Two more Dear Jane blocks down, here's C-7 (left) and C-6 (right) C-6 went pretty smoothly , no big issues with the curves. C-7 was a pain though. Those tiny little side triangles were almost unmanageable. I can see why people paper-piece them but I just can't bring myself to, I like hand stitching all these little guys. 

I'm also doing a little "quick challenge" for myself. I found these three fabrics at the thrift store the other day, and just thought they worked so nicely together (maybe only in my head? I like obnoxious color combinations) So I challenged myself to whip up a shirt using all three. 

Getting some pieces cut.

I'm going for a blobby western shirt sort of look? Digging the curvy yoke so far. Should be able to finish it in a day or two. 

Quilting and Cutting

So the plaid shirting log cabin quilt is finished and back on our bed. And while I'm not super excited by it, it's a whole lot better than the ripped, threadbare comforter that it's covering. Doesn't exactly go with my t-shirt quilt or our sheets, but  I don't really care. 

The quilting on it, I will fully admit, is downright boring and pretty lazy. But we don't have another large blanket, and it's still chilly at night, so the goal was just to get it done as quickly as possible. It's all hand-quilted, I haven't gotten the hang of feeding big chunks of fabric through my machine, and I'm pretty darn fast at hand sewing by this point. 

I'm continuing to cut braid pieces out of my hand-dyed silks and my grey wools. The silks I'm separating by "lights," "mediums" and "darks." Just the "darks" left to go, but I think I may go back and try to dye just a few more shades of blue. We'll see. 

From those braids, I've got lots of tiny little scraps. If there's one thing you've learn about me from reading this blog, it's that I keep every little scrap from my projects. These guys are moving forward to help me patch up the cape I found a few weeks back, which has a bit of damage on the lining. 

I'm just sort of crazy quilting them together than appliqueing them on. I usually don't bother with this sort of thing on my own clothing, but it's a really gorgeous garment anyway, and I think this gives it some more meaning.

Quiet Work

I haven't updated in a while--though I have been working on things. They're just mostly not-that-exciting to photograph things so I've been dragging my feet a little.

On the quilting front, I finally got tired of looking at the courthouse steps log cabin quilt I'd started. It was a little too small to cover the ratty old comforter I wanted to use it for, and I didn't want to make any more log cabin blocks. So last week I finally sat down and just used up all the left-over strips to make a quick border.

Also a thin gold border to match the centers and some gold corners because I was running out of strips. I'm laying it out here to baste it down onto the old comforter and a sheet for backing.

The quilting is nothing fancy, just some straight lines by hand. I just want to get it back on the bed as soon as I can. It's about 3/4 finished at the moment.

On the Dear Jane front, I finally ordered more fabric. I was limping along with little scraps by the time I finished Row B. Now I've got 48 fat quarters in all sorts of lovely colors.

Here's Row C, 1-4. C-4 was incredibly fiddly, and I actually had to start B-2 (the purple and orange one) over again, the first one's diamond center got all skewed.

And C-5, which was quite a process, but which actually came out really well, I think.

With the braid quilt, I've been dying absolute masses of silk. I think at this point I have way more fabric than I need to make the coat, but I just keep dying more to get more color variations. I'm shooting for 'ocean' colors, and I think the braids will be gradated from light to dark.

Right now I've ironed and am cutting the little quadrilateral shapes out of the lighter colors. I still need a few more mid/deep tones so I am holding off on those.

Bags of quadrilaterals! One is for the right side of the braid, the other is for the left. I'm trying to keep the amounts pretty even.

Collar Wings

I've always wanted a shirt with little wings for a collar, and I've been surreptitiously trying out different patterns to try and achieve this. My last attempt, I'm happy to say, was a success.

A lot of my other attempts didn't work because I tried to make the wings out of a single piece of fabric, and it was just too many curves, no matter how much I clipped and notched it never wanted to press flat nicely. This time around I made all the little feathers separately and attached them to the main 'wing' part. There's also a little burst of feathers at the center back.

I did run into a little issue. The fabric I used was very tightly woven, and it showed pin marks very obviously, plus I had to get a really accurate edge. I used freezer paper ironed to the fabric to both cut the pattern, then to fold back the edge, like I'm doing freezer paper applique. And *then* I basted that edge.

The wing was turned, the feathers place in a position and then also basted--lots of basting! Then topstitched around the the whole thing. I forgot to take a picture of joining it to the collar stand, but it's only actually attached at the two wing 'shoulders' and the middle back. In the 'dips' it is unattached to the collar stand--it actually lets it sit pretty nicely.

After that fiddly collar the rest of the shirt was pretty simple, just a loose sleeveless shirt based off of one I already own. Bias tape arm holes and bottom hem and two little pockets. The fabric (both of them actually) are thrift store finds, like most of the stuff I work with.

Oof this might be the least flattering picture of me I've ever taken. But you can see the bottom hem, which is curved, sort of like those 70's track shorts, and longer at the back.

Better up-close shot of the collar. Found some great real shell buttons, I like the color of them against the fabric.

I've been on a bit of a roll lately making clothing for myself, I've also hemmed up some shorts from worn out pants. But I'm also finishing up my plaid log cabin quilt, and still searching for fabric for my braid-coat.