Patch Cat

I saw Elizabeth Hartman's cat patchwork blocks and thought they were adorable but way too complicated for my sewing inclinations, so I played around in CorelDraw (hooray for snap to grid) and came up with this cat block idea

which I decided to try out today (instead of working on the other patchwork project I had ready to go...)

I showed it to the kiddo without telling him it was supposed to be a cat, and he gave it a hug and asked if he could have it, so I took that as a positive ID.  (After I made progress with this springtime palette, he asked of he could have something wilder...so...yeah...eventually...)

The only tweak I think I'll make is to flip one of the eye blocks so the patch arrangement is mirrored instead of identical (although it doesn't really matter.)  And eventually I'll make an entire proper patchwork top arranged something like this

Eventually.

The Dolls March On

When I started this blog, it was with the vague idea that it would be only for, shall we say, human-size endeavors.  I've posted a few doll sewing things here before, but I've posted loads more on Tumblr and Flickr.  But...there was no real reason not to post them here, so I'm going to make a better effort at doing that, starting with the silly little outfit I made for a silly little doll.

I've had this doll for a few years, originally thrifted in a cheap satin and lace and fringe flamenco dress, with a coarse black wig glued to her head.  The eyes are what convinced me to get her--not only do the lids work as sleep eyes, but the eyes themselves are also on pivots and make her more than a little shifty-eyed

Such attitude.

She'd been in a box, wigless and unclothed, until I pulled her out yesterday and played around with a few doll wigs sent recently by a friend.  This wig is technically Blythe-size, but a quick dart in the back made it snug enough to fit this doll's head.  Since the friend, Mmy, is also possessed of Mediterraneanly dark skin and giant pink hair, I decided to dress the doll in Mmy style.

The pin tucks already existed on the cloth, which came from the waistband of a skirt I shortened from the top--which also meant it was interfaced, giving the skirt more body than usual even at doll scale.  I used one of my 16" fashion doll patterns for the bodice, shortened significantly; it probably could have been taken in a bit on the sides, too, but I didn't think 'figure skimming' was a necessity for this doll's clothes.  Lace, rickrack, and a satin bow (eternal cheers for fork bows) were all stitched to the neckline, which was finished with a facing (my usual approach, because I do not want to even consider the idea of turning a curved seam that small *shudder*.)  The puffy sleeves were improvised around a cap sleeve pattern, with some unfortunately obvious elastic at the cuffs.

Underneath is a pair of bloomers, made without a pattern (because "big, floofy, elasticized, and mostly hidden" is seldom in need of formal patterns.)  No pattern for the socks, which have decorative elastic at the tops, either.

The shoes...um...they're more placeholders than anything.  I am absolutely not a doll cobbler.

And in the hair is a length of ruffled lace, sewn into a loop, then flattened and the edges seamed together.  It's held in place with a simple thread tack through the wig cap on each end of the seam.

Silly, quick, and fun!

I'll leave you with this picture of her passing judgment on the Christmas cactus that decided to bloom the morning before Valentine's Day.

H...hand...sewing...?

I am not good at hand sewing.

I used to take this as a point of pride.  I used to say things like "I hate making clothes with buttons!  Because I hate sewing the buttons on!  Because I hate hand sewing!"  But, then, I got a machine that made a better four-part button hole, and I realized that what I hated was not "the hand sewing of the buttons" as much as it was "the unavoidable confrontation of crap buttonholes." Then I got a buttonholer and I figured out that one of the random presser feet I had was to hold buttons while using the machine to zig-zag 'em in place, and I forgot about my "I don't exactly hate hand sewing after all" epiphany.

So, what this basically means is that, while I might not detest the idea of hand sewing now, I still don't usually think "Oh, I should hand sew that instead of using the machine"...and it means that my hand stitching is not...um...good.

But!

I didn't hesitate to volunteer to hand sew a few little felt thingies for the kiddo's teacher Valentine card.  I'd never made any little hand sewn felt thingies before (...um...obviously...), but I did have this book

which technically does have patterns, but I feel like they're more...suggestions...than the rigorous templates most patterns are.

Scarecrow Chic Shirt. Sorta.

You know those projects that seem like a good idea until after you've started and then you decide that no actually that wasn't a good idea after all?  Of course you do.  Those projects are part of hobbies in general.

Most rational sewing people will put the project aside in a UFO pile and move on to happier craftiness.  Me, though?  I'll hang the offending item in plain view and glare at it, refusing to start any other projects (wellllllll, any other human-size projects, 'cause doll clothes are a different realm) until it's finished.

Soooo, yeah

Squares

I wanted to make a quick patchwork zip pouch as a gift for someone, and, for some reason, my brain insisted on making same-size squares for the patchwork--I usually just square up whatever size cloth scraps I have and start piecing things randomly, so this was an unusual thing for my brain to wanna do.

So I made it and I wasn't entirely happy with it and I forgot to take any pictures of it and I decided to make another, smaller, Halloweenier zip bag, and that's this one.

Nope, no pattern to it, but it is 35 different Halloween prints--most of which were from the scrap box--on the patchwork side, so that's nice.  And the ghosts on the other side are printed with glow-in-the-dark ink, so that's even nicer.  Lined with a synthetic plaid, because Halloween is for all the time.  or something like that.

My Stash to Bust

I took some quick pictures of the condition of my cloth stash storage, which I keep intentionally (kinda) small.

In the closet is a bookcase...well, actually, it's an abandoned retail display case, so it's sturdy enough to hold the cloth on its commercial-grade shelves.

And...yeah, it's pretty packed.  (Above is the bin of scraps, next to the  suitcase full of lace and trim and bias tape.)  This shelf is for pieces that are a yard and larger (with a pair of rolls of fabric leaning beside it.)

Smaller lengths of cloth go into the dresser

Almost everything in here was acquired with doll clothes in mind, top two drawers for broadcloth, bottom drawer for knits, other drawer for random whatever else.  The top two drawers used to be much fuller, until I decided the density was annoying and started pulling out coordinated sets of prints, some of which got combined with pieces from the shelves to form this pile

There are eight different groups of cloth here, most of which may be enough to use for blanket tops?  I'll find out eventually...

Brown Bag

When confronting the fact that my fabric stash was straining the spaces designated to store it (spaces which are intentionally much smaller than they used to be), I had fun a month or so ago shuffling through the dresser (home of roughly quarter yard cuts, mostly bought for doll clothes) and matching various prints by coordinating color schemes, which I then put in a pile with no solid ideas of what to make from the new sets of fabrics.

(Was that sentence convoluted enough?)

Saturday morning, I decided to challenge myself to using one of the smaller sets, which I knew wouldn't make anything big enough to turn into a skirt or blanket.  With no real goal in mind, I started patching it together, in a very loose approximation of a Log Cabin pattern, only with random colors and widths.  Sure, why not.

I didn't measure anything at any point in this project, so I have no idea how large it was before I ran out of strips long enough to sew to the next edge.  It looked like it might be big enough to cut a vest front from, though, maybe...?  But...as there was an abundance of browns and oranges in the prints, I knew I'd never wear a vest made from it.  And when it come to the question of Randomly Making Random Things for Random Other People, the answer is always Bag!

It would be too large to make a comfortable bag if I used the pieced, um, piece for just the front, so I played around with folding it in half for a while before I had the idea to fold the corners on the diagonal, which was the key to figuring out, finally, exactly (well, more or less exactly) what I wanted to do with this project...