February Love Sewing

NATOSHA, DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE GOTTEN THE SHIRTS!

Hi Stashbusters,
Sorry about the large notice but I don't want to bias my recipient until she has had a chance to wear the stuff herself.
This is definitely cake sewing and it wasn't for me so the photos don't look too terrific. We all need some good basics and no one needs them more than a young mother of five. My good friend Natosha, picked up this fabric at Wally world for a $1. a yard and told me to make stuff.

I loved the color of the red and started in with some basic long sleeve shirts. One was supposed to be for me and one for her. To keep the sewing interesting I made one raglan sleeve and one a set in sleeve.  I should have paid attention but the lure of the sewing kept me from properly evaluating my fabric. This knit has almost NO stretch. So they are a tad too small for me. I guess she'll just get two shirts to wear around the house. Anything else I make with this fabric will be treated as a woven and maybe I'll get results I am more satisfied with.

On to better and brighter things, the white knit she purchased did stretch well and has a lovely cream stripe going on! I love tone on tone prints!! She didn't want a white top for five small reasons but she did like the white and blue fabric together. When we decided to make her a cowl neck top, I knew what to do with the white!

Isn't it pretty fabric. It's actually two thin layers attached with tons of tiny threads.
So soft and squishy! Anyone know what it's called?

I curved the ends because I could. I wanted it to be a dual purpose tank top and double as a nightshirt if needed. While we are both tall, seeing it on the dress form makes me wonder if I cut it excessively long....

Now for a few numbers:
February Stash Goals: 7 garments planned, 3 accomplished, 4 left.

Stashbusting Year Goal: 27 garments planned, 3 accomplished, 24 left.

How's your February Stashbusting going? Have you ever ignored the warnings fabric gave and had it tell in the garment results?

It's raining tiny snowballs here. All three animals were in the box together
but got shy when we caught them snuggling out our window.

February Stash Busting Plans!

ALERT!! Stashbuster Kat is hosting a Swap Your Stash party during February! Head on over to get the details and join in if you want!

It's my week to talk about Love and Stashbusting and boy do I have a list! Anyone else finding the sewalong providing focus and keeping you sewing? It is for me. Since our focus is sewing for others, these are the projects that jumped to the front of my sewing queue.

My Mom is now buying fabric for me at second hand stores and I gladly admit, for not knowing much about fabric, she does pick some good stuff. This grey has been in my stash for a couple of months. I'm going to try my hand at drafting a long sleeve shirt for my Dad, (his request) and hope there's a bit left over for something warm and cozy for me.

This fresh and lovely stripe also caught my Mom's eye the same time she found the grey. When she mentioned she was sad her one long sleeve tee shirt was wearing out in casual conversation the other day another "Feb Love" piece was born.

This green piece has been in my stash for AGES, one of the first pieces I was ever given and I didn't even know what kind of fabric it was. I now know it is a beautiful mid-weight knit. One of my best friends from college was bemoaning the lack of cute dresses for her figure and I promised to make her one... last year. When I ran across this super cute pattern while working I knew it would be perfect. She looks great in drop waisted dresses or things with straight lines, basically anything that doesn't emphasize her natural waist. Since she lives in Michigan, I figure a knit is a great way to skip over any fitting issues that may arise due to distance.

Lastly, I have a confession. Right about the time Cation and I were planning the sewalong or right after we started? I was "given" about  21 yards of knit fabric... I say "given" because technically the fabric isn't mine even though I will get to make myself some pieces from it. I told my good friend who lives here that my Christmas gift to her was going to be a Tiramisu. She found a bunch of fabric on sale and said, "Here! Make us stuff!"

Since she just had a baby and things are fluctuating quite a bit right now we decided to hold off on the Tira so we can get a better fit. But she fell in love with my cowl neck bird top, declaring it to be a perfect nursing top so I'm going to make her one of those and a tank top to go with it. I'm also going to throw together a couple long sleeve tees.

That gives me a total of 7 "Feb Love" projects. All are knits so I think I should be able to get them all done. I'm going to go ahead and count them toward my personal stashbusting goal of 27 garments since most of them were already on my "to make" list. 

What do you think? Did I already fail on the stashbusting? I'm hoping to get them made up and out pretty quickly but that's a lot of yardage to work through.

How about you? What are your plans for February? Are you going to enter the LOVE CHALLENGE or just focus on accomplishing your personal goals? Either way I hope to see all your lovely creations in the flickr pool and around the blogosphere!

Finished Quilt!

There's nothing like accomplishing a big project to lift the feelings of overwhelming depressingness that have surrounded you for a week. I'd like to introduce you to my brother's Christmas quilt!

Tumbling Blocks

Sorry for the crummy pictures, the lighting was bad and we were both giggling in delight at the finished product! He refused to put it on his bed until I used 12 sheets of lint roller on it.

The happy hero

He chose the colors and pattern. I watched a youtube video, said a few prayers and 3 months later we have a finished quilt. 

Even though it "stinks like you" (apparently I smell like old lady fabric) he couldn't wait to put it on his bed. That's it for me this week, so here's a good night from one giddy girl to you!

A Bird Explosion

During the after Christmas break I took some time to finish and make myself up a few new pieces for the new year. In my continuing saga of replacing my ready to wear shirts I whipped up this super soft bird print. I must admit I bought it online and didn't comprehend the part of the description that said, "light green background". It looked white in the pictures so it was quite a shock when I opened the box and my white looked yellowish. But I loved the print so I persevered and made the shirt. Once I had it on with my finally finished brown tank top and brown pants, I was in love. 

 It demanded to be made into a cowl top as I had it laid out ready to be cut. I found a quick and easy solution that only involved some wire and a pen. If you are interested in knowing how, let me know in the comments and I'll whip up a tutorial since I have to make another one for February's Stashbusting.

Up close and personal, this fabric really drapes well.

When I came upstairs wearing this outfit my Mom remarked how skinny I looked. I told her it was because: 1. I was wearing clothes that fit me in the depths of winter when I'm usually bundled up and 2. it was because my pants hit me at about the smallest part of my waist, so guess where the eye is drawn!

Love creating optical illusions with what I wear. Long torso or tiny waist? Which do you prefer?

Do you try to create optical illusions when you dress? How do you incorporate prints into your dressing? My family thinks this shirt is pretty wild and I will agree it is a "less is more" shirt. It works great with the new wardrobe I am trying to build and when I throw my brown fuzzy vest over it I feel ready to go!

Stashbusters Notice

Hey Stashbusters,
  Our February theme is on love. Go watch this video right now. Even the smallest acts of love make an impact.

Your Momma's Bandaids

Hi Guys,
  I got sick with a nasty sinus head cold over the weekend and it messed up all my amazing sewing plans! I spent most of my time grumpily trawling the sewing blogs, angry that they got to make stuff while I could barely muster the energy to get out of bed.

In one of my brief bouts of moving around I decided to cut out some of my February projects in white fabric as soon as I changed the blade in my rotary cutter. Yeah, I should have stayed in bed. On the plus side I found a new use for our itty bitty scraps.

How was your weekend? Do you think we can convert the bandaid industry to using our castoff fabric scraps?

February Stashbusting!

It's February my friends!! The first month of 2013 is over and what a month it has been! Before I show you all the amazing makes of January scraps I want to talk about what we are doing for February.

Pinsource

It's a Challenge Month!! What's a Challenge Month, you ask? Well, any month that says CHALLENGE means that if you sew along with our theme, you can enter your finished project in a contest! We'll all vote on our favorite makes and you'll get bragging rights and a tiny but AMAZING prize.  So without more ado,

February's LOVE CHALLENGE!!!

 Challenge Details:

• Since February is the month of LOVE that's our theme and focus of the challenge. Making things for those you love.
• Near the end of February, Cation will be hosting another link party for your projects, then all stashbusters can vote for their favorites! We'll announce the top five voter favorites, and pick the winner from them the first week of March.  

Challenge Rules:

• Item must be made for someone else, preferably someone you care about and not some random stranger or inanimate object. Pets also count.
• Item must be made primarily from stash fabrics, you are allowed to buy notions, if needed.

To Enter:

• Item must be entered in the link party by February 28th. 
• Leave a description of why this item is so perfect for the one you love.

February Pinspiration full of inspiring mushyness. 

 Our Flickr group, please continue posting All stashbusting projects here, including your challenge photos because it is so inspiring to see all your creativity.

Speaking of inspiration, look at some of the amazingness that happened in January!

beautiful quilts were a popular choice

AMazing Shorts

Ferocious Stashbuster here!

Some of the cutest pjs ever seen!

The prison bra!

Lovely print into sewing machine cover.

Pouches were popular too.

Guys, there were so many amazing projects and this is only a taste! Go check out the rest of the makes at the Flickr pool and Cation's link party. There are still two days left to join in so everyone can see what you have been up to. I didn't even include any of the amazing stash pictures. (they'll either make you feel guilty or relieved at your fabric.)

Thanks for participating with such enthusiasm in January. I can't wait to see what February brings us! Hello to all our newest stashbusters as well! It is never too late to take the pledge!

So who do you love enough to stashbust for?