Becka’s Project Journal

Here it is.  I finally have time to show it off!  I want to take you on a virtual tour of the parts of the book I contributed to.  How did I get involved?  The editors are friends.  Crafty Planet (which Trish & Matt own) is so close I can walk there from home.  I knew as soon as I heard about the book that I had to submit some designs.  Thanks to Trish, Matt & Rebecca for the encouragement.  I am thrilled to pieces with the result.

Let’s start with the Laptop Sleeve.  I have one just like this that I carry my laptop around in all the time.  I love it.  I don’t need another bag to carry, I already lug around a tote bag with my lunch and knitting, so this sleeve just slips right in my tote bag. I also made myself a little coordinating zipper bag that I carry around my power cord, LCD adaptor, thumb drive and all those other little gizmos in.  This pattern starts with your laptop’s measurements so you can make it to fit almost anything.  I am pretty sure you could even make a baby one for your iPhone.

That’s on page 100.

Then if you flip to page 238, you see my Cuddly Bear Cushion.

This one is totally designed for my sister Beth.  She is a collector of fetish bears and I had that shape in mind rather than a “teddy bear”.  I think this would be great for long car trips.  Use it as a pillow, use it as a lap desk, pretend to snuffle your brother with it.  Perfect!  Mine is made from corduroy, which is one of my favorite fabrics.  I also made up a prototype with some sunflower print upholstery fabric that is pretty cute too.  That one sits on the shelf in my sewing room and supervises.

My bio is on page 284.  They are organized alphabetically by first name.

Finally, you can look me up in the index if you want to.  I am right before ribbons.

And when you close the book, you might see something familiar on the back cover.

I promise to blog more about some other projects in the book – I do have some favorites and I will post pictures as I try them out.  What’s my favorite part of the book?  I love that it is all the basics in one place.  Although I am perfectly capable of doing it, I don’t want to invent a pattern for a bib or an oven mitt or a cute organizer when I just want to sit down and sew.  I love that I can pull out some fabric and just pick something to make.  As a beginning sewing teacher, I love that it is a whole book of practical projects made with affordable materials.

Symphony No 5 in C Minor (Chickadee)

2009

8 x 8 inches

Spoonflower, my favorite digital fabric printing company, is having a competition.  The rules were pretty simple – design a fabric with fish, and using just 4 specific colors.  “Paisley Fish” above is my entry.  Voting started this morning and you have until Tuesday to choose your favorites.

Go vote!

Of course I want you to vote for my design, but even if you don’t, it is a lot of fun to look at all the entries and how many different things that people came up with.

I had an interesting weekend.  Friday afternoon I taught two sessions at the state Art Educators conference.  Great fun.  There were very few hands-on sessions, so mine were pretty popular.  I taught kumihimo (japanese 8 stranded braids) and shisha embroidery (Indian mirror embroidery).

Saturday was the book launch party at Crafty Planet for One Yard Wonders.  It was crazy busy and several people had me sign their book.  What a trip!  I had a good time chatting and meeting the other contributors.  (Hi ladies!)  The book is really popular.  The publicist told me it was #1 on Amazon’s sewing book section last week.  Crafty Planet sold out and I am pretty sure we are sold out at the Textile Center right now.

Sunday was a Steely Dan concert.  I went because Andy is a fan and although I don’t know their music very well, I like it.  The sad part is that their sound mix was a bit off and all we could hear was the bass and the brass.  All of the middle range was really muddled, which meant I couldn’t understand a single word anyone was singing.  This isn’t a disaster, but being one of the only people in the audience who didn’t know all the words to anything, it made for a less than stellar experience.

We are having a lot of fun with the halloween photo.  Thanks for all the comments!  For the costume geeks out there, I thought I would talk a little about how I made mine.

The fabric is polyester faux suede.  It had the advantage of being a little bit warm (it is MN after all).  I wanted double knit, but it didn’t come in the color I wanted, so this was better.

I started with Simplicity 4675.  The original uniforms had dolman sleeves and strange curved seams.  I am not that in to authenticity.

I wanted a basic princess seam because I knew that would look nice and
fit well.  This pattern had a princess seam and a pleated skirt, so it was a good basic place to start.

What did I change?

- added long sleeves.  The photos from the series always show them “bracelet length” aka just a bit too short.

- Instead of two large pleats like the pattern called for I just made one and lined it up with the seam from the top.  Faux wrap skirt.

- Shortened the skirt.  Also not so authentic as mine is too long.  Original Series length is not really appropriate to wear to work.  And I did wear it to work.

- For the back, I just extended the top down and made the top and skirt all one piece.

- Neckline.  I made the pattern neckline to start, tried it on, drew in the new neckline with a disappearing ink marker and cut the new shape.

- Collar.  A 4 inch wide piece of the same fabric in black, folded over twice. added gold ric-rac and an insignia made with a scrap of gold satin and some zig-zag stitching

(For anyone who noticed that this post was here and then disappeared and then here again, my darling hubby accidentally deleted my first post.)