Curious about the Yudu Screen Printing Machine?

Me too! Handmade Detroit posted a video review - well, it's more of a demo - of the new Yudu Screen Printing Machine posted. Check it out!

Shoot, now I *really* want one...

3/1/09 - Edited to add:

• Found another review of the machine at the Slipcover Diva website.
• Videos and tutorials on the Yudo website.
• Youtube demo video - must be from a tradeshow.
  
• Etsy forum thread about the machine.
  

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Flashback Friday - 1988 Big, Big, and Big

Ah yes, the 80s. Big hair, big jewelry, big shoulder pads combined with big, bold colors.

This is actually a somewhat subdued late 1988 look.

• The hair? Big but not as exaggerated as a few years earlier.
• The jewelry? The big chunky necklace gave way to the big flat chain of gold.
• The shoulder pads? The football pads trimmed down to 3/8".
• The big, bold color? Well, no change there. The blue is still big, bright and bold.

This shirt was sewn using a Simplicity pattern. One that was tossed long ago and one that I have not yet come across in my vintage pattern searches. The fabric was a silky polyester purchased at Northwestern or Northwest Fabrics - a fabric store that is long gone. It had a peplum hem, a round jewel neckline, long sleeves gathered at the sleeve cap, tiny ball-shaped buttons down the center front, and a tie belt in the back to help shape the waist.

Gotta admit, this shade of blue is one of my all time faves. In this photo I'm wearing the matching royal blue earrings, and while you can't see them, I'm wearing royal blue pumps.

Somethings never change. I purchased a pair of royal blue pumps last fall, sewed a royal blue crushed velvet dress during the holiday season, purchased two royal blue shirts for spring and summer wear, purchased royal blue jewelry and just finished sewing two royal blue t-shirts (one long sleeve, one cap sleeve.)

How much do I like this color? Enough that that 1988 pair of royal blue pumps is still tucked away in my closet. Only now when I wear them I have to call them vintage. *LOL* Pin It

Dogs on Thursday - remembering Brandi

Last week was the three-year anniversary of the day I had to send Brandi to Rainbow Bridge. Brandi was my first dog and let me tell you, making the decision to have her put to sleep was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

Well today is Dogs on Thursday, I was going to share some cute Abby playing in the snow photos (since we are in the midst of a snow storm ... about 6 or 8 inches so far. At least Abby is enjoying herself!) but I thought I'd share a post that Sophia wrote on her dog blog two years ago. It's a post written one year after Brandi had been gone and six months before Abby joined our household.

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First posted on Abby and Sophia - a dog's life in black and white, Feb. 17, 2007.

When I first came to live with my human family, I had an older doggie sister named Brandi.

Today is the one year anniversary of Brandi going to Doggie Heaven. Mommy was really sad last year and cried for a long time.

Today she said its okay for me to share photos of me and Brandi with you.This is Brandi when she was 11 weeks old. Mommy had just adopted her from the humane society. Mommy always said she wondered what Brandi's story was because Brandi was afraid of humans when she first came to live with mommy and she was very timid her whole life.

Brandi didn't care when I came to live with mommy and daddy. In fact she taught me all kinds of things.

Like what to do with a chew stick,

And how to sit pretty and wait for a treat.

Brandi even let me share her food bowl with her.
I really wanted to eat what Brandi was eating, but mommy said I had to puppy food so she put Brandi's bowl up so I couldn't reach it.

Brandi taught me how to play and she always let me win!

My favorite thing that we did together was sleep.

Sometime curled up on the floor.

Sometimes in our cozy beds.

And sometimes we slept stretched out on the floor.

Brandi was 14 -1/2 years old when mommy said she had to be "put to sleep". Mommy said Brandi was really sick and was in a lot of pain and that it was time. She doesn't cry so much anymore. Now she smiles when she sees pictures of Brandi and likes to tell Brandi stories. I told her she should make a scrapbook with of Brandi and guess what? She liked my idea. So now I get to help her make a Brandi scrapbook.

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Brandi was a sweet dog. As I said earlier, she was my first dog. I laugh when I think back to what a dog novice I was. I remember asking my son when she would start fetching. He burst out laughing and explained to me that you had to teach dogs to fetch. Fortunately for me Brandi was one of the best dogs a new dog owner could have - gentle, sweet natured, obedient and I loved her like crazy until the day she died. I can hardly believe she's been gone three years already.

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More Dogs on Thursday posts here

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Bump Begone! or how to sew a collar with collar band and eliminate that ugly bump

As much as I love the look of a crisp collar on a stand, I avoided sewing shirts that had collar bands because I could never seem to produce a nice smooth band. I would follow the pattern guide sheet instructions so carefully, take my time sewing, trim the seam just right...only to have to rip out yet another ugly band and start over.

A few years ago, when I decided to actually read through some of the books in my sewing library, I discovered other techniques for attaching a collar band.

The problem was every time I was ready to sew a collar with a stand I would waste time flipping through book after book after book grumbling to myself "I know one of these books had something about collar stands. Now which one was it?"

Finally, after finding instructions in one of the many sewing books I own, I would struggle again as there were little to no illustrations or photos to help guide me as I read the text. I don’t know about you but I need a few photos to help me understand the steps that are written.

That’s why I created this — to help me remember the steps needed to sew a great looking collar stand minus that ugly bump where the stand joins the shirt front.

There are many ways of attaching a collar to a collar stand. In fact, if you do an Internet search you'll find a variety of instructions. This just happens to be the one that works for me.

Ready, set, sew!

• Interface the collar and collar band pieces as you normally would.
  

• Sew the upper and under collars together, trim seams, turn collar, press, baste raw edges together.
  

• Topstitch collar if desired.

• Trim seam allowance of collar band, raw edge of collar, and neck edge of shirt to 1/4”
  

• Sew the interfaced collar band to the shirt right sides together, ending at the shirt front
  

• With right sides together, pin the collar (underside facing the stand) to the collar stand matching the small dots on your pattern. Sew together. (Don’t forget! You trimmed the seam allowance to 1/4” earlier.)
  

• Place the collar bands together, with the collar sandwiched in between.

• Now tuck or fold the front edge of the shirt back so that it is almost inside the collar band.
  

• Pin the collar bands together. Pin about 1-1/2” along the bottom portion of the band, making sure the front edge of the shirt is still tucked out of the way. (In the photo below the under collar band seam allowance is still shown at 5/8” which is why the raw edges do not match up.)

• Sew the collar bands together, starting about 1-1/2” along the bottom edge of one side of the band (where you pinned), continuing along the upper edge of the band and finishing about 1-1/2” along the bottom edge on the other side.
  

• Trust me on this. It sounds confusing, but it works.

• Turn the collar band right side out.
  

• Press under the balance of the unstitched edge of the collar band.
• Pin in place along the neck edge of the shirt.
• Topstitch or hand stitch band in place.

Done! And look! No ugly bump where the collar band meets the shirt front.

Printable PDF of these instructions can be found here.

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A new blouse - Simplicity 3684 Threads Magazine Collection pattern

After sewing the fun BWOF skirt (blogged about here) I realized there was a striped shirting fabric hiding in my closet with the exact blue of the skirt that would look great in a button front shirt.

The end result is a bit more casual than what I usually wear, but it's good to try new things right?

The shirt is sewn from Simplicity 3684. It's not only one of the Threads Magazine Collection designs, but it's one of Simplicity's B,C,D cup size patterns. Which means no fiddling around with an FBA. Which means more time for sewing.

The pattern includes a bib front version as well as a button front version. There is a separate front band as well as a separate collar stand for the collar. Both take a bit more time to sew but, in my opinion, are well worth the extra time.

The shirt can be sewn tunic length with side hem slits or shorter with a curved shirt hem. The darts in both the front and back combined with the curve side seam of the pattern result in a nicely shaped button front shirt that looks just as good untucked.

The pattern also offers a variety of sleeve options. I choose to use the sleeve from view D with one minor change. I lengthened the pattern so the sleeves are now full-length rather than three-quarter length.

And little did I realize, but the bottom of the sleeves are not gathered. They are pleated. Nineteen little pleats. Oh yea, you read that right. 19 little pleats. Go ahead - count 'em.


The fabric - a silk woven stripe purchased from (all together now) Fabric Mart Fabrics - was so easy to sew with and the even stripes made matching fairly simple. I had forgotten that it was silk and marked "dry clean only" and had tossed it into the washer and dryer to preshrink it. Fortunately, it washed and dried just fine. I'll just need to remember to wash the shirt using cold water and a delicate cycle/

My favorite part of the shirt? The smooth collar stand where it meets the shirt band. I finally have that technique mastered. Not only that, but I remembered to take photos of my steps so that in the future I can pull out my step-by-step photos rather than waste hours trying to remember the correct sequence.


The collar stand photos will get posted tomorrow with a full pattern review to follow. Pin It

All good things must come to an end...

No, no, no.

Not my blog.

Just my vacation.

That's why this blog was so quiet last week. I was on vacation.

But not just any vacation - an oh-so-trendy staycation filled with home improvement projects, friends, and sewing.

Home improvement
That's right. The past week hubby and I have been officially on vacation and, rather than sunbathe in Mexico we choose to update the kitchen floor from ugly 20-year old linoleum to porcelain tile. Of course, now its really obvious how ugly the falling-apart counter tops are.

The final touch was added to the bathroom remodel project which only lasted six months, LOL. However, with all the hours hubby puts in at work it's understandable that it would take so long.

Then there was the lets-get-organized-and-get-rid-of-stuff-we-don't-need day. I don't know about you but I swear our stuff multiplies when we turn the lights out. But it does feel good knowing the items we don't need can be donated and will be found and re-loved by someone new.

Friends
I allowed myself plenty of time to connect with girlfriends and spent many hours in restaurants eating lunches and visiting. I also built in time to watch movies when hubby was away on his annual ski-weekend with the boys. My sister and I went to Confessions of a Shopaholic and I finally watched The Notebook. That may not sound like a big deal but I rarely take time to view an entire movie in one sitting.

And we can't forget game night! Do you like board games? We do. Actually hubby has grown to like them as it's something I really enjoy. It was snowing outside, so we turned the heat up, mixed a big batch of margaritas and had almost a dozen people crowd around our dining room table for an evening filled with food and fun. And I swear the guys cheat. I mean c'mon. How can you guess flower girl when the drawing is a circle with a squiggly thing coming out of it's head?!?

Jewelry making
I made my first pair of beaded earring this week! I've been wanting to do that for a long time and it looked so complicated that I never wanted to take the time to try it. Well, the women in my church have a monthly get together - we call it Sweet Tuesdays and it's based on Sweet Mondays - woman's socials on a shoestring.

This past Tuesday the theme was "More Precious Than Jewels" and for the program portion of the evening, one of the multi-talented woman in our church showed us how to make a pair of beaded earrings. Well, I'm hooked and plan on visiting the Bead Monkey soon. *Sigh* As if I needed one more hobby to add to my busy schedule.

Sewing
The annual SR Harris fabric buying trip was postponed, but there really isn't any need to bring additional fabric into the sewing studio at the moment.

That being said, I did cave and purchase a piece of fabric from Hancock Fabrics when I stopped in to pick up some buttons. A fun print for a summer skirt - Simplicity 2655. The fabric content is listed as 100% polyester, but it sure feels as if it has some cotton in it. I may need to do a burn test to satisfy my curiosity.

While sewing time was limited I did manage to sew a summer skirt, two knit tops, a spring jacket and silk/cotton blend blouse. More on those later this week including photos on something I've finally mastered - how to sew a collar with stand and have it look good.

Whew, after reviewing everything that was crammed into one week is it any wonder I'm feeling a bit exhausted? Now if only I would have remembered to go to the tanning booth... Pin It