A funny little project

Yesterday I was teaching a sewing class at my local yarn shop Sheepish. While I was packing up my gear I thought about the fact that often when I am heading home from class, my iron is still hot! Sometimes I put it in a cardboard box. Often I just wing it and hope I do not burn myself. Herein the problem = hot iron needing to be transported. And I like to solve a problem when I can so I did. I made and insulated tote just for my iron.

Basically I took 2 fat quarters, and two pieces of fabric insulation (the stuff you put inside oven mitts) and made myself a little "hot"tote.

This is the bag empty. And a student last night pointed out that it would make a great wine carrier. Or a shorter version would be a great lunch tote.

It is true you could do all sorts of cute stuff with this simple concept.

There is my "hot" iron in there all cozy and snug.

It is a bit of a tight fit. But I wanted it to protect my iron in transport as well as keep me from burning myself.



















This is what it looks like with the iron in it. A little wonky but it does the job.

So maybe sewing will solve a problem for you today! 

Peace Out - C 

Summer Skirts Part 2

Here is Miss M modeling one of her new skirts that she wore to school yesterday. She managed to wear a long skirt, tank and cardi and not look like a tiny version of an old lady. This is actually a pretty good combination. Except the shoes of course but hey have to wear comfy shoes to school. And apparently we are going shoe shopping later.

She loved all the skirts I made her. Actually she LOVES this one and really really likes the other ones, to quote her more exactly.

Here is today's outfit. A little more casual and laid back. She said that since it is the day before spring break she wanted something "vacation-y". I think the flip flop T-shirt conveys a feeling of vacation. The palm trees help too. She wore sandals today since she does not have P.E., well I hope she doesn't who can keep all that crap straight?

This skirt was made using the same fleece pattern. I sewed this one on my regular old sewing machine. However I did sew all seams with a teeny tiny zig zag stitch. If you sew a stretch fabric with a straight stitch the stitches will break when the fabric tries to stretch. I could have used the serger but my serger needs a tune up and I was just not in the mood to fight with it. And this is the only one I cut out single layer. It was just too difficult to tame to do double layer.

The waistband of this skirt is simple exposed elastic. It is a cool blue and black stripe-y elastic, but solid colors look cute this way too.

To attach the waistband you just sew the elastic into a circle. Then you sew the elastic onto the skirt right sides together using a zig zag stitch and then flip up your elastic and wow you have a cute skirt!

More summer clothes are in the works! But next week is Spring Break so don't worry too much of you don't hear from me for a bit.

Hugs!
C

Summer Skirts, Part 1

Summer is here! We pretty much skipped spring. So if you live in the south you know that you get about 3 days between when you turn off the heat and turn on the air conditioner. And they are the same three days where you have the heat on in the car in the morning and the AC on in the car in the afternoon.

I have had "make skirts for M" on my to do list since November. I made her one back in November when it was still oddly warm and then it got cold and I let them languish on the list for a few months.

Back in September she got a cute little maxi skirt at a store. And while I love it I realized that is so crazy easy I could totally make her one of those. So I did and now she has a total of 5, 3 of which I made yesterday.

Here is the first one.

Made in November hence the boots and sweatshirt. This skirt was well loved all winter and I think she even played in the snow with it on one day. 

The 2nd one I don't have a picture of. So here are some pictures of us shopping for fabric.

Look at all that fun elastic! 

Where's M?

I can't seem to find her!?

Fun Fur!

Ok back to skirts. So I took her store bought skirt and laid it out on a piece of fleece. I traced it and added a seam allowance to make the basic skirt pattern. I used fleece because I have a ton and it is cheep. But I like it for a simple pattern like this because it sticks to your fabric and you don't need pins. Since the fabric I was using to make the skirts is knit and is temperamental it was nice to have an easy to deal with pattern material.

M and I have much different taste. But if we have to pick something for each other we can always do it spot on. She loves wearing white. She looks great in it but then she runs and jumps and plays in the dirt. And well her white stuff turns playground worn fast.

Such is life! I like the giant butterflies with the smaller butterflies on top, but I would not have necessarily chosen this for myself, however I would choose it for her all day long.

Some people just have a style and a palette. I used to fight it and try and do something different or encourage her to do something different but I gave up that battle. You love what you love.

Someone once asked me "Isn't it exhausting to be that bold all the time?". My answer to this day is NO! It is just how I roll, and I would guess that M would say the same thing. I am proud of her for being bold and sticking to her guns even when I don't love what she picks. However you do have to stick to the butt and boobies covered rule! I do have some limits.

This is the pattern laid out on one of fashion fabrics that M picked.

This fabric is slick. I think it is a poly blend but is stretchy and fun and will be nice for our suddenly warm weather.

For this particular skirt I did a waistband. Basically I cut a strip of fabric and encased the elastic in the band. The elastic was 1.5 inches wide so I doubled it and added .5 inch on both sides for seam allowance, so you cut a 4 inch wide band, the length of the waist of the skit. Then I attached the band (with the elastic inside) to the body of the skirt.

I did this skirt on the serger but I did the other two on my good old regular sewing machine. I will explain in Summer Skirts part 2 how I sewed the different types of knits.

See how the waistband looks nice and finished. This is exactly how the store bought one looks.

I saw them again and was almost sucked in. Then I made myself go home and make them.

Funny thing is that the store bought cost and the homemade cost are almost exactly the same. But it is pretty fun to pick out your own fabrics and make it fit just right.

I have some plans to make some similar skirts for myself.

Speaking of which I would rather be sewing than typing. So Peace Out! For now....

Chrissy