brrrrr, it's cold outside

I was sorting through some of my remnants and two ended up together in the pile and said "Make something with us!  We think we belong together!"

It was a pink fleece and a wild t-shirt knit.  So the fleece became a darted t-shirt from my TCC pattern and the knit became a binding around the neck, sleeves, and hem.

I wanted to make the binding wide enough so enough of the coordinating pink was visible and made a conscious decision to "bulk" it up so it would add some dimension.  On hindsight, after wearing it, I think the bindings are a bit heavy and now wish I'd used a different technique.  There's always the "next" one.

However it meets the following criteria:  It fits.  It is warm.  It is cheerful.

What more could I ask?  

Let's get organized!

I knew I'd be making more of these purse organizers!  This batch was for a group of friends and they had told me their favorite colors -- green, orange, and blue.

The outside was a denim remnant from a long ago pair of jeans and the linings were fat quarters that I cut in half and seamed to get the length.  They aren't bandana prints but do have a little of that look.  Each are bright enough to be visible inside a purse.

Each was topstiched in a coordinating color and this time I used the bartack stitch at the top of each divider stitching.  I added a few little goodies to give a clue how they could be used, again color coordinated.

I couldn't believe my luck at the dollar store with the perfect gift bags!   I didn't want to ruin the effect with a gift tag so each was marked with an appropriate color ribbon on the "purse" handle.

More Canine Couture

I actually thought I had posted the second jacket --so here it is now.

Of course Louis fell between two sizes.  Of course even though the pattern had several views, his owner wanted the hood and short sleeves -- so that just meant using the hood from view G and sewing that instead of a collar onto view F.

Here's a link to the pattern  McCalls 5776

The fabric for this was taken from a little dog "blanket" that I bought at JoAnn's on Halloween clearance -- the black with the white bones ... perfect!  And of course, I just saw it as fabric.  With the sale price on the fleece with a sale pattern ... this little jacket cost only $2.25 out of pocket.

I tried to keep the blanket stitching edge wherever possible, using that for the hood and the sleeve and coat hems.  When we had the first "fitting" I realized that it would be a poor choice for the sleeve hem since the toe nails were likely to catch and the jacket itself was too long.  So the sleeves got turned up with a little cuff and stitched and the shirt itself was shortened.

We also decided that the underside would need to be scooped a bit more so that it stayed dry -- those alterations were done with scissors until we were happy with the fit.


Talk about a custom garment!  And a perffect contrast for his fur.