Burda Style Sewing and beyond

I love that I am the self-proclaimed Sample Girl at Pendleton Woolen Mills store. I've had a few fun projects handed my way lately so I thought I'd share.

The Burda Style Sewing Handbook came out recently and many of the projects in there were made with Pendleton fabrics. The gals at the store wanted a few samples to take with them to the NW Sewing and Stichery Expo in Puyallup next month so I volunteered to make a skirt and jacket. The book is a guide to how to manipulate patterns, and this was a fun challenge. The first jacket I made ended up in the scrap bin; not easy to swallow at $40 a yard...

I moved onto working on a skirt (success motivates me more than failures). I used the pattern from the book to start with, but didn't think to lengthen it. I am not exactly comfortable wearing a 16" skirt, so I ended up making a second (longer!) wrap skirt. The wrap skirt gave me the idea to make a wrap jacket. I love playing with the 1" felt binding (and it is only $1 a yard!) and while it took a lot more pattern manipulation than I anticipated I love how it turned out.


If you are up for a sewing adventure head up to the Sewing Expo March 1-4th. Susan Beal with be at the Pendleton booth signing copies of her books and there will be great deals on Pendleton fabrics. I will be in DC for the JDRF Government Day conference this year. Bummed that it conflicts but it is important work that I wouldn't want to miss.

On days when I am done with embroidery duties I get to invent projects for classes and free patterns. My co-workers cleverly named this next project The Michelle Bag. A few Sunday's ago I had some time to play and was inspired to make something quick and easy. The Cloudcroft fabric caught my eye and I grabbed a slice off the table and started playing with it. The design lent itself to a bag - it pretty much sewed itself!

I have a free pattern that will be available for download on the WMS blog super soon. If you want it leave a comment and I'll email it to you.

The WMS be offering smaller cuts of Fabric starting in March which will be perfect for projects like this one. They will be called 'Half-a-Slice' and you will get a full repeat but won't have to buy the 60" width. Stay tuned for more about that as well.