Wednesday, June 18, 2008

belated birthday gift

It's only 60 degrees today, which means it is cool enough for me to sew. The upstairs room in our house (it's a 1.5 story) tends to be 900 degrees all the time and is therefore not usable much of the time. Even with the windows open at both ends of the room the temperature hovers around "surface of the sun." On a nice cooler day like this it's ok, and in the winter I can sew up there with all the windows open - I'm not even kidding about that. Something in the construction is waaaayyyy wrong up there.

Anyway, I started a birthday gift for my youngest sister last month, and intended to have it finished long before now. I got the embroidery done but then it became too warm to sew upstairs and the project languished.

Finished it up today:



These are standard pillowcases with a monogram, trimmed in blue batik. That strip is actually a folded piece, so it's kind of 3-dimensional. I used french seams throughout because my serger is not cooperating, so these took awhile, but the pattern is awesome and they always come out perfect (I have made lots as gifts...really fun in novelty prints).

Yes, you can still see the embroidery hoop impression - the pencil markings I used to mark the center for the design also show, so I will wash, dry, and press these before sending them off. But at least they are done!

I had this dumb idea in late winter/early spring that I needed to load myself up with projects to make my pregnancy go by faster and keep me occupied. It would be embarrassing to actually list all the things I thought I would accomplish this summer. With only 10 weeks or so left, I can see that I will quickly run out of time before anything actually gets done. Hopefully this is the last of the handmade gifts that need making and I can just shelve all the lofty goals I had, focusing on a few relaxing items for the next two months.

2 comments:

Louise said...

It was nice and cool here today, too. These look great-- the batik really makes the monogram pop. Where did you find the pattern? I need a new one for pillowcases, mine always come out just slightly wrong somehow.

kate said...

Louise, if you email me (momwhoknits AT yahoo DOT com) with your regular mail address, I will send you a photocopy of my pattern. It's from a woman I knew who taught these as a class.