Sewing

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My mom passed away ten days ago. She was the beginning of my sewing journey, and really the beginning my path of creativity, craftiness, and handiness around the house. I don't actually remember learning to sew. I was an only child for the first 8 1/2 years of my life and that afforded me time to just co-exist with mom while she was in her sewing room. She made all my clothes in kindergarten, sewed Halloween costumes, worked at a sewing machine shop, and ran a craft business for years. And I had the front seat for all of it.

My very first sewing machine was the 1980 Romper Room Sew Easy -- "the sewing machine made especially for the very young -- that really sews!" I loved the yarn and foam sewing projects that I made. Eventually, I graduated to using mom's sewing machine, the same early 80's Viking that I sew on today. I don't actually remember learning how, but I'm so grateful for the skill that has always come as second nature to me. In addition to other small projects, I made a lot of scrunchies in the late 80's/early 90's which were sold at my mom's craft fair booths.

Mom made one quilt. It was on my bed as a kid. She didn't understand why people cut up perfectly good fabric just to sew it back together again.

She spend her creative time on other types of projects. Her craft business with her mother was primarily lined picnic baskets for years.

In one of my last conversations with my mom I asked her to tell me the story of how she learned to sew.

She was 5 or 6 years old and found her great grandmother's sewing machine in her parents' garage. It was a treadle machine. She "opened it up, put the thread in, and just started sewing." That machine is still in my mom's house.

The sewing machine is a straight stitch only machine. She sewed baby doll clothes from patterns as a kid. In school she took sewing and cooking classes. Her first sewing project in school was an A-line skirt. She made it out of purple wool. It was required that her project have facing, pockets, and a zipper. She learned how to make facings and waistbands.

As a teen her dad bought her a sewing machine. Up until age 12 she "had a crummy machine." Her dad bought her all the fabric she wanted. In high school she sewed elaborate prom dresses and eventually she sewed her own wedding dress. She's pictured with her parents in that dress above.

Mom was always joyful about creating. I carry that joy with me when I'm at the sewing machine or figuring out how to make some new crafty thing work out.

I shared more about my mom in a recent Instagram post and you can read Margie's obituary.

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In May, I took a virtual walking foot quilting class with Jacquie Gering with my local guild. Her class was a wonderful variety of walking foot skills. We filled 5 panels with quilting during the 6 hour class.

And... right at the beginning of the class she talked about open toe walking feet. Did you know that a walking foot can have an open toe!? I did not. Our class started at 9am that morning, and when the local sewing machine shop opened at 10am, I called up and asked if they had an open toe walking foot that would fit my 1982 Viking. I sent my husband to pick it up, and before noon it was installed. Let me tell you... game changer!

The walking foot on the left is the one I've been using for... over a decade. And the one on the right is my new, open toe walking foot. I can actually see where I'm sewing now! This allowed me to be really good at connecting points (see below).

Here are two of the panels we made in class. I had a couple quilt sandwiches left over from a previous quilting class, but for these two 12" x 18" panels I chose a least favorite solid color for the top and a print I was not likely to use in a quilt for the backing fabric. At the end of class, I had five quilted panels. I decided that my 18" x 18" panels would be great cushion covers (coming soon). Then I decided that these two with the printed backings could be turned into zipper pouches with the print side out.

I love the Open Wide Zippered Pouch by Noodlehead. I've made it many, many times. (This is one of my favorites.) It's so versatile. Previously, I have used fusible fleece on the outer panel to give it some structure and a quilted look. This is the first time I used a three-layer quilted panel for the outer portion of the bag. It's a lot more thickness, but it worked out well, with one minor adjustment.

I chose a coordinating fabric that isn't likely to make it into a quilt anytime soon for my lining fabric. Here's a peek. I'm pleased that I had a zipper that matched my outer fabric.

The Open Wide Zippered Pouch stands up on its own and... opens wide when unzipped. You may notice that my directional fabric is cut two different ways inside. We could call it a design element. Or a mistake. But really, it was the only way to cut the two panels out of the remnant of this print. I'm embracing the concept that "done is better than perfect" these days.

While the quilting is subtle on this one, the organic, overlapping curves is a great motif. It's easy to use in a lot of applications, both in walking foot and in free motion. My daughter helped me quilt a couple of the lines.

For my second pouch, my direction fabric ran the wrong way to cut panels large enough for another Open Wide Zippered Pouch, so instead I constructed this one in flat, rectangular panels. I love that the quilting is really a feature on this one. It also has a handbag feel to it with this shape. My panels were cut about 6" x 12".

I used the same basic construction (with the same adjustment) as the Open Wide Zippered Pouch and omitted the step to box the corners. I chose to use a remnant of my quilted panel to make the tab on the zipper. Since this was many layers of fabric (and batting!) I hand stitched the tab in place. It was way too bulky to get under the foot of my machine.

And for the one adjustment that I made. Since the bulk of the doubled layer of the quilted outer panel would have made topstitching around the top of the bag difficult, I simply tacked at the seams. In the photo above you can see my brown tack stitch (a simple zig zag stitch in place with the feed dogs down) about 1/4" below the top edge. I figure this is enough to keep the lining from popping up and getting in the way of the zipper.

I love the delightful whimsy of the children on the fabric. It worked out well that I got a variety of kids on the two panels I cut. (Today I saw this adorable quilt block which featured fussy cutting of another color way of this print.)

These pouches are part of my 99 Days of WIPs (yesterday was day 30), which I'm posting about daily on Instagram. I'm focusing on projects started in classes in the last 5 1/2 years. (2016 was the first year I took quilt classes, after quilting for over a decade!)

While they aren't perfect in numerous little ways, they are lovely, and finished, and will someday make their way to a new home with a friend or family member. I'd love to hear about your favorite, faster-than-a-quilt, gifts to sew or make.

Thanks for visiting!

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Season 11 of Project QUILTING ended two weeks ago and Kim decided to keep challenges rolling while much of the country (and the world) is sheltering in place during COVID-19. So PQQ 2020 (Project QUILTING: Quarantine 2020 edition) began last weekend with PQ Q.1: Big. Quite frankly everything seems big right now.

I have been sewing while I can, in the minutes I can steal between monitoring two elementary-aged children doing school at home, preparing too many meals per day, and all the other normal household tasks. I'm getting out nearly daily for short neighborhood walks alone. And we're trying to have quality family time among all the chaos. Since I have been sewing, I've been creating schnibbles (all those little bits of unusable fabric and batting). I save most scraps down to about an inch wide, so most of my schnibbles are the truly little bits. I keep them in a little trash bin from IKEA. Well, my pile of schnibbles had gotten quilt big and was threatening to overflow the trash bin. So it was time to do something about it.

I pulled out my fleece cat bed kit from Bay Area Modern Quilting and sewed it up so I could stuff it with all the little bits. It's hard to tell the scale, but the dimensions are approximately 16" x 20" on top and 5-6" tall. The top and bottom ovals are identical, with a double pass of stitching on each seam to attach the strip used for the sides.

I've developed the habit over time that when I have scraps I cross-cut them so the pieces are small. This goes for fabric, batting, and practice quilt sandwiches. All are cut up before going into the bin, so they are ready to go when I stuff a cat bed, or when I bag up my scraps to pass on to another guild member to fill cat beds.

This was a pretty quick project and it turned my big pile of schnibbles into a medium-size pile:

A big thanks to Kim for hosting additional quilt challenges during this weird time.

I hope you and you are healthy and safe. Thanks for visiting. Make sure to pop over to see what others have created for the Big challenge.