Adventures in Paper Piecing

I finally finished my first paper piecing project! (Ok, I actually finished like a week ago, but the weather was crummy all last week and I wanted a nice picture of it all finished up)

I have been wanting to try paper piecing alot lately, but I'm not the type to just make a "practice" block just for the heck of it...it seems like a waste to make something I don't have any intentions on using, so I was about to jump right in to a (probably difficult) full blown paper piecing block that I really want to make.  Then it's as if Sew, Mama, Sew! read my mind (isn't it funny how blogs do that?) because soon popped up this tutorial for a paper-pieced mini quilt that was super cute and looked like a good way to try out paper piecing. 

I was a little nervous at first, trying to read the directions without doing it seemd overwhelming and confusing, but as soon as I started it was really quite simple and nothing to be scared of!

I did have a few close calls where the fabric just barely covered the seam lines once I flipped it, the whole- not having to line up edges thing -was really throwing me off, and something about sewing backwards on something that was already backwards was kind of blowing my mind, but as long as I took my time thinking it through and double checking the position of the fabric against the light before sewing it, it went together quite well.

I had SO much fun making this, and I am now in love with paper piecing. I finished all of these in one evening and it didn't take long to get it quilted and bound!

The binding is actually where I hit a snag...I was using Rachel at Stitched in Color's zig-zag binding tutorial again, and had confidence that I remembered the directions from the last time I did it and didn't need to re-read them.  WRONG! I accidentally did a 1/2" seam when I sewed it to the front (it's supposed to be 1/4") meaning I had no room to flip it over to cover the back...I almost unstitched the whole thing, when I had a genius idea to trim it off in the seam allowance to make it 1/4". This worked pretty well except I didn't consider the corners, so my nicely mitered corners got messed up...oops! Oh well, I made do..  I am proud to say though that I finally joined the ends of the binding together correctly! Every time I've done binding the part where you join the ends at a 45 degree angle gets me and I give up and just fold one end over the over. This time I was determined to get it right, and after 6 tries (no kidding...6...I was so close to giving up again...) I got it!  I was so proud (one of the main reasons I didn't want to unstitch the binding when I found my mistake, hah!)

Anyway, binding mishaps aside, I am super excited about this finish. It was one of the most fun things I've made in a while and can't wait to try some more paper piecing.  I'm actually considering finding templates for the whole alphabet, sizing them down and making a baby blanket with them. Hmm...right now I have about 10 ideas for baby blankets, so we'll see which make the cut! 

Today I'm linking up with {sew} Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations AND with Little Quilt Monday at Pieceful Life, make sure to stop by and see all the gorgeous stuff people have been up to, and maybe show something of your own off! 

At last, a fall table runner!

First of all, I am linking this post up with Celebrate Color, so welcome anyone who is stopping by for Celebrate Color! I hope you'll stay for a bit! :)

As mentioned previously, I LOVE decorating for fall.  I don't understand why people are so quick to jump right to Christmas, when there's so much beauty in fall colors also.  Don't get me wrong, I love me some Christmas too... but something about the slower pace of fall, the cooler temps and beautiful colors lets me relax and unwind before the craziness of the holiday season begins.  With pumpkin spice latte in hand, I pulled out my box of decorations from last year at the first sign of cooling weather (and here in central Florida, that equates to a drop to about 87 degrees...) I have a hutch that holds all of our TV equipment that I usually have a table runner on which I change out for the seasons, and I could have sworn I had a fall one.  Apparently, I either lost it or I was hallucinating because it was no where to be found...oh well, that gave me an excuse to try my hand at some holiday crafting!  Now, I'm not much of a planner...I just like to find some fabric I like and go with it, but I had just bought an Accuquilt Go! Baby fabric cutter which came with some triangle and square dies, so I decided to try it out with my runner, making a few of these blocks:

I think this block is called a Saw Tooth Saw, I tried to google it but there are so many star blocks...who knows which one I actually made (actually...if anyone does, feel free to fill me in!), but I love it! Anyway, I had originally planned to make the star part with the patterned fabric, and solid as the background but somehow or another I didn't have enough fabric to do that, so it ended up being flip-flopped and I am glad that it did, I really like the way they turned out. 

I pieced together the back with some solid brown, solid orange and one of the patterns that did not make the cut for the front

Then it was time for the binding, which is where things really started to fall apart. My first attempt was TERRIBLE. I made some continuous bias tape (which as it turns out was completely unnecessary) at 1 inch thick (which, as it also turns out, was a really bad idea) Knowing that I couldn't get that on very straight with a stitch-in-the-ditch technique I decided to attach it using a decorative stitch to help hide my errors. Well that was an epic failure. There are many things that I could name as to why it went wrong, but what I ended up with were uneven stitches, the binding on the back not getting sewed with the front, and some sections came unfolded. I did the whole top until I realized just how bad it was. Frustrated, I decided to take a break from it for the time being...

A few days later, I think Rachel over at Stitched in Color must have known that I was struggling and posted this lovely tutorial on zig-zag binding. The idea behind this is kind of what I was going for, so this was exactly what I needed to help me try again, and get a decent result. If only I had a delorean and could read this tute BEFORE my ill-fated first attempt. There was no way I was going to attempt to rip out all those stitches, so I wound up just cutting off the parts of the binding that hadn't been stitched yet and just covering it all up with the new binding (shhhh don't tell anyone!) I was pretty bummed about how un-perfect this turned out, but considering this is the closest thing I've done to a quilt thus far, I guess I can blame it on the learning curve.

I am pleased that I finally got this put together, and unless you know what's wrong with it or look too closely, it looks pretty darn cute on my TV hutch!

Thanks again for stopping by, can't wait to see all the other projects being posted for Celebrate Color! I might also have another one ready soon, if I can get my act together!

The Costume Ordeal

So I had hoped to be blogging my progress on my Advent Calender, or maybe my Fall Table Runner for entry into Celebrate Color, but unfortunately I am STILL trying to finish a costume I had agreed to make a friend of mine a few weeks back, and man has this been an ordeal.  You see, my friend is doing an "All-Saints-Day" festival for the kids at her church.  She is dressing up like a nun, and her husband is going to dress up as St. Francis.  Her husband is about 6'3", and they could not find a costume to fit a man so tall, so she asked me how easy it would to sew up a simple tunic for him. I thought "Oh heck, shouldn't be hard at all! Nothin to it, sure I'll do it for you!" Well...having never sewed a garment before, and not having any sort of pattern, I should have thought this through a little more. But, oh well, no time to second guess this, I had to get started! We found a picture on line of the idea she had for it...

Yeah, so he's not supposed to look as creepy as this guy, but it gives the general idea of what we were going for.  My first step was to figure out how much fabric I would need...In some kind of crazy math, I came to the conclusion that I'd need about 6 yards.  After I had drawn up a lovely plan (ok, so it was a stick figure with a rectangle around it...) I ventured off to Jo-Anns for some cheapo brown cotton fabric and took it home to get started.  I cut out the part to be the robe itself with a hole for the head, and thought "Heck, this is going to be a cinch!"

 that's a whole lotta fabric....

I proceeded to measure out the shoulders and cut a spot for the arms, then I hemmed up the bottoms and sides, and thought now all I had to do was throw on some sleeves and a hood, bada bing, bada boom, we'll have ourselves a tunic!  I was quickly on my way to victory! I guess I got too confident too quickly, because this is where things started to go downhill...Did I mention that I was only going off of rough measurements, and wasn't able to actually put this on the person to make sure everything fit? I had my hubby try it on to give me an idea, but he's not near 6'3", so I was left to estimate...ALOT. 

On to the sleeves...I guesstimated a length, did my best to figure out how big the sleeve hole was to get the width, and cut myself a rectangle. Then, I cut it to curve with the arm hole, sewed it up so it was a tube, and proceeded to try to attach this thing...Needless to say, this was a disaster. Enter seam ripper. Maybe I needed to sew it on BEFORE I sew it into a tube...Nope, disaster #2...good thing I still had my seem ripper handy.  I started trying to think of a better way to do this, and finally decided I needed to maybe "google" how to attach a sleeve.  Yep, should have done it before sewing up the sides of the garment so it can lay flat to attach it. Alright, easy enough, nothin my good ole friend the seem ripper couldn't help me fix! So, garment apart, laying flat, I pinned and attached the sleeve. Success!!  Finally think I got it figured out, until I measured the length...dang, I had turned the rectangle the wrong way before I cut the curve, and wouldn't you know the sleeve is too short now...I attempted sleeve number two with the correct dimensions, and it was much better, so I felt confident to (ONE MORE TIME) rip the seams and redo the first sleeve.

Why hello there, BFF's...

Well by this time, I was running out of fabric, so it was off to Jo-Anns to get some more. 2 more yards should do it for one more sleeve and the hood.  I get home, cut out my rectangle for the other sleeve, and go to pin it on when I realized I had gotten the WRONG FABRIC!! Uuugggh you've got to be kidding me! Back to the store... (20 minutes away, mind you...) Grabbed myself 1 more yard of the RIGHT fabric (I figured I could use the other stuff for the hood thing, the color matched it was just a slightly different material).  I finally did get the second one attached, and I pinned up the sides to finish it off and turns out, the hems on the bottom don't match up! Duh...should have waited to hem the bottom... (hello again, seem ripper). Anyway, I finally got the sides all stitched up, evened out the bottom and hemmed it back up. PHEW! I don't really know what went wrong, but the armpit area wound up looking pretty wonky, but at this point...I was willing to let the slide so long as it fits him right.   

I packed it all up and brought it to my friend at work today so she can take it home to her hubby to make sure it fits, I made it extra long *just in case* so I'm expecting to have her bring it back so I can hem it up to final length. I'm still waiting to hear how it went...Tonight I made the hood, and surprisingly, that went together with no problems at all

Tada!

God willing, this will all look good once its on and finished off with the rope belt. I hope to have a picture of him in it if all goes well.  One thing is for sure after this project, I now know that you can improv on some things, but garments (that other people are relying on you to make...) are not one of them!