What's In Your Spring Wardrobe?

Last week, Soni Grint, Creative DRAWings Director, and I spent 2.5 days embroidering nearly non-stop.  We created samples and promotional items for upcoming sewing shows using Creative DRAWings.  I have always dabbled in machine embroidery, but after this last session, I must say I'm hooked.  Creative DRAWings made it so simple!  I didn't struggle with stitch parameters or even stabilizers.  Creative DRAWings set the parameters for my fabric and suggested the stabilizers.  Whew!  Two mysteries solved right there.

These were our major projects:  I took a nice, but boring ready-to-wear suit on the left - a $200 suit marked down to $19.99 - don't you love a good sale -  and gave it some zip with embroidery.  Soni took a coat she had made and added embroidery also. 

 I wanted to do fully embroidered black lilies, but decided that doing just an outline was more intriguing - and faster too.

Soni combined milk and dark chocolate Ultra-suede to her appliqued trio.


 She choose earth tone and sky blue threads that created a lovely embellishment.



Here are our projects - not yet done, but at the end of our session.  I don't know what additional work Soni has done on her coat, but over the weekend I added even more black lilies to the back, front and sleeves and added satin dots, just to punch up the coat even more. 

Soni and I are meeting next week in Salt Lake City for International Quilt Market.  I will be promoting SCHMETZ, while Soni will be promoting Creative DRAWings.  We'll both be wearing our outfits and I'll take more pictures.

Here's the link to Creative DRAWings, a graphics based software for machine embroidery:  www.Creative-DRAWings.com. 

Dressed to a T ...ree!

What signs of spring do you have in your neighborhood?  The grape hyacinths in my Chicagoland garden are still shivering, too cold yet to take on their role as soldiers of spring.  I've always had a few of these little purple guys, but last year I planted 200 bulbs and I'm waiting, waiting waiting for this new army of spring to usher in warmer weather. 

Last week Rita Farro and I met at the Morton Arboretum.  Lucky for us we sat outside on the Visitors Center patio to review new SCHMETZ educational materials and to discuss upcoming SCHMETZ projects. 

Over Rita's shoulder I noticed unexpected color, lots of color.  Oh my, the tree has color spots!

As we got closer we spotted clues that we were in for a special surprise. . . .

A dance of color among the forsythia . . .

Wow!  What a delight!  A dressed tree!  Someone has done some serious branching out with their crocheting!

Who could guess that even a tree could dress up in anticipation of spring? Is this the only tree dressed for the season?  I can hardly wait to find out if more trees will be dressed in Nature Unframed, an upcoming contemporary sculpture exhibit at Morton Arboretum, May 20 - November 27, 2011. http://www.mortonarb.org/

This tree reminds me of one of my favorite blogs - Advanced Style, see the link in the right column.
Be colorful . . . . regardless of the season!

Enjoy spring!

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2011 The Haute Couture Club of Chicago

Hooray For Hollywood was the theme of yesterday's annual Haute Couture Fashion Show and Luncheon featuring unique, finely-crafted garments created and modeled by club members.  The workmanship and originality of garments was remarkable.  Garments were inspired by several silver screen classics including  Out of Africia, Dr. Zhivago, Around The World in 80 Days, Devil Wears Prada.  I'm sew inspired!  Take a glimpse at a few favorite garments:


Katarzyna Grzesik
Red formal tulle dress with ruching and ruffles
Katarzyna won a 2010 Fashion Group International scholarship.



Sheril Hughes'
Ocean blue Thai silk cocktail dress 
The stunning sleeves are removal and convert into a shawl.

Brenda Rogerson wearing a wonderful rectangle skirt designed by
Rhonda Buss wearing a stunning vintage vogue dress. 



Tammy O'Connell of Peacock Patterns
Love the shimmering silver fabric!
Silver hologram panne velvet evening dress

 

Maria Curciarello
Red/beige metallic hand beaded cocktail dress
A lovely rival to the traditional little black dress



One of the joys of this show was seeing "real" women with "real" body - curvy - shapes wearing beautiful, colorful, custom fit garments. They all strutted on the stage, comfortable with themselves and their creative endeavors.  So many of us that sew, quilt or create wearable art are no longer a size 8 or 10.  Take a fitting class or join a sewing guild.  Fashion sewing is fun!  Don't let your dress size keep you from the wonderful world of haute couture. 

I'm sew inspired!  Soon I'll show you a few garments that I'm stitching up...

http://www.hautecoutureclubchicago.com/ .
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007 to the Rescue

Wow! What a terrific product!  007 Bond.  Not James Bond, but 007 Bond as in Bonding Agent.  For quite sometime a tear has needed a repair in my comforter.  Since I didn't do the job immediately, the tear had grown to about 4".  Repairing a rip is not sewing, and like alterations . . . . a burden, but never fear 007 Bond to the rescue!  I had seen this product and the demos at many sewing shows, but only recently did I figure out this 007 Bonding Agent was perfect for the job.

The Problem -
4" Rip in my Comforter

Look closely. . . 007 was sprinkled onto a fabric patch, then sprinkled with water.  The patch was inserted under the rip.

Heat sets the adhesive powder. 
A Bo-Nash Pressing Sheet protects the fabric and the iron. 

Voila!  After setting for an hour, the rip disappeared!

I Love 007 Bonding Agent!

For more information on 007 Bonding Agent visit http://www.bonash.com/. 

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Back to Puyallup - 2011 Sewing & Stitchery Expo

Four days of inspiration, friendship, stitch madness and some mighty good freshly baked scones with raspberry jelly - thanks Karla! - was just the beginning to the 2011 Sewing and Stitchery Expo.  Take a look at a few favorite shots from the floor.  I wish more photos could be loaded in this blog, so will just have to make several postings.

Luveta Nickels, The Junk Jeans People with
 Rita Farro, Publicity Director, 2011 Sewing and Stitchery Expo
chatting before the crowds overtake the show aisles.

The back of Rita's jacket.
Rita's sister is an embroidery maven.  Lucky Rita had 2 or 3 wardrobe changes daily just to show off the embroidery and special embellishments provided by her sister Deb.

Donna, WonderFil Threads wears a wildly wonderful jacket of whirling WonderFil Threads.

A delightful embroidered floral bouquet hat reminds us that spring is near.

Threads and fabrics dancing on this jacket.

I just realized that most of these pictures are the back side of the wearers, so I"ll be "back" later with more front side pictures.

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Sweater Recycling... .... Brrrrrrrrr It's Cold Outside!

No Chicago blizzard blues here.  If you have a sewing machine or serger . . . and electricity, there is always a project lurking to be finished or even better -  started.  It's snowing here again, so I want to show you the project I finished during the last snow storm.

First to my husband's surprise I cleaned - well, purged is a better word - my wardrobe closet, then scoped out my husband's sweaters.  I always love my husband's sweater collection and was able to sneak a couple that he will never miss (I hope.)  Here are seven sweaters laid out on my ironing board.

Not quite certain how I was going to remake a sweater I first chose a base sweater for the body -  in this case the wonderful creamy sherbet green.  Then I got side tracked...  I needed a scarf for a blue snow coat and guess what?  That ice blue sweater was the perfect color, so I cut off the sleeves and sewed the two armholes together to make . . . . . a scarf!  Yes, a silly idea, but I love this scarf.  It's cushy cozy and just the right length.  A bonus was that the scarf ends did not need to be finished since they are the ribbed cuffs.

Back to the sweater I chose two accent colors - trimming the neckline, adding gussets and sleeve insets in the ice blue, then adding sleeves in a creamy dreamy rose.

The neckline was cut deep & wide.  I thought the sweater still needed a little "pop" of color and found little orange triangular buttons to highlight the gussets and a bright yellow 5 petal flower for the front closure.  There's so cute! 

This was a quick project using a serger and SCHMETZ Universal 90/14 needles recycling some favorite sweaters that I just couldn't bear to give or throw away.  So now I'm waiting for some warm spring weather.  This little sweater will be perfect with a little white scoop or boat neck t-shirt.
Now, what am I going to do with the other 4 sweaters?  What are you recycling?

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Kissed by the Sun... in the Bahamas!

Tired of shivering?  Thinking a little sunshine and mild temperatures might improve your spirits?  Think Bahamas!

Last week while relaxing in Nassau, the Stepping Stone Quilters Annual Quilt Show in the Trinity Methodist Church came to our attention.  The exhibit included over 60 quilts - traditional and art.  Like many shows, viewers were asked to vote for their favorite quilts.

Mad As _ _ _ _  (You can guess this 4 letter word.)
Since this was on display in a church the title was changed to
Mad As A Mother Hen!

This was my favorite small quilt  - the furious hen stubbornly looking up at me with her beady eyes.  What an attitude!  Every raw stitch contributed to this irate hen.   

In The Woods

Here is my favorite large quilt.  The color play of green and cascading leaves on a traditional log cabin was very comfortable and soothing. 



Maria Chisnall

 But my biggest delight was meeting Maria the creator of both quilts.  Don't you just love meeting quilters and sewing enthusiasts!  My immediate wish for you is to enjoy a quilt or sewing show with friends on a bright and warm Bahama island!

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