i made a shirt! with safety pins on it!

it seems like everytime i post an article of clothing, i tell you that i used to make more clothes, honest.

it's true, i did.
and based on the size of my fashion fabric stash, i'd better get back into the habit.
but it's hard, when there are SO MANY quilts to be made, right?


one way to satisfy the quilt lust AND add to my wardrobe at the same time is to use those yummy quilting cottons for clothing. unfortunately, it's not really my favourite garment fabric.

let's be honest, for a top made of wovens to have enough fabric to let you move comfortably, it's usually pretty baggy and shapeless.

that look can be flattering if you're a smaller size, but for the rest of us, it has a tendency to lead to questions about our due date.

even knowing that, it can still be incredibly tempting to make yourself clothing out of that gorgeous AMH print, which is why this shirt pattern is brilliant!




designed by Melissa of Melly Sews, the Rose T-Shirt is made of a knit, so it has movement, comfort, and fit, but it ALSO lets you use some of your favourite designer quilting cotton.

when Melissa asked for volunteers to test her pattern before it was released, i jumped at the chance. i NEED to start sewing clothing again, if not to add some variety to my wardrobe, at least to start using up my stash! (garment fabrics take up too much space!) plus, i love designs that let me use my favourite quilting cottons in garments without requiring the full garment to be made of a woven (cases in point, my dresden skirt and green bicycle hoodie).



(i totally need a freaking haircut or something. bad hair day! that's what happens when you take pictures immediately after a nap without looking in the mirror first)

it didn't even occur to me to ask what sizes the pattern included when i volunteered, and it's been so long since i've followed a pattern for clothing that i'd forgotten that they don't come in my size anymore. however, it was super easy to adjust the pattern to make it larger, especially since i was making it sleeveless.



(also, i don't have a clue what i'm doing here. either my mom or the cat did something weird.)

the other change that i made to the pattern was to add a band at the bottom rather than a hem as instructed. this was partly laziness on my part, adding a band is less hassle than a hem, but my primary purpose was to add a little bit of length. the pattern as it's available now has an option for a longer top, but i cut mine based on the draft pattern.




i think that the pattern was supposed to have a bit more gathering under the centre piece, but i didn't enlarge the body piece quite as much as i enlarged the yoke piece. that's definitely a correction for next time.

i love this safety pin fabric.




i love this top. it's super comfy, it's super cute, it was super easy to make... perfect!



and i can happily report that this top DID motivate me to sew a few more garments, or at least, to start a few more! unfortunately, this has also led to clothing blog skimming, tutorial bookmarking, and fabric purchasing.... but i'm determined to use the new fabric! and the upcoming month of ruffles at See Kate Sew should be good motivation, you guys know how i love ruffles and any excuse to use my ruffle foot....



i'm popping this into the pool for Made For Rae's Spring Top Week, not only because there are prizes (we're less than a week in, and there are already numerous awesome entries, but one can hope, right?), but also to show off Melissa's awesome pattern!

this black and white dresden pops!

i've missed the past few Iron Craft challenges. i was busy with something else (damned if i know what) the week that the theme was Creative Activities (ie, things you'd enter in a state fair), and though last week's Shrink to Fit mini challenge would have been a great excuse to make a mini quilt, or something even littler like that patchwork ATC that i made years ago, i completely forgot about it.

but this week's challenge was different!

the theme was Black and White, and it fit perfectly into a few things i'd been meaning to get around to anyway.


you might not remember/know this, because i'm terrible at posting about it, but i do make clothes on occasion. i used to make clothes a lot, along with costumes for both theatre and burlesque, but since i've been obsessed with quilting for the past year, my garment sewing has pretty much fallen by the wayside. which means that i really really need some new clothes!

so one of the things that i've been meaning to get around to is making some new skirts. i have quite a few pieces that i've bought in thrift stores to reconstruct, and not nearly enough variety in the skirt section of my closet!

and i've been thinking about using quilting imagery/symbolism on skirts. i honestly don't remember where the idea came from, though i know i've seen a few different variations around since i've started thinking about it, so apparently it's a common idea!


new skirt + quilting imagery + a stack of black and white prints =





a dresden plate on a skirt!



the dresden plate is topstitched onto the skirt, and then the centre of the dresden was made using that applique method that everyone's been raving about for circles - you know, when you sew a super lightweight fabric to your regular fabric, like an interfacing or something, and then cut a slit in that and turn it right side out? i've seen it called double applique. anyway, i'm not super impressed.... you can see the lightweight fabric along the edge of the circle. it would be great if i was doing a zigzag around the edge of the circle, but if i was going to zigzag it, why don't i just do a raw edge applique?

but anyway, i still love it. the skirt itself is my favourite skirt material - doubleknit weight polyester, which i've always called fortrel. fortrel is technically a specific brandname, but everyone i know has always called all polyester of that weight fortrel. it's nasty to wear against your skin, i know, but it makes the BEST skirts! it hangs awesomely, and lasts freaking forever.



i bought a long black fortrel skirt at a thrift and cut off the bottom half for this skirt, which means i'll have enough left for another skirt from the top. i made a waistband using a comfier black knit, and a wide elastic. simple, effective. next i want to make one with hexies.....

my new favouritest hoodie ever!

i know favouritest isn't a word, but i've decided that it is. tough luck mom! (she hates it when i invent words)


i am so enamoured with this hoodie, i could hardly wait until today to post it!


a few weeks ago i was thinking about how much i love the prints on quilting cottons, but i hate wearing them, because they're really rather thin for skirts, and skirts are pretty much the only thing i'll wear out of woven fabric. so i started thinking of ways that i could incorporate quilting cottons into my primarily stretch wardrobe, and of course, the usual, applique, came to mind. and applique looks fabulous with florals or small prints, but what about fabrics with distinctive images, where the shape of an aplique will distract from the fabriuc itself?

around the same time, i came across hoodies at the grocery store (great canadian superstore, it's more than a grocery store, obviously!) in super yummy colours, and since they actually had my size, which they never do, i snapped up one in raspberry. i eyed the avocado green one, because i keep thinking that i should add more green to my wardrobe, but decided that i didn't really need it.

a few days after that the quilting cotton idea combined with the hoodie in my mind, so i took the raspberry hoodie to Spool of Thread to audition fabrics. i found lots of lovely fabrics that matched, but i COULDN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THE GREEN ONE. i came across this awesome black and white print, and could picture it so perfectly on the avocado hoodie.

so i bought it, and left the raspberry fabrics behind for now, full of trust that i'd still be able to get the avocado hoodie.

and three different store locations later, i did!

and this is what became of them!



i am so in love with this hood. i love how it feels, with the thin cotton over the squishy jersey. it's yummy!



i decided that the middle of the hoodie looked bare, and that it needed something between the hood and the pockets, so i added an applique. i couldn't think of a shape that would work with the bicycles and still show the print (because a bike applique would be cool, but it would have very skinny lines, so you wouldn't see the print very well), so i decided to monogram it. what the hell.



did i mention the other awesome part about my hoodie? this week's Iron Craft challenge was "On the Go", with the instructions to make something that honours transportation. isn't the fabric perfect?



AND, i made the hoodie on monday, which means that i had my iron craft project done EARLY. the world is officially coming to an end!

goodbye june - thank goodness!

so obviously, june was not a good choice for a daily challenge!

ohmygoodness. i knew june was busy, but i did not expect it to be as overwhelming as it turned out to be.

first, on june 16 the VMQG celebrated their birthday!!! we had a yummy cake and lots of other goodies, TONS of door prizes (one for everyone who attended!), Holly put together a fabulous talk and slideshow celebrating our first year, showcasing her own and Sonja's awesome photos, and everyone brought their completed (or partially completed!) Kona Charm Pack Challenge quilts. i was really focused on the items that i made for door prizes, and on trying to get my kona challenge quilts as finished as possible, and on organizing the meeting itself. Anna handled most of the food stuff, but i did up punch, etc and between everything else, i was very happy when the day of the meeting finally arrived, and even happier to sleep away the day after it!


i took my camera to the meeting - i even charged the battery just in case - and then i was way too busy to even take it out of my bag. luckily, Holly took some fabulous photos, and she's graciously given me permission to post them here.


first of all - the cake! ohmygoodness, the cake. who knew it was so hard to find a yummy, personalized cake in vancouver! we wanted the cake to have our logo, and use an icing colour that coordinated, but that turned out to be almost impossible to find for an affordable price. if we'd realized how hard it was going to be, we could have ordered an edible transfer of our logo online, since one bakery wanted to charge $60 for it (google found them for $10!), but we had no idea until it was too late. in the end, Anna found an awesome bakery, Richlea bakery, who did exactly what we wanted, and made us a super yummy cake. unfortunately, they were in Ladner! luckily, on our members, Matt, who owns The Quilted Bear in Ladner, was willing to pick it up for us.



and then we had the other cake! Anna made this super cute fabric cake for us as well!



it was so awesome to see all of the Kona challenge projects - i'm not in this picture - i was so frazzled, i didn't even realize they'd taken it until afterwards!


you should definitely check out more pictures of the Kona challenge projects in the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild flickr group, both the ones that Holly took, and ones that members have posted.



i'm not going to show you both of mine, cause they're not done (is that surprising?!), but Holly took some awesome photos of them in progress. i did two Kona challenges, because i won a second charm pack as a door prize.

one of my quilts is a large square, lap size quilt, and i'm backing it with this awesome vibrant rose printed rayon - it's soooooo soft, it's going to be fabulous to cuddle up with. i'll post of pics of it once i've finished it, because i've added a lot more quilting since the meeting. i'm almost done the quilting, and then i'll just need to put the binding on it.


you can also see a peek at the table full of door prizes between me and the quilt - i'll post the door prizes that i made to donate another day, but there were SO MANY amazing prizes!



but back to the quilts! my second quilt is a baby size quilt, and it uses 42 charms on the front, with the 43rd used to applique the Kona logo on the label on the back. the backing fabric is the same fabric used on the front, Kona grass green, which i'm totally in love with. it'll be the binding too, once i get around to it.


i wasn't really happy with this quilt, but looking at it in a photo, i'm totally changing my mind! it's funny how sometimes you need that different perspective. i like it a lot better now. you might recognize the layout as being the same as the Yellow and Orange Central Park pillow.


i love the back, and even more, i love this picture that Holly took of it!

the label is machine embroidered, as usual, except for the Kona logo, that's a wonderunder applique.


buuuuuttttt, as much as i like how the quilts turned out, the real hit of the evening was the t-shirt that i made to wear!

(i don't know what the hell that look on my face is)

almost every meeting, i get up there for show and tell, ramble on about how i made the quilt, the fabrics, etc, etc, and then end it with "and then i quilted the crap out of it". it's become a guild slogan, along with "i just made it up as i went along!" so i made a quick tshirt, with fabric letters fused on the front. i need to sew them down, but i didn't have time before the meeting. i want to make a silkscreen of it to put on other things - that'd probably be faster than cutting out all those letters was!

whew... lots of WIPS and little things!

lately i've been feeling like i'm having a hard time getting stuff accomplished. i'm flittering back and forth between projects, with not enough energy to finish all of them entirely. the past few weeks have been very busy, and though i don't often talk about it here (i completely missed blogging against disabelism day this year!), healthwise it's been a rough few months. i said last week that i was feeling discombobulated, and i think that's a very good word for me lately!

but there are some really exciting things happening! one i think is supposed to be hush-hush, and i'm cool with that in a don't-count-your-chickens-before-they're-hatched kind of way. i don't want to jinx anything!

the other two i can totally tell you about, but i'm going to save them for separate posts, just cause they're THAT cool, and cause i have lots of pictures to go along with them!


however, i do have lots of little odds and ends to show you and catch you up on!


i've been sending lots of letters, fun little ones.


like these accordion style playing card letters...




funky letters typed out on vintage ledger pages


letters with random sewing added as detail






and letters with fun envelopes, like these ones - they're security envelopes turned inside out and glued back together again.



i made myself a fancy hairclip to wear to a friend's grad, and altered a dress to go along with it.


i love the ruffle i added when i shortened it! (cause i'm really really short...)

i'm making myself a workbench for my drill press

(and not to be all conceited or anything, but the pictures i took of myself sawing turned out pretty damn hot... there are more in this folder!)

i'm totally appreciating the little movie clips that friends have made, while mentally planning one myself (i'll probably never get around to it!!)
an awesome one about trans "allies" that aren't really allies
(and totally check out bearabouttown's other amazing videos about stuff like access, ableism, and "women's spaces"


and an awesome one about personal space, consent, and the right to say no and be heard


i've been working on zine stuff and a baby quilt, making myself a few skirts (LOVING my ruffle foot lately!!), housesitting for my parents and trying to sort fabric while i was there, making curtains for my living room, and i'm working on an embroidery project which will never end, and planning so many more....



that sounds like a lot, doesn't it? it's really just because i haven't updated in so long, it sounds like a lot when you smush them all together into one post! plus, a bunch of them are still WIPs - one day i'll finish something.

i am a genius! or, an easy and cheap way to prevent shirts from falling off the hangers

i hope everyone had a good holiday season, and i'm definitely looking forward to posting many pictures of my decorations and crafty xmas projects, but i had a brainstorm this evening,and i just have to post it first!

as a fat person, and as a person with a somewhat irrational hatred of crew necks, i'm constantly fighting with hangers to keep my shirts held up.

(i don't understand why clothes come in different sizes, but hangers don't. wouldn't it make sense that fat person = bigger garment = bigger neckline?)

i know that you can buy those pretty velvety hangers or fancy wood ones with indents for the shoulder seam, but dude, they're pricey, especially if you're like me and hang up every single garment that you own. (drawers are magic for me - once i put something in a drawer, i immediately forget i own it, hence hanging everything up)

and you know, i actually LIKE wire hangers. despite stereotypical gay men on make-over shows ranting about how terrible they are, i think they're much more logical than wood hangers. wood hangers take up too much space! my closet is full enough, if i was using wooden hangers for every top i owned, i'd need two more closets! and they're cheap! and easily accessed! and they all look the same! you won't buy a bunch of them, then buy more clothes and try to get more matching hangers, only to find that they've been discontinued.

i've thought of a few options before: clothespins, which then leave an indent on the garment, velcro, which would rub on the garment and might snag it, very gently sliding the hanger with the shirt into the closet, then hoping that the sheer mass of items in the closet will keep it on the hanger.

or there are always those yarn covered hangers, the type sold at craft fairs continent wide. i contemplated making some, but decided it would take way too long to crochet or knot yarn around every hanger in my closet. then i thought about using a wide zigzag stitch and sewing yarn around the hanger, but decided that it might leave fluff on the shirt. since i'm completely lazy and don't bother to turn shirts right side out before hanging them up, that would be a pain in the butt.

so i've pretty much resigned myself to this -

a closet full of severely bent and mangled hangers, just to keep my shirts off the floor.

but no more!

today i was driving along and this popped into my head -

shelf liner! you know, that non-skid stuff that you use in the bottom of a drawer, or on the counter of an RV, or under your sewing machine when you're sewing super fast. (what? that doesn't happen to you?)

so i detoured to the dollar store, and picked up a roll of it for $1.12 with tax.

i came home and started experimenting.


i cut strips of various widths and tested them. 1" is just a bit too narrow, and 1 1/4" is still a bit fiddly, but 1 1/2" was perfect. the width needed will depend on the size of your sewing machine foot, but i honestly wouldn't try to machine sew this without a teflon foot.

i freaking LOVE my teflon foot, it's actually starting to wear out a bit because i use it so much. it's definitely a sewing necessity in my book. you can buy them from sewing machine stores, or you can buy them online. i got mine here, and it was about $10. you can also buy teflon tape for about $1 in hardware stores, it's used in plumbing, and attach it to the bottom of a foot you already have, though that probably won't last as long.

this project would also be SUPER easy to hand sew, and honestly, still pretty quick. you don't need tiny stitches, i used a 5.0 stitch length on the machine (basting length), and larger hand stitches would be fine. you won't even need to pierce the liner, because it has holes built right in - you could even use a cross stitch needle and some embroidery floss!


after you've cut your strips, cut the strip in half lengthwise.

the liner i bought was about 12" wide, so i ended up with 6" strips once they were cut in half. you could cut these in half again, and it would probably work just as well.

wrap the strip around the shorter upper edge on one side of the hanger. pins really aren't needed, because this stuff sticks to itself a bit.


move your needle as far to the side as it will go, and slide the top of the strip under your presser foot. like with any difficult fabric, it works better to start about 1/2" in, then backstitch. it doesn't "eat up" the fabric as much that way.


stitch all the way along the strip. you can see that there's quite a bit of seam allowance here, i found that the liner fed through more evenly when the strip was wide enough to sit over both feed dogs, so i purposely cut it wider than technically needed. you can always trim the seam allowance if that bothers you.


do the same on the other side, and you're done! super speedy!


doesn't that look better than the mangled hanger at the top of the page?


i managed to get 40 hangers out of my single roll, enough for all of my long and short sleeved tees. (that's kind of excessive, huh? i should clean out my closet! and yes, they're almost all black!)

if you cut your strips into 3", you'll obviously get more. i wouldn't get 40 out of another spool, because a few of the hangers were using the too narrow 1" strips, but you still get a lot of value out of the $1.12!


so, what do you think?


(also, i've used smaller pics than usual - don't forget that you can click on them to see them bigger!)

handmade nation and sewing FOR ME!!!!

it's beginning to look like i won't have the time to write about handmade nation before i leave on friday, so i'll just do a quickie post about it for now. i really want to write about it in more detail, because i've had several really good conversations about it since (andi and tishie!), and it's really correlated with some thoughts i've had lately, and other conversations that have been going on on other blogs. interesting, for sure. i took notes, so maybe i'll have time to write something up while i'm back east!

but overall, it was fabulous! it was really awesome to see so many people out for it - even though i barely knew any of them! i've been so out of the loop the last few years. i wish i'd been feeling better earlier in the week, i totally missed how many local twitter and blog folks were planning to attend, i could have met up with some of them. i did meet becka from bliss in a teacup, and that was awesome! (i got to see the goodies from their shop in person too - gorgeous! i'm so in love with the playing card magnets, and the wooden bookmarks that aren't up yet!) and i ran into jackie, who i haven't seen in a long time, which was also awesome!


my sister and i went together, and it was so awesome to hang out with her. photobooth vancouver was there, so we both tried to take pics "showing our DIY". my bag was too big to fit in the picture with me!!

(the last one is funny because i wanted to get up on the bench to show my skirt, but realized at the last minute that i didn't have time!)

my sister is so awesome! i love the look on her face in these pics.

i managed to get both of our tickets early enough to get goodie bags - goodie bags are always fun!


with all the paper stuff taken out

the soap smells super yummy, and thankfully wasn't an artificial flower scent - i wouldn't had to toss the whole bag then! really, scented soap probably wasn't the best/most accessible idea!

andi's bag had different goodies -

i'm super jealous of the little birdie pin, it's so cute! i don't know who made it, there wasn't a business card attached.

so fun! i love the little silkscreened totes they were packaged up in!

there was a craft fair set up before and after the film, and while i didn't buy anything more than cupcakes, andi found a brooch that's so totally perfect for her.

she also beat me, and bought the wooden bookmark from bliss in a teacup that i'd been eying. it was really better for her though - she even recognized the wood grain that it was. andi's such a wood snob!

most of the craft fair stuff wasn't really my style - gorgeous stuff, but pretty "boutiquey", not so much funky, you know? there were a few things i really liked, but since i'm trying to spend very little money before i go back east (i'm saving it all for prairie thrift stores!!), i resisted temptation!

there was apparently a book signing earlier in the afternoon, but i'm not sure how folks found out about it - i didn't hear about it until we arrived at the theatre and discovered that the book signing wouldn't be part of the Q&A afterward like originally posted. the Q&A was really great, and is part of what i'd like to write more about. and i got Faythe to sign my book anyway, so it all worked out!

here's a kinda crappy pic, the only one i got inside the theatre -

(taken from the balcony above)

lots of vancouver crafters blogged about it, most of whom had way better pictures than me - especially kim werker's, they're lovely! definitely check out cabin + cub's post, laura bucci's post, daulhaus' post (i completely fell in love with her pottery mugs), henryandlili's pic, and coco cupcake's post (i had two of her cupcake - ohmyGOD yummy!).

there were a few press mentions before the premiere, and it was really neat to see and talk to people who are totally disconnected from the primarily young "indie" scene, but read about it and decided to come out. there was an article in the Georgia Straight and Faythe was interviewed on Breakfast Television. (i STILL can't get the sound to work on my computer, and want to watch that so bad!)

and also go take a gander at the pics posted on handmade nation's flickr photostream, and the wrap up blog post!



in other exciting news, i sewed FOR MYSELF this past week. i never do that! i whipped up a couple of skirts, both altered from vintage clothing, made a few pairs of footless tights, and most excitingly, i made myself a purse!

the first skirt is pretty basic, i just cut the top off of a mid-calf length vintage fortrel skirt and added a super wide elastic waistband. i love the pleats!






the second was a bit more complicated, because the fabric piece i had was from the middle of a dress - andi already made a skirt out of the bottom for herself, and cut off the top. i LOVE the velvet fabric, so she gave me what she had left. it was barely enough for the skirt - i added a cotton waistband, and still didn't have enough to turn the hem up, so it's just serged.

(it's wrinkly, cause i took this friday morning after the premiere)

i added a pocket too, cause pockets are awesome!


i haven't made myself a purse since high school - i can't believe it's been that long! it's so ridiculous, i've been working for vinyl for so many years now, yet everything i sew is always for everyone else. this one was a prototype of sorts, so there are definitely things i'd do differently next time, but i'm still pretty happy with it.



it's HUGE, i know! i wanted it to be big enough that i could put small purchases in it, instead of using shopping bags, and i wanted it to hold magazines and a ziplock with my current embroidery project in it. it's bit too big, truthfully, but oh well!





the lining is this GORGEOUS handprinted cotton from thailand that i've been hoarding.

i did a long pocket on one side, with stitching to separate it into three - one for my cell, one for my camera, and one for a pen or lipstick.


and on the other side i did a zippered pocket out of the purple glitter vinyl


i made a button loop and covered a button in the glitter vinyl, but honestly, i know i'll never do it up. i should've just left it off, now the loop is driving me nuts - hence why it's pinned down! i do LOVE how the covered button turned out though!

i didn't take pics of the two pairs of tights i made, cause honestly, they weren't that exciting, but this pic, taken outside the theatre, shows the black pair. the other pair is a deep cranberry/plum colour. just basic cotton/spandex 4 way stretch, they take less than an hour to whip out.


i'm so glad i finally got around to sewing FOR MYSELF! now i just need to alter some tshirts and make myself a new hoodie....