Tin Whistle: May 2010

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Shirts for me

I impulse bought some lovely shirting fabric a couple of months ago and then searched through all my patterns for a nice shirt pattern. I eventually settled on Pattern 4 from Women's Ottobre 5/2009, called "Perfect white shirt". Now this is a lovely shirt pattern, its a quite involved to make as it has darts, plackets, collar and cuffs but it was totally worth the effort! I didn't make any modifications except to cut the hip part of the shirt a size larger than the bust, because, you guessed it, I bigger in the hip compared to my bust!

The cuffs are just lovely, wide with a big fold up and three little buttons to do it up.

I was really pleased with myself that the collar worked perfectly. The pattern is designed to look like a mans collared shirt, but is actually a bit more open at the neck and is not designed to buttoned all the way up. The top two buttons you can see here are merely for decoration and do not have corresponding button holes.

Here is how it looks on... sorry about the 'self portrait'!

The next shirt pattern I decided to try out was the new Make it Perfect "Shearwater" pattern. Now I don't want to bag this one out, because I am actually pretty happy with it (now) but...... the Shearwater pattern was very simple (I didn't even use the instructions) but I wasn't really impressed with the fit.

I guess that's what so great about Ottobre, the sizing is always true, and with the Perfect white shirt pattern had all those darts etc so it just fit really well. A basic pattern, like the Shearwater, designed for beginners probably was always going be a let down. And to be fair, the Ottobre shirt also took 3 times as long to make! And its also a completely different type of shirt.

Anyway getting back to the Shearwater pattern. The main problem was the sleeves... they were too tight in the upper arm causing the whole bust area to feel tight, like I would rip the seams if I tried to do any stretching (like hang out my washing or pick up a child). The sleeves were also a tad too short. I am not tall by the way, and a pretty average size for my height etc. So I guess I was a bit disappointed that the loose kaftan style of the shearwater was too tight for me! Since I had enough fabric left over for new sleeves I decided to rip the originals out and and replace them with roomier ones.

What I did was this...The sleeve gets cut out on a fold of fabric, creating a sleeve front and back identical to each other. So I took the sleeve pattern piece and lay it about an inch away from the fold. Giving me another 2" of fabric through the middle of the sleeve. Now obviously this was going to make the curve at the top of the sleeve 2" bigger than the curve in the shoulder of the main bodice, so I ran gathering stitched along the top of the sleeve and added slight gathers to the sleeve top. You can see that in the pic below, where the sleeve balloons out slightly from the shoulder seam. It was easy to correct the short sleeve length, I just added a few inches to it when I was cutting out the new sleeves.

Here is how it looks on. I think it looks nice, I'm going to wear it through winter, layering some Tees underneath, and it will be nice on its own in summer. I will probably make the new modified version again, I just need to hunt down some nice voile. :)

Hoodies

I took George with me on a recent trip to spotlight and let him pic out some polar fleece for a Hoodie. He selected this cute Doggie one and I teamed it up with the stripe knit. ( like to use knit fabrics for lining chunky polar fleece fabrics as it adds contrast without the bulk of 2 polar fleece layers. I used Kwiksew pattern 3101, which is actually a girls pattern, but works fine in the smaller sizes for little boys (I sized up, though so it wasnt such a slim fit- ie George is 3.5yrs and I made him the size 4-5).

I slightly over estimated how much polar fleece I would need and so I decided to try and cut a second jumper out of the left over bits and make it up for Georges friend Oliver. I had to piece a few scraps together to make the sleeves long enough and cut out a complete hood.

While I was in Hoodie mode I let Elizabeth pick some fabric too, she chose a purple 'birdsfeather' fleece and a floral knit for the hood lining

I dont really recommend the birsfeather... there was fluff EVERYWHERE including all over my shirt and pants.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Snapshot Sunday- Polkadot quilt

Well this is a new all time record for me! Normally it takes me MONTHS to 'birth' a quilt; but this one popped out in 4 days.

For the quilting I stitched a free-hand diamond grid all over. By free hand, I mean that the walking foot was on, but I didn't pre-rule the grid up, I just winged it and hoped I could stitch straight! And for the binding I went for a simple rainbow stripe. Each polkadot square is 5" (cut 5.5") and arranged in a 8x10 layout, making the overall quilt size is 40" x 50". I specifically kept the short side of the quilt under 40" so that it was the width of a bolt of quilting fabric, makes it more economical when buying the backing fabric.

As you can see I had a last minute change of heart with the backing fabric. I decided Miffy was really too lovely to languish on the back of the quilt so I have tucked her away for another day. The polkadots, instead, has been backed with some 'Tots town' from the Michael Miller 'Merryville' range. I grabbed this from my stash at 8pm last night and, as it was a tiny bit too short I quickly stitched in a panel of red/white polkadots. The baby's name would have looked perfect appliqued across that but (1) I was out of time and (2) the parents still haven't finalised his name. LOL.

This was a nice easy quilt to make (when I wasn't chopping and changing my mind) and I think the end result is fun and bright and will suit the baby well into childhood.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Mainly Miffy

A friend had a little baby earlier this week and I intended to have a quilt made and ready to give her. Except the fabric I ordered didnt arrive in time (and I am still waiting). It jsut so happened that the quilt fair was on in Perth, so I decided to go along for a nosey and pick up a fat quarter pack for the baby quilt while I was there. I chose a selection of polkadot fabrics and waited for the weekend to roll around so I could get stuck into the piecing. Time being of the essensce I cut them into 5.5" charms and quickly put together this quilt top ---->

From my stash I pulled out some Dick Bruna 'Miffy' fabric, but it was ever so slightly too short. No problems, I decide, I'll just add in a row of the left over polkadot squares. Then I got a bit carried away and added in another two sections of pieced together polkadot scraps.
Now the back looks good enough to be the front!

Stayed tuned for tomorrows "Snap shot Sunday" post to see the quilting (and maybe even a pic of it all finished with the binding on).

While I am here I will give you an update of the 'summer soiree' quilt. You have got to love bookshelves that double as design walls don't you?! I am at the stage of adding the white sashing between columns, but I have a horrible feeling I am not going to have enough white fabric... I *think* it was a Kona, but I don't know which shade. Yikes! Sewing is on hold while I have a little sulk about that.

And last of all I want to share a pic of Miss Matilda wearing a dress (I made it a while ago for Elizabeth and its not made its way down to Matilda... its Ottobre, I did blog it somewhere). Matilda is a die hard tomboy and usually only wears shorts or jeans (preferably from the boys department), so its a rare sight to see her looking so sassy.

PS.... I just realised that behind Matilda is George wearing mama-made jarmies and the couch is wearing my Ziggy quilt. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to see my home-made things being used in such a casual, normal way :)

Bloggers quilt festival-The Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt

This is a quilt I started back in August 2009 one rainy weekend on a bit of a whim. I am from Australia, by the way, so in August it is often rainy!

I had no particular plan in my head, but loved where the quilt seemed to be heading and decided to let it just evolve over time. Nine months later (May 2010) it was finished and I presented it to my pregnant sister. We are still waiting for the baby to arrive, so I cant give you any action shots.

This is how the quilt looked at the end of that first rainy weekend.

Not long after I had puzzled together the main part of the quilt top. It sat like this for a few months while I pondered borders.

One thin striped border got added and then I pondered some more....

Eventually I heard an inner voice whisper "It needs purple" so I ordered some of the VHC purple scribble blender in and added it on. Here the quilt is all sandwiched and ready for pinning.

Here are some close up shots of various sections of the quilt, showing the quilting and some of the smaller details in piecing.

When quilting I used white thread on all the white area's of the quilt, either echo quilting or stippling around the pictures. I ditch quilted border framing the white areas. The background was quilted in gridded lines using grey thread.

You can see some stippling around the caterpillar and echo quilting around the food above it.

I used a lot of the range from the Very hungry caterpillar collection, but also added in lots of brights. I did a online charm swap and collected all the brights that way.

I love the butterfly, and have a little soft spot for the tiny maverick star below.

I used Eric Carle fabric on the back too, but from the "Brown bear, brown bear" range.

Thanks for coming by and visiting my blog! A big thank you to Amy for hosting the fabulous Quilters blog festival!