make something

SCOUT WOVEN TEE : MISTRAL

Published on October 11, 2013 in clothing, gardening, stitchery and the workroom. 5 Comments Tags: Grainline Studio, Liberty of London, Mistral, Scout Woven Tee, the sewing factory.

Grainline Studio Scout Woven Tee
Liberty of London Tana Lawn Cotton in Mistral

Firstly, a woven tee. Such a great wardrobe addition! Secondly, a simple and quick sewing project! Brilliant on so many levels.

This is actually my third Scout Tee. I made two during The Sewing Factory. One in Nani Iro double gauze and one in a strawberry linen. I love those short sleeve tees, but with the fall here, I knew my wardrobe really needed a tee with a longer sleeve.

I pulled out the sleeve piece for the pattern and traced it out. I made the sleeve piece about 14.5″ long, but when I sewed it up, I found that length a bit short and had to hem the sleeve with binding. I will cut my next version out with a sleeve piece at 16″ or 16.5″. I also adjusted the side seams of the sleeve and brought them out a bit so that they drop straight down. I feel like I could adjust the sleeve a bit more, but I’m going to need some expert advice on this. I am wondering if I need to add any fullness to the sleeve cap due to adding the length and weight to make it sit nicer. I’ll report back after I do some consulting!

I also added a couple inches to the length of the body. I tend to like things a bit longer in length.

I love having good basic patterns to fall back on and this is definitely one them. The Liberty Tana Lawn is perfect for this pattern. Okay, it’s pretty much good for everything. But once I perfect my changes, I will be turning out a dozen more, for sure.

p.s. This is our garden!

ROXANNE : SUSANNA

Published on September 24, 2013 in clothing, stitchery, textiles and the workroom. 11 Comments Tags: Liberty of London, Roxanne, Susanna, Victory Patterns.

Victory Patterns : Roxanne
Liberty of London Tana Lawn Cotton in Susanna

I have had the pleasure of watching Victory Patterns emerge from dream to reality in the last couple years. When Kristiann Boos, one of the workroom’s instructors, told me she wanted to start a pattern company I was absolutely thrilled! Kristiann’s sense of design and style is so unique, I knew right away that she would produce patterns that were unlike others out on the market. She started out with PDF patterns and finally this year launched printed patterns. Kristiann’s patterns are lovely to work from. They are clearly written & illustrated, plus beautifully packaged.

The Roxanne pattern is a beginner level pattern. I chose to make the sleeveless version, mostly for the amazing collar detail. I went with the dark navy Susanna print from Liberty. The pattern was very simple, with the most complex part being that collar. The design of the collar is very clever and I got huge amounts of satisfaction sewing it. Once you’ve completed the collar, the rest of the top flies together. The top has a lot of volume, there are pleats that fall from the yoke at the back. With the right fabric, such as the Liberty Tana Lawn this volume creates a gorgeous silhouette and movement with the high/low hemline. I love that this top feel very elegant and dressy. I can’t wait to try a version with sleeves next.

This is the second Victory Patterns pattern that I’ve tried. I made the Hazel first, but still need to photograph it now that the weather has cooled down enough for long sleeves.

See all the Victory Patterns here & see the Roxanne pattern here.

SIMPLICITY 2215 : CONSTELLATIONS

Published on September 11, 2013 in clothing, stitchery and textiles. 11 Comments Tags: constellations, Lizzy House, Simplicity 2215, the sewing factory.

Simplicity 2215
Lizzy House ‘Constellations’ fabric

This dress was made earlier this summer when Lizzy House was in town. Lizzy was here for ten glorious days teaching classes at the workroom, plus living and working at The Sewing Factory. Lizzy explains The Sewing Factory perfectly here. Basically, The Sewing Factory is a team of three comprised of Katherine, Lizzy and I. It’s what we love to do best, which is to be together and sew everything we can.

You can see all our adventures together in photos here.

You’ve seen this Simplicity pattern before in many versions. This won’t be the last, it’s just too good. I knew I needed to have a Constellations dress using this pattern since it’s my idea of a perfect dress and Constellations is my idea of a perfect fabric line. And I got to fussy cut some adorable fabric covered buttons for it! This dress is a dream. And it’s blue. I’ve made a lot of blue clothes this summer. You’re about to see them come your way as I’m photographing them slowly.

Speaking of blue. I just got some Chambray for a skirt. It will probably be made with this Simplicity pattern. To add to the 2215 collection that I’m creating. I think Chambray is the fabric of the season. I am falling in love with it for clothing projects and I love that it’s coming out in other colours besides blue. We just got some Chambray at the shop yesterday and we’ve got even more on order for the fall!

I also wanted to introduce you to Ashley! I had the pleasure of meeting Ashley in person this summer, when she visited the workroom. She was sweet enough to drop by to meet me at the shop while she passed through town, as she is all the way from California. She has been sewing up a storm of beautiful clothes that has got me inspired these days and I think you’ll love them too.

LIBERTY OF LONDON HOODIE

Published on September 5, 2013 in clothing, stitchery, textiles and the workroom. 18 Comments Tags: Alice's Garden, Guy Latulippe, Hoodie, Liberty of London, Linford Fleece.

Hoodie pattern by Guy Latulippe
Alice’s Garden : Liberty of London Linford Fleece

As soon as September arrived, the temperature at night seemed to drop down to chilly. I’ve been enjoying throwing on my cozy new hoodie for my night walks with Maisy. Making a hoodie has been on my wish list for a long time, so I was thrilled when Guy told me he had a hoodie pattern that he had designed.

The first Hoodie class was held as a day camp in August. Day camps at the workroom are one of my favourite things!

Let’s talk about the fabric first. This Liberty of London fleece is incredible. Not only is it a cotton fleece printed with a gorgeous Liberty print, but it also so thick and soft. We had received two prints (Manning & Alice’s Garden), just in time for the Hoodie class. This print is called ‘Alice’s Garden’ and I just know it will cheer me up in the winter months when I am missing my garden.

I’m always excited to demystify basic pieces of clothing like the t-shirt and underwear. We sewed the hoodie up on a regular sewing machine and used the serger as we went along to finish the seams. I usually will do all my serging at the start before I sew, but for this project it made sense to serge the seams together as each step was sewn and then they got top stitched down. I used a light shade of mauve for my sewing and did a double line of stitching for all my top stitching. Little details like that make me pretty happy. But my most favourite detail on this hoodie is that I did a pretty great job of pattern matching the pocket. I’ve had a lot of practice pattern matching my Wiksten Tank pockets, so this one was a piece of cake!

All the hoodies made in class were so beautiful. Each one different and very professional looking. Guy talked to us about variations on the pattern, so I think my next version will have a zip front. The fall session of the Hoodie class starts soon and I can’t wait to see the next round of hoodies.

MARKET TOTE

Published on August 22, 2013 in stitchery and the workroom. 8 Comments Tags: Guy Latulippe, Market Tote.

I fell in love with this Market Tote before it was even born. I had dreamed of a really BIG bag, with lots of exterior pockets. The kind of bag you can fill to the brim at the Farmer’s Market, the LCBO (those pockets were tested to fit bottles of wine!), or on a cottage sewing weekend. Guy Latulippe is the kind of guy who makes your bag dreams come true. This original design, like all his others, is so perfect.

I made my Market Tote in the same exterior fabric as my Sling Pack. I’ve decided that I’m making a set of bags that all use the same outside fabric (and pink top stitching!) with different linings. For this bag, I pulled out my coveted pink Paris Map fabric by 3 Sisters. It just made sense.

Every bag I’ve made of Guy’s design has taught me so many little techniques and tricks. When I looked at the Market Tote sample, I thought I could see how it would come together. When we received our pattern pieces in class, I realized, yet again that Guy’s technical mind is much more clever than that. His approach to bag construction is absolutely fascinating. I also love working on projects where you feel like you are making something that is of professional quality. You can see it in the beautiful edge stitching all over the bag, it is a detail that all of Guy’s students become very good at. Details like that are what set his designs apart.

My Market Tote has not been empty for a minute since I’ve made it. Mostly I use it to carry my current projects around, but it’s been to the grocery store and up to the cottage. I just love this bag to pieces and I will surely make a few more.

Everyone always asks. All of Guy’s patterns are available as classes at the workroom and soon in the future there will also be patterns for you to buy.

SLING PACK

Published on August 1, 2013 in stitchery and the workroom. 8 Comments Tags: Guy Latulippe, Sling Pack.

It’s been a couple months since I made this Sling Pack and I’ve been getting so much use out of it. It’s been the perfect bag for my adventures by the river with Maisy, to throw on when I go bike riding or when I pop out to grab some groceries.

The design is really ingenious. The straps connect through the top to form the closure, so there is no hardware on the bag. I used a canvas lined with a number fabric from the Twenty Three line. There’s a big pocket on the outside closed with a button and another patch pocket on the inside. A little sweet detail I added was to do all the top stitching and edge stitching with a light pink thread. I love the way it looks.

The Sling Pack is designed by Guy Latulippe, the workroom‘s resident bag genius. What til you see the Market Tote I’m just finishing up!

MY PERSONAL QUILTING STYLE

Published on July 19, 2013 in colour and inspiration. 2 Comments Tags: Quilting Happiness.

I’m really honoured to be taking part in the Blog Hop for Quilting Happiness by Christina Lane and Diane Gilleland. The book hits stores on August 27, but you can pre-buy it now! Quilting Happiness is a collection of 16 quilts and 4 small projects, interspersed with creative exercises, quizzes, tools, and stories to help you explore your delight in quilting.

We were given the exercise of creating a collage to help determine our personal quilting style. I decided to use my Pinterest Boards to find my most recent images and create a digital collage. I very rarely buy magazines anymore and I use Pinterest ALOT. It has really become a huge resource of images, colour palettes, ideas and recipes for me. I took a look through my recent pins and could immediately see that many of the images were coordinated in colour palette and feeling. Lots of soft colours and shades of orange and peach right now. I really like clean lines and simplicity. I’ve been trying to be more colourful with my palettes this year to break out of my grey & blue tendencies which is really difficult for me! I’m getting slightly more adventurous with my colour choices, but I still tend to choose softer colours. I can see clearly that I’m drawn to nature and floral imagery, as well as painterly textures. Art has always been a big inspiration for me.

I thought it would be interesting to pull out my visual diaries from about 10 years ago to see how I felt about those paper collages and whether or not my taste and style has changed since then. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was still really excited by collages I had made so long ago. Most of the pages are still very inspirational to me and I even see lots of similar colour ideas.

I can’t wait to get a copy of Quilting Happiness, I love the idea behind this book. Taking time to explore and appreciate how quilting can bring you so much joy and happiness in your life seems like the perfect thing to do.

Visit all the other blogs that participated in the Blog Hop this week. I’ve loved getting to see everyone else’s collages.

From my Pinterest collage above : Courthouse Steps Quilt, Chair, Floral Embroidery, Floral Stationery, Vogue Dress Pattern, Yellow Filing Cabinets, Landon Metz Painting, Girl with Umbrella, Shibori Dress, Japanese Smocking, Crafty Desk

QH Placeholder

InLinkz.com

PATCHWORK IPAD CASE

Published on July 2, 2013 in patchwork, scraps and stitchery. 6 Comments Tags: ipad, shabby chick ipad cover, the workroom.

I bought myself an iPad about a month ago and the first thing I knew I needed was a case of some sort. I researched all kinds of hard cases but in the end I really couldn’t resist making one. I decided to try Shabby Chick’s tutorial which was very easy to follow. It would have been even easier if I hadn’t made it patchwork, but I’m really happy I took the extra time to do some improv piecing for this. There are some scraps from both my Swoon quilt & my Feather Bed quilt, along with a pretty pink Liberty scrap from Amanda in this case. Instead of batting, I used canvas inside for protection. On the inside I added a small patch pocket that I keep a little cloth to clean the screen with. I also decided to do snaps instead of velcro on the tab.

I love how this case turned out ALOT. Sometimes it’s the little things and the simple things that you end up loving so much.

The iPad was something I treated myself to as a pre-reward for working so hard on the workroom’s new website. For the last few months, I’ve been taking and editing photographs, organizing content and putting everything in place. The website just launched last week and I couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out. The stunning design is by Andrew Cloutier, who designs all the workroom’s graphic elements.

This website has been a dream of mine for so many years. I really wanted to have everything that the workroom embodies represented for all our local friends, but also our friends from far away. I am very excited that we now have a full web store that will include just about everything we sell in the store. This includes fabric!!! The shop is up and running, but we are adding new items to it every day. You may notice a couple of the store categories are empty right now. It will take us a little bit longer to be fully up to date, so keep checking back. I hope you’ll take some time to explore the site, there is so much to see!

WIKSTEN TANK COLLECTION

Published on June 24, 2013 in clothing, stitchery and the workroom. 9 Comments Tags: tank top, Wiksten.

There’s just a week left for my #junefinish goal. I’ve finished up 7 things so far and I’m hoping to add a few more to that list. I’ve been so happy to see other people joining in and finishing up some of their projects too. It feels good!

One of the things I was able to finish was another Wiksten Tank. Once it was done, I decided to gather up all the tanks I had made and count them all. I’ve made nine Wiksten Tanks to date. This is definitely my most used pattern by far!

You can find the Wiksten Tank pattern here!

THE STAPLE DRESS

Published on June 10, 2013 in clothing and textiles. 12 Comments Tags: #junefinish, April Rhodes, The Staple Dress.

The Staple Dress : pattern by April Rhodes
Innocent Crush voile (Maybe print) by Anna Maria Horner
photographed near the Humber River

I’m giving myself a challenge for the month of June. I’m going to focus on finishing projects. For the first part of this year I’ve been all about starting projects. If I was inspired by a quilt or dress or anything, I just went ahead and started it. The constant feeling of a new project is amazing, but I’ve realized that I should balance that with a month of finishing. The challenge has a hash tag, #junefinish and you are welcome to join me! You can follow my finishes on Instagram or Twitter and please post your own #junefinish projects too! As of today I’ve finished 5 things this month! It has felt so satisfying to finish up new projects and older projects. My Staple Dress was my #1 finish for the month of June!

I started The Staple Dress a few weeks ago. It was all cut out and just needed to be sewn. (There is a sizeable pile of cut out clothing in this state right now) This is a simple pattern that doesn’t take much to finish off. It’s great for a beginner sewer and very satisfying for an experienced one. I was able to sew it up in one night with some finishing details in the morning. There are two variations on the hem and I went with the drop hem. It seemed a bit dressier to me and also just something different. I really like it!

Many people have made theirs and skipped the shirring to wear it with a belt, but I’m the opposite. I love shirring and never wear belts. I am really loving the weight of the voile with this pattern. I’m planning on making a couple more of these dresses and they will definitely be either voile or Liberty Tana Lawn.

This dress has so many things going for it. It’s super cute, very comfy and sews up very fast. Pretty much the perfect combo. I just read that April will be releasing a couple new patterns soon and I can’t wait to see what they are!