I’ve been having fun recently sewing garments for myself.  Although my mother and grandmother did teach me this skill when I was a teenager, I’m afraid it didn’t stick.  So I’ve been basically re-learning many of the skills.  YouTube is a serious advantage in some ways…you can learn almost anything off YouTube these days.  Wish it had been around when I was trying to learn to knit…At any rate, being able to watch a short tutorial on almost any skill has been a boon to my (re)burgeoning sewing abilities.

While working on a recent sewing project, I had occasion to use the six old-school pattern weights that I (ahem) “liberated” from my mother’s sewing cabinet when I moved out many years ago.  These weights are cylindrical and weigh 60 grams each.  Their shape gives them a distressing tendency to topple over and then roll away.  This, as my mother and I like to say, is “sub-optimal.”

In my ongoing quest to make clothing for myself that actually fit my body (like the linen dress I made recently), I bought a pattern called Magic Pants from designer Ann Tilley, along with the optional notions kit.

My favorite brother has a very nice dining room table.  It’s beautiful.  But it came with benches for the long sides instead of chairs, and at the ends, some imposing captain’s chairs.  My sister-in-law long ago replaced those awful benches with cushioned chairs, bless her.  But the captain’s chairs remain, and they are uncomfortable.  They need cushions, of course, but they are not a standard size and shape, so buying cushions for the job isn’t a viable option.

In my ongoing quest for organization, I’ve made some more pouches.  Unlike the packing cubes, these are just flat little zippered pouches good for anything you like.  When deciding on your size, remember that the zippered opening will be 1” narrower than the width of your pouch.  I mention this because I actually made one pouch that I can barely get my hand inside, which isn’t terribly functional.

A couple weeks ago, during a little extra time between appointments, I just happened to find myself in the vicinity of Craft Warehouse and decided to pop in “just to have a look around.”  I am truly old enough to know better but I did it anyway and ended up spending the entirety of my entertainment budget for the month.  I don’t even really feel bad about it.  I should…but I don’t. Disgraceful.

A friend of mine will be having her second child in the not-too-distant future.  For her first, I crocheted her a baby blanket in white and pastel yarn in my favorite blanket pattern. For her second, I thought I’d try a quilt.  I didn’t realize this until I started getting interested in quilting, but the companies that specialize in quilting cotton fabric sometimes make fabric panels…that is, a larger piece of fabric that has a picture or pattern on it, and is meant to be used in one piece, instead of being cut up and pieced back together like usual.

As with many of my projects, this one started with a YouTube video.  This one, to be precise. The YouTuber presents these little square pouches as “packing cubes.” They could be used for anything, obviously, but I was delighted with the idea of packing cubes.

I’d like to introduce a new member of the household.  World, meet Hester.  Hester, world. Hester and I have not yet formed what I’d like to describe as an “operational relationship.”  Translation:  I haven’t used her yet, being still caught up in YouTube and internet research.  But soon…

As with many of my projects, this week’s offering started with a YouTube video.  I took inspiration from the video but decided to go about my own construction, which I will share with you now.  First of all…what are we making?  Well, I don’t really have a good name for it, I’ll just describe the situation it addresses.

I don’t wear dresses (or any kind of fancy clothing, really) with any regularity at all.  My lifestyle doesn’t require it.  However, even in a casual lifestyle like mine, there are occasional events which call for a dress.  For example, my oldest nephew’s recent high school graduation ceremony.  I had no dress that fit.  I made do with a stretchy long tunic and pretended it was a dress, but it was makeshift at best.  I decided I’d quite like to try making a few articles of clothing that properly fit me and looked reasonably nice.  To that end, I decided to first try Sewing Inspiration’s Tie Dress.

When I finished my recent QAYG quilt, I had bits of the jelly roll strips left over.  Enough, I thought (hoped), to make a cover for my new sewing machine (which I have named Henrietta).  A hat for Henrietta, if you will.  I cut down the remnants of the jelly rolls into 2.5” squares, hoped I had enough, and began.

I don’t like buying certain things.  Clothing.  I just hate shopping for (and spending money on) clothes.  My mother and I were laughing about this the other day during a phone conversation and we agreed that if it weren’t for her and my dear friend Jane, I wouldn’t have any decent clothes at all.  Between the two of them, they have managed to force me to purchase enough pieces of clothing that I don’t go naked.  I’m very grateful.  Truly, I am, even though I’m a serious pain in the tush when the forced shopping is in progress…Jane, I’m very sorry about biting you.

You’ll want to read Part 1 first, naturally.

Okay, I know I said in a recent post that if I never saw another quilt, it would be too soon.  Well, I’m allowed to change my mind, right?  This is still America, right?

I believe I might have mentioned once or twice that I watch a lot of YouTube.  At the moment, I’ve been watching a lot of quilting videos, which got me to thinking about small projects that use up scraps.  Why not coasters?  They’re quite small, done quickly, are pretty and useful, and make lovely gifts.  Oh, and they’re fun to make.  So today, two different methods of doing patchwork and quilting to make a set of four coasters.

Part 2 won’t make much sense if you haven’t read Part 1, which you can find here.

I’ve never made a quilt.  I’ve done very small quilting projects (placemats and the like) but never a proper big blanket.  But this did not stop me from volunteering my sewing “skills” when my favorite sister-in-law mentioned that she’d been saving up my oldest nephew’s T-shirts and wanted to make him a T-shirt quilt for his high school graduation.  How hard could it be?  Well…the answer to that is lengthy but the simple version is…harder than I thought.

One of the big requirements for a wrist pincushion is that there is something present which prevents the wearer from jabbing a pin all the way through the pincushion and into their wrist. 

I was FaceTiming with my mother recently, and we were knitting while we chatted.  Every time my mother needed some knitting notion (an extra needle, a stitch marker, a darning needle, a longer cable, a cable cap, the little key for interchangeable needles, scissors, etc), she had to get up from her work table, trot off to retrieve it, and then come back.  Then, when she was done with whatever little tool she’d most recently used, she’d lay it on the work surface and promptly lose it.  “It was right here a second ago!”