Summer dress project...

Beginning right to fit a dress for my daughter. First the shoulder muslin, then the shoulder template out of poster board so that it keeps well, then the alteration of the pattern. We are using Burda 7798 and a lovely pink/white fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics - the Sew Sweet Cotton. I haven't gotten to the altering the pattern step yet, but that's next. The shoulder template will make the shoulders of the smallest size just a bit smaller. then the petite adjustment and the muslin. Keep tuned for more!

Vermont Quilt Festival 2008 visited...

With a couple of intrepid friends, I took on the Vermont Quilt Festival. You do have to be intrepid because after you schlep around the two large buildings of the Champlain Valley Exhibition, visit vendors, enjoy a bit of quilt admiring, and look at all the sewing machines, you suddenly realize you need to sit down. By that time everyone else has had the same realization, and all the seats are taken. So, you keep going. I picked up a bargain on last year's Quilt Festival tote (I was there last year!), and on a beginner sewing book aimed at the kids, but FUN! After seeing the demo for the Miracle Ironing Board Cover, (actually, we saw it at least twice), all three of us bought a cover. There was a press of determined quilting ladies slowly constricting the area of the demo, and the phrase wait your turn was apparently an unknown concept to several women. After waiting patiently like the good Vermonter she is, one of my friends finally got her cover, and we escaped the mob, dragged our aching feet out of the show and headed out to lunch. Any more than half a day and I would need a week to recuperate! As it is, my feet are nothing but foci of pain!

Quilt in its fifteenth year...

When I was 9 or so my grandmother and my mother taught me to do a simple square patch quilt. Some years later...in 1993, I began a somewhat ambitious project - I decided to make a large flying geese quilt for my first real quilt. Calculating the number of pieces now is a good reason never to have started! I modified a pattern from one of the quilt magazines and onward I trod. I cut and sewed some pieces, then put it away. I took it up again every few years. Then this year I decided to finish all the strips. The strips are the length of the quilt top, and there is a wider strip in the center, and there will be sashing around the outside edges, then binding after the quilt is assembled. I am not sure that this won't be in the running for the most ugly quilt, and certainly the technique can be critiqued by the real quilters, but this is a traditional quilt. There are pieces from old garments I had in my teens. Material I brought from my mother's stash after she passed away is in this quilt. I did buy some of the fabric in it, but most was intended for some project and I used the left-overs for piecing. The Flying Geese pattern is my favorite of all quilt patterns. I could make them one after the other as far as piecing goes, but I don't think I will make another quilt any time soon. Surely not a large one. This one will probably be another year in the finishing. Right now though I feel like finishing it this summer! I am able to have my Pfaff 1222E up and running as my quilting machine now, dedicated to that purpose as long as I want it to be while my other machine sews other projects. That's fun. Having a machine just for the quilt is a blessing.

Notes on added links and my pictures...

I added a couple links on the right to blogs which are of real interest (as are ALL the links over there or I wouldn't put them there...). Today I added Quality Time and mediatinker. Both sites have some tutorials and both are a lot of FUN. To mediatinker I linked to her creative link, but the whole site is fascinating. Not all sewing - in fact mostly NOT sewing, but eclectic and interesting.

As to the pictures you see on this blog, they may or may not be directly related to the content. If I am talking about a project, they will definitely be related, otherwise I tend to eclecticism myself (the model today is wearing his GramJammies!).

Some nifty aprons....free patterns

White Sewing Machine Company published a pretty little booklet back in the mists of time with aprons and apron patterns. Dorothy's Aprons & Handmade Memories offers the pages from this booklet as scans which you can download and print free. What a lovely booklet it is! I love the Mardi Gras pattern, and may even attempt to make it! Have a look, and while you're there, look at the lovely work Dorothy's does!

Projects accomplished and Deco Fun...

I finished the Ottobre 2-2007 top in turquoise, with deco top stitching, and I also finished the rayon silky fabric skirt in brown with leafy jade print.These pieces are part of my Summer 2008 Wardrobe plan, and I reviewed them tonight as well on PR. I don't think I will do a wardrobe this way again because the cross-posting involved on PR to link each to the wardrobe plan is too much. It is a lot of time that can be used in other ways. Just a review of all pieces individually will be my future way to go and a plan for myself that I can have here on the blog, but not trounce to death having to cross post time and time again! The top stitching was really fun. Trying out all the stitch banks to see which deco stitch I wanted was both experimental and fascinating. They can be mirrored side to side or top to bottom, and they can be combined. In the end I went for the simple stitch #11 in stitch back 3 on my platinum. The viking certainly frees you up to concentrate on the sewing. I used four presser feet on this top alone! Edge stitching foot, Left edge stitching foot, Presser foot A and Presser foot B.

Vermont Quilt Festival...

Once again it is time for the Vermont Quilt Festival! End of this month, June 26th through June 29th, and SUCH FUN! I go to make the rounds of the sewing machine vendors and see all the machines, just to look and admire all the features. There are so many nice sewing machines out there now. I try to stay away from the fabrics because I don't quilt! As to the quilts themselves, they are works of art. Although there are some traditional quilts there of course, most of the quilts today are art works, art quilts, art with fabric. I haven't the patience for the precise work they take, and I would feel trapped into a project that size. My mother was a master quilter, and I know what dedication and work it takes, and how much quilters love their avocation. The Festival is well worth the time and money to visit, even if you don't quilt. It's nice to be there under cover when you're a garment sewer!