A Beautiful Weekend Away...

Last weekend I spend an incredibly enjoyable three days up in the Alpine region of Victoria in a place called Mount Beauty on a Sewing and Chocolate weekend with some fantastic other ladies!!

In total 8 of us ventured up there for the weekend with plans to sew and eat chocolate. Much fun was had; much was sewn, many quilts and quilt tops completed and even more laughter had! Here are some snaps from the weekend:

And just look at this view:

The house, which belongs to Sally's family was amazing, and had some particularly inspring artwork on the walls, including these, which just jumped out at us as potential quilt designs:

Thanks Sally, Bek, Barb, Kristy, Lisa, Lorraine and Kaye for a really fantastic weekend! I can't wait to do it again another time!!

Sewing Lessons - part 2

Late last week Misaya came over for the evening and we had our second session of teaching her how to sew. After triumphantly completing her quilt top last time, this second session was devoted to basting and starting the quilting.

After a discussion of the merits of different basting methods we set to work pin basting her quit (mainly chosen due to the tools available at the time rather than anything else!). We also discussed quilting designs and settled on straight lines approx 1/4" away from each seam line, so when basting we tried to make sure that all the pins were about an inch away from the seam lines so that she wouldn't have to remove them as she quilted.

We seriously over pinned (using nearly all my pins, which should be enough for a double sized quilt!), but better to be safe than sorry eh!

Then it was onto the quilting. We had decided the quilting should be about 1/4" away from the seamlines as it would be much more forgiving to a slight wiggle than trying to stitch in the ditch (ie along the seamline).

Our evening was interrupted by a trip to the pub for some goodbye drinks for a dear friend and colleague, so she didn't get as much done as we would have liked, but she did get about 1/3 of the quilting done before heading home.

Hot Water Bottle Cover

Another of my Easter weekend projects was to make a hot water bottle cover. My old one was made with some left over flanelette from making PJs and wasn't really quite thick enough and was also starting to look a bit shabby. So, I used some of the scraps left from my genome quilt to make a coordinating hot water bottle cover:



Blues and greens on one side, and whites on the other, I foundation pieced strips until they covered the desired shape/size.



I then quilted down the lines with a free motion wiggle (white thread on the white side, green/blue varigated thread on the coloured side)




And lastly bound the edges with some bias binding to hold the two sides together.

It's not really been cold enough yet to use it, but I couldn't resist trying it out last week, It's definitely perfect for the job!

Coveting the Cambie Dress

Have you seen Tasia's newest pattern, the Cambie dress?

I have, and I think I'm in love, it's gorgeous! I've already ordered mine and I think it's going to take all my will power not to make one up as soon as the pattern arrives (which I sadly won't be able to do as I have other time sensitive things to finish first).

Sewing Lessons - part 1

One of my friends Misaya has been considering having a go at quilting for a while but was convinced that she wouldn't be able to do it. I was convinced she would, so I persuaded her to let me try and show her. After discussing various quilt designs and their suitability for beginners we decided on a strip quilt.

Last Saturday we headed on over to GJs to pick out the fabrics. We picked out the ones pictured above. The animal print at the top right was to be our "feature fabric", and then picked out a fabric to coordinate with each of the main colours in the fabric (down the right hand side). The stripes down the middle will be the binding, and the backing is shown on the left and is a lovely yellow flannelette.

Misaya informed me that she had no sewing experience whatsoever, so we started with the basics, step by step in the process. First was cutting the strips. I showed Misaya how to use a rotary cutter (including the important safety warnings!), and after a bit of practice on some scraps of fabric she cut her fabric each into two strips (of deliberately uneven size).

After choosing the order of the strips it was business time - sewing them together!

Again, after some practice on a scrap of fabric (above) it was onto the real thing! Misaya was a VERY fast learner and her seam was super straight. Here's her first ever seam:

First the strips were sewn into pairs, the pairs into 4s and so on until it was all one piece. A little pressing later and she had a quilt top!

That's where we stopped for day one (a fantastic achievement for anybody, let alone a beginner!). Stay tuned for Misaya's progress on this one, I think it's going to look great.

Too Many Secrets

Despite how it may appear here on my blog, I have actually been doing plenty of sewing lately, unfortunately I have been working on far too many things that (for the moment) need to be kept a secret, hence the lack of posts!

Happily, today I have something that I can share, some fabrics I picked out for a baby quilt. The boy has "comissioned" this quilt as a gift for his neice-to-be. So, lovely girlfriend that I am, I dragged him along to GJs to help me pick out which fabrics to use (it's a joint venture afterall!). Below is a pic of the fabrics that we ended up choosing. Aren't some of them just super cute?!

Stay tuned for what they get turned into!

AQC Purchases

This post is a little belated since life has somewhat been in the way of my blogging, but I still wanted to post about it. Despite how tempting it is to spend heaps of cash when you go to a quilt show, it's also a bit overwhelming with how much stuff is there! My purchases this year were very modest and all from one stall - Scissorman.

Last year at the show I bought a medium sized pair of scissors from Scissorman. Long story short, there was a manufacturing problem with my scissors and they had a blunt patch. Inconveniently Scissorman are located in a different state to me so I was worried about being able to exchange them, but one phonecall to Scissorman and I was reassured - they offered to post me a replacement pair. In the end they put me in contact with the distributor as they were located very close to me and I got a brand new pair.

These scissors quickly became my absolute favourite scissors and I was using them for everything, even things they weren't really suited for as they were a bit too small. I was using them instead of my shears because my shears have not quite been the same since I made my Hikaru jacket, and have some blunt patches on them from people cutting into pins that have never quite sharpened out.

So I decided to buy some new scissors! After my sucess with my scissors last year I decided to stick with the same brand, Kai, and also due to the fantastic service I recieved, I decided to stick with Scissorman. I bought these beauties:

A little extravagant but they're so smooth and just the right size for my hand. Needless to say, these will be treated VERY well.

(They're also veeeeeeery sharp! As my hand can atest to, I snipped through some skin by mistake on the weekend! ouch!)

I also bought a new cutting mat - A1 sized for only $30!!! and some more rotary cutter blades and a 12.5" square ruler.

I'm very happy with my little haul, and have already started making very good use of it.

Pyjama Party!

This weekend is the time to post creations for the pyjama party. I have made two pairs of PJs in the last couple of weeks, so have saved posting both of them for today.

They're both spotty, the first big spots on a teal background. The photo also features the raspberry and white chocolate muffins (I use this recipe but use sunflower oil as I'm allergic to peanuts so peanut oil wouldn't end particularly well!). It turns out the oven in our new place has a very reflective door, and while I was actually trying to photograph the muffins, the pyjama bottoms came out clearer:

The second pair are the ones that I made when writing my PJ pockets tutorial:

I have worn both pairs already and they're super comfy :)

Another part of the pyjama party is to share what you're reading at the moment. I am currently reading "A Dance with Dragons", which is the 5th book in the Song of Ice and Fire series that the tv show "Game of Thrones" is based on. I'm veeeery close to the end of it, it's taken me a while to get through, it's a Monster! I'm also currently listening to "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" by Bill Bryson, my April download using my Audible subscription (which I plan to talk about another time).

Anyway, I'm going to head on over to the pyjama party and take a look at everyone else's creations, will you join me?

Tutorial: Pyjama Pockets! - Part 2

I posted part 1 of this tutorial, how to draft the pockets, the other day, and here is the second part

How To Sew The Pockets.

After you've altered the pattern to draft the pockets you need to cut out your pattern pieces. You'll need:
- Pyjama Front Leg (x2)
- Inside Pocket (x2)
- Pocket Back (x2)
- Pyjama Back leg (x2, not pictured)

(as I ran out of PJ fabric my pocket back has a "patch" of the print on the top corner where it's visible and the rest is in a plain poplin, hopefully this won't confuse you)

First you need to sew the pocket back to the inside pocket pieces. Place the inside pocket on top of the pocket back, right sides together:

And sew along the bottom and centre most sides, as indicated in pink here:

 

Once you've stitched, also finish the edges. If you want you could also sew these two seams as french seams.

Now turn it over and fold back the pocket back:

Now turn it back over and line up the diagonal edge of the inside pocket with the diagonal line on the PJ front leg piece:

The fabric will be right sides together, with the pocket back folded out of the way in between the two. Sew along the diagonal line (marked in pink below) and finish the edge:

If you fold the pocket back round to the inside of the PJ front piece you'll start to see your pocket take shape:

Press the diagonal seam you just stitched. I like to topstitch mine to hold the edge of the pocket nice and flat. Usually with just one line of stitching, but here there are two:

Now you need to baste the edges of your pockets to the edges of the PJ front pattern piece to make it easier to sew the PJs together. Where you need to baste is shown here in pink:

Now you should have a PJ front leg pattern piece with a pocket that can be treated the same way as if it didn't have the pocket there:

I assemble my PJs by sewing together the two front pieces at the centre front seam, and then the two back pieces at the centre back seam, and then sewing the front to the back at the seams along the inside and outside of the leg.

The last step is to attach the casing for the elastic. I do this step slighly differently to how i've read instructions to do it, as I find it gives me more flexibility with altering the length of the elastic after assembling the PJs.

I cut a strip of the fabric double the width of the elastic plus 2x seam allowances - so for 2cm elastic (a good width for this I think) and 1cm seam allowances, I would cut a strip a smidge over 6cm wide (2x2cm + 2x1cm = 6cm).

Next fold the strip in half length ways and pin it to the top of the pyjamas, lining up the raw edges:

At the point where the ends of the two strips join (I usually line this up with a side seam) I fold back the ends inside of the strip so that they meet but the raw edges are enclosed:

(It's a little hard to describe, hopefully the pictures make sense)

Then you need to sew the band to the top of the pyjamas and finish the raw edges.

Next, it's best to top stitch just below the seam, so the seam allowances stay facing downwards (towards the legs, away from the waistband):

Last, thread your elastic through the casing and adjust it to the desired length. You can then hand stitch the tiny opening in the waistband closed, but I tend to wait a few uses to make sure I'm happy with the elastic length - I've found that it's often too loose to start with and I want to tighten it.

As well as this increased flexibility in working out the elastic length, I prefer sewing the waistband like this and leaving a small section to hand sew closed, rather than the normal way of sewing the waistband into a tube and then leaving a gap where you've not attached it to add the elastic as I find it's easier to do than to pull the unattached bit flat with elastic in it.

Anyway, all you have left to do now is try on your PJs to check the length and hem the bottom!

Look! PJs, with pockets:

I hope that this tutorial has been of use. If you have any questions please ask them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.

Tutorial: Pyjama Pockets! - Part 1

After buying my PJ fabric last weekend I told my friend Claire that I'd put together a tutorial for how I add pockets to my pyjamas.

You're probably thinking at this point why on earth would I add pockets to my pyjamas, but personally I think once you've had some with pockets you never go back!

Now granted, I don't just use my PJs for sleeping, I often wear my pyjama bottoms around the house if I want something comfy to wear and a pocket for my phone and such is very handy. I'm also a self professed pocket addict - if I can add pockets to something I will, so it was inevitable really.

The first pair with pockets I made had in seam pockets in the side seams, which was good but found the pockets bunched a bit. Since then I have added "slash" pockets (is that the right term?) to all my pairs and have slowly refined the size that I prefer.

Anyway, in keeping with the PJ theme in the blogosphere at the moment I thought I'd  speed up getting the tutorial written. I've decided to make my tutorial into two parts - first drafting pockets for your pattern, and secondly how to sew them up.


To add this type of pocket you will need to have a pattern that has a side seam down the outside of the leg. If your pattern is all one piece like Karen's you either can't make the pockets the way I do, or you'll need to add a side seam. You'll also need to use a separate waistband piece rather than just folding over the top of the leg piece for the elastic/drawstring casing, or it can get a bit bulky where there are extra layers for the pockets.

Drafting the pockets


Lets get started! You'll need your front leg pattern piece. Here is my little fake pattern piece made from a post-it to show you the steps:

 

Next measure in from the edge the distance of your seam allowances to mark the stitching lines along the top and upper section of the side seam:

Now you need to mark the diagonal line of the top of the pocket. I have found that I like my pocket opening to be about 5.5-6" wide. So I draw a diagonal line that is that long between the marked stitching lines - about 3" across and 5" down:

Next we will mark how big the pocket will be. I've made the mistake of making some waaay too small in the past but think I've now settled on a good size of 6" x 8.5". That's a good size for me. When I made the PJ bottoms for the boy he requested REALLY BIG pockets and I made them 7" x 10", which was basically the size of an A4 piece of paper.

Measure the pocket dimensions you want and mark them onto the pattern piece:

Then go around the lines you just drew and add seam allowances on to the bottom and central side of the pocket and above the diagonal line:

Now we need to cut the extra pattern pieces we need for the pocket. First we'll cut the back of the pocket, which is essentially a big rectangle, possibly with a slightly different shape along the top depending on the shape of your pattern piece (mine slope slightly down towards the centre front). To do this, trace around the top and outside edge of your pattern piece, and then along the side and bottom of the pocket (including seam allowance) that you have drawn onto the pattern piece:

As this piece is probably almost a rectangle, I strongly suggest marking the direction/top of the piece. Also label it as "Pocket back", and add other labels such as the seam allowance size, grain line and how many to cut (2).

Next cut along the upper/outside diagonal line on the pattern piece, cutting a triangle off the corner as shown:

Now repeat the process of how you traced the first pattern piece for the pocket except this time the rectangle will have a corner chopped off. You can do this either exactly the same way as before. Alternatively. a slightly easier way is to copy the pocket piece you made before, place it under the PJ front pattern piece, lining up the top and the edge, and then copy off the line to cut the corner off:

This is your "inside pocket" piece. Again I suggest labelling it up like the other one, you'll need to cut two of this one too.

You should now have three pattern pieces where you once had one:

They go in the order pocket back, inside pocket, PJ Front as shown:

I hope that all makes sense. If you have any questions please ask them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer

Stay tuned for the second part of my tutorial, which will cover how to sew them together into pyjamas.