A long-awaited present!

Once again, I must apologize for my tardiness in keeping up my blog. But I think most of you will understand once you know what has been going on at my house. My husband and I have always loved our home and the area that we live in. The biggest complaint that I've had is that I wish I had more storage and a larger sewing room. Well - we are in the process of fixing that! Earlier this month, we started the construction of my new sewing room!

 

To prepare for this addition, I've had to dig up and/or transplant all of my flowers and plants around the back side of our house. Since our initial starting date was the last two weeks of September, I chose to do this during the "coolest" days I could find in July & August.

 

I've spent many hours watching and learning from the men working on our new room. I did warn them up front that I'm curious and ask lots of questions! We have a great contractor and crew foreman because they make sure that I understand the answers to my questions. Since we have narrow side yards on both sides of our house, I wondered how they were going to get the concrete to the back yard. The answer? A "Georgia Buggy"!

 

More pictures and details to come soon!

My husband's toy box!

Several years ago when my in-laws were down-sizing, my mother-in-law JoAnn gave me the toybox that my husband used as a child.  It wasn't anything to look at, but I'm a sucker for sentimental value! It was his and that made it special! It was covered in a white plastic that reminded me of the plastic diaper covers from when I was a baby.  It also had fake plastic/rubber piping around the rim of the lid.  To say the least, it was nothing to look at, but it had great bones.

For along time, it was stored in our attic, but for the past several years it has been used for storage in my very cramped sewing room.  I have always wanted to recover it, but it just hasn't been high up on my list of things to do. However, I found the fabric that I wanted to recover it in and I have been itching to get it done. So this week, my partner-in-crime (my sister Mary Jo) and I got it done! It still has a home in my sewing room since it stores my personal sewing patterns and books.  It is just so much prettier to look at now!

Patriotic Kitty!

As a lot of you know, I run my business from my home.  With as much fabric and merchandise as I have, I have had to be VERY creative at finding storage locations for it all - while still retaining the look of a home! I am in the process of sorting, clearing out, and making more space and I ran across an "unfinished object" (UFO).  I don't have many UFOs and I decided it was time to finish this one.

Several years ago, I had created a patriotic quilt top using a variation of the Yellow Brick Road pattern; I even had it quilted! But back when I made this, I had NOT WISED UP and learned to pay my quilters to put the binding on for me! All this UFO lacks is its binding!  This morning, I laid it out in the middle of my great room floor to measure for binding. By the time I went to my sewing room to get my tape measure and got back to the great room, this is what I found!  Any time I put something in the middle of the floor to look at it, Ella thinks that it is hers and gets in the middle of it!

Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

Suzanne

Sale!

I had a question from a customer this week that got me to thinking!  She asked me why I never "ran a sale" even though she has purchased sale items from me at the Martha Pullen School.  It's because behind-the-scenes software changes are required for this to happen.  I can change a price on an item, but it will not be flagged as "on sale".

So here's what I've done.  For a limited time, I have changed the price on several of my appliques from $12 to $6.  I hope you enjoy the treat! Happy Shopping!

Looking Forward to Sunny Days!

I can't wait for Spring to arrive so that we can have more sun-filled days! I am definitely a "solar-powered person"! Last week during our 4+ days of gray sky and rain, I brought the sunshine and Springtime inside by working on this fun little dress for a class I'm teaching at Thimbles in Hoover, AL. I started with the Jacqueline pattern by The Children's Corner; I modified it to have a 3" wide band at the bottom of the skirt. I chose to use a combination of Lilac and Apple Green Pique from Fabric Finders and made my piping from Fabric Finder's Black and White Striped Pique.  I attached a Black and White checked ribbon directly above the hemband seam.  I then appliqued a set of my Bright Lime Green Gingham Delilah the Daisy flowers on the front of the dress.  To continue with the Black and White accents, I stacked Black buttons on top of White buttons and used them on the center of the yoke and down the dress back.

Upcoming Classes at Martha Pullen School of Art Fashion

During the February 2012 Martha Pullen School, I will be teaching two pre-day classes.  On Monday, I will be teaching "Fitzgerald the Food-Fighter" bib class.  As with all of my applique classes, I teach the applique techniques in the first part of the class and then we work on a "real" project.  In the techniques portion of the class, I have a practice kit that the students will work with to help them learn how to turn corners and go around curves. During the afternoon session, the students will applique "Fitzgerald the Puppy" to the bib.  They should be ready to attach the bias binding by the end of class.  If you've ever been to a Martha Pullen School, you know that in most classes you leave with an unfinished object.  In my classes, my goal is for you to finish or be almost finished when you leave!

My second class is a two-day class in which we will be making this "Red-Hot Roosters" outfit.  I am very excited because this is the first time that I have gotten to teach garment construction as part of my project!  On Tuesday morning, I will once again teach my appplique techniques to the students.  If I have any repeating students from previous classes, it allows them to have a refresher course!

Tuesday afternoon, the students will cut out their pants and applique "Bernard the Rooster" to the left pants leg.  On Wednesday, we will start out the morning altering the Sew Beautiful Wrap Dress pattern to eliminate the button closure and add the drawstring waistband.  By the end of Wednesday's class, the students should be complete with both the pants and top!

  

Ollie the Ornament Dress - Part 2

In my last blog, I covered how I did the front of my Ollie the Ornament dress.  Today, I’m going to show you how I did the back of the dress.  Remember, I chose a pattern that buttoned down the back.

• On a large piece of paper, draw a left back and a right back using the original pattern piece.  I used my ruler to draw the straight edges and short dashed lines to draw the curves.
• Draw the seam allowances (long, black dashed lines) and the center back (solid, blue lines) lines on both pattern pieces.

I wanted the curve on the front of the dress to be the same curve I used on the back of the dress.  The back curve goes in the opposite direction so that it is a mirror image on the backside and matches at the right side seam.

• On each of the back pattern pieces, match the front pattern piece’s center front line to the center back line and transfer the curve to each of the halves.  This is the dashed red line shown in the pictures.

At this point, I always debate with myself which side are the buttonholes supposed to be on?  I remember hearing “Girls are right, boys are wrong”, but I’ve seen it both ways! I put my buttonholes on the right half of the back jumper. 

• To make them easier to work with, cut the paper in half so that each pattern piece is on a separate sheet of paper. 
• Overlap the two back pattern pieces with the right pattern piece on top of the left pattern piece.  Match up the center back lines, bottom, and neck edges.  Temporarily tape the two halves together.
• When you do this, you will notice that the two curves do NOT match at the center back.  Tweak the overlapping curve on the right pattern piece so that it will match the left side’s curve.  This is the dashed green line shown in the pictures.

I used this same technique for the right side seam.  As you can see in the picture, it took me three tries before I got a curve that I liked.  The upper red curve would have worked, but I wanted to make it easier to add piping between the layers.  The blue curve is the one that I will use.

• Once satisfied with all of the curved lines, cut the upper half of each of the pattern pieces away from the bottom half. To make sure that I laid out/cut out the pattern correctly, I labeled both the upper and lower halves of both of the pattern pieces to indicate the right side of the fabric.
• Along the curved edge of all four pattern pieces, I made a note to add the seam allowance when cutting out the fabric. Please, don't forget to do this - otherwise, your halves won't fit together properly.

Remember that you can click on each picture to see a larger image!  I hope that you have found this helpful.  If you have any questions, please send me an email!