An Unexpected Compliment

I've been taking my little niece to story hour at the local public library. Last week, as we hurried up the stairs to the children's department, several young teen-aged girls were clattering down. One of them paused, just for a nano-second, and blurted, "That's a cute skirt!"

I was surprised because I never would have expected someone her age to notice, much less compliment, something worn by a woman in her late fifties. I turned (because she was already past me) and said, "I made it." This time she really did stop and her jaw dropped. "The pattern is on the Sewaholic website," I told her. Then I turned and hurried after my niece who was eager to get to the library's Valentine program.

The skirt I was wearing was my second version of the Crescent Skirt which I'd made in a light weight denim. This pattern was designed for younger women so I had to lengthen it a bit. But I didn't have to make any other alterations, and it perfectly suits my pear-shaped figure while it disguises my middle-aged tummy.

I think I my lengthening technique may have been a bit inept because there was a point at the bottom edge of the center front:

I agonized for a while about whether or not to trim the edge to a more subtle curve. And I finally did so because I was planning to make a top stitched hem, and I didn't think I'd be able to turn it up smoothly if I didn't. And below is a close-up showing the nice topstitching on the waistband and hem. (One disadvantage of the denim was that I wasn't able to get a nice sharp point on the waistband.) This is a pattern I expect to use again and again because it is so easy to put together and so comfortable to wear. 

Yard Sale Saturday

Bonnie Hunter is having a yard sale today and has invited all of her readers to join in. I have a few items, and given that I call myself a bibliophagist, it's not surprising that my offerings are books.

First up is a brand new copy of Charmed, I'm Sure by Lesley Chaisson. It's about making quilts from your collection of 5" squares. If you've been buying charm squares but can't figure out what to do with them, this is a book you'll want to have. The retail price is $24.99, but I'm selling this unused copy for $12.00 plus postage. SOLD!

Next up is a used copy of Applique 12 Easy Ways by Elly Sienkiewicz. There are some faint scuff marks on the front cover, but the rest of the book is like new. $6.00 plus postage. (The white lines you see on the left side of the cover are light reflections, not scuff marks.)

Finally, five copies of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine from 1989. I have a huge collection of QNM going back to the '70s, and they are so much fun to browse through. Lots of great patterns plus articles about technique, quilts, and quilters. And they're a nice look back at our recent history.

1. February (#209) Very good except for small black mark on cover.
2. March (#210) Very good except for small black mark on cover.
3. July-August (214) Okay.
4. September - Special 20th Anniversary Issue (#215) Like new! (N.B. I accidentally took a picture of a copy that has a price label on the lower left corner. I am actually selling a nicer copy without any price sticker.)
5. November/December (#217) Good. Remains of an address label on front cover.

I'm asking $5.00 plus postage.

All payment through Paypal. If you want to buy any of these please email me. Click on my name in the "About Me" section on the sidebar to your right." Be sure to let me know if you prefer Priority Mail or Media Mail and include your zip code so I can figure postage. (Priority is faster, but Media is cheaper.)

For more great quilt-related goodies don't forget to visit Bonnie Hunter's Yard Sale Saturday where you'll find links to lots of other quilters' blogs.

7 Quick Takes - Nifty Tips Edition

Usually, when I do "7 Quick Takes," I'm posting on my book blog, Catholic Bibliophagist. But this time I'm sharing seven sewing tips here at Quilting Bibliophagist. 

1.  I've just discovered a nifty tool to remove the little wire fasteners that hold new buttons onto their cards -- an ordinary staple remover.

2.  When fusing interfacing to pattern pieces, trim off 1/8 - 1/4 inch off all of the edges. That way you'll never get fusible gunk on your ironing board. You don't have to be precise about this because the seam allowances are probably going to be graded (trimmed) anyway.

3.  I like to serge the cut edges of my fabric before I preshrink  it so that I don't end up with tangled shredded clumps in the washing machine. I usually serge right along the edge because I'm trying not to cut off any of my precious fabric. One day I was doing this while strong sunlight was pouring through the window and noticed that a very fine fabric dust was rising from the serger blade. And I realized that I was breathing in this stuff. So now I practice "safe serging" and wear one of these inexpensive painter's dust masks whenever I prepare a lot of fabric for the washer.

4.  I used to hate ripping out seams -- "hate" as in I'd rather have my tonsils taken out with a rusty spoon. But now I know the magic method. Using a seam ripper, cut every fourth stitch. Then flip the seam over and pull the long end of the thread. It will pull out in one long piece.  Then I flip the seam over again and use blue painter's tape to pull out all of the little cut bits of thread remaining on that side.

5.  When I reorganized my sewing room I came across a stray pattern piece that had been floating around for years. It was a facing from Simplicity 7184 -- but I had no idea which pattern that might be. I've got so many patterns that it would be very tedious to search through them all -- especially since they're not filed by number. Suddenly it occurred to me to run a Google search on the pattern brand and number.  In almost no time I was able to find a photo of the pattern envelope which I recognized as one in my collection. (N.B. The major pattern companies reuse their pattern numbers at widely spaced intervals, but by including "Girls" as a search term, I was able to narrow things down a bit.  (Yes, you're probably rolling your eyes and saying, "Duh!" But I'm still not a fully fledged citizen of the Internet Age.)

6.  Okay, this is only a tip if you're as dumb as I am. I've had trouble with my polyester bobbins getting mixed up with my cotton bobbins. (I like to use cotton on my quilts and polyester for garment sewing.) I've been sewing for decades, but it only just now ocurred to me that I can burn test thread just as I do for fabric. Cotton leaves a soft ash; polyester kind of melts into a hard bead.

7.  If you have to alter the length or width of a stitch, for heaven's sake write down the new setting if your machine is a computerized one which reverts to the default option whenever you turn it off. Because you will surely get interrupted and have to go away for a bit, and you will probably have forgotten your altered setting by the time you return. (Now that I'm middle-aged, I definitely consider Post-it notes to be a sewing notion.)

For more Quick Takes please visit Jennifer at Conversion Diary.

Crumb Quilt-Along #6

Last night I began working on Log Cabin blocks for the Crumb Quilt-Along sponsored by Jo's Country Junction. Here's what I learned from this phase of the project.

You can put more than one of your Log Cabin units face down on a single strip to quickly add the same fabric to all of the units at the same time. (You probably can't see the long strip very well in this photo because it's white -- just like the table.)

As your block approaches its finished size, it's a good idea to use really wide strips. Had the red heart fabric been 3/8 of an inch wider, this block would have been ready to trim.

Instead, I had to add another light strip and then off-set the ruler so that the final light strip would be triangular rather than an impossibly skinny rectangle.

 Here are two other finished blocks. A fourth one is almost done, but I need to post before leaving for work.

As Jo suggested, I'm going to use these blocks for the corners of the quilt. My colors for these are quite a bit darker than the previous blocks. Log Cabins always scream, "Contrast! Contrast! Contrast!" while I'm sewing them. So what can I do but obey?

Crumb Quilt-Along #5

Due to circumstances beyond my control (a.k.a. "real life"), I'm a week behind on Jo's Crumb Quilt-Along. So this week I've been working on liberated blocks made with triangles. When I rummaged through my drawer of white scraps, I discovered that I had a lot of small, white triangles.

I paired them with rectangles like this and sewed down the hypotenuse of each triangle using an approximate 1/4 inch seam.

Then I cut away the excess colored fabric . . .

. . . and pressed open the resultant square.

I found that I could also pair single white triangles with any colored scrap of approximately the same size.

Here are some of the 1/2 square triangles I made:

 And here are the three blocks I finished:

I like these blocks, but even though I did them without any measuring, they don't look very wonky. I suppose that's because I started out with the precut white triangles.

I look forward to doing some Log Cabin style blocks next, and hope to be caught up to everyone else by the end of the week.

A Quick & Easy Sewing Machine Cover

My mom has decided to convert her second bedroom into a sewing and craft room so that she can leave her sewing machine set up all the time. 

  When I visited yesterday, I noticed her new sewing machine cover. It isn't pretty, but it keeps her Singer 500 dust free.

She made it by cutting across a tee shirt just under the sleeves and then sewing the cut edges shut. That's just one seam since the body of the shirt is a tube and there's already a hem on the bottom. Of course, that mostly cuts off any cute logo the shirt might have had since those are usually positioned on the upper chest.

I suppose you could preserve the logo by making your cut just under the neck. But then you'd have to cut down the sides in order to make a symmetrical shape. And you'd have to cut off some of the bottom because it would now be too long. And then you'd have to hem it. Too much work!

I have some pre-quilted fabric which I bought a couple of years ago in order to make a cover for my Bernina. It's still sitting in my closet because I'd much rather be quilting than sewing a machine cover. But I think even I could spare the time to make one of these.

 

Actually, my mom didn't spend any time at all making hers because it's a repurposed icon cover. She makes these tee shirt bags to protect her icons when she's transporting them to and from her painting class. (An icon is a religious picture painted on a wooden board.) The one in the photo, Our Lady of Sorrows, is still in progress. If you're interested, here's a link to Sacred Image Icons, the website of her teacher. (Warning: it plays music.)

Crumb Quilt-Along #4

This week we are doing Nine Patches and Four Patches. (You can see all of the steps here at Jo's Country Junction.) Usually, I can't get to my crumb project until Friday, my day off. This week I had to work on Friday, so I didn't actually sit down at the sewing machine until Sunday evening.

Fortunately, I had quite a few trimmings left from previous projects which  I thought would give me a head start on this week's blocks. Unfortunately, I was half asleep.

I'm not very satisfied with this little Nine Patch. I surrounded it with precut half-square triangles. It just looks blah. I think that the value of the inner triangles is too close to the value of the outer ones.

This little four patch is even more disappointing. Not enough contrast, I think. I put the pink half-border  on in an effort to perk it up a bit. I think I'll have to make a few more Four and Nine Patch based blocks just to prove to myself that I can do it