Birthday Present

I didn't arrive empty handed at my sister's but brought along the chair cushions we'd been planning for quite a while. She wanted them to work with the colours in her kitchen, a yellow wall and the green tablerunners on her lovely brown table. So we picked Kona Lime and Canary using the colour card.

Here are the results on one of my chairs.

We'd bought cheap foam cushions from Ikea before I moved and I took only one of them with me for reference, which is why you only see one proper finish in this picture. I sewed the others shut in Berlin. Here's a better look at the cushion.

No picture of all of them in their whole glory in their new environment because I'm lazy, sorry, and want to enjoy breakfast with my loved ones before catching my train in four hours time.

I'll be back, promised!

Sign of Life

First things first, I survived the move and am slowly settling in. Second, and very bothersome, thing, we’re still without internet and phone. Grrrrr. So annoying. I am, however, on a short visit with my sister to celebrate her 25^th birthday until Sunday noon so can work a little on the blog, schedule a precious few posts, and catch up a little with your sewing lives. I'd love to hear from you and will answer any comments/mails before I'm off again. Third, I’m forced to experiment not only with the changed light settings 

of a basement flat - 4^thstorey before! – but a new, if old, camera, too. So please bear with me.

Here’s a “before” look at my corner of the “office”. It’s already been cleaned up a bit but not yet looking quite “after”.

I’m not actually sewing at the desk as I still prefer our dining table in the living room. Yep, this means I’ve been sewing! For one, I’ve basted all my hexies, thus, turning my box into a magical hexagon bon bon land. These stacked hexies will be made into 38 flowers!

Even more exciting, I’ve spent a good amount of time hand quilting the Viking baby quilt and finished it a day before the arrival of the little one was announced two weeks ago. It was a daunting enterprise at first, hand quilting that is, but I’m even more in love with this quilt because of the details now. Here’s a sneak peak, more to follow in a separate post.

Happy sewing!

Skirts on Sunday

Behold the final gift card skirt. Whoa, does it make me miss summer.

You guessed it, Burda 8176. Haha. Like last week's feature once more with a narrowed yoke and gathered rectangles for the body, yet shorter and with a black satin bias tape finish. Not that I'd planned that.

Yoke and French seams.

 

I spruced up this skirt by shifting the hidden zipper from the side to the back and adding a cute button closure. The button has tiny laser-cut flowers on it.

The zipper turned out really well on this one.

As for the unplanned bias tape finish - I'd left my skirt unhemmed on my sewing desk for a bit and made the mistake of cutting something else on top of it. I can't recall what. Suffice it to say that I managed to cut into my skirt several centimetres above the intended hemline. 'Twas only a teeny tiny whole but even that is too much. Silly silly me. How could I have been so careless?

Anyway. Let's move on. I realised that cutting above the hole and then turning under the hem would make the skirt too short for my liking. Instead I only chopped off a a bit and fixed the hem with bias tape which oth covered the hole and kept my hem at a nice length.

The fabric is extremely lightweight and oh so wonderful on the hottest days of summer. Yep, love this one.

Happy sewing!

Skirts on Sunday

Let me show you the second gift card skirt in a quick post.

You've seen the fabric before, namely here. I love this floral. Tons. It's not even an exaggeration.

For this skirt I used the yoke of Burda 8176. Are you tired of me, yet, tweaking the same old pattern again and again? Blogging my old skirts has made me aware of how often I've returned to it, if only parts. Not that I'm ashamed. It's great to have a fitting but blank model to alter again and again.

For this skirt I narrowed the yoke by a few centimetres. Instead of using the pattern's skirt panel I gathered the top of simple yet wide rectangles to the yoke. Extra volume!

The hem is simple but I stitched several parallel lines for a structured look.

Happy sewing!