Sew

Hot off the presses and into my hands! 😀 This is Claire Shaeffer’s latest, Couture Sewing, The Couture Cardigan Jacket.

Amazon will sell these at a more economical price soon, but Taunton Publishers had these in stock and ready to ship. I’m in full planning mode for the little French jacket sew along and just didn’t have the patience to wait. Great delivery time. Taunton did an excellent job.

I am already half way through the book and love the instruction and illustration style. (Should have shown a few photos..sorry!) Orderly and easy to understand. Usually I use these as a reference and turn to them about specific problems. This is the first time to actually sit and read my way through a book of this sort. Well worth it.

If you have Claire Shaeffer’s previous couture sewing books, many of the techniques are the same, but I love how she walks us through the steps of putting this jacket together. I haven’t broken out the CD yet, but I expect it to be as good as her Couture Workshop CD which I have. I’ve watched it a few times already and have picked up some great techniques.

Seriously, if I could get past the fitting, I would be a happy woman. The fitting just ends up making me so mad!

I wanted to introduce you to Humphrey the Bonzo Hound

Now, honestly, I’m not sure what a Bonzo Hound is, but that’s the name the pattern gave him so that’s what I’m going with. I picked this up on the Bustle & Sew site and made him up in Malka Dubrawsky’s Stitch in Color fabric. Unfortunately, the photo doesn’t do him justice and the colors are not coming through as well as they should.

Humphrey is going to one of the best little boys in the whole wide world. My nine month old grandson, Paxton, will have tubes put in his ears tomorrow and I thought he would love a friend for the occasion. Paxton loves colors and patterns and I think he and Humphrey will get along fine.

This photo really shows the glare, but I thought you might like to see the underside of his (brown) ear. This fabric is an awesome orange and pink fabric that goes great with Stitch in Color.

I recently finished a Craftsy class by Malka Dubrawsky and can’t wait to try dying my own fabric. I’m sure if you check back, you will see some of the results. If you haven’t seen what Craftsy has to offer, you really need to check them out. They have some truly awesome online learning opportunities.