A Seamstress' Version of Quilting

Although I love sewing and can be found in my sewing room many hours of nearly every day, I haven't done much quilting. My mom and sister have worked together piecing many wall quilts, and my sister loves hand quilting them, but not me. I much prefer sewing clothes to making quilts!

I do, however, enjoy making my little girls' patchwork skirts, and putting different fabrics together to make cute little outfits. I've even made several ladies patchwork skirts. In fact I just finished such a skirt for a return Etsy customer!

I started out with a pretty pile of pink and brown print fabrics (my customer's colors of choice). More than 30 different fabrics to be exact!

And after much hand cutting, coordinating my pieces into piles for each strip, piecing, and then laying out the strips in such a way that the colors blended well and that no two pieces of the same fabric were next to each other, I finished up with this result.

A pretty, custom made, one-of-a-kind women's long a-line patchwork skirt in pink and brown! 

School Plays

This certainly must be the time of year for School Plays! I've sold three items this month, and all of the orders have been from Moms looking for the outfits their daughters needed for school plays. :)

The first one needed a dark peasant skirt and bought this:

 

The next one needed a simple jumper for her second grader who had the part of Maria Von Trapp. We didn't have much time for this custom order, so this is what we came up with:

And the third one needed a skirt for an Annie Oakley outfit, and purchased this:

It's been such fun being able to supply these, and I'm sure grateful for the orders. :)

Change of Plans

 

When I first began to make this jumper, I had a slightly different plan for it than the way it actually turned out. I thought I'd make a plain, simple little denim jumper, and maybe make a pink flowered shirt to go with it. But my plans changed when I discovered a problem! Check out my Artfire Blog to discover the change of plans.

You Can Make This

Have you ever heard of the You Can Make This website? I had seen it advertised on blogs a few times, but I never took the time to really check it out until I wanted to open my Etsy shop. Since copyright laws wouldn't allow me to use commercial (Simplicity, McCall's, Butterick) patterns to create items to sell, I had to find another alternative.

That's when I decided to check out YCMT. What I found really excited me! Not only were there lots of really cute patterns, many of the designers allow independent crafters to make and sell items using their patterns! This was just what I was looking for! I now had a source for patterns I could purchase to use for Joyfully Sewn Designs. I have now found other designers who sell their patterns and allow seamstresses to sell items made from them, but YCMT is still my favorite place to purchase patterns. Sometimes they will even offer coupons which is a blessing.

All the patterns on the YCMT website are pdf files which you download to your computer and then print. This works great for me. Now if I wear out my pattern pieces from much use, I can just print off another copy! I've also been able to get a smaller size when I needed it for a custom order just by printing the page at 80% instead of 100%.

You Can Make This website doesn't only offer sewing patterns. They have quilting patterns, knitting pattern, crochet, embroidery, digital scrapbooking, hair bows, graphic design, jewelry, and much more. Whatever your favorite craft is, you're sure to find fun projects at YCMT.

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