The Maker's Atelier Pleated Skirt in Linen

I've had some beautiful linen bought a few years ago from fabrics-store.com and when I saw the pleated skirt in The Maker's Atelier magazine Autumn/Winter 18 I thought a linen version would make a good seasonal transition skirt.

One of the best features of the magazine is this layout which features The Maker's Atelier patterns old and new, all in Autumnal evening/occasion fabrics, including the pleated skirt shown in velvet.  There's another double spread in more everyday fabrics, they are both beautiful pattern showcase, very tempting!

Back to the skirt... it's a simple construction inspired by France Tobin's visit to the recent Frida Kahlo exhibition at the V&A.  There are three pieces: the front and back are identical and include the pockets, plus a waistband.

I lengthened my version as midi is not a length I wear and I added an hem panel which is one of the pattern variations.  I think I lengthened it a little too much for practical walking as it's a little restrictive so I may remove this.

The most interesting feature is how the pocket is formed as the waistband fastens.  I opted for some press studs but you can use a clip or button/buttonhole depending on fabric thickness.  This fastening repeats on each side.  My waistband is sitting relatively low - I have a recent scar on my high waist from a recent operation.  The waistband is very easy to fit and adjust.

You can find the pattern in the Autumn/Winter 18 magazine.  Note there was a printing error on the waistband and amendments are on the website (minor, the original waistband was too long and needs shortening). 

Liberty Tea Cup

I recently had the chance to test a pattern for Laurraine at Patchwork Pottery.  She pattern tested for me with the Sew-Ichigo patterns, her proof reading and attention to detail was amazing, so I was happy to return the favour.   Regular readers here know my love affair with tea and tea imagery so I feel a kinship with Laurraine who is similarly inspired by tea and all that relates to it.  I followed her Quilted Teacup pattern  and made a Liberty lawn and linen tea cup.  

Liberty lawn is the perfect match for a teacup pattern, so English, delicate and small prints- just like floral china.  Ali at veryberryhandmade has started selling Liberty charm packs in a range of sizes at The Fabric Market Place.  I bought a pack of 15 x 4" squares and dug into my little Liberty stash making this a scrappy project, just as Laurraine intended.

The linen is Kaufman Essex linen in bleached white.  I had a selection of this sent to me when I did the Zakka Style Sew a long.  I first came across Essex in a quilting bee when it was part of a fabric selection.  It is linen/cotton blend, but it cuts like a heavy cotton- it doesn't slip and slide or even fray in the nightmarish way that 100% linen does.  The yarn dyed variations are incredible- I will show you more soon, but I always like to have a few colours of the standard Essex in stock and I have always bought from Simply Solids.

 To make this a truly scrappy project, I even pieced my binding.   Liberty lawn is thin enough and strong enough to make a great binding without significant seam bulk.  Laurraine's pattern prints as a booklet so there are illustrations and words for each stage so I was clear on what I was doing at all times.  I especially like pictures when I am following instructions and Laurraine has tweaked all the illustrations to make sure they accurately represent each stage of the process.

It is quite a fiddly pattern as all 3D sewing tends to be but it is not hard.   The skills covered are bias binding- making and attaching and then just standard sewing.     There is a balance of hand sewing and machine stitching and she includes a glossary and diagrams of all hand stitches involved.

The pattern comes out at around the size of a medium china tea cup- so delightful!  Now all I need is for Liberty to do a mix and match china tea set using their classic pattern archives!

You can find Laurraine's pattern here along with other equally detailed and cute projects.

GO Gadget go!

I have been playing with the Accuquilt Baby Go!   for a week now so I thought it was time to share my findings and my makings.  It has been surprising.  This is an expensive piece of kit, especially in the UK- we don't get the offers the USA customers get- so it really needs to justify itself in my eyes.   I have read a zillion blogger reviews so I knew there were several things I wanted to look out for- cutting and grain, wastage, quality of cutting, and the type of fabrics that can be cut.  

The machine itself is nicely dinky and heavy enough to make it reassuringly stable on a flat surface.  It reminded me of a printing press with its rollers and handle.   As others have said, handle turning is fun, I got Damian and Lula to have a turn too.  I used some less precious fabrics to test out my first die, Drunkard's Path just to get a feel for how the Go! and the die worked.  You do really need to push the sandwich of die/fabric/cutting mat quite hard to engage with the rollers but little effort is needed for the handle turning.   I chose Drunkards Path as this was a pattern I could never attempt without the Go!  My hands are just not up to a lot of scissor work, they hurt way too much after lots of scissor use, plus I can never cut  consistently or accurately enough on a shape like this.  If you want to try this for yourself there are free templates here.   I am making a mini sofa throw to cover the seating area of my couch.   However with any project, I start with a fabric pull!    

I am going for a scrappy but co-ordinated mix and an easy way to do this is to use some fabrics from a patterns.  I then look for other prints in my stash in similar colours- a bit of vintage, a bit of modern, it is the colours that count, to create a scrappy more relaxed mix of fabrics.  The colours are for the circles and the neutrals are for the outer shapes.  I also wanted a mix of neutrals, some patterned, some cream, some linen- you get the idea.   I haven't seen many scrappy accuquilt projects so I thought this would be a good test.  With this die, I needed to do some planning.   I couldn't cut the background shapes and the circle shapes at the same time using this mix of colours, so I used a template of each shape, you can see it below in green flowery fabric, but you could also run a piece of paper through to make a template.  I used the templates to roughly cut fabrics for the circles ready to cut.

As long as the fabric covered the die, I got great results even when it was only covering by 1/8 inch.  I lined up the grain of the fabric with the straight edge of the die and my results were perfect.  When you stack a pile of scraps you need to check they fully cover the die and by gently  pressing the fabric I found you could feel the ridges of the edges of the die- you need a few layers of fabric for this and I must stress to press gently as the dies are super sharp!  I did 6 layers of quilting cotton weight with no problems.  When I used a linen mix I reduced that to 5 layers.

So with a little prep and rough cutting I got 10-12 inner circle pieces at a time with tiny amounts of wastage, less than if I had cut with scissors.  The accuracy is what really impressed me and the notches- I could never have cut those and they are incredibly helpful when joining the pieces!

For the L shapes I found I either had to rough cut scraps into L shapes- using the green templates again- and cut 6 shapes at a time...

Or I doubled up and cut rough cut a T shape.  A 10" layer cake square was good for this- I got 2 folded T pieces and 2 L pieces from one 10" square.   This is a pile of 6 layers of Kona cotton waiting to be cut,

and this is 100% lightweight linen stacked up to be rollered through.  This fabric is a nightmare to cut with scissors or a rotary cutter.  It slips and slides under grippy rulers and is generally badly behaved so has been neglected for the last year.  I really was amazed to see how the Go!  cut this...

these shapes remind me of knickers- rather plain, spartan linen pants!

They are so accurate! I also found with cotton or linen fabrics that I only ever had 1 in 6 of the cuts with a little uncut thread of the fabric to snip.  I was so happy to finally use this linen and to see it cut so neatly.

In an ideal world all my projects would be planned neatly and arranged like this! 

The plan is to make a quilt 3 blocks by 7- each block is 7 inches finished. Twenty one blocks in all and I am just over half way.  It will be a quilt runner for my sofa to lie over the seating bit for cats, dog and 3 people to sit on and be easily slung in the wash.

My adventures will continue as I work my way through the dies- I have the strip cutter and the value die so there is a lot to play with.  I'll report back as I go along.  I am doing a lot of house sewing at the moment, pillows/cushions, throws, curtains etc so I'll see what projects I come up with.  It is a costly item but it does yield amazing results and it really saves on the arm strain.  It would be a great buy for a group of sewers to share- I know guilds are not so prevalent in the UK but sewing groups and  meetings are growing at the moment and with a few people chipping in you could then get a great variety of dies too.   In the meantime, 22 patterns are completely free and can easily be adapted to other cutting methods.  I had a good look through and found a lot of block ideas in there as well as quilt projects. Click here or on the pic below to sign up for free pattern downloads.

One lucky person will get to win a Baby GO! soon plus 3 dies- I will post more but you know a Go!  giveaway is a-coming...

Paying it Forward with Pinnies

With a little help from my Aurifil threads I completed three pincushions- paying it forward for Rachel, Leila and Suzanne.  They each gave me an idea of what they wanted so hopefully these are just right.  I like them all, and they make a nice little grouping.

This is Rachel's.   The block is Mother's Dream, I do like traditional x and + blocks.  The fabrics are all vintage from my new pile except the Kei Kerchief girl in the middle- oh for more of this fabric!

Leila liked blue and these are all vintage fabrics, aprons etc

Both of these have a wool fabric back and a little hand stamped tag.

Suzanne wanted something like the clutch I made for Kaelin.  This is double sided with a sewing theme on the front...

and a house theme for the back.  Aurifil threads again for the hand stitch details- wool 12 weight and cotton 12 weight.  They are lovely threads for hand stitching and a sashiko needle makes for quicker sewing.  Suzanne just won a pack of thread in my giveaway!  She does a lot of hand stitch detail so I know they are going to a good home.

Aurifil threads again for the hand stitch details- wool 12 weight and cotton 12 weight.  They are lovely threads for hand stitching.  These little cushions are en route to their new owners.

A* for Aurifil

 I guess you've seen the hype.  Aurifil threads have been all over blogland.   Until relatively recently I thought Aurifil was for overlockers and they only produced cones of overlock thread, I don't know where I got that notion but the only bit that is correct is the massive cones!  Aurifil are obviously on a big promo push and I was happy to test their threads out.  I was pretty keen on the thread I already used, especially YLI soft touch for piecing- did you notice the past tense there?  My allegiance has changed.

This is what has turned me, Ne 50/2 ply for piecing and applique.  It has a beautiful sheen and feels incredibly fine and smooth.  Thread weight is not always easy to spot on a spool but it is significant- the higher the large number the finer the thread.  You can read more about thread weights here.  A freebie is not enough to win my stitching pennies, performance is everything- I feel like I am talking about a sports car now- but this thread really performs!

You can see why whenyou look at it next to the YLI soft touch- the secret is in the fibres- both have long staple cotton fibres but you can see the fuzz of the grey YLI, the red Aurifil has much silkier smoother. I am guessing that the length of the Aurifil fibres is quite a bit longer than the YLI fibres resulting in smoother thread and less fluffy deposits in your machine.  

As a result this thread sews like a dream, it produces less tangles when starting and securing  a seam and gives amazing accuracy.  The Ne. 50 weight 2 ply is fine so it takes up less space in the seam.  In a 1/4 inch seam every little bit that is lost and gained makes a significant difference to accuracy so a good piecing thread is a vital tool for me.  It is going to be a dream to freezer paper piece with! 

A back view just so you can see more stitching.  These tiny stitches  are 1.5 length on my Janome.

You can see all the points match up nicely, not always easy when 100% linen is involved.

I tired a different thread for some hand sewn top stitch detail.  This was Ne. 12 described as suitable for Sashiko and embellishment.  It is silky smooth and glided through the linen.

I tested some of the other threads for hand stitch details.  Firstly, you can see the 12 weight wool thread 50% wool, 50% cotton.  This is more fluffy and gives a bit of texture on the linen.  I used a sashiko needle and thimble to add these thicker threads.

I ran another line of stitches with Ne. 12 in cotton in  gold.

Aurifil have  a huge variety of colours-216 for each thread weight.  I was lucky enough to have shade cards sent and as I have never seen this thread in a bricks and mortar shop I can see they will be incredibly useful.  I mainly use neutrals and those are what I am going to buy first. Where to buy from?  I found these UK online suppliers via google but there are more...  A further plus is that the spools contain a lot of thread for your money- for me this is going to be more economical, gotta love that...

http://thetabbycat.com/shop/

http://www.cottonpatch.co.uk/acatalog/Aurifil_50.html

http://www.new-threads.com/aurifil-thread-15-c.asp - a very large selection

http://www.thefatquarters.co.uk/threads-aurifil-threads.irc

So now the giveaway.  Four packs, each containing a selection of different colours and weights  await your comments- to enter please leave a comment, if you want a theme for your comment recommend me some great music to listen to, I am still obsessed with Ben Howard and welcome any new suggestions.  Otherwise any old comment will do.  I need your email in your profile or  your comment so I can notify the winners.  Comments close  Midnight GMT Sunday 14th August.  I'll use a random type choosing method.  International entries are welcome- I am happy to post these anywhere, but meanwhile they are staying with me- don't worry I'll take good care of them.  I won't respond to giveaway comments but good luck and enjoy a  bit of Ben.  He is gigging around the UK from October and I got tickets!

Framed Purse

For Pretty {Little} Pouch Swap 2 on Flickr my partner has expressed a liking for frames.  I haven't done  one before and fancied trying it out.  I bought my frame and glue supplies from Lisa at U-Handbag.

Lisa has full instructions on purses like this including how to draw a pattern.  I took the basic instructions and played around with the shape adding pleats so ultimately lots can be stuffed inside the purse!  I did make a few test shapes up out of odd bits of fabric.  I didn't want to use the grid fabric and make a mess of it, and once glued into a purse frame there is no going back!

The lining is Petit Ecole by French General at Moda. 

There is a stamped little linen birdie tag, and the lace trim which runs round the bottom edge of the purse is  is to add some curves and softness against the geometric lines of the grid.

 My partner's initial is on the other side so I have mysteriously blurred the reverse.

And the log cabins that weren't going anywhere for me have been recycled into a matching coaster- who wouldn't want to hold their purse whilst using a coaster?  Doesn't everyone take a purse to a cafe with their own matching coaster?

On the purse and the coaster there is a sewing side and a home/kitchen domestic side

There are goodies inside and the package is winging its way to a mystery location!