Projects in the pipeline - part one

You will have seen my tissue fit of the Roslyn tunic dress in my last post here. Since that time I have made a toile of the tunic length. I used an old sheet which had ripped. It was just the right weight of fabric.

I think the toile looks good. The body fits well, but I will need to work on the shoulders since there really isn't any room for movement in that area. Luckily, I have a date with a friend coming up next month who will be able to help with these fitting problems. We are both working on the Craftsy course, "Sew the perfect fit" by Lynda Maynard. So will be working together on the toiles required for that series of lessons. Luckily, one of these sessions addresses just the issues I am having with the shoulders on the Roslyn.

I did get the Elani tunic finished and have worn this a lot in the recent hot weather. It is so comfortable and the side seam pockets are wonderful. As you can see, I didn't do the turn up sleeve endings on this version. I felt the fabric was really just too busy.

These are the fabrics destined for the Roslyn and the second Elani. The plain blue is for the Roslyn dress whilst the floral pattern will be for the Elani.

The Penny Rug bin is now complete and is being used to store my dressmaking pattern tissue rolls. So useful to have these close to hand rather than stashed away in my wardrobe. The bin has been fully lined with acrylic felt and has pelmet vilene inside the sides and base to keep it rigid.

One more project on my list which also got finished is the next page for the Pinfold Book Challenge. This theme was "Flowers".

The pages comprise printed samples using wooden block prints and thermofax prints onto my own dyed fabrics.

This last photo shows the thermofax print which I designed and had made up some time ago. For this one I added the petal colour and the dark centre to each flower using dye pens.

Finally, I got the second toile for the cargo pants finished and found myself ready to alter that dressmaking pattern. More on that next time.

Some sewing, with plenty of projects in the pipeline

Aggie is displaying the pattern pieces for the Style Arc Roslyn Tunic Dress. I've decided to make the longer version of this design since I am already planning to make two tunics.

This is the collection of fabrics ready to be cut out and sewn. Close to the top of the pile is the patterned grey crepe de chine for the HP 1107 tunic. This is a pattern from Hot Patterns, just like the cargo pants I been working on recently. On the top is my interfacing

The next two photos show pages from my dressmaking journal. I am currently working on a second toile for the Utility Cargo pants. My version of the Waterfall jacket is currently in the naughty pile while I plan what to do with it next. It came out rather larger than intended. At least a solution is doable, but with warm weather coming up it seems daft to spend time on a cold weather item. It will wait until I have more time.... or perhaps I should say some time to spare.

These two projects are further down the pile. The blue boat pattern will be used for the Elani tunic. The fabric was a lucky find in a bin of end of rolls. A quilting cotton, it should be fun to wear. The red flower fabric started life as a pinafore dress I wore some years ago. I remember making this in the late 1980s when my daughters were small. I made a couple of sun dresses from the same fabric for the girls. A simple design with big useful pockets for their treasures. When my waistline grew too much for any possible alteration I cut up the maxi length dress. Along with a red fabric hidden underneath, this will make my first attempt at the Roslyn tunic dress which is rather longer than the line drawing shown above.

There is progress with the "penny rug" piece. Slow progress, but that third "flower" is nearly stitched in place.

As I have already mentioned, the second toile is well under way for the cargo pants. I am hoping that this might be wearable and plan to dye the fabric a shade of grey. I wasn't confident enough in my pattern alterations to go straight for the cobalt blue fabric I showed last week.

As you might have guessed there is little time for sewing at the moment since there is still a lot of work to be done outside. The end is in sight, but will take some time yet. I feel so much more myself since being able to get back to my sewing machine. It definitely keeps me sane.

Stitching by hand

It has been a really interesting week. Work has continued on the shed, but I managed to attend the meetings of two textile groups. The first of these was Pinfold. The meeting had a workshop from Pauline Mills who showed us how to make "Penny rugs". You can see a really good online description here. Needless to say, I will not be making a proper "penny rug", it just isn't my style. Instead these will turn into the decoration of a fabric "vase" to hold my long rulers and old knitting needles. These currently reside in an overcrowded flowerpot with the longest of my paintbrushes. Hopefully things might get tidier and easier to find........ maybe not.

I just need to think about how to weight the bottom of the "vase" to stop it toppling over.

The fifth pile shown on the extreme right in the first photo was shown without it's flower backing. This is the colour which will be finally stitched in place at some time over the next few days. There are green pieces to be cut out as "stems" before being stitched onto the backing fabric which will be some upholstery fabric found in my stash. The "pennies" are cut out of felted wool. The fabric here was supplied by a friend of mine who brought along a large collection of felted and dyed blankets. Thanks so much Meryl!

Pauline, our tutor was very generous and gave us each three cardboard templates for the shapes. So useful and meant we could get straight on with the stitching. I've used variegated Anchor threads from my collection of embroidery threads. Three strands were used for the buttonhole with the full six strands used for the decoration. (Stamens and french knots). A lovely workshop with plenty of opportunity for chat as we worked. Just what was needed.

I handed over the "Come fly with me" book which I showed last time and picked up this next book. The topic this time is "Round and round". A really intriguing title. I'm letting my imagination go free for the moment as I try to decide what I could possibly make......

During the week, I started to make a few cards with scraps of samples from a rather too large collection. These three need a little more work. As does the one below. This really needs a fair amount of stitching before it can be called a card.

I also received two more patterns in the post. I love this style of cargo pants, but have never found a pair of ready-mades that actually fit me. I really couldn't resist this rather interesting dress and tunic pattern too. I have some suitable fabric in my stash for the dress, but haven't yet decided which fabric would be best for these trousers. I really ought to make toiles of each first......

Finally, on Friday, I met up with another group of friends and Debbie introduced the idea of "boro". I must admit I rather like the idea of handstitching various fabrics together. My version is really not a true "boro", but is inspired by the idea of stitching fabrics together to repair/make another fabric. Mine are strips of raw edged fabrics of various types from my collection of "interesting fabrics", along with dyed cotton bias binding and cotton tape. The pieces are all stitched onto each other and backed by a piece of calico (muslin). This will probably turn into the background for something at some stage. For the moment it is a very pleasant stitching project for the evenings.