30 Minute Tuesday

I' m going to go ahead and give you the report for the week thus far today. My children will be home from school for the rest of the week and I'll be taking a small vacation from blogging to enjoy them and the Thanksgiving holiday. I will give you another update on Monday of what I've accomplished the rest of this week.

Monday: I got the lining and jacket attached together and the sleeve hems finished. The photo below isn't great - I had to lighten it quite a bit, as the black corduroy is probably one of the worst fabrics to try to photograph. You can see the sleeve hem done, but the bottom hem not done. The sleeve hem is constructed as a regular lined jacket sleeve hem would be, but I added a line of topstitching, just so that the jacket would look like the one in the magazine. (Remember that the original was unlined.)

Tuesday: All the top stitching around the front edge and collar was completed and the snaps have all been installed.

Here's one of the snaps on the hood. When I bought the snaps for Ride 'Em Cowboy, I had to buy an amount larger than what I needed. The remainder of those red snaps have come in handy on projects like this.

The area under each snap has been reinforced with a small piece of corduroy so that the snaps won't rip out:

I think I might be able to finish the jacket tomorrow, but I'm not sure - depends on how long my son sleeps in. Today's work took me longer than expected, so I had to stop. I still have to put in the shoulder pads, do buttonholes and buttons and finish the bottom hem. I should be able to get all this done in the next few days and get to cutting out my daughter's pajamas.

Q/A: This is from Lynda (Teddylyn) from a while ago, but fits with this point. It is regarding the pair of pants that actually match the jacket that I've been working on in my 30 minutes. "I made a pair of the same pants from Patrones for my DGS and they are HUGE on him! I cut out the size 4 but need to make him a 2! He wears 4 slim in US sizes. Any advice on kids' sizes compared to Burda and/or Ottobre?" I find that the waists are rather large compared to my son's waist, too. I have not sewn any Ottobre, but Burda and Patrones seem to be big in the waist, either that or my boy is just skinny. I find that putting elastic in the back waist band helps a lot. Also, you could try measuring the pattern flat without seam allowances and then comparing that to the size of the child you're making the garment for. If you need to grade down a waist size, it is much easier to do it at the pattern stage rather than finished garment stage.

See you on Monday and have a very thankful Thanksgiving Day!

Parting Shot: A Prize. My son won this jar of candy (just what he needed!) at school by guessing the number closest to the actual number of pieces in the jar. He guessed 265 and there were actually 293.

Bluebird of Happiness - Coat - Part XVI

Border Phase 4 - Free Motion Quilting

Now that the feathers, vines and small outer borders are done (phases 1-3), it is time to move on to phase 4, the free motion quilting. There is a lot of "dead space" in this border, so it needs to be filled with something. Namely, free motion quilting. I am quilting the spaces between the feathers and vines and the spaces between the small outer borders and the feathers/vines with a free motion pattern called stippling.

Thankfully, this part goes pretty quickly. It is a combination of concentration and relaxation - I have to concentrate on where I'm going and look ahead, but I also need to relax and let the stitches flow. Not an easy combination.

To free motion quilt, I've dropped the feed dogs on my machine and attached a darning foot. Other than a test for tension, I'm ready to quilt.

The thread is the matching Iris polyester thread, I wanted the quilting to be there, but not actually be the focal point. This quilting is actually just background filler. The stitching is better seen from the back:

Once the piece is in position, I start stitching squiggly curved lines and what I call "Snoopy heads" to fill the space. It does take practice, but after a while there gets to be a rhythm to it and then things start moving along!

You can see that I'm working on the inner sections here - this is the front side of the section shown in the photo above.

Tomorrow I should finish the areas between the small borders and the feathers/vines. Once that is done, I can move on to phase 5!

Parting Shot: Vogue Special Design 4042. I found this pattern the other day while actually looking for another pattern. The bodice is almost exactly the same as the one on the Vogue Couturier that I'm using for BOH. I'm glad I found it - it is actually in my size, a size smaller than the VC. I'm hoping that I can use this one to help grade down the VC.

Bluebird of Happiness - Coat - Part XV

Borders, Phase 3, Part 2 - Decorative Stitching

Once the two rows of corded satin stitching are completed, the next step in this phase is to add the decorative stitching between the satin stitching. The stitch I've chosen for this project is stitch #62 on my machine (a Janome 4800 QC).


I'm using Superior Glitter #201 Gold for the top thread. I'm not sure that this was the best thread choice, although at this point, I am *not* going back and replacing it! This is stitch is very difficult to rip out and redo, and having had to do so several times, I don't want to do it anymore. It looks better from far away rather than close up and I've done the best I can do with the tension. I just think a different type of thread would have been better, but I wanted glittery, sparkly gold and this is the only thread type that will give me that effect. This will choice will probably come back to haunt me in the future, but I'm not changing it now. Maybe I've just been staring at it too long, and can't see the forest for the trees anymore. You know how that it is - your perceived faults are glaring at you, yet you can't see what you've accomplished as a whole, only those 2mm of imperfect stitching. In the photo below, you can see that the satin stitch is completed with both threads as described in yesterday's post, and the decorative stitching in between.

This stitching, while it gives a feeling of immediate accomplishment, is not easy to do, and very tiring - hence the tunnel vision on the imperfect parts. It takes constant concentration to keep everything lined up right, a eye on the thread, and knowing just when to slightly move the fabric to accomodate the curved edges. As I said before with the satin stitching, a straight edge is much, much easier to do!

At this point, I am not quite done with this part of the border. In one of the final phases, I will be adding one cream colored bead in each of the loops of the decorative stitching. While it will be easy to do, it will quite the job and there are so many of them!

Phase 4 is next, and that is the free motion quilting that fills all the empty space around and between the feathers and the vines. I am hoping that if I have enough free time, I can get that done in two days next week.

Parting Shot: Done. This leaf rake is done and so is the leaf raking. We *should* have raked two weeks ago, but due to weather and other things we didn't. Today was less than 20 degrees F and the wind was blowing. We were almost in full winter gear, minus the ski pants and boots and there were snow flurries in the air. The rake broke because it was too cold and the plastic got brittle. Fortunately we have two rakes and we were working on the last third of the yard!

30 Minute Friday

This week's work concentrated on my son's jacket. It isn't quite finished, but I think that by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week it will be done.

Monday: I put the patches on the sleeves and started working on the pockets. This took a little more time because I wanted these details to look nice. The little suede patches on the sleeves are a cute detail:


Tuesday: The pockets were finished and stitched in place and the jacket body was pinned together ready for construction.

Wednesday: The jacket body was finished, and the sleeves inserted. This is the jacket as it looked after Wednesday's work:

Thursday: The collar was stitched to the body of the jacket and the remainder of the lining and facing pieces were cut out. The jacket did not originally call for a lining, but I added one because it will be easier to put the jacket on if it has lining since it is made of corduroy. The lining construction was started.

Friday: The lining construction was finished this morning by setting in the sleeves and adding the collar. This is what I had done this morning before my husband left for work, taking the camera with him for the day:

Overall, not bad a for week's worth of work - it did help that I got the jacket cut out last week and could really get to the sewing this week. Now I am ready for the jacket and lining to be joined - that will be Monday morning's task. If that goes well, I think I'll have enough time to hem the sleeves and do all the rest of the finishing on Tuesday and Wednesday.

One quick Q/A: Kelley wanted to know what "BWOF" stood for (yes, this question was quite a while ago - I apologize for answering so late!). BWOF stands for Burda World of Fashion, a monthly pattern magazine published by Burda. Check the link for Burda patterns and the magazine.

Parting Shot: Cheap Cat Toy. Kiwi loves to push things around on the floor and chase things that roll. An empty thread spool is just as much fun for her as anything else I could buy. She tends to push my thread spools off the table anyway, and now she has her own spool. Behold, the mighty conqueror of the spool:

Bluebird of Happiness - Coat - Part XI

Borders - Phase 3 - Smaller Outer Borders, Corded Satin Stitch

There was quite an interesting reaction to the feathers! For the moment, I'm going to set the collar business to the side for a while until I get more of the coat constructed. Then I'll take another look at it and make a decision. I should have something ready after Thanksgiving so that I can revisit the ideas.

Meanwhile, I still have a lot of work to do on the coat borders to complete them. Now that the feathers are stitched and the vines appliqued, I need to complete the smaller outer borders so that I can move on to phase 4, the free motion quilting. The outer borders are composed of two lines of corded satin stitch with a line of decorative machine stitching in between which eventually will be beaded (that decorative stitching is another post).

On any other fabric the corded sating stitching would be easy, because I'd just mark the fabric and guide the cord through my cording foot and follow the *easy to see* lines. (See photo below for the way I normal stitch the corded satin stitch, from a trial run for this project.) We've already discovered that this fabric is hard to mark. It would be easier for any other project, too, because the lines most likely would be straight and not curved, nor would I have curved lines on a curved hem! Ugh.

For this project, I've had to alter my technique. First, I've marked the curved lines on the wrong side, in pencil. Notice the Sharpie marker lines. They are corrections of the penciled lines. The blue ones are the first round of corrections and the red, the second. The colors help me to keep everything straight.

Next, using orange transfer paper, the lines are transferred to the front of the paper. If I still need to correct at this point, I use white tracing paper, and if it still isn't right (after much measuring and eyeballing!) I use a pencil. The line is stitched over anyway, so no one will see it. You can barely see the orange line below.

Once all that is done, I'm having to hand baste the cording(the cording is only plain old Coats and Clark Knit-Cro-Sheen) to the fabric. There are two reasons for this. One, it makes seeing where to stitch *a whole lot* easier! Following the thick white line is very easy. Second, with the curves, it is much easier to have a stable line to follow, rather than have to place the cording as it is stitched.

This is not the most fun part of this project. Honestly, it is very time consuming and tedious. I'm happy with the result, but it feels like I've been working on this portion for weeks! Actually I have - the sleeve cuffs are now in phase 5 and almost ready for phase 6, and were fairly small. With the coat border being worked as one piece from the neck edge all the way down the front, all the way around the hem and back up the other front to the neck it, this is a lot of work.

The actual stitching isn't bad! It is your basic zigzag satin stitch. Really, it is nothing fancy. I'm using an ultrabright, 100% trilobal polyester from Iris threads - a new thread I saw at my local fancy thread dealer that happens to perfectly match. Once that is done, to add sparkle, I'm going over that with a looser zigzag and the Superior Glitter #112 old Peacock. This ties the color of the quilting on the body to the embellishment on the borders. Don't even ask how bad it is if I have to rip out and redo a section! (Yes, I've had to do it!)

I should be done with this part of the smaller borders by tomorrow night and maybe get to do the decorative stitching on Saturday. I hope. I've already had my Saturday morning scheduled for leaf raking. Looks like it might be a late Friday night.

Parting Shot: Not Bluebirds. Red birds, cardinals to be exact. I got this lovely card from my quilt guild today - isn't is pretty?

Bluebird of Happiness - Coat - Part X

Some More Collar Thoughts and a Mock-Up

Thank you all for your thoughts on the collar! Many of you did like the feathers in some capacity. I probably willl be doing feathers, but I'm just not sure exactly how yet. [Vicki W - I already have some ideas that are along what you suggested, just wait till you see what I have in mind. ] What better way to eliminate some ideas than by doing a few mock-ups? First, let's look at the pattern bag, with the luxurious fur collar (which LindsayT loves, and so do I, if I were just making the coat to make the coat - wouldn't a red coat with a snow white fur collar be gorgeous, along with white long gloves? Yeah, alright, back to reality.):

Yes, the collar is that large, it is not one of the pattern envelope illustrator exaggerations. Check it out on the dress form, although this is a slightly bigger than final form because I haven't trimmed it yet. As a side note, this is really the undercollar, as I wasn't sure what the real collar would be made of at the time, so I only quilted the one piece.

I went to Joann's and picked up a couple of cheap feather boas to play around with and see if I really was going to be able to make the feathers work. First, we have the maribou boa, I would stitch it down in rows, and cover the collar completely. This would be lux, and sort of like fur.

Second, we have a chandelle feather boa, draped in the same way:

Now to compare them side by side:

The chandelle boa seems to be a bit much. I think the coat would wear me instead of me wearing it. It would work better by itself - if there were no other decoration on the coat except for the collar. The maribou is a better, it is still soft and fluffy, and shouldn't compete too badly with the other elements. I know I can order a much thicker and better quality than what I found at Joann's, so I think I could pull that off without too much trouble.

At this point, I'm still not 100% set on what to do. I think I will need to keep thinking about it and once the coat is assembled, see what the various options are. Seeing the whole picture will really help.

Parting Shot: Chocolate Moose. The Chocolate Moose is a custom chocolate shop in the city where my husband works. Every once in a while, he'll pick me up some chocolates. There are some giant truffles to share and some chocolate covered coconut squares in the box.

Bluebird of Happiness - Coat - Part IX

Thoughts on the Collar

I've been thinking a lot about the coat collar, trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do with it. That large collar is a blank canvas that needs to be filled, but needs to be filled in a way that harmonizes with the ensemble. It would be a good place to add texture, but what exactly, I'm not sure. Let's explore a few ideas.

1. Fur. The original pattern has an option for a fur collar. I'm not opposed to fur - it would fit the time period of the piece, as there was not the taboo on fur as there seems to be now. Fur has some problems - from obtaining it to actually producing something nice with it. Since the title of the ensemble is *Bluebird* of Happiness, it seems a bit incongruous to use fur anyway.

2. Velvet. I have used velvet in many of my pieces. I did look at velvet at Martin's the last time I was there. It is $25 per yard and has been discounted 60% off that. The price is tempting, but the color was too yellow. Furthermore, I'd want to do something with it - emboss or give it some kind of texture. There is no other place in the ensemble that I'd use the velvet, so it would be a bit odd to have it show up only in the coat collar and not anywhere else in the ensemble. It would not be linked artistically anywhere else and would look like a last minute, "I couldn't think of anything else to make it out of".

3. Chiffon. No, chiffon is not too thin. I could gather it vertically radiating from the collar edge to the neck. It would create texture, and I have a few other places I could use the chiffon. I'd want to use the same treatment on the dress bodice, too, but that would eliminate using the nice ivory silk I just bought, which leaves the coat lining a strange stand alone choice. I've got to coordinate all this with the dress, too, and doing so would make the dress look like a train wreck - trust me, you don't know what I have planned for the dress yet.

4. Feathers. This seems like the most viable option at the moment, although it would need to be a careful choice. Too much and the coat would end up being kin either to Big Bird or a Las Vegas showgirl. Neither look is quite what I aiming for. I think the right kind of feathers could make a very luxurious collar and stay within the theme of the garment, so I think that I'll pick up some cheap feather boas and marabou trim at Joann's and see what I can come up with.

What do you think?

As a side note, you can see that planning one of these ensembles isn't easy. For me, everything is a deliberate choice and is thought through carefully. Every embellishment, every bead, every fabric must harmonize and relate to one another to make a pleasing whole. There are of course going to be elements that catch the eye, but they must be balanced with simpler elements to make a complete picture.


Parting Shot: Raking. It is that time of year where the leaves must be raked up. We've actually let ours go too long and now must hurry to get them raked up. They are calling for snow showers (which really means nothing to be honest!) in the next week or so and it is better to rake the leaves now than in the spring.

Bluebird of Happiness - Coat - Part VIII

Vines, vines and more vines.

I've actually been working on the vines for a while and realized that I had not done any posts regarding them. Part of the border design is green vines with flowers and leaves that intertwine with the feathers.

To make the vines, I start with bias strips of silk dupioni that are rotary cut 7/8" wide.
You can see in the photo below that along the edge of the fabric that I'm cutting into strips, there are some pins. Whenever I cut bias strips and I know I'll be cutting more at a later time, I place pins all along the edge to keep the cut edges perfectly aligned. I can then move the fabric and not have to try to realign or trim a bias edge. I do not always cut all the strips at once, as I never know how many I'll need and I'd rather not cut any more than necessary. It is also easier mentally to make four pieces of bias tubing than twenty four.

The finished width is 1/4", plus 1/4" (to make a tube), plus 1/4" for the two seam allowances, plus an additional 1/8" just for turn of cloth so that I can get the press bar into the tube properly. (Was that enough fractions for you?) These strips are then stitched *wrong* sides together with a 1/8" seam.

This does place the seam on the outside of the tube as you can see above. It doesn't matter as both edges of the tube are stitched down and the wrong side never seen. Turning all the tubes it takes for this sort of project isn't very exciting and since it doesn't need to be done, I don't do it.

Once they are stitched, they are then pressed using a quilter's press bar that corresponds to the finished width that I'm making. The bar slides into the tube, the seam is centered on the bar and the tube is pressed. The press bar is then moved along the tube until it is all pressed.

After pressing, the vines are pinned carefully in place and stitched down by hand.

Once all the vines are in place, the piece will be ready to go back to the machine for several steps of embellishment and quilting. After that there will more hand embellishment, machine construction, hand construction and final beading. That is probably why this process takes on average four months to complete an ensemble!

Q/A: There were a few questions regarding the bobbin work I showed in the last BOH post, so I thought I'd answer them on a BOH post to try to keep everything in one topic.

Kristine wanted to know, "When you do your bobbin work (or any non-linear design), do you drop the feed-dogs and follow the lines you've drawn?" Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It depends on the design and the look I'm trying to achieve.

Nina wanted to know, "Which settings do you use for the stitch during your bobbin work?" I usually use a straight stitch and whatever tension settings needed to get the tension correct.

Parting Shot: Advance 6124. This is my latest eBay find. The dress is fairly simple, but I liked the inset cowl. Check out how many ways that drape can be worn.

Also, note these cool t-strap sandals:

30 Minute Friday

Here's the report of what I've accomplished in the 30 minutes per day that I've allotted for sewing Christmas gifts this week:

Monday: Nothing. That's right, nothing. My son was home sick from school that day and between that and getting him to the doctor's for antibiotics I wasn't able to do anything, especially work on a project for him.

Tuesday: I decided I wanted something quick and easy, so I cut out a polar fleece pajama like shirt for my husband. I boughtall the fabric left on the bolt, but it wasn't quite enough for an XL shirt, so I put a seam in the center back, as you can see from my layout.

Check out the fabric:

There's a story behind that fabric. We were in Wal-mart and I had to pick up a spool of thread and he saw this fabric and thought it was awesome fabric. Now, to be perfectly honest, this is something I would not pick on my own, let alone pick for him. He liked it so much that he told me if I'd make it, he'd wear it. Alright, now he's got to live up to his end of the bargain. In his defense, he does love cats and without the children or me, he'd end up being the crazy cat guy and probably have 15 cats.

Wednesday: More crazy cat work. I got the shirt constructed right up to putting on the collar.

Thursday: The crazy cat shirt is done. I put the collar on and put in the hems. It's something alright, but I'm not sure what. Even the children raised an eyebrow at it. At least it is done and can be wrapped up and put away until Christmas.

Friday: Back to my son's blazer. I got all the pieces cut out, including a lining. The pattern doesn't include a lining, but the jacket would be much nicer with one. I also got the hood partly constructed today. I just need to sew one more edge shut, turn it right side out and finish the closure by hand. I'll add the snaps when I put the snaps on the body of the jacket.

That's not too bad for the week. Maybe next week I 'll be able to work on these projects all five days.

Parting Shot: Beads! I got an unexpected little gift in the mail from a friend in San Antonio, TX - giant pearls, blue squares and purple dyed irregular pearls, plus an eco-friendly little shopping bag. I am going to my local bead shop this afternoon and will take my little bag to show the owner.

Bluebird of Happiness - Coat - Part VII

Starting the Borders

I have quite a mix of techniques planned for the borders, which means that they will have to be done in several stages. In the photo below, you can see the artwork and a sample.

This is the second sample that I have made for this project. I cannot stress how important samples are to sewing. From projects like this to very simple ones, samples are important. I always stitch samples for just about everything I make, mostly just to check thread tension and stitch length. For this sort of project, samples also show if all the elements work nicely together or if one overpowers another.

In this case, I found out that the thread I was using - Superior Glitter #201 Gold - for stitching the feathers was too thin. Notice in the sample above that the feathers near the bottom of the photo are barely visible. The feathers themselves were not in balance with the appliqued vines and flowers - they got overpowered by the vines, etc. What I needed was a thicker thread.

I have a thicker sparkly gold thread, a YLI metallic yarn that was rejected in the original auditions, but got a call back because it now will work out perfectly. The only problem with using this thread is that it is thick and yarn like and cannot be run through the top of the machine - it must be wound on the bobbin and stitched with the front of the fabric facing down. This is called "bobbin work". With the YLI in the bobbin and Superior Glitter #201 Gold (my most favorite thread of all time!) in the top, I was very happy with how it stitched out.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking there is another problem to be solved, because how do you know where to stitch? Well, the answer actually solved a different problem for me. The blue silk, while beautiful is one of the worst colors to make marks for placement on. White barely shows, yellow, red and blue do not, and orange is only slightly better than white. I made a quilt one time in this color and the memory had faded until I started trying to mark this silk. *Then* I remembered the marking problem. Since I am stitching from the wrong side and the batting is very thin and a light color, I just traced the feather design onto the batting, which I can easily see through the tulle.

Yes, horror of horrors that is a Sharpie fine point marker that you see and that I traced the designs with. Don't worry, no one will ever see it and it doesn't bleed through.

I don't have a final picture of the front, but you will see it in subsequent posts when I show you the other techniques used in the border. Below you can see the stitching in progress, with the wrong side of the fabric facing up.

Tomorrow is 30 Minute Friday - this was an interesting week to put it mildly.

In response to a few comments about the fabric I showed yesterday, yes I need all eight yards, but not for the coat lining. I need that much yardage for the coat lining *and* the dress (it has that very full skirt, which as always is a yardage hog). The fabric does not have any gold threads in it, but I actually think that will be better in the long run as there will be less competition with the borders. Now that you've seen a sneak peak of what I'm planning, you can understand why that fabric needs to be subtle, yet interesting - finding both qualities in a fabric isn't easy!

Parting Shot: Piano. Both my children take piano lessons, and much to their delight and horror, mom can play the piano, too. It's nice to have someone to play four hand pieces with them, but they hate it when mom corrects them if they're playing a piece wrong! My daughter just brought home a new book with some interesting Christmas arrangements in it - we sat down and auditioned quite a few of them to see what she liked and will pick to play this season. So far, she likes the arrangements for Carol of the Bells, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Jingle Bells.

Bluebird of Happiness - Coat - Part VI

Found It!

I was finally able to get to Martin's last night to do a little shopping for the fabric for the coat lining and main part of the dress. I was already traveling down to Massachuesetts to do a trunk show and lecture at the Tewksbury Piecemakers guild meeting, so it was a good time to stop.

Let me give you a quick word about that adventure. I had a great time - the guild ladies are really nice, the president and other boardmembers that I met were very gracious and helpful and made me feel comfortable in their meeting. I also got to see their show and tell which was really fun. Some of the quilts shown were prizes winners from their recent guild show, and the ladies who made them did a tremendous job! I got some positive feedback from the guild members who enjoyed my presentation and that fact that it was different from some of the special speakers they had heard in the past. Different is always good! I'm so glad I got the projector, too, it worked like a charm. I also made a contact with another guild, so I might be doing another lecture in the future. Suits me, I have the equipment and like to talk to large groups!

Anyway, I had to do a bit of searching through all the fabric- they are consolidating two floors of inventory (three if you count what is in the basement!) on to one floor, so right now there is still some organizing and moving of merchandise around. I found several fabrics I thought would work, some with better qualities than others. I wanted a brocade/jacquard/woven pattern of some sort and some metallic gold, but I didn't want the pattern or color to overpower the blue silk and fancy borders. In the end bought this silk:


It is a dupionni, but also has the jacquard like patten woven throughout. It is interesting, yet not overpowering and I think it will work nicely for what I'm planning for the coat lining and the dress. Photographing it was not easy - there is no color contrast so the camera did not want to focus. I had to put the lens cap in the picture to get the camera to focus. I bought eight yards, with the original price being $30USD per yard. Thankfully, I did not pay that price, the fabric was 60% off. When the salesperson presented me with the total she said, "You saved $140!".

The more I think about this fabric, the happier I am with it. I really think this is going to be just right for everything I'm envisioning for the ensemble. Now, if I could just figure out what to do about the coat collar, I'd be set! More on that in another post.

Parting Shot: Flannel. I bought some flannel yesterday for the children's Christmas gifts. My daughter wanted to make something for her brother, and when I saw the pirate flannel on clearance I knew it would be perfect for an easy pair of pajamas for her to make for her brother. The pink kitties are for her, along with some pink flannel back satin and the matching kitty print fleece for a robe, I'll have all the fabrics I need for her pajamas and robe.

Instant Gratification Weekend Project

BWOF 11/07 #121

First, thank you all for the compliments regarding my little cowboy. He's really a great kid and enjoys being around people. He's in his element when he's entertaining - although it usually gets him in trouble at school!

When working on long term projects such as BOH, I usually try to make some quick projects so that I feel like I've accomplished something. As an added bonus, it is always fun to wear something new!

I choose BWOF 11/07 because it is a simple design and easy to make. Putting it together was what you'd expect for a quick knit top: finish the neck edges, sew the shoulder seams, stitch the sleeves to the shoulders, stitch the side/underarm seams as one seam and finish the hems.

I did deviate from this general order and the instructions when it came to the side seams and hems. I chose to hem the overlap first and then stitch the left side seam/underarm seam - that is the side with the small portion of overlap on the right of the line drawing. This was so that I could finish the rest of the hem on my coverstitch machine while the garment was still flat . I then layered and stitched the ride side seam/underarm seam. I did read Burda's directions, but decided to do it my own way and it came out fine.

One word about the fit. Do notice how deep the v-neck is in the line drawing (not unusual for BWOF!) - it is a very deep v-neck, intended to be worn with another top underneath. It is actually shown modeled with another top underneath in the magazine. If you're small you might want to decrease the depth of the neckline. I probably could have on mine, but it is meant for layering in cooler weather, so I'm not going to worry about it.

The fabric is a sweater knit I picked up at Wal-mart for $1.00 per yard. It is some sort of acrylic or synthetic - you know the kind that the fiber is probably spun out in the same factory they make plastic bags. It didn't shrink in the wash, which means I'll be able to wash and wear this sweater for years without being able to damage it. It does have a cable texture which I like, and of course another red sweater won't hurt. (This one is sweater number five.)

I bought 3 yards, and I think I have enough to make a hooded pullover top from the same issue. Red sweater number six, anyone?

Parting Shot: Postcard! Isn't this the coolest postcard? I got it from Paco, who lives in Barcelona, Spain. Of course it is representative of the beautiful dancers and costumes from Spanish culture, but this postcard has been embellished - he actually purchased it this way. The dress bodice and sleeves are enhanced with stitching and the skirt is made of real fabric and trim.