The Hasty Quilter Blogs

Pirate ship Necktie
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

Strictly speaking, this was not a holiday gift.  My dad’s birthday falls just a few days prior to Christmas and, because I understand how much it must suck to get a load of Christmas ‘n’ birthday combined gifts each year, I make a concerted effort to give him one gift for each. This year’s birthday gift was a pirate ship necktie.

Now, be honest, a necktie is kind of a lame gift. But a handmade necktie?  It kind of rocks. I used the Osman Tie pattern from burdastyle.com (http://www.burdastyle.com/patterns/osman-tie) – it is available in a PDF download for all of $2.  The most painful part of the whole process was taping the pattern together and then copying it out onto pattern paper. I do HIGHLY recommend this step, though. Pattern paper is much easier to deal with than taped together printer paper.

I used cotton, not tie silk; and to make matters “worse” it was quilter’s cotton – already relatively thick and stiff on its own. I also didn’t buy tie interlining, but used a piece of suiting that I had on hand  as suggested in the pattern instructions. The whole thing went together in the matter of an afternoon. I ended up leaving out the interlining all together – the quilter’s cotton was so thick it was unnecessary.

Just a couple lessons learned on this one: don’t just eyeball where the design is on the material. As you can see from my photo, I only ended up with one little pirate ship on the front of the tie because I thought I had it lined up correctly, but I didn’t check. Also, if and when I make this again, I’ll move the stay up a little — the skinny side of the tie is a little short to stay in my stay.

December 28th, 2009 | Tags: 2009, Birthday, blue, burdastyle.com, Christmas, Clothes, cotton, December, fabric, gift, holiday, menswear, necktie, Osman tie, pattern, PDF, pirate, tie | Category: Clothes, Project, Stash | Comments (2)

Jewelry Pouches
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

Welcome to the first in my series of holiday gift posts! I handed these cute little pouches out last night to our daycare providers during their holiday party.  I wish I could take credit for the design, but I can’t – they came from Quilting Arts Magazine special Gifts issue (2009/2010).  The pattern was designed by Margarete Steinhauer and appears on page 132 of the mag (almost all the way at the back).  The pouches are circular, drawstring, lined with coordinating fabrics, and contain 8 small pockets to store pieces of jewelry; or anything else that you might want to store. They fit perfectly in a gift box for a standard-sized mug.

Drafting a pattern from instructions in a magazine is always a little fiddly. I needed to be able to draw 4 different circle sizes and I do not have a compass; even if I did, I doubt I would have had one that would make a large enough circle for this tote.  Instead, I opted for my measurements to be a teeny bit off and ended up using a dinner plate for the outer circle, a largish mixing bowl for the drawstring channel, a pasta bowl for the inner/pocket circle and finally, a tiny mis en plase bowl for the base circle.  The bowls I used for my inner circle and my base circle were exactly right, the outer circle and drawstring channel were slightly off.  Luckily, this did not cause any problems with the final outcome.

Jewelry Pouch – inside
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

I made seven of these little pouches; the first two as a prototype – once those were done, and I understood how the pattern was supposed to fit together and work, it was easy enough to throw together the other five via the Assembly Line method. I had all of the awesome matching fabrics on hand in my stash, and even the little bits of heavy interfacing needed for the base. The only thing I DID have to buy was the rat tail for the drawstrings. I am absolutely positive that I have a large spool of rat tail somewhere in my sewing room, but it beats me where I put it.  I did not buy enough rat tail so that the pouches will lie flat when opened – I didn’t think it was necessary and I didn’t like the idea that the drawstrings would be so long when the pouches were closed up tight. Overall, I think I would be happy to get one of these as a gift…I really hope the teachers are too!

December 18th, 2009 | Tags: 2009, bag, Christmas, cotton, draft, drafting, fabric, gift, gifts, holiday, interfacing, jewelry, pattern, pouch, rat tail, satin cord, self-drafted, Sewing, storage, tote | Category: Craft, Project, Stash | Comments (3)

My husband tells me that even though I can’t write much about what I am currently working on, I should make a post to that affect.

But I know you want to hear more than that, now don’t you?  Like, where the heck I have been for the last 5-ish months? And what’s been going on in the world of hasty quilting? And what even happened to that crazy art show I was taking part in?  Well, I’m here to answer all of that. Just sit on back and make yourselves comfortable.

At the end of August we visited the beach and to make a very long story short, I broke my leg. If you know me in person, you’ve certainly heard all of the gory details and whining and complaining already. I had surgery to put things back together and although it was my left leg, leaving my sewing foot free, I just couldn’t manage sewing for a while. I crocheted a little bit from my place on the couch, but other than that, not much crafting was going on. I finally managed some sewing in the form of a Halloween costume for my little man.

That doesn’t explain what happened from June to August, though, I hear you cry! Well…I was occupied with Artomatic; then I was just occupied. The weather was just too beautiful, the sun was too shiny, the days were too warm. In other words, I have no excuse. Maybe I just needed a wee vacation from the flurry of sewing that lead up to Artomatic. Unless you REALLY want to psychoanalyze my brain, we’ll never know.

So that brings us up to now. I decided, in a wave of medical bills related to the broken leg, and a fit of insanity, that we needed to spend as little money as possible on the holidays this year. To that end, I am sewing, sewing, sewing myself silly on Christmas gifts. This unfortunately means that I can’t tell you much about what is going on until after the holidays because some of the gifts I am making are for folks who read this blog. I do promise to post what I can before the holidays, plus a few holdovers from the summer that I never got around to.  Hang in there, the sewing hiatus is over!

Before I forget, in other important news – I moved my etsy shop from wonderlandquilts.etsy.com to hastyquilter.etsy.com. If you had me bookmarked, please update your bookmarks. And if you didn’t have my bookmarked, then go and bookmark me. In the new location. *natch*

November 30th, 2009 | Category: Craft, Just Words, Project | Leave a comment

…to bring you something completely different.

Stuffed alien guy
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

I know, I know, you thought I only ever made quilts anymore!  Well that’s just not the case.  For her birthday, my friend, Helene, asked me to make my version of an UglyDoll.  This is he!  I actually drew out the pattern so I can recreate him if I decide to.  And I may…with some adjustments. 

He’s made from lime green terrycloth and some felt.  The terry cloth had a touch of stretch, so I pressed some woven interfacing onto the back before cutting it out.  That worked out nicely.  The eyes, horns, ”claws” and belly button (which you can’t see in this picture) are bits of felt.  He’s stuffed firmly but still soft.  The feet & belly button are needle-sculpted.

While i thought the head shape would be cool, I think it needs some adjustment.  More rounded would do it some good.  Also, the arms are stuff too firmly so they stick straight up all of the time, and I’d like him to have more than 2 claws.  I should have clipped the felt to make the claws AFTER sewing it into the end of the arms.  I’m not sure that would have worked either, but at least it would have given me more opportunity for adjustment later.

They’ve named him pearE because he looks like a pear.  H. has to fight with her kids to keep him as hers.  I guess that is something of a ringing endorsement!  She’s already got him guzzling booze and doing laundry for her like a real member of the family.

June 22nd, 2009 | Tags: alien, felt, lime green, needle sculpt, plushie, stuffed, terrycloth, Uglydoll | Category: Craft, Project | Comments (4)