Bird Watching shirt

I started this shirt in September, before school really started! I made the pattern with princess seams and 3/4 length sleeves that roll up. There are so many cute plaid shirts out there that I just had to make one. I finished everything but the buttons a couple months ago. The shirt got lost in the busyness of life until I recently finished it!

Christmas Surprises

This year for Christmas I made my two brothers and my brother's girlfriend magnetic hot pads. I had not very pleasant experiences when I bought the supplies at Joanns and I left resolved not to shop there again. We'll see how long it lasts...
These are the supplies for nine hot pads:

-Fabric (linen like. I think it is a polyester linen blend.)
-Insul-Bright: needled insulated lining. It is like batting that has a heat resistant metal side to it.
-Wool felt cut from a felted sweater and scarf.
-Super strong .47/.5" diameter magnets from Jerry's. On the packages they say: Extremely Strong Magnets! Not for Children! Do not inhale magnets. As you can see they are very dangerous! :D


The hot pad pattern is 22x20cm with 1cm seam allowance. The pattern for the batting and the wool is 20x18cm. I layered the hot pads for sewing in this order facing up: right side of fabric, one layer insul-bright, one layer wool, wrong side of fabric. I found that it was best to sew the insul-bright and the wool in the seam of the hot pad to help the hot pad to lie flat.

Some of them have pockets and decorative stitching.

These are the bags I decorated to hold the lovely gifts:



So those are my surprises!

....And the Day Finally Came!!

I went to bed in our hotel room at 10:30 after adding the final touches to my dress. After a night of fitful sleep, I got up and got ready for the play. The play started at 1:30 so there was plenty of time to take pictures at the park near the Oregon Shakespeare Festival campus.

I love that door^

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!" -Pride and Prejudice


The play was marvelous! The actors were superb, the costume were gorgeous, and it was well worth paying the high ticket price! I wish I could see it again!

As for the dress, there are several things I would like to change on it, I want to make the sleeves tighter and more puffy. I also need to fix the lining, it is not wide enough at the hem; I tried to jump over a puddle and ending up falling into it! Also I do not understand how the costumes in the play were made because I can detect no side seam on their skirts! The skirts in the play also were much fuller. Oh what I would give to talk to the costume designer!! :D

{Photos by Craig B.}

Regency Costume and Hat

The Jane Austen movie club, as we call ourselves, was planning a night to watch Pride and Prejudice, (2005, with Kiera Knightly) so I decided to dress up. I was playing with a crossover bodice pattern and I used the "practice" bodice for the top of my costume. I wore a blouse of my mom's underneath just for the sleeves. Underneath I wore a strapless dress that I put together by sewing a big piece of fabric into a tube and putting elastic at the top. I think is turned out looking rather nice. It has many problems, though, such as having stains and unfinished edges, but it was only intended to work for a few hours anyways!


Now the hat now is a different story. I found this wonderful book at the library called, From the Neck up: an Illustrated Guide to Hatmaking by Denise Dreher. It is a wonderful book with instructions to make all sorts of historical hats. I used a pattern from the book to make a hat for the last Pride and Prejudice movie night. That book coupled with inspiration from the lovely hats in Emma (with Romola Garai, 2009) was enough to make me excited to attempt another hat. I wanted to make a wide-brimmed, straw-like hat, but I didn't know what to make it out of that would be stiff enough. I preferred to use burlap but the only colors we had were Christmas green and red. My mom thought that the color might bleed out in hot water so I decided to go for it. First I had to find the fabric. As I was digging through a box of fabric I was overjoyed to find a good-sized remnant of tan burlap! Yay! My plan was to sew the hat together and then saturate it in watery glue to make it stiff. This method I learned in my backstage class from my acting teacher. In class we did it with felt and made crowns, but I made a sample with the burlap and it seemed to work. I drafted the pattern following the directions in the book and then sewed it together. The brim is one piece and the crown has six gores.

This is the hat before I applied the glue:

Then I began to coat both sides in glue. Not too much or it would dry into a glue puddle, but enough to make it stiff. I found that a piece of rag was the best instrument to apply the glue.

The hat was left to dry on aluminum foil so it wouldn't stick.

The wet hat:

The finished product:

I added a ribbon and a purple flower:

My inspiration:

Photos by April, Craig, and Alayna

Custom Bike Frame Bag

Back in July (2010) my brother told me about bike frame bags that are made custom to fit your bike. He sent me this link for inspiration,
He soon convinced me to embark on the frame bag journey. We bought water-resistant fabric, zippers, Velcro, and straps at Econo Sales. My brother went back to Canada and the next couple of weeks included drawings, drafts, measurements, emails, angles, protractors, geometry, more drafts, more emails, and more measurements. Finally I cut out the bag and figured out the pockets and zippers. I made the pattern and cut it out without ever seeing the bike in person. One unforeseen problem I had was that the zippers added length to the front piece of the bag. To compensate I had to add an extra piece to the top of the back. Next I melted 16 straps over a candle so they wouldn't fray, and I sewed on Velcro. My brother came down to visit on September 17th which meant I needed to get the bag done. With much encouragement I sewed it all together. The hardest part was putting a sectional piece right before the second zipper to make a horizontal divider. The finishing touch was a tag with "a VM" on it for a Vibrant Medley. The bag is constructed with five pieces: the back, lower front, upper front, side, and middle divider. The bag has two zippers. The upper zipper has two zipper pulls and the lower has one.

These are the Velcro straps:

The upper zipper:

The inside back. The pockets (from left to right) are made to fit keys, wallet, and cell phone.

This is the detail on the Velcro pocket closure:

This is all the stuff that can fit in the bag:

His water pack tube conveniently comes out of the top zipper:

The label: