Personalized Wedding Gift

My daughter was attending a friends wedding and wanted to give the couple a personalized gift.  She knew the bride liked birds and personalized things.  A garden flag seemed like a sweet gift along with a flag pole and a bird feeder she had on her registry.  I had purchased this machine embroidery design from Embroidery Library a few years ago and never used it.  This flag took way longer to stitch out than I had anticipated.  When I first stitched it out I realized that the design was for a much larger flag than what I wanted.  So I re sized it.  The birds nest alone took a hour and a half to stitch out.  I had to re hoop several times even using my largest hoop.  The names are letters that came on my machine but I thought they matched the twig letters pretty well.

I like this project overall but I think I need to make some changes if I make another one.  First thing is I think I needed more or different stabilizer.  My flag has many wrinkles which could have been prevented maybe if I had stabilized better.  I am not sure that would have cleared it all up because the design is very stitch intensive.  But I am challenged to try again.  I have another wedding gift to make so maybe.  I think the wrinkles will not be seen  when the flag is in the yard blowing in the wind.

My Doily Coat

 I have had this coat idea in my head for quite some time.  I finally made it into a reality.  And I love the way it turned out.  I am not sure what the fabric content is but it feels like some kind of silk.  It was a gift from a friend who worked in a drapery workroom.  I love using home dec fabrics for clothing.  They usually have a heavier feel to them and I think home dec fabrics are perfect for jackets.  While looking through my stash of vintage doilies I came across this crocheted one with pink trim.  When I put it next to this fabric I knew they were meant to be together. 

 I wanted the lace to be an accent around the waist as well as the collar.  While the doily was pretty large I still had to plan carefully to use the doily to the best advantage.  One part of the doily was to damaged to use so I had to work around that part.  I picked The Catherine Coat pattern because I liked the separate skirt with the slightly gathered bodice.  And the large collar would be good to showcase the doily as the collar.  The doily was just large enough to fit the skirt at the waist of the jacket.  I had to do at bit of adjusting to get the rest of the doily to fit around the collar.  For the buttons I stacked two buttons together a vintage ecru shell button on the bottom with a smaller pink button on top.  I love the results and the fit of this jacket.

http://sewingwiththesparrows.blogspot.com/2011/07/catherine-coat.html

I have used this pattern before but it has a completely different look.  The pattern has several suggestions for different looks even a robe version.  It is an unlined coat but if you used a heavy wool or fleece fabric it could be an outerwear coat as well.  A good pattern to be creative with.

Aurelia Cardigan

 This is the second time I have sewed this pattern.  The first one can be found herehttp://sewingwiththesparrows.blogspot.com/2012/03/aurelia-cardigan.html.  The first time I made this my fabric wasn't quite stretchy enough.  I do wear it but I feel like the sleeves are too tight and I would have liked the front to be a bit fuller.  So this time I made a few changes.

The first thing I did was to use a fabric with more stretch.  I used a cotton knit from JoAnn Fabrics.  The ruffle contrast fabric is a woven cotton voile as the pattern suggest.  I added about a half inch to the width of the sleeves.  I like the feel of the sleeves much better.  I also added some to the side seams so that the front over laps more.  I like this better too.  The pattern envelope shows this cardigan being worn with a belt so I thought I would give that look a try.  I am not sure if I like this look yet.  I think I would be constantly trying to keep the belt in place.  There are no carriers for the belt  but I may add them in case I do wear this with a belt.  I may add a bit of elastic at the center back because I don't like the way the back stands out.  The elastic would keep the back in place without the need for the belt.  And I could still wear it either way.  Overall I do like this cardigan and it was easy to sew.