Sometimes, you just have to sew...

Dear readers, my life has been hellishly busy the last week or so.

My social life is always a little crazy (it's genetic - my mother is the same way - entirely too busy for her own good), but my work is usually nice and steady, to balance it out. Except the last week and so far this week - which has been insane!

After the Big-Important-Work-Meeting yesterday (the cause of all the extra work), I came back home, mentally wiped out, and sat on my couch mindlessly for a couple hours. And then, the itch to sew took over, but I was still wiped out. What to sew? Certainly not my fully lined dress, which is waiting for me - that would involve thinking, and I had nothing left in the tank.

And so, I reached into my closet, found some random scrap, and starting joining pieces of fabric together rather randomly.

Here are the results...





Two tote-bag shells, one finished little zippered pouch, and the fabric for another zippered pouch laid out.

Will these totes ever get finished? Will the other zippered pouch ever get made? Who knows? They served their purpose - sometimes, mindless sewing is pretty necessary.

A beer to call my own - photo!

They even named it after me! Ooh, the excitement.



Let's just say there was a fair bit of bragging going on.

A beer to call my own!

If you know me at all in real life, you'll know that apart from being crazy about sewing, I'm also crazy about beer. (Sewing + beer, still not a good idea.)

And so, you can imagine the squeal of excitement when I saw this on Facebook:



My beer recipe - actually being made. It doesn't show up on the Facebook feed - but the beer I'd suggested was a play on a classic Mexican 'mole' sauce - with chocolate, hazelnut extract and dried ancho chillies.

So excited! I'm positively giddy with delight. (I'm not going to actually put it on my resume - but I'm totally going to brag about this forever!)

Why I quilt...

Elizabeth asked an interesting question in the comments (I love both comments and questions - keep them coming!):

Can I ask why you keep making quilts when you don't like to? Why threaten your mojo and joy with things you don't want to do?

That's a great question, and one I actually think I have an answer to. Basically, I quilt for 4 reasons.

1. I quilt to finish up old UFOs.


The red quilt belonged to this category. This black-and-white quilt I did with my mother is the same - it sat in the UFO pile for more than 3 years. These projects tend to be fairly involved, left over from the days when I used to make quilt tops all the time. These are really grudging, with very little inherent reward. Why I do it? I do enjoy the satisfaction of checking something off a to-do list though, and that's basically what keeps me going.

2. I quilt to use up left-over fabric.


I can't stand fabric waste, and I'd much rather piece a quilt top than throw away scrap fabric. This is my most frequent type of quilting. My favorite quilts in this category are the woolen one shown above, and this crazy quilt. Examples of this kind of quilt top abound through my blog, and actually, of all the kinds of quilts I make, I have the most fun with these. Why I do it? It gives me immense satisfaction to make something useful out of scrap.

3. I quilt as a gift for other people.


I don't often sew for other people, but there are times when a quick little baby quilt is the perfect special present... The t-shirt quilt made for my brother falls in this category as well. And the photo quilt top pictured above was a very special present for my grandmother's 90th birthday. Why I do it? I might grumble about the process of making these quilts, but I'm actually all warm and fuzzy when they receive it and really enjoy it. (I've made one quilt for someone who wasn't super appreciative, I won't be repeating that. Most people love being given a hand-made quilt.)

A subset of this category is when my mom needs me to quilt her something (she's a quilter herself, so I only get asked when she's seriously short of time.) I might grumble (a lot) but my parents spoil the heck out of me, and it's the least I can do in return. (Damn! My mom reads my blog. Does this mean she'll pile more projects onto me? Kidding!)

4. Very rarely, I'll quilt because I have nothing else to do.


This is pretty rare though, but this will occur when I'm spending the day at my parents, or something like that, where I can spend some time sewing a quilt, but don't have any garment patterns at my disposal. (Also, my mother's sewing machine is the machine from hell - I'm not ruining a nice garment by using that thing.) The quilt above was similar - I was on vacation in Madras, my hometown. The internet access wasn't great, so in the spaces of time between visiting family, I made a quilt top. (Incidentally, this is the quilt that's on my bed right now. I do use them!)

So, though I whine each and every quilting project (and trust me, I whine!) - I actually get some satisfaction out of it (even if it is to just cross it off a list.) What I've become very good at nowadays is not starting a new quilting project (unless it is to use up scrap). And eventually, I'll be all caught up with the UFOs (ha!), and then, no more quilts. Until that day, I'll grumble away...

Calling for help! (Especially the Australian kind...)

Months ago, I was at some bookstore (in Montreal, I think?) and was flipping through their sewing magazines, and came across this one - the Stitches magazine, published in Australia. I was attracted by the idea of a no-sew draped top, but there wasn't enough in the rest of the magazine to justify buying it... or so I thought.



Months later, this is driving me insane, because in the article about the no-sew top, they referenced a book that is all about the draped clothing of cultures all around the world. (This is what I remember, at any rate.)

Does anyone have this magazine? If so, would you do me the world's biggest favour, please? Would you look up the article and tell me what the book they refer to is? That book, I think I would buy. Or atleast try to get my library to find. I'm trying to avoid spending $10 on a magazine just to find out one little book reference.

Pretty please? Sugar on top?

Plaid shirt - McCalls 6035

I did indeed get some time to sew buttons, and therefore, voila! Plaid shirt photos.

This is my third iteration of McCalls 6035. (Previous versions here and here.) This time, I cut the fabric in a single layer, to line up the plaid as best as I could. I did a reasonable job - not perfect, but at a level of imperfection that I can live with.

In this version, I thought I'd make the fun puffy sleeves. I was afraid I was going to look like a pirate or something, in super billowy sleeves, but I actually really like the result - it looks interesting, but not crazy.

I think the next time I make a shirt, I'm actually going to try to take out my David Coffin Shirtmaking book and try to apply some lessons from that book. I've got the mechanics of shirt-making down, I now need to up my game.

T-shirt quilt for my brother (plus the giveaway winner!)

I'm not going to pretend that I sewed this entire thing with a smile on my face, dear Readers. Rather, it was a lot of mumbling and cursing about the necessity of sewing for other people, some angst about why I volunteered to do this for my brother, etc, etc.

But hey, it was an easy project, and it's done.

In case you were wondering about this two-quilting-projects-in-a-row thing, nope. I did (mostly) finish my plaid shirt. I still need to sew buttons on it, and then, find someone to take a photo of me. Hopefully, both of these tasks can be completed this weekend.

Given the large number of UFOs and projects-waiting-in-the-queue, I've decided that I'm going to alternate - one fun project, followed by one grudging project. Up next - fun project! Yay!!!!!!!

Oh, and the giveaway. I didn't really put an end date on it, but that post has been up for a week? so I think it's been open long enough, and it's time to announce a winner. I put all the comment #s in Excel, and used the random number generator to generate a winning number.

Which is...

AllisonC!

Sorry, everyone else! Blame excel. Or, since I'm sure I'll do this buy-the-same-pattern-twice again, keep an eye out for the next giveaway.

Red Quilt all quilted up - sneak peek

Dear readers, I hate quilting.

Let's face it, while I can suck it up and finish piecing a top, the process of actually quilting it? Loathe it. (Additionally, I'm really bad at it too, so after doing something super-grudgingly, I don't even enjoy the finished results.)

In the past, I've saved all my quilt tops and have sent them to India to be quilted, but the work on the last few quilts have just been terrible. The guy who does them clearly doesn't want to do them any more, but doesn't know how to say no. (Kind of like me, basically.)

So, with the Very, Very Red Quilt top, I thought I'd try something different. I've always seen quilting services for auction on eBay, so I looked, found a listing, and sent my top off to her. Since she only ships to the US, I made my cousin pay for the auction, and the seller was going to send the finished quilt to my cousin.

My cousin received it yesterday, and sent me the following sneak peek pictures, and I thought I'd share these with you. I haven't seen the entire quilt yet, but so far, based on these initial pictures, I'm super-stoked.





Nice, right? I'm now plotting. If I can get the same lady to finish this woolen top, and this soon-to-be-finished quilt top, then I'd actually get some of these projects finished and out the door! Oh, the sweetness.

The "I am an idiot" Giveaway

This giveaway is now closed.



Dear Readers, I've been doing a lot of stupid things lately.

For starters, when in Lyon recently, I booked a hotel room for the wrong day. Through Expedia. Only abject grovelling - in French - to the nice lady at the hotel front desk got me out of that situation. (It is amazing how nice people are to you when you admit you are (a) an idiot, (b) wrong and (c) will they help you anyway?)

Yesterday, I went to see Fela. Almost didn't make it, because when I was buying tickets online, I bought tickets for Friday night, not Saturday night. Again, the nice guy on the phone bailed me out. I told him I was an idiot, he laughed and exchanged my tickets for the right date. Sweet!

But the most recent sign of idiocy? I'm doing a spot of (rare) cleaning. I have sewing patterns strewn all over my apartment, and when I went to put them away, I found that I had bought, in two separate occasions, two identical versions of Simplicity 2053 (sizes 6-14).

Sigh. There's probably some reflection here about mindless consumption here, and also another reflection that I have entirely too many patterns. However, instead of actually using this as a 'teachable moment', I'm going to get rid of the evidence by offering up my duplicate to anyone who wants it. If more than one person is interested, I'll do a drawing. (Please enter your email address so I can contact you for your address?) Oh, I'll ship world-wide...

Almost new - McCalls 6112 (view B)

It is Diwali today, and one of our Diwali traditions is wearing new clothes.

On the phone with my mom, I was trying to figure out what was new in my wardrobe. Nothing came to mind. I didn't have any time to hastily sew myself something new, and buying something when you have a fabric stash the size of mine - well, that isn't really an option.

So, I settled for almost new - this version of McCalls 6112 (view B), that I've worn out only once before. I started this mid-September, finished it early October right after I came back from France, and wore it out to a friend's for Thanksgiving lunch. Almost new was going to have to be good enough.

Let's see - this is pretty simple construction. I looked over the instructions, they looked fine. What I did differently? Interface the edges of the hem, neck arm-holes and shoulder openings, for extra stability. Though painful, this extra step is definitely worth it - my dress feels well-constructed.

In retrospect, I wish I had bothered to make view C - the version with pockets. Or added in-seam pockets to my version. However, at the time, I was ridiculously busy, and was looking for instant gratification, so no pockets it is.

(Showing off the crazy sleeves...)

Note to self: get a better black belt, this one is pretty pathetic. Or alter this one by cutting off the excess length.

Funny/random story: My parents drove into the city (they live in the suburbs) and my brother, my parents and me went out for Diwali dinner. To a Chinese restaurant. Eating Chinese for Diwali is definitely not a tradition (although our food was delicious - maybe it should become a tradition!) But it cracked us up, eating Chinese on the biggest Indian festival of the year.

Crazy Camouflage

Most posting catch-up here...

It was back in September, I think, that Faye had asked about McCalls 6400.


As it happened, I'd just recently bought the pattern, and was curious enough to try it out. I pulled out an impulse fabric purchase (promptly regretted...) - a bright green camouflage, and got to work. I made view B.


While this t-shirt feels current - due to the asymmetry, the dolman sleeve and the ruching, at the end of the day, I just don't know. I'm not feeling this t-shirt.



For starters, my fabric doesn't have enough stretch.

But there's something about the shape that just doesn't work very well for me. (Incidentally, after looking at these pictures, I thought they had come out way better than the t-shirt looks in real life?) In addition, it just isn't very wearable - the t-shirt keeps getting twisted out of shape (grain issues, perhaps?) when I try to do any actual work wearing it.

Really simple sewing though. One pattern piece - join the side and shoulder seams, and you are done.

I will say I want to try it again in a fabric I like better. Like a solid black? We'll see. The queue is long, and the days are short...

How to create multiple UFOs - a step by step guide

Step 1: Announce your intention to cut a shirt out by Friday, and then spend Friday evening watching a movie and grabbing drinks with a friend instead. (Ides of March, btw - and I highly recommend it.)


Step 2: Find out Saturday morning, that during the night, your sweet little cat has dragged your plaid fabric on the floor, and then proceed to throw up on it. Clean cat throw-up off the floor. Wash your fabric in the bathtub. Wait for fabric to drip dry.

(No pictures of this step, thankfully.)

Step 3: Create probable UFO 1 by starting another project while waiting for fabric to dry. Start a bit of a grudging project, making a t-shirt quilt for my brother. (Promised for 3 years, been waiting in the queue for that long. I thought I might finish it up for Christmas, since we'll be visiting him then.)

Step 4: Start t-shirt quilt project by cutting lots of t-shirts up. Make huge mess.



Step 5: Proceed through the mind-numbing boredom of cutting out 12.5 inch blocks of crappy interfacing to fuse on to the t-shirts to stabilize it. Fuse blocks. Start cutting them out.


Step 6: After cutting 3 blocks out, decide that this is the most boring project in the world. Get bored, decide to grab coffee/play with cat/listen to music/write a blog post/clean apartment instead. But wait, the fabric should be dry, no? Perhaps I'll do that instead?

Step 7: Cat decides in favour of the t-shirt quilt by sitting on the plaid shirt's pattern pieces. One does not mess with a cat. Ever. Especially one who likely threw up on your fabric deliberately because she's annoyed you had a friend over for drinks. ;)



Another quilting project. Why do the sewing gods hate me so? Sigh. I like my brother, but this is very, very grudging. I want to sew for me, damn it.

When life gives you tomatoes...

you make tomato sauce, of course...

A while back (August?), I was chatting with a friend of mine, who was basically complaining about the yield of his garden - he had too many tomatoes, and was wondering aloud what he was going to do with it all. Now, this is a pretty nice problem to have, right? So, I proposed a trade - I would trade him a six-pack of beer for some tomatoes - I let him figure out the exchange rate. He gave me two big baskets - like 10-12 pounds? (Well, it was very good beer.)



A perfect trade - we were both happy with what we got.

Now, I knew I wanted to make an Indian-style tomato sauce. I had visions of making a whole load of sauce, ladling them into bottles and freezing them. Then, when I was feeling too lazy to cook something from scratch, I could just pull out a bottle, thaw it, add a vegetable to it, and be done! A good vision!

So I spent the better part of an evening in the kitchen. I chopped onions, peppers, ginger and garlic and sauteed them...



Then, I added chopped tomatoes and let them all simmer (I threw in some Indian spices too - mostly cumin, but also some curry powder.)



And lo and behold, I had sauce.


(I would be in very good shape for winter, if it weren't for my unfortunate habit of being lazy quite a lot. I've already pulled out and used two jars - and I think I have about 8 bottles left...)

Oh, a sewing update? I've started cutting out a shirt. It's a kind of plaid, so the cutting is very slow going (cutting in a single layer, aligning the plaid, etc.) I hope to be done with the cutting tonight, which means that I should have time to finish the shirt this weekend.

And done! The Very Very Red Quilt top

Dear readers - it was fairly obvious during this project that I was approaching this quilt rather grudgingly. "Finish the damn UFO," I kept saying to myself.

But what do you know? It was worth it. Look how pretty! (Lots of pictures, since I'm rather proud of it...)





Also, cats have magic powers! My cat can detect the moment a quilt top is spread out anywhere. And will be there instantly to sit on it.



This quilt top was made from assorted left-over pieces from many quilting projects. No new fabric (well, my mother has a basement of quilting fabric, why would I ever need to buy any? I simply raided her stash for border fabric.) There's remnant pieces here from projects that are over 10 years old. Totally impressive UFO-busting, if I say so myself. :)

A faint stirring of hope

The blocks are done - all 56 of them. Now, I have to add the sashing, and piece them together. Still, hope. This should be done by Thursday (it would be done earlier, but I've social commitments Monday and Tuesday).

Not soon enough, I'm so ready for some garment sewing.

Parting shot (shamelessly copying Summerset here):

I drove up to Honeywood today for Foodstock. It was a cold and overcast day, but the food was delicious, and it was nice to see the community rallied around a cause. (Also, some farmers gave me some free brussels sprouts, yay!) Here's the line of people waiting to get in...

Catching up on posting old projects - a pink & yellow baby quilt top

What do you do with your scraps?

As a by-product of sewing, I have a ridiculous amount of scrap fabric. Like, bags and bags and bags of scrap. The kind that could/should get me on Hoarders.

Every once a while, in a somewhat futile effort to do something with it, I make a quilt top for no reason at all. This one was made sometime this year, as far as I can remember. I think my cousin needed a present for a baby, so I gave it to her, and she quilted it up? I can't remember... (maybe I gave her this quilt top instead?)

Some of the fabric in the top come from leftovers from clothing - remnants from this dress, this skirt, and the rest is quilting scrap.

My favorite efforts to make quilt tops from scrap - this woolen one and this bed-size one (complete insanity, by the way, dating back to days where I clearly had more time than I do right now.)

White shirt, black skirt.

Finally, some pictures of garments.

The white shirt I've talked about here and here. I think it's been complete since about July. I know I finished it before I went to Copenhagen, since I took it with me. The pattern is McCall 6035, which I've made before. Although I screwed up this project one hundred different ways (mostly, I cut one sleeve wrong, which means it was set in rather half-assedly), I love the end result. I think this shirt fits me well, it's super useful, and since I used like 8 buttons on the shirt front, doesn't gape at all. Love it!

The skirt has a mini-story associated with it. I've been eying this fabric all summer long at Fabricland. But I've reminded myself that I have too much fabric, blah blah. Ok, sometime in September, I was having a seriously crazy week, and I took refuge by taking a day off work, and heading to Fabricland. This fabric came home with me, and I immediately started cutting into it to make this skirt. I made it in one afternoon (2-3 hours of work, but there's no zipper, since it's a knit, so it wasn't that hard.) The pattern is McCall 5817, which I like since there are no darts on the back, rather the back is made up of 3 pieces - a center back and two side back pieces... Although you'd think the fake animal look would reduce the wear on this skirt, I've already worn it twice since I made it - once to a party, with a plain black t-shirt, and once to work (which is when this picture was taken.)

And yeah, I need to get a haircut. This evening, I think.

Catching up on posting old projects - Diya's apron

Since I'm still working on the stupid quilt top (I should come up with a better name for it, no?), I thought I'd blog about an old quick project instead.

I think it was last year - my friend Anu invited me to her daughter's third birthday. Now, I was a bit stumped for present ideas (Diya really doesn't need any more clothes or toys), so my parents and me decided to be sensible and give her cash. But cash, while useful, is really not cute. And so I decided to augment the gift with a tiny, 3-year-old-size apron.



We augmented the apron with some Dollar-store tiny dishes and cooking utensils...





Et voila! Instant present!

The state of the sewing table

In a bid to finish up some of those annoying, lingering UFOs I have so many of, I've resolved not to work on anything else until I finish this silly quilt top. Sigh. Boring.

Back from vacation...

I got back from vacation Sunday evening. France was lovely...

In the end, I had time to sew practically nothing. But it was fine - the weather was a lot hotter that I'd anticipated (a very pleasant surprise!), and so I wore the same two dresses - both self-sewn - over and over again.

A couple of travel photos...

At the Canal du Midi in Agde

The Roman Amphitheatre in Nimes

At the Pont Du Gard

At the Roman Theatre in Orange

While I loved being away, I'm happy to be back. My summer was a bit crazy and hectic (though in a good way) and I'm looking forward to a more laid back fall.

A Quilt-a-long completed, 4 years too late

Dear Readers, I have a lot of unfinished projects. But I'm thrilled to finally finish this one - a quilt top that I've been dithering on for 4 years.

The story goes like this. 4 years ago, my mom started this quilt-a-long hosted by Amanda. She industriously made a set of blocks, set in white, but then, upon completion of the blocks, wasn't sure if she wanted to set them the same way Amanda had. You see, Amanda's quilt finished in a lap quilt size, and neither me nor my mom are very big on lap quilts. We much rather have bed-sized quilts.

So, I offered, in a moment of complete idiocy to make some blocks set in black, and then we could combine these blocks to make a larger size quilt. I started the project with enthusiasm, made a few blocks, and then got bored and promptly abandoned this project.

I think at some point, I did finish up the blocks, but then I dithered around with the setting, and so on and so forth. In the intervening years, I'd pull the pieces out, work on it for an hour or so, and then get bored and start a more interesting garment instead.

When my mom was going to India earlier this year, I was determined to finish this quilt top, so I could get it quilted in India. But then, alas, I ran out of fabric. And so the project sat in the background, yet again.

Well, it's finally done, and I couldn't be happier. The quilt's ok, but the real joy is in the finishing - I'm delighted to finish a UFO.

Blue Cardigan - BWOF 08-2011-117

It's been a long while, dear Readers, that I've actually sewn a BWOF pattern in the same month the magazine came out. But when I spotted this blue fabric in Toronto (out shopping with Connie, Claire and Sue), I knew exactly what I wanted to make - BWOF 08-2011-117.

And so I did. This is a really simple cardigan - 4 pieces, sews up in a couple hours, tops. I did make a muslin, only because I wanted to see what the style would look like on me, before I sacrificed this pretty blue fabric.

The result? I like but not love this cardigan. I'm not entirely convinced that this is my cardigan - I think I look both older and fatter than I'd like to believe I am. But - hey - did I mention it sews up in 2 hours? (I have 3 versions of Vogue 1250 - sewn for exactly the same reason. What can I say? Some mistakes - I like to make over, and over, and over again.)

The best kind of packing

I'm going away to Cleveland and the surrounding areas for Labour Day.

I didn't really intend to, but evidently, I'm taking a cat.