The Downton Experience - Part 1

Downton Abbey will always have a dear place in my heart, partially because it was the décor inspiration for my wedding, and partially because it was a major piece of getting this blog going. But even without these elements, I still would have been psyched to hear that the Downton Experience was coming to the Mall of American in Minnesota. (Sorry, folks, it's gone now.)

Actually, I totally freaked when I found out. Actual Downton Abbey costumes coming to Minnesota so I could see them in person? Seriously? A dream come true! (Probably the only thing I'd get more excited about would be if the Star Wars costume exhibit ever came here. I would die of happiness.)

Let's clarify - there are two Downton Abbey costume exhibits going around, one bigger, one smaller. The one at MOA was the smaller one - but still well worth the price of admission! There were 27 costumes, all of which you could see at extremely close range (most were not even behind glass).

And yes, photography was allowed, so I am going to show you all of the glorious details! (But I still recommend going yourself! $10 for admission, or less with a groupon deal!)

My husband and I attended as a celebration of our 3rd Anniversary. By this time in our relationship, Nathan has a pretty solid footing on which to enjoy costumes himself, and he was well equipped to take photos. Actually, I was planning to take photos myself, but then upon entering the exhibit, Nathan told me "Now Honey, you just enjoy yourself. I'm going to take photos, just let me know what you want me to take."

"Everything!" I told him. "I'll let you know if we need detail shots of anything!"

He took almost 100 photos. So we're going to break this up into a few posts.

The exhibit thoughtfully provided a lovely full color brochure for the attendees, detailing the materials for each costume, along with when they were worn and by whom. My only qualm with this brochure is that I would have liked more information on what garments were made by the production, which were rented, and which were authentic vintage. A few accessories were marked as vintage, but otherwise there was no indicator of manufacturer.

Click any photo to see it in full resolution.

A silk and wool dress, worn by Mrs. Hughes in Season 2 (1920). Upon closer viewing, there is a lot more embellishment on this dress than you would expect.

Ode to an Iron

The Oreck iron above was my faithful companion for fifteen years. Given to me back when I was a young teen with grand sewing ambitions, I loved the cordless feature, the auto-shut-off safety, and the expansive heating plate of the iron.

I also loved that it lasted for 15 years.

Last week, after undergoing a cleaning, the Iron finally gave up the ghost. We rushed it to our local Oreck store, begging them to save it, but alas, no hope. Once the heating element burns out, an iron is unsaveable.

The Oreck blue is a highly rated but no longer manufactured product. You can still find it on eBay, however, so we are trying to track one down for me. It's been my perfect iron, and it would be tough to replace it with anything other than an exact clone.

Those who don't sew often find it surprising how physical the art can be. A big part of this is the heavy role ironing plays in creating a perfectly stitched piece. (yes, pun intended.) There is almost nothing I create with my sewing machine that doesn't involve some level of ironing, whether my elaborate costumes requiring protective cloth over delicate velvet and silk, or pressing out the stitched corners of the floursack towels for Whimsical Kitchen. (Almost) everything looks better ironed.

For now, I'm stuck using my little travel iron. It's easy on my arms, and indeed, I bought it for use on my bad fibro days. However, as you can see above, it is tiny compared to the Oreck, and I find myself greatly slowed.

I never thought an iron would make me cry, but seeing this faithful companion leave has made me quite misty-eyed. Farewell, old friend.

How to Make Jedi Robes from Curtains - Part 3

Time to sew the sleeves and hood to the body of your Jedi Robes! (Missed Parts 1 and 2?  Part 1, Part 2)

(I made Jedi Robes because my family is super into Star Wars, but you could also use this pattern to make basic wizard robes.)

Reminder - This tutorial is aimed towards making robes for a child, but you could definitely apply the method for a teen or adult as well, you'd just need bigger curtains (or a sheet or bedspread). You could also just start with plain fabric, but then you would need to add hems and it would take longer. The beauty of this layout is NO HEMMING! Yay!

In Part 3, I will show you how to attach the sleeves and hood to the body.

The robe body consists of one piece right now, and the only seams you need to sew on it are the shoulder seams. Match each front shoulder piece to it's back shoulder piece and sew. I used a conventional 5/8ths inch seam allowance.  Remember to backstitch to secure the ends.

How to Make Jedi Robes from Curtains - Part 2

Time to sew the Jedi Robes together! (Haven't cut yours out yet? Learn how over at Part 1)

(I made Jedi Robes because my family is super into Star Wars, but you could also use this pattern to make basic wizard robes.)

Reminder - This tutorial is aimed towards making robes for a child, but you could definitely apply the method for a teen or adult as well, you'd just need bigger curtains (or a sheet or bedspread). You could also just start with plain fabric, but then you would need to add hems and it would take longer. The beauty of this layout is NO HEMMING! Yay!

In Part 2, I will show you how to start sewing the pieces together.

First sewing step is stitching the sleeve seam. The bottom of your sleeves should already be hemmed, so you are going to match the hemmed edges up (right sides together), and stitch all the way to the beginning of the armhole curve (as shown below).

How to Make Jedi Robes from Curtains - Part 1

Ever so slowly, I am working my way toward populating this blog with posts again. A lot of the sewing I've done this year has been small projects, to accommodate my limited health. However I am gradually increasing into more interesting projects, so there should be exciting new stuff to watch for in the coming months.

Today, I am going to talk about how I made Jedi robes for my little nephew in just two hours! Honestly, I could have done them in an hour if I wasn't taking photos and planning this blog post at the same time! But I did, because I just had to share this super easy project with you all!

(I made Jedi Robes because my family is super into Star Wars, but you could also use this pattern to make basic wizard robes.)

This tutorial is aimed towards making robes for a child, but you could definitely apply the method for a teen or adult as well, you'd just need bigger curtains (or a sheet or bedspread). You could also just start with plain fabric, but then you would need to add hems and it would take longer. The beauty of this layout is NO HEMMING! Yay!

Jedi robes are not very fitted, and this project is made to be unlined, but not unravel, so this is an ideal project for someone with basic sewing skills.

In Part 1, I will show you how to select which curtains to use, and how to cut them out.

These robes are unlined, so I recommend picking out a curtain with a bit of weight and body to it. You can pick any material you want. I used polyester because it is what I had on hand, but a rough, natural looking weave would be more accurate to the costumes worn in the movies.

Bonus tip - most thrift stores have sale days, or have categories or tag colors on sale on different days of the week. Call ahead and find out when you're most likely to find curtains on sale, in order to get the best possible deal!

To get the dimensions of your curtain, take your model's floor-to-shoulder height + arm length. This is how long your curtain needs to be. The width is more flexible - it should be 2-4 times the circumference of your model's chest (depending on how flowing you want the robes to be). If you are working with very narrow curtains, you can get two and sew them together down the long end, to create a center back seam. The hemmed edges will create a nice finished seam on the interior.

The first step is to fold the curtains in half, lengthwise, right sides together. THEN, take each edge and fold it back over, so that you have four layers, with the front, finished edges lining up with the center seam, as shown above.

Draft Stoppers

It's 2017 and BRRR it's cold! For Nathan and I, it is our first winter as home owners, and our first time dealing with a heating bill. Overall, it's not too bad, but we're looking to save any way we can, and so I got to work making some draft stoppers.

Prior to starting, I did research and crowd sourcing to figure out the best fill for the stoppers. Being a professional seamstress, I have scraps galore, but I knew I'd need something heavy as well, to keep the fabric log firmly on the floor. Since I needed to make four total, I didn't want to buy the amount of rice necessary, and I also wanted something that would be potentially washable, if necessary.

In the end, my husband got a couple bags of white rocks from the dollar store. I found that about a third a bag was plenty to add the heft necessary.

The first draft stopper I made was sewn as a tube and then stuffed. I found this really time-consuming. For the second draft stopper, I left the long end open instead of the short end, and rolled the stuffing inside a length of felt.

Scraps from my serger made GREAT stuffing!

Rolling it up...

Once rolled, I tucked the felt log into the cute upholstery cover.

The log was a little short, so I added some more stuffing to the ends.

I then folded the edges in and pinned them.

Finally, I sewed the seam shut with a zig-zag stitch. 4 layers of heavy upholstery fabric was a little too much for my machine. Next time I think I'd like to insert a zipper, to make the cover removeable for washing.

But all in all it makes for a pretty cute draft stopper at our back door!

Here is the stopper I made for our living room. My original plan was to slide it under the door, hence the long seam down the middle. However, it didn't fit.

Since my original plan for this doorstopper didn't work, I needed to figure out another way to keep this draft stopper in place despite it being the most heavily used entrance in our home. Velcro did the trick beautifully! (Ideally I would have sewn the Velcro on before stitching the tube together, but I didn't think of it. So there will just be a lot of tacky glue holding it on!)

Since I already had the majority of the materials, I spent a whopping $0.33 per stopper for the rocks. If you don't have fabric in your stash, I recommend checking out the remnants bin at your local fabric store. Each remnant will be at least 44 inches long (selvage to selvage), so you only need to make sure you have a remnant of at least 1/4th a yard for the width.

Want more crafts and home décor ideas? Check out my crafts page!

Behind the Thread: How I Embroider the Towels

One of the most common questions I hear these days is whether I make my towels by hand or machine, and how much work they are. To answer that, I thought I would write up a detailed blog post, with a combo of photos and videos.

First of all, I start with the design. My machine is a Brother SE400, which means I can only use designs available in a PES format, 4x4 inches or smaller. My absolutely favorite website to get my designs is UrbanThreads.Com which offers some really lovely designs, and often has sales (I pay between $1.29 and $3.00 per design, depending on sales).

This month, Urban Threads released a Dala Horse design and I could not purchase it fast enough! I am of Swedish descent, so this is an iconic and special design that I am very excited to offer in my Etsy Shop. I thought it would be a fun design to use as an example. At 8 thread changes, it is one of the more involved designs (most designs I do use between 2 and 5 thread changes), but doesn't require too much thread snipping so it evens out.

The first thing I do is figure out what threads I am going to use. Sometimes I follow the suggested colors closely, but other times I like to mix it up. Here, I decided to try doing a green horse. I'd already tested out a red and blue horse, so I was able to see how the shades variated over the design, and try to approximate shades and tints of green here.

Each towel gets hooped to keep the fabric nice and taut.

On the underside of each towel is a piece of water-soluable stabilizer. The actual piece is tucked into the hoop here - I am holding a second piece so you can see how thin it is.

On my white towels, all of the bobbin thread is white. In order to avoid stopping and winding bobbins all the time, I have a separate bobbin winder, that can run at the same time as my machine.

Video #1 - illustrates the threading process I go through for each color change.

Video #2 - my machine comes with an automatic needle threader which is SO helpful.

Video #3 - Selecting the design (my machine can only store 12 designs at a time, so I have to frequently upload and switch out new designs from my computer via a USB cable)

Video #4 - here's what happens if I forget to lower the presser foot!

Video #5 - starting the second thread change

I'm sparing you a video of each thread change, but I did want to show you photos of what the design looks like after each new color is added.

Video #6 - one last video, showing the white detailing stitches

After the design is finished stitching, I snip off all of the threads left between non-connected designs of the same color thread.

I then take the towel out of the hoop and  tear off the excess stabilizer. The stabilizer in the design will wash out with the first washing.

I then give that corner a quick iron, fold up the towel, and (if applicable) photograph it and upload it to my etsy shop.

I am so addicted to machine embroidery, especially since my fibromyalgia prevents me from hand embroidering these days. I'm delighted to have had enough interested in my etsy shop to be able to continue making flour sack towels (which I personally love to use in my own kitchen).

Find this design and more at  Whimsical Kitchen!

Want to get a design embroidered on something other than a towel? Shoot me a line at elenatintil[at]gmail[dot]com