(Yes, that’s the dog’s toy salmon standing in for actual food on the grill.)

Oh yeah, and my new favorite embellishment is rickrack (yes, I’m late to the rickrack party, too) and it plays a prominent role in my apron.

Oh, and now I know that I would have been well-served to read Stacy’s comprehensive review of of this pattern before I started preemptively fiddling with it for fit on the halter. It would have been a perfect fit on me unaltered, but I tinkered and paid the price, it’s a bit too big.

Oh well, after all, it is an apron. It doesn’t need to fit perfectly.

This pattern, and all Vanilla House designs, use length and width measurements for the square pieces—the only pattern pieces that are included are those that are shaped (think the Amy Butler In Stitches book)—and I made a slight oops! when I did my cutting for the apron skirt and, as a result, it’s rather narrow. (Lesson learned: Don’t cut out fabric you have to measure when you’re overly tired.)

But again, it’s an apron, it doesn’t need to be perfect.

Since I’m also obsessed with top-stitching everything, I also top-stitched the entire thing, which I think makes it look more finished and makes the entire apron a bit more stable. I think it will help it hold up longer too (I’ve noticed garments I’ve made that aren’t top-stitched seem to take a beating in the wash at the seams. While this isn’t a precise science, I figure something like an apron that gets washed a lot is well-served having all the reinforcement it can get.)

One final note about this project. I had stuck the pattern sheet that has all the yardages on it in my bag, and somehow misplaced it. In a total panic, I emailed Barbara, the designer, asking her if she could send me the yardages. In a moment self-deprecating humor, I also told her that I was sure that by emailing her and asking for this information, that I was guaranteeing that I’d find my copy somewhere stupidly obvious. She sweetly immediate sent the information I needed to me, with this hilarious note (which I imagine she won’t mind me repeating):

Please find the attach pdf for the back cover of P141 Friday Night Apron. And as soon as you open the pdf, your other cover will magically appear!

And you know what? I opened the PDF, and she was right!

~Sarah

Except, when I got dressed this morning, I decided that I really wanted needed to wear these shoes.

Which don’t really go with my pink dress. At all. If I didn’t happen to have a meeting today and therefore be required to present an illusion of professionalism, I would have just worn the aqua shoes and pink dress and said “to hell with it.”

So, I pulled out my black stretch twill version (and I’ve got to reiterate my point in my earlier post about this dress–this one works so much better in a stretch woven, since it’s meant to be quite fitted) of the Amy Butler Lotus Tunic/Dress, because I know you can wear aqua shoes with a plain black dress. And it gave me an excuse to show it off to you guys.

I also know that a denim jacket (my fave–I watched it at the Sundance Catalog Shop forever until it went on clearance) goes with everything–including both aqua shoes and a plain black dress. So I think I did okay in my celebration of International Wear a Dress Day/Week… Right?

(My apologies to Antoinette for not wearing the dress I said I was going to wear.)

~Sarah

Obviously, his running buddy approves of this stylish head-wear.

~S & J

We hope you’ll humor us for a moment while we diverge ever-so-slightly from our regularly scheduled programming…

From the “Crafters for Obama” badge that’s been on our site since Julie Ree created “Crafters for Obama” back in January, you’ve probably noticed that we’re supporters of Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for the Presidency. We believe that his leadership can help our country move in the right direction. We’ve been personally affected by many of the tough issues that are facing our nation, and many of our friends and family have also been directing impacted by the poor economy, lack of accessible and affordable health insurance, the expense of a higher education, among other issues. We’re also fairly typical Gen Xers, we think, having never really been thrilled about the dialog and personalities in American politics, and generally feeling like politicians at all levels don’t speak to the issues that matter to us. We both went to college in Washington, D.C., and grew to loath many of the politicians on both sides of the aisle–since politics is so very “in your face” all the time (Joe Lieberman cut us in line at the supermarket once, so some of those loathings are more personal than others). We were both very excited by Senator Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004, and were thrilled when he became a viable candidate after his win in the Iowa caucuses in January.

This weekend, Sarah decided to take that enthusiasm for the candidate into our crafty/sewing/screen printing world, and made some old school pennants to hang in the window of her home office and support our candidate. (Everyone–and in our neighborhood we sort of mean everyone–has a yard sign, no one has craftastic handmade pennants.)

Sarah made these creating a pennant template, using our flag making book as a resource, pinking the edges so they wouldn’t unravel/look snazzy, and then screen printing the Obama campaign logo on each one in white. The screen was created using the stenciling technique from Printing by Hand, but utilizing Tyvek instead of mylar. The way the logo is designed, it was a relatively simple one to cut. The tough decision was, however, how to attach the pennants together. Twine just seem a bit lazy, bias tape seamed bulky, but rick-rack, that was just right. Sarah stitched the pennants onto the rick-rack a couple of times so that they’re nice and secure and the pennants hang flat.

They’re now hanging in the large window of Sarah’s office. They look pretty sharp.

(Once the campaign season’s done, Sarah’s wanting to make some Portland Trail Blazers pennants to replace these. With the retro logo, of course.)

We know we’re not the only crafters out there who have been making all sorts of items celebrate the historic campaign by Senator Obama–whether they’re knitted, sewn, printed, embroidered or some crazy plastic canvas. In fact, pretty much every day we see something new and fabulous on Flickr or one of the blogs we read. We thought it would be nice to have a central place to feature some folks’s work, so Sarah’s set up a quasi-photoblog over here, called “The Obama Craft Project,” where she’ll be featuring some fabulous Obama inspired crafts. Stop by and check it out. If you know of anything that we should feature, send us an email at sewersewist@gmail.com or pop it into the Flickr pool.

The Obama Craft Project is obviously focused on our support of this particular candidate that we believe in, and we know that not everyone who reads Sewer-Sewist agrees with us. However, that’s one of the beautiful things about our country on a macro level, and sewing and creating “stuff” on a smaller scale — it takes a diverse chorus to create a vibrant country and community.

“It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”

–Barack Obama

~S & J

This one is dubbed the “Modern Nappy Bag” and is really something — its absolutely enormous! And it certainly doesn’t look like your run-of-the-mill diaper bag.

I used fabric from Amy Butler’s newish line of home decorator weight cotton sateen, August Fields. Some woodgrain fabric of the same weight from Joel Dewberry’s Ginseng line looked like it was made to match, so I lined the whole thing and made the many, many pockets with that…

I had a lot of fun making this bag, and hope the recipients enjoy it and are able to get some use out of it. What I like about it is that even if it’s a no-go as a diaper bag, it would be great as a tote bag for shopping at the farmers market or for a day trip where you need to pack a few things. It just doesn’t look “diaper-y.”

I also made the accompanying changing pad in a an organic terry cloth that was the same light blue color that was in the woodgrain fabric, and back it with the woodgrain. It’s meant to be quilted in a grid style, but I quickly last my patience with that. I am just sooooo not a quilter In fact, while I respect quilting as an art form, it is one of those things I just don’t have the temperament for at all. I did manage to do some horizontal quilting before I got frustrated, so it looks pretty decent. Needless to say, I can’t imagine I’ll be doing anything remotely quilting related anytime soon.

Funnily enough, this is the first baby gift I’ve ever made. Because I really don’t presume to know what folks want or need, I usually rely on that handy-dandy Target registry for these types of things. And, honestly, there hasn’t been anyone that I’ve been good enough friends with to merit making a baby gift. I hope that doesn’t make me a terrible person…

Which reminds me of an incident from earlier this year. One of my former coworkers was planning a baby shower for another coworker. And the first coworker asked me to “make up one of those nice bags” for this person to put all the other gifts into. She was referring, to the Amy Butler High Street Messenger Bag, of which I’ve made several. I was flabbergasted. Not only was I shocked because of the time and expense a bag like that would take (people really don’t understand how expensive fabric is and how much effort and energy it takes to make something quality–I’ve accepted that), but I was doubly surprised because I wasn’t particularly close to the potential recipient. You have to be pretty high up on the list to get a handmade gift–particularly an elaborate one like a bag that’s, face it, pretty physically tiring to make with all the layers of fabric and whatnot. The friend that I made this bag and changing pad for (actually, the bag is for the friend’s wife, but whatever) was just about my only work friend that I had when I was working at The Job From Hell several years ago. (Seriously, it was bad. You try going to school board meetings that last until 11:00 p.m. and tell me it’s not hell.) And I also know that my friend really appreciates things that are made by real people. So it’s really a two-fold criteria for these things with me: 1.) I gotta like you a lot. 2.) You gotta appreciate stuff that’s handmade.

I’m wondering if I’m the only one who is like this? Are the rest of y’all nicer than me about the handmade gifting thing?

~Sarah

Edited: I forgot to mention that a friend of mine stopped by the house right after I finished this up and mentioned that the bag was big enough and the right shape to use “Paris Hilton Style.” By which she meant that you could carry a small dog around in it. Hilarious! (And very true.)

I’ve cooled down a bit on my complicated garment sewing lately, partly because I don’t really have anywhere to wear dress, etc, and partly because we’re stuck in that weird time of year when I know it’s not going to be warm much longer, but don’t want to actually admit that I need fall clothes. But I did recently have the opportunity to wear a dress in good weather — since my hairstylist recently had a lovely wedding on the rooftop of the Ecotrust building in Portland’s Pearl District. It was motivation to get the Amy Butler “Lotus” dress that I’d started awhile back good and finished finished. It was a good thing I wore my “inked” dress, since I think I’m the only person in Portland without a tattoo (well, Josh doesn’t have one either, but my mom has two so the law of averages, their are a lot of tattoos in this city), I felt like I fit in a bit better…

Like I said in my first post about this dress, this is actually the second Lotus dress I’ve made, the first was actually out of a black stretch twill, which is — is you can believe it– the first basic black dress I’ve owned in my entire life (I’m just not a basic black sort of girl). I still haven’t gotten around to taking pictures of that one. However, this second dress is from a pink soft non-stretchy chino fabric from Italy (I think) that I got at Bolt. Comparing the two, as much as I like this dress, I actually think that it’s better suited for stretch woven, simply because the bodice needs to be very well fitted (I spent a lot of time on the fitting of this one) and the stretch is a bit more forgiving in that effort. But, regardless, I’m very happy with the result of this dress. I think it’s fun and I love the interesting neckline and vibrant pink fabric.

(Ooh, kinda crummy posture in this picture — remind me not to take photos for this blog after drinking marionberry martinis…)

My favorite aspect of this dress is the neckline, which is an interesting take on the traditional “sweetheart” neckline.

(Nice farmer tan, eh?)

I screwed up a little bit in the sewing, which I am not sure was in the instructions or not (I’m terrible when it comes to reading sewing instructions — I just charge ahead, I blame Burda World of Fashion). Since I was making the sleeveless version of the Lotus dress, I should have removed the seam allowance (1/2 inch) before binding the sleeves, so my sleeves are a bit wonky, which you can see in the photo above. I may still fix that if it annoys me enough..

(Oh, geez, and look how wrinkled I am in this picture…)

So, since I’ve made this dress twice, I can say it’s pretty sweet, it’s interesting neckline, the Sublime Stitching embroidery, the slight A-line, it’s a pretty complete package dress-wise. Turns out, my black dress would have been more appropriate, since in the hip ‘n’ trendy Pearl District everyone wears black to weddings. (When did that trend start??? Someone please explain this phenomenon to me! It was in the afternoon!)

(Don’t we look adorable in our handmade clothes?)

~Sarah

But, we were hiding from the miserable heat this weekend (real heat, it was 100+ this weekend) in our air conditioned house and were very very bored. Josh hasn’t sewn a whole lot in quite awhile, because he’s been preoccupied with printing on fabric, wood and anything else that will hold still (so far, the dog’s managed to avoid any customization). Since we’ve been sitting around watching the Olympics as well as season 5 of The Wire on DVD, we noticed that our couch isn’t exactly that cushioned. Nor does it look that cool and/or interesting. In fact, it may very well be the most boring thing in our house.

On a related (not really) note, it seems that each summer we become obsessed with some variety of bird of prey. This summer, it’s been the osprey (seahawks) that migrate up to these parts — particularly around the Columbia River, to which we live pretty darn close. In fact, we even saw an osprey right outside our office window one afternoon. We saw them nesting along the river when we drove up the Columbia River Gorge to Hood River. We’ve also seen them over by the Ikea near the airport.

Which leads us back to the topic at hand.

Armed with some very cheap red cotton fabric from Ikea, some even cheaper pillow forms from that same establishment and a dream (ha!), we came up with a pretty bad-ass concept: The Osprey Pillow. What better way to commemorate summer with some sewing, screenprinting and a comfy place to nap and/or watch t.v.?

Fortunately, we have the most awesome book of silhouettes ever, Neubauwelt. And in it was The Osprey. Josh traced it out onto freezer paper and cut it out into a stencil. This was the first time that Josh had screenprinted using a non-photo emulsion technique (yes, we’re aware that normal people usually stencil first, then maybe some drawing fluid and then start with the photo emulsion –but Josh usually does things backwards, so it makes sense). We will be reviewing the new book, Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin soon, but we used her stencil-making techniques to create this stencil. Also, Josh got a bunch of helpful encouragement in trying out the stencil method of screenprinting from Rachel when we got together when she and her husband were here in Portland (and via Twitter).

Sarah cut out the red fabric into four 21″ x 21″ squares (after checking the Ikea website for the dimensions of their pillow covers, which were 20 3/8″ x 20 3/8″ — no sewing math necessary here!).

The first print turned out so great that we decided to print on both sides of the pillows. We used a Jacquard brand screenprinting ink that is a very lovely gold color. This was first time we’d used this brand of ink, and it is far superior to the Speedball stuff that we normally use. (We got it at Art Media, and it was slightly more expensive than we usually pay. However, because you are supposed to thin it with water, it’s probably worth the price.) The stencil method definitely yields a different result than the photo emulsion technique, but results in a really blocky, dramatic print.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, Josh sewed three sides together and then got the brilliant idea to use an invisible zipper so that we could easily launder the pillow covers. (We have dog, and sometimes she, uh, “submits” the pillows and then drags them around the house.) So, since Josh has never really had the occasion to install an invisible zipper, Josh had to call in the “big guns” (Sarah) to assist with the zippers. Which would have been a whole hell of a lot easier to do before the three other sides were sewn up. But, oh well. That’s life.

Fun, fun, fun and what an easy project. And the couch looks a whole lot more interesting now.

And, the new pillows probably help delay Josh making some sort of crazy attempt to screenprint the actual couch…

~S&J

My mom’s birthday has come and gone once again, and once again, I made her a new bag (the woman used to just have one bag and carry it until it died, so I’ve taken it upon myself to ensure that she has an appropriate wardrobe of bags for various occasions). Last year, it was the Amy Butler High Street Messenger Bag. This year, it’s another Amy Butler pattern - the Downtown Purse (I’ve made a few of these, they’re the perfect gift to show off some special fabric; check them out here and here.)

Check it out…

This one was made using some great mid-weight cotton sateen from Joel Dewberry’s Ginseng line (the same line Josh used for his “Shoeberries“), and I lined with some quilting weight cotton from Anna Maria Horner (I think… Eeg, I usually save the selvage so that I can remember this stuff). Check it out - the lining looks like those wicker chairs everyone in the eighties had.

Please tell me you know what I’m talking about…

Once again, I narrowed the front flap just slightly so that I could attach the straps into the lining rather that on the exterior (it looks so much nicer, in my opinion). This time, I used an oversized orange wood button to create the closure and shortened the flap by about an inch to create the space the button needed. I kind of think the button’s the best part of the bag.

Josh also screen printed my mom some custom logo’d pillow cases and a T-shirt; unfortunately, the photos were eaten by the monster than killed our computer… We’ll try to arrange an on-site photo shoot so that we can show those off, too.

Oh, and she didn’t seem to notice that itty, bitty imperfection…

~Sarah

This was Sarah’s first attempt in, oh, seventeen years or so, at printing using a linoleum block. (Lino block printing was big at 91 Grade School in Hubbard, Oregon, for whatever reason.) Needless to say, we need a bit of practice with the technique. It seemed easier as an eight-year-old. Or maybe we’re not as hard on ourselves when we’re in the third grade. This is an original design that was decided influenced by Lotta’s characteristic shapes and forms.

The carving part was actually the most fun part of the process. There’s a certain element of danger involved in using sharp tools to carve up a little block. In true crafty-geek fashion, Sarah sat in the garage/screenprinting studio and worked on this while Josh printed up some stuff. The neighbors probably think we’re loony when we do this sort of thing (we open the garage door to the street for better light/ventilation).

Speaking of tools, we were able to score a great quality, very inexpensive ($7 or so) set of carving tools at Kinokuniya Bookstore, which is inside Uwajimaya in Beaverton. Kinokuniya is a Japanese bookstore that sells all sorts of intriguing stuff including animae pens, Japanese craft books, magazines from Japanese (including craft and sewing selections) and other odds and ends. Check it out if there’s one near you.

~S&J

I finished Josh’s shirt (Burda 7767) late last night (By the way, does anyone else love staying up really, really late and sewing after the world is asleep?) and am 110% thrilled with the result. It’s so incredibly fashionable-looking that it could be mistaken for something from the “Rail” section of Nordstrom. And I’m not really one to speak lightly of Nordstrom, but it does have that trendy, funky style that you see in the “young men’s” section there…

Burda seems to model their patterns’ fit on Josh, so once again, I didn’t have to make and fitting adjustments. (Burda men’s shirts/tops/jackets are larger in the shoulders, but fitted through the waist, and just a smidge longer—well actually about an inch and a half—than all the other pattern companies’ men’s patterns.) And the pintucks are really flattering and fun when combined with the flowered fabric (from the wonderful Heather Ross line for Free Spirit, “Lightning Bugs”).

Now I did, of course, have a bit of an adventure with the pintucks. I have a bit of a habit of not reading sewing pattern instructions very thoroughly. I blame it on my favorite patterns, Burda World of Fashion and HotPatterns, both of whom assume that you have either a fairly high level of skill/knowledge and/or a good sewing reference book. So, I’ve sort of cut the apron strings with sewing instructions. Maybe a bit too much. I skimmed through the pattern instructions, making note that the pintucks should be folded over 3/8ths of an inch. Right, 3/8ths. So, I did all of the tucks on the left shirt front and looked at it. “Hmmm,” I said. “Looks kind of small.” I held it up and showed Josh, “Sweetie, does this look a bit small?” To which he replied, “Uh, yeah.”

So I examined my work and figured I must have accidentally doubled the number of tucks or something. I couldn’t figure it out so just settled on taking the seam ripper to all the tucks. The next day, I still couldn’t figure out what I did wrong (the number of tucks were all accounted for). That’s what I decided to refer to the instructions. I read through them a couple of times, searching for the clue that would solve this problem. Then I noticed it,

Fold the pleats over 3/16th.

Oh. That’s sort of a bit different than 3/8ths. Oops.

That problem solved, the rest of the shirt came together smoothly.

Yesterday, when I had to run over to Bolt to get some more white thread I found the absolute perfect buttons (at 10 cents a pop from the bulk button jar). They were actually precisely what I was looking for. That unusual gold/yellow color happened to be the color of the head on the pin that I’d used to pin the collar shut when I hung the shirt up one evening, and it worked just fabulously with the other colors in the fabric. (You can see the photo with the pin in it over on this post from yesterday.)

I played around with the directionality of the stripes (which are not straight stripes, they’re rather wavy-gravy, which makes them much more interesting). The collar has a horizontal band of flowers on it. The yoke is also horizontal, as are the cuffs. These touches are what really make this shirt seem special.

Josh always is rolling up his sleeves or pushing them up or generally fiddling with them, so I doubt that I beautiful work on the cuffs and sleeve band will see the light of day much.

But, he was thrilled with the shirt and even wore it to have our Sunday coffee at Jim & Patty’s (locals: these are the folks who founded Coffee People—yes, they’re back!).

Josh is so happy with this shirt, and I so enjoyed making it (there’s something deeply satisfying in making something nice for someone you love who really appreciates handmade stuff), that I’m already planning another one. The vision for this one: a nice lightweight white cotton, with the banded collar, no pintucks and an, errrrr, embroidered monkey from the “Monkey Love” embroidery pattern from Sublime Stitching (it’ll be awesome, trust me).

~Sarah