December To-Do

 

Here's how my design wall was looking on December 1st. There's my half-way assembled Temperature Quilt, and then the three pieces of dyed yardage waiting for their second dye baths.

Here's my To-Do list for December:

Sew-a-Long Thingies

Trinket - layer and quilt.

Color Collective - Quilt and bind the Slopes Quilt, 

and make another side for the Clover Pillow with Swerves, start cutting for Colorwash

Temperature Quilt- cut remainder of needed pieces from newly dyed fabric, keep piecing monthly columns.

Pantone Project - keep making blocks and pass them on to friend Jaye.

Secret Lives of Color- it's still oh so very secret, keep reading the book and making the blocks, post some too.

Indigo Way - Begin work on this year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt. Assemble fabrics, make the first blocks.

New Work

Wedge Quilt - finish assembling quilt top, make a backing, quilt, bind, label.

A Hot One - planned quilt celebrating the color of the year, Viva Magenta.

Garment Sewing Academy - finish Cielo top.

Make It Work - assemble a quilt top out of the materials for BAMQG, make backing, layer, quilt, bind.

Make binding and finish the other BAMQG quilt for donation.

Dye Mastery Class - finish final unit on over-dyeing and patterning.

Finish It Already

Make a back for Metro Twist, layer, quilt, bind, label.

Finish quilting Japanese Houses, bind, label.

Y.E.S. Coat - lay out what I've made, make more elements, start assembling.

And finally and most importantly: finish making the gifts before Christmas.

That should keep me busy enough for December!

Needed a Solid

 I wanted to continue making blocks for the Metro Twist, so I ordered some more of the sort of odd solid blue, Ruby+Bee in Pool. Thanks to Hawthorne Supply for still having some in stock. It's a bit greyed-out of a color I think, maybe a bit greenish, so all the other clear solid blues I had just didn't look right. Most of the other prints I'm using in that quilt have the same over-greyed caste. 

I also bought a couple of the re-released Tula Pink fabrics to make the Set Sail pattern. And a couple on sale Tula Pink prints that I'd missed. I really love those owl faces. Another print is from Art Gallery Fabrics, Libellule in Ascension and it reminded me of the style of old botanical illustrations that I like. The colors are really pretty and soft. No use immediate use in mind for this one, I just liked it.

From the same Spring Equinox collection, I got this Weeping Willow rayon for the next blouse I'm working on for Garment Sewing Academy. Really a lovely flow-y hand to this fabric. You can never be sure about the colors when you buy online, but I'm very pleased with this one.

Yes, it matches! The solid piece hasn't been washed yet, that's the only difference, the surface is slightly different. That's always the worry when you try to match solids bought from different bolts, dye lots, production days, etc. there's always the chance it will be a bit off. This is definitely close enough for me.

Erase Cleanly

 

I'm at the point in my Garment Sewing Academy blouse construction where I need to transfer the pattern markings to the fabric. One of the marking tools they suggested are FriXion pens. Instead of digging out my transfer paper and tracing wheel, I nabbed a package of them when I was at Target the other day. In this first picture I've used a yellow and made an X on the lower right side of the fabric. To my eye, it looks a bit orange. And on the upper left I've used a green pen to make an X. 

I tested the pens out on paper first, you can definitely erase the mark on paper with just the friction of the soft plastic end of the pen. That's why they're called FriXion, because it's a heat-sensitive ink, and of course: friction=heat. Apparently though, if you leave your journal or whatever in a hot car, your writing or drawing will disappear. So, I won't be using these for anything I want to be at all permanent.

So, erasing the marks on fabric with the eraser does not work. Butt hit it with the iron for a bit, and blame the marks are gone gone gone. Are they gone forever though? 

Apparently the marks return if the item you've marked either gets a whole lot hotter than the iron OR if they get really cold. Interesting, huh? I haven't tested either of those propositions out yet. 

Honestly, I think I'm a little hesitant to trust these because of the quilt marking pens back in the 90's that were sold as disappearing, but then would sometimes come back after washing or ironing or make strange yellow-y brown marks. Which would be a total tragedy in the middle of a quilt, right? After all that work, yikes! I think on this kind of busy fabric for this blouse, I'll give it a go, using one of the colors that would blend in if the marks decide to reappear.. But if it was a solid color, or especially a solid quilt, I wouldn't be able to let myself use them yet. Guess, I'm a cautious or laggard adopter instead of an early adopter this one time.

STP FTW

 

I've got the blouse all cut out now, even the fusible woven interfacing (as seen here) but I haven't started sewing it together quite yet. I got distracted by the bits and pieces of the Swedish Tracing Paper that were left over. I couldn't throw them away because they reminded me of something...

This stuff is basically non-woven, non-fusible interfacing. The STP (Swedish Tracing Paper) reminds me a lot of Lutradur, but a lot more flexible and not nearly as thick. So...it should be paintable right? Used some watercolor crayons for an experiment.

Oooh, look at how pretty. Over on the left is the white index card that was underneath the STP when I brushed the water brush over it. What a lovely printed texture that makes.

This is a great excuse for not sewing together the blouse, right?

Oooh, I really like painting through this stuff. Very unpredictable results.

Here's how all the watercolor crayoned STP pieces look when they're all dry. I plan to use them in my ICAD work the rest of this month.

Purple Pattern Weights

 

I'm tracing the patterns for the top I'm in the process of making onto Swedish Tracing Paper. It works very nicely, just see-through enough to make it easy to trace the lines and markings accurately.

The cute little purple pattern weights are finally in use.

And one of those head scratcher items seen at Costco, Quail Eggs? In Costco sized quantity of 36 of course. I wish I knew what to even make with them.

Piecing Together Paper Patterns

 

Oh my goodness, this was just too much. I printed out the first pattern for the Garment Sewing Academy course that I was talking about yesterday. This is the first time I've ever tried to use a .pdf pattern for clothing. So. Many. Pages. Like as many as when I print out our taxes every year. Whooo boy. Never again. Not only do you have to tape all the pages together, but you have to trim them first to match the lines up correctly. I really really should have paid for the printed pattern, next time.

After the couple hours it took to do this, I contacted the local copy shop and they'll print patterns out on gigantic size AO paper for me for not very much $$. In fact, it's just about the difference between the .pdf pattern and the printed one. Lesson learned. Definitely going to get the other two patterns printed out from them.

This was so much nicer than fooling around with zillions of pages and trimmings. Getting to have a good lunch outside on a lovely afternoon and noticing the view through my empty bee glass.

Cotton & Linen Please

 

For the Garment Sewing Academy, our first project is a fairly simple woven top, the Cielo from Closet Core Patterns. So off to Harts Fabrics I went. In my opinion they have the best selection of garment fabric around here. It's so nice to be able to touch everything too, to make sure the weight and texture of the fabric will work for me.

First up is the busier print which is a Kokka cotton voile in Stone. 

I also got the Elodie linen blend in Sun, a linen/rayon blend. I decided to try some Swedish Tracing Paper, apparently this is sewable so you can sew together the pattern paper and try it on? Kind of wow, if true!