Monday, October 25, 2010

Pirate Pumpkin Tote Bag

Fun seasonal bag I "whipped up" one evening -- after having thought about it for, oh, six months or so!

pirate pumpkin tote bag

He's adult-sized, so let's hope I get a lot of candy while I'm out trick-or-treating....erm, out taking Leith trick-or-treating!

The little gussets flaps were brought up and stitched with cute little vintage buttons.

detail - button

Made with orange, fine-wale corduroy (cut cross-grain, so the wales run horizontal), black silky fun fur, and some black vinyl for the face shapes. Lining is a turquoise/lime squiggle cotton fabric.

k

Saturday, October 23, 2010

You think Halloween is Scary?!

How about the fact that "I'm Back!" after five months of no posts?! Now *that* is scary!

Just because there have been no posts doesn't mean there's nothing post-worthy to report. It's more of a moving-house-summer-time-gotta-make-another-life-changing-decision situation that kept me from posting. Or maybe it was just laziness. Nah. Couldn't be just laziness. ;-)

But now there are things to do, places to go, and people to see....some of it's even worth posting about!

First up: an autumn dress with an interesting trim feature.

pumpkin dress

Made with Onion pattern number 20026. This pattern is *fantastic*! I've made it several times in wovens, but this was my first try with a knit. It's as good in knit as it is in woven! The pattern also has a terrific shrug (one piece plus trim) and harem-type pants (haven't attempted them, they're not quite my style...).

My initial thought was to use the orange the 'normal' way and bind/trim the neckline and sleeves and do a folded hem, but the jersey has lots of curl. I didn't want to either waste a bunch of fabric trying to cut from areas that weren't already curled, and I wanted to avoid the hassle of trying to keep the fabric un-curled. That's when the lightbulb went on! Why fight it at all? Knit doesn't (un)ravel, so raw edges would be all right. Especially since this is an obviously seasonal dress (i.e. it didn't have to survive several years and several wearers).

So I played with the curl. Twin stitching holds the trim to the base fabric. Doing the hem band was the hardest part. I learned that adding after the dress sides are sewn would make for a much nicer finish. (I really do hate that the hem trim is stitched into the seam on one side.)

But the curling trim is super cute! There will definitely be more like this.

neckline detail
Detail from the neckline.

sleeve detail
Detail from the sleeve.

Done in a size 110 with extra length added.

k