English Paper Piecing + West African Prints = Super Cool Clock!

Piece By Number

I really don't like doing handwork, and save up any hemming or button reattachments into a group...then do all the torture at once, usually while watching a DVD.  However, a post on SewMamaSew inspired me to give English Paper Piecing a try.  If you'd like some history, or more info, please check out this PDF from the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  

I knew I wouldn't have the patience for a very big project, so what to do? 

Inspired by a Japanese folded paper technique (kanzashi) I saw in the book, Fabric by Fabric: One Yard Wonders, I decided to make a clock face.  (See Erin's using kanzashi here!)  I also wanted to use my dwindling supply of West African fabrics. The Roommate collects clocks, and our sun room has 5 on different time zones. So I had the idea and the fabric, but wasn't interested in trying kanzashi, so what to do?

A bit of googling found the Piece by Number site, where I found a pattern called Circle of Geese.  The pattern is here (another PDF). You can see her example up there to the left; isn't it pretty?  

A close-up of mine in the photo to the right. So many tiny stitches!  Almost can't believe I did that... 

Paper piecing is a real hassle: sew everything to a piece of cardboard, stitch them together, unsew to get the pieces of cardboard released and do it again.  I was thrilled I only had to repeat the block 3 more times!  I thought it would get easier with repetition, but it didn't! Honestly, it was just as much of a pain the 4th time as the first.  However, you can see that it's a great way to make little pointed pieces all come together.  

I finished it, but the Roommate & I decided that the hands didn't show enough, especially from a longer distance away. So I took the hands off and traced them and tried to fashion some triangles with interfacing.  I think buckram would have been better, but here's what happened...

I think it looks great!  It will be a striking addition to our clock collection & a fun way to use up some of my fabric scraps from a great shopping trip!

What do you think?  

More Western (African) Shirts...for Friends + 2 Vintage Patterns Sewn!!

The Roommate's Western (African) shirts have been well-received all up & down the East Coast. We were having dinner w/ some good friends near Union Square & I got a request to make another western shirt.  

So, I came home & went thru the remnants of my fabric from West Africa, and found one piece that I thought would be good for the contrast.  The problem was finding main color to show off the wax print.  I didn't have any, or not nearly enough; my source for West African prints (G Street) didn't have any, so I broke down & bought some Marimekko (on sale at Crate & Barrel outlets) for my friend, and a very tiny print for his little boy.  (There was no way I could make dad a shirt without making a tiny one, too!)

Oh, and they are both from vintage patterns!  For you #vintagepledge sewists out there!  Simplicity 6693 is the men's pattern, and McCall's 7456 is the boy's pattern (I made version E).  

Above is the back of the little boy's shirt.  I was especially pleased how the diamond design worked (and look at how well the collar matches!).  This is some crazy fabric!  I was cutting  everything from the same piece, but there are so many different designs, I was able to get lots of different looks from it.  

And here is the dad's shirt.  The wax print looks amazing with the Marimekko, huh?!

 

Even the green placket is from the very edge of the fabric!  Though it sort of looks like chile peppers on it.  Or xmas-y.  But I couldn't resist using as much as possible of this amazing textile, in honor of the Africans who don't waste any of their fabric.  

Because this is the fabric that keeps on giving, I was able to find plenty of 'centerpieces' to use on the front & back yokes.  

One thing I really worried about was fitting.  Our friend is a much different shape than the Roommate (besides being 20 yrs younger!), so I knew that my current pattern wouldn't work.  So, said friend took off the shirt he was wearing, in the restaurant & gave it to me (he had a t-shirt on underneath)!  I did lots of measuring of that shirt then re-traced the whole pattern, incorporating those measurements, onto a different set of pieces.  (Next post will be about storing those pattern pieces.)  

A few more detail shots below.  

And, my friend, modeling his new shirt.  I was so pleased...I sent it to his office & he didn't wait 'til he got home to try it on, instead sending me a picture from work.  (I'm the same way, I still wear new shoes home from the store whenever possible!)  I'm thrilled!  

Stuff I've Made: Quilts with West African Wax Prints

African Market quilt.

I was trying to show a colleague my West African wax print quilts that I made shortly after our trip to Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana & Cote d'Ivoire in 2006.  And realized that I have mentioned them but never put them up on this site.  The Roommate had 2 snow days last week (I had none!), so he took some photos for me. Thanks, Honey! 

So, we did our last big backpacking/overland trip for 5 weeks through West Africa.  Last because we're getting pretty old to be lugging backpacks around and sitting on buses for hours, staying in places with shared baths, etc.  We've done that all over the world, partly to stretch our travel & souvenir-buying $$, but also because riding buses (not renting a car & driver) and staying in hostels is a great way to see how the local people live. We don't cover as much ground and certainly travel inefficiently, but on the other hand it's a great way to find out what's happening, plus watch some wonderful Nigerian movies on the bus, and get off and do bird-watching every time the bus driver takes yet another unscheduled break. We are usually the only non-locals on the bus, always of great interest and high entertainment value, plus people are generally quite friendly and curious about who we are and what we are doing there.  

Reverse of African Fabric Shop.

We knew we wanted to buy as much kente, kuba, bogolon textiles, and wax print fabric as we could carry on the plane (about 40 lbs/each). So we took old clothes and shoes that we left behind, and just stuffed our backpacks! We used a scale in a little neighborhood market to check & were thrilled when we got to the airport & checked in with 79 lbs!  

Reverse of African Market quilt.

We've spent time in markets all over the world (we love them, in fact, and go out of our way to be in town on market day), but found them to be so crowded that you spent the whole time worrying about being pick-pocketed.  Also, they are HUGE, so it's really hard to find what you want; i.e., the textile stores!  When we finally found the fabric section in the Accra market, we discovered that the prices weren't that much better, and the selection wasn't any different in the less crowded, well-organized shops a little bit out from the city center.  

African Fabric Shop.

Speaking of fabric shops...they were wonderful. (A few photos here.) Clean, organized, & often with marked prices--a real luxury.  So the second quilt I made is called African Fabric Shop.  I used pieces of all 44 fabrics I bought, (as I did with the Market quilt), but tried to make them a bit more orderly.  Both of these quilts are smaller (3' x 4' or so), and we use them all the time in the sun room when we're reading or watching a movie.  Bella also loves them, which is really all we care about.

The last picture, below, is to show you the great machine-quilting my friend Mala Ramakrishnan, of Classic Quilts Dubai did.  Mala is an amazing quilter & a true artist, so I always felt safe giving her my quilts & saying, "Whatever you think will look best."  Both are quilted with the same pattern, to make them a matched set, along with the same fabric selections being used in both. 

Western Africa Shirt?! Finished!! Simplicity 6693

I doubt I'm the first person to think of this, but I am so pleased anyway...a Western shirt for the Roommate, made with West African fabric!  *smirk* 

So you saw some previews in the last post, but here's the whole chimichanga!  With the supermodel showing how it's done...

I took lots of pictures for 2 reasons: 1) I'm extremely proud of it and 2) because I wasn't the one having my picture taken!  I do not love being on the other side of the camera.  

This first picture shows the Roommate wearing a BIG smile (it may not look like it to you, but believe me, after 30+ years, I can tell when he's happy--even if you can't!).  I think he likes it.

It was actually fairly easy.  I have really always thought that making men's clothing would be the hardest thing possible, but after 4 pairs of underpants and 2 shirts, I'm feeling less intimidated.  So much so that I'm going to repair some of his Mohammed-made suits which are mostly in good shape, but the lining needs some repair and the buttons need replacing.  I won't be making any ties or suits anytime soon, though.  

I'm starting to realize that perhaps it's the fabric & fitting that makes things difficult, and if you work with cotton and sew for men (who don't need so much fitting), it's not that difficult after all!  

The second photo, on the left, shows the medallion, which appeared by accident in the fabric we bought in Cote d'Ivoire.  I think it looks great & is a super substitute for the embroidery recommended on the original 1974 pattern.  

I was thinking about a Western (African) shirt after seeing Cracker & Camper van Beethoven a few months ago at the State Theatre...then I figured out where to get the pattern from Zoe's post about the shirt she made for her husband.  

I really love how the big print & the little print work together, too.  

Some of the stuff I learned while making this pattern...

First, the collar band.  I was so confused at first I tried to just sew the collar on, the way I do with my clothes.  But then I went and looked at some of the Mohammed-made shirts the Roommate has & figured it out quickly. So I took it off & did it again.  (I was glad to see even Tasia has do-overs!)

You can see the collar band up close in the 2 photos below:

And second, how to put on pearlized snaps.  Which you don't need a special tool for; the instructions on the back of the Dritz snaps are very good. And very good for working out your frustrations! 

The photo above shows the button placket detail, with the snaps, and also with my extra attention to detail.  I have mentioned before how often in West Africa we noticed they use the fabric right up to the selvage.  Why not? It saves hemming & you get a bit more additional fabric.  

The fabric I used had great selvages on both the large & the small prints. You can see how I incorporated it into the placket, which I think looks pretty darn cool! That same selvage also worked to line the edge of the slash for the cuffs.  You can see that in the detail to the right.

Pocket with snap!

The pocket was another area where I used the selvage.  Here's the London Wax Prints & the RB mark which show on the pocket upside down.  But that way the Roommate can read it!  I did not put the snaps on the pockets...couldn't quite decide if it needed them; I may still do that.  

A few more pics below and I'll stop.  I hope this inspires you to try something (somethings) new, too!

And I think the appropriate music for this particular episode?  Euro-Trash Girl by Cracker!

Someone is on summer vacation & hasn't been
near the razor much!

McCall's free pattern from Post Cereal; in W. African fabric

Here's the McCall's pounds-thinner pattern that my mom sent a while back.  I mentioned it in my last post, about vintage sewing patterns.  And I've made it up in some of the fabric I got in West Africa, probably Ghana or Burkina Faso.  It's supposed to look like strip-woven Kente (typical of Ghana); go to that page to see the real thing (strips woven on a narrow loom, then sewn together to form a delightful pattern).

The underside of the collar.

This is fairly cheap cotton, very thin & not at all drapy, and I was worrying about wearing it without a slip.  Then I remembered I had a pretty burgundy silk slip from Wintersilks, which almost matched the terracotta red in the cotton.  When I tried on the dress, almost done, yesterday, I had to take off 2.5" from the slip.  So I did that, and re-hemmed the slip.

Almost nothing left over!

I ended up using all that extra silk, though, because I barely had enough fabric to make the dress and there is nothing left over. I had to cut the length of the dress from selvage to selvage; there wasn't enough to cut it the normal way!  (Which meant I couldn't play with the length & proportions much--I just had the fabric width.)

I used the silk I cut off to hem the bottom & the sleeves.  There was so little fabric, I couldn't get the underside of the collar out of the kente print and had to use other West African wax print fabric.

Take it to the selvage!

I really made an effort to show the selvage of the fabric because we noticed that a lot in West Africa.  Rather than hemming, clothes are cut so the selvage is the hem.  However, this dress has quite a curved hem, so I ended up losing more than I wanted.

I will make this one again.  I love its cool look and big collar.  I will definitely add a bit in the middle so that the french darts are lower, and I'd probably make the overall length a bit longer, too.  Also, it needs a sway back adjustment (not much)...

BTW, it's got to be the best looking zipper I've ever installed!  I'll give a shout-out to Allison @ Bits of Thread in DC for her expert tutelage. 

Straight from Mali!

A friend here at work, (she's one of our international students), is from Mali.  She asked her sister to have something made for me...and I thought you'd like to see it.  Her sister has never met me (never even seen me) and I can't believe how well this jacket fits!  I believe it's quite flattering, too, and am thinking I might need similar coatdresses to wear over skirts.  See what you think! 

I wore it over a lace skirt I have, along with a peach-colored top & my amber.  (This is definitely one of the worst photos my iphone has ever taken--light is an issue in the library right now.) 

Thank you, Nema!

A D I N K R A ! - Fabric stamping from Ghana

I've mentioned before how we collect not only textiles, but also tools used to make those textiles.  So here are some Adinkra stamps along with a piece of Adinkra, all of which we got in Ghana. (Our travel photos from that trip are here.)  And here's a video of someone using the stamps.

The stamps are carved from calabash gourds & you can see on the 2nd example that they are curved.  You'll notice in the video that the printers have to "rock" the stamps a bit to get the complete design to stamp.

A piece of fabric uses many different stamps, broken up by the colorful embroidery used to stitch 2 strips of fabric together (again, strip woven fabric used as part of the overall design), then they use a piece of wood that looks like a hair pick to make the parallel lines that also make the outline of the checkerboard.

The stamps represent ideas and proverbs.  Head on over to adinkra.org to see an explanation of what the different symbols mean.  (Click on the symbols at the top of that page.) Photos of a stamp carver hard at work are here.

In the second photo, I was trying to show you how the stamps are held.  Each one has little holes in the back (3 or 4, depending on the size/shape of the stamp).  Small sticks are inserted into these holes (they look like overgrown toothpicks).  Then the 3-4 sticks are held together with a piece of cloth bound by string.  It is not at all stable, everything slips apart quite easily.  We try to never handle ours because they dismantle if you look sideways at them! We took them all apart to get them home, but have tried to avoid that since.

We bought our stamps at a tourist shop in Tamale and they haven't been used.

Bella models the W. African fabric quilt; knitted socks

You may have seen the list of items I've made (I've made more, but don't necessarily have pics, or haven't put them up); this in particular, a tablecloth & 2 small quilts I made of fabric we bought in Ghana & Burkina Faso.

Well, it's winter here now (cold & rainy tonight), and Bella is staying warm by avoiding the hard wood floors and the leather love seat!

And here are some nice warm wool socks from back in the late 1980s when I was knitting socks a lot.  They're the Roommate's.  They haven't been worn that much (wool doesn't look good at all when you live in the Middle East!), so they're 20+ yrs old but in great shape...I can never make the same thing twice, hence the mis-match.

Do you love the bedspread pictured above?  It's a print from India.

Stuff I've Made, Part 4987b - Nancy Ota's Zip It! Bags

I've made many of these (20?) as gifts for friends & I have 3 of my own.  A friend gave me the pattern, Zip It! Screen Play bags by Nancy Ota, along with a few yards of Pet-Screen (it's screen door material that pets can't destroy with their claws).  It's a quick project (45 minutes is my record) and they are such great gifts.  You can make them in many different styles & configurations.  You just need a few strips of fabric and zippers.  You can also decorate the zipper pulls (beads, bows) to make them more interesting.

You'll notice I couldn't resist adding some of my West African fabric--it looks so good with the black, but apparently there is colored Pet-Screen now?  I haven't looked for it, so perhaps it's easy to find.  And I turned one into a purse by adding a strap--it's useful for hikes, bike riding and birding trips, when I just need a few things.

The bags above are from Nancy Ota's website; aren't they cute?!