Birthday Shirt Finished

With at least 2 minutes to spare. We have earned our jello shot...
We were supposed to be at the birthday party at 430p. I was sewing on the last button of the birthday shirt 5 minutes before we left (as usual, I always finish everything at the very last possible minute. I don't know how I do this. This would be a very stressful habit if I were a bomb defuser.)
Here's the shirt, modeled by the birthday boy over his sweatshirt.
It is actually warm enough today to wear it.( over 50 degrees at least)
This is a basic casual shirt pattern, but I deviated two places from the instructions. The yoke and the collar pattern pieces instruct you to place them on the lengthwise grain, but that would have made the design sideways on the collar and yoke and would have looked distracting, so I placed them on the crosswise grain instead. This made the pattern blend better.I do this all the time and it works fine. Don't be afraid of making your own grain decisions if the shirt calls for a change. The pattern is only the rough draft; you are the "decider", (if I may borrow that from W). In the past I have placed the collar and the sleeves and the yoke on the bias and all was well. They just take a bit more care so you don't stretch them. Go ahead and experiment. Nothing is going to blow up, after all.
Here's a shot of his quilt from the birthday 2 years ago. These are his favorite colors, and they all play nicely together with college pictures printed on printable fabric in the nine patches. The pictures are printed on EQ Printables and are still soft and unfaded after 2 years of use.The lap quilt is backed with dark brown minkee and is super soft.

I want to make one for myself, now that I have fulfilled my birthday obligations.
Mr. Hunting Creek is making sad faces today, because he loved DBIL's shirt and he says he doesn't have a new shirt for spring casual day. My son is also whining about the speed of my shirt output. They are under the impression that this is a sweatshop. There was almost a marital incident when it was commented that "you used to sew much faster before". You mean before I had two jobs, two kids, a house, a garden, two dogs and a husband? Those were the days...
Happy Sewing!

Holiday Gifts: Luxury Pillowcases

The nice thing about making gifts yourself is that you can take something practical, like a pillowcase, and turn it into something luxurious, or personalized or even a work of art. It doesn't take much money, and only just a little time.
Pillowcases can be made out of cute themed quilting cottons, like these that I made for my nephew:
Or they can be made of of soft cuddly flannel:



or you can make them out of silk, like the ones I am working on now. Silk is not much more expensive than good flannel or high quality quilting cottons. I ordered mine from Ann at Gorgeous Fabrics (not affiliated, just a happy customer)
I think Habotai or Charmeuse makes nice pillowcases. You don't need much and it makes a fabulous impression. If you looked at the prices of nice silk pillowcases in stores you would faint dead away. I read somewhere that silk pillowcases are supposed to prevent wrinkles. I don't know if that's true, but it can't hurt!

Imagine all the possibilities here. You can make custom designed pillowcases for kids that they will like so much they won't sleep with anything else. With printable fabric or transfers thrown into the mix, you could even put family pictures, pets or kids drawings on them.
Here is a brief description with dimensions for your convenience:

Standard pillow measurements:
Regular 20"x26"
Queen 20"x30"
King 20" x 36:

Fabric requirements for ONE pillow: (based on 42" wide fabric)
Main pillow std/queen 3/4 yard king 1 yard
cuff 3/8 yard
contrasting trim 1/8 yard

Supplies besides fabric:
scissors
thread
rotary cutter and mat
ruler
sewing machine of course

Cutting:

Std queen king
Body cut one piece 22" x42" 26"x42" 32"x 42"
Cuff 10" x42" 10"x42" 10"x42"
contrast trim 1 1/2" x42 1 1/2"x42" 1 1/2"x42"

I do everything flat first - sew your contrast trim piece to the pillow body. You can sew it as a contrast band like my flannel cases above, or you can do my flange variation, where I folded the contrast piece in half wrong sides together and then sewed to the pillow body, like flat piping. This looks very nice. You can also do eyelet here, or lace, or other trim. Then sew on the cuff piece to the contrast piece. Right sides together. Now you fold the whole thing in half right sides together. You'll have a 21" x 22" rectangle if it's a standard case. There is a long fold on one side and a seam at the bottom and one side. Match your contrast and cuff seams at the sides. Sew the sides. For silk pillows it's nice to do French seams. I trim and zig zag, but you can also use your serger. Press. Fold the cuff edge down half an inch and press then fold in half so it covers the raw edges inside - wrong sides together. Sew down, covering all raw edges. You can use a contrast color thread, or matching. A decorative stitch looks nice too. Press case and you're done! It's also nice to package this gift with lavender sachet if you are giving to grownups, or fun pajamas for either kids or grown ups. Everyone in our family enjoys home made gifts, so it's fun to make unusual things for them every year.
Happy Sewing!

Current Projects

This morning my daughter told me she wanted a pair of silk pajamas. She picked out this fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics and now all we have to do order the silk and decide which pattern. She rarely asks for anything, so we will add that to our Holiday Project list. While we decide on what pattern, I am working on my Thanksgiving Table Runner Project. We are having Thanksgiving at my house this year after a long break (my sister has had it at her house for several years, while I did Christmas). So this year we swapped, since she and Bill are traveling that week. My daughter and I were talking about decorations and our menu, because of course we like to show off a little bit. My sister always decorates the table beautifully and has a fabulous multi course meal planned, so we can't do any less. (not that we are competitive, mind you. Oh NO) We were brainstorming menu ideas and table decor and we came up with an idea for a Thanksgiving Table Runner that had all of our pictures on it and things that we were thankful for. We are gathering the pictures for that now. (and for our super top secret Christmas project that we will not be discussing YET) This is a good opportnity to test out the new Photo Fabric Play book we just got in as well. I'll use EQ Printables Fabric for the pictures, (they have the best print quality, IMHO) and autumn colored fabric for the runner. We'll use paintstiks and leaf rubbings to embellish, and also some Angelina as well.(I might use real leaves for the rubbings too) I'll test out some designs and ideas this weekend and see what I like. The nice thing about making a table runner is that it is normally about 13-15inches wide and 40-50 inches long, so it isn't too big to finish in a couple weekends, leaving me plenty of time to decide what the actual dinner will involve. My daughter wants to get a Virginia locally raised free range turkey, and we'll also have a ham, and pumpkin pie, and apple tart, but the rest of the menu is free form and subject to change. Of course my son always wants exactly what we had the year before, and the year before THAT, but my daughter and I like to sneak some new stuff in every year.
You have to be both sneaky and respectful about traditions, I think. Yes, make that same old corn bread stuffing, but also maybe try a new vegetable or dessert every year. Same with sewing; I love to try new techniques and fabrics whenever I do a new project to stretch my abilities a little bit.
After such stressful news in the papers and on TV this week, I'm thankful that I can sew something nice for my family and make this small corner of the planet a little bit nicer, and not think about all that other stuff for a while. Aren't you glad that you sew?