New shirt and Spirit of Winter update

I finished another shirt.   Last year I bought a solid red fabric and a small red check fabric. I combined these on the new shirt.  This is another of the New Look 6963.

Its been a long time since I finished a page on Spirit of Winter.  Finally page 19 is complete.

This weeks (week 8) TAST stitch was chain stitch.  These were my examples of its use.

First is part of a combination seam on a crazy quilt block.

 And used as a filling stitch in a goldwork piece.

This week I'm aiming to make another tunic to wear with leggings.

TAST stitches and shirt finish

There have been another couple of TAST weeks.  Week 6 was Chevron stitch:

Week 7 was Detached chain:

I've completed my first shirt.  This is the first time I've made buttonholes.  It was a bit nerve wracking putting the buttonholes in.  At that stage all the shirt was made up, so if I'd messed up the buttonholes it would all have been wasted.  Fortunately they worked out really well.  This was a New Look pattern 6963 and labelled Easy.  However I found some of the instructions really difficult to understand and they really weren't in-depth enough.  As a result I spent a long time on Youtube looking at how to videos.  Of all things, the pocket instructions I couldn't follow.  I thought patch pockets would be easy, however it turns out to be a type of fabric origami.  Easy enough once you know how, but the instructions on the pattern weren't nearly good enough.  The turn up sleeves also defeated me and I ended up doing my own thing with them.  The pattern calls for a 2 1/4" hem and have a tab looping around to appear to hold up the sleeve.  However if I'd used a 2 1/4" hem there would have been a huge amount of surplus fabric hanging down from the tab.  In the end I folded 2 1/4", and folded again.  I then sewed close the folded edge.  I then turned this to the right side of the sleeve and stitched at the bottom of the sleeve so it appears like edge stitching at both the top and bottom of the cuff.  This fits perfectly in the tab and is the perfect length.  With the two double folds this ends up as a  6 3/4" hem.

I'm very pleased with how this has turned out.  It's a smart casual shirt.

I'm going to make another of these shirts.  I have some red checked fabric and solid red fabric so I'll use a mix of these using the checked fabric for the body of the shirt and the solid red for collar, sleeves and pockets.

I'm going to add some more tabs to this blog showing only photographs of finishes as a quick reference. 

Tea cosy crazy quilt and TAST

I've started working on a crazy quilted tea cosy. I love having a morning cuppa but find that the tea is getting cool before I've finished.  Hopefully a tea cosy, as well as looking nice, will let me extend those lazy mornings!

Both front and back will be crazies.  One side is done.  This is also my May block for the CQJP2015 challenge.

I've been keeping up with the TAST challenge, but last week got slack about posting on my blog, although I did post on the TAST facebook page.  So here are week 2 and week 3 for the TAST challenge.

Week 2:  Buttonhole stitch.  As a seam treatment, buttonhole wheels and a buttonhole leaf.

 

Week 3 is feather stitch.  Worked here as seam treatments and also to join blocks and borders.

 

Anyone wanting to learn how to do these stitches, should click on the TAST badge to the right.  This will take you to the Pintangle page, then click on TAST FAQ which lists all the stitches and gives instructions on how to do them.  Mary Corbet also has great tutorials, including easy to follow video instructions.





 

Over on  Kathy Shaw's page a new free crazy quilting course will be opening for registration in a couple of days.  The course is Embellishing with Threads.  I'm looking forward to learning more on this course.   Anyone wanting to get into crazy quilting should take a look at her free classes.  They are great classes with easy instructions and so much fun seeing what other participants are doing.

 

 



TAST - take a stitch Tuesday

Sharon Boggon of pintangle.com has started a new TAST challenge.  Every week a new stitch is discussed with how to do it, and examples of it used in embroidery/crazy quilting.  See the TAST badge at the right and click on it to go to the pintangle web page for more info.

I discovered Pintangle last year, but by then the previous TAST was finished.  The instructions were still on the website and I found them very helpful in learning new stitches.

I'm happy to be taking part in the TAST.  Where possible I'll use the stitches on CQ blocks. 

The first stitch is the very versatile fly stitch.  Here I have done it as snowflakes and leaves on a winter themed CQ block.