Bell bottom jeans

After sewing 3 quilts for charity and doing the quilting and binding on another one, I got the itch to make bell bottom jeans from a technique that I saw on The Quilt Show.  In that show, the quilter demonstrated taking an old pair of skinny legged jeans and inserting a quilted piece to make them bell bottomed.  

I had just the old pair in my drawer.  I put on the jeans and placed a pin just below my knee so that I would know how tall to make my insert.  It turned out to be 16" on my pair.  Then, I measured the circumference of the hem on the existing jeans and decided to add 10" to that measurement to give me the amount of "bell" that I was comfortable with.  In the first picture, you can see where I opened up the seam on the outer side of the leg and picked open the seam at the bottom.  You probably don't have to pick out the bottom hem on some jeans, but since these were skinny jeans they hit me at the ankle and I wanted them to be longer.

Using freezer paper, I sketched up a trial pattern, adding a seam allowance 

Of course, I had to use green for the insert.  Someone at the last quilt guild meeting handed me a stack of green fabrics that had been sewn into rectangles.  It was super quick and easy to sew a couple of them together and use them for the base of the inserts.   I quilted the inserts with lightweight Thermore batting and then added stems and flowers using hand embroidery.  (This was my granddaughter's idea to bling them up a bit).

After I did the hand embroidery, I trimmed the inserts then stitched them with a lining and turned them inside out.  I top stitched 1/8" from the edge and stitched the bottom edges together.  

The inserts were placed underneath the openings in the jeans and top stitched close to the edge.  This is the tricky part of this project because even with the free arm of the machine, you have to carefully pull and place the leg to be able to sew the seam. 

I finished off the pants with a binding at the bottom edge. I cut the binding 3" wide and after sewing it onto the front, I turned the edges to the wrong side and stitched in the ditch from the front, just barely catching the binding on the wrong side.  

I'm pretty happy with they way the bell bottom jeans look now, and I hope you like them too!

Charity quilt #2 and #3 for 2026 - brown and blue

I wanted to keep using brown fabric, but in this quilt, I worked in blue shades.  It was pretty easy to make the square in a square quilt, but I remember that I liked the chevron look of the half square triangles.  I pulled out a stack of fabrics, cut 9" squares and sewed them together to make half-square triangles.  I gave away all of the smaller scraps to a quilting friend who also makes quilts for charity.

Here is the completed top.  It's 56" x 64".

I made a second one that was 56" x 56" from blue and light gray material (which, I forgot to take a picture of!).

I hope someone will like them!

Quilts for charity - brown shades

I usually like to sew quilts for charity in the month of December, but it got away from me while I was working on an art quilt.  So, in January, I hit the fabric stash that had steadily been growing and made some charity quilts. 

A side note about the explosion of my fabric stash:  A friend of mine called me to let me know that she had come into possession of an enormous amount of fabric from an art quilter that was giving away her stash.  Well, I jumped into my car and dashed over to her house.   I came home with a ton of fabric, and a lot of it was hand dyed.  Such a rare treat!  Then, a couple of months later, another friend called to let me know that she had come into possession of an enormous amount of fabric from a quilter who had died.  So, off I went again and came home with another ton of fabric.  Now, my stash runneth over!  I can barely squeeze it all into the shelves where I store my fabric.  

Another side note:  A lot of the fabric that I came home with was green.  I now have 2 really high stacks of green fabric, even though I've been using it a lot.

I decided to challenge myself and NOT include any green in the first charity quilt.  I remembered a quilt that I made with square-in-a-square blocks and decided that this was the technique I would use for this quilt.  I chose shades of brown, tan, and dark yellow.

I also decided to cut 5" squares and 1-1/2" strips from the fabrics.  Then, I just started sewing them together and throwing them up on the design wall.   Here is the finished quilt that is 65" x 65".

I hope it goes to a good home!

Lady in a Forest Dress - Part 7 - Final - 'FOREST GAZER"

This is a continuation of 6 previous posts about the making of the Lady in a Forest Dress.

I decided to do the quilting on my domestic sewing machine instead of my sit-down longarm so that I could quickly change threads and needles. Since the piece was already so thick from all of the applique pieces, I used a thin Thermore batting.  A size 90/14 needle was used for most of the quilting, which alternated between several kinds and colors of thread, and a size 70/11 needle was used for the face using a lightweight silk thread.   

After the piece was quilted and faced, I hand stitched the bark bodice back in place.  It's 26" W and 32" H.

I named it "Forest Gazer" and I hope you like it.

Lady in a Forest Dress - Part 6

This is a continuation of 5 previous posts about the making of the Lady in a Forest Dress.  I continued to work on the background and add detail to the foreground.  This process is a bit of give and take as I try out some sections and pin the dress back in place; then remove the dress and keep working intuitively by adding more pieces.  When I had the general look that I wanted, I removed everything from the design wall and started working on the ironing board.

I laid down a piece of dissolving foundation, then cut "shrub" blobs of fabric, intertwining them as I went.  I added in some bark pieces, some branch pieces, and a little bit of the moss. When the foundation was covered, I placed a layer of Solvy on the top and stitched the layers together loosely.  Here is a picture of the top and the bottom of that sandwich.

The whole piece was soaked in water and allowed to dry overnight.  I actually made 2 pieces; one for the left and one for the right.  Here is what the larger one looked like after it had dried.

I played around with the placement of the "shrubs" and then stitched the pieces down, making sure there was some underneath the dress sections.  

Then, I appliqued the lady and her dress onto the background.  

The picture above shows some of the background quilting.

Stay tuned for the final at piece!

Lady in a Forest Dress - Part 5

This is a continuation of 4 previous posts about the making of the lady in a forest dress.

I decided to work on the background before adding more components.  My idea was a forest background but not so dark to compete with the dress.  I had a lot of bark and moss fabric left over and had previously made a few forest art pieces.  I pulled fabrics in greens and browns from my stash that were different from the ones that I used for the dress and bodice.

I drew rough lines on the freezer paper pattern to mimic light coming through the forest and gradually getting darker around the edges.  This isn't what it will look like when its finished, but it gave me a sense of where I wanted the light and dark to fall. 

I cut out the figure and then match marked the seam lines.  The first section was the lightest of the greens.  I just ironed down the pattern, traced around it and turned the edges under.  I did the same thing for the next section of green.  It was glued to the first layer at the seam lines, then it's outer edges were pressed under. (I didn't use the light green for the bottom of the dress, which will get covered up.  Later, I will add some muslin there.

I cut out the pattern pieces for the next section and ironed them to the fabric.

After cutting a generous seam allowance, I placed them next to the green portions and glued the edges together at the seam lines.

The piece was starting to get a little floppy, so I stopped at that point and zig-zagged the edges together with invisible thread.  I also added an old ice dyed piece at the bottom.  Then I started adding trees.

I pulled off the lady and her dress, covered the background with light gray organza and stitched it down.  Then, I added more trees and bark cloth to mimic trees that were closer.  Here is what the background looks like with those trees fused in place.

Stay tuned for the next step and I hope you like it so far!

Lady in a Forest Dress - Part 4

This is a continuation of 3 previous posts about the making of the lady in a forest dress.

Here is the wall of components and ideas.  It's a lot!

Next, I turned to making the face and head.  I posterized the photo and traced it onto the clear vinyl sheet.  The fabrics that I picked were medium skin toned.  I thought about making the face in purple, but decided not to do it that way.

And here is the face with the fabric and some pencil work, but not the fine lines.

I had to decide what to do for the background and headdress feature next.  Stay tuned!