A Quilt, A Shirt & A Pattern Test
- fabman556
- Aug 3, 2018
- 3 min read
It's been a busy couple of weeks in the Sewing Studio. Let's get caught up!
Memory Quilt
For my 30th anniversary at JOANN back in 2008, my team members honored me with a memory quilt made of fabrics I had purchased as an assistant buyer, and the back is filled with comments and signatures: a very important reminder for me of some very good times. Since that time I have tried to pay that kindness forward, and last weekend I had another opportunity to do so. Here's an earlier example: https://fabman556.wixsite.com/dan-the-fabric-man/single-post/2017/09/21/Sewing-It-Forward
In this case, Pamela Greenwood, the Interim Director of Music at Oakland Baptist Church here in Rock Hill, retired from her position last weekend in advance of our new minister of music's arrival, and I couldn't let her leave without taking advantage of an opportunity to show her how much she means to us with a memory quilt.
The obvious choice for the main fabric was a music print, and I found this one at the local Hobby Lobby fabric department. I paired it with black and red solids, and found a rail fence quilt design I liked on Pinterest. I have a board for quilt ideas made with 2 1/2" strip rolls:
This quilt was simple to make. First I cut 2 1/2" strips of all three fabrics, then stitched three strips together (one of each, with the music print in the center). After pressing the seam allowances away from the white fabric, I cut the joined strips into 6 1/2" blocks. The basic quilt format was simple: six rows of blocks. I stitched them together into rows, then joined the rows. After a good pressing, I stacked the completed quilt top, a layer of batting and a solid white backing piece. (I tweaked the design slightly by intentionally reversing one block, because I rarely do symmetry.)
Pin-basting all the intersections and edges, I machine-quilted in the "ditch" (the seamline where the blocks were joined). After trimming up the edges and using a coffee cup to trace and trim a curve around the corners (makes binding the edges simpler than mitered corners), I bound the quilt in bias tape made from the solid black fabric. The last step was to add a rod casing to the top of the back of the quilt so that it could be hung if desired.
We presented the quilt to Pam at a choir potluck last Sunday following her final service with us, and then the back was signed by all the choir members present.
Another Shirt Completed From The Spring Line-up
This shirt was made from a Liberty of London fabric I ordered in 2014 or 2015 from fabric.com. I goofed on the yardage amount, thinking that the fabric was 60" wide instead of 54" wide, so I made the shirt short-sleeved instead of long-sleeved.
The fabric is very tightly woven (not the usual Tana Lawn from Liberty that I have used before) with a raised thread texture (more evident from the wrong side, above), and even with a new needle, the sewing machine didn't like working on it very much (lots of klunk, klunk, klunk).
Still, the fabric worked up well and the shirt turned out nicely. And, another piece of fabric is off the stash pile!
Sidebar: I've been sewing a lot of shirts over the past couple of years, and my closet was getting crowded. Last week I went through all the shirts there and donated many of them to our church's ministry center, which distributes clothing and other items to those in need. For all of us who sew regularly, it's a good practice to follow a "one-in, one-out" policy, which keeps the wardrobe under control and helps others at the same time. Going forward I plan to donate more regularly.
A Pattern Test
With a fairly decent pile of pants fabrics in the stash, it's time to sew up some of them. A few months ago I started working on an old piece of menswear fabric from the 1980s, but hit a roadblock when it was time to make the back welt pockets. To me, welt pockets are nothing but a speed bump on the highway to new pants, and I dislike how much it slows down my progress with all the marking and measuring and the need to be very precise. However, I could hear this work-in-progress nagging me from the pile in the basket on the floor, so I have started working on this project again. With a little practice, the welt pockets will come together faster and I'll work through that stash pile.
Until next time, keep those sewing machines humming, and please take a look through your closet; do you have some excess clothing you could donate for those in need?
@danthefabricman
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