Category Archives: Sewer-Sewist

Sewing a Celebration

We at Sewer-Sewist have been preoccupied with the idea of making our own flag (yes, you read that right, making our own flag) for quite awhile. The topic first came up when we were in the car one afternoon and Josh said, “You know, we should make our own flag. That would be really cool.”
To [...]

Tutorial: Adirondack Chair Redux

As promised, here’s the step-by-step for making over your very own crummy plastic Adirondack chairs into something fun and unique. We had some of the classic “computer monitor beige” chairs that were leftover from our past lives in Santa Fe where you just get used to everything being brown. Somehow, all brown stuff just doesn’t [...]

Extreme Makeover: Plastic Adirondack Chair Edition

Now that it’s (finally) sunny here in Portland, we’ve been furiously spiffing up our backyard so that we can enjoy hanging out outside. Our old crappy “computer monitor beige” plastic Adirondack chairs (that were our living room chairs when we spent a year living in a converted Santa Fe blacksmith shop—but that’s a story for [...]

Anniversary

No, not our “Blogiversary” (that’s next month), but our real-life, actual anniversary was yesterday, June 17. It was our third, although we’ve actually been a couple since 1996.
Being the crafty type Josh made us customized, hand screen printed matching T-shirts (sort of matching, actually, one in magenta, one in baby blue) as a surprise. We’re [...]

Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome “The Velvet Overcoat!”

This is it, the first jacket that I have successfully made, well not made, as in made on my own, because this was truly a Sewer-Sewist co-production. I did most of the framing and Sarah did most of the finishing, to borrow from the construction vernacular. As you may have read Sarah has had [...]

Big Printin’

Sarah made me a lovely Burda raglan sleeve knit T-shirt (8827) for the Christmas Day Blazers vs. Super Sonics game, where the crowd was encouraged to wear red. I didn’t have anything red to wear, so she whipped this one up for me (it literally took her like an hour). Let me say that [...]

Sewing Emergency

Have your sewing troubles ever gotten this bad?
From the The New Zealand Herald:
A woman in a rush to get to a garden party called 111 to ask for help with her sewing.
The woman, who has not been identified, called police in Rotorua yesterday pleading for help to thread her needle.
Now our friend Bryan, who recently [...]

Putting on our idea hats…

You may remember that we’ve mentioned a few times that we really like hats. You may also have noticed that we’re slightly obsessed with looking for weird, quirky things to make together. Our latest project really scored on both accounts.
Recently, we have taken to going to Uwajimaya and the Japanese language bookstore contained within, Kinokuniya. [...]

Rocket Science

Well, not really.
We have a nifty plastic box that’s supposed to hold bobbins, which is all well and good, except, it doesn’t really keep the tangled mess of threads from unused bobbins from knotting up into one another. It’s a tremendous pain in the ass during those moments when you just want the damn bobbin [...]

What’s going on?!

Something strange is going on in our little sewing world here.
First, Sarah just keeps fighting with every single project that comes down the pike. Case in point: Sarah’s first attempt at Amy Butler’s Lotus Tunic/Dress. A lovely, straight-forward pattern that has all the makings of a real winner. All the fitting issues were worked out. [...]

Sew Together: How We Got Started

So, we sew together, right? We thought we’d let you know how this whole thing got started. This is the first in (hopefully, no promises) in ways you and your sweetie (or best bud/mom/brother/unrequited crush) can get started working on sewing projects together.
When we first started this little adventure Josh really wanted to make something [...]

If they’d only learned to sew…

Here you go, folks—another in our intermittent series of sewing-related tidbits in the news.
We knew it! Sewing is an essential survival skill. EarthSky blog is reporting that it turns out that Australian researchers have discovered that Neanderthals would probably not died out if they’d picked up a thread and needle and stitched themselves some warmer [...]

Field Trip: Our Sewing Heritage

Today we headed out on a field trip in search of a good deal on a Pendleton flannel shirt for Josh’s grandpa’s birthday. If you’re not familiar, Pendleton is an Oregon company that’s been around for ages. They weave their fabric here in the Northwest, and the garments used to be sewn here. It’s very [...]

New Year, New Blog

We’ve been blogging about our sewing adventures for awhile now, and Josh is almost at the one year mark in his learning to sew, so it’s time to move over to a site that will better serve our needs.
Welcome to our new blog, at our own domain powered by Wordpress. We’re thrilled to have built [...]

Happy Holidays

Wishing each of you very happy holidays!
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On The Newsstand…

The first in an occasional series of posts on stuff we find interesting.
What can we say, we still love a good magazine or newspaper. In a “paperless” world, there is still nothing like getting a magazine through the mail slot. A bath isn’t complete without bubbles and some light (or not so light) reading. [...]

A Sewer-Sewist Holiday Gift Guide, Part 2

Part 2 of our Holiday Gift Guide…
Miami Valley Pottery. This next one is a little tricky. Josh grew up with a guy named Nays (pronounced nace) who now runs a small pottery business near Dayton, Ohio. The thing is his website seems to be down and it is hard to get a look at the [...]

Another one down…

We’re plugging away with our Christmas gift making, and finished this up recently—an Amy Butler Swing Bag for Josh’s mom. It’s in one of Amy’s fabrics, two different ones from the gray and yellow theme from the “Belle” line. A lot of people have made this bag, and we can certainly see why. It comes [...]

Call of the Wild Hat

We’ve mentioned before that we’re trying to make most—if not all—of our Christmas gifts for family and friends this year. We’ve coined it the “Great Making Everyone’s Christmas Gifts Odyssey.” It’s just so much less expensive and seems more thoughtful. Plus, it’s a great excuse for Josh to get more practice sewing and build his [...]

Cat-tastic!!!

We don’t have a cat. In fact, both of us are horribly allergic, and our dog thinks that cats are extremely suspect. So, no cats for us. However, we’ve got a lot of kitties in our extended family. Since we’re beginning to embark on our Great Making Everyone’s Christmas Gifts Odyssey, we decided that Josh’s [...]

It’s Labor (of love) Day Weekend

Here at Casa de Sewer-Sewist we’re celebrating the long Labor Day weekend by juggling a bunch of different works in progress. There’s nothing like a three day weekend to encourage you to start more projects than you can finish. There’s something about that extra day to make you overly-ambitious.
Anyway, Josh is slogging along on another [...]

Shoe contract?

from sarah the sewist
So can you get a shoe contract for sewing?
Josh saw me sewing with my brand-spankin’ new shoes on (oddly, Vans seem to be the only shoes that I can wear while sewing and get enough traction for optimal foot pedal control) and stuck the sticker that was in the shoe box on [...]

Stop, Drop & Stuff

We’re both sick—nothing like a late summer cold to make you feel stupid. In order to alleviate the boredom, we decided to work together and make the GIANT, Amy Butler Gum Drop Pillows. The fabric is Joel Dewberry’s Manzanita Basket - Red Mix. Originally Josh wanted to use this fabric to make [...]

Back to the Rose City Textiles Sale

Columbus Crew Major League Soccer team jersey fabric. White on white.
Need we said more?
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Sporty Fabric Haul

In our ongoing quest to identify and procure the perfect vintage-style baseball flannel (more on that later), we visited Rose City Textiles deep in the heart of Portland’s Northwest Industrial District this weekend. We’d read that they sold fabrics mostly for active wear, and thought they may sell the perfect stretchy wool flannel. They didn’t. [...]