Shop Progress

Yesterday was surprisingly productive, partly due to the rain storm that did not arrive. I was getting ready to go out for my walk, and I saw what seemed to be impending rain clouds. I checked the radar and decided that it was too risky, so I went into the studio and set to work. While the rain did not show up until later it must have inspired my African violet to bloom. Spring showers and May flowers and all.

In this burst of productivity, I tried to get some pictures of the chocolate pin stripe pants in our blue stairway. There was just the right amount of light, but I could not get the pants to fit right. They fit much better before I started loosing weight, so I guess I will have to figure out how to model these or break down and get someone else to model them for me. I may have a few fitting ideas up my sleeve, so that I can get them uploaded to Etsy without them looking too weird. I would say, though, that these pants are great for someone a bit bigger than myself. They are also great for a business casual setting.

I have been working on these wonderful olive filigree style Jakarta pants. I really love this fabric. It is an unusual fabric for me to pick, but it just looked so great I had to have it. Here they are just after I finished sewing them up. I will have to wait for a sunny day with low wind before I can photograph them and get a listing up on Etsy. It is, as I have mentioned before, rather difficult to photograph these fabrics. They often times will look washed out or the embroidery designs will not show up on the photograph. Full sun seems to be the only solution to this. I am rather shocked to see how well this fabric photographed just in the craft studio. It is pretty close to correct for the color and the embroidery actually comes through.

I also settled on the final motif for the bottom parts of the elephant and peacock belt. I drew some flower doodles that I make often and satin stitched them in and also added fern stitch for the vines. I have one finished and another one started. There are three more to be done, and then all I have left is some mini tassel making for the elephant's tails and decorations for their mirrors. It will be rather intricate once finished. I am almost there on finishing this, and I can't wait to reveal it to you all. First, though, I need to buy more floss for the tassels. I can't seem to estimate exactly how much I need. I am keeping notes if I ever get crazy enough to make a belt like this again.

I got so many things done that I could not believe there would be time for a personal project, but there was. I worked on a 25 yard skirt for myself. I have the black fabric all cut and began serging the edges tonight. Today I am going to work on the stitching of the tiers and the gathering stitches. If I am lucky, I can get the first two tiers tied together before I leave for tutoring at 826 and class at Fat Chance. Here is to hoping I am as productive today as I was yesterday.

Quilt Plans

I don't really need any more hobbies, but ever since I started sewing, I always held onto my fabric scraps. I just could not see throwing away what seemed to be good fabric that I could someday find something to use it on. I have always admired quilts, especially Amish style quilts, and I thought perhaps someday I would start quilting as well. I even bought my first quilt, a hand pieced and hand sewn Amish made quilt, at a quilt auction in the Amish area of central Illinois. I love it and admired the careful handwork and designs sewn all over the simple patches, but I am constantly worried about over using it. We need another one to help rotate it out of service now and then.

Now, I finally think the scraps are out of control enough to have to put them to a purpose. I am working on designing my first quilt. I am looking at using these fabrics from some of my first sewing projects and some more recent acquisitions in a broken Lone Star style design. I need to decide on some other fabrics that I would have to buy for the framing pieces of the Lone Star. I am not sure which of the colors I would match up, but I am thinking about the yellow and blue as being the ones I highlight. I have used an on line coloring program to work out different ways to place the colors of fabric. I just cannot decide. I know I want the yellow in the middle, and then I think the blue, then black, the red, and finally yellow tips. The other configuration that I am thinking is yellow middle, black, blue, red, and yellow tips. I guess I will just have to cut out some pieces and play with it before deciding. Any thoughts on what you think would look better? I will post pictures of any progress that I make.

Today, the goal is to finish up the hand embroidery of the belt. I ran out of the thread that I needed for the double feather stitch, so a store run this weekend was necessary. Now that the threads are back in stock, the sewing can commence. I also want to get my new black skirt cut out and mostly assembled today. They are lofty goals, but doable ones. I also would like to get my walk in today for the 10,000 steps, but I think the weather will prevent me from doing so. Late rain showers are in the area again today, and while I love the gloomy weather and we need the rain, I don't particularly want to walk in the rain today. Hopefully I can figure out a solution for the exercise. Well so much to do and so much inspiration. I am off for sewing goodness.

Belt Progress

The belt has been making some progress. I sat down yesterday and started on the final group of hand stitched embroidery. I am doing a double feather stitch in the gold color of the elephants and other designs on the belt. It is turning out quite well, and I am very pleased with myself and how even the stitches are turning out. I guess all the practice with hand sewing over the years is finally paying off.

I hope to finish up the feather stitch today. Then I need to trim the tassels and sew the belt all together. It is turning out so well, and I am loving it. Will I make one for myself? Doubtful. I think this is destined to be a one of a kind belt due to the many hours of thought, labor, and love that went into its making. Throw in the fact that I cannot get the yarn that I made the tassels out of anymore, and you have a one of a kind piece. While I could replicate the embroideries again, I could never make the same kind of tassels for this. A big part of the design for this belt was inspired by those yarns. I cannot wait for it to all finally go together and be the show stopping belt that it is meant to be!

Walks and Library Visits

I am a sucker for desserts, and lately, I have noticed that I am not keeping up with my eating. So, after a disastrous first bout back into exercise by trying to run the stairs in the building, I decided this week to start more slowly. I have started walking with a 10,000 step goal for each day. On Monday I met it, and yesterday I was just a few hundred steps short. I tried a route on Monday that was pretty long but not quite long enough for the full 10,000 steps, but it was supplemented by more walking to meet with Dan to go to a Long Now talk for the full amount.

Yesterday I walked a new route, to the library. I decided to try and visit the Asian branch of the Oakland public library. It was a wonderful find. There were so many books dedicated to Asian forms of crafting, from Asian forms of quilting and Sashiko techniques to paper lamp crafting and bamboo work. There were also many books on traditional textiles of different regions of Asia. I also picked up a book that was full of neat sewing projects for different types of quilted handbags and pouches. It was inspiring and a place that I am sure I will be visiting often. There is nothing like piles of free books that I can borrow to make me a happy woman. Plus, using the library saved me a $40 mistake, purchasing an out of print book that really did not have the information that I needed. It feels good to come out ahead of the game once in a while.

In looking at all of these books, it got me motivated again to work on the elephant and peacock belt. I have some more tassels to make for it as well as some more hand embroidery. Once those things are done, I should be able to sew all the pieces together. I am not sure why I am so hesitant to finish off this belt, but I think some of it may be due to the extreme care and amount of time I have spent on it. I am going to make a good go of getting close to finishing it by the end of the week. I would love to photograph and list it next week. I will post rough pictures of the finished belt here as soon as it is finished. For now I need to look for a longer walking path for today's walk before I sit down for some embroidery work on that belt!

Friday?! Really?!

I am not quite sure where this week went. There were lots of things to do, and some of them were accomplished. Today is a laundry Friday as well as work on the belt day. Here are a few pictures of some of the designs. One is a flower and the other is an elephant that does not have the shisha yet.





I am planning on working on some sewing machine covers this weekend as well as learning to use Gimp better. I have dance at Fat Chance tonight as well. I guess there is not too much to report, so a short and sweet entry today. More on Monday. I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

Unmotivated Monday

So I am totally unmotivated today. I think I am going to blame it on the new arrival into the household, our new tv. It is a large tv and it is like a small movie theater screen in our small apartment. I love it, but it takes the motivation to do things right out of me. I suppose the numerous messes left behind by our new bundle of joy are not helping matters either. The apartment is kind of hard to navigate, and the new boxes to the box piles are a bit disappointing since we were getting so close to being "box free." Needless to say, I took the opportunity to take the weekend off and do things like lazing around and watching the big tv. (Do you see a trend yet?) I did also do some good and productive things. I finished off the special order last week, which took a load off my shoulders. Now I am just going though my normal anxiety of wondering if the pieces I made are going to fit correctly. I measured many times and cut once, so hopefully Norm's steadfast advice will come though again.

I did do some productive things over the time since my last entry. On Wednesday, I spent the day with a friend. I meant to get the sewing totally finished on that day, but it was great to see Erik and hang out. Being over at his place is always an adventure, and I am never sure what projects we will end up doing, but they are always fun. This time, hydroponics. I think he was inspired by my window and Aerogarden the last time he was over and wants in on some of the home gardening fun. He, though, admitted that he is not good at remembering to water plants, so hydroponics seemed like the logical conclusion for his engineering mind. Engineers, you gotta love them! We, read he with my moral support, also built a soil moisture detector. It was amazing to watch him just put it together out of his imagination and a little internet help.

Thursday was my usual try to get things done in the morning with tutoring in the afternoon. I ended up getting all the cutting and a bit of sewing on the custom order done that day. Friday was the frantic, "This needs to get out the mail TODAY!" sewing session. I am proud to say that it got finished. I just wished my need for pressure to get anything accomplished habit would change. I guess I have always been a pressure person, so it may be a long time coming. I also went to Fat Chance for dance on Friday night instead of Tuesday. I just did not feel up to going on Tuesday, and it was nice to have the option of going on another night if I wanted to go but not on the particular night I was used to going. Options are great.

Today, I am hoping to get myself off the couch after writing this and into the gym. We will see how this works out. Big tv is pretty neat and also may be lonely if I leave the apartment. I also wanted to get a ton of baking done. Hopefully I can get some banana bread going after jogging and some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies accomplished today. English muffins may have to wait for tomorrow. I also want to get my sister's pants hemmed and Claudia's birthday present planned and the list of items needed for it written out. Once all that is done, I am going to settle in for some tv viewing and some hand sewing on that cross stitch belt that I mentioned months ago. Yes, it got put down again and forgotten. I would really like to get the embroidery done on that and get the belt finished this week if at all possible. The weather, being like it is, will actually help, since I find my best hand sewing occurs on rainy days. This week is supposed to be all rain. Pictures of baked goods to come tomorrow. Till then, I plan to stay dry and cozy with a cup of tea. Off to the gym for me now though!

Cross Stitch Belt

So I have been working on this belt idea for a long time. Cross stitch is something that I really enjoy, but my hands have to also be cooperating for me to be able to work on this. That means that most of my cross stitch work used to occur in the summer months in Illinois, and I had hoped that would change when we moved to California. I had hoped for fewer cold and wet days.... boy was I off! The bay area has many cold and damp days. I guess the place is more like Seattle than I had first thought. So I began this belt project in the summer last year, intending to finish is soon over the last part of the fall, however my hands have been rather uncooperative. So I put this belt plan aside on the sewing cart. It eventually got moved around several times, and each time I looked at it I really wanted to finish it but knew I couldn't. Finally I began to bury it under other projects. I just could not bear to look at the unfinished sewing. Well I found it again recently and decided to try to get through the final tediously difficult hand sewing of the shisha on this piece. I decided to go with faux shisha in order to make the piece a little less bulky. Here is one of the finished animal forms, a peacock. It will be the central panel of the belt that is inspired by a traditional wall hanging called a toran. I hope that you enjoy looking at this little piece of the work in progress. I am really enjoying working on this little gem again. I am so sad that I let it languish for so long.