threadWEAR 301

Who says faster is always better? Reviving my love of hand sewing, one stitch at a time.

After my wonderful retreats at Alabama Chanin in Florence, Alabama last summer and again this summer, my obsession with AC-style stitching is unrelenting—not driven, but truly relaxing and satisfying.

And the stitching goes on! Using the new eTee download pattern and the Alabama Chanin organic cotton knit in Dark Grey, Kathy created this darling t-shirt that she claims is "girly", but we love it anyway for its creativity and charm.

Inspiration. Admiration. Creativity. Drive. Ambition.

The dust has settled and the new website has launched! Now we can really concentrate of the important things - our love of sewing.

We had our first Stitch Night at our Topeka studio last night. Our first gathering since returning from the Alabama Chanin studio. It was a great reminder of how much fun we had during our visit August 1-3.

Alabama Chanin Organic Cotton Jersey Pillow

Once a month, a group of like-minded women get together to share their artistic works and listen to a program. The June program was all about the Alabama Chanin experience, and many examples of incredible work, a la Chanin, were shown.

Barbara was wearing a Pearl Jacket that she had made in Alabama Chanin's black organic knit, and she had stitched it all by hand with the seams on the outside. I loved it!

I came home and decided to literally copy her, but I got a little sidetracked and decided to use her technique to make a Pearl Vest (the jacket without the sleeves, as simple as that).

So here's the deal. I love sports of all kinds and the NBA playoffs are going on, so I want to watch every game that I can. That requires being in the TV room rather than my sewing room. But who can just sit and watch TV without a little something else going on? Hand stitching a Pearl Vest was the answer. My favorite team, the Oklahoma Thunder, won their game 7 of the series just as I put the last stitch on this vest.

I used two layers of organic knit, Dark Grey over Gold. I cut out the grey pieces first, then placed them on top of the gold yardage, using the grey pieces as the patterns to cut out the gold sections. After smoothing the two cut pieces together, I hand basted the pieces together along the 5/8" seam allowances using Silk Basting Thread. (Game 1)

I lengthened this one 3″ and used two colors of the Alabama Chanin organic cotton jersey in white and natural. Plus I used the embroidery floss to hand stitch some parallel lines of diagonal running stitch embellishment along the lower right front.

Peny Vest using Organic Cotton Jersey, beading and hand stitching.