Love hate relationships

I have a question for you.

What do you love to sew and what do you hate to sew?

Even the most obsessive sewers among us have these feelings.

I know I do.

For instance I love to sew knits and outwear. I sew pants because I can, but I hate, hate any kind of home decor sewing. I just lose sight of where the edges are on those massive yardages. Sleeves I can recognize.

I have also decided bra-making leaves me cold.I can buy in 5 minutes something that fits me just fine for the same price it would take me to make one. And those pieces are awfully small and fussy. Case closed.

I think that the www makes the question of what you really love to sew and don't even more pertinent.

It is so easy to see pictures of things other, some seemingly continuously productive, sewers churn out and think, gee I should make that.

I have learned to be alert to the moments when "should" crosses my mind. Life provides me with enough shoulds already.

More and more, and this might in fact be my sewing resolution, I want to sew only the things that I am just dying to make.

No shoulds.

No have tos.

No working my way through a to-do list.

Now over to you, what do you really enjoy sewing and where is your own personal line for feeling you have crossed into sewing drudgery territory?

Neat way to install zippers in bags

I am in no way a quilter. In fact the sister who is staying with me is, beautiful quilts she makes, but the one time we tried to collaborate on a quilt for our parents she sent my half of the blocks back as rejects.

Enough said.

I am the garment sewer, right?

That said I love new techniques and enjoyed this tutorial on putting in zippers in little pouches, of the sort an organized gift giver and probably with quilter's mindset would have on hand.

Pretty nifty.

The addition of the tabs on the ends eliminates messy zipper ends. Interesting.

Attitude

She's fine.

But I think Miss Heidi is going to be my inspiration for 2017.

Flypaper thoughts day before New Year's Eve edition

• I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas
• Know that not all are spectacular and that not all folks like the holidays
• But I do, assembling as much of the family as we can and making the dishes we always make marks the years for me
• With the poignancy that brings
• High point was seeing Miss Heidi fast asleep in a fluffy eyeshade
• I will remember that
• I will forget the part where the new dog decided to mark the corners of an unfamiliar room by lifting his leg
• Back to high points
• My formerly cynical youngest son had decorated lit candles around the place and a fridge full of drinks when we arrived
• Candles
• My son
• My husband had an idea of filming us all inside the house with a drone
• We put a stop to that plan
• Note to new couples
• Pay close attention to your first Christmas menus
• Once the kids get used to it you are making the same thing year after year
• I made mistake with a little number called Potatoes Romanoff
• Sour cream, potatoes, cheese casserole etc.
• Fine dining for sure
• Everyone still wants it but modern eaters just pick at it
• Heaven forbid that it isn't on the table though
• Now onto New Year's
• Sister and brother-in-law here for the week
• Dinner and a movie
• Men want documentaries
• Not often I am speechless
• Thinking about sewn items I wore most this year
• Turns out my own eyeshade
• Highly recommend for deep sleeping
• Heidi gets this
• Also a frumpy polar fleece sweater thing with good pockets
• Wore it about 10,000 times more often than my careful blazer
• Note to self
• Remember you have an ordinary life
• Had the neighbours in
• Man across the street won the lotto and quit work years ago
• Full time job now is monitoring the street
• Most informative guest
• Picks things up when he dog sits and snow shovels
• Takes out my garbage when my husband travels
• Won the lotto and takes out my garbage
• Not the only one around here who feels the pull of the ordinary life I guess
• Good neighbours are good things
• Did some baking before my company arrived
• Then ate it all before they did
• This is actually true
• No shortage of new year's resolutions to make around here

2016 pick for best sewer's gift

Browsing an accessory catalogue this morning because I have wrapping to do, major cooking, and the house looks like someone has done nothing but sew and take care of small children in it for two weeks, and I spotted this:

I mean really how cool.

Now off to larger tasks. We are loading up the RV and all going out to my youngest son's tomorrow for dinner and a sleep over, assuming those kids actually will sleep. Bonfire on the beach planned.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Daisy's boyfriend

As promised here is a shot of Moose, sitting in his front yard in the sleet waiting for Daisy to come as far as his house. Almost, but not quite, captures his fixation.

Love is strange.

The day before the day before Christmas

Don't fall over. This is actually a sewing post. I know where all my recipients are, one is out the door from the basement apartment after a double shift to start her Christmas shopping, one DG (dear girlfriend?) gone home to Tatamagouche for a few days to be with her family before dinner with us, and my daughter has just adopted a Golden Retriever that needed to be rehomed and everyone over there is either recovering from stomach flu or getting a cold - so I think it is safe to say she is occupied. (Send good dog support thoughts to Reggie, he is really trying so hard to fit in).

All of this means I am going to share with you a project that I have been making multiples of for Christmas.

It is the free Heidi pattern from Swoon.

First of all this is a really nice pattern but, I am going to be honest here, like too many Indie patterns that instructions seem to have chosen the hardest to accomplish way to do things rather than the one that will make it easiest for the sewer, the new one in particular. 

(An aside on the use of sewer versus sewist. I admit to not being an early adopter of some more appropriate names - gender neutral sure but some adaptions I don't pick up comfortably. Fishers for example versus fishermen or fisherwomen. To me the only fisher is the fisher of men. As for sewist I get it but I am fine with sewer. As an aside my daughter-in-law went to an infrastructure conference in New York a few years ago and they were giving out little buttons (OK shaped like manhole covers) that had NY Sewer on them. She brought one home for me and I wear it on my jacket because both she and I read it differently.)

Now back to the pattern.

I will show pictures and tell you the construction instructions issues I think there are:

There is a zipper in the top of course and the instructions tell you to fold back the end of the zipper tape out of the way, which might make sense but the zipper specified is a bit short for the opening (helpful because you don't stitch over the tape) the trouble with this is that you are left with some raw edges to deal with in those small gaps at the end of the project. Much better to stitch the tapes right to the end which will take care of turning under those edges under.

And, get this, the instructions also tell you to turn the bag inside out and top stitch around the zipper working from inside the bag - so difficult to do and totally unnecessary. Either don't top stitch at all or do so, stopping a 3/4" at either end to make it easy to turn, just after you insert the zipper.

There is a useful zipper on the back of the bag. The instructions said to baste the opening closed, layer the fabric and lining and top stitch the whole lot in one go and just hope it all catches. Instead stitch the zipper to the garment fabric, then the lining fabric and then top stitch. Three steps instead of one but you save your nerves, always a good thing.

I learned to install magnetic snaps, bags are interesting, I like doing something I haven't done before in all my years of garment sewing. Snaps BTW are a snap.

The recycled leather means some piecing but I think that's just fine. Hardware makes the bags I am discovering

BTW in recognition of life as I am living it I have started to cut up my gabardine straight skirt stash from my previous more formal work life and am using some of the cottons that caught my eye but, let's face it I will probably not use for shirts. Oh and the leather in the details and straps are leftovers from the jackets I cut up for my man bags, sewn faultessly on this Bernina 740.

Now off to wrap and in case you need a laugh, and who doesn't, here is a piece on mindful wrapping, which I can tell you is not likely to be practiced in this house today.