4 lbs of Lavender doesn't really evoke a sense of peace and relaxation.

Unfortunately, I'm not one to have lots of stories of a summer vacation visiting exotic locations or hanging by a beach house or relaxing in front of cozy campfires. In fact, I can barely come to terms with the fact that it's well into September already and R is about to start classes tomorrow. I spent a quiet but hectic June, July and August secluded in a test lab at work. (I am happy to say that we'll likely be making our deadline on the 17th of September though!). I've promised myself a long christmas vacation this year. I think I'm about seven years overdue for one.

Anyways, at the beginning of the summer, I was commissioned to make 200 lavender sachets for a company I used to work for, to give away at a women's convention that is happening this week. I pretty much had all of my materials in place back in July, but due to circumstances that sucked some major arseness, I didn't get the tags I needed until a couple of weeks ago. So over the last long weekend of the summer, I had no choice but to hunch over the sewing machine and get the job done. I drafted anybody who didn't have four paws to help.



R was my main source of sweat shop labour - he didn't get paid and he was only allowed three unscheduled pee breaks. Clearly, he needs a better union rep. Dayna only managed to halt operations once, despite the fact that she developed a neat trick for stepping on the foot pedal of the sewing machine.


I used a variety of pre-cut quilting squares. The brilliance of this decision continues to amaze me. The outcome was amazingly colourful AND I didn't have the urge to chuck my rotary cutter out the window. My cousins came over to help for a few hours, and the younger one spent considerable time picking her favourite two patterns for a couple of sample sachets of her own. This seriously impacted quality control, but I guess you can't really complain when labour is free. I asked her to count how many squares I had and it went something like this:

S: 22... 23...24... 44

25!!!

S: Right. 25 ... 26....

Then:

S: 36 ..37 ... 38 ... 39 ... 99...

40!!!!!

love it.



I will probably throw a few of these into a shop soon. They're too cute.

Fabric Buckets

I actually almost finished a sewing project! Check out my fabric cotton/linen buckets!

Here's the stumpy one. The stumpiness is part of its functionality and its character.

I also made a taller one where the lip can be folded down. I just need to iron them out.... and sew up a little hole in the lining where I left it open so I could flip them right side out.

They're a bit on the wonky, rumpled side but I'm happy with them.

The best is how I bought one at Christmas to hold my knitting and now I can make my own for a fraction of the cost. They're perfect for holding yarn and other supplies.

I'm almost done sewing up my first skirt too. Just need to hem it and then I'll post it up.

I made these both at an awesome workshop at The WorkRoom :: here ::
It's one of my new favourite places to be. I love the space, the people, the supplies and Maizie! Maizie is the Workroom's resident mascot with four legs and a tail. Of course, I'm biased. Any place with a fur face is awesome.

There is no such thing as a perfectly straight line

It's Friday already? Why does the week go by so much faster when you have homework?

Sewing homework that is.

I'm on week five of my sewing class and I've basically come to the realization that sewing is 95% preparing the fabric and 5% actually sewing on the machine itself.

I've also learned that:

:: I'm really good at making bobbin art

:: Fabric must be on grain. If it's not on grain, then dire things will happen to you

:: i like to pin my fingers more than I like to pin fabric

:: sewing is like taking notes in a lecture in that I can easily tell where I've fallen asleep or lost focus

:: my sewing machine is unmoved by loud cussing

:: no matter what the teacher says, sometimes it IS the machine's fault

:: if I think I'm sewing an amazingly straight line: four times out of five, my machine will have unthreaded itself without my noticing and I'm just, in reality, poking a whole lot of tiny holes in my fabric.

:: 6 cm is never just 6 cm: if I measure 6 cm from one edge and pin, then I measure 6 cm from the other edge and pin, then when I hold these two pieces of fabric together, I bet you they won't match

:: linen wrinkles if you look at it

:: linen wrinkles even faster after you've ironed it

:: you can get one, or the other...but not both.

I took two trips to Fabricland in the last month. The first time, I had to get an easy skirt pattern with a zipper and a waist line. Patterns were on sale for $2.99 so I picked up two. When I left, I was told that one pattern had a zipper but no waistline and the other pattern had a waistline but no zipper.

The second time I went to Fabricland, I wanted to get a couple of zippers. We were told to get an invisible zipper for a pouch and a zipper for our skirt. My skirt pattern asked for a 7" regular zipper. Fabricland had all sorts of zippers. Unfortunately, the invisible zippers started at 8" and the regular zippers started at 7". Evidently, it didn't matter what size of invisible zipper we bought for our pouch, so I went with the 8" invisible zipper for the pouch and the 7" regular zipper for my skirt. After all that deliberation, it turns out that I thought it out all wrong. I should have bought the 8" invisible zipper for the skirt and it didn't matter what size zipper we got for our pouch.

I think I'm missing several key chapters from the book of "THINGS THAT PEOPLE ARE BORN KNOWING" in relation to sewing. Either that or it's a conspiracy and everybody else is on the secrets.

Picking up knitting wasn't this hard. Buy the yarn. Buy the sticks. Go.