I was looking for a few girls’ patterns at Joann’s that would work well with voiles.  I stumbled across Burda 9650, and really liked a few of the pieces in the set.  I first wanted to try the ruffled tanktop. After reading through the directions, the pattern seemed straightforward enough.  It took very little time to cut out the pieces, and away we went.  Overall, I think its a decent pattern.  My biggest issue is how they address the neck and arm binding, specifically where both meet the top corners of the yoke/ruffle.  I felt like there wasn’t a clean way to hide all the raw edges where the 3 pieces intersect (see next photo).  I think next time I would make the neck bias piece a bit longer, and then wrap it around both edges to make sure that the other two pieces were sufficiently covered.  I don’t have a ton of clothing experience, so I’m sure there are MANY other, better, ways to finish that edge(s) but that would easily work in a pinch!

I am trying to get as much serger practice as possible, so I used my serger for both the side seams and finishing the raw edge of the bottom.  I didn’t care for having a matching ruffle on the back; I thought that without a tag in the top, it would make it hard to figure out which was front from back.   There are two separate pattern pieces for front and back, and they vary SO slightly that I don’t even know why they bothered with separate pieces at all.  One other issue I have with this pattern is the sizing.  I chose the 12 month size, and this really looks large to me.  I compared it to clothes that are hanging in the nursery, and it seems as big, or bigger than, some of the 18 month pieces that are there. Lastly, I HATE turning spaghetti straps, and so I just used some grosgrain ribbon instead.  These were going to be pretty tiny straps, so if I was doing this again I would probably widen the straps for ease of turning.  After some research, it appears that people have more success with tube turning when the fabric is cut on the bias. I will definitely try that next time I feel masochistic and wish to try tube turning again.  I would like to try this top again, and I am loving that little dress with the ruffles!

Pattern Image, Burda 9650

Since joining flickr (in an active way) about a year and a half ago, I’ve met some really GREAT people.   Really really generous and thoughtful people that share my hobbies.  People that understand your fabric buying neurosis, will entertain random discussions which print is better than another, where to get the best deal on a certain line, and how to help out with just about any problem one encounters while sewing/quilting.  In case you don’t sew (but managed to stumble across my blog somehow anyway), flickr has countless groups for EVERY hobby.  Photography (obviously), baking, iPad users, scary clown lovers (??)… the list goes on.

Anyway, the point of all that was just to say that there’s something for everyone at flickr, and if you’re as lucky as I am you’ll find a few friends along the way.  I did a fabric swap not too long ago with a total gem named Antoinette.  We’ve stayed in contact since that swap, and just the other day I receive a sweet little package from her.  I open up first to the postcard that, after reading it, has me a little confused – why wouldn’t I use whatever was enclosed?  So then I unwrap two of the sweetest Flea Market Fancy bibs, and realize immediately why she would write that.

This first bib was made with adorable gold seeds!  Both bibs are backed with a super soft lightweight flannel that Antoinette explained helps to make the bib “stick” to the clothing better.  Ahhh… makes sense!  The second bib is from the same line, but made with the extremely sought after, expensive, and hard to find grey bouquet.

For those of you that may not be “in the know” (insert snooty tone), this particular fabric, and a few others from this line, sell for upwards of like $200/yard.  TWO. HUNDRED. DOLLARS. per yard!!!!  So this is like cotton gold platinum.  I remember seeing a post on Purl’s website about Liberty bibs, and thinking “HA! Like I’d put Liberty anywhere near smashed peas or tomato sauce!”  Liberty sells for like $40 per yard.  You get the idea.  And you also get why Antoinette was adamant that I actually use these bibs.  Oh… sweet Antoinette… it will be hard.  It will be VERY hard for my precious little baby-to-be to wear these while she’s consuming anything besides water.  But, honestly, what better a use for such rare and special fabric than on someone you love?   I’d much rather enjoy the fabric than covet it… and I’m sure I’ll definitely get my chance  :)

Thank you SO much, Antoinette, for such a sweet and generous gift!  I *adore* these bibs, and am so grateful that you’re my friend!  I promise to post pictures of the baby wearing these after she arrives – just try to ignore the saran wrap that covers them ;)

The { Urban } HOME Goods Swap is a collection of an amazing number of very talented sewists, and the inspiration is truly amazing overwhelming.  I’d like to show you the goodies I received from my partner, Krista, and also what I made for my (other) partner, Kerri.  This is a blind swap; meaning I know who I’m making items for, but I have no idea who is making something for me.

Here’s what Krista made for me – a beautiful dresden mini quilt that is already hanging on my wall, and a thread catcher that I never knew I needed and USE SO MUCH now that I have it!  She also sent me a few fat quarters and a sweet card :)

Here’s what I made for Kerri, but what’s not pictured is the coasters that matched – can’t seem to find the picture! ARGH!

The inspiration for this mini quilt came from Amy’s work @ Nanacompany.  Have you seen her work?!  She is incredibly talented and incorporates such a fun mix of machine and hand work.  I could spend hours looking at her work (maybe I have, maybe many times).   Her work looks so natural, and whimsy.  I don’t know how she manages to make everything look as polished as she does – I’m guessing practice?   This was the first time I attempted a project like this, and it took a LONG time to complete!  I did, however, realize how much I loved doing projects that take a lot of forethought.  Most of the things I do don’t… I either follow a pattern, or I wing a quilt design that isn’t very complicated.  It was a really great learning experience, and took tremendous patience.  Hopefully Kerri enjoys it!

Front of Keaton’s Quilt

Back of Keaton’s Quilt

Since before he was born I wanted to make him a sock monkey quilt, and collected the fabric for that a while ago.  I was able to find an adorable (classic) sock monkey to send along with it to complete the package.  For his quilt, I did a simple patchwork, and the quilting was just straight lines running ~1/2″ inside each edge of block.  The back was simple as well, just nine blocks that coordinated with the front.

For McKenna I was undecided, not wanting to be too baby-ish, and not wanting to be too mature.  Then I remembered this quilt top that I had started on a while back, and thought it was perfect!  For her this would be a birthday present, accompanied by two dresses and a couple cute toys .

I apologize for these dark photos!  I’m still learning PSE  :)

The dresses were fun to make.  The white one was was actually a project I did with Heather Ross and Liesl Gibson – my objective was to “re-purpose” a tank top.  This was a brand new white tank from the Gap that I had bought about a year ago, and never got around to wearing, but I thought it would make the perfect little dress with all those buttons and the eyelet.   They really helped me.  Liesl with the obvious children’s clothing expertise, and Heather’s fearless “just cut it!” attitude.  The back was shorter than the front, so Heather had the brilliant idea of adding the little pleats.  It came together beautifully, and now I just hope it will fit!  The other dress is with Heather’s Mendocino fabric, and the addressed the other thing I learned that weekend – Heather loves elastic.   This quickly broke my fear of using it, and this Mendocino dress was born   :)

]]> http://www.melissaleray.com/2010/10/gifts-for-mckenna-and-keaton/feed/ 1 http://www.melissaleray.com/2010/10/lucky-me/ http://www.melissaleray.com/2010/10/lucky-me/#comments Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:35:43 +0000 Melissa http://www.melissaleray.com/?p=835 As I’ve said before, I’m a real fan of these Flickr swaps.  There are just so many to choose from!  Here’s what showed up at my door just the other day – talk about a killer mail day!  :)

I participated in a “gathered clutch swap”, and look how stinkin’ cute the one that I received was?!  Linda made this for me – how on earth did she know how much I’m in love with Alexander Henry’s Farmdale?!  This little clutch traveled all the way from The Netherlands!

This box of goodies was from a fabric/chocolate swap, and was sent to me by Jen.  The fabrics she selected were fantastic – some really cute modern Christmas fabrics, and some great Amy Butler prints.  All of my sewing pins are completely dull, so new pins were exactly what I was needing!  Look at all these wonderful treats!

I’m working on a simple (large) Mendocino patchwork quilt.  The top is actually completed, all 95×95 inches of it, but I have yet to take a picture of it.  I think sometimes a pretty picture is all a post needs  :)

But only because it was SO cute, and I didn’t have time to order one for their 50th wedding anniversary party last weekend?

My Aunt Barbara and Uncle John celebrated 50 (!!!!) years together! Nowadays it seems as though there should be as much hoopla for just getting to 5 months.

It’s not plagiarism if you cite your source, right? Well, here’s where this adorably brilliant idea came from. Maybe Melissa won’t be too mad since I give her credit AND she has a little tutorial on her blog of how to make her little pink house, AND since we have the same first name?

This was my very first felt project, and with the help of Darcy, it came together remarkably easy. I just wish I hadn’t done the names at 4am after a glass (or two) of wine :)

What started out as a a block intended to end up as queen sized quilt, has turned into a mini quilt.  Its unexpected transformation was for two main reasons -

1.) I needed a mini quilt for the ATMQG‘s mini quilt display, and

2.) I didn’t think I’d ever want to make another one of these again, since this block took so long to complete :)

I decided that since my current love is hand quilting, I would embellish the mini quilt with lots of hand stitches, and really love the way it turned out!  This, and many others, will be on display at Whipstitch Fabrics for the sewing world to see :)

The back is a simple Amy Butler pink, and the binding is Kona brown.  I thought the front design and fabric were busy enough to warrant a simple back and binding.

In my last post I made a brief mention about how I was able to obtain a signed book for my swap partner, Lisa, and that I would elaborate on it in my next post. Months ago I saw someone’s post on flickr about going to a weekend sewing workshop with Heather Ross. I immediately looked this up, and emailed Heather, who got right back to me, with the great news that there were still spots available!! (I literally squealed.) Hubby, being as amazing as he is, totally supported me going, and with that my spot was secured!

As we get closer to the date, Heather emails us all fairly regularly to check in, and then just casually mentions that Denyse Schmidt will be attending too. Oh yea, and Leisl Gibson will be there too. OMG. OMG. OMG. Seriously? Then I see in our list of email recipients that the beautiful Rae will be attending. THEN, as if it can’t get any better, Ashley shows up. SERIOUSLY?!

Photo of entire group, taken with Rae’s camera

I was supposed to share a ride from the airport with Rachel, but her flight was delayed due to mechanical issues so I hopped in the car with Emily and Rae. It was a fun car ride to the inn, we just chatted and enjoyed the scenery, and even stopped at a couple places to take pictures. When we arrived at the inn, Heather, Denyse, and Leisl were having wine and cheese with everyone that had already arrived. We were one of the last few to arrive. We were showed to our rooms and then we all sat down to an amazing dinner! Fresh made pesto on fresh pasta was just the first course! *swoon*

After dinner we headed over to the sewing lab where we picked our tables and machines. Rae and I ended up sharing a table, and what a fun table it was! She was a great table-mate! Most of us stayed up til midnight sewing. We were told that breakfast would be at 8:30, so I didn’t want to stay up too late, especially after a long day of travel.

The grounds were stunning! The inn we stayed at was built almost 200 years ago, and was so sweet and quaint! Seeing it in the morning light made it all the more magnificent. After breakfast we headed to the sewing lab, where we busily sewed until lunch. We had yummy sandwiches by the lake and watched the inn’s dog play in the water. After lunch, we headed back to our sewing projects, with the plan of doing our “own thing” for a while in the afternoon. I had woken up with a headache that progressed to migraine over the course of the morning, and so I took a much needed 3 hour nap during our free time. I think it was the combination of travel, dehydration, and sleep deprivation that did me in. I woke up feeling refreshed, and found everyone out by the teepee with yet more wine and cheese! While I was napping, the rest of the crew entertained themselves with either more sewing, or a guided walk around the grounds, or a visit to the local magistrate’s vintage clothing and costume collection.

I’m sure you’re wondering what projects we worked on with these amazing women. We were told to just bring along whatever we wanted – just to pack the patterns and fabric that we wanted to work with. I of course waited til the night before to pack and figure out what I was going to work on. I had a TON of stuff that I was going to bring. Then I had a brief moment of sanity where I realized I would only have like 12 hours of actual sewing time, and there was no way I was going to change reality and get 20 sewing projects done in that time. I decided it would be a good time to try my hand at repurposing, and brought twi garments if mine that I thought would make cute girls clothes. I also thought it would be smart to just bring a little extra fabric in case something struck me that I wanted to make. In the end, I ended up making two dresses for my niece (almost finished with the second one), and a Mendocino sun dress (with the help of Heather) for Darcy’s daughter’s first birthday. I’ll post pictures of all the dresses soon!

Rae took this photo – this is the very tree on the cover of Heather’s book, Weekend Sewing!

Rachel’s amazing photo, showing back of Inn and lake.

The weekend was over in a flash. Before I knew it, we were heading back to the Burlington airport, already missing my new friends. I can only hope that Heather will put this on again next year – I will sign up in an instant! If you have the opportunity to go, I highly recommend it! It was the perfect setting of great company, great sewing, and great wine, all set on a great landscape.

Flickr is an amazing resource for sewing enthusiasts.  Up until October I thought it was just where folks stored photos.  Little did I know the COMMUNITY that takes place there – tons of inspiration, conversation, and lots of action  :)  There are always new quilting bees starting up, and there are always new swaps taking place.

I was just part of a new swap, called Modern Swappers.  This was so much fun!   A lot of swaps have the format of being “blind” in that I know who I am creating a package for, but have no idea who is creating one for me; and that information is kept top-secret until you receive your package in the mail!  Fortunately, though, we get plenty of “teaser” photos to drool over, and that makes it all the more exciting!

My partner, this round, was Lisa, and the information that she provided was that she had a pink and yellow sewing room, and that she would love anything handmade!  This swap was to include modern fabric (at least 1.5 yards), a handmade item, and something useful (either for sewing room, or in general).  I made for her a sewing machine cover, a coordinating pincushion, gave her lots of yummy fabric (she loves polka dots!) and the book Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross (but it was signed by Heather Ross, Leisl Gibson, Denyse Schmidt, and Ashley W.!!!!!!)

Lisa insisted that she loved everything – I hope she is able to make beautiful things out of the fabric, and gets tons of use out of the sewing room goodies, and enjoys the book for years to come!

More about how these signatures came about in the next post :)