More Selfish Sewing

It feels good to be a little selfish sometimes.  I spend so much time sewing gifts for other people and hardly ever keep anything I make for myself.  I've been feeling a little blah about sewing and quilting recently (completely technical measure of feeling, I know).  Part of it is because the beautiful summer weather, part of it is a little bit of depression kicking in, and part of it was that I just wasn't having fun.  Then last weekend I made two Wiksten tanks and BAM!  My sewing mojo was back!  Last night I had some down time so I decided to make some more.

The first was made using Carolyn Friedlander's Botanics lovely cream and gold print.  This one went together really fast.  I learned from the last Wiksten that I made out of quilting cotton (using the new Arizona line) that it makes the tank fit a little smaller in the bust so I adjusted my sewing accordingly.  It fits beautifully and I'm wearing at work today!  I can't wait to show it off at my local quilt guild meeting tonight.

For Wiksten #4 I'm using April Rhode's Arizona print Triangle Tokens in Voile.  This fabric is much harder to work with than the other three I've made so far; it's very slippery.  I started by starching the heck out of it and that seems to have helped a little bit at least.  I got the pocket sewed on last night before hanging up my scissors for the night.

I'm linking up with this weeks WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

On a different note, today is the last day of the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop so be sure to check out these amazing new quilt bloggers in your online reading this week:

Sarah @ Berry Barn Designs

Liz @ Green Cheese Quilting

Janet @ Simply Pieced

Ruth @ Charly & Ben's Crafty Corner

Jo @ Riddle and Whimsy

Alida @ Tweety Loves Quilting

Kristyn @ Melon Patch Quilts

Rachel @ Quiltineering

Linh @ Calling All Stitchers

Cornelia @ Pieced With Love XOXO

Heather @ QA Creations

Jenn @ Sew Crafty Jenn

Cheryl @ Texas Quilting Gal

Kate @ Thread Everywhere

Helga @ Green Mill Vintage

Lin @ Lin's Quilts

Carole @ From My Carolina Home

Jan @ The Colorful Fabriholic

Wendy @ Wendy's Quilts and More

Pam @ Sewing Wilde

Shauna @ Shauna's World

Selfish Sewing

I seem to have found some sewing mojo again.  We had a long weekend here in the US for Fourth of July and I spent all day Thursday and some of Friday sewing clothes of all things!  While I was in Burlington for Vermont Quilt Festival I visited Nido and picked up the pattern for a Wiksten tank.

When I got home on Thursday after work I decided to dive in and I'm so glad I did!  I had some beautiful Chambray Dot from Robert Kaufman that I originally picked up for a Laurel Dress sitting around and decided to start with that.   It took me about 2 hours to make this tank.  I was really impressed with how easy it was!  I did make one adjustment.  I didn't feel like making bias tape to finish the edges so I folded them over and top stitched instead.  It was simple and still gave the tank a nice finish.

I wore this tank for the fourth of July, to complete my subtle Red, White, and Blue outfit for the day, and again on Saturday.  I love it!

Husband and I on the fourth of July

Since the first one was so easy and I was incredibly excited about it, I made another!  This time I used some Arizona fabrics I purchased  when they first became available.  I had just enough of this Agave Field print for the front and used some coordinating solids for the back.  You can just see in the middle picture below that the back is color blocked.  The top half (and the pocket) is the Sweet Mint and the bottom half is Nocturnal.  This tank was equally simple to make.  The only difference was that finishing the edges was much easier on this quilting cotton.  I wore this shirt to work on Monday and was so proud of my secretly homemade shirt!

On Friday morning, I finally worked on my Laurel Dress.  I took a class with Nido back in March or April and needed to take the dress in a bit at that time.  Since then, I've lost close to 12 pounds so now it was really big on me.  Some pines later I had a nicely fitted dress.  I still need to hem the bottom and I think I make take up the sleeves a little bit so that they hit above the elbow but then I'll be done!  I can't wait to wear this one too!