A Lark Tee and A Linden Sweatshirt

Usually I buy rtw long-sleeve t-shirts, but there wasn't any in-person shopping this year so I was motivated to make a few of my own. Both the Lark Tee and the Linden Sweatshirt patterns by Grainline Studio are in my collection and I decided to try making one of each.

I had used the Lark Tee by Grainline Studio before, but I knew that the shoulder and bicep fit needed tweaking for me. The Lark Tee is a bit too narrow across the shoulders for me and I have two shirts where the fabric is tight on the upper arm. That may just be the fabric choice, but I wanted to look into the fitting there too. I had already lengthened the sleeves 1 1/2" and adjusted the side seam a bit to curve in at my waist. This time I lengthened the shoulder seam by 3/4" and lowered the bottom of the armscye about 3/4". I chose to make the long-sleeve size 10 with the crew neck. 

This very soft polka-dot fabric came from Joann Fabrics. I used my Babylock 1034D serger for most of the construction and my Bernina 1230 for the neck binding, hem, and sleeve hems.

The fit is improved. I don't know yet if it is a question of fabric choice for the bicep fit, but I didn't make any pattern changes for the biceps and this fabric works great.

For the second shirt I used the Linden Sweatshirt pattern. I traced a size 10 top graded out to a 12 at the hips. The shirt is lengthened 3" and the sleeves are lengthened 2".  There is a 1 1/2" hem band and the sleeve hems are turned under 3/4".  The fabric is a red knit with white stripes.

                                               

Look at how high the snow is stacked on the bird bath behind me. There was so much snow and so much time spent shoveling last month. Now there are crocuses and daffodils blooming. Soon it will be gardening season and I'm ready for it. 

Scrappy Blue Hearts Quilt

This quilt was a made for Project Linus. At the February meeting of Loose Ends, Jane mentioned that the theme for quilts in the next month was the color blue. Since I could choose any pattern I wanted and I had plenty of blue scraps at the ready I decided to try to meet the submission deadline. 

The pattern came from the blog Neverlandstitches. The author, Lisa Girodat, wrote that she had designed this block to be a scrap buster and I thought it would would work perfectly with my blue scraps. I ended up using scraps of all sizes and from a variety of sources. I didn't have a finished size in mind when I started, I just wanted to make a dent in my blue scrap collection.

At the beginning there was very little piecing needed

I started by cutting several block pieces in the sizes listed in the pattern, but after sewing a few blocks I realized I was going to need to piece some scraps together before continuing to cut.   

So many different patterns

The finished size of the quilt was ultimately decided when I started to run out of scraps. At the start of the project I hadn't even considered that possibility, but it turns out that my scrap pile is not limitless. I could have maybe patched together one more block, but it would have been mostly solid fabrics at that point. All the fabric with prints or patterns was used up.                        

Here is the pile of too-small-to-use scraps

Most of the piecing was done on my Bernina 1230. The ironing board is right next to the machine and there was quite a bit of back and forth while sewing the smaller scraps together. The quilt top was finished on Feb 14, 2021. We had a significant snowfall before and after that date and I photographed the top laying on about a foot of snow.

Quilt top in the snow

The next weekend I was ready to baste and quilt. I used the kitchen floor as my workspace and I taped the backing to the floor to minimize quilt movement. The backing was donated by Nancy, a sewist who had also donated her machine a couple years ago. She couldn't see well enough to sew any longer and hoped that her machine and small fabric stash could go to someone who would appreciate it. I think she would be pleased that several of her blue fabrics are in this quilt. 

Stewie helped with the basting

Pinned and ready to go

Quilting was done on my Bernina 717 using the walking foot and the seam guide. I went in 1/4" from each seam line so the quilting lines are 2" apart. 

Bernina 717

I worked on the quilting during the week in the evenings after work. The bias binding is made from scraps, sewn on by machine, and finished by hand. 

Finished

On a very sunny day in early March I photographed the quilt before delivering it to Jane. She would make sure the quilt got to Project Linus.

Here are a few close-ups of the heart blocks. There were so many fabrics in this quilt that have now been completely used up and are no longer in my collection. If you have ever shared blue fabric with me, there's a good chance that it made it into this quilt somewhere.

I forgot to take a picture of the back. It was very plain, just three solid blue fabrics pieced together. This quilt will be great for snuggling under or for display. I hope it brings some comfort to its new owner.

Cielo Top

 I bought the Cielo Top and Dress pattern from Sew on Central this summer. I decided to try the top version first and used some fabric that came from Pam's mom. It's a lightweight cotton and I was worried it might be see-through, but that turned out to be an unnecessary worry.

The shirt was relatively quick to trace, cut out, and sew up. I used a size 14 and added 1 3/4" to the length. This is view A with cuffed short sleeves.

These finished pics were taken the week before school started this year in August. We had a week of meetings and time to set up our classrooms. We did start the year in-person with the 6 foot social distancing and mask wearing guidelines in place. I was the only person in my classroom for this week though so I am not wearing a mask in the pics. 

Shirt was nice and cool in the summer heat

Neckline finished with bias binding

Clearly, I was in a bit of a rush with the pics. There are no side or back shots and the last one is taken from the car when I was leaving to head home. 

Since finishing the shirt in the summer, I used some of the leftovers to make a matching mask and will be ready to wear it for work when the weather warms up again.