Almost Crafty

This is a pretty photo-intensive post. Sorry, dial-uppers!

Last night, I finally managed to try a new craft that I’d been contemplating for awhile.

I was inspired to try embroidery when I saw this post on Dogged Knits way back in June. I used to do cross-stitch, but there was something about embroidery that I never was inspired by until I saw just how cute those tea-towels were. I picked up the book a couple of months later, but it took me until now to actually give it a try.

I picked up some random DMC floss at Hobby Lobby last week, along with some cheap 100% cotton hankies to use for practice. Last night, I pulled out everything to try to do the sample pattern from the book Sublime Stitching by Jenny Hart.

Forgive the dark quality in these photos - I tried not to use a flash (so much white with the flash made the photo wash out completely) but my apartment gets so dark so early, this is the best I could do!

Ironing on the patterns requires a hot, DRY iron. However, next time I’m going to iron the hankies with steam prior to transferring the pattern, because whoo-boy was it hard to iron that cotton with a dry iron! I finally gave up and left it a little wrinkled - this is just for practice.

The pattern transferred rather nicely, and was easy to see for stitching.

Ready to start!

I sat on the couch, and Ruby was amazed at the pretty string going up and down in my hand. I managed to keep her from lunging at the needle, but she did try to eat the rings on my book once or twice.

I didn’t get very far with the sample cloth last night, but I managed a few stitches here and there. I have to get used to the new rhythm of this non-yarn craft. So far, it’s got a lot of potential.

The major lesson from last night? MUST BUY THIMBLES. Ouch.

While I anxiously await the arrival of some magnetic snaps I ordered on eBay (for future totebags), I figure it’s a good time to show off some of my other sewing.

Behold - pillows!

These are two of the five zippered pillows that are now gracing our living room. I made one at my first sewing class, and then bought enough fabric to make a second. These purple pillows were made of tufted fabric, which I have to say probably wasn’t the best choice for my first “real” sewing project. The fabric was hard to work with, and fought me a lot more than a simple cotton fabric would have.

Enter pillows 3, 4 and 5. I purchased larger pillow forms for these (18″) and some complimentary cotton fabric from The Needle Shop. Since our walls are white and our furniture is light beige, I figured I could go a little more colorful with the pillows. I’m glad I did. They add a little pizzazz that the room needed.

The funny thing about these pillows - I figured that after using the tufted fabric on the first pillows, these three cotton pillows would be a snap. I sat down to make them on a Monday night at around 6:30, figuring it would only take me about an hour to bust them out. THREE hours later, I was finally stuffing the pillows into the zippered covers. Thank goodness I remembered to DVR Gossip Girl, or I would have been really upset.

Not only do we have nice pillows in the room, with them I was able to cross #58 off of the 101 in 1001 list. Only 97 more items to go.

Yikes.

After my Sewing 101 class a couple of weeks ago, I really wanted to take another class ASAP before I forgot everything I learned. Luckily, there was a Saturday tote bag class that wasn’t full, so I had my second sewing class this weekend. 

Here’s my finished tote bag, hanging out in our dining room:

Things I learned from this class:

• How to use interfacing, both sewn and iron-on
• How to insert a magnetic snap
• How to make the bag’s bottom corners neat and tidy (I had been doing it ALL WRONG)
• How to sew the lining to the bag, so everything is facing the right way when completed.
• Where to sew the straps so that, again, everything is where it needs to be when it’s all put together.

These are things I probably could have learned from a book or website, true. Again, though, having someone show me made it SO much easier. Especially the linings - I just couldn’t grasp the concept from a few illustrations in a book, I needed to see it first hand.

I know I’m going to be making a lot of these bags in the near future, now that I have the basic shape figured out. It was all I could do to stop myself from buying a ton of pretty fabric from the shop on the way out. But I still have a few pillows to sew for the living room, first.

Again, for those in the Chicago area who would like to take a sewing class, I highly recommend the Needle Shop in Bucktown. Great fabrics, great instructors, and a wide range classes - fabulous.