Coleen Made a Jacket!

Coleen just finished a blue corduroy jacket- perfect for fall! Yes, it was cut out and started last September and then has just been slowly progressing, but she is finally finished and I have a feeling it will see lots of wear this spring. Unfortunately, with having it on the table for so long -she has sprouted up and is now two sizes bigger - thankfully, I think we made it a little on the big side so I think it will work through spring. I just am not sure it will make it all of the way to next fall...

Details:

The pattern is from the Spring 2006 issue of Ottobre Design. Sizing 128-170 cm. She made a size 134. She had originally intended to make this from some light blue corduroy, but then we decided that it was too lightweight and we should find another piece of fabric... well, it was my stash to the rescue. I had this piece of dark blue corduroy that was a better weight for a jacket just languishing in the back of my cupboard and there was just enough of it! And when I say just enough - I mean that a couple of the pieces have selvedge seam allowances and the pocket flap facings are cut in the wrong direction!

I think the jacket went together smoothly for the most part. I would help her with pinning (and in fact the one big error was mine - I pinned one of the sleeves in so that the top of the sleeve was lined up with the front princess seam instead of the shoulder seam - oops! Easily resewable and since it was my mistake - I even ripped the seams out for her.) She had a little trouble keeping the top stitching straight, which I think had to do with the corduroy tending to want to shift in the machine.

We really liked all of the details on this jacket and Coleen found some great buttons- again in my stash- silver with some Celtic knotwork stamped into them.

She was thinking on moving onto an easier project, like pajamas next, but I just happened to have a pair of pants cut out for her and so she has already started on those.

They're Done!

I was able to finish up the curtains last weekend and we managed to get them all hung by Saturday night. What a difference it is to have nice curtains up. It makes it feel so much more like our house and less like an apartment we're renting.

The fabric for all of the curtains came from fabric.com.

Our bedroom

Coleen's bedroom. She has sheets with blue & green polka dots too!
The office. These are my favorite. I loved the fabric!



All of the curtains are lined with black out fabric. All hems were hand-stitched which gives a nice clean finish (albeit a slow one) to the outside of the curtains.

Next on the list: pants for me. And then we will start re-outfitting Coleen for spring. I realized yesterday when I took her measurements that she has shot up not one, but two sizes... no wonder all of her clothes seem small.

What I'm working on

Curtains!!!

For both bedrooms and the office... yes, all at the same time.

They are all simple tab tops and just the height of the windows (about 3.5 feet).

I think it might have felt like I was getting them done faster if I had done one set at a time... but now I am on the home stretch- just have to hand sew the linings to the curtains on the side edges. 4 curtains down... 6 to go.

Here I am at work on the curtains for Coleen's room

Chair slipcovers

Back in October, I was commissioned to make slipcovers for a chair and ottoman.

I had never done it before, but I like a challenge. So armed with a couple of books, I looked at the bolt of 15 yards of fabric and the chair and scratched my head.

I decided to start with the easy part - the ottoman!
After all it was simply a box that I needed to cover with a piece of fabric. My lesson from the beginning - do not overfit. I got the top to fit perfectly but did not give it enough room to fit over the sides- the result - it looked like an overstuffed sausage ( and you can't tell it to breathe in and hold it...). So it came apart again - luckily I had left really wide seam allowances on the top

Next came the T-cushion which went together pretty smoothly thanks to this book. I also marked all the straight sides of the cushion with a ruler before sewing on the welting cord. I did not do this with the ottoman and there are a couple of places where the straight lines are sort of bumpy.


Next came the actual chair. The book above suggests making a muslin pattern and then using it to cut your final fabric. I did not do this. Instead, I followed the advice in this book, which was to cut large rectangles of fabric and then fit them to the chair. I cut extra large rectangles because I also wanted to match the stripes and I did not want to take the time to figure out their placement ahead of time.



When I got to this part, I was more confident of what I was doing and it went together more quickly. This was definitely a project where my seam ripper was my friend, but I really learned alot.



By the way these are slipcovers. and totally removable. There is a zipper on the back of the chair. I think reupholstery might be a little easier - or at least have different challenges. Here I had to make sure to make it big enough for it to be removable. With upholstery, you would want it to fit exactly.


In the end, I was happy with how it turned out and so was my customer! Next time, it would definitely take me less time and probably less fabric. I would do it again. In fact, it gives me reason to go to yard sales - to see if I can find potential slipcover projects.

Happy New Year...Albeit a little late

and without much to say.

We are busy and healthy and I Hope to be back to blogging soon...

I do have lots of stuff to share. Just no time to share it.

Soon... though. There is light at the end of the tunnel

Happy Halloween

Yesterday we were able to finally carve our jack-o-lantern and then Coleen had lots of fun dressing up as Anne of Avonlea.

We were especially happy with how the jack o lantern turned out this year- though it was a real challenge to get it into the house to carve. William said it weighed at least eighty pounds!

Fall Colors

A lot of the trees here haven't even started turning- so it's hard to believe we've had snow showers twice already!

It wasn't snow that lingered, but somehow I think it might signal a long winter...

Here's hoping you are enjoying yourweekend!