Sew Wistful

I learnt to sew mainly from my mother (may Allah illuminate her grave and grant her the highest abode in Jannah) when I was nine or ten years old. By the time I was twelve, we rarely bought any of our clothes or soft furnishings. On an old re-conditioned Brother industrial machine, similar to this one, Amma and I made everything we needed, including curtains for the entire house which are still hanging over 20 years on, Masha-Allah.

I've stopped making home furnishings for many years, but now I've got the urge to sew again, I was thinking about some of the gorgeous quilting fabric that I've been buying and thinking how nice it would be to have a nice pair of cotton pillowcases in one of my favourite Free Spirit fabrics which I managed to get quite cheaply on ebay. It's a lovely range of fabric that has a soft silky feel.

I was about to share a quick how-to for making pillowcases here, when I stumbled upon an excellent tutorial at Alternative Windows, a really good site with easy to follow instructions for making all kinds of home furnishings. Lots of practical ideas for making bedding, curtains, blinds, cushions and trimmings masha-Allah.

Makes me want to make all kinds of things, with Allah's help. At the moment though I have a sad little Toyota that jams up regularly, and simply doesn't go as fast as that old industrial one. (Oh, fond memories of how it could sew through several thicknesses of fabric - and even my finger once).
Should I indulge myself with a new machine?

Fat Quarter Skirt

A skirt for Flower using fat quarters which she chose herself. If you want to try this, here's a brief tutorial. Flower is seven and a half and the skirt hangs just below her knees. You will need three fat quarters and some elastic.

Cut off 2.5" from the selvage edge of all three fat quarters, and keep 2 of these pieces for the waistband.











Fold each piece into four, leaving about half an inch for seam allowance. Make a diagonal cut which is 1.5" away from the bottom left hand corner and same distance from the fold in the top right hand corner.

You should have five panels, three of them identical.
And two pieces that need to be sewn together with a 0.5" seam allowance and ironed flat.










These are all the panels laid out with the ones that need to be joined on the right. They're at the back of the finished skirt so they don't spoil the design.

Join all the panels together with a quarter inch seam allowance and topstitch as you go along.

If you use an overlocker/serger to sew the panels together they won't need topstitching.


Join the waistband pieces together to form a ring and keep wrong-side out. The skirt should be right-side out. Place into the ring. Pin it together if you need to and sew the waistband to the skirt using a quarter inch seam.

If the waistband is a little too wide, chop it off and re-sew.
If the skirt is a bit too wide put a couple of evenly spaced little pleats in. They won't show up as the skirt has an elasticated waistband.









Fold over and sew the waistband, leaving a small gap to thread the elastic through.














Measure the required length of elastic, pull through and knot the ends together, and then finish off sewing the waistband.












All that remains is to hem the bottom.


Alhamdulillah

BQL Bag

Joined the BQL list recently. To cut down on shopping bags members of the list are taking part in a monthly bag challenge, to make a quilted bag using a pattern designed by Kandy Newton. As a new member I can't take part in the challenge, but I liked the March bag so much I bought the tutorial.

Lovely Quilting Book

I recently bought The Quiltmaker's Gift and The Quiltmaker's Journey. Both books are beautifully written and illustrated.
So I simply *had* to get Quilts from the Quiltmaker's Gift. It's a lovely book that is ideal both for myself as a beginner quilter and for introducing quilting to my own girls.