Small smugnesses

I am, much to my surprise, currently...sewing something. And I find myself with a question for those of you who sew more than me. ⁠ How do you decide how which bits of leftover fabric to keep and which ones to throw away? Not what size do you keep, because I suspect that's actually pretty variable (I know it is for me and yarn). But like what factors do you take into consideration when you're deciding? And do you trim your fabric down so what's left is closer to being a regular shape? Or do you just leave all those [...]

October 9, 2023|

Stanch the Bleeding

When last we left the pillow, it was in a rather precarious state, feathers open to the world, at the mercy of any of the Kitten Overlords.  I want this pillow to be an elongated tetrahedron (think a 4 sided die, stretched).  So basically I needed to close the open side up perpendicular to the original seam. It quickly became apparent that this would be an iterative process.  First stanch the bleeding by whatever means necessary  (the feathers wanted to escape everywhere).  In this case, binder clips. The next step was to get a seam - any seam - in [...]

March 20, 2015|

Amoeba? Or Egg?

I am a firm believer in both sweaters and pajamas.  And sometimes, when a sweater has put in lots of hard service as a piece of 'go out in the world' clothing, it gets to retire and be relabeled as pajamas.  Such was the case for this snuggly, purple zip up sweater with a handy kangaroo pocket on the front.  It is too tatty to wear out in public (I do have some standards), but it works perfectly well as something to sleep in (ah my life is so glamorous). Or at least it did, until today, when I noticed [...]

December 13, 2013|

Printing…not on paper

I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a very good chance that most everyone in your life has a birthday more or less every year.  I, personally, find this super irritating.  I've decided I'm just about as old as I need to be, and most folks I know (at least most over the age of 25 or so) feel the same.  Alas, it's not in my power to change. So given that pesky reality, I occasionally find myself in need of birthday presents.  I ran out of ideas for these things long long ago, so I've taken to blatantly [...]

October 16, 2013|

Proof

I'm not the sort to make the bed.  I really have a hard time seeing the point.  My bed is not a decorative object, it is an object of use.  Making the bed makes it prettier, but less useful.  I'm opposed to this on philosophical grounds (it's the same objection I have to many of the world's more ludicrous shoes...they may make me prettier, but they also make me less useful).  I'm also deeply lazy.  So I more or less never make the bed.  I did, shockingly, make an exception for the new duvet covers.  Just this once mind you. [...]

July 17, 2013|

Iron Age

I stand by my position that sewing is poorly named.  The activity we call sewing is mostly ironing with occasional spurts of other activities to leaven the tedium.  I spent about 10 hours putting together two duvet covers and two pillowcases this weekend, and I'd say about 2 hours were spent actually sewing.  The rest were spent ironing, measuring, ironing, pinning, ironing, cutting, and ironing. Given the scale of the project (huge), the complexity of the sewing (low), and the intended final result (rumply wrinkly bedding), I determined I would do the absolute minimum necessary amount of ironing (a good [...]

July 16, 2013|

Beginnings

I'm making duvet covers.  I plan to be making duvet covers for the next several days.  I fully expect this to eclipse more or less all the knitting for the next week or so.  You've been warned. The goal is two, twin sized, linen duvet covers.  You may recall I got the fabric when we were in San Francisco.  I realized at the time that 19 yards of fabric was a lot.  Somehow I'd forgotten just how much it was until I dumped it out on the table (sewing happens on the dining room table around here).  It's really quite [...]

July 10, 2013|

Souvenir

I tend to bring back somewhat non-traditional goodies from my various excursions.  I don't have much use for tshirts.  I am always drawn to pretty drawings of the places I go, but I never manage to get them framed and hung.  Pretty much if it's meant to be sold as a souvenir, I'm not so interested.  Three of my very favorite possessions in the whole world are the tiny little salt pot we brought back from Bulgaria, the sea glass we brought back from Maine, and the stick we brought back from Nova Scotia.  That stick is on the 'grab [...]

June 6, 2013|

If I Lie Down, Perhaps it Will Pass

I'm finding myself obsessed with the idea of making about 14 zillion (or, alternately a dozen or so), of the little felt cubes I linked to on the last post. The sort of obsessed where I've taken measurements of my shelves and sourced materials (fancy pants industrial felt that comes in a whole range of thicknesses, and about 3 awesome shades of gray) and made schematics and otherwise gone a wee tiny bit insane.  Can someone out there explain any reason this is a terrible idea?  Am I overlooking something obvious?  Is there some reason this will end in tears? [...]

August 4, 2012|
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