Baby Butterfly Quilt

One of my girlfriends just had a baby, so I wanted to give her something nice.

I ended up making this quick pieced quilt on my machine.  I had some trouble with the backing shifting and tucking(I guess you learn something new every project), but other than that I think it turned out OK.

Here's the list of stuff you need:

• 1/2 yard each of three coordinating block fabrics (you can actually get away with 1/4 yard each, or make two blankets.  I do it this way to make it easier to strip-piece the quilt together.) Give each of these fabrics a label.  One fabric is the "A" fabric, one fabric is the "B" fabric, and the third fabric is the "C" fabric.
• 1 yard of fabric for the strips and border
• 2 yards of flannel for the backing
• 1 crib-sized piece of quilt batting
• matching thread and quilt binding (if you're lazy like me - two 3-yard packages of binding did the trick)

OK.  You want to pre-wash everything in hot water and hot tumble cycle.  Hopefully you get it out of the dryer before wrinkles set.  Then you want to cut the block fabrics and the border fabric into 5" strips.  You should have enough for three strips of the block fabrics and seven strips for the border fabric.

Then you want to sew the block strips together.  One set will be A, B, C.  Another set will be B, C, A and the last set will be C, A, B.  Press.  Then cut these strips into 5" sections, so that you have sets of 3 5" blocks sewn together.

Take three of the A, B, C sets and sew them together end-to-end, so that you have a strip of blocks that are A, B, C, A, B, C, A, B, C.  Press.  Repeat with the B, C, A and the C, A, B sets.  Then make one more strip of A, B, C sets.  So you have four strips of nine blocks total.  Press!

OK!  You're almost done.  Now alternate the border strips with the block strips.  So you'll have a strip of border fabric, then the A strip, then another strip of border fabric, then the B strip.  Etc.  Press and then add the last two border strips on top and bottom.

To cut and piece this whole thing together took around 3 hours one afternoon, and that included time when I goofed up piecing together one of the block strips and had to undo the whole seam.

Sandwich your quilt top, batting and backing and quilt!  Then bind with the quilt binding.  You're done!  Sorry I don't have a finished photo, when I make the 2nd quilt (from the leftover strips) I'll post one.

Vogue 8382 - Muslin #1

I really love light summer dresses, and I like styles with clean lines that look, well, classy.  Vogue 8382 has all of that and is listed as a "very easy" pattern!  Win!

I've been thinking about this pattern for quite a while, and found this batiste on Gorgeous Fabrics a while ago too.  While I am worried about the thinness of the batiste holding up, I think the soft muslin I used would have been just fine so I think the batiste should work out well.  I guess we'll find out when I get the fabric and have time to freak out and watch my well-developed plan unravel.

I made this muslin up the other night.  I'm pretty excited about this, since it's my first foray into muslin-making, and because I literally sewed it up in a half hour.  Obviously the actual dress isn't going to be sewn up in a half hour, but it's nice that I could make the pattern alterations and cut out the muslin in one afternoon, and then sew up the muslin and see immediately what's wrong or right that evening.

I think the front is OK, although I'm going to undo my short-torso alteration as I kept wanting to pull the bodice down.  The back feels like I need to take out around two inches for it to fit well.  Maybe I have an extremely narrow back?  In the photo it doesn't look so bad - in fact it looks like I need to take more of a swayback alteration, but I think that's more because of the pin there.  I was only able to put in a pin at the waist and a pin at the neckline.  If I had put in more pins to close the zipper opening you'd see.  I wonder now if I should just use a size 14 for the front and a 10 or 12 in the back when I use patterns from the Big 3/4 in the future.  I also kind of wonder where they get their math, since I picked the size for this dress off of the "finished garment measurements" and not what my size was on the back of the envelope.

This pattern has somewhat mixed reviews on Pattern Review.  Since I don't even need the one alteration on the bodice and it works relatively well for me, I'm going to say that I think it will work for the ~B-cup ladies that the pattern was originally drafted for, especially if you have a short torso like me.  If you need a full-bust alteration you might have better luck with a different pattern.  Also, while the dress seems low-cut, I didn't think it was as bad as it was made out to be in the reviews.  (One of the other reasons why I made the muslin was because I wanted to see how low it was going to turn out)

Hello World!

I guess everything has to start somewhere.  I've really enjoyed reading others' blogs and picking up little sewing tips and tricks from them.  So even though keeping track of my little projects is mostly for me, I also hope to impart some knowledge on the rest of the world (and perhaps some kind sewing goddess can impart her knowledge on me!).

I've been frustrated with the lack of nice-fitting clothes, or just even nice-looking clothes you can find in stores.  I've also been frustrated with the lack of nice-looking material at places like JoAnn's.  Yes, you can make a lovely dress, but everyone knows JoAnn's fabric when they see it.  So I'm looking to make clothes that are as nice as those found in a store, but actually fit well and are in nice styles.  Or at least styles that suit me.  I want to wear something out and have people ask me where I got it because it looks so awesome.

If I had my way, I'd find a way where I could build the perfect, classic/classy wardrobe, piece by piece.  Since I'm both time and money challenged, I guess I have to display some adaptability.

My measurements call for a size 16 in the Big 3/4, but I've done some experimenting and have gotten away with using size 14 because of the immense amount of ease built-into those patterns.  I'm going to start experimenting with using smaller sizes in the back as well, since I've decided I have a narrow back.

Other common alterations I make are a short torso adjustment above the bust (between 1/2" and 3/4"), and a 3" swayback adjustment.