The Great British Sewing Bee!

I watched it! Thanks to Karen for letting me know it was on YouTube. I had just assumed it would be blocked because every other video I've tried to watch here has been unavailable in Germany.

(possible spoilers ahead!)

I must say, who won was completely not a surprise to me. Ann had the most experience and was very good at picking projects that were within her capabilities given the time she had.

I was astonished over and over at the difficulty of the patterns Lauren picked, and then even more astonished when she finished them! I only wish I were that good. Or half that good.

I also felt bad for Stuart. He has amazing design ideas, but doesn't yet have the skills to turn them into perfect reality. I hope he comes back in a year or two. I think he could win.

And lastly, I want to be on that show! Maybe I will move to Britain. Just kidding. Sort of.

Working on a running skirt

 I'm am trying something new this year. I'm trying to sew myself a running skirt! This is new for me because I don't have a lot of experience working with knits at all, and a really unstable lycra knit is a whole new ball game for me. I'm using Jalie 2796, which has the benefit of having a million sizes, but the disadvantage of having them all on one piece of paper, which is larger than the floor of my room.

 I used my new Sharpies that I got for my birthday to trace the pattern pieces.

 This is the fabric I'm using. I actually don't know what it's made of, because I got it at the sewing blogger fabric swap, but that's ok. I'm using it for a muslin, which I suspect won't fit me very well anyway.

 I couldn't figure out an efficient way to lay out these pattern pieces. This is the best I came up with, but since the fabric was free I wasn't so terribly worried. I have some ideas of what to do with the scraps, which I'll probably experiment with later.

This is the pattern for the shorts that go underneath the skirt. Cut two, sew them together. Whoever came up with this one must have some serious 3d to 2d skills. I still haven't really figured out which edges turn into what...and I've sewed it together! Haha.

Sewing meetup haul

Wow, I totally forgot to post about what I got at the sewing blogger meetup! Fail. Here it is:

8 patterns, an older edition of the Vogue Sewing book, and three fabrics. The one on the far left I bought from G Street Fabrics.

The baby fabric is for various random baby projects. I didn't really have a plan for it, it was just cute. The other two fabrics are stretch fabrics and I am going to use them to sew up the running skirt from Jalie 2796. I think it will require a fair amount of alteration, but it's the only running skirt pattern I could find. I'll let you know.

Sewing meetup!

Of course everyone else has already posted about the DC sewing meetup. And I'm days late. It's paper week here. Now that I only have one paper left, I can breathe enough to post.

The day was great! We met up at Robin's house. Everyone brought fabric and patterns to swap.

There was lots of fabric

  lots of patterns

 

and plenty of seamstresses ready to go through them all!

 

There are more pictures that Robin's husband took, as well as links to the blogs of all the participants with blogs, here.

After the fabric and pattern swap, we headed to G Street Fabrics, but I'll save that for another post. It was a great day! Thanks to Lisa for organizing the whole shebang, and to Robin for offering her house!

Baby hat!

Readers, I must confess, I have not been sewing. I have been writing papers like there's no tomorrow. I have written one, have one mostly complete, and have two or three more to go. Then I have five finals, and then the semester will be over. Then maybe I will have more time to sew.

In the mean time, though, I did complete a little knitting project. One thing I love about knitting is how portable it is. I can knit without looking, and it's much easier to whip out a knitting project and knit a few rows while waiting in line (or at the doctor's, where I spent two entire hours on Monday!). I can hardly knit at all because of my joint problems, but occasionally I do still knit things.

Here is one of them!

 Nope, it's nothing fancy, just a little baby hat. It's made in a 2x2 rib so it will be nice and stretchy, but the fuzziness of the yarn means the pattern is totally lost. That's ok.

This picture, although blurry, gives a better idea of the color. It's black with many little specks of color all through it--nice and vibrant!

I spent hundreds of hours knitting these baby hats in high school, so now I can knit them without a pattern in a short amount of time. This one took two hours to knit, and many half an hour to weave in the ends. The weaving would have taken 10 minutes with a yarn needle, but I did it at school in between classes with a pencil!

This little hat will be given to my aunt who works in the mother/baby wing of a hospital to be given to some baby there. Apparently they are always on the lookout for hats that aren't pastel colors!

Well!

That was a successful purge! Two days ago I had 55 patterns. Now I have 26.

I had two boxes of fabric. Now I have one. (Ok, all you people with "real" stashes, stop laughing!)

Moreover, almost every piece of fabric I own (I think there are four exceptions) has a specific project attached to it now. Not "this would make a cute dress," but "I'll make this up with X pattern for Y person." This should help me to actually do projects, because the decision making has all been made already.

Now, where to get rid of these supplies? Obviously I could just freecycle them, along with instructions to take the whole box, but I'm hoping to find a way to get them to someone who's likely to use them. Some of the larger fabric pieces are going to a college friend, and some of the scraps are going to a mother I know who will use them to make sachets with her daughters. The other fabric I'll offer to a local children's theater company. As for the patterns, I haven't yet made a decision. Most of them are from the 50s-70s, in fairly bad shape, although complete, with a bust size between 31-34 inches.

Why do I complicate my life?

Ok, so today I realized something. I collect complicated patterns and fancy fabrics. I also get overwhelmed by long projects and am often scared to start them. I have all these theoretical plans of making structured jackets, full-size quilts, and other heavily involved projects. As a result, I never get anything done. I'm overwhelmed by the amount of sewing supplies I have, the number of patterns that would be great if I could alter them so they actually fit, the yards of cloth that seem like they would be good for something someday, and so on.

This has got to stop.

I'm perfectly happy in a simple knit skirt, or one made out of quilting cotton. It's easy, pretty, feminine, and cheap. And it's not overwhelming. A simple dress I can pull on over my head sounds like magic to me--no fussing with anything.

I like things simple, but I haven't been applying this to my sewing life.

So--strict rules for a great purge. I'm thinking to get rid of all the patterns that aren't in my size, or the size of someone I'm likely to be sewing for (sister, mother, etc). Then get rid of all the pieces of fabric that I can't match to a pattern. I'll probably allow a few exceptions, to make my life a little easier. Nevertheless, this should greatly reduce my stash. Will it cost more money in the long run to not have all this stuff on hand? Yes, but probably not enough money to make it worth the amount of my mental energy that I waste on worrying about my sewing supplies. I'll talk this plan over for a day or two with my mother, so feel free to chime in--am I crazy? Are these rules too tight? Too loose? Any exceptions or other nuances you would add?

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