Friday, February 14, 2014

Completed: Pink Potholders



Just in time for Valentine's day: exceedingly pink potholders.  I needed to replace my old (missing, thanks baby girl) potholders.  I've seen lots of cool scrappy potholders on tha interwebz and even have a few tutorials pinned.  I pretty much ended up winging it with these, though...

I won't bore you with construction details as there are tons of tutorials out there and, let's be honest, you can probably figure it out just by looking at it.  Instead let me just say Happy V-Day!  I hope you got to celebrate with lots of chocolate and wine instead of Tylenol cold and tissues (as I did at home sick today).


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Thurlows I (I MADE PANTS!!!)


I made pants!  Real pants!  They have a zip fly and pockets (fancy pockets at that) and they fit and THEY.ARE.PURE.AWESOME.

I'm kind of excited about it... can you tell?

That's right.. can't you see the excitement?  No?  How odd....
January and February have been unusually sunny this year, meaning I have no excuse for not getting pics of my recent makes other than shame at passers-by seeing me struggle with my digital camera settings on my lunch break (it may be sunny during the day, but it's still dark at 5:30).  For above reason I stick to snapping pics on the weekends when it's just me and the kids...  Which is why I'm not wearing makeup.... or a clean shirt.  Sorry.


Pardon the lint and cat hair, but look how pretty my welt pockets are.  They kind of gape open a little bit when I'm wearing them though :P  For subsequent versions I'll definitely baste the lips together and see if that helps.  (I won't pretend I came up with that on my own; that one came from Lladybird's incredibly helpful Thurlow Sew Along.  I'm telling you, if you're making these pants just check it out.  The welt pockets and fly were so well explained with lots of great pictures that I didn't even manage to sew anything backwards!  That's kind of a big deal.  In all seriousness, though, her sew along did make the construction of these pants seem relatively effortless (as opposed to trying to figure it out on my own with the rather sparse instructions that came with the pattern.  Not that it would've been impossible, but it certainly would've taken longer). 

Gaping sighting.  Oy.
I flatfelled the side seams and the inseams just cuz I think they look nice that way.  Plus I don't have a serger so it's either that or zigzagging them... or bias tape but FTN I hate finishing seams with bias tape it takes FOR.EV.ER!  If I take the shortcut I inevitably end up missing the fabric in one spot and then it totally defeats the purpose.  You probably don't eve know what I mean by that because who does that seriously???  I do.  All the time.  It kind of drives me crazy that both the sew along and pattern instructions pretty much assume you'll be serging everything.  What about the rest of us?  Ah, well, I'd rather have flatfelled seams than serged seams on my pants any day.

Pretty flatfelled seams... and less pretty belt loops :P
You may remember that I won this pattern in a giveaway from Handmade Jane (thanks again Jane!).  I made up a quick muslin over summer out of some lightweight cotton.  As it turns out, though, I misread the size chart and they were two sizes too big (epic fail!).  I still wore them around the house quite a bit last summer, but I'll probably be cutting those up for quilt pieces sometime soon (trust me on this one, it's just so.bad).

Honestly I was a little intimidated after that and, even though I traced the correct size off right away, I didn't touch the pattern again after that for months.  I've made a lot of quick, simple projects so far this year (skirts, baby clothes, things like that) and I was feeling the urge to tackle something bigger.  I originally intended to make a new dress, but it's cold as F*CK outside and has been for ages.  It seemed like a good time to tackle the Thurlows again.


I had bought this black bottomweight fabric at Goodwill ages ago with the intention of using it to muslin up some Thurlows.  Of course it turns out I'm super happy with them, so they've made it into my regular work rotation.  Hopefully the fabric holds up for awhile!  It's a very drapey bottomweight fabric with (to be totally honest) a weave that's a bit loose for pants IMO.  Surprisingly they hold up very well with little to no sagging/stretching between washes.  This leads me to suspect they may be something other than cotton (surprise, surprise) but they're comfy as hell so who cares?


By the way, I've always been an avid stripe-avoider but this shirt was so soft and so new at the by the pound Goodwill I decided to try it out.  Only looking at these pics do I see how pregnant it makes me look.  Suffice it to say, I am not.  But I will probably be taking the shirt in a bit.  Maaaaaybe that'll help.


Oh God how excited am I about the zipper.  The bright ass green zipper.  It's my faaaave.  It makes zipping up my pants strangely fun.  That was waaaay TMI wasn't it?  I also like how the striped fabric I used to line the waistband ended up making chevrons at the CB.  Not even planned.  Awesome!  I just used whatev was lying around for waistband/pocket lining, since these were supposed to be a muslin.  As it turns out, though, the inside of these pants are way more fun than the outside.  Not that plain black pants aren't fun... I know they are for me =D



You can see all my ugly zig-zagged seams :P  But look: party in my pants! ;-)  Haha!


Now that I've made pants I"m pretty excited about making more.  I've already made one more pair and my next fabric purchase (remember I'm trying to destash this year) will def be some nice pants quantity 

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Seahawks Fever

Really I should have gotten around to blogging this shirt before the Super Bowl to show my 12th man spirit... but I literally just got pictures of it today (such as they are).  And I really only got pictures today because I figured posting it after the Super Bowl would just be lame.  So here we are, two hours after the Super Bowl and I suck for not busting this post out this afternoon.



I hate to admit that I'm not really much of a football fan... but when I was offered free tickets to a pre-season Seahawks game I, of course, said Hellz yeah!  I didn't have any Seahawks gear, though, and that shits pretty pricey.  I knew my dad had an old Seahawks tee he never wore anymore (never let my dad near your laundry unless you like bleach stains on ev.ery.thing) so I decided to go the cheap route and make my own.


I had seen some cool UW shirts done in this style with the multicolor raglan sleeve.  I took my knit shirt block and raglanized it.  I had scraps of the green laying around (by the way, I didn't realize this was an oooold shirt and the Hawks have totally changed from kelly green to lime green.  boo).  I can't remember where the grey came from... but i think it was part of the original shirt.  I really just sewed stripes of knit together and then cut the sleeves out of the patchwork.  All in all I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.  And obviously... GO HAWKS!!!