Ms. Morris and the Quilted Sleeve

So I moved to the San Francisco area back in November and no lie, the temperature has changed by at most 10 degrees that entire time. My body still thinks its sometime in February. My wardrobe made for Boston and then Los Angeles weather, either hot or really, really cold is just not cutting it. I need a max 75 degrees and windy as f--- wardrobe.

Enter my new Morris from my pattern soulmate Grainline. Ms. Morris is perfect, I can throw her over my large collection of sleeveless blouses and wear them to work and through the wind tunnel that is San Francisco. The fabric is an amazing merino wool, nylon, lycra blend from my fabric store soulmate, The Fabric Store. This fabric is probably stretchier than what Jen recommends, but the nylon and lycra content give the fabric an amazing recovery and there has been absolutely no bagging whatsoever. I interfaced the facings, but not any of the body.

The pattern went together beautifully, minus some changes that were completely my fault. I did a combination FBA and general lengthening and even though I thought I transferred all changes to the facing, I did not and didn't have enough fabric to recut them. I then removed the added length from the front, so the general shape of the hem is not as angular as the original pattern.

My favorite part of this blazer is the double layered and quilted sleeves! I love them! (they are also the reason I didn't have enough fabric to recut the facings) The wrong side of the fabric is kind of nubby so it needed to be lined in some way and quilting them like this was by far the most badass. I used quilting adhesive to keep the sleeves together and my walking foot so that everything would be nice and smooth. Love that walking foot. The only problem is that the sleeves are now a bit too heavy for the jacket so I used some black twill tape on the shoulders to keep the sleeves from pulling them down.

If I could change something about this blazer, I would probably line the fronts instead of facing them. When the SF winds blow my jacket open and then catch the facings, this literally turns into a parachute. Also the added weight of a lining would hold the sleeves up better.

Quilt #4

Quilt #4 is done. Jesus, it went faster than that last behemoth of 1000 pieces. This would have been a better a third project, but I'm a cocky little garment sewer and have no time to worry about silly little things like difficulty ratings. I've sewn silk, bitch!

The pattern is Hanami from quilty, Winter 2012. I wanted something that would feature the large patters and the pattern also worked perfectly with the amount of fabric I bought. The patterned fabric is Lizzy House Constellations and the solids are Kona cotton. Comparing these fabrics to the fabrics from the last quilt (which were all random Joann tone-on-tone prints), the quality is totally noticeable. Feels better, doesn't burn, you know, quality-ness.

I bought the fabric on a whim from Grey's back when I permanently lived in Bostontown, but have since realized that it isn't my style. I decided once I pieced the front that this is going to a children's charity so I quilted the living crap out of this puppy for longevity. This was the first time quilting with my walking foot (and after starching it, starch smells gooood) and it was amazing. It went so so so smoothly. Go buy a walking foot if you don't have one, they are worth their wait in gold and on top of that, just plain fun to watch! Next time I want to try out basting spray as well, but I'm not terribly comfortable adding chemicals to the world so it would have to be amazing.

The binding is also machine sewn on but from the control the walking foot gives, you can't see the stitches. Also, my corners are damn sharp! I am already feeling my preferences for various quilting methods and I like 2.25" binding whereas this is 2.5". I used bias binding because its stronger and I want it to last, but I also really wanted to try out the method for making continuous bias binding. It was a blast! And pretty easy, although I drew the cutting lines on wrong at first, whoopsie. Easily fixed!

All corners met pretty well and I had to press seams open because of all that white fabric. Pressing open made my garment sewing heart happy. You might notice the fabric framing the light blue, constellation fabric is uneven. I didn't have enough fabric to make those blocks as large as they were supposed to be and I didn't want to make them smaller because the fabric is so doggone-it-stinking cute, so I just adjusted the border to compensate.

I hope someone will enjoy this!

Quilt #3

I made my first quilt when I was about 10 and quiltmaking spread like wildfire through our sewing classes. After that I had no desire to quilt ever again. It was kinda like the time I got it into my head I wanted to make a teddy bear. I ended up gluing his arms and legs on. Over it.

Then while persuing the magazine rack I saw quilty, specifically quilty winter 2012, specifically the quilt 'Burgoyne, with Red', and I was mesmerized. Seriously, quilts are beautiful pieces of art, decorating your life AND keep you warm. I'm now completely hooked! I have every quilty since that issue and a few other magazines, follow quilting blogs, am starting quite a collection of quilting notions, and even bought a quilting class on craftsy. Bring it on, baby!

Quilt #1 was that little thing I made when I was 10. Quilt #2 was a wall hanging I made for my amazing in-laws last Christmas which was more of an appliqued horse and quilted landscape picture. Quilt #3 is the first proper quilt, piecing, backing, and binding.

The pattern is 'Hello, Handsome' by Nancy Downey from quilty, March 2014 and might have been a bit ambitious for my first proper quilt, but hell, it turned out ok. The second, nay, the MILLISECOND after I quilted it I ordered a walking foot because quilting it was hell.

  

That's the only picture of the back you get because the quilting blows. I added some extra blocks to the back, I'm not sure if I like the effect.

 I've already learned a lot about quilting so despite my incredible lack of quilting acumen, most of my points lined up! There were only about 3 majors misalignments. I decided to do stitch-in-the-ditch quilting because piecing is so pretty that I worry that putting thread all over it will mess it up. I need to get over that fear fast!

I ended up giving this to a person who did me a huge favor for me, but I'm going to make it again because I love it so much. And here I swear: every point will line up and I will be more adventurous in quilting.