Last minute gifts!

It's a busy week for sewing bloggers, at least the ones like me that don't plan ahead too well. I stumbled on this tutorial through Pinterest for making "burrito" style pillowcases. I highly recommend it as it very clearly explains the process  and is well photographed. The "burrito" technique is also the name of a method often used on yokes on tailored shirts, same principle and one you can find in the tutorials on this blog. Just click on the tab above. I needed five pillowcases for my grandchildren. Here you can see them all rolled up like burritos and ready for their first line of stitching. All components are in that tube!

Each child's pillowcases relates to them somehow. One loves Harry Potter, another butterflies, etc. A word to the wise if you try this. Any design that is directional will give you a migraine as you try to figure out which way to lay it out so the writing is going the correct way. In the link I've given you there are comments as to how to do this but I found them confusing. I really thought I had it the right way but clearly I didn't. Truthfully, my Zack will be thrilled with his Harry Potter pillowcase and won't mind at all which way the letters are going, so I'm not going to stress about it.

There are three pieces of fabric to each pillowcase. It was a lot of fun coordinating everything. My new steam press was really invaluable on this project which is nothing but flat rectangles. Basically. the pieces are pinned together. The hemband is wrapped around. Then it all is turned right side out through the tube. Next comes making the pillowcase with French seams and then done. Everything is enclosed. No raw seams or threads anywhere!

I put these together "production" style with every process happening to all the pieces before I moved to the next task. I think that really helped me save time. They were all cut out, then pinned and the burrito stitched. Then the French Seams to all of them, easy peasy, done! All five took me an afternoon. These will make great stocking stuffers.

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The Marcy Tilton dress is done and I love it, I really do. I did a lot to that pattern to make it work  for me and my fabric and can't wait to tell you all about it. I wore it to our Christmas brunch at work and received many compliments. While I wanted to take pics then, it just wasn't the right, as in proper, moment to do that. I have the entire blogpost written and will hopefully have pics of me in it soon. I could put it on the dress form but I know that's not what you really want to see. Here's a little tease, the interesting hemline:

The MT post would have gotten up sooner but my husband had some unexpected health issues. He is doing much better now and things are back on track. It did require lots of Dr. appointments and visits to Syracuse for care, hours away. We are good now and all is full bore for Christmas, visiting our children and families. All will be fine and he has great doctors. In the meantime I definitely have my garment sewing mojo back and have lots of things on the burner. Can't wait to share it all with you. ....Bunny