Flying Geese

With my first quilt still endlessly in progress, I decided it was maybe time to try my hand at machine piecing for a break. As lovely as English Paper Piecing is, those little hexagons take forever.

The Purl Bee's mini quilt for July caught my eye when it first went up, and I even picked out the fabric right away. I found the pile two days ago, and went to work cutting out the pieces. The next day I went out and bought a rotary cutter so I would never have to cut that many little squares by hand with my shears again. I sure do like doing things the hard way.

About halfway through last night my sewing table looked like this.

And this morning I finished up 10 (almost) perfect little stacks of geese. Now I just have to arrange and sew the blocks, sew them to each other, find some batting, learn how to quilt... But for now I'm happy to just pet the little triangles every so often.

Upcoming Show

My friend Cheryl is moving her store across the street from it's current location, and decided to open the space up as a gallery for the first month with a group show called Love Love. How awesome is that? Also, I'm in it! If you're in Toronto in October, you should pop by and check it out.

I'm still on board Self-Stitched-September. I think it was just the documenting photos that stopped me last time. There's so much pressure to put together a different look everyday when you're posting it online. In real life, I do such different things that the chances of someone who isn't the manfriend or the cat seeing me more than one day in a row are pretty slim. I have a totally new appreciation of fashion bloggers now.

Lots of crafting going on here, and lots of vintage hunting. Pretty things coming up soon.

Plan Part One: Finish My Projects

Yes, the first part of my Self-Stitched-September plan is fairly straight forward -- finish  my half completed projects. I'm off to a good start this week with an evening spent working on my now belated birthday dress. It should be ready for photos by Wednesday. Yay!

 

 Next on the agenda is a green stretch cotton Ginger skirt I started in Vancouver. All it needs is a zipper, hem and the waistband facing.

 

After that, this very cherry red rayon will finally make its way into Vogue 1120, minus the belt. It's all cut out, and the pleats basted shut. I started this dress before I really knew anything about fitting, so it's going to be a bit of a surprise once I get it together. Hoping for the best!

Getting all three of these projects done brings me up to four me-made dresses and two me-made skirts that I can actually wear. I have a few other me-made garments that just don't fit at the moment, so they're sitting this challenge out. Stay tuned for next week's plan of attack.

During my countdown to SSS, I also have to get a birthday present together for my younger sister. I chose this white cotton poplin from Fabric.com, printed with cream bones that look like herringbone from a distance. It's just her kind of print. Now if I can just pick a garment that won't eat up all of my selfish sewing time...

Taking the Pledge

I, Madelaine, sign up as a participant of Self-Stitched-Sept '11. I endeavour to wear one piece of handmade clothing each day for the duration of September 2011. Handmade accessories are nice but only count as extras.

You may remember my previous attempt at one of Zoe's challenges, but most likely not. That's because I only had four handmade garments that were wearable, one of which (the blue skirt) was an emergency stitch up. I ended up wearing a lacy knit scarf most days just to give it a good try. As you can see, I was also terrible at documentation photos. Lots of bad mirror shots. I think I lasted a week. 

 I have a few plans to make this time go smoother. One is that instead of daily photos, I'm going to keep a chart of what pieces I wear each day. This will hopefully prove useful in figuring out what I want to make more of in the future, by seeing what I actually like to wear. Keep an eye open for my other idea on Monday.


Anyone else joining in?

Birthday Dress in Progress

I've been planning this dress since April, and finally got to start it on Friday. It would have been a lot further along if I'd taken some recent weight gain into account before cutting my fabric. As is, I had to rip out the side seams and resew at 1/4" instead of 5/8".  It's still a little snug, but much better than it was. it may also be so snug because the dress was cut on the cross-grain, which I think would have less give? I only bought 2 yards of the main fabric, and cutting it sideways was the only way to get both body pieces. The nice thing is that I get to use the selvage as the hem.

I used a contrasting fabric from the same line for the neck bands and for the tie belt. I really like how the purple tones in both prints help to harmonize the patterns. Originally I wanted to make a bottom band out of the same fabric, which would have let me cut on the straight grain, but I really didn't like how that much brown overpowered the floral print.

Here's a close up of the V-neck, which I didn't quite manage to line up perfectly when cutting. I usually wear the V to the back on my other versions of this dress, so it really doesn't bother me too much. It's also much less noticeable in person. I am seriously in love with both these prints.

Pattern: Anna Maria Horner Socialite Dress

Fabric: Anna Maria Horner Innocent Crush line Bubble Burst in Rich and Turn of Events in Plum

Photo Location: Backyard

Socks!

And apparently I'm a ghost? Just ignore my shockingly white calves...

Even though it's the middle of summer, and Toronto's still recovering from a massive heat wave, I live in an over air-conditioned basement. Woolly socks were in order. These were a super fast knit, and I've been wearing them non-stop around the house.

People (by which I mean Brian and the cat) seem very impressed by the traveling cable on the socks, but it was simple enough to memorize after a couple repeats, and I didn't even need a cable needle. The pattern is well written and the large gauge make these a quick and satisfying knit.

Pattern: Traveller Socks by Diana Gates

Yarn: Berroco Vintage, 1 skein

Photo Location: KarenFoundIt

Picking up the Pieces

This last year has been full of so many things. Good ones, like finally finishing my undergrad, and some pretty terrible ones. In September we found out my dad had cancer.

It was a sneaky cancer, and by the time the doctors found it, it had spread through his entire body, into his lungs and bones. Things deteriorated pretty fast after that, and by November his body couldn't take it anymore. He was 66 years old.

Finishing school was important for both of us, so I did it. My family and friends were there for me, and my professors and everyone at OCAD were so supportive. I don't know how I could have done it without them. Even with so many caring people around, the only way for me to complete what I had to was to push a lot of what I was feeling aside, to focus on my classes, projects, papers. Things with simple answers, things I could control.

And that worked. I got through it and I thought when I finished that the worst of it was over. It wasn't, and over the last few months the weight of what we lost really began to sink in. Coupled with the exhaustion of several months of grief induced insomnia, and as soon as the tension of school lifted, I fell apart.

Now I'm slowly coming back together.

I've let so many things go that I should have stayed on top of, and coming back to them is proving one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Coming out of this kind of sadness to find I've let my life go to seed this whole time is almost enough to send me back to bed.  So for all the lapsed promises and forgotten commitments let me say I'm sorry. It couldn't be helped, but I wish it had.

The farther I come out of the hole I found myself in, the more I realize how important it is to do the things that fuel me, and that I enjoy. I'm trying to say no to projects and commitments I don't need, something I've always had trouble with in the past. And I'm trying to say yes to the things I want but never seem to find the time or drive for.

Keeping this blog, and feeling like I'm part of a community of creative, crafty, wonderful people has been something I really enjoy. So I'm making a commitment to come back to it, and to all of you. Thank you for staying, for reading my ramblings and sharing your own endeavours and projects. It means a lot.

Things should go back to normal around here next week, with crafting progress and some new thrifting finds, and I'm grateful.

It feels like coming home.