pointysticks.net

You are browsing the archives of sewing.

I bought Barbara Schoenoff’s In the Style of Queen Anne pattern as a birthday gift to myself (two birthdays ago, at least, maybe more) and although I’ve admired it greatly I haven’t gotten around to giving it a go until now. I don’t know why I have this freak-outedness that goes with doing someone else’s pattern [...]

I ran out of poly-fil. I managed to exhaust what was left making persimmon shaped bunnies in my attempt to use up all of my remaining holiday fabric. Using a whole bag of poly-fil is quite the accomplishment for me, because I’m pretty sure that like wire hangers and those little plastic bread bag clips if [...]

I designed these babies a while back after finding a nice big remnant of Berber fleece fabric at a thrift store. It screamed “Sheep!” at me, and for once I listened. The legs and face are plain black poplin and the ears are craft felt. I put a few in my booth over at Keeper’s Corner but Deb also [...]

Without cutting sew the shoulder and side seams using very small stitches. Then I cut away the excess fabric, making sure to leave enough to turn the raw edges of the neck and arm holes down for finishing. I finger press or carefully iron the seams open, trying not to cause more fraying at the [...]

Cleaning up patterns the first time around can be a little intimidating, it really is just a matter of going through the right steps with the right tools. The muslin pieces are so small and floppy they need to be stiffened up in order to facilitate tracing. Fusible interfacing works, so does buckram and fabric [...]

I usually find hard plastic travel dolls for $3-5 a piece, up to $10 for the 10 inch tall ones. I’ve yet to find one that is horribly expensive or rare but still I look for ones with messed up hair and clothes so I don’t feel guilty about ruining an original in good condition. [...]

The locals tell me that it can snow all the way into June. June. (Sob.) Snow. (Sniffle.) Get this– next month, on the 3rd, a yarn shop is going to open up here in town. I’m so excited. The only way I could possibly be more excited about a yarn shop opening would be if [...]

No one is going to get that bastardized reference are they? Moving right along then. In keeping with my current thing of making creatures out of garments– sock frogs! Frogs made of socks. One of these days I’m actually going to get around to making a classic sock monkey. My soft sculpting techniques need some [...]

This little guy started life as a pair of knit gloves. Usually I find stretch gloves perfectly useless as gloves but I haven’t made a softie in a long time and the idea of a maneki neko was way too tempting to resist. The paw holding the fish is the thumb of the glove, and [...]

I promise I’ll follow up on the spring rolls soon. Cross my heart and hope to knit with nasty scratchy acrylic. But tea cozies always get me excited (obviously, I don’t get out too much.) Matt is moving his studio back to the house, which means that the space I appropriated for sewing had to [...]