carrotflowers' sewing diary

No sewing last night

carrotflowers — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:16:37 +0000

And so far none tonight either. It’s a crappy feeling. I don’e even know why I didn’t get started last night. I can only sew after the baby is in bed, anyway, which is abot 7:30, and quit by about 10. Last night I spent some time fooling with this blog, actually, trying to mod the CSS and figure out blogging from flickr. Turns out I’d have to pay to edit the CSS since I didn’t bother hosting it. Plus I spent some time doing household stuff, like dishwashing. Lamz0r. By 9 or so the hubs was ready to finish watching Order of the Phoenix, and that was the end of that. Tonight? 45 minutes cutting up and marking pattern pieces for a bag, free pattern from Ottobre, and picking the fabrics.

While pciking fabrics and cutting patterns and prepwork like that is in itself pretty satisfying, if I don’t follow it up with actual sewing I feel a little hollow inside.

I have learned that rather than prep one project at a time, it’s nice to spend a good couple hours tracing a couple patterns, cutting up the fabric and laying it all aside. Later, when I’ve got several projects in a row waiting, that’s a happy space to be in.

And I actually did do some sewing in the last few days. I made a bag for my Mom after I finished the headband. More about that later. And I probably will expend some energy writing up older projects, just so I can make notes of my mistakes/what I learnt/how to do it differently while it’s sort of fresh in my mind.

Want to make: Corkboard wall pocket

carrotflowers — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:10:17 +0000

sewmamasew’s handmade holidays’ posts were jammed with great projects. Here’s another for the to do list. I fell in love with the fabric in the pics, so much that I procured some for myself; it just came last week.

Corkboard Wall Pocket!

I have a headband!

carrotflowers — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:24:46 +0000

Feeling industrious, I completed the headband the night after the last post. Not that it was hard, mind you.

Project Source: this tutorial, as previously noted.

Project Notes: I used elastic that came with my father in law’s dress shirt, wrapped around the fancy box. It’s much fancier than plain elastic! I made the thinner of the 2 templates offered. I only interfaced one of the fabrics; it wasn’t clear whether I was to do both.

Mistakes/Complications: I made the elastic 4 inches as spec’d, which was way too loose. I then lazily just folded it in a little and sewed it tighter. Now it is a little too tight. As you can see from the photo, you can also see a little of the reverse fabric peeking out. Poor ironing, I suppose.

Notes for Next Time: It’s a little wide as is, make it 1/2″ narrower overall. Also cut the elastic 1/2″ shorter, that’s probably shorter enough.

I want a headband!

carrotflowers — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:55:47 +0000

Me and my bangs, we’re done. I failed to schedule a haircut for tomorrow, Saturday, for the 3rd week in a row, as I always do. So before I embark on anything else, I am going to make this headband from a tutorial which, like the pincushion, I read about on sewmamasew’s Handmade Holidays. Why do I keep bringing it up but never link it? Because I’m just gonna add it to my blogroll before the sun rises.

I made a pincushion.

carrotflowers — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:34:25 +0000

I started learning to sew in September 2007, so this is not my first sewing project. But I completed it recently and I thought a pincushion was thematically apt to open a blog about sewing.

Project Source: this tutorial, which I chose after maybe an hour of googling. The pincushion idea had originally been sparked by sewmamasew’s handmade holidays blog posts, and I think the one I eventually chose was featured there in the first place.

Project Notes: this was super easy and super short. You make your own 2.5″ square template. What I really love, besides the design, is that it is the super perfect thing for small scraps of fabric you love. Yay! Also, my previous picushion, generously donated by my mom, was really some kind of stiff hackeysack? And it bent many pins that I tried to stick (or rather shove) into it. In comparison, my pins now slide in like buttah. Faboo.

Mistakes/Complications: I forgot to add the seam allowance while cutting my pieces. So I guess my end product was smaller than it was meant to be. But I don’t think of this as a real problem, and I heart my pinuchsion anyway.