I’ve been organizing my house and life for a while now. Who would have known it would take so long? Last year I started the year off great. I started 2018 by taking an online class with Daily Om. I think it’s a great class and has great prompts and more to help you clear your life of clutter. But, by February, I was slowing … Continue reading Organizing The Sewing Room + Making It Stick
I’m surprised as anyone that I’ve actually gotten a post up. Good news, I am still following the 3:33 plan and I’m having a lot of fun with it. More to my surprise I made it three months and went a little bit longer so that I could start my next three months at the start of November 1. Our November here in Colorado has been … Continue reading #Project3:33 Fall/Winter Months
Below is a selection of some of the 38 items that I pulled for my first 3 months of the Project 333. I started July 21 . For whatever reason the thumbnail grid won’t keep in chronological order, but you get the idea. I didn’t bother photographing my weekends of late, because all I’m doing is schlepping around in gross shorts and stuff. If a garment hasn’t … Continue reading Project 333: First 2 Weeks
Okay, I’m at it again. Have you read about Project 333 – Be More With Less? Project 333 is “the minimalist fashion challenge that invites you to dress with 33 items or less for 3 months” (Courtney Carver: Project 333 blog)Fairly simple. This core wardrobe/minimalist wardrobe is wearing only 33 items and every 3 months you trade/switch up to a different 33 items.
You can read all the details of Courtney’s plan and its origins here. The 33 items in her plan include shoes, clothing items AND accessories. My plan is a bit different because separating myself from that much of my clothing, shoes and accessories was too stressful to think about. My modified plan is as follows. Continue reading “Minimalist Wardrobe: Project 333”
Remember that Core Wardrobe thing I was doing? Way back when? I wasn’t really documenting it but I did finish a black dress, black pants and two black skirts. What I haven’t completed is a blouse and a jacket. Ay, now, here’s the rub. I love the idea of a Core Wardrobe and I don’t want to give up on it, but I did a … Continue reading Hey, Jill! Whatever Happened To That Core Wardrobe?
I bought the Sew Sturdy Travel Organizers Craftsy class last August! I love trying to make structured bags and I just couldn’t resist something that looked like a suitcase. But I was dismayed that I needed some specialty items that I didn’t already have: Soft and Stable foam stabilizer and some very very long purse zippers. Sometimes it’s a little off-putting to find that the instructor is selling more than just her pattern. In this case, Annie Unrein (the instructor and pattern author), is also encouraging us to buy her “By Annie Soft and Stable” foam stabilizer and long purse zippers. Neither of these two items are specifically mentioned in the “materials” list on Craftsy. This was annoying enough to me that I gave up on this class. Continue reading “March Challenge – UFO: Everything In Its Place Bag”
After looking through all the half finished projects in my sewing space, the theme for the March challenge was clear to me… UFOs! (That’s Un-Finished Objects.) So, dust off something you’ve had lying around for way too long and make it work! I don’t know about you, but I’ve got WAY too many options for this one! Who else is in? As always, anyone is welcome … Continue reading March Challenge Announcement
Here it is, my sewing room with no apologies. Click on any image for a better look if you care too! This is the one place in the whole universe that is all mine, or as Virginia Woolf would have said a room of my own. The day I took these photos I was finishing up a blitzkrieg of sewing. Working on bodices, sleeves, silkies and … Continue reading Jill Shows Her Sewing Room Challenge
When the February challenge was announced as “show us your sewing room”, I snorted at the “room” bit. My sewing room is a 4×4 foot corner of my small apartment attached to the kitchen. I was trying to figure out how to take a panoramic picture to fit it all in, but… don’t need to, it all fit in one shot! Here’s a diagram I’m calling The Anatomy of a Tiny Sewing Space:
Continue reading “February Challenge: My Tiny Sewing Corner”
This month’s challenge was to show off our sewing spaces! For awhile, I was sewing in our unfinished master bath on a card table, but then my husband built me this cute 8′ x 12′ sewing hut in our backyard. What started out as a fairly empty sewing space has quickly become completely filled floor to ceiling with sewing stuff. Here’s a peek! Continue reading “February Challenge: Sewing Space Reveal”
One of our Sewing Collective members, Sylvia, has been sewing up a storm lately! In response to our January Threads Challenge, she completed a dress she was inspired to make from the July 2012 edition. If you may recall, Sylvia asked me many months ago to digitize the rose that Jennifer Stern had drawn for her machine embroidered embellishment. I wrote about that process here. You never know what becomes of these requests, so I was astonished when she told me she had finished the dress! Continue reading “Sylvia’s Threads Challenge and Bionic Gear Bag”
I can hear the groans from here: Show my sewing room, are you crazy?! Whether you’re lucky enough to have an actual room of your own or you can only sew on the kitchen counter at certain times of the night we should hold our creative spaces near and dear. This challenge is a safe place to show and tell the good, the bad and the ugly about … Continue reading Denver Sews Challenge – February 2015 – Show your sewing room!
Originally I was quite excited about Jane’s “I Saw It In Threads Magazine” challenge idea. However, the January challenge proved quite difficult for me! As soon as the theme was announced I flipped through my stack of Threads, purchased from a public library out-of-date magazine sale years ago. With my love of all things vintage, I thought it wouldn’t matter that the projects within were not au courant. I assumed it’d be a no-brainer for me to find a project for the challenge, but no such luck. I did see several interesting ideas while perusing my outdated issues, but for one reason or another, I ended up scrapping all of those possibilities as unworkable. Continue reading “Kitty’s January Threads Challenge”
This challenge made me realize I need to get a physical subscription to Threads! I converted all my subscriptions to digital some time ago (except Burda, duh) to try and cut down on paper clutter. But after waiting 20 minutes on my iPad for EACH issue to re-download, and then having them all mysteriously disappear the next day so I had to wait for them to download AGAIN… I’ve had it with the digital subscription. Anywho… the thing that caught my eye was this tiny tip on the bottom of a page in the October/November 2014 issue:
Continue reading “January Challenge – Quick Bias Binding Tip from Threads”
This month’s challenge was to try something from a Threads Magazine. The challenge I found was “Material Mix” from January 2013. I was already planning on trying to knock off my favorite ready-to-wear skirt purchased from Costco a few years ago, so I thought I’d try and make it in two fabrics and duplicate the kick pleat, also covered in the same issue. I started … Continue reading January Challenge – Threads Material Mix
We have a fantastic challenge in store for January 2015 at DenverSews! It’s the “I Saw It In Threads Magazine” challenge! The challenge, sewing a project from Threads Magazine, was the brainchild of fellow blogger Jane. Unfortunately, Jane is stepping down as a blogger for DenverSews so I (Kitty) am announcing her idea for our January challenge. I want to thank Jane for her contributions to DenverSews and also express how grateful I am to … Continue reading The “I Saw It In Threads Magazine” Challenge!
This challenge gave me a much needed excuse to do something I’ve never done before – sew up a vintage pattern. I had a grand total of 3 vintage patterns in my collection that I’ve actually paid money for (and a few more that people gave me), so I pulled out those. Are you sensing a common theme in these 3 patterns?
My daughter has a large collection of Care Bears, purchased in the early 2000s by her mother. I love these little bears, but thought some were a little far removed from the original collection of Care Bears from the 80s: Bedtime Bear, Birthday Bear, Cheer Bear, Friend Bear, Funshine Bear, Good Luck Bear, Grumpy Bear, Love-a-lot Bear, Tenderheart Bear, and Wish Bear. I mean, really, who is “Share Bear” or “Harmony Bear”? These must be the politically-correct cousins. Anyway, I always thought Grumpy Bear was underrepresented. I’m generally a happy person, but sometimes I’m just masking a melancholy undercurrent of holiday anxiety. Anyway, a vintage challenge is a fabulous opportunity to finally make that Grumpy Bear pattern I purchased on eBay a few years ago (Butterick 6228). And if you don’t believe it’s vintage, try and decipher this copyright year: MCMLXXXIII. Continue reading “December Challenge: A Vintage Grumpy Care Bear”
The DenverSews Sewing Challenge for this week is “Vintage”. I asked the DenverSews bloggers to use either a vintage pattern, a new vintage-style pattern, vintage fabric, (or both), or to interpret vintage in their own way. As a lover of all things vintage, I’ve been looking forward to this challenge and to seeing what my sewing friends have created! Continue reading “The Vintage Sewing Challenge!”
Thanks Lynne, for a wonderful November challenge. It motivated us to explore stitches on our sewing machines that we’d never tried before! Most of us have sewing machines with so many stitches we’ve never even tested them all. Your November challenge was the perfect opportunity to start expanding our knowledge of our sewing machines amazing capabilities! Now that we’ve gotten a good start on exploring our future possibilities with our sewing machines, it’s time to honor the past. So our December challenge is VINTAGE! The interpretation of … Continue reading The December Sewing Challenge!
This was a HARD challenge for me because I’ve never had much interest in decorative stitches. My previous machine had maybe 12 different stitches, just the basics really. The newer machine I bought a couple years ago has something like 300 stitches but since I’ve never needed them before, I haven’t touched them. I usually start any kind of challenge by flipping through a potential project list I keep with inspiration photos to see if anything jumps out at me and I stumbled on this photo with a note: “Anything with fagoting”
Continue reading “November Challenge – Papercut Clover Dress with Fagoting”
For our second group challenge Lynne chose our theme: “use a sewing machine stitch you’ve never used before”. I decided to try a quilting stitch. I’ve sewn patchwork quilt tops before, but I’ve always had my patchwork quilted by others – I’ve never done my own quilting.
Continue reading “What I Made for Lynne’s Challenge – Kwik Sew 0188”
My first foray into building my core wardrobe is a long sleeve tee using the SBCC Tonic 2 Tee pattern.
I can only think of two items that I’ve done using a knit and one of those was a complete nightmare. This time I’m going in ready for success powered by sewing blogs.
Melly Sews suggests using the lightning aka wobble aka stretch stitch on knits so the seams can maintain the fabrics stretchable quality. Lladybird uses a walking foot so both layers of your knit feed through evenly. The Tiramisu Circus has a nice post on stabilizers for knits. Continue reading “November Challenge: Stretch Stitch on the Tonic 2 Tee”
Every machine I’ve ever owned had stitches on it that I’d never used. The challenge this month was to try using some of those mystery stitches on something, anything. Continue reading “November Challenge – New Machine Stitches”
October’s challenge was quite a doozy and we saw some really nice garments and crafts made from fabric we feared to touch. This month, we’ll offer a lighter challenge. How about those sewing machines of ours? Perhaps you purchased a machine with 300+ utility and decorative stitches. Perhaps you own a solid machine with a few basic stitches. I would bet that there are stitches … Continue reading October Roundup & November Challenge Announcement
For our first group sewing challenge at DenverSews, Jamie challenged us to use a fabric we’d been holding on to for a long time. Wow, I had so much leeway with this challenge! Almost all of my fabric has been in my stash for a very long time. In order to narrow the field, I focused on making sure the fabric I chose was something I was absolutely terrified to use. For me that meant choosing an expensive fabric which also had sentimental value. Most of my fabric stash consists of cheap thrift store fabrics, and I’m not afraid to use those – if I mess up with thrift store fabric, it can easily be replaced. Continue reading “October Sewing Challenge – New Look 6036”
When Jamie threw down the gauntlet to use a fabric you’ve been hanging onto a longtime, I knew this was the push I needed to finish/redo my failed attempt with Cynthia Rowley’s Simplicity 2406. Continue reading “October Sewing Challenge – Jane’s Results: McCalls 6346”
I purchased a little piece of leather suede from Colorado Fabrics a few years ago with the intention of trying to make something out of it someday. That day finally came with Jamie’s challenge! I decided to try two things: general sewing and machine embroidery with suede. Continue reading “October’s Sewing Challenge – Suede”
Does this fabric look familiar to you? A month ago I laid down a challenge to my fellow DSC bloggers:
Use a fabric that you’ve been hanging onto a long time. We probably all have fabrics in our stash that we love so much we’re afraid to cut into them… but they’re not doing us any good sitting in a closet. Be brave and cut into it! It doesn’t have to be silk or anything fancy, just something you’ve hung onto for awhile. Continue reading “Anna Sui Silk Kimono (October Challenge)”
About a week ago while looking for Jo-Ann Fabric coupons on line, I stumbled across the Jo-Ann Fabric “Sew Your Style” contest on facebook. I was intrigued, so I read the contest rules. The challenge was to sew a garment using quilt (instead of fashion) fabric. Having recently read about a similar challenge on “Diary of A Sewing Fanatic”, one of my favorite blogs, I knew this endeavor might be difficult. But since I own lots of quilt fabric (even though I haven’t done patchwork in years), and I’m actively working at reducing the size of my fabric stash, I was highly motivated to attempt the challenge. Continue reading “Jo-Ann Fabric “Sew Your Style” Contest”
Quite some time ago Lynne and I (Kitty) split two different fabrics between us. The fabric Lynne shared with me became a top for each of us. The results of that fabric challenge can be found here. Now it’s time for the second shared fabric swap results to be revealed! The fabric I split with Lynne was a more difficult one to work with than her lovely floral knit. Mine was a bold print … Continue reading Shared Fabric Sewing Challenge #2
The Fabric Mart Fabricistas are currently running their second Fashion Sewing Contest! They’ve included a “play along” flickr page where the sewing public can post photos of their sew-along entries. I decided to give it a whirl! Continue reading “Copying My Favorite Ready To Wear Garment”
Big news everybody! The Denver Sewing Collective has decided to start doing monthly challenges. We thought it would be a good way to unify the blog a bit and push us all outside our comfort zones once and awhile.
Everyone is invited to sew along with the challenges! The due date will be the 15th of each month. You can post your creations on our Flickr pool at https://www.flickr.com/groups/denversewschallenges/ , and we’ll do a round up post at the end of every challenge where we’ll show off whatever you post in the Flickr pool. If you like, you can add a description of your make or a link to your own blog in the comments of the Flickr photo and we’ll add those to the post as well. Are you ready to hear the October challenge?
Use a fabric that you’ve been hanging onto a long time. We probably all have fabrics in our stash that we love so much we’re afraid to cut into them… but they’re not doing us any good sitting in a closet. Be brave and cut into it! It doesn’t have to be silk or anything fancy, just something you’ve hung onto for awhile.
Denver Sewing Collective 