The “Follow Me” Pillow

If you follow Dear Stella or were paying close attention to our Tutorials page you may have noticed a project we did for them way back in the fall: the “Follow Me” Pillow. Dear Stella reached out to us in September about working up a pattern based on an inspiration picture they sent us and writing the pattern and tutorial for their projects page to promote their (then) new Sunday Morning fabric line.  I thought that I would share a little of what went into that tutorial today.     After seeing the inspiration picture (which I won’t post here because I don’t know where it came from), I played around with some measurements and sent this terrible cell phone picture to our contact at Dear Stella for her feedback: We agreed that it was too skinny in the middle and that the “feathers” on the end should be chunkier.  We also wanted one side of the pillows to be “quilted” (actually just pieced strips), so I started playing around with widths for the stripes, too.  My next prototype was with some sweet dinosaur fabric that Jack chose from my stash.

 

With this version I settled on the final width for the pieced stripes.  I played around with chunky piping (and learned my lesson about marking and clipping my corners – see how it’s a little torqued on the bottom of the arrowhead?  Oops.)

 

I also did this one without any interfacing, which convinced me that it really needed it because it wasn’t as crisp as I would have liked.  Luckily none of that bothered Jack, who still sleeps on the dino pillow every night.

We decided that narrower piping was in order, settled on which fabrics would go where, and we were finally in business.

I wrote the instructions, Kim edited them, Amy came over to shoot the tutorial for me and we selected the photos for the illustrated steps so I could format the instruction page.  I finished up the samples, drew up the pattern page and mailed the samples off to Dear Stella so they could be used to decorate their fall Quilt Market booth.

 

So there you have it: a commissioned project from start to finish.  I kind of love them, don’t you?  The funny thing?  Aside from the dinosaur I have yet to make any for my house.  I think they would look adorable as a pair on a bed instead of throw pillows, and I really want to make one or two for my daybed when I re-cover the (very well worn) pillows that are on it now.  Oh well… add them to the list, right?

Is there anything you’d like to hear more about?  I formatted the instructions for this project in Publisher (because I’m still an Illustrator rookie!) and I thought about writing a how-to post on pattern formatting in Publisher, but I don’t want to make people’s eyes glaze over.  Is that something you’d be interested in?  Let me know!

What are you working on these days?

-Elizabeth

Tutorial: the Market Day Tunic as a dress

Last week I shared a couple pictures of my beautiful sister modeling our Market Day Tunic which I lengthened into a dress and sewed up in a cozy double-knit for winter.  I promised I would be back with the tutorial this week, and it may have taken me ALL week, but here it is!

The best thing about this tutorial is that there is practically nothing to it.  Start with the Market Day Tunic pattern, of course.  You will want about 3 1/2 yards of fabric to make the dress length (a little less if you are using 60″ wide fabric, but not much – I think I used about 3 yards of 60″ knit to make this size small.  I would recommend erring on the side of more fabric rather than less, especially if you are making a large or extra large).  Also note that you should drop down one size from what you would normally wear if you are using a knit.  I wear a medium Market Day in a woven and small in knit.

If you are using a knit you will not need to add the invisible zipper to the side seam.  There is enough ease in the pattern to do without it even with a relatively unstretchy knit like the one I used, so just sew the left side seam shut like you do the right side seam.  If you are using a woven fabric plan to install the zipper as instructed.  Aside from using a ball point needle and a very, very slight zig zag stitch to allow my fabric to stretch a bit I did not do anything differently for this dress than I do for woven Market Day Tunics.

Trace out your size on Swedish tracing paper, adding 10-12″ (depending on the length you want) to the bottom of the tunic front and tunic back, following the original curve of the bodice hem.

Transfer the markings to your fabric as instructed.  The back darts will not be affected by the change in length, but the long center front darts can either be lengthened to the new hem length by following the line of the original darts all the way to the bottom of the garment, taking a tiny seam allowance and tapering to nothing at the hem, or tapering to nothing a little below the original hem length as I did in the tunic pictured above.

Finish the rest of the dress according to the tunic instructions.  For this dress I flipped the double knit to show the wrong side on the interior neck facing and the sleeves, which I rolled for a fun little contrast, but you could do a contrasting neckline facing or lace appliqued facing like our original samples, too.  

Since I used a knit with a hidden neck facing I didn’t finish the outside edges of the facing so as not to add bulk and just tacked the facing to the shoulder seam allowance to keep it tucked in.  If you use a woven, finish the neckline as instructed.

My only complaint with this dress (and it’s the same complaint I have with ALL dresses and tunics in the winter) is that it rides up over leggings or tights when I walk.  I’m thinking that stitching a wide ribbon around the inside hem would add a little weight and slipperiness and might prevent the cling.  Has anybody tried that?  Did it work?

What are you sewing up this winter?  If you make one of our patterns and would like to share, please drop us a line at ohsnapdragonstudios@gmail.com.  We’d love to see what you create!

 

On my nightstand… Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

I’m working my way through Liane Moriarty’s addictive canon and my most recent was Big Little Lies, her newest.  

While I didn’t find it quite as engrossing as The Husband’s Secret, I still blew through it faster than anything else I’ve tried so far this year.  Big Little Lies is about the politics among a group of parents at an Austrailian primary school, and while that description would’ve made me run screaming a few years ago, Moriarty’s writing and her great characters drive the plot.  As with all of the books I’ve read of hers, there is an element of mystery: in this case, who died at the school trivia night and why.

She takes on some hard topics (abuse, nature vs. nurture, beauty standards) but doesn’t sacrifice the story in order to make her points.  My biggest complaint about her books in general is that she tends to wrap up her plot a little too neatly at the end, but honestly I secretly kind of like that, too, so I guess it’s not that big of a complaint after all.

A few of my favorite quotes:

“If parents had children who were good sleepers, they assumed this was due to their good parenting, not good luck.” – Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies

“They say it’s good to let your grudges go, but I don’t know, I’m quite fond of my grudge. I tend it like a little pet.”
― Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies

And, of course:

“Oh, calamity!” – Liane Morarty, Big Little Lies

4.5/5 stars

What are you reading these days?  I need recommendations.  I have The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton on my shelf but I haven’t quite gotten motivated to pick it up yet.  Is it good?

-Elizabeth

Happy New Year!

Hello, all!  I hope your holidays were lovely and warm and that you have had a great first week of 2015.  We took a bit of a hiatus to regroup and relax with our families for the holidays and now we are looking forward to an exciting new year.

I mentioned in my winter wardrobe post that I had a double-knit Market Day Tunic and a tweed Weekend Rambler on the brain, so I wanted to share some pictures from a quick photoshoot we did in the library just before the holidays to get you in the mood for some winter-y sewing.  We finally got 4″ of snow yesterday and I’m anxious to get back to my sewing machine for some selfish warm gear sewing.

I made this Weekend Rambler following the instructions exactly, and the only thing I wish I would have done differently is to line the pockets with a lighter fabric since the seams got pretty bulky with all that wool.  Next up for me is a pair of Sewaholic Thurlow trousers in chunky brown corduroy.  (… and maybe purple twill.  And goldenrod pinwale corduroy.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?)

We have a slew of photos to share of the Summer Jazz wintered up with our free sleeve pattern that we will be sharing soon, and I will write a tutorial next week for lengthening the Market Day into a dress (it’s easy, I promise!).

What is on your cutting table these days?

*Photos by the talented Amy Schweizer, as usual.