Christmas goodies

I'm pretty proud of the Christmas gifts I've made so far. Recycled crayons. There are tutorials all over the place...

I had to do some shopping to find girly colored corduroy, I've been eyeing a pink pair of corduroy my daughter is growing out of. But since she's still wearing them, I wasn't allowed to cut them. This is your typical circle skirt. I used a button hole elastic for the first time.

Family cloth

When I can spare the time, I've been serging up some new flannel wipes. After almost two years, I'm upgrading, wahoo! I got a lovely flannel sheet with a plaid that perfectly divides into 6 inch strips. The t-shirt wipes didn't feel absorbant enough. I found myself preferring my flannel/velour wipes, but not the velour side. Although the velour is very pretty and soft against your hand, one's um other bits don't like it as much. Live and learn.
So... 6 inch double thickness flannel it is.

Patchwork Progress

I started a patchwork skirt back before Thanksgiving with the intention of finishing before Christmas. The actual patchworking went smoothly. I had a nice rythmn going: match pieces, stitch, serge, top stitch, assembly line style. It takes a long time, but I loved it. Every free moment I was at the dining table (aka my sewing station).

A few patchy things I learned in the process:

• keep seam allowence in mind when cutting the fabric, you probably don't want lots of really skinny patches
• work assembly line style - for speed
• don't plan out patchwork too much, the fabric has a mind of its own
• you will use lots of thread, if your top thread color is important, be prepared with at least 3 spools
• as a firt time patchwork fabric, corduroy is very forgiving
• corduroy is very thick, make sure your sewing machine can handle the layers you'll have to sew
• patchworked panels are thick and heavy
• don't give yourself too much waistline allowence, all that fabric will have to bunch around your waist
• if you insert pockets in your panels, take the height of the waistband into consideration
• if you insert pockets or other important features in your panels, remember to inset them enough, that it doesn't get chopped off in seam allowance
• if you want vertical strips to connect panels, either: have horizontal patches in the strips, or make sure the panels are very a-line (very triangular), see second picture to understand why.

Wool underwear

Back when I was in a frenzy buying wool sweaters to make longies for the wee one I picked up a sweater at a thrift store. Not just a wool sweater, a wonderful, soft, thin wool sweater. It was missing its tags but I'm optimistically positive it is Smartwool. I originally thought it would make a nice pair of summer longies, but hesitated and then discovered the little one is a naturalist in the summer. Well, she's probably a naturalist the rest of the year, too, but we keep her covered up.
Back to this wool I need to use... underwear, grownup underwear. It gets cold in our house in the winter. Wool is supposed to make great underwear, requiring less washings than regular cotton (umm, we'll see about that part, I'm a bit skeptical of the idea of rotating unwashed underwear). So off google to find directions for turning a wool sweater into underwear.
Perhaps my problem was using the term underwear instead of panties. Anyone else have an issue with 'panties'? I never liked that word. Anyhow, I found this post: Any Size Long Johns from Wool Sweaters Now that's an idea. A few odd seams in a pair of long johns won't matter if no one's going to see them anyway. And it combines another project I've been contemplating - something warm for under skirts in winter. Flannel bloomers had been the direction I was going, but wool long johns sounds even cozier... Now to find out if my sweater can cover more than just my butt.

In Progress

Oh my goodness, patchwork takes a long time. Especially when working around a fulltime job and a 1.5 year old. But I'm loving the process. I've gotten 3 panels of 4 done.
I'm using 10 corduroys from chopped up pants and skirts.