Fall, Y'All!

This giveaway is over now, thanks everyone for participating!
Just for fun, I decided to participate in the Fall, Y'All giveaway carnival hosted over at Bloggy Giveaways. I finished up my redwork Christmas ornaments (I'm going to make more, though), and I'm giving away one of them. The lucky winner can choose between the Joy, Tree, or Gift ornaments. (The snowman was embroidered by my son and isn't part of the giveaway. But isn't it cute?)

If you want to make your own, these ornaments are made from patterns in the Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Crafts magazine that is currently on newsstands.



All you have to do is leave a comment here before 9 a.m. on Saturday, November 3, and we'll randomly pick one lucky winner later that day. If your post doesn't link back to your blog, please include your email address in your comment.

#1 on Google

Saw this on Jody's and Dawn's blogs--

search terms where my blog is #1.

So far, I've found one:
t-shirt neckband

Oh! and there's also:
t-shirt neckband tutorial

Not very impressive. But better than none.

Pirate Costume

I finished this up for D with just a couple hours to spare before the church Halloween party on Saturday. The shirt and vest were made using Kwik Sew for Children. I altered the sleeve--adding gathers at the shoulder seam and cuff. I also attached a collar and made a slit down the front with a facing. I might post a more detailed pic of the shirt because I'm kind of proud of it. The vest was done with no hems--just a 3-step zigzag around the edges. Pants were made from the most recent jeans pattern for him, morphed on the cutting table into simple elastic waist pants. (That's how I'm going to make his pj pants too--flannel is $2/yd at JoAnn's this week.)

The hair... is a bunch of yarn braids with beads attached. I sewed them to the bandanna with the sewing machine.

I'm happy with how it turned out, and so is he!

What I made on vacation. And other stuff.

I thought I was going to do a bunch of knitting on our trip, but my wrists got sore and tingly on the first day out so I had to stop. I worked on these redwork designs instead. The patterns are from the Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Crafts magazine and I think they're super cute. I need to track down some red wool felt to finish them up. I really liked that they were to be made up using a backstitch for the outlines; other redwork I've done has been with the stem stitch and backstitching is faster. See, I like handwork but then I get tired of it quickly.



Here's the other shirt I made the other day. I forgot to mention--use ballpoint needles when sewing knit fabrics!! My 3-year-old really likes both his new shirts. The older one told me he wasn't interested when I was cutting but then he decided he wanted shirts after his brother's were finished. So. Right after I finish his Halloween costume (we have trunk-or-treat at church this Saturday) I'll get on that.



And this is the flower the older one made for me when I wasn't feeling well tonight. Sweet, huh?

Halloween Costume decision is made

Well, one is for sure. The older one is going to be a pirate and we got all the fabric from the remnant bin at JA. The cutting line was pure insanity, this is why I don't go there on Saturdays. I got some nice black crushed velvet texture velour for the pants, a matte gray fabric with a nap for a vest, and generic sort of offwhite cotton for a pirate blouse. I'm going to have to look through all my Ottobres for a vest and shirt pattern. I may end up modifying the shirt pattern from another pattern, we'll see.

The younger one has said he would be a firefighter again, and that would mean he'll just use last year's costume. He's talking like he's changing his mind though.

This morning it was raining buckets and I was so bummed that I couldn't go running. But it's cleared up and I'm going to go out in a little while.

How To Make A T-Shirt

I am getting a lot of visits from people googling "how to make a t-shirt" so I thought I'd oblige you.



First off, you need a pattern. You can trace one from an existing shirt, but I'm not covering that step in this tutorial. I'm using the size 4 t-shirt pattern from my beloved vintage Sew for Toddler. All the patterns for this book are on a large pattern sheet and you have to trace off the size you want. I usually trace my patterns onto freezer paper. If you look closely you can see I traced the wrong size first; I don't remember what happened there but it was one of two tracings I have of this pattern. My pattern has 4 pieces: front, back, sleeve, and neckband.



I have a pretty big piece of this fabric, so to waste the least amount of fabric and also be able to manage the whole thing, I cut out one pattern piece at a time. I'm starting with the front--the center front edge needs to be on placed on the fold of the fabric. I look closely at the fabric and make sure the tiny knit stitches are running straight (not at an angle) with my foldline. Also, the stretch of this fabric is going up and down in the photo, or across the body of the t-shirt front and back pattern pieces. You want to cut your knits out with the stretch going the right way.

This picture shows the front already cut out.



Then I do the same with the back. First I cut off the small amount of scrap from cutting the front and then I refold the fabric wide enough to do the back. Here you can see my cute pattern weights. I don't pin my patterns--I use pattern weights and rotary cut around the edges of my patterns. You can use scissors if you don't have a rotary cutter. I need to sharpen my scissors and get a new rotary blade--cutting this out wasn't as easy and fun as it should have been.



The sleeve. Again I refold so I have enough width to lay out the sleeve pattern. See that long straight line? It's the pattern grainline and should line up with the grain of the fabric. In other words, line up with straight up and down lines of knitted stitches in the fabric. If you've ever had a t-shirt that twisted around your body when you were wearing it, it was cut off grain. It's not hard to make sure your fabric and patterns are on grain when you're cutting.



Neckline ribbing. This fabric is laid out with the stretch going left to right. The pattern piece is laid on the fold. I used a cotton/lycra ribknit for this piece. If your main shirt fabric is ribbed or fairly stretchy, you can use the same fabric for the neckline. This shirt fabric is a jersey that's not really stretchy enough to go over my boy's head and not have stitches pop right away.



Here are all the pattern pieces cut out.



Sewing step 1: Place front and back pieces together with right sides facing. Match the pieces up at the shoulder and pin them if you want.



Here they are serged together. Before I had a serger I would sew the seam, then zigzag the edges together because I don't like unfinished edges.



Sewing step 2: Pin the top center of the sleeve to the shoulder seam.



Pin the front and back edges of the sleeve seam. This is kind of difficult to show in a photo.



Here's the shirt with both sleeves sewn on.



Sewing step 3: Fold the shirt so the front and back line up and the sleeve edges line up. Starting at the sleeve hem edge, and all at once, sew the sleeve edges together, then the front and back together at the sides. Do both sides.



Here's the shirt with sleeve/side seams sewn.

Sewing step 4: Sewing the neckband on is explained here in my T-shirt neckband tutorial.



Sewing step 5: Fold the sleeve edges and bottom edge up once and stitch in place. I have a "why you don't need a free arm to sew hems of small sleeves" tutorial that I'll share soon.

There you go!

What my 3-year-old ate today.

This kid must be growing. He's sleeping easily and well, and eating.

Today, he ate:
1/2 peanut butter sandwich
1 pancake (5" diameter)
1 bowl oatmeal
macaroni and cheese (the whole wheat was not a hit, at all)
another 1/2 peanut butter sandwich
and pizza for dinner.

He'll probably have a bedtime snack too.

back from vacation

Ok, I'm back from our annual trip to Utah to visit lots and lots of family, and I'm planning on updating here more frequently. I'm going to start with my do's and don't's for staying awake on long drives.

We'll start with the don'ts:
Don't go to bed too late the night before a long drive.
Don't drink caffeine (I cannot handle what it does to my system, and it's about time I figured that out and stopped trying it.)
Don't go too far.

Do:
Get enough sleep the night before.
Snack on lots of different things.
Get a big cold drink that isn't caffeinated.
Chew icy minty gum.
Have conversation with driving partner (my husband in my case.)
Figure out a reasonable distance to drive so everyone can stay safe and sane.

Our second day driving from Mesa, AZ to Kansas City was much better than the first. I stayed far away from caffeine and had that gum. I shared the driving yesterday about half and half with my sweetie and it went pretty well. I drive pretty slowly in the dark and felt good about that each time I saw evidence of a deer being hit by a car on the highway.

Quilt Binding Tutorial

This tutorial is for binding a quilt with straight edges using binding strips cut on the straight grain from your own fabric (not purchased binding).




First of all you need to cut your binding strips. I used strips that were 1 7/8" wide but if it's your first time you should probably use 2 1/4" or 2 1/2" strips. You'll have to figure out how many strips you need to go all the way around your quilt with several inches to spare. You can use math, or cut the strips and physically lay them around the edge of the quilt until you have enough. I've done scrappy quilt bindings before using several different fabrics, and used the physically-laying-it-out method for those quilts.



Using the angle lines on your ruler or mat, cut the ends of the strips to a 45 degree angle.


Cut both ends the same way so the strips are very long parallelograms.

To get them ready to piece together, set two strips next to each other.


Then, flip one over on top of the other so the edges line up for sewing. You will sew a 1/4" seam, so they need to line up 1/4" in from the edge. Pin it.

Sew it. Sew all the strips together this way. The diagonal seam here helps spread out the bulk of the seam, since you'll be folding the binding strip over itself a couple times.

Go to the ironing board; press the binding seams. I press to one side, you can press them open if you want but that's more work.


Now press the entire binding strip in half the long way.


Next, find the end of your binding strip. If your parallelogram went the opposite way from mine, cut the corner off so it points the way mine does in this picture. Press the short edge in 1/4".


Fold it in half lengthwise and press this end again.


You can't really see it in this picture, but I'm leaving it anyway. Lay out the binding around the quilt, with the end you just fiddled with in the middle of one of the sides. Check the seams on the binding to make sure there aren't any of them on the corners of the quilt. If there are, adjust your starting position. Pin the binding in place at the starting position and go to your machine.


For the entire perimeter of the quilt, you need to match up the binding and quilt edge and sew 1/4" in from that edge. I leave the extra backing and batting until after the binding is sewn on. To begin, you will be making a little slot to put the end of the binding in when you get back to your starting place. Open up the fold of the binding and sew down just the bottom layer for about 2 inches. Stop sewing and cut your threads.

Edited 9/2012: *For another way of finishing up the beginning and end of your binding strips (with a diagonal seam) see this blog post.*

Now fold the binding back up and start sewing both layers of the binding down, about 1 3/4 inches down from the beginning.


Sew the binding down that first side. I found that it helped if I pulled the binding a bit taut while sewing. When you get to the corner, stop sewing 1/4" from the edge of the quilt top. Backstitch and cut your threads.


Now, turn the quilt 90 degrees, and fold the binding straight up. Hold that diagonal fold with your finger.


And now, fold it down. You might want to pin.


Start sewing the next side at the edge of the fabric; stop 1/4" from the edge and do the corner thing again. Repeat until you've done all 4 corners.


When you get back around to where you started, you need to trim the end of your binding strip so it will fit in the little pocket you made at the beginning. I trimmed the end of my binding strip so about 1/2" of it went into the slot area past the angled part of the beginning of the binding. You have to look closely to see it in this photo.


Now you get to trim the quilt. For the 1 7/8" binding, I needed to cut the backing and batting right up to the edge of my binding. For wider binding strips, leave a little bit of batting beyond the edge. I have had a couple quilts in quilt shows and one of my judging sheets once explained that it's better (in official quilt world, I guess) to have the binding kind of puffy and nicely filled out than to let it be saggy, limp, and empty. In other words, I got bad marks for not having puffy binding, so learn from my mistakes.


I hand sew the binding to the back of the quilt. I use a ladder stitch, it's my main hand sewing stitch that my mom taught me when I was little. You can use whatever stitch you like. I try to sew the binding down far enough to cover the machine stitching that sewed it to the front of the quilt.


When you get to the corner, trim the seam allowance a bit more than you did on the straight edge.


(I'm left handed. If you aren't, this picture may not look quite right. I sew from the left to the right.) I try to fold the binding down on the top side of the corner, and sew it down past where the seam turns the corner.


Then, I fold the next side down and stitch it in place. I usually put a couple stitches in the binding where it folds on top of itself (the mitered corner), and then continue sewing down the next side of the binding.


All done! I hope this make sense. As always, comment or email me at vickivictoria at the google email service if you have questions or comments!

projects update...

I did sew every day last week. I'm almost finished with the quilt binding and the photos for the tutorial. I knitted 2.5 dishcloths and made a sling. I had a bit of a fiasco with a shirt... it's kind of a bummer. I got this great shirt from goodwill to repurpose, and I downloaded and printed and cut out and taped together pattern for the Emily shirt from burdastyle. Anyway I hurried and cut out the shirt and sewed up one sleeve and... it's too small and the darts are weird. I can probably, sort of, salvage it, but there's going to be a lot of unpicking and I should really undo and redo the side darts. I was so clever too; I cut it so I'm using the original buttons and buttonholes from the shirt. See, it was going to save me time. I am planning/hoping on using the cuffs and collar from the shirt too but they probably will need to be altered a bit to fit.

So I need to let out the side/sleeve seam, I need to undo it so I can fix the dart first. I was really hoping this pattern would work and be easy. Oh well, I'm going to keep working on it and see if I can rescue it.

I need to get 3 quilts ready to tie for the church service activity, that's my absolute must-do this week. I am also getting Christmas ornaments ready to make (hand sewing) while I'm on my trip.

today's sewing

I sewed up 2 cloth grocery bags that I already had cut out. I got the sling fabric (for my SIL) all ready to sew. I'll post pics tomorrow.

Finished skirt

I finished this up around noon today. I used 1/2" elastic in the waist and I think I need to tighten it up a bit. I really like the drape and feel of the linen fabric. I'm a little bit excited about finishing something in only two days as well. I think I will need to make a couple more like this... it could be really cute in baby cord for fall, don't you think?

I'm sewing every day this week

Here's the skirt I'm making for myself. I think it's going to be cute. I sewed this much today (it was already cut out) and I'm still going to pin and adjust the gathers on that last seam there. I'm still not sure whether I'll add a drawstring and elastic for the waistband or just use elastic. Oh, and I forgot pockets. Oh well.


I finished these dishcloths yesterday. The red one is messed up but I decided to show it anyway. I like the pattern of the yellow and green one and have started another one, this time with a green and blue variegated yarn.

I also went running tonight and went to the library with the kids today.

Smart Habit Saturday

Oh, I really need this. My new habit for this week's Smart Habit Saturday is... kind words.

I need to work on this in many aspects of my life. I did pretty well today, except for a shameful outburst tonight.

My past habits are dealing with all the dirty laundry daily, and dishes done before bed each night. I'm doing pretty well on those.

I'm a left handed knitter.

I'm not a really prolific knitter, and all I really make is dishcloths and, occasionally, socks. A friend of mine was knitting up a dishcloth using this pattern and I had her email me the link for the pattern. She recommended that I use a knitted cast on, and since I only knew one cast on method, I googled it and in my search, kept finding statements something like this: Since knitting is an activity that uses both hands, we recommend that left-handers learn to knit right handed. I've also been told this exact thing by a yarn shop owner/teacher. Not exactly helpful. In knitting, one hand does most of the work, and for me, that really needs to be my left hand.

From what I read on Knitty, some left handed people are ok learning to knit righty, but for some it is just not possible. Here's how knitting works for me: I hold the working needle in my left hand, and knit stitches from the left to the right. Finished stitches are on the left needle.

This doesn't cause problems for me while reading patterns; if I ever knit a sweater with two different fronts I might end up with a left front after knitting the right front instructions. But then I would end up with a right front from the left front instructions. And, with cables, I have to twist them the opposite way in order to get correct results. But knitting left handed isn't really a problem, at least with the simple projects I make. I follow patterns as they are written and things generally come out looking the same as if a right handed person made them.

I did get really frustrated at not being able to find left handed instructions for the knitted cast-on. I'm sure I need to dig a little deeper and maybe it's out there. At any rate, it wasn't that difficult to read the directions I found and transpose them to using the left hand for the working needle. Here's how I did it: make a slip knot, place on right needle. Insert left needle into the yarn as if it's a knit stitch, pull up a loop. Place this loop on the right needle. Repeat until you have the desired number of stitches.

I'm going to keep looking for good left handed casting on and other knitting instructions and if I don't find them I just might make my own photo tutorials for the ones I know so far.

Free Motion Machine Quilting Tutorial

Machine quilting takes practice, but it's much faster than hand quilting and I love the look when it's finished. It's probably a good idea to make some 12 inch "quilt sandwich" squares of batting in between two layers of muslin and practice quilting those first. And also, know that it takes time and practice to develop this skill. Your quilting will improve with each quilt.

So... here we go!


There are several things you need to do to get your machine ready to machine quilt. You need a darning or free motion quilting foot. The special thing about this foot is that it goes up and down with the needle while you are sewing. This makes it so you can move the quilt any way you want while you are quilting it.

Lower the feed dogs on your machine. I have read that if your feed dogs don't go down, you can tape an index card over them. I haven't tried that though. You don't want the feed dogs telling your fabric which way to go; you are going to be moving it with your hands.

If your machine has adjustable presser foot pressure, you probably need to adjust it so there is space under the presser foot when the lever for the foot is in the down position. You have to have the presser foot in the down position in order to have top thread tension; if you don't have top thread tension, you can't sew. This picture shows the little black dial to adjust the presser foot pressure on my old Viking machine.

Your machine may not have adjustable presser foot pressure; one of my sewing machines does not. I can still machine quilt with that machine because it has a quilting foot that goes up and down with the needle while I sew.

I'm sure there are other types of machines and setups for machine quilting, but I only have experience quilting with two types of sewing machines. Whatever you need to do to get ready to machine quilt, you need to have your presser foot go up and down with the needle when you sew.

And finally, don't forget to change to a new needle. They actually make machine quilting needles, which I have used, but I haven't noticed a difference between those and regular universal needles.

Get some machine quilting gloves or other gripping device. I got my gloves at a local quilt shop, and I like them. They have plasticky gripper dots on the fingers and palms and make it much easier to move the fabric around while I'm quilting. There are also other options for helping you get some grip on your palms and fingers and you can find them if you do a search for quilting notions or quilting gloves.

If your sewing machine has a table extension thing, use it. If your machine fits into a cabinet and you have a flat surface, that's even better.

Next you need to get your quilt ready to fit on the machine. This is a baby quilt that's about 36"x42". It's not that difficult to quilt, but bigger quilts require more wrangling and patience. For a baby quilt, I quilt half of it, lengthwise, at a time. First, roll one side in to the halfway point; this side will be to the left of my needle.

Then, roll the other side in a little bit, leaving 5-6" or so unrolled in the middle.
(With larger quilts, you will probably do 3 or 4 or more sections of quilting, adjusting how the quilt is rolled up each time.)


Next, take the quilt and accordion-fold it from the bottom. The folded part will be placed in your lap and you will start quilting at the top.


First, position the quilt, lower the presser foot, and then using the hand wheel (is that what it's called?) take one stitch and pull the bobbin thread to the top.

Make sure the needle is right above where the bobbin thread comes up, and sew 3-4 stitches in one place. This anchors the threads and then, ta da! You are ready to quilt. You will need to pull the bobbin thread up like this each time you start stitching.

My son, who is 7, took this picture. It is supposed to show my hand position when I'm starting quilting. It's not the best angle to actually show that, sorry.

I quilted over to the right side of the quilt, unrolling it a bit as I went.

When I went back to the left, I had to roll up the right side of the quilt again.

I ran out of bobbin thread so I decided to take a picture and show you how it looks so far. You might want to make sure you have a full bobbin, or two or three, before you start. When you stop quilting (on purpose that is, not when you run out of bobbin in the middle) you need to sew 3-4 stitches very close together to keep your quilting line from coming undone. When my bobbin runs out, I just start sewing about 1/2" before the spot where my bobbin ran out, and sew right on top of those last few stitches.

Here's the back.

In this picture, I'm getting close to the bottom of the quilt. I find it helps control the motion of the quilt if I fold the top of the quilt under as I get closer to the bottom.

This is the quilt with the first half of the quilting finished.

This is the back of the quilt, showing a little closer up view of the unquilted and quilted areas. After you finish quilting the first side of the quilt, you will need to lay it out again, and roll up the already quilted side so you can quilt the other side. Try to make the second section of quilting blend in with the first section.

This shows the quilting all finished.

Here is a closer view of the quilting from the back. And, a little discussion about the meandering style of quilting that I used on this quilt. Meandering is a kind of curvy quilting that typically has smooth curves, no sharp (or blunt, I guess) corners, and lines that don't cross over each other. If you look closely at this quilt you might see some loops in my quilting; I got stuck and had no other choice. Plus, there are no quilting police. Also in meandering, you should try to keep the distances between quilting lines relatively even.

When you are practicing, I'd suggest trying meandering, in different sizes (when it's smaller it's called stippling). You could also try writing your name, drawing pictures, making loops, or whatever you want. You just want to get used to the feel of moving the quilt with your hands while you're pushing the pedal with your foot. Which brings me to stitch length: there are long arm machines and Berninas with stitch regulators that help keep your quilting stitches a uniform length. If you're just quilting on a regular machine, you'll need to be your own regulator. You don't want to have stitches that are overly long or too short. You'll need to experiment to see what stitch length works for you. You might want to try going faster (via the foot pedal) than you think is necessary and then figure out the right speed to move the fabric with your hands.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you have some quilting you want to show off!


EDITED to add:
When I machine quilt, I start in the middle section and usually go left to right in a section about 8-10 inches wide, and then go back and forth while I'm moving down the quilt. Then when I get to the bottom, I clip threads, re-roll the quilt, and start again on one of the sides (or slightly over from the middle, if it's bigger than a baby quilt).