I Heart My Sandhill Sling

Back in 2010 I bought a bag at Supanova featuring an anatomical heart, from a new shop called Jubly Umph. I loved that bag, and made the fatal mistake of only using it for special occasions, because after a decade or so the main fabric disintegrated. Sad to be throwing it away, I cut out the heart design and lining in the hopes of reusing them in something.

Fourteen years later, while looking through old bits of salvaged bags, I found the heart scrap and lining (including inner pockets) and realised both were just the right size to use in another Sandhill Sling. I also had a salvaged double ended bag zip and matching pocket zip, and a red velvet knitting bag that I’d been looking for a new use for, and some black destash denim.

So last weekend I got snipping, ironing, cutting and sewing and came up with this:

Which I am totally in love with. The cat-themed version is still high in my affections and a more practical colour for day use, but this one came together faster (thanks to practice and the lining having the original inner pockets), looks fabulous and feels so luxurious.

And totally justifies me hoarding old bits and pieces in case they come in handy one day.

The Moon Raven Jacket

As I said in the last post, the Desperately Seeking Susan jacket gave me a whole lot of ideas for embellishing other jackets. At first, I thought I would do an op shop search to find the jacket, but I really don’t need more jackets. Then I pondered whether any of my exisiting jackets would be suitable, and immediately I thought of this one:

It’s a vintage velvet jacket that I re-lined with beautiful blue damask satin several years ago, which I liked but wasn’t that excited about any more. Immediately I knew the main colour of the back embellishment needed to be blue, and I knew there were some large pieces of blue felt in my stash that used to be yarn bins. I’d sewn most of the DDS jacket pieces onto red felt, so I would do the same with the blue.

What imagery to use? I wrote a list of objects that interested me, and an astronomy theme emerged – a phases of the moon, telescopes, planets, etc. A strong image of a bird with wings spread also stuck in my mind, with batting behind to give it body. Framing everything would be a, well, frame. A quilted gold frame.

I let the ideas sit for a bit, to resolved into something I could see in my mind’s eye. In the meantime, I began gathering fabric, buying some shiny gold satin, then spotting some stretchy iridescent silver stretch dance fabric – which hopefully wouldn’t fray – for the moons. Looking through old fabrics to repurpose, I pulled out a black and silver bustier I’d made in my teens with a pattern that suggested feathers.

I sketched out the design, then got to work. Most of the piece came together over a week or so. The latin phrase was tricky – the internet is both helpful and unhelpful because it suggests a whole lot of phrases but then you find the forums where people discuss latin translations and it turns out everything is wrong and nobody can agree on the proper translation of anything.

However, the probably wrong internet translation of “to the moon and back” fits really neatly on the ribbon shape I’d cut, so I figured I’d just go with that and if any latin experts ever point out it’s wrong I’ll say it’s fake latin.

Once the panel was done I pinned it to the jacket, took photos and shared it with friends. And kept putting off sewing it onto the jacket. Initially because all the hand sewing parts had given me a very sore back. But also because hand sewing felt to velvet without catching the lining was probably not going to be much fun. And it wasn’t, when I finally got around to it. A couple of sewing YouTube videos got me through, and then it was done.

Unfortunately, it is waaaay too hot in Melbourne to be wearing this, even indoors. In the meantime, I have it hanging up where I can admire it.

I would like to add more to it. Something like telescopes and other tools of astronomy overlapping the gold frame. But I don’t intend to embroider them. If I find a nice print fabric featuring them, I might appliqué them on.

DIY Sewing Tools

Ok, so I know I said no more destash sales, but I was helping a friend run a stall at a hard rubbish pickers market. On one of the other stalls I found this for just a few dollars:

The stallholder didn’t know what it was, and was relieved that someone did and took it off their hands. It was, er, naked when I bought it, so I made it covers like it has on the maker’s website – though I’ve seen videos of people using sleeve presses with no covers so I probably didn’t need to.

I decided to use the six butterfly pattern pieces of cotton canvas to make pattern weights.

Then used those when cutting out fabric offcuts to make a pressing ham.

Instructions from Sustainable Style, which I got for my birthday.

I’ve been rewatching The Great British Sewing Bee from the start. I’ve picked up more sewing tips and methods second time around. I think I was more focussed on the results than the method on the first watch.

I couldn’t really comment on the book’s contents yet, because I’d need to try sewing something more complicated than a pressing ham to get a feel for how good it is. But it is nicely presented. While the title suggests it’s all about sustainable clothing or approaches to sewing, not all of the patterns have any obvious ‘eco’ focus. It’s more a collection of projects selected from a couple of seasons, with a few extra patterns and ideas.

I’ve Got to Stop Going to Destash Sales

This time it was one at the Ashburton library. Along with some nice pieces of fabric and a thimble-cutter-pusher doovy, I bought a mystery bag of fabric. Well, it wasn’t that big of a mystery because you could rifle through them to see what each contained, but I found a piece of quilting cotton with a cat print in the first one so I grabbed that and didn’t bother looking at the rest.

Turns out most of what was inside were canvas/duck cloth rectangles. I’ve only ever used this fabric to make carry bags for paintings, so the challenge to make something useful was quite stimulating for the brain.

I gave half to the friend who took me to the sale, who was going to make them into keyring loops to sell. Once home I washed everything then trimmed all the fraying threads, and boy did they fray even through I’d washed them in lingerie bags. Some of the rectangles had a mostly green leafy pattern that went well with the green dotty one. I had been thinking about making a harvest apron/bag, so I did a search for tutorials and then didn’t follow them. The bag came out well despite this.

The blue dotty fabric goes well with the alpaca one, but I haven’t yet decided what to make with that.

There’s enough of the black fabric with blue and pink flowers that if I patchwork it together it could be the front of a half and half skirt. I only recently culled one of those skirts from my wardrobe because I was tired of the front fabric, and I figured I could replace it with something new. So that’s one for the to-sew list.

I also intend to make some little three-sided pyramid pattern weights and maybe a sunhat from the red flowering gum fabric.

In unrelated news, I also did some refashioning.

And covered a hole I got in my only good black long-sleeve top when I took off a jacket and hadn’t realised the brooch I’d pinned on it had gone through two layers.

All this done over two rare free days. They felt like a luxury after months of working in the garden and chasing tradies. There’s just some wall painting to be done and then we can hibernate through summer. I’m already thinking about big projects to do during the last two weeks of December. Hopefully it won’t lead to anything as crazy as the Summer of Quilts!

Kawandi Done

And I like it.

It’s been an interesting project. A good one for between other tasks, when simple running stitch is all I need.

Though thin compared to quilts with batting, it’s still warm enough to use as a lap blanket.

I found the greatest challenge was keeping the space between the rows of stitching consistent. There’s a bit of variation – the gap tended to widen, but I made myself narrow it again gradually. I ran out of the yellow cotton thrums and moved onto salmon pink, which looks good and helps to unite the shirt colours.

Maybe I’ll make another one day, but for now there are too many other interesting stitchy things I want to try.

Kawandi-ish Progress

It’s no surprise that this is quite a meditative project. And yet it can also be addictive. Adding new pieces of cloth is the exciting part, and the stitching is the relaxing bit. I find it’s better to add enough scraps that I can stitch uninterrupted for some time before I need to stop and add more.

On YouTube the vloggers sometimes use dressmaking pins to secure the fabric. I’m using quilting pins. Less chance of stabbing myself.

I’m using a long sashiko needle with a ring thimble, which took a little getting used to, and I really like it. The layers limit how many stitches I can do at once, but it’s much easier on the hands than a finger-end style thimble.

The scraps usually need a bit of tweaking to make the edges sit along one of the rows of stitching. This can be a bit harder to anticipate at the corners. A rectangle might be neatly stitched down a few rounds ago then not be quite aligned once a corner is turned. But having the edges folded under by a generous half inch gives lots of leeway.

I’m going to have plenty of shirt fabric left over, but I won’t be making another kawandi-style quilt from it. I’ve been thinking about ways I could vary aspects of the quilt. Maybe stitching individual patches in spirals instead of the whole quilt? Curved stitching instead of straight? Colourful/fancy fabric? Non-square fabric scraps? Borrow from Boro?

There are so many directions to go in, and they don’t have to be overly complicated. It could still be relaxing and exciting in the same way.

Bowl Cosies & Triangle Bags

Lately I’ve been catching up on gardening with the help of a friendly and much-fitter-than-me gardener. My weeks seem to involve one day on which physical work happens, after which the rest of the days are spent recovering whilst also tackling the usual commitments. I am certainly not as young as I used to be.

Weekends are for resting. And craft. How complex that craft is depends on how many days into the recovery I am. My brain seems to be the last part of me to heal. Last Sunday I was energetic enough to try a few small sewing projects.

The first was two microwave bowl cosies. Pattern here.

The second was a triangle bag from the YouTuber “Pin Cut Sew”. Episode here.

The bowl cosies must be made from 100% cotton fibre, batting and thread to be microwavable. I know the thread and batting are, and the batik fabric should be, but the lining fabric is a bit of a guess. Fingers crossed it doesn’t melt!

The triangle bag is such a quick, easy project. Even so, I managed to cut the wrong size and got a wonky bag, but then it was easy to just resew one seam to correct that. Next time I’ll make a template.

There are two more sewing patterns I want to try, but first… more gardening. Sigh.

Little Birdy

Weekends are for craft, and by the time I get to them I’m so tired all I want to do is something easy and small. So I printed some patterns and sketched out instructions from videos for a few small projects I wanted to try.

One was the Little Birdy Pincushion by Sharon Holland Designs. Once I’d printed it out and cut out the shapes, I went looking through my bundles of scrap fabric for combinations I liked. The body and tail of the first one is an old handmade hankie of Mum’s, the second uses dress fabric scraps she gave me.

I didn’t add the dried lentils, but they sit well enough if you give them a firm tap. They’re stuffed with chopped up scraps of fabric and batting. The eyes are french knots, but I think I might switch to a bead as it might be more easily seen.

The first one took me more than two hours. I started off hand sewing then realised that the seams would gape once it was stuffed, so I switched to machine sewing. The second one took a little bit over an hour.

I kinda want to make a flock of them, and maybe line them up along a shelf or branch.

Rainbow Cat Couch Quilt

When I finally did some actual craft again after the big room reorganisation and craft downsize in May and June, it was to finish this quilt. I’ve waited this long to post about the quilt because it was a birthday present.

I’d ordered some multi-coloured gradient thread, but it took four months to arrive. I do wish online stores wouldn’t list items they don’t have in stock. Still, they were apologetic and kept me updated on the order progress throughout the long wait. At one point I gave up and decided to hand quilt. I gathered and bought some needles, thread and a frame, but I’m glad I never got around to it because the gradient thread is perfect.

I used white thread on the back.

The binding fabric is a piece I noticed in a scrap bin beside the counter at Spotlight while I was being served – one of those lucky fabric moments. I had barely enough, though, which is why the binding is so narrow. It was not easy to apply!

If you knew the recipient, you’d know a ridiculously bright, cosy rainbow cat quilt had to go to them. It’s always so nice when something you make chooses its owner!