Design by Nine

This is a Clean Fabric Closet!

Bree and I cleaned, sorted,grouped, measured, folded, and tagged all of the fabric that I own that is over one yard. We rolled everything that was under a yard. AND in the process we made a (oooh!oooh!) sew into clothes right now pile. ( Do we hire out? Yes. Are we expensive? VERY.) lol
We sorted through all of my patterns and matched the right now fabric to the right now patterns. That was tough. Decisions , decisions.
It was a serious amount of work. But worth every minute!
We cut, altered, and of course drafted new patterns like crazy women and then set to sewing our new fall wardrobe. Well, part of a wardrobe at least.


Just a sample of what we were up to.







Notice the fold lines on the cream skirt.

Nothing too fancy. Just shell type shirts, blouses, cozy fit pants and skirts. Lots of skirts.
We are still in the middle of the ooooh!oooh! Right now sewing, but at this rate we will be finished soon.
It feels just fabulous to be sewing this fabric into something to wear. Some of this fabric has just been purchased. Others, like the cream skirt fabric has been waiting a loooooong time to be made into a skirt. I have had this cream fabric for years. I have washed and ironed it probably a dozen times. I promised myself the last time I was stuffing it back in the fabric closet, that the next time I washed and pressed this fabric, it would be some type of clothing. This time..... I just made it into a straight skirt. As you can see I only pressed the seams. Hahaha.

Most of you have a fabric stash, some of you are full blown fabriholics, I am somewhere in between. No matter where you fall on the fabric hoarding scale, do yourself the favor of keeping your stash organized. It really makes a difference. All of that sorting and folding was almost like fabric shopping! Only better because it was already paid for!

Hey, what are we doing still sitting here? Come on... Lets go sew!

P.S. THANKS BREE!!!

Here are some photos of the construction process.
We gathered all of the supplies together and then cut all fabric pieces out at once. Then we took the 'divide and conquer" approach. Miss Rosie did the bodies, Tabby the pumpkin sewing and stuffing, Bree on the details, myself on clothing, faces, and hair. We all did fill in and help out for each other.




One hundred twenty body parts





Twelve shirts, six skirts, six pairs of jeans and six petticoats





Sew them together


Trim, turn and press. Yes, I really did iron all of these 'lil outfits.


Gathering pumpkins has a new meaning.




Trim, turn and iron all body parts.


stuff


Stuff and sew


Stuff some more


Adding steams and leaves


Now sew together.


Sew some more and get them dressed


Bree working on details.


As projects go, this one is fairly involved and time consuming. There are many details and most of it is all hand sewing. We all thought they were worth the work.



If you would like to make some for your self, send me an e-mail. And I will do my best to help up.
Sew Cute

Here they are!

We Girls got together and sewed up some "Friends" for our pumpkin patch.
Check out what we did with a slightly modified Mc Calls pattern and our imaginations.




It seems that the picture poster upper is down for repairs. So I will put up more pictures tomorrow.

Ohhh! Wait till you see these guys closer up. They are so cute. I've already sent one to my Mum and one to my Sister.

Sweet Pumpkin Dreams

Here we go with part three.

I think this is the fastest project of the three! These pumpkins are simple and fun to make and they will look so cute sitting around the house from now, right through Thanksgiving. Let's get started making a pumpkin patch.

Gather up your supplies


Felt sheets: orange, green and brown
Scissors
needles
thread/ floss to match
polyfil
Sewing machine is optional

For the small pumpkins you will use one sheet of orange to make 2 pumpkins.
For large pumpkins you will use two sheets of orange to make 1 pumpkin.

Small pumpkins: fold the felt in half lengthwise. Sew the long edge.


For the large pumpkins, sew two sheets together along the short edges.



Use a running stitch to hand gather the lower edge. Pull up stitches tight, wrap threads around gathered end, then knot thread. Turn right side out. Lightly stuff to just less than the half way point on the small pumpkins. For large pumpkins lightly stuff to within three inches of the top.
Use a running stitch to gather the "top" edge. Pull tight,wrap threads around two or three times and knot. For the small pumpkins, cut off leaving about 1 inch of "stem. ( Use other half to make second small pumpkin.)







Using long strands of heavy thread or floss, wrap around the outside of the pumpkin to make sections.



Cut a piece of brown felt in a rectangular shape, at least long enough to wrap around stem "nub" once or twice. Wrap brown felt around nub and sew the base of the stem to the pumpkin, the edge,then tuck down and sew the top.




Now cut out your leaf ( you can sew a vein down the center if you like ) and vine, Attach leaf and vine to pumpkin. Tack into position if you wish.








Viola! We are done. Set these cuties all around your house or group them together. Give 'em as gifts. Too cute, and fairly quick and easy.



Keep the creative energy flowing.

Get Puffy!



Part two of Fun with Felt

When I first tried sewing with felt, I kept trying sewing and then turning "right side out"and stuffing and sewing the opening by hand. That didn't really work for me. When I was working with small pieces, it just never seemed to turn out as well as I had hoped. All lumpy and not so round edges. So, I borrowed a technique from the quilters section. Trapunto.

Trapunto: Quilting in which the design is outlined with two or more rows of running stitches and then padded from the underside to achieve a raised effect.

The key word here is UNDERSIDE. This will only work if you display the "pretty" side. The under/back side is going to look like Dr. Frankenstein was sewing it. Apropos for the season.

Gather your suppies:
line drawings
Felt~
orange
green
brown~ for this project
Poly stuffing
thread
scissors
needle
pins
Sewing machine

Follow the same steps as we did for the leaves:

Two layers of felt, with the line drawing pinned on the felt. Sew right on top of the lines throught the paper. ( Do not forget to zero the presure or drop/ cover your feed dogs.) I added a small piece of brown felt underneath the two layers of orange and sewed the 3 layers together under the drawing lines of the stem.


added brown felt for the stem



Tear away the paper from the felt. You won't need to worry too much about the little left behind pieces of paper, because this is now the back/underside/wrongside.
Next cut out your pumpkin. Just as with the leaves, close but not too close. I cut all around the stitching of the brown stem.




Now comes the trapunto part. On the backside, the one without the brown felt you need to cut small slits into each section of the pumpkin. ( I did not do the stem)


Be sure to cut through only ONE layer.



Not too big... It will stretch.

Now we need something(s) to poke the poly stuffing into the really small spots. Nothing sharp because it will poke right through the felt or pointed because it will not move the poly stuffing.



Think "end of crochet hook, pen with a tight cap, bodkin". Or all three. Whatever works that will not poke through or leave marks.

Start stuffing



Little bits of stuffing at a time work better.

Stuff each section.


Now Dr. it's time to sew up the project.



Next I cut simple leaves and tendrels out of the green felt. I used embroidery floss to sew the leaf vein also to attatch the leaves and tendrel to the pumpkin body.

I did not mean to keep you waiting. Our internet has been down. Now that it is all fixed, we can have some fun with felt.

First gather the supplies you will need:

felt by the sheet or by the yard, in fall colors you like
thread to match or coordinate
scissors
paper with line drawings of leaves.
pins
seam ripper
your sewing machine

It is much easier to sew this project if you set the presser foot tension to zero. You can drop your feed-dogs or cover them with that lil' plastic plate if you prefer or if you don't have a presser foot pressure control.



Print, copy, or trace your line drawings onto as many sheets of printer paper as you want leaves.
Rough cut (not with your sewing scissors) the line drawings out. Pin the line drawing to the double thickness of felt. Pin only inside the outlines. You don't need very many pins.


The simpler the drawing the better. And it will be easier to get the hang of sewing.


.


simple line drawings


cut out drawing pinned to double thicknesses of felt


Why not make a pile while your at it?

Now that you have your would be pile all ready and your machine set . Lets sew! Did I hear a "Wait"? ahhhh. Your thinking I forgot to tell you to cut these leaves out first. But I haven't. We are going to sew THROUGH the paper! Following the lines, sew the outline and center vein of your leaves.












With the presser foot tension or feed dogs down/covered you do not have to sew in a straight forward motion. You can pretty much sew as you please to follow the line drawing. It does take a bit to get use to this "Free Form" sewing, but once you do, you will see how easy and fun this can be.
When your pile is all sewn, use the seam ripper to run along the now perforated outlines. This will help free the felt from the paper. There will be some annoying little pieces that don't want to come out of the stitching. You can keep working at it using tweezers if you like, or if it will show. If it won't show... Ask yourself. " Do I really care?"



the back will give you an idea of what the finished leaf will look like


along the dotted line


it doesn't matter if you missed the lines a bit


tear paper away


To tweeze or not to tweeze?


Almost done. Now we cut out our leaves. You can use just about any scissor. Sewing scissors work really well. Applique scissors are even better. How I wish I would of bought a pair of these little gems sooner. I don't really do applique, so I just figured I didn't need a pair. I did.
Ok. Start cutting.... Get close to the stitching line, but not too close.







Once the leaves are all cut out, you can hang 'em up, make a pile. Or accent other fall deco you have.




Look around and see what other shapes/items would be cool as felt art.
Stay tuned for part two and three... Where we will get some dimension.