2/22/2010

Back to sewing

by Heather on 2/22/2010

I just realized that I named this blog, Straight Stitches, and the only things I've been talking about is building furniture and shopping. There has been no talk or pictures of anything I've sewn. I figure this is about as good a time as any to show off what I've made for the house and for myself, especially since the fabric for the next outfit I want to make is sitting in my washer right now. :) Now it would help if I had a dress form....but since I don't you'll just have to imagine what some of these pieces would look like on a person.

I've made another jacket of this style out of a mettalic linen. Love this pattern.

This is a yoke-style skirt with pleats (not that you can seem them) but I forgot to buy enough fabric to lengthen the skirt. 25" is not long enough to reach my knees (where I like my skirts to fall) so I added a 2 1/2" lace trim to give me the added length.

Now I am not a small person....even if I weighed 50 lbs less I still would not be small. I am 6' 2" and have had 2 children. Up until they started making tall jeans that had an inseam of more than 34" my mother thought I liked wearing highwater jeans. Nope...I didn't like wearing them I just didn't have any other choice. Now to give you an idea...my waist to floor measurement is 48" exactly. My neck to waist measurement is 16 or 17"...I need to get new measurements on myself, but I have not made myself anything new to wear since before I was pregnant, but suffice to say that most store bought clothing does not fit me as well as it could. I love my jeans....but in order to get a shirt that is long enough to hide how short-waisted I am the shirt does not show off my waist at all, and I do have one....honest.

Clothing is not the only thing I make either. I started off with curtains and various other home dec projects, and like the blog title most home dec projects only involve straight stitches which makes it the perfect launch pad for beginners. My husband and I have lived in 5 different places and I have decorated 4 different houses 4 different ways. When we began living together I was very conservative and stuck to neutrals....and then one day I jumped off the bandwagon and painted our kitchen a lovely shade of chartreuse, added bamboo roman shades to add some flair to our very white kitchen. I thought it was lovely and played off of our black/white checkered floor...he hated it, and since then I have not painted another room a bright shade of green...till now, but more on that later.

In our 3rd place we were not allowed to paint...so I added color with fabric....unfortunately I was green enough that I picked what I wanted for each room completely ignoring the fact that the house had a semi-open floor plan and nothing really flowed.

Our 4th place, I learned a bit and it flowed well and I coordinated everything....except I was going through a modern phase....then I got over it and I began to wish for a more transitional/traditional look with a few ecclectic pieces thrown in....enter our first home.

We bought our first home in May, and it's the 5th house I've decorated and I'm having a blast doing it. We moved when I was 5 months pregnant, so I got out of the heavy lifting, but my husband works full time so I did most of the painting and all of the sewing, and let me tell you...my 5 - 8 month pregnant body did not like sitting for long stretches...so I enlisted the help of my grandmother to help me with some of my sewing. She made the 4 valances in my living and dining rooms. I got the kitchen valance done before we moved, and the rest of the valances were all done after we moved.

As you can see from some of the pictures...I've definitely moved out of the safe neutrals mindset. My house is done in warm jewel tones. It's bright when I need it to be and dramatic when the lights are dim. Most of my colors are named after foods as well....which works, because I love food. Eating it and cooking it....and I wanted colors that evoked warm, just ate a tummy-full of goodness feeling.

I do ask my husband for his input, but 1) he's color blind and 2) as long as I don't make him go broke (direct quote) he doesn't much care what I do. This is annoying....not because he usually likes what I do but the fact that he has very little to offer in the way of ideas and such. I usually end up consulting my mom and Bet...then I'll talk to my girlfriends...then I'll go back to my Mom and then it's off to the store we go.

Sometimes it's easier/cheaper for me to buy curtains from the store....my favorite are the sailcloth curtains from Target. They're sold in pairs and are about $10, which is cheaper than I can make them for, but they're boring. Every last one of them. For Harrison's nursery, I altered tan curtains by added a ruffled edge of leopard print fabric and then hiding my stitching with tangerine ric rac. Perfect for the safari theme in his room. Dev's curtains were not altered, but they are/were (before the sun got to them) a brillant red, and he picked key lime green and sky blue for his room, so the red really pops.

I also altered these chocolate panels to accomodate the transom window above our sliding glass doors in the kitchen. I added some dressmaker details to them. I had some voile from my mom and saved gimp and beaded trim from past valances so I decided to use them. I cut the curtains a 1/2" below the header seam. Then I cut my voile so that it was double the width that I needed and gathered both sides and stitched it to the two peices of the curtain I had. I did not bother to finish the side seams of the voile. I just ran my serger down it. After I stitched down the seam allowance I glued my beaded trim over the bottom seam and then over that I glued the gimp down. Usually I would have stitched the trims down, but I had previously used these trims and there were some imperfections and snips, etc in them so I decided that glue was the best way to go.