets meet the sink, more magic! This is my new toy. No more of this one on my teeth but Dr. Elliott will take care of that!

I just had to share......Bunny


Monday, September 26, 2011

Faux and Flannel!

Yesterday was a "free" day, no cushions but I will be back on that saddle this morning. Instead I chose to do a bit of fabric shopping. My Christmas sewing is getting planned and I wanted specific fabrics I had previously seen to work up my choices.

For some little boy jammies I decided to go to the quilt shop on the Akwasasne Native American reservation. Its a wonderful shop, stocked to the gills with all sorts of goodies including the best flannels ever. I do all the required prewashing on their flannels and have yet to have one shrink. They have a beautiful hand and wear like iron. My grandsons love their flannel jammies and wear them nearly  every night. They and their moms always are asking for a new pair. While at the quilt shop, which goes by the name of  "Dream Catchers", I did see some unique items including a backing for fabric that shrinks your fabric up to 30 % once steam pressed. I could see all sorts of possibilities for that but I just have too much planned right now to get hooked on a new project, maybe later. I wish I could remember the name and manufacturer  for you. It was pricey. A 48x 18 piece of this stuff was 12.00 if recall correctly.


Now this fabric I am really excited about. I am definitely NOT a fan of Walmart, with their weak unattended fabric departments if they have one at all. Our local WM does have one and it stocks one product that I love and have been very pleased with, their faux leathers. Joanns has nothing like this. Again, this is one of those things I like to feel up close and personal before I buy so on line retailers I haven't tried. I started with a small piece of tooled faux leather a few years ago and was very impressed and have bought it often for use in  bagmaking ever since. It has a great hand, is very sewable, and really really looks good, not fakey. They recently got in our local WM a black and a red/black colorway and I had to have these to make some more bags for the holidays for gifts. You will be seeing these sewn up fairly soon. I just love that red and the black looks and drapes so nicely I am entertaining the thought of making a blazer out of it. We'll see what time allows. For the red I found some onyx colored chain and findings and what a great combo. I can't wait to work this up for all of you to see.

Today will be back to cushion number three. First I must make a ton more welting! Smocking is nearly done on Selena's bishop and more embellishment is contemplated.

Thanks to everyone  for the great feedback on the D&G jacket. Isn't it gorgeous? I need to do a bit of research as well as make a muslin before starting for real. I REALLY appreciated all your comments and feedback. Thank you so much. You are priceless!.......Bunny

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Dolce y Gabana

I have my boucle. I have my hand painted silk charmeuse lining. I HAD visions of doing a classic Chanel jacket using  the more "speedified" method from Threads as opposed to the Kahlje method. Then I saw this on Net-a-Porter.  I am in love! Are those vertical strips slenderizing or what? It looks so great with the jeans. It is the length I love. The mix of fabric and textures is also right up my alley.

After inspecting this a lot the following occurred to me about the construction.  I need your help, bloggers. This garment appears to be made, and I could be wrong here, with the technique that lines and finishes each section as it is sewn together. I hope I am expressing myself clearly. I don't know what this technique is called so don't know how to search it on the  web. I do know pretty surely  that someone on PR was giving classes on this sort of construction. Does this ring bells with anyone? Is there a name to this particular construction? I know it exists but am drawing a blank here. Can anyone shed some light on what my vague memory is trying to recall? It would be greatly appreciated.

Oh,yeah, the price on this is $1045.00 but if you buy today, madam, you can have it for the low,low, price of $625.00! You must order within the next hour. The first fifty orders will also recieve one free ShamWow! Doesn't get much better than that! 


Thanks for the comments on the cushions. Audrey really likes them. I finished the second large cushion last night and will power on through the two bolsters now. I am waiting for additional fabric to arrive before cutting it all out as I want to cut so what remains can be used in the window treatment.

Selena's bishop will have its  smocking finished probably today. It does need some more embellishment beyond the smocking, IMO. I will make those decisions when all smocking is complete. I might smock some pockets too. We'll see........Bunny

Friday, September 23, 2011

Home Dec Window Seat Cushions


 One large  cushion completed. I have three more to go so bear with me as I power through THREE MORE!. It was relatively easy to make. Here are some thoughts I had  as I made my way along this home dec journey.

As I have sewn long strips of bias, cord, welting, and seams I have had a chance to figure a few things out that seem to only apply to home dec sewing, not my "regular" sewing.

  • Always start any home dec project utilizing welting with a prayer. This will help prevent the needle from going through your index finger as you butt/push the welting up to the one sided zipper foot. There is no protection here.  Biting your lip helps,too. 
  • Everything about Home Dec is B I G,  big long strips, big long cording, big long seams, big long bias, big long zippers, you get the picture!
  • Sewing multiple yards  of straight stitching can give a body a really stiff neck and shoulders, something that doesn't happen when I do garments with all their various processes.
  • I think I have sewing ADD. Flitting from one process to another is my idea of fun sewing. You know, gather a sleeve cap, stitch it in the armseye, stitch again, trim, maybe add a sleeve head.......all these small processes to produce one sweet sleeve. In Home Dec you need much more focus, IMO, to sew yards and yards of straight seams and that gives you a stiff neck too.
  • It takes a lot of space to sew Home Dec. Right now my family room, which is quite large, has spread out on the floor cushion tops and bottoms, big pieces of foam, little long pieces of foam, additional fabric all layed out so I don't have to iron it again. It takes a lot of freakin' space. 
  • These big simple projects with only straight seams take a lot of time to sew. What part of Einstein's theory doe that pertain to? The less complicated the project, the longer it takes to sew? Hmmm...
 In reality this has been a very satisfying project. I have enjoyed it and I think each cushion will look better and better. Its really not complicated sewing.


A few construction thoughts:
  •  Get that Sunset Book, "Slipcovers and Bedspreads". It is invaluable. 
  • When you get the book, read it and don't skim like you might a pattern. Really read it. I learned the hard way that the zippers needed to go around the back corners and up the sides. I thought just having them go across the back would be fine but you need them to traverse the corners so that the cover opens up enough to easily slip the foam cusion inside.
  • I went and bought zipper coil and made my own zips to get them long enough to reach around the corners. They sell zipper coil and the pulls and stops at Joanns pretty inexpensively. It took a few tries but I finally got the pull on and the zipper works great. Now I know how to make my own zippers, wahoo!
  • You can see in the pic that the zip is double stitched. I also ran a bar of soap up and down the zip to get that metal to move more smoothly. I did my zip pretty much like a slot zipper installation, sewing the seam with a basting stitch first. 
  • As mentioned in a previous post, the stitching was at 9 stitches to the inch except around the corners and at the ends of the zip where I dialed it up to about 14. 
  • The fabric is NOT pretreated in any way by me. DD and I decided, after some research, that it would be best to just get these drycleaned when necessary. My experience with home dec is that unlike garments, you really want that finish the manufacturer puts on the fabric. It adds so much and prevents that  Becky Home Ecky look that would come from washing the fabric. Custom WT are not precleaned in any way and it is always recommended they be professionally cleaned. Trust me, they are not pre shrinking cotton welting in the workroom. 
  • The finished cushion is 52 inches wide, 24 deep  and 3 inches high. There will be two of these side by side on the window seat. The will have bolsters on top against the wall. The fabric is from Richloom and is an indoor outdoor sunbrella type fabric. The cushions are high density (the green) foam from Joanns.
So I have three more cushions to go. I have also been TV smocking away on little Selena's bishop. It is looking sweet. I may do some bullion butterflies, we'll see what happens when all the smocking is complete. Back to the workroom........Bunny

    Wednesday, September 21, 2011

    Cushions #3, Welting

    The past several days the focus has been on putting up more vegetables for the winter. The two previous days were spent roasting tomatoes and other goodies down to a sauce and bagging them up in the freezer. DH and I love "caponata" so today I roasted a couple trays of tomatoes with all the tasty goodies again but also the addition of cubed eggplant and capers, yum! I've been using fresh herbs from the garden as well and have to say these roasted sauces are incredible. DH and I sat and gobbled up the sauce with ritz crackers it was so good.

    Back to sewing:
     At this point the two large cushions are all welted. To turn neat corners an inch short of the corner I would dial down the stitch length. Then, with a pencil, I would draw a line from the cord to the raw edge one half inch short of the corner as you can see above.
      That pencil line is then snipped to within 2 threads of its meager life. Once that one is snipped do two more snips, one  a half inch to the left and the other a half inch to the right of the first snip. It helps to have your needle down. Now, line your edges up and stitch around the corner. I don't do a sharp 45ยบ corner, instead opting for a slight curve around the welting. It just sort of naturally happens so don't over think this too much. One inch past the corner dial back up to your normal stitch length which by the way, is longer for slipcovers than garments. I am sewing most of this at a recommended 9 stitches per inch. I dial the corners down to about 12-14 stitches per inch.

    The next issue with welting is how to start/ finish the ends of the strip. You should start putting on the welting at the back of the cushion. Start sewing at least one inch from the actual end of the welt. Sew the welt on all around the cushion and one  inch short of the end stop, needle down, foot up. On the ending welt open up the welting and undo the stitching to reveal the cord. Cut the cord only so that it matches right up with the cord of the starting welt. Take the fabric of the ending welt and fold it under 3/8ths of an inch. Slip this under the starting welt so the two inside cords are butting heads with each other. Fold over and stitch the welt down using a smaller stitch and some back stitches. It should look like this:

    I have purchased zipper coil and pulls and will be making the two very long zips needed for the cushions. I purchased shorter zips which will work for the bolsters fine as they are so thin. So that is the next part of the process.

    Cissie, aka "Design Dreamer", asked if I could show the "ski type" zipper foot. You can see it in the pics. It has a screw in the back so the foot can be moved to any place you would like left or right of the needle. It is wonderful for zippers and welting and why new machines don't automatically come with one of these anymore, who knows!

    Tomorrow I will be roasting and skinning peppers for preserving in a brine, at least I think I will use that method. We have quite a few peppers but I may supplement with some from our Amish neighbors. Their produce is all organic and so big and beautiful its amazing. I will leave you with a shot of one of the trays of roasted caponata:
     

    Bunny

    Sunday, September 18, 2011

    Cushions Continue, #2

    Yesterday I dealt with the foam. It is high density polyurethane foam. Because Audrey's window seat had little measurement idiosynchrosies each piece of foam is marked Left or Right and has arrows for Up and Front. By wrapping the foam with quilt batting the cushion should fill more nicely in the corners and crevices. Again, this is info gleaned from that great Sunset publication. You can get a crisper look without out it but I think it will work better with the batt.
    I used Elmer's spray adhesive, OUTSIDE, to secure the batt to the foam as well as glue some foam to foam pieces for the bolsters. It worked very nicely, but the fumes, oh my. Outside is the only way to go here. particularly if you are asthmatic like myself.
     
    Here you can see the fabric chosen for the cushion bodies. It is from Fabric.com and made by Richloom. She wanted something rather fun and whimsical because it is after all a glorified laundry/mud room. With leftovers from this and the striped welting we will fabricate some sort of window treatment. We will see how much fabric is left before any decision is made there.  

    Today more cutting, spraying, and gluing continues. It is far too beautiful out to  not spend time outside, however, so cave time will be minimal. 

    Cynthia asked how my sewing room redo was going. Well, I have purchased some more fabric and goodies and will work on these in between other projects. It will happen in time. One thing I am toying with is slip covering my office chair. I am thinking  a white matelasse with a  bias black and white check binding. I need to get to Home Goods in NH to get the bedspread  I  will use for this project. I also have some magazine boxes to recover and am saving up for a super wall unit I found on line for laces and trims. I will let you know when it is ready to go on Nate Berkus, LOL!...Bunny

    Saturday, September 17, 2011

    The Cushions Begin


    Twenty Two yards of welting completed and I've got a stiff neck! Now its time to suck up the fumes from the spray adhesive being used to attach the batting to the foam. Just kidding, as I will be going outside to the picnic table  for that chore.

    My "Sunset" book suggest using a ski type zipper foot for the entire construction. Makes sense as all seams are either welted or zippered. For this I brought out my old Kenmore, a heavy duty workhorse with one of those wonderful ski type feet....Bunny

    Friday, September 16, 2011

    Bias Strips Tute, Method #3

    I just made 22 yards of bias strips for the welting for Audrey's cushions. It went very quickly and I like this new technique I tried. I found it gave me more accuracy and was pretty easy. I call it Method Three or Bagged Bias because you sort of make a bag at the start. I used Method Three because I think we all know the fold it up and rotary cut method (#1), the method that looks like a pair of pants (#2) and this one. It is sort of like Method #2, but I think less hassle. 
    I got this method from this really fabulous book on making slipcovers by Sunset. This book is so clear and I've yet to find a question unansered. Its all in there. (Sorry for the big white blob. It's better than the big white glare that was there originally.)

    • Square off your fabric. Mine is 36 by 52. Fold along the short end. You have a fold at the top. Pin the other three sides, matching as needed. At the machine stitch the three pinned edges, not the folded one, with a half inch seam. Don't bother making small stitches or fussing at the corners. 
    Cut off all four corners about an inch and a quarter down. I didn't go that far on this one and should have. I had to compensate later instead.
    You will need to be able to get a pair of scissors thru the corner. This is a knitting needle, just to make the point.
    • Mark each corner. With the fold at the top, top left is A, top right is C, bottom left is B, bottom right is D.
    • Fold it so it looks like this pic in the book, with A and B at the bottom and D andC folded and at the top. I found it helped to press in the crease from C to D. Then slip your scissors in the D hole/corner and cut across the crease to C. CUT ONE LAYER ONLY!!!  
    ETA, 09/27/12: It appears a typo is in the book regarding A and B. Just ignore the letters A and B and make sure you have folded the "bag" so it looks like the picture, folding on the imaginary line between C and D. Make sure you cut ONE LAYER ONLY from D to C and it will all work well. 

    This will give you a big bias tube. You will have to shake it out a bit to make the tube. Once you get the tube shape square it all off again. Press your seams open as well.


    Six inches from the left side of the tube, from the fold, measure and mark a line. From that six inch line draw a line every 1 5/8ths inch or whatever is appropriate. This is for home dec welting, not piping so I am using 1 5/8ths. You may want narrower for piping. 

    With your rotary cutter cut each long strip but only up to the long  vertical line. Now open up the solid section and rearrange the tube to  so the solid section  is all flat in front of you. Time to get out the pencil again!
    I've emphasized this with a white line. Draw a line diagonally from the beginning of each cut on the left to each cut on the right, moving down one  section. Your lines will all be diagonal as above. Cut across those lines, the white ones here, and voila, you are done and now have miles of bias strips all in one continuous piece. I think this is the cleanest, neatest method I have tried and hope you give it a shot next time you need some bias stripping.

    For those concerned that the stripes will now be "off" it is totally unnoticeable on the cushions as you can see in later posts and above. 

    *09/19/2022 ETA: Edited to add a link from a popular youtube sewist. This is how NOT to ever cut your strips with a rotary cutter, VERY DANGEROUS!!! Extremely Dangerous Rotary Cutting of Binding.    Beware of what you see on youtube.

    *************************************


    The last of my dehyrated tomatoes. You can see they are still quite fleshy. The insides are grey with the pepper/sugar/salt mix that was sprinkled on. DH says I put up about a hundred pounds. Dressed weight, not so much! These will be wonderful popped in a salad come the middle of winter when tomatoes are 3.99 a pound.

    The bias stripping was my first step in the process of making the window seat cushions. Next will come glueing the batting to the foam. Tomorrow will be a sunny day so a good one to work outside. I don't like those fumes from the spray adhesives getting sprayed inside the house. Till then........Bunny

    Thursday, September 15, 2011

    Smocking Q & A

     

    I have started the smocking on Selena's bishop. I started on the wrong row and had to rip all that out and now its my second try. You can see, somewhat barely the threads that hold the pleats together. The rows are marked with white quilting thread and the half rows in between are a light brown. I always pleat half rows. I am not really good at judging distance, particularly when doing the wave stitches, so the half rows help my accuracy. 

    We had some questions regarding this project and smocking in general so I will answer them now. Sewconsult asked, "Is it a batik?" Yes, it is. It is in pale pastel colors and has the slightest drawing of a butterfly. Her next question was "do you block before you smock?". I do. Some don't saying its not necessary but when it comes to hand needlework I like to stick to the tried and true. The pattern I am using, like most, provides a "blocking guide"  for each size dress in the envelope.

    Debbie Cook asked, " why do you have to count the pleats?"  This is for placement of the smocking design. It must be lined up at absolute center of the garment to be visually pleasing and you need an equal amount of pleats to the left and right of center so that when you end up the smocking in the back of the garment the design will match on either side of the bodice. Smocking "plates" (the smocking design) always indicate where the center front is  and you can see this in the pic in yesterday's post.   

    I dehydrated another batch of tomatoes today and will do one final batch tomorrow. We are expecting frost tonight and the trees have started to turn. This chill has made me realize I need a jacket, not a big wintry one, but a light jacket, maybe a Chanel type jacket, hmmmm,,,,,,,,Bunny


    Wednesday, September 14, 2011

    Selena's Bishop

     

    The dress is all pleated, pleats are now counted and I am ready to smock.  I will be using the Dimity plate from the The Best of Australian Smocking and Embroidery, my go to book for smocking designs. 
     
    Bishop dresses require that a "wave" design or some other very elastic design be used at the bottom of the smocked area. This allows the pleats to spread open as it falls over the child's upper chest and shoulders. 
    Today is dehydrating tomatoes day and I am off to do that now. Hopefully I can get my half bushel into the dehydrator in one fell swoop. You can also dehydrate tomatoes in your oven at a very low temp like 150ยบ. I only dry mine till they are dry but not leathery. 


    Recipe:     
         Mix 2 tablespoons each of freshly ground pepper, kosher salt, and sugar. Cut roma tomatoes in half on the length. Over a bowl and with a spoon scrape out all the seedy wet stuff. Lay on your tray skin side down. Sprinkle with the spice mixture. You can be heavy handed here. Dehydrate for anwhere from 4-8 hours. This is very dependent on weather conditions and can vary a lot. Shoot for a slightly leathery tomato but not one any way near like what you have in the stores. Because they still hold moisture, bag em up in freezer ziplocs and freeze till the depths of February. Pull out a bag, throw into a fresh salad and dream of summers past. 
    ETA: Just wanted to add, take that big bowl of juice and pulp that you scooped out and cook it down into a wonderful sauce. I added a garlic, a bit of grated onion, S&P, and two big tablespoons of freshly made pesto and cooked it all down until thick and sticking on the bottom. It was sooooo good.

    Bunny

     

    Tuesday, September 13, 2011

    Selena's Bishop

    The musical interlude is over and we are back to sewing! Those guys were great, weren't they?

    My BFF just had her second grandchild and she is a little girl so this is where best friend Bunny jumps in and says, "Hurray!" I get to do a frilly little project. You've seen me make this dress many times. It is my go to Bishop dress. I use a Bishop as a gift garment because the size is so forgiving and the length of the wear time is long. It's my habit to give a one year old dress so she will be in this next summer. I find babies have loads of newborn fitting clothes and a year later the supply dwindles down. Besides, I want this little sweetie to wear my efforts for a while, not just a few weeks. 

    This classic bishop is not too full, not too complicated, and comes with two smocking plates. I am not sure yet if I will use those. I'll also may make the back so it buttons all the way down and may add some pockets as well. It will evolve. 

    I have started designing Sophie's Christmas dress. I have the fabric, hopefully enough, and the ideas worked out in my head. I can't go any further at this point. I've put together a sloper for her but the design requires many changes. I will wait until I can actually drape it on her and start cutting, moving, and adding. So that project is on hold until Columbus weekend. 



    All peeled and ready for the next step! I put up 15 quarts two days ago, 15 quarts today, and will do fifteen more tomorrow. I am turning into a tomato. Tomorrows batch will be dehydrated instead of stewed. I use Romas for those. Are  you  canning, freezing, or "putting food by"? ....Bunny

    Monday, September 12, 2011

    Wakeup Lovelies!

    I just couldn't resist! This gets hotter exploding at the end.


    Saturday, September 10, 2011

    Beaded Valance is Complete!

    These are complete and I am pleased. I sure hope Audrey is as well. Today I mounted them on the board. I used the same board as the original designer but his returns went beyond the width of the  board. I will velcro those to the window molding so nothing will be swinging out. I'm also thinking of adding some weights at the hem of the returns to help them not wing out like the original valance. So I think with these tweaks, once installed, they will look great in the "copper" bath. Here is what the wrong side looks like:
    This wasn't the only thing I finished today. I covered my new sleeve board with a couple of layers of wool blanket and some black and white toile. Kinda cute?
    So the room is coming along, bit by bit. I did some retail shopping today but saw nothing that I wanted in the room. I will wait till my next visit south and hit Home Goods, one of my favorite places on the planet.

    I am not sure what is next. I am going to do a bit of reading before starting the next project. I want something to work on before starting the next phase for Audrey - the mudroom cushions and window treatment. I am tossing between starting a slip cover for my office/sewing chair and Sophie's Christmas dress. I have to do a bit of inspirational reading before I start so I am off to dig out the SBs and AS&Es. (Sew Beautiful and Australian Smocking and Embroidery for the non heirloom of you) . In the meantime its time to pick and put up tomatoes!....Bunny

    Friday, September 9, 2011

    Audrey's Guest Bath Window

    This is DD Audrey's guest bath. It is an oddly shaped room as the house sort of rambles at an angle but it is still pretty. You can see the custom window treatment the previous owner had installed about 2 years ago. It is falling apart with the returns winging out. It looks a little short here too but doesn't seem to IRL.  I took this home with me to help with making the new window treatment.
     Custom window treatments, particularly small valances, are often mounted on a board covered with muslin as you see here on the original WT. The edges are covered with bias and stapled to the board. That's right, you can't throw CWT in the wash usually, so to maintain them you want to dust with the vacuum brush maybe once a month to keep them clean. You can also have someone come in the home and steam clean them while they are hanging, something usually held out for big drapes and cornices. Back to our little guy here - The mounting boards are often attached to the wall with L brackets but in Audrey's home the moldings are different and heavier. They are wide enough to just sit the board on top of the window but I think I may attach it with some velcro or something. I couldn't believe when I just lifted the original WT and walked away with it.
    Here's what Audrey has chosen. The colors you see in the sample dots are accurate. All other pics are not. It is more coppery and creamy which compliments the hammered copper look of the glass vessel sink. You can also see the beads which I think will work well with the sink also. Those dots of color are the inks used to print the fabric and are on almost all "real" home dec fabrics. Keep this strip to shop for other items, like towels.
    My first step was measuring the board and figuring out what size pieces of fabric to cut. This is a simple flat valance with a center pleat and a pleat at each corner. This is where my notebook comes in really handy. You can see here my calculations. When I designed and sold CWTs, we would submit worksheets on this idea to the workroom to make the WT. The pleats made it necessary to use more than the width of fabric so an extra 5 inches was inserted/hidden  in the center pleat. You have to be real careful about the match when you use more than a width of fabric. With small pieces like this you can just put the first cut on top of the yardage to match up the second cut.
    To sew the beads on it was necessary to tape them down and also use a "ski" type zipper foot. That foot let me swim right along compared to the new type zipper foot.
    When the WT was complete I added the bias to the top edge and triple zigzagged it on the fold. The WT is complete other than mounting it to the board and that I will do tomorrow.

    When I attached the lining to the top fabric I did it just like the Nancy Zieman collar, stitching just the bottom edge and understitching with the triple zigzag. That kept the beads from pulling out the lining. Then I just stitched up the sides like a pillow case. More tomorrow...Bunny



    Thursday, September 8, 2011

    Sewing Room Window Finished!

    These took me most of today and a bit of yesterday to stitch up.  They are lined and banded. I put the sheer underneath to soften the view. I love looking out at the garden and the wildlife but don't like the framework of the porch encroaching on the view. I thought the softness of the sheer could hide that a bit.  I used eyelet to make the tiebacks but I am not sure I will stick with these the way they are. I may shape them or use a different fabric. DH has suggested new lights. I have not been happy with these lights as it is very  difficult to find the correct bulb for them. So we may trade them for something with bulbs easier to replace.

    This is just the first step of the journey. Coming up will be covers for other pressing tools, painting some accessories white, looking for more milk glass. I use to have loads. I will hang some artwork, cover some boxes for magazine holders, slipcover my desk chair and more. I am going to pick at all of this as I have a deadline to meet for DD's projects. Tomorrow I will start on her powder room window which should be quick and fun. This will be mounted on a board and beaded so a fun little project. Then I will move on to the upholstery. In the meantime I also hope to get moving on the smocking for Sophie's Christmas dress. I think I am going to smock "sideways" being inspired by a couple of items made by my smocking friend Kathy Dykstra. She is currently published in Sew Beautiful and has many accolades and articles in SB and AS&E to her credit. She does amazing work. ...Bunny

    Had to Refurbish This One!

        About  6 or 7 years ago , during the dawn of the Zipper Trend,  I bought one of my rare retail items. It was a blush pink and black bord...