patchwork bag party

My lady friends and I recently had a little crafting party, as we do from time to time. We received some fabric from a faraway friend back in the spring and decided to use it to make some patchwork bags.

the goods

Everyone brought some fabric from their stash and we met up at a friend’s new apartment, which coincidentally happened to be located in a building that was a former textile mill. We were in the zone. We chose our fabrics and decided how they would be pieced. I worked on my hexagon quilt, and passed the hex along to a friend. We swooned over macarons…

…hung out and chatted, sewed and crafted until late. I sewed my fabric bits together on my own machine once I got home.

My bag still isn’t done, but it will be. The scrap idea finally gave me a chance to use that bit of crazy psychedelic puzzle-piece faces fabric I got at a sale several years ago. I’m enjoying how the fabrics range from pale clovers and stripes to glazed ham with olives, candied fruit extravaganza, watermelon dots, russian doll party and finally, total acid trip. It reminds me of my friends, which was kind of the point of the whole thing.

quilty

On my recent trip to New York City I visited Purl Soho at their new location. As their website indicates it is a bigger store than the tiny one the used to have on Sullivan Street and all the yarn and fabric is now in the same building.

One of the things I bought was a grab bag of fabric in shades of yellow, which was meant to be the beginnings of a hexagon quilt. Up until this point I have only quilted once. That quilt is large enough to cover a cat. I plan on making the hexagon quilt at least large enough for an adult human. The hexagons will be about 2.5 inches on each side. What in the world could have possessed me to come up with this idea, you ask? Well, put simply, I became friends with Sarah.

Sarah’s hexagon quilt in progress was the talk of the table when she pulled it out during girl’s night last week. Even though all of us who hang out together are knitters somehow the idea of a quilt made out of 80 squillion (estimated number) of hexagons sent everyone reeling. But after hanging out with Sarah for a while you start to realize that crafty is crafty. If you want to think about the bigger picture why not take into account that I’m going to be making things for the rest of my life and in the grand scheme of things 80 squillion hexagons is just going to be something that fills in the blanks between knitting and embroidering and writing and cooking and spinning and petting cats. This project has no time limit and it justifies buying scraps of fabric I consider pretty. At the end I end up with a blanket. Seems like a good enough reason to me.

Here’s the catch, for the moment I’m sticking to this color scheme : golden yellows and dusty browns.

The three yellows and the graph paper-esque brown fabric were in the grab bag, the rest are fat quarters from my stash.

Sarah also may be the reason I now have an embroidery project in the works as well, and I may be the reason she now has the whole Camera Obscura discography on vinyl. At any rate, we’re off to a pretty good start.

quilt me

Looking at lots of awesome quits lately sort of makes me want to join in on the fun.

I found these squares (already cut) at a thrift store about a year and a half ago. I’ve sewn together the middle pieces, so really all I’d need to do is sew the bigger ones and … so forth. I have to admit that I’m not sure what quilting really entails, though I’d be interested to feel my way around with the minimal knowledge I have, especially since this quilt would be the perfect size for my cats and all they care about is having something warm to sleep on.

Maybe I’ll tackle it this week?

frustrated

I was going to post today about a completed sewing project but I think my machine is broken. It’s probably my fault as it seems to be broken in the same exact way my mother’s was every time I sewed with it. I’m obviously doing something wrong somewhere. The bobbin is perpetually wrapped around itself and I can’t sew for more than an inch without everything getting jammed and a huge amount of thread getting stuck to the underside of the fabric.

I’m pretty much ready to throw the machine against the wall.

pouches

Before leaving for my holiday I made some little pouches for my cousins. I’ll be giving them out tonight at a family party.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas tomorrow. I’ll be back Friday with more handmade stuff to show you!

winter

It’s finally wintry here, and that means ice, snow and frigid temperatures. It makes things a lot more difficult (like food shopping and getting out of bed in the morning), but it feels a lot more like winter and I’m all for that.

My computer has died for the most part. The hard drive is now at the computer hospital. The data may or may not be recovered, and no I did not have it 100% backed up. I’m trying not to think too much about the documents I may have lost. Or the 17 gigs of music. Ouch.

I finally cleaned off my sewing table and now that I have so much more fabric than I did when I started a year ago I can make a lot more than fat quarter projects. So, I’ve been doing some sewing,

Here’s a peek at another Secret Christmas Project.

Pick up sticks

After a weekend of not knitting at all I’ve picked up the sticks again and cast on a Ganomy Hat yesterday. I’m loving the yarn (Noro Silver Thaw) that I’ve had in my stash untouched for three years. It seems to have been waiting for me to discover Elizabeth Zimmermann’s books because it’s a match made in heaven. No pictures yet, but they’ll be forthcoming…

I want to talk about an Air worthy project though, one I finished way back in March right after that giant, crazy snow storm we had when a dear friend came to town. (Luckily he’s way better with a camera than Mr. Not Charles is, so I got a decent photo shoot out of it).

This shirt is from the Simplicity 3835 pattern. Originally it was going to be a tunic, but the fabric was too overwhelming to cover that much of my body so I hemmed it a bit. The shirt is so comfy and fits so much better than something I could have bought. Actually, I’d never even try on a shirt like this in a store because it would probably be ill fitting and too short.

The fabric is Joel Dewberry Pear Manzanita Branch, which was one of my birthday presents to myself. I’d totally make this shirt pattern again. It was easy and came out great for a first garment project.

Summer sewing…

I feel like I’m a little behind on some sewing projects I planned for the last month. It seems like I have shelves of “to do” sewing, including remaking a bunch of unwanted clothes into something fantastic and totally wearable. It takes a lot more concentration than I’ve been capable of lately.

But ever since Sir NotCharles and I booked our vacation the other day I’ve been fantasizing about making a dress out of some of my birthday fabric. I went and bought several patterns today, though it seems that my preference for very full skirts is going to require a lot more fabric than I have in my small stash.

The one all the way on the left is the one I’m making first because it’s the only one that will take less than the 2 & 3/4 yards I already have of the above mentioned fabric. Unfortunately, I won’t get to start the dress this weekend. Tomorrow is another one of those girly crafty days (we’re making paper!) and Sunday is Free Museum Day, which pretty much inaugurates the Montreal Festival Season for me. Beerfest, Tour de l’ile/Tour la nuit, Fringe and Jazz Fest are all on the near horizon, with a million mini festivals in between. Summer in this sweet, sweet city is always so dizzying and feels so good after all those months of cozy winter hibernation. I’m ready!

earthy skirt, muddy socks

I finally have photos of my second skirt.

And something I didn’t realize before, it fits in with PS3 colors! The drapy fabric is really soft. I think it will come in handy in the middle of summer.

Also, I finished my Muddy Waters socks yesterday and decided to have a little photo shoot on my front steps.

Lots of tourists walk down my street taking photos of the architecture and staircases. I even found a book about Montreal staircases at the library and my front steps were inside! It was a little eerie, though not as odd as someone taking pictures of their own feet on a Montreal staircase. I’m going to try to do all my sock shoots outdoors from now on, just to get the weird looks.

Stripey! I should have done some increases when I got higher up. As a result the socks roll down a bit, but I can live with that. For the first time ever I wasn’t dying to get these socks off the needles. I just enjoyed knitting them while doing other things like talking to friends, reading stuff online or watching movies. If I had them to do over though I’d go down a needle size. The fabric is a bit too thin for my liking.

Well, we all know what this means. I can now start another pair of socks.

more skirts

I may be addicted to making skirts out of my old pants. I started another one yesterday afternoon and finished it this morning. I think it’s pretty awesome that I now have a “new” wearable garment which I fashioned from something that was no longer useable (read : threadbare in the crotch) and literally catching dust under my bed. My favorite part is that I never had to go into a dressing room with a heart full of hope.

Had I not been so frantically inspired by spring I would have taken a picture of the before pants, but I didn’t. I’ll be sure to take some after photos. Right now though I’ll be wearing it outside, where it’s 20°C.

I’m stitching & bitching tonight, and crossing my fingers that there’s hope for my Hexacomb Cardigan. It’s brown like my new skirt you see, so there must be something that can be done.