Mirroring Suzy Bee Sews - Life So Strange It Should Be Fiction

Apparently Pinterest is dealing with as much spam as the rest of the internet and has instituted a website verification process for websites listed in your profile.  You have to prove that you own a website by mucking about in its code.  I deduce that the idea is if you are a spammer who is paid to promote a website as many (poorly written) places as possible, you will not have access to the server/code of the website you're promoting.  Pinterest will then delete the website reference from the account, thus defeating the purpose of paying spammers to promote websites there.  So eventually, companies wil realize they're not getting anything for their money, stop paying the spammers, and then Pinterest will be spam free.  Ta da!  We'll see how that works.  To paraphrase Jurassic Park, "Spam finds a way." At any rate, that leaves a lot of bloggers who have blogs rather than personal websites so that we don't *have* to muck about in code scratching our hea...

Burda 10-2012-118 (available for purchase from BurdaStyle at the link in sizes 34-42) is destined to become a Burda magazine classic.  It has already been made many times, including by AllisonC , Kristy of Lower Your Presser Foot , and Sigrid , to name a few. Luckily, because so many people had tested it before me, I knew I could safely ignore the marked grain--which has the cowl on straight grain and the skirt on the bias--and place the skirt on straight grain.  This gives the cowl a little more drape and the skirt a firmer hand.  I really don't know why Burda designed it the other way.  BWOF, you are still a mystery to me! Also, note an error in the instructions:  the pattern pieces are on sheet B, not sheet A.  The corresponding black-lined piece numbers on A are a pair of pants, which really confused me.   I traced my usual sizes:  34 at the shoulders and bust (and halle-freakin'-luja for a pattern that is already a 34 and doesn't have to be ...

All finished! The details; All material is Prima quilting cotton from Spotlight and the wadding is low loft Bamboo also from Spotlight. The blocks are from Cut to Pieces Mario quilt-along and I constructed them using a thin interfacing method from here . Quilting is an allover loopy free motion stitch using a light grey cotton thread. I found it pretty painstaking, cutting the interfacing apart so I could iron the seams open and flat took forever! But I am really happy with how it looks and I have all the materials to make another one for me.....maybe next year sometime! Its an early Christmas present for my son who is a huge Mario fan (gets it from me, I still have the original Super Nintendo and games from the 1990's and the only computer game I play now is the Mario galaxy games :)

I feel that sleeve variations are one of the more underused ways to make a garment special.  I get really sick of making plain, boring sleeves on everything.  When I found this top a couple years ago, I was really intrigued by the sleeves.  They probably have a boring name like "draped sleeves," but to me they look like beetle wings that appear solid until the insect goes to fly when it appears that its whole body splits open.  These sleeves appear solid on the upper side, but when you lift your arms you see they are split to the armscye.  So I call them carapace sleeves. Anyway, I had no idea how they might be done, so when I saw Burda 7519 with that style of sleeve I was thrilled and picked it up.  I plan to make a copper-colored silk dress with this pattern, but I wanted to test it out before sewing the dress.  The silk fabric for this top was purchased from Fabric Mart many years ago, at least 4 years ago and possibly even 5.  The $9.99/yd st...

I did a big push this week to get all the blocks done, just have to add sashing and the front it completed. Its going to end up a big quilt, about 2mx2m finished! A lot bigger than I thought when I started.

Well, our visit to Fabric Mart was a roaring success!  In addition to me and Cidell, 5 people were able to join our spur-of-the-moment trip.  The group photo shows Layla, Mary, Claudine , Cidell , Lisette , me, and Diane thoroughly dazed and sated after our 3(!!!) hour visit to the store.  We really felt like we'd been in there for only an hour. The drive from Baltimore took about two hours and Fabric Mart was easy to spot once we got into town.  The parking lot isn't large, but they don't get too much in-person business and we had no trouble finding a place. You can enter through the front of the store (didn't get a picture, sorry) or the back, from the parking lot.  We came in through the back.  Here I am about to enter the store for the first time.  Can you feel the anticipation? We were greeted by Sharon, with whom many of us have had email correspondence.  She was incredibly nice and patient with us and gave us a tour of the palace grounds...