September Is National Sewing Month

That's right, it's National Sewing Month. As if we really needed an excuse to sew.

Well, for those of you who haven't picked up a needle in awhile or forgot where the on switch is on your sewing machine, now is the time to dust off your threads and do some sewing.

Since I am a hand sewing advocate, allow me to share just a couple of patterns from around the web that might spark your interest to start stitching:

Learn a few simple stitches while making your own stitch book.

Sew an easy lavender sachet.

Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop: Stitches of Joi

I discovered Cheryl Sleboda (aka Muppin) on Instagram earlier this year. It was her sewing skull that caught my attention. (I have a thing for cool looking skulls.) When I saw that she was looking for some folks to join her in blog hop, I jumped at the chance. Little did I realize at the time that this blog hop meant that I would actually need to clean you studio.

Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop

For those of you who don't know, my little studio is nestled inside the guest bedroom. In a perfect world, I do all my sewing in there and I always remember to put everything away at the end of the day. This way, when guest arrive, it still looks clean, neat and ready for company.

The reality is that the room becomes a catch-all for everything. Over the last few months, stuff has gotten dumped into the room on a regular bases. When guest do come over, all the crap gets stuffed into boxes and hid in the garage. When guest leave it all comes back into the room.

I've gotten pretty tired of this back and fourth dumping and decided it was high time I actually clean my work space.

Here is what should be a well organized work table. Believe it or not, there is actually a cutting mat and two rotary cutters under all this mess.

When not in use, the guest bed acts as my design board. Right now in this picture its hard to even tell their's a bed there. I don't even know where half of this stuff came from. I swear stuff multiplies when I'm asleep. 

It took a couple of days of locking myself in the room and only coming out for bathroom breaks and to refill my green tea in order to get the place looking decent. 

Now this is what a proper work desk should look like. See, I told you there was a mat and rotary cutters under all that junk. Look, there were even some rulers under there too! The little bird in the corner is my sewing needle holder. I seriously thought I had lost him. But nope, he was just buried alive.

And here is the guest bed / design board. All decorated with a quilt I'm currently working on, with fabric for another quilt waiting in the corner.

It was a cleaning that was well overdue. Next on my list to tackle are all my little scrap pieces. I need to find a good way to organize them for quick find and use. Anyone out there got any good suggestions?

With all that cleaning, I actually found space in the room to lay down my new little rug I purchased recently. I think every sewing/craft room should have a skull somewhere in it. Don't you?

Thank you Cheryl for giving me a good excuse to clean up my studio!

Please check out the other cool cats on the list and see how they cleaned up their studios too.

May 7 Kathy Matthews http://www.chicagonow.com/quilting-sewing-creating/ May 8 Misty Cole Http://www.dailydesignwall.blogspot.com May 9 Heather Kinion http://heatherkinion.com/ May 10 Jessica Darling http://jessicakdarling.com/ May 11 Lisa Blevis Filion http://upstatelisa.blogspot.com/ May 12 Peta Minerof-Bartos http://www.thenotsewguiltyquilter.blogspot.com/ May 13 Mandy Leins http://mandalei.com/ May 14 Amalia Teresa Parra Morusiewicz http://funfromatoz.com/ May 15 Sam Hunter http://huntersdesignstudio.com/ May 16 Debby Ritenbaugh Brown http://higheredhands.blogspot.com/ May 17 Debbie Kleve Berkebile http://www.mountaintrailquilttreasure.blogspot.com/ May 18 Michelle Mattingly http://stitchesofjoi.blogspot.com/ May 19 Cheryl Sleboda http://blog.muppin.com

The Sixteen Year Quilt

When I was eleven years old I took an interest in quilting. I didn't really know anything about quilts, which was a good thing. In the small Chicago neighborhood that I lived in, the only quilts I saw were patchwork quilts that people made from old clothes. It was a way to using up what you had. So, when I starting making a quilt, I did it the same way. As my mom cut up old clothes to use as cleaning rags and to stuff cushions, she would let me cut off pieces for my quilt.

Here you can see the center of my quilt. Using my mom's broken Singer, I would hand turn the wheel to make the needle go up and down. This is how I sewed each piece together. It was a slow process, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I still remember where each piece of fabric came from.

The center of the quilt made back when I was 11 years old.

We eventually moved to Arizona and over time lived in various apartments. All the while I held on to that small quilt.

As a girl scout my troop leader showed me how to make yo-yo's. I must have made dozens of those. And I saved the scraps that were left from the countless circles I had to cut out.

When I started college I took a beginner's sewing class. I kept the scraps from my first blouse that I made. That is the fabric you see that makes the boarder around the center square.

I decided in college that I wanted to study theater. Even before I became interested in costume design, I would sneak into the costume shop and dig through the trash saving pieces of fabric from every show. When I become head of the costume shop, I continued to save fabric pieces.

 All these pieces were added onto the quilt. Over the course of sixteen years, this quilt grew.

Our dog, Gypsy Rose, refused to move while I was taking pictures

Now looking at this quilt, I am fascinated by how it looks and the way it has come together. This quilt is a time capsule of my life. I look at the vast array of fabrics and remember each story or event behind them.

I love this quilt because it was never planned. I just added pieces as life brought them to me. There was no sort of real project or goal, just an inner need to use up pieces instead of seeing them go to waste.

I plan to finish this quilt now. After my mother's passing I inherited some of her old dresses. I will use the fabric from them to make one final boarder and a backing. I think this will make a touching finish for this quilt.

Looking For Blue Thread

I realized the other day, that I needed some blue thread. I was sure that I had some somewhere in the house. It occurred to me that we had- after three long years in storage- actually pulled out the old three drawer sewing bin and placed it in the guest bedroom. I figured there should be some thread in there. Well, when I opened the top drawer, this is what greeted me...

I think a good cleaning and reorganizing of my sewing bin is WAY overdue.

FYI- I did find the blue thread. Can you spot it in the picture?

Sorting the Scraps

For the last nine years I have been carrying around a box of fabrics that I accumulated during my time as a costume designer. This box of fabric has moved to three different states and for the last three years it has sat in storage. Now, it was finally time for me to dump it out and see what's been hiding in there.

So it begins. . . 

The box was so heavy that there was no way I could move it from the garage into the house. It took a few trips back and fourth from the garage to empty the entire box of fabric. I dumped everything into the living room and the first thing I thought after surveying all the fabric was, "damn I have a lot of fabric".

My cat and dog enjoying the mess.

I know I was not going to use all the fabric I had collected. So I divided the fabrics into piles. One pile would be for pieces I didn't mind donating. Another pile would be pieces that I thought my daughter would like to use for her sewing projects. And then the final pile would be for fabric that I would actually use in the next twelve months. If any of this fabric is not used within twelve months, then it will be donated as well. I don't have the luxury of a sewing room or a big area to store things, so I will only keep what I plan to use.

Attempting to sort fabric into manageable piles 

It took a good part of the morning, but I managed to get everything sorted and the living room back to normal.

Here is all that remains of my fabric stash

My fabric is now sorted by color into gallon size Ziploc bags and housed snugly in a draw.

The Return of Needle and Thread

I spent the good part of seven years as a costume designer. Five of those years was working full time as a professional costume designer for Phoenix College in Phoenix, Arizona. When I got married, I walked away from the sewing machine. I held a couple of other jobs before settling into my current position of Homemaker.

I have found great pleasure in knitting, crochet, tatting and the various other crafts I dabble in. Yet, in the past few months, I have found myself being called back to sewing. I think it started when my daughter discovered some of my old ribbons and was attempting to sew them together to make an outfit for one of her dolls. With needle and thread I gave her a crash course in hand sewing and she was soon on her way.

An old felted Christmas tree pillow kit that I bought years ago was suddenly pulled out of the closet and I found myself hand sewing the little penny rug designs to the front of it. My daughter then claimed the pillow as her own, sewing the remaining 'pennies' and stitching the whole thing together. My daughter's sudden interest in sewing has now renewed my interest as well.

I don't plan on sewing clothes for any major productions. Instead, I have decided to take on a new area of sewing- quilting! Well, maybe not so new. . .

You see, once upon a time, I got the quilting bug and made a few quilts. It was while I was a college student taking sewing classes and working as a techie in theatre, I was appalled at all the fabric that I saw being thrown away in sewing class and inside the costume shop. So I would dumpster dive and use the scraps to make quilts as home. This lasted until the moment my sewing machine broke- thus ending my quilting binge.

As a costume designer, I was just to busy with the shows and commissioned work to do much sewing for pleasure.

So, now, almost ten years later, I am starting my journey, (again), into the world of quilting. And this time I plan to document my journey- the good and the ugly.

My goals for this journey? Meet other quilters, learn some new techniques and have a lot of fun playing with fabric.

Sock Knitting Sunday

Magic Mirror Socks

These socks are made by Jeannie of the blog Sewing, Knitting and Beyond. http://jeanniefanihi.blogspot.com/

The pattern is avalible here: http://jeanniefanihi.blogspot.com/2008/06/magic-mirror-socks.html

I hope this pattern inspires you to pick up your needles and knit more socks!

March Is National Craft Month

Yup, it's that time of year again. Time to break out of your crafting rut and try your hands at something new. That's right, its National Craft Month!

Oh how I love this wonderful month. It's like having a free pass to shop at your favorite yarn shops and craft stores. Local craft stores will be offering tempting classes in everything from scrapbooking to cake decorating. Yarn shops are stocking up on fresh spring colors and patterns that you just 'have to' cast on.

I actually have three knitting projects in the works for March and a plan to get two of my patterns on Ravelry. I plan to back some cookies that my local church gives to an assisted living home.  And, I've also made it a goal to finish a needle point project that's been hanging around the house for far too long.

Stuck in a rut of what to do to celebrate the month of crafting? Why not let charity be your motivation.

You can bake cookies and take them to your local nursing home.

Crochet a prayer shawl for a friend going through a rough time.

Sew a quilt and donate it to a local shelter.

Surprise a friend with a week's worth of prepared meals.

Pull out those canning jars and can the last of the winter vegetables and fruit in your area. Then send them in care packages to a friend or loved one who just moved away.

Knit some socks and donate them to military members overseas.

Make baby blankets for preemies at the local hospital.

Embroider a handkerchief to give to a bride-to-be.

Teach someone, (older or younger) how to crochet and/or knit.

The list of things you can do are endless. And if you don't consider yourself very crafty, then why not use the month of March as a time to learn a craft that always interested you. Just don't let National Craft Month go by without sharing the love of crafting.

My Kind of Crazy

I picked up this book at my local library. It was among the books for sale and only cost me $0.75. The author, Cilla Ramnek is textile artist whose name you may already know from the fabrics she has designed for Ikea.

Cilla is a crafter not afraid to cross different disciplines and combine them in creative ways. Her designs are original, daring and always off the grid. In short, she is my kind of crazy.

Her book, "Knitprovisation", is not a pattern book, but an inspiration book. She loosely describes the construction of each garment, but her goal is not to have you copy her work. Her aim is to get you thinking outside the box and give you permission to play. Fearless creativity equals one of a kind kick ass designs.