Potholder Tutorial

I decided a few weeks ago I had complained about fabric scraps for long enough, so I got to work. First, I ordered some Insul-Bright from Amazon.

Then, I practiced last weekend before the DnD game, and I made a mitten:

This turned out somewhat OK (you will be able to tell this hasn't been pressed at all though), so I decided to go a step further and make a trivet.

Here's a tutorial for how to make it!

Items needed:

1 x 25cm x 25cm rectangle of insulated batting
2 x 25cm x 25cm fabric; I used scraps I had left over
thread
pins
bias tape
a 5cm tape

Method:

Step 1: Sandwich the batting between the two fabric pieces

Step 2: Pin

Step 3: Quilt. Now, a note about quilting: I found it extremely difficult to quilt. The problem was that even with an even feed foot the bottom fabric would gather. I had to unpick a lot to get to something that looked ok, and the way I ultimately did it was by pulling very tightly on each side of the sewing foot. In any case, it's difficult. Maybe I'm missing something (any ideas?)

Step 4: Once you have quilted the whole square, cut the corners and make the whole thing a circle. Then, attach the ribbon:

Step 5: Then, attach the bias tape: open the bias tape, and attach it to one side. Then, turn it over and attach it to the other side as well.

You're done!

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Birds dress

Just another sheath dress from me today, from my TNT pattern. This one is all about the fabric:

I got this bird fabric from Plush Addict, and it seems to have been the last fabric purchase pre-baby (Cosmo - Nihonkai - Budgies On Oxford Cloth if you are interested), so didn't cut into it for a long time. In May, after finishing my coat, I finally took the plunge.

The pattern, as I said, was my TNT sheath pattern, pretty simple. The biggest challenge with this dress was fabric placement, I didn't want any weird bird cuts at seams, nor did I want any other sort of weird placement.
As i had 2 meters of this fabric, I thought I should be able to get all that, so I spent a lot of time moving fabric pieces around, until I got it. I'm pretty happy with myself, the seams meld as much as possible, I'm particularly proud of the center back:

Construction wise, this dress has 6 darts and 5 seams, so it is all relatively straightforward. I stabilized the neckline and armholes with…

How to make silk bias binding

I promised this tutorial a while ago, but was too busy with work to get to it. This tutorial will focus on how to iron and fold the binding, rather than how to cut it. I have three links to good tutorials about how to do the correct cutting.

Here goes: a tutorial for properly making bias binding. Apologies for picture quality, I was using my phone.

Tools needed:
* silk square for the bias, sewing machine and scissors to make the continuous bias strip that will be ironed into place
* a 2-inch (5cm) wide piece of cardboard
* some sort of vaporiser, filled with water
* bias tape maker - for these pictures, I used a Clover which makes 1/2" binding (starts with 1" strips), but if I were to do this again, I'd use the one which makes a 1" binding (out of 2" strips)

Naming:
* left-side: bias strip not yet passed through the bias maker
* right-side: bias strip which has been folded by the bias maker

Steps:

1. Cut bias strips out of your silk square. I like this tutorial…

Burda Spring Coat - Construction

Here I am back with the promised post on construction of my Burdasyle Spring Coat

For me, this coat was all about the embellishments: I had had my eye on the pattern for a while, I like that it's very simple so it was perfect for embellishing. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll note that I haven't yet gone back to making a notched collar after messing this one up (that's less fear than not having enough time). I also liked the opportunity to forego closures, which meant more time to play with all the pretty things I used :)

So, construction. The fabric is wool gabardine, and the lininig is silk satin. I interfaced this using the lightweight fusible weft interfacing from FashionSewingSupply - I wasn't really sure what to use, but upon testing multiple interfacings, this was was the best on this fairly light-weight fabric. I mostly used my Singer Tailoring book, and followed the "fusible" method: this means interfacing the whole front, t…

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