linden sweatshirt – Entropy Always Wins

A Month in Making:

Messenger Bag with Reflective Material donated by Stephanie (Spontaneous Threads) and repurposed seatbelt closure-my design :: Linden Sweatshirt out of a vintage tablecloth :: Linden Sweatshirt out of organic fleece I hand dyed-both as part of #memademay :: My first adventures in free motion quilting with help from the book Stitch Draw by Rosie James :: Umbrella Prints collaborative project begun :: Blue WIPs.

In other news, I’m delighted and I know we are all flattered that the Modern Quilt Guild referenced Bee Sewcial (Flickr: The Bee Sewcial Pool) as a guide for Quiltcon West’s Charity Quilt Challenge for next year. Check it out here: Member Charity Challenge | QuiltCon West.

Best,

Hillary

Do you ever wonder if you have too many creative hobbies? Although knitting and sewing have been mainstays for me, I have ventured into embroidery, cross stitch, clothes making, jewelry making . . . well you get the point. I believe the skill and practice of making causes one to look at the world differently. We makers start to examine more closely how things are constructed and what materials they are made with. That study often propels us to the next question of whether we can make it ourselves which at least in my case, leads me into new creative hobbies. (I treasure this “maker’s curiosity” by the way as it seems a rarer and rarer characteristic in our buy everything from Target, disposable culture.) All these words to say I have ventured into some new creative fronts this month while continuing work on my mainstays of quilting, knitting and bag making.

Dying Fabric requires a ton of rinsing muscle power and a ridiculous amount of water. Who knew? The results however are hard to compete with. Following directions from Malka Dubrawsky’s “Color Your Cloth” and Kim Eichler-Messmer’s Book “Modern Color” I dyed some organic fleece in various shades of blue using both dry and wet dying techniques.

Using this pretty substrate I decided to try sewing knits for the first time with my new serger. It’s a tad ridiculous how easy my machine makes its all for me. I decided to make the very popular Linden Sweatshirt (Linden Sweatshirt – Grainline Studio) and had to adapt it a bit by making the neck opening a little wider, lengthening it an inch and making a wide split cuff at the bottom. I look Kind of silly in the pic but man this sweatshirt is comfortable and I already have plans for others.

I decided for the first time as well to combine fabric and knit together in the Shawl Collar Baby Coat by sweet k m. (Direct Download PDF Knitting Pattern Shawl Collar by sweetKM)

What better fabric to use then some hand dyed by Kim Eichler-Messmer from a previous order and I topped it off with a vintage button. The pattern recommended using a felt heart on the inside to better secure the button. I will definitely use this technique in future sweaters. What a cute detail!

I ended this week by making up and testing a new bag pattern. Oh this is a good one! Look for more examples and maybe even a pattern or tutorial in the future.