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

Lena Corwin’s book “Printing by Hand: A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps, Stencils and Silk Screens” (published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, the same folks who brought us the beautiful Alabama Stitch Book) caught our eye when it was featured on Design Sponge earlier this summer. Her aesthetic is very interesting—rather minimalist, yet bold and printed. It’s an interesting juxtaposition.

The book is a comprehensive overview of all three major printing techniques (stamping, stenciling and screening) and their different applications using a variety of inks and printing surfaces. One of the most valuable aspects of this new book is its focus on design. We have a lot of printing books, and they all have their relative merits, and this one stands out because of its focus on developing and executing an original, hand printed design.

Some of the stamping techniques are very unique, leaving us wanting to try more and more printing techniques (it’s so addictive!). For example, did you know that you can create your own large stamps using foam mount and clear plexiglass? We sure didn’t. But you can and the results are pretty spectacular. Another unique application of the rubber block stamps that’s described in the book is using a large rubber black stamp and cutting an inverse stamp and printing on fabric to create an almost patchwork-like effect.

This is definitely something that would be wonderful to create to cover our dining table/workspace.

Another technique that we’d never thought about before is using oil-based spay paint for stenciling. With a bold stencil, this can look quite dramatic, and is a pretty simple process, making it ideal for a large-scale project like curtains or even upholstery.

Would you believe that the chair seat is printed with spray paint? Us either. Given the range of interesting spray paints available these days, you could do some really creative projects. (Although here in Portland, buying spray paint is a colossal paint in the butt, due to local regulations.) In fact, the stenciling section is extremely helpful, as many of the techniques can also be translated for use in screen printing as well, so they do double duty. Plus, like the spray paint, there are a number of mediums and tools that we hadn’t considered before, such as mylar, that are covered in the book. Our osprey pillows were created using the freezer paper stencil technique from Printing by Hand.

There’s another one of the unique elements of Printing by Hand: a very thorough discussion of the design process, particularly creating repeats, which is something we haven’t seen in other printing books. We were very excited about this, since we’re interesting in printing small “runs” of fabric for our personal projects. While some books have described the theory of creating repeats, we haven’t seen much in the way of the practical application of actually physically creating and printing repeats and pattern design. (Not that we’ve completed a comprehensive survey of all printing books, but we’ve looked at a lot of them!)

Since there’s such a variety of topics covered in Printing by Hand, it’s hard to give it an overall assessment. It’s definitely one that we would highly recommend for your printing library. It’s interesting, however, because the screen printing section is definitely more design focused than it is practical screen printing. For example, the author has obviously had difficulties with burning her own screens (uh, we can TOTALLY relate) and therefore suggests that you take your screens to a screen printing shop to be burned. While this makes a whole lot of sense, especially if you’re an apartment dweller with little space, it’s completely doable yourself–it just takes some trial and error. If this is something you’re interested in, there are a number of books that focus on the technical aspects of screen printing that you’d want as a companion to this one. With that said, we recommend Printing by Hand without reservation. For us, it not only provided us with a logical next step in our printing education (creating repeats and more sophisticated designs), it also opened our eyes to the possibilities of techniques and materials we hadn’t previously considered. All of the patterns used in the book are included in an envelope attached to the back cover and there’s a good resource list as well, so the book really arms you with everything you need to start experimenting. This one’s a real winner.

~Sarah & Josh

Note: For another take, check out Kim’s review over on True Up.

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

We, along with Sarah’s mom, went out there for lunch this week and after lunch walked around the town. In a window of a shop called Parts + Labour, we spotted this:

That vine of flowers is constructed of pieces of sewing pattern tissue with measuring tapes, ribbon and pins holding the display together. Plus, some embroidery hoops thrown in for an added dash of stitchery. Here’s a close up of one of the flowers:

It was a pretty fun idea and certainly drew us into the shop (which was a very interesting place, not only with clothes and accessories from small brands, but a number of one-of-a-kind handmade items - including clothing). Although, perhaps normal people are more excited about the merchandise than the sewing-related window display…

This would be fun to replicate with any of the zillions of tissue paper flowers tutorials out there, especially this elaborate tissue paper bouquet from (gulp) Martha Stewart (note how they say it takes “just an afternoon”). In fact, that would look just right on the desk in the new workroom/home office/sewing room we’re in the middle of organizing (that probably won’t happen, but we can dream, right?).

Finally, a use for those Simplicity patterns we bought just because they were on sale for 99 cents!

~Sarah & Josh

We had a real treat today—Rachel (aka Average Jane Crafter) and her wonderful hubby were here in Portland and Diane facilitated a fun get together this evening at Thatch, the super-cool tiki bar on northeast Broadway. Not only was the company fabulous, it’s pretty awesome to feast on pupu platters and drinks with umbrella garnishes.

We feel so lucky to be a part of such a fabulous creative community and even more fortunate that those connections can translate into “real life.” Thanks, Diane, for bringing everyone together—this was definitely a major highlight in our year!

Although we do think that Rachel needs to be a little more encouraging of her husband’s desire to sew himself a pair of Gene Kelly trousers. We’re just sayin’…

~Sarah & Josh

Maybe it’s because we both lived in the international dorm in college, went to grad school oversees, did a fair amount of international traveling (before the dollar tanked and it was actually affordable to travel) and possibly even because Josh has a degree in International Studies, but we are both really interested in books, magazines and publications about sewing and “making stuff” from around the globe. (We also are both compulsive consumers of books and magazines on all sorts of subjects, so this feeds multiple interests at once…)

One of our favorite Portland grocery stores happens to be Uwajimaya, way over on the west side (it may technically be Beaverton, actually). Uwajimaya is an Asian supermarket with lots of wonderful foods are very wonderful prices. They have interesting vegetables, noodles of all kinds and more sauces than you can imagine. They also have a fascinating assortment of Hello Kitty merchandise, Japanese cookware, a Shiseido shop and all sorts of odds and ends. But the gem at Uwajimaya is the Kinokuniya Bookstore, which is a chain of bookstores in Japan that has a few branches in the U.S. as well. Whenever we do some grocery shopping at Uwajimaya, we always spend a fair amount of time poking around the bookstore at the interesting magazines (the men’s fashions magazines are amazing—especially the single-topic ones devoted to things like canvas sneakers or jeans) and the gorgeous craft books. In fact, we’ve accumulated quite the little collection of Japanese sewing books.

The photography and styling in these books is just beautiful.

When we stopped by Uwajimaya this weekend, they were featuring Japanese craft books as part of their “Japanese Crafting Books Fair.”

Which was less of a “fair” per se (but it was still more than usual), and more of a special table set up with a display of unique craft books. This was our favorite that they selected for special display:

In addition to the “Handmade Dog Dresses” book above (which we resisted buying, but it sure took a lot of self-discipline and reminders to ourselves that the dog mind not ever forgive us), there was a huge knitting book selection (Japanese knitting uses charts, so the language issue wouldn’t be too bad), softies, crochet, beading and embroidery as well as the awesome sewing selections.

We’ve been exercising restraint with the unnecessary purchases lately, but had to get the latest issue of “Female,” a sewing magazine.

The reason? TEN HAT PATTERNS! The perfect companion for the Idea Hat Recipe Book! Our hat-making power has almost doubled. (Perhaps we have an unusual enthusiasm for hat-making? Just maybe?)

Even though the patterns are complicated-looking because 1) neither of us knows a word of Japanese (okay, Sarah knows how to answer the phone in Japanese due to having a roommate from Japan for a semester) and 2) the pattern paper is crazy, with loads of intersecting lines, our (really Josh’s) first foray into sewing hats using the Japanese patterns really helped us develop an understanding of how hats are constructed and what shapes make up the various styles of hats. It’s pretty fascinating, really.

The perfect accompaniment to a fresh set of Japanese hat patterns? A bit of fabric from Heather Ross’ Rabbits and Racecars line for Kokka of Japan (purchased at Bolt after our trip to Uwajimaya). This may just need to be a driving cap…

~Sarah & Josh

Enjoy!

~Sarah & Josh

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

To which Sarah replied, “Good idea. We totally should.”

We tossed that idea around awhile, and on a relatively recent Powell’s excursion (there are many of these such excursions) we picked up the groundbreaking Banners & Flags: How to Sew a Celebration. (For, like $5 or so…)

There’s something really special about books from the 70s—they’re so over-the-top but folksy at the same time.

This one has what is possibly the best book dedication ever.

Hello! Who doesn’t love a parade? That would be downright wrong.

This book covers (obviously) making your own handmade flags and banners (AKA “Sew a Celebration”), and today being Independence Day we thought we’d share some selections out of the flag-making section.

Parts of a flag. (We also learned from this section that a person who’s really into flags is called a “vexillologist.”)

While we were primarily interesting in the “how-to” component of the book, the types of flags and why they’re made is one of the most interesting sections of this book (this is actually really interesting because it goes into detail about using flags not only for celebration but designing them as protest symbols to affect social change—which has been a long tradition in the U.S.).

Star placement on a traditional American flag.

Applying the red stripes. There are very specific proportions you use to make a traditional U.S. flag.

Techniques for stitching on the stars on the blue background.

One of the author’s original flag designs.

(Oh, if Levis still did last… The demise of the indestructible pair of Levis is often mourned around here…)

And, finally, being a seventies book, there’s the requisite rainbow flags.

We haven’t started on our flag yet, but this book certainly has all the principles and guidelines you need to design and sew your own flag. We’ve been particularly thinking that we could take inspiration from this flag we saw appraised on Antiques Roadshow recently.

Of course, we’ll add our own twist. Just wait and see.

~S & J