Holiday Project Begun

Holiday Place Mats is the current project

My next project is beginning! I will continue to update this space as I finish more. I think that I need about 60 to finish this project.

Folk Art placemats coming along

 

Found The Right 'Responsive Code' For this Blog

 I've found the right code to make this blogger site responsive, and it will take rewriting all my tables into a gallery code. It's going to take a long time going back and re-writing all the code, but it will take the images that seem to stretch when on a phone or tablet, and make them clearer, one image on the screen at a time.

It's currently not horrible, just a bit stretched, but in time you will see it looking better! I'll be doing this while doing all the other things I've got going on. I might not get the house dusted or swept for a while, but I will keep getting the other things done! Thanks for visiting!!

After the Storms - Making a Dinosaur Jacket

My Dino Jacket

I had to put my machine away, due to the storms that came through, both Helene and Milton. We didn't take a direct hit, but when a storm like those approaches, everything has to be packed away or tied down. I packed everything away for the first one, waited to be sure it was safe to bring everything back out again, then turned around and packed it all up again. I hope I wont be packing again this year.

Once unpacked again after the second storm, I finished the Birthday quilt and got it into the mail, and did some tweaking to the pants I made earlier (too long, reset buttons, fix a waistband) then started on this jacket. I was originally going to make it for someone else, but no one appeared interested (don't wear plush, don't like dinosaurs...) so I am making it for me! I used a pattern, for the sleeves and body size, to get them right. I changed the shoulders the bottom, the cuffs, the collar to get the bomber-style I wanted. I couldn't find a pattern to match, so I made it up as I went along.

Cutting it all out

Building a Jacket

Still a lot to do, but it's on it's way

Surprise! It glows in the dark!

What's it Worth To You?

In all the quilting I've done, I've never made a quilt for myself. The first quilt I made, I didn't really make. The top was made long before I acquired it. It may have been made by an ancestor (Great Grandmother) but more probably was picked up at a garage sale in the 70's, maybe before. Long ago I added the interior and a back to it, but it was all experimental.

I've also never sold a quilt. There are lots of reasons for this. One is that I don't have a "quilting machine" to do the fancy top stitching, mine is more a variation of stitching in the ditch. Doesn't make it less valuable, but many have specific expectations, and my 'feathers' were never going to set the world on fire. The funny thing is, if I owned a quilting machine, the cost of a quilt would go up, exponentially! 

It takes two weeks to make a quilt. They take 100-120 hours for a full-sized quilt. When I get started, I'm often working 10 hour days, measuring, cutting, sewing, filling, sewing, thinking, sewing... I get bored and take breaks, but even those are short, as I feel guilty for not getting this done, and on to the next thing (not necessarily sewing or quilting.) And while I feel a sense of accomplishment when they are done, and think most of them are beautiful, I usually feel like I could have done better. Maybe some of the seams weren't exactly correct because I was day dreaming, or the pieces were cut a thread over or shy of exact. I'm not talking big mistakes, those I usually dig out and do over, if they happen. I'm talking small, even tiny, mistakes. But I feel them all. The backs are my biggest issue. After wrestling all those heavy layers around my sewing machine to get the quilting done, there are area's that don't always lay flat enough for my liking. 

I like to design, to choose the colors, to decide how I want it to look and how to get there. I like seeing it come together, though I am frequently 'done' with it before it's finished. I've made over a hundred, 35 of those going to Veteran's, the rest going to family and a few friends. One day I will make one for me, and keep it.

But back to selling them. When you think about the cost of materials, the time in searching out and finding the right pattern (usually just a photo of something that I can then create the pattern for) the actual time making it, the blood, sweat and tears that go into each and every one of them, putting a price on one is very, very hard. When burger flippers are making $15 plus and hour to stand and flip burgers over, without skill, experience, thought or abilities, what is an hour worth for someone using all those? Creating something totally unique, a one-of-a-kind art piece? See the difficulty? At $1000 a piece, it's just over $8 an hour, when you have to figure in 4.5-5 yards each for the three layers of the quilt (15 yards of fabric at $12 a yard is about $180.) And how do you measure the value for the creativity? It just isn't easy. I think that it's worth a lot more than what a burger flipper, fry cook, retail worker or many other folks make. While a hamburger can be a work of art, they usually aren't, and don't even come up to 'a good hamburger' status. So, $2,000 a piece, and I am up to what a burger flipper makes. $3,000? More? And then I would feel guilty for charging so much, even though, it's what the work alone is worth, if not the value of the art.

Someone mentioned that I was 'just giving them away to veterans, people I often didn't even know, for free.' And that's true. I do that, in honor of my cousin, who lived with us for awhile when I was growing up, and felt like a big brother. And because I didn't have to face what those people have, to make the decisions that they have to live with. So, they did 'pay for them' just not with cash. Sort of a 'quid pro quo'.

So, I may never sell one, but the people who have them should know the value of what they have been gifted. And hopefully, it makes them feel like it and they are worth much, much more.

Through It All - I Still Work on Genealogy, Too!

Like everyone, I get bored. I read a lot in the evenings, and I have projects I work on during the day, or errands, or walking in a park. In the mornings, I do a little genealogical research. It's sooooo much different than when I started!! Visiting libraries, courthouses, anyplace that stored documents, writing letters, making calls, meeting folks to find out what I could!  Now it's just time on the computer.

 

Birthday Gift Quilt

My next project, which I actually started earlier in the year. The birthday is still a couple months out, but I need to get it done, so I will get started on that today. I 'started it' because when making the 'postage stamp' type blocks, I needed lots and lots to be sure I wasn't getting the same block and fabrics over and over. I kept making more, adding lots of new fabrics, so that all of them have a great variety of fabrics.

That will get me all caught up, with quilts to all of the Great-Nieces and Nephews. So, it may be the last Birthday Gift Quilt that I make. 

The building blocks

More 'stamps' blocks = diversity

Snowball building

Putting it together

From 2 blocks to strips

I have to match every corner

Just the top, but it's pretty!

Re-working a Badly Designed and Costly Pattern

Three Pair of Vintage Pants

Those pants I made and then modified a couple weeks ago, don't really fit right, and they are awful. So here I go again. The pattern, as so many are, is completely mis-sized (Very Expensive to find out they can't get a pattern right!! A brand new pair of jeans tossed in the trash!) So I am adding to both sides to bring it into a more correct size. It's a zipper fly pattern, but he wants button fly, so I am modifying that too. I am making them big enough to put a some elastic in the back, to make them easier to get on and off (like, leaving the button fly buttoned) and adding interior buttons so that he can use his beloved suspenders, and look like a character from 'Little House on the Prairie'.

1" bigger on both sides

Cut down the crotch to the pins

Beginning sewing 1 of 3 pairs

To add button fly, you need an additional fly set

I put the fly in (and out) 3 times..

The waistband is bigger than the pants

Putting in the pocket

They are starting to come along

Waistband is really thick!

I haven't added buttons or elastic

One pocket is a little wonky.

Made 2 right fronts, time for ripping

Waistband, hem and all the buttons...

The suspender buttons going on

With elastic, is it strong enough...

They are a bit too big, more elastic!

Rag Doll Princess Dresses

Not long ago, you will remember, I made a small rag doll and house, and sent them away to a new home. Today I am finishing some additional clothes for the rag doll, and sending them away to her, too.

 

Silver over-skirt not attached

With or without overskirt

Princess dresses are important

Tiny is pretty hard, and mostly by hand

Pattern size 52, waist size actually 46" NOT 52"

1/2 the waist band 23" total 46" NOT 52

The jeans I just made came back to me, he couldn't even get them on. It's terrible when you spend so much money on a pattern, only to find that it's badly made/designed and wont even fit the body your making something for, although the size you made (based on the pattern) was three sizes too big!

I understand fully why folks don't sew anymore when you can't count on these company's to creating sewing items especially patterns that will fit. They are doing such a horrible job at their job!

Can you imagine offering Home Ec classes, and no one in the class has a project that works or fits because the pattern companies can't be bothered to do a good job. Great message that sends out!

This solution was as bad as it looks. First of all, they still are too small. I'm getting them back, ripping out the back section, and then pulling them apart at the sides and adding a contrast fabric there, and then putting bits of it on the pockets to pull it together. Work begins in November!

Adding the inches back in!

First try, no additional waistband

Adding fabric and separate waist band

Bob Needs New Jeans, With Special Features

Bob asked me for a new pair of jeans, with a button fly, and internal buttons for his suspenders (like Charles Ingalls wears on Little House on the Prairie.) Button fly, because his historical pants that are button fly just slide off, no zippers to mess with or buttons, these need to be made as an historical pattern, so that they too, will just slide off... Lots of pattern changes and adjustments!!

From zipper pattern, button fly jeans

 

Coming Together

Doll Needs a Place to Stay

 Since every doll needs a place to stay, I made Tammy a place, based on an ad I saw on FB, something similar, but completely different. I used light plastic canvas and heavy duck fabric to help it maintain it's shape and stand up. It has several 'doors' in the closet, with pockets for clothes. It's not perfect, but I figure if it just gets tossed into a box, it's fine for that, and if on the other hand, it's loved, I can always make an upgrade.

Front of the 'House'

Back and garden

Back with strap open

Bedroom, bed, closet closed

Closet doors all open

Something Completely Different - A Doll

I saw a completely cute doll and 'house' and thought, I can do that, and maybe better than the original. So I set out to do just that. I'm creating a small doll, home and some clothes. Here's how it's going:

Made a pattern and cut it out

Started putting the pieces together

And stuffing as I go

Put her together with hand stitching only

Tammy and her clothes and 'house'