Category Archives: stretch fabric
Stash busting failure :-(
Because I am having a problem with bottom halves I have bought itch to stitch sequoia cargo trousers and liana jeans, then of course I had to go to eBay and buy some cheap fabric to make them up in, I have also bought some beautiful purple jersey fabric for a love notions candence dress, I am starting to feel better, every night I think tomorrow, I’ll finish those two tops cut out on my table, I’ll take the photos of my sewing room – I’m planning to go to the knitting and stitching show this year the same as normal.
For some reason we thought, oh radiotherapy has finished we won’t have hospital appointments all week, wrong. Because the last week of radiotherapy/chemo my bone marrow stopped making Platelets (clotting) I have some beautiful purple bruises, this meant blood tests Monday /Thursday (check platelets) platelet transfusions Tuesday/Friday, finally my platelet count has started coming up, tomorrow’s blood test should confirm whether or not my marrow is now working, as long as the platelets come up from last week (no transfusion) hopefully the blood tests will no longer be needed.
I’m also having a MRI tomorrow, this is to confirm whether the left side weakness I am experiencing is being caused by swelling, which we are sure that is. The oncologist has upped my dexamethasone (steroid) for a week, left side weakness is resolving its self, we managed to take Charlie for a walk on the seafront today.
I wrote the first part of this post a week ago. My left side weakness is getting worse,the results of the mri is inconclusive, today is the first day in about 2 weeks that I’ve woken up with my brain thinking about working, the dexamethazone has been taken back down to 4 mg, my ankles and knees are swollen, still having regular blood tests no transfusions, this way we know if they are my platelets and not transfused platelets.
I have plans, next week Simon and I are going to blue water for shopping, gbk and Krispy cream donuts then the following week the knitting and stitching show at Olympia. I can’t wait.
More Plaintains
I have made a couple of Plaintains for Liz’s birthday present, I also made one for me with 3/4 length sleeves, with the steroids and Christmas I have put on rather a lot of weight, I needed to make something larger than my normal clothes, though the Plaintains hide quite a bit 🙂
I had the altered pattern with FBA for Liz already, luckily I actually managed to find it, then I just need to find the Jersey fabric, I used two different types of Jersey one is a cotton bought from eBay which was easy to work with but didn’t drape very well. The second one was is a viscose/rayon bought from Olympia last year surprisingly heavy and slippery. Not the best fabric when your left hand isn’t working quite as well as it could do. I mainly used the overlocker to complete bulk of the sewing, and the twin needle on the sewing machine for the hems.
This wasn’t my best work, I used a lot more pins than I would have normally and the hems weren’t quite as neat as they could be.
Deer and Doe – 5 plaintains
This is a quick post to tell you about the three Plaintains I made just before coming away.
They took about 3 hours from cutting out to finishing, I did most of the work on my overlocker which speeds up construction immensely.
The first two were fabric from Olympia the third from eBay.
As I promised here are another two
The top fabric is from Primark, I bought two of the largest size T-Shirts and cut them up, the design isn’t printed on grain, so I had to make the decision of did I want it on grain or the lines straight, I went for the lines, It doesn’t hang quite right but that is better than looking at it with wonky lines 🙂 Bottom fabric is from eBay.
I overlocked the shoulders, inserted the neckband as per the instructions, I might go back to doing it the other way. Inserted the sleeves, pins are my friends for this on the overlocker as there is a very good chance of holes if the fabic isn’t totally level. Then up the sideseams and under arms. Over to the sewing machine for the twin needle hems and one row of stitching to hold the neck band in place.
Back soon….
Bonus finish – Plantain Top Deer and Doe
The Plantain T-Shirt is a free pattern offered by Deer and Doe – this is what they have to say about it:
T-shirt fitted at the shoulders and flaring at the hips, with elbow patches. Short, long and 3/4 sleeves included in the pattern.
I wasn’t sure about elbow patches so I left them off, I started this sometime last year, I had it cut out stitched together with the neckband completed, but for one reason or another I didn’t finish it.
Because I needed to get a twin needle set up in my sewing machine I thought that I would finish this t-shirt, I have a confession I have actually worn this a couple of times even though the hem and cuffs hadn’t been finished.
I’ve stitched the neck binding wrong sides together then folded it over to the front and stitched round again, I find it gives a cleaner finish, obviously it wouldn’t work with a smaller neckline because of the stretching to get over the head.
it does need a good iron, and part of me wishes I’d just left it in the unfinished state, the ridge round the bottom isn’t as bad in person as it seems in this photo.
The fabric is a very light jersey that likes to cling 😦 bought from eBay, if I had seen it in person I might not have bought it but a good fabric for playing with.
Moneta coming up
Musings of a Craft Enthusiast 