My Best Friend at Sew Together

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Cherie

Hello! I took an unexpected break from the blog and sewing (I haven’t sewed a stitch in over two weeks – yikes)! It’s officially back to school time over here and that is one of the busiest times of the year for me. I’m itching to get back to sewing and blogging (I have sooo many projects lined up), but it might be another week or so before I get my head back above water. How about you? Is this a crazy time of the year?

But I did want to tell you about a series that is going on right now on the Sew Together blog. Caroline and Maryanne have invited some bloggers to share about their best sewing friend – “a pattern, a tool, a technique, a blog, a hint or a person who inspires you to sew.”

Head over there to get a peek at my sewing/crafting space and find out what I consider to be my best sewing friends . . . I certainly couldn’t do it without them!!

While you’re over there, you should also check out the guests they’ve already had and continue checking back over the next couple of weeks for some fantastic bloggers sharing about their best friends every few days.

I also just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you readers for always supporting me and giving me inspiration! You make blogging so much fun! I’ll be back as soon as possible to share some fun stuff I’ve been working on and some of the things I’ve got on my to do list. Thanks for stopping by! Happy sewing!

Washi in Blue

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Cherie

*UPDATE!!! The Washi Dress pattern has been released. Find all the information you need here. GO NOW. You won’t be sorry!*

Did you hear?? It’s WASHI WEEK! What’s Washi Week you ask? Well, the fabulous Rae, from Made by Rae, has an awesome new pattern coming out this week called the Washi Dress and she’s posting a bunch of different versions all week. Ever since she posted photos of the original Washi dress, people have been going CRAZY asking for a pattern and waiting (not so patiently) for Rae to produce a pattern. Well, ladies and gents, it’s finally arriving and it is soooooooooo worth the wait.

I was extremely lucky to be a part of Rae’s pattern testing group and I got to try out the original pattern. There have been many adjustments and improvements made since I tried the test pattern, but even in its draft form, the pattern was phenomenal.

The dress is super cute, simple yet stylish, and very flattering. It has a fitted bodice with a pleated a-line skirt, pockets and a unique cut-out scoop neckline. Shirring in the back assures a perfect and comfortable fit and makes it so you do not need a zipper or button closure. Genius!!! When I saw how professional Rae’s versions looked and considering how intimidating sewing women’s clothing is to me, I thought this pattern would be complicated. But it was surprisingly very simple to sew up!! Rae has labeled this pattern for intermediate sewers, but I think ambitious beginners should certainly give this a try. The trickiest part for me was learning the shirring technique. The rest was a breeze!

The pattern is extremely well written with clear instructions and awesome diagrams. Rae is extremely thorough in her explanations and really goes beyond regular directions to try and help with tips, suggestions and troubleshooting. There is a whole section in there about getting the best fit which I think will be very helpful for people who are new to sewing adult clothing (like me!).

I would definitely suggest making a muslin (Rae talks about it in the directions). This is one of those steps that I always skip, because I don’t like wasting the time or fabric. But coming from someone who hates doing it, JUST DO IT!! This pattern is pretty darn amazing, but no pattern can fit every woman in all our different shapes and sizes. I used some fabric from an old sheet and made a muslin using the front bodice piece and the back piece cut just below the shirring lines. This way I could practice a few lines of shirring and make sure the bust darts and shoulders fit well. Rae offers suggestions for adjustments if you find it necessary. I would have been devastated if I finished the entire dress only to find out it didn’t fit.

The one thing that I screwed up on my dress is the cut out at the neckline – it’s a bit puckered. I was rushing too much when I sewed it together (I’m sorry, I was really excited!) and couldn’t press out the wrinkles. Luckily, my fabric is dark and it’s not too noticeable. But I would recommend taking your time when you sew around the cut out, making sure your cut out is symmetrical and when you flip the facing in, that all your fabric lays nice and flat (this will probably all make a lot more sense when you are making your own).

I don’t have any specifics about this fabric, except that I bought it on my recent trip to Japan at Tomato. It is a navy blue border fabric with eyelet at the bottom and embroidered flowers all over. The print is kind of a funky mix of whimsical shapes resembling clouds, petals and pebbles. It was kind of a random pick when I was shopping and I thought I might make myself a skirt or something. But right after I got back from Japan, the opportunity to test this pattern came up and I immediately thought this fabric would be perfect. And luckily I had JUST enough fabric to do it. It turned out to be a really practical choice for me – neutral and simple, with a little bit of fun.

The Washi can be made as a dress or a tunic, and with cap sleeves or sleeveless. I’m already dreaming up different versions of Washis for me and ways to remix the pattern as well. I can assure you, there are more Washis in my future. Near future, I hope!

Overall, I really can’t say enough good things about this pattern. As someone who does not normally sew for women or from patterns, this one really gave me the confidence to do both. Now I’m psyched to sew more for myself! It’s a very quick and simple sew with impressive results – I bet you’ll get so many compliments when people find out that you made the dress yourself! And it’s a really flattering style for pretty much every body type. I love how it skims right over my tummy and hips. Serious WIN.

You can’t go wrong with Washi. It’s my new motto.

Oh and to see more Washi inspiration, check out Kristin’s awesome Washi, Emmmy Lizzzy’s THREE Washis, and the official Washi Dress flickr pool. I’m telling you, that pool is about to blow up with fabulous Washis.

Ok, ok. Now you can go. 😉

Tutorial: Sunburst Picnic Blanket

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Cherie

Hello! Thanks for “traveling” with me to Japan last week :P. I’m still officially on summer vacation, so although I have lots of things to show you, it’s going to take me awhile to get organized and back to blogging. So here’s another guest post I did for Delia and Kojo‘s FANTASTIC series, Color Your Summer. This is their 2nd year doing this series, I absolutely love it, and I hope they do it every summer from now until forever. I can’t even tell you how thrilled I was when Delia asked me to be a part of this series. Check out all the projects from this summer in this handy round up.

The project is a foldable picnic blanket, and if you get started now, yours can still get tons of use before summer is over and throughout the fall. And if you do make a picnic blanket inspired by this post or using this tutorial, I’d love it if you added it to the you & mie flickr pool!!

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When I think of summer, I think of picnics. When the sun is out, I guarantee that my family will be out at the beach or park with some food and drink to soak up the beautiful weather. It’s one of my absolute favorite activities. So this summer I wanted to create a new picnic blanket to celebrate the start of picnic season.

In the past we’ve had a few store bought picnic blankets that we loved for their portability, but they weren’t well made and would start to rip or fall apart after a year. I wanted to create something that was sturdy and easy to carry around, but had the look and feel of a homemade quilt. So I made, what I call, the Sunburst Picnic Blanket.

It is a quilted blanket with a duck cloth bottom. It folds up nicely and is secured with velcro and has a handle for easy carrying.

The design and colors just scream “summer” to me, but of course can be changed to any color(s) or quilt design. Or if you’re not into quilting at all, you can make the picnic blanket with one piece of fabric for the top.

Here’s what you’ll need:

(My finished blanket size is approximately 55 x 59 inches so these estimates are based on that)
– Duck cloth (2 yards)
– Lots of yellow fabric (I had 7 different fabrics, each about a yard)
– Batting (not too thick)
– Bias tape (about 7 yards)
– 1″ wide Velcro (about 12 inches)
– 1″ wide twill tape or other strap material (about 24 inches)
– Coordinating threads
– Denim needle (use any time you are sewing the duck cloth)

First be sure to wash, dry and iron all of your fabrics. One reader mentioned that duck cloth shrinks even with the slightest amount of wetness, so don’t skip this step!!

Cut your duck cloth slightly larger than your desired blanket. Then we need to make a pattern for the quilt top.

As I was deciding the best way to create the design I had in my head, I realized that it strongly resembled Kristin’s Sunshine Dress! I LOVE this dress, so I’m thinking I was subconsciously inspired by it and lucky for me, Kristin made a tutorial for piecing together the color blocked pieces. I basically followed her tutorial for creating the pattern pieces and cutting the fabric. I’ll show you the basics of what I did for the quilt, but you really should check out her tutorial and one of the most gorgeous little dresses ever.

I had a piece of butcher paper the exact width of my blanket, so I used that to make my pattern. I started by making the pattern for the top half of the quilt, but I wanted the epicenter of the rays to be off center, so I made the top ever so slightly longer than the bottom. I picked a spot off to one side where I wanted my rays to shoot out from and I started drawing lines to the outside edge of the paper. I made 7 rays since I had 7 different yellow fabrics. Then I labeled them so I could piece them back together after they were cut (awesome advice from Kristin).

Then I cut the pattern pieces out and traced them onto my fabric. Remember that if you want your finished quilt to look exactly like the pattern you drew, you’ll need to put the pattern right side up on the right side of your fabric OR flip your pattern over and trace onto the wrong side of the fabric. When you trace your pattern onto your fabric add 1/2 an inch for seam allowance along each of the long edges.

I found it easiest to only cut out the pieces as I was ready to sew them. So I cut out pieces 1 and 2, and sewed those together. Then I cut piece 3 and sewed that to piece 2 and so on. That way I didn’t mix up the pieces or get confused about which piece or which side to sew next.

When you sew the pieces together use a 1/2 inch seam allowance and always start from the point. Try to line up all the points as carefully as possible so it looks sharp.

After you sew each piece on, press and trim extra seam allowance off. There is going to be a lot of fabric gathering at the center point, so you’ll want to remove what you can.

When you sew all the pieces of the top half, it should look something like this.

Trim the extra fabric at the point, if you haven’t already.

For the bottom half, I simply flipped the pattern over. By laying the top part of your quilt and the pattern pieces on top of your cut duck cloth, you can see the finished length of the quilt and trim the pattern pieces since the top part of the quilt is longer than the bottom.

Repeat the same steps to create the bottom portion of your quilt top. When you’re done, lay the bottom part on the top part, right sides together, and making sure the all points come together exactly in one spot. Since your top and bottom are mirror images of each other, the rays should line up. Pin the pieces together and sew them together using a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Press the seam open. There will be a lot of fabric coming together at the center point so it’ll be tough to press open, but just do your best and it’ll look fine. Your quilt top is done!!

Layer your duck cloth, batting and quilt top and trim the sides so they are straight.

Baste the 3 layers together so they don’t shift while quilting. I use the safety pin method.

Quilt the three layers however you’d like. I quilted each “ray” about 1 cm on the inside of the seam creating large V shapes, using a walking foot.

Since none of the V’s reached the center of the quilt and that was where it was the thickest, I decided to freehand quilt a little star in the center. You can’t see it from the top, but SURPRISE . . .

There it is on the bottom!

Now on to the closure flap (the piece of fabric with the handle and the velcro – I don’t know what else to call it). First measure the width of your quilt. Then divide that by 5. My quilt is 55″ wide, so my closure flap is 11 inches wide. You’ll need to cut a piece of duck cloth and coordinating fabric that is the width that you just calculated by about 11 inches. So I had a square.

Use something circular to round 2 of the corners. The edge with the rounded corners is going to be referred to as the bottom of the flap.

Baste or pin the two layers together so they don’t shift while completing the next few steps.

Take your twill tape and sew it onto the fabric side (not duck cloth side) along the width about 4 inches down from the top of the flap (the edge without the rounded edges).

Take another piece of twill tape and fold it under 1/2 an inch. About 1.5 inches from the edge, pin the twill tape down.

To make sure the handle is firmly secured, sew in a square and add an X between the corners. Go over each line several times.

Do the same thing on the other side except add an extra 1/2 inch of strap before you cut, so the handle stands up a bit.

On the duck cloth side of the flap, attach the soft side of the velcro 1/2 an inch above the edge with the rounded corners. Trim the velcro to match the rounded corners.

Finish the edges with bias tape.

Line up the center of the flap with the center of the top edge of the quilt. Pin them together with the handle side of the flap facing the duck cloth side of the quilt.

At this point I decided to round the 4 corners of my quilt as well (no dealing with mitered corners!!). Finish the quilt with bias tape.

We’re almost done! All we have to do is add the other side of the velcro to be able to close up the quilt.

First we have to fold up the quilt and here’s how:

1. Lay the quilt out flat, with the flap out at the top.

2. Fold the two sides in till the edges line up with the edges of the flap.

3. Fold the sides in again so they line up with the flap.

4. Fold it in half.

5. Fold it in half again.

6. Fold it in half one more time and pull the flap down.

Mark the placement of the velcro.

Then unfold the quilt and sew the scratchy side of the velcro according to your markings and you’re done!!

Grab some family and friends, some food, drinks, games or books and head out into the sun!

And in case you want to see how to fold up your new picnic blanket again, I made my first gif ever!

Hope you get some good picnicking in this summer and fall! Please let me know if you have any questions or need me to clarify anything. I love to hear from you!

By they way, what’s your favorite summer activity?