Blooper Reel: If Anything Can Go Wrong, It Will!

Murphy's Law, "If anything can go wrong, it will," can apply to the sewing room, even when there's an expert at the helm of the sewing machine.  No amount of sewing experience can protect you from those times when the seam ripper comes out and you smack yourself in the forehead repeatedly!  I had one of those days last week. 

Don't let this happen to you!

I've been a busy lady as of late, finalizing my first cotton fabric collection with my company in New York and finishing up my sewing pattern re-releases.  After weeks sitting at my computer fussing over graphics files, I found myself in need of a sewing day where I would attend to some samples and a new dress for myself.  Ah, they're all easy projects... smooth sailing!  I told myself.  No, that was the first clue that everything was about to go awry...

First of all, that simple dress I was going to make for myself had been cut out weeks earlier.  The pieces were stacked up, marked and ready to sew... or so I thought!  When I sewed up the bodice yoke pieces and unfurled them to give them a press for the next step, I found (to my horror!) that the flower motifs in the print made for some... floral pasties!  Ohhhh dear.  Thank goodness the yoke is lined with the same fabric and I can swap out one of the halves for a flower with a different placement!  Note to self and others:  When working with large prints that are to be placed in the bust area of a garment, check your print placement to avoid embarassment!  I set the dress aside and told myself I'd work on something else.

I had a backup dress to work on!  A nice, easy-to-alter 1940s housedress with princess seams (Decades of Style #4002).  Pieces were cut and marked, and I zipped through the front and back princess seams, only to find that the side pieces didn't match up!  Foiled again!  I called my friend for desperate help and, after some talk therapy I realized that I had forgotten to sew the side darts... once that was done, the side pieces matched up perfectly.  Note to self and others:  Always check off your sewing steps on the pattern instructions so you don't forget important details!

Well!  After two frustrating starts and getting nowhere fast, I decided I needed to finish something up to feel that I had accomplished something!  I turned to one of my quick zippered bags, which I was testing for an upcoming pattern re-release.  This would be easy... the front assembly was already sewn, all I had to do was position the strap and sew the back up to complete it.  I positioned, pinned and got it under the needle.  I sewed down one side, pivoted perfectly and sewed down the other and.... SNAP!  POP!  CRUNCH!  My needle shattered (good thing I wear big glasses when I sew) and as I grumbled and pulled the bag out of the machine, I realized that I had run out of bobbin at EXACTLY THE SAME TIME.  Note to self and others:  NEVER sew over a metal zipper stop and ALWAYS check your bobbin before you begin to sew.

That was IT.  I quit for the day. 

When multiple errors are happening in the sewing room, retreat is usually the better part of valor.  It may seem like you're giving up, but we all have days when we're not paying attention or we're tired or maybe you just don't feel like sewing. It is far better to recognize when things aren't working and come back to your work when you're fresh and ready to give sewing your full effort (barring deadlines, of course).   I'm back in the sewing room today, ready to sew and I know it'll all go well!  There will be no broken needles today... I hope!

NEW PATTERN! The Patchwork Owl Family

The original 2007 Owl Pattern

It's not exactly a new pattern, but it may as well be... The re-release of my very popular Patchwork Owl Family sewing pattern happened a few months ago and I'm still very excited about it!  What is this pattern, you ask?  Why have you re-released it?  What's the big deal about a bunch of stuffed owls, anyway? 

Back in 2007, when I was selling fabric at Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics, I realized that a lot of the customers were asking for stuffed toy patterns but there weren't a lot of choices in the store.  I assembled my experience and skills and designed a pattern that would reflect my love of owls and hopefully would appeal to the varied customer base at the fabric store.  I also tried to make the owls something that a customer could easily make with common fabrics - quilting cotton and felt.  After a few weeks of rigorous testing, writing, and illustrating, I released the original 101 Owl Family Pattern, which was something of a local overnight success.  We could not keep them in the store - I was always selling more than I could make in my spare time.  This success led to a couple of spin-offs:  The Baby Owl Kit and later a kit designed especially for the clothing and accessory store Anthropologie. 

Fast forward to late 2010.  Fresh from International Quilt Market and a few years of fabric design school, I decided to update my small line of patterns and expand the offerings.  After months of looking through my customer feedback notes while I was designing fabric, I finally had a real gem:  The revised Patchwork Owl Family pattern.  So... other than a pretty new hand-painted cover and some slick graphics, what does this re-release have that the original lacked?

The 2011 Re-Release

I really listened to my customers - spoken and unspoken feedback was really important to the re-design process.  The most important change was in the back pieces.  In the original version, a gap was to be left in the curved side of the owl to allow for turning and stuffing.  While this was adequate for this purpose, many customers weren't able to preserve the curve when the gap was sewn shut.  By making the back neck seam straight and building in a turning and stuffing gap into that seam, everyone can now have a perfect curve all the way around the owl!  Plus the straight gap is easier to stuff through and sew closed at the very end.

Also updated is the front body assembly.  Previous versions of this pattern called for stitching the wings onto a body piece in an applique-like fashion.  This wasted fabric and was difficult for some beginning seamsters to accomplish, so I straightened the wing-to-tummy seams and simplified the construction. 

Almost everything else about the owls is the same, except for a lot of little details that most people might not notice.  The detailed step-by-step instructions are now lovingly drawn by hand and show every important little detail of the construction.  These illustrations are now a little larger than those in the original pattern (along with the font size) - a plus to all of us who need a bit of magnification (do you see me raising my hand and adjusting my glasses?). 

(L) A fresh basket of new owls. 
(R) The improved back stuffing gap of the revised owl design.

I hope that new and return customers will enjoy my fresh new updates to this pattern.  It's a fun project to make, and was designed to be a relaxing and rewarding project for any occasion or time of the year.  For more information or to purchase this pattern, please visit my Etsy store.

Book Review: Successful Scrap Quilts

Quilting was something that I vehemently resisted as a youngster, teen and young adult. Being far more interested in sewing fashions for my own wardrobe (and later fashions for other people), I just couldn't get into the idea of piecework or quilting... even though some of my favorite vintage fabrics appeared on random old crazy quilts around my parents' house. 

My quilting epiphany didn't come until many, many years later during my second year working at Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley, California.  Word got around among the staff that my graphic design background gave me an edge with color and composition, and I frequently found myself helping quilters solve a multitude of design problems with their projects.  Shift after shift of helping others got me thinking that I should at least throw together a couple of quilt tops for the sake of my own expertise.  Not wanting to go the traditional route, I chose the book Successful Scrap Quilts from Simple Rectangles by Judy Turner and Margaret Rolfe as a place to begin. By now it's a few years old (2002) but I still find myself pulling it off of my bookshelf time and again.

Successful Scrap Quilts is a great book for any beginner for several reasons.  Not only are all 15 of the quilt patterns executed with easy-to-cut rectangles (which is a plus), but the first several chapters cover many fundamental quilting concepts.  From color and composition to block assembly and general quilt construction, you almost don't need another book to complete your quilt top!  This book does not, however, adequately cover finishing the quilt; those are topics best covered in detail by other reference volumes or classes from your local quilt shop.

My first quilt top from this book was a Bento Box (page 84), a small 30" x 36" lap quilt.  Instead of using the suggested traditional Japanese indigo fabrics to frame the colorful central blocks, I pulled several black-and-white Japanese themed prints out of my stash to frame selections of my brighter Asian conversational prints.

A few years later I made a more traditionally colored Bento Box with Japanese indigos and other muted Asian prints.  Here are the blocks laid out to test the composition.  My father-in-law was the lucky recipient of this quilt.  I did make a small modification to the pattern in this version; instead of piecing the center of each block, I carefully cut single square vignettes from Japanese conversational cottons.  The indigo and neutral tones make nice frames, no?

As I love working with themes, I couldn't resist piecing this brightly-colored starry quilt top based on 1-2-3 What Can You See? (page 81).  I reduced the size and number of blocks to make a 32" x 45" child's lap quilt, as this quilt was made for a little girl.  It was fun and a real challenge to find star-themed and celestial fabrics in purple, turquoise, and yellow!  The psychedelic border brought the disparate colors together in a fun, slightly girly way.

Given that a previous non-quilter like myself was inspired enough by the cute examples in this book to make three quilt tops, I'll give this book a rating of excellent, especially as a book for first quilting projects.  The patterns are easy if you want to make them just like the samples, and they're easily customizable if you're just looking for a place to start your own creative project.  It would also be a great book to have around for you experienced quilters who need simple projects for gift quilt making.  As advertised, the patterns are good for scraps and collections of fabrics from your stash.

Plus, what higher rating can I give a quilting book than to say "It turned me into a quilter?"  I can think of no higher compliment or endorsement.