WIP Wednesday: the one with learning

Last Wednesday, I found myself in the middle of Frocktails panic. As usual. There was an event on Saturday night and I'd been planning to make a dress for it for, oh, six months.

Life happened. As it inevitably does, and the actual process of doing came down to the last couple of weeks.

Anyway, I pulled out the pattern template, copied the pattern onto some pattern-piecing, and read through the pattern instructions. Turns out working with silk and chiffon and silky fabrics is a little tricksy. I mean, I knew that, but I never really gave it a lot of thought before. This time, I didn't want to screw it up, so I decided to make a toile to practice my techniques, and then went looking for YouTube advice.

The toile was a very good idea, and it gave me practice with fabric techniques - french seams, zippers, bias-binding clothing edges, and rolled hems - so that was really useful and I'm glad I did. Additionally, I now have another nice top to wear in summer. Must remember to wear it.

Checking out the YouTube advice was also a very good idea - it's been invaluable in dealing with the loose-weave, sheer fabric that I chose for the toile.

The major changes that needed making were: the reduction of the width of the dress (it needed more fitting around my bust), and using home-made bias-binding for the neckline and armholes.

I also chose to sew a rolled hem, and while it's not the neatest thing, after wearing the dress on Saturday night to the Frocktails event, I received some excellent advice about how to do rolled hems more neatly (basically: zigzag stitch them, rather than straight stitch.

I think I will try to make the full dress out of the nice material with the facing from the pattern. However, I will still need to make the pattern somewhat slimmer. (And now I'm trying to remember if I removed one inch or two from the pattern...)

Otherwise, I'm in the middle of a cousin quilt (cousin M4 - 4th cousin, name starts with M, I can never remember how I number the cousins tbh) and it got interrupted in the midst of the plan for Frocktails, so everything's a little scatterd all around the place right now. I even had calculations on a shet of paper and now that I've set them aside, I'm not entirely sure I understand what the calculations actually mean...

Otherwise, it's all about getting the study/sewing room sorted out right now, including putting things away in filing cabinets and drawers, giving or throwing away things that aren't needed, and generally trying to be more organised before I go away for six weeks.

Mind you, that hasn't stopped me from trying to sew on some bindings, ready to get quilts out...

a question of degrees?

I've been in the same church study group for the last four? five? years.

We're a bit of an oddball bunch, tbh, but we've become friends and maybe a little bit confidantes over the years. It's a space where we can ask questions about matters where there's room for grace, and receive answers that maybe aren't entirely orthodox according to the staunchly conservative tradition and leadership of our church.

We have a lot of space for grace.

I've been intended to give the other members of the group (okay, the couples in the groups) quilts for a while now, but kept on putting it off...

Well, this term we've just been asked to take a newer couple into the study, and while we finally agreed to do so, it puts me in a bit of a bind! (haha)

Under other circumstances, I would have brought quilts along to our group's end-of-year party and gotten people to choose one they liked. Except now the end of year party is likely to feature this new couple who I've only just met (in fact, haven't even met the man, he's been off on a mission trip thingy) and...I don't know them, and I don't really want to give them a quilt.

Sorry, but a lot of time and energy and effort goes into these things and I don't bother trying to sell them anymore, I gift them to charities or to people I know and love. 

Anyway, the tricky part.

How to ask people what quilt they want, and then get them to choose one (or two), and then gift it to them but without doing it all in front of this new couple (because that would be really impolite)? Also: what if the quilts aren't ready by Christmas? I really only have six weeks before I go on holidays, and tbh, it's a little terrifying how FAST this is all coming up!

Maybe I could just message the members one by one and ask them if they'd like a quilt and offer them what I have? Then at least I know which ones to prioritise.

the list:
2x rainbow curves
2x break free or build upon
1x rainbow around-the-world
1x woodland dead simple
1x penny patch
1x scarlet split-square

I also still have these tops:
2x laid-back plaidish
2x postage stamp

Sheeeeeeeeeeesh. So many of these to get done, still. And that's before you calculate the entirety of the fabric I have stored in my study/sewing room...

Finish...uh...Monday?

It was supposed to be 'Finish Friday' but I entirely forgot about it on Friday!

Finished (trimmed and bound, etc.) two quilts over the last couple of weeks.

The Valley of Kings has been on the list for about 12 years.

I bought the fabric (Robert Kaufman's Valley of Kings) because I loved the shiny, pretty, drama of the prints, and then realised it would probably be difficult to find a pattern that would showcase it properly. 

I don't know that this pattern particularly does the job, but by the time I put this together, I didn't really care. I just wanted the quilt done!

It was originally intended for a friend I knew back in 2010 who held an interest in all things Egypt. I never mentioned it to her, and over the years we grew apart to the point where we're no longer in contact. As a result, I have this fabric and a quilt that I don't have a use for...

I was giving away quilts to a number of friends and added some that had been only just quilted (but weren't yet bound) and Valley of the Kings was in one of those lists. A friend promptly claimed it.

WOOHOO.

Okay, not quite 'woohoo' because I still had to bind the darn thing!

Which I did. Eventually. About a year after actually promising her the quilt. *sigh*

Oh well, she's happy with it. And so is the recipient of this one: the Classic Dead Simple.

So-named because it's pretty much just 5" squares arranged and sewn together. Easiest quilt in the world to make, right?

Well, unless you're like me and you angst over what should go where and whether it's all balanced enough and maybe I shouldn't do the colourwave but arrange it in another configuration...

I've had these fabrics for at least as long as I've had quilting as a moderately serious hobby (ie. taking up serious shelving in my house). I bought a number of charm packs of 'reconstruction' fabrics and mixed and melded them until I had a reasonable colourwash. The original plan was to sew them together as hexagons with either neutral triangles in the corner or a contrasting colour to the hexagon. And then, over the years, I realised it was too ambitious and I was never going to do it.

Cue the pandemic.

I had time on my hands, and all that fabric. I started putting together quilts that I'd only ever planned out. And the Dead Simple Classic was one of them. No muss, no fuss, just line up all the squares and sew them into rows and then into columns. BINGO.

The friend who requested this one was delighted to discover that the individual prints had some oddities to it - it's not just solid colour, it's got some prints and patterns: a map of the world, some paisley flowers, odd geometric designs...

Anyway, two quilts out.

I still have a whole bunch more to be bound and gifted. And something of a conundrum which I might ask for your help in solving. But that's for next post.