A Passel of Patterns

I come from a family of makers, one of whom is my maternal grandmother. She's wonderful and a great maker. Not only have I been the lucky recipient of several of her knitting and sewing projects over the years but more recently she gifted me a pile of her old sewing patterns. Believe me, I was very excited to receive two boxes full of sewing patterns in a range of styles and sizes, baby to adult.

The hard part of this whole thing is figuring out where to start with all of this goodness! Thankfully, one pattern caught my eye: Simplicity 7449. Simplicity has put out several patterns with this number over the years and I believe that this particular one is from the 1980's.

I admit that part of my reason for choosing this pattern is because I stumbled upon this Sunnyside Twilight Buttercup fabric while shopping for fabric for another project. The Sunnyside fabric immediately jumped into my mind as something that would look lovely for the yoke of a shirt. I, at least, think it turned out well for this.

The top was pretty simple to put together, as it uses Dolman sleeves - meaning sleeves are done with the general shape of the front and back pieces instead of the normal procedure of setting in the sleeves. I also finished the neckline with bias tape which, besides being simple, is quickly becoming a favorite technique for finishing.

I did add a few other special touches to the top including psuedo-flat felled sleeves. I meant to make french seams but got my fabric pieces backwards. Oops. Making the seams look flat felled was the best compromise to this error. The other thing I did was use one of my sewing machine's decorative stitches to add a little heart to the bottom right hem. Between these small details and my mastery of the basics, my sewing is definitely improving and I'm certainly taking more pride in it!

Happily, I finished this project in time to pack it for my summer vacation - a family trip to Germany! It was a wonderful adventure for me, my husband and my in-laws, though I still have SO MANY photos to go through. One of them is this one below. I could not resist taking a photo of my new shirt next to one of Germany's most famous attractions, Neuschwanstein Castle.

So there you have it, a pile of patterns, a new handsewn top, and a family adventure. It's been a very exciting month.

Spin Spin

I'm in the Start All The Things phase of crafting and, in an effort to not get overwhelmed, I'm trying to clear out a bunch of the works in progress hanging around my craft room. One such project was this braid of fiber, half spun up on my spinning wheel.

The fiber comes from Sheepish Creations, whose fiber I've spun up on several previous occasions. It's such a cheery fiber, though not in my normal color palette, so I suspect it will end up as babywear. Any pattern ideas for 140 yards of worsted weight?

Of course, finishing this skein of handspun only makes me want to start spinning more fiber. Not exactly the point of finishing this spinning, but I won't say no to more crafting mojo.

Variations On A Theme

Sewing is continuing apace at casa BrineyDeep, though I'm mostly working on some small items. First on the list was fixing my bucket hat from last month.

I fixed the hat by unpicking the crown-band seam and sewing a new seam with a deeper seam allowance. This took in a lot of the extra depth from the crown, but it also made it so that I was putting a seam into a place that had not been sewn over before. Sewing on "fresh" fabric is really important because even one seam weakens the laminated cotton.

I have about 1/2 yard of this fabric left, but no immediate plans to use it. It's a tricky fabric to work with, so it's just going to wait in my stash until the right project comes along.

In other sewing news, I made another patchwork bag. This one is a little bigger than the previous one, as I used these 3.5" Riley Blake fabric squares instead of a 2.5" Moda mini charm pack. I'm totally fine with the change of size because I adore this fabric, particularly the crown print on the lining.

Thankfully, I have lots of projects on my to-sew list. Otherwise, I could easily become obsessed with sewing charm pack bags. They're just too fun, quick, and adorable!