bee creative

feeling like autumn

Soup for lunch with a few last things for the season:  Onions, tomatoes, dehydrated celery leaves cooked in olive oil + a splash of vegetable broth and then a trip to the blender with a few basil leaves added. Plus cheddar cheese.

A few more quince from the garden, more visible now that leaves are falling. A hat makes a good basket in a pinch.

I need a few more shirts for work that are easy to layer. This is the top from Sonya Philip's book The Act of Sewing. I really love this pattern.  Linen fabric from the stash, hand stitched using the Mantua-makers seam...so much fun to do!

changing

Finished the skirt I've been working on and wore it to work.  Just a couple more days of sunshine (and smoke) and then it will be raining again.

It's time...

 

kinda blue

Today I harvest almost all of my indigo and blended it up with an immersion blender.  Works way better than the blender I've been looking for and haven't been able to find.

This is a dish tub full of indigo and water. It was strained for dyeing and added to a larger tub.

I used this technique because I wanted to dye some yarn and there was a lot of yardage. I dyed about 5 yards of fabric and over dyed a jacket that I've been working on. All the fabric is silk or wool.

The first layer of color on the jacket was walnut.  The jacket seems darker but nothing is blue.

Along with another 2 yards of fabric that I dyed earlier this year, I now have enough fabric for a skirt and 2 tops plus a bit more for something else (maybe a vest?). My goal is to make a capsule wardrobe of clothing dyed with plants. So far I have a pair of pants dyed with walnut and a top dyed with indigo. They don't really go together though. I am hoping these projects will solve that problem.  

I am probably going to use the yarn to make a shawl I have a bit bigger (it was dyed with indigo as well) and make some wrist warmers.

Should keep me busy for awhile with everything else I've got going on.

It chases away that other kind of blues...

not quite but another kind of good enough

There was so much I wanted to do this weekend that didn't get done....

There was a lot of this.

I guess it was what was needed most.

And some of this.

I am finding I much prefer hand sewing.  

I also finished the first sleeve.

So now quite what I planned but good enough.

this weekend

Last Friday I noticed the first of the Autumn crocus.

This one a little darker purple than usual.

On Saturday I learned to use a thimble while sewing:

I took a class with Sarah Woodyard hosted by Tatter.  I wasn't sure how useful the class would be for me but thought it would be worth trying.  It was not only interesting, but I really did learn a lot and feel more confident about sewing clothing by hand.

The thimble I have belonged to one of my great grandmothers.  It came with a sewing kit my grandmother gave to me. 

I like it.

maybe

Three yards or so of hemp/cotton knit soaking in Buddleia. It's been there overnight.

This is the second soaking, the first in soy milk.

I will wring it out and hang it to dry today.

And then, perhaps, a dip in my almost exhausted indigo vat? Or maybe iron water?  I have some made but have yet to try it. Or maybe a bit of both for comparison? Or maybe a stencil with the iron?

I want to make a dress with this but it will need some mending or strategic cutting.  I was using it on my bed as a sheet. 

Knit is not a great choice for kneading kittens.

And, shared before but coming to me often right now:

Crepuscular midnight stands by the road,

Where the stars have spilled from it's purse.

You can not go over the road past the fence

Without trampling on the universe.

Boris Pasternak, "The Steppe"

the assistants at work

Maybe I will be able to lay this out while they are sleeping.

 The "April Skirt" by Specks & Keepings.

It's been a long time since I've bought a skirt pattern but this one really appealed.

I do have one small problem; when my computer crashed last week I lost the directions.

Pretty sure I can figure it out...

from the front porch: how to repurpose a dress into a tank top

 

I am imagining everyone on my front porch with me...

and if you listen carefully you can hear one of the cats.

One thing that I didn't mention, to avoid having to sew the side seams over, the bottom of the arm hole needs to meet the edge of the piece of clothing when you cut.  For me if it's an article of clothing that already fits me, it works.  If it's larger the side seams would need to be resewn as well. Extending the arm hole out does not work unless you don't care if your bra shows. It is also the best reason to use a sleeveless shirt pattern for this.

This works well with skirts too.  An example of how I did this can be found here.  The pictures in this post also provide an example of what I mean by the side seams.

Two other things as I replayed the video:

-This dress has a dart.  To make a new neckline/arm hole for this I would have to go below the dart to cut.

-I think it's really funny that my verbal tick was "so."  If I were a perfectionist I'd probably have done the video over. But I am not so there you go!

P.S.  I've never tried this with something that has sleeves but I have some ideas now that I want to try...

 

more hand sewing, more problem solving

Not the best picture but it tells a story.

Last night I decided I really wanted to wear this dress today but the facing needed some repair (really wasn't the best fabric choice for facing).  I also have wanted pockets on this.

So...with some help from my trusty assistants, I folded the dress in half so that the side seams were in the middle, placed the facing pattern just below the arm hole on the seam line, cut out a new arm hole and neckline, flipped the pattern piece upside down and over to the other side, cut the rest of the neckline and the second arm hole. I had to cut a little more out of the neckline to get it over my head and to smooth things out.

I then sewed the shoulder seams (french seams) and finished the neckline and arm holes with a rolled hem, which is the most common way I finish necklines, armholes and hems. This is the proper way to do a rolled hem. I skip the ironing and just roll the hem, finger press, and stitch once.

I'll use the fabric I cut off to make a pocket later, but for today it's ready to go!

P.S.

The side seams are now center seams. 

more on the shirt, part two (design as you go)

The inside seams: one french seam, the other bound with rayon cut on the bias (leftover from another project). Would have been better if the rayon had been just a tad bit wider as I didn't get it all tucked in.  It will fray some but not as bad as the linen! I really like French seams. For anyone interested is a comparison of different ways to finish inside seams.

The more I play with patterns, the more it becomes that the pattern, the piece of clothing, is fluid for me.

I started this project with the idea that it would be a dress but after I had everything stitched together and I tried it on I realized it just didn't work for me.

I looked at it for awhile and realized two things were bothering me, the sleeve length and the length of the dress itself. 

Sleeve length is an easy one for me.  I know what works.  There is a length that is flattering and a length that isn't. And there is a length that just irritates me...like a scratchy label or a rock in your shoe.  The solution was easy.  Cut off a few inches so that it hit the sweet spot. 

The length of the dress puzzled me.  It was the same length at the tank top style dresses and the rayon dress that I've made which I love.  What was different? Answer:  solid color. Way too much solid color. So I cut off about 15 inches from the bottom and made it tunic length.

New plan: skirt with leftover fabric from the shirt plus other pieces of fabric to coordinate.