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!

Comments

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…

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…

Vogue 1350: fitting and adjustments

I had another post prepared, but I thought I'd write this up now, even without pictures - before I forget what I did. :) I recently made Vogue 1350, if you follow me on instagram (@auxetically) you will have seen construction photos. This is a Rachel Comey pattern - I really like these patterns, they all turn out very well for me! Here is the line drawing for reference:

Despite the line drawing, this pattern is supposed to have a raised waist. I was very pleasantly surprised to see petite lines on the pattern sheet (yay). Here's my finished dress on the dress form:

I made a muslin of the bodice only, in size 14 - my measurements take me between 14 and 16 on a Vogue, but I had the pattern version with the 12-14, so 14 it was. Measurement wise, this dress was spot on - I had to make extra adjustments where I would have needed the bigger pattern size.

The petite line removed 1" out of the bodice, and 1" out of the skirt. I sewed the bodice muslin with the petite marking…

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