I’ve seen some sewists who remove pins while their machine is stitching and that blows my mind. I’m just not coordinated enough to do that and when I try my stitching can go a bit wonky.

I’ve also seen sewists not use pins at all. I only really do that if I’m sewing straight seams where there’s no easing, sewing on the bias or curves involved. At the very least I pin at the beginning and end and middle of a seam.

I’ve heard some people just sew over pins! Of course there is a time and a place where doing that is helpful, like when matching prints and patterns along a seam, but you have to sew very slowly and make sure the needle doesn’t hit a pin, because if your needle does hit a pin – “Bang! Crunch! Kapow!” – things can go very wrong – ask me how I know

When I’m at my sewing machine I want to be sewing, not fiddling around with seams trying to align them. The last thing I want is having to rip out a line of stitches because I didn’t take the time to pin and pause for the pins as I sew. So I guess it’s a bit of a balance – pinning, pausing as I sew and good seam vs. not pinning, sewing without pauses and having to rip out a bad seam.

So over to you,
Do you pause for pins?
Or do you remove them while your stitching?
Do you sew over pins?
Or just not bother pinning?

Until next time,

The post I wonder… Do you pause for pins? appeared first on Make It Nifty.

The way I process my photos has developed over a few years. My photos generally go through a couple of stages before they reach my blog. The photos get edited first and then I add extra bits and turn them into a PNG image before I upload them to my blog.

I use a couple of free programs on my PC. My internet connection isn’t the best so I don’t use online photo editing tools because it would take way too long.

Sort Photos
Of course there is the photo taking part (maybe that should be another ‘I wonder…’ question), but once my camera/phone photos are on my PC I start by sorting the photos by project and pop them into their own folder on an external hard drive.

Edit Photos
The photos I want to edit are copied into the local Pictures folder on my PC for editing. I do this because the photo editing software I use indexes all the images in the drive it is accessing; this can take forever because my blog images are stored on an external hard drive with lots of other images. So instead, the Pictures folder on my PC is a temporary hold for when I’m photo editing.

Now I browse through the photos using Windows Photo Gallery, which was pre-installed on my PC; and cull the crappy ones.

Now it’s time to go back through the photos and edit each one. I usually start by auto adjusting to see what that does, undoing it or tweaking if I need to. Then I straighten the photos. My camera/tripod is always askew when I take pictures and for me its just easier to rotate while editing than it is to level my tripod.

I usually finish by cropping the photos to a square. Usually I do a group rename of the edited photos and copy these back to my external hard drive.

Image watermarks, text, layouts & collages.
I use Inkscape (freeware) to add watermarks and create collages. I have created a couple of image templates – one for post feature images and one for in-post images. They are the sizes I want, have watermarks and sample text so I don’t have to recreate the image settings, font, text colour and size every time I’m editing images.

To start, I open the template and open the Layers Dialogue box. I usually try to keep all the images I’m making for a post in one file. So, I treat each layer as an individual image.

Generally I’ll label each layer with a brief description of the image I’m creating. I have a generic background colour layer so the background colour is going to be the same for all images created from the file. I also have a generic cut out layer on top of all the other layers so that it gives me an idea of what the final image is going to look like once I’ve exported it.

I decide which photos I’m going to include in an image and then I import the photos I edited before into the appropriate layer. I’ve used one image for this example.

Then I resize, crop and arrange the photos on the layer until I’m pleased with the layout.

The image below from my Crazy Polka Dots Dress is an example where I imported the 3 photos into one layer, then stacked the images and cropped the middle image to sit over the edges of the outer two images.

If I want text in the image I’ll copy the sample text onto a layer, edit the text and move it to where I want it.

I usually put an opaque shape under the text so it’s easier to read; like I did for the image of my Denim Polly Skirt below

Once that is done I make the layers needed for a particular image visible and export it as a PNG. I can’t remember why I export to PNG, but I’m sure there is a reason and it seems to work
Now I have my final images ready for uploading to my blog and inserting into a post.

Depending on how many photos I take and how fiddly it is to put my collages together the process can take me anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours (with lots of tea and social media breaks) to get my images “blog ready”.

So that’s what I do with my images. It works for me at the moment and I’m pleased with the results.

Too Long, Didn’t Read (TL,DR)

• I use Windows Photo Gallery to peruse and edit my photos
• I used Inkscape to watermark images and to create collage images
• I save final images to PNG format
• My whole photo editing process can take anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours

So now it’s over to you…
How do you edit/process the photos for your blog?
What software do you use to edit your photos?
How long does it take you to get your images “blog ready”?

Until next time,

The post I wonder… How do you edit your photos? appeared first on Make It Nifty.

This is going to a be a relatively short but sweet post. Life has been a bit heckers at the moment, but I have been making things. Here’s a quick post about my latest frolic in yarn footwear after making these and these.

After my first (and favourite) slippers finally bit the dust I decided I really wanted to make another pair. So using some acrylic 8ply in my stash and a 4mm hook I cast on. If you follow me on Instagram you would have seen these…

Happy Toasty Toes in my #pippyslippers

A photo posted by Vanessa (@makeitnifty) on Jun 21, 2015 at 8:56pm PDT

I posted a few #pippyslippers progress pics on Twitter too

I’ve also Ravelled them here

Pattern

These are Pippy Slippers from Pip Lincolne of Meet Me at Mikes

Materials

• Scraps of 8ply acrylic yarn in my stash

Changes I made this time

• I didn’t follow along with the colour changes made in the pattern
• Added a couple of extra rows at the heel

What I Like

• I’m loving the colours and the fit on these are pleasantly a little looser. It will be interest to see how they wear.

What I don’t like

• I somehow managed to make one slipper slightly wider than the other. Woops!

Changes for next time

• One day I’ll follow along with the colour changes in the pattern
• A two tone pair like these would be lovely!

Numbers

The only thing I had to account for when making these was my time. I already had the yarn and the hook. Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Final Comment

These were a great thing to make while listening to podcasts and drinking tea. They are going to be great to wear around the house when it’s too cool for bare feet but too warm for ugg boots

Do you like to remake your favourites?
Have you ever made footwear?
Do you crochet?

Let me know in the comments

Until next time,

The post Pippy Slippers For Me appeared first on Make It Nifty.

The truth is that I just haven’t been “feeling it” when it comes to blogging and the longer I haven’t posted the harder it feels to get back into it. So, I stopped by to write a little note to get rid of some “blank page” fear – that daunting feeling you get when staring at a blank page.

Strangely I feel guilty or maybe dread; no, it’s just a bad feeling when I’ve been thinking about blogging. I think it’s my perfectionist monster whispering in my ear

I have a bit of a backlog of projects I want to post about before I move on to current/new projects. So expect to see a hotchpotch of projects coming up. I’ve also been collecting a bunch of “I wonder” questions so expect to see a few of those.

Until next time (sooner rather than later),

The post A long pause… appeared first on Make It Nifty.

The #sewingdare was a great kick in the behind for me to make the bag from The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook. I’ve wanted to make it for a long time, I had the pattern all traced and cut out ready to go since the beginning of last year, but I just haven’t gotten around to sewing it. I’ve always found other things that needed to be sewn NOW. Know what I mean?

Pattern

The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook – Bag

Pattern Adjustments

• I made the elastic casings a little deeper to accommodate the wider elastic I was using (2.5cm instead of 2cm in the pattern) I mistakenly added 0.5 cm to the tops of the exterior and lining pieces too, but I made it work by trimming off the amount I added to the lining pieces.
• Cut out a simple wide strap. I had to cut 2 pieces because the fabric wasn’t wide enough. Each piece was about 6″ wide by 32″ long and then joined them with a diagonal seam like when joining bias strips.

Materials

• Leftover fabric from this skirt
• 2.5 cm wide elastic

Construction

The bag was pretty straight forward to make. There were a couple of times during the instructions when I had to read the instructions twice, but overall pretty simple.

When making the strap I forgot to trim the ends to turn under nicely when I attached them. So I had to unpick the top-stitching at the ends so I could trim the ends before I attached them to the bag.

Changes I made this time

• Omitted the strap from the pattern and instead just cut a
• Omitted the strap loop, cord and tassel

What I Like

• The outside side pockets are handy to slip keys and phone into.
• Very roomy inside
• The strap is simple and sturdy

What I don’t like

• Because the outside pockets are the same I keep reaching into one pocket for my phone or keys, but they are in the other pocket.
• Little bit too slouchy
• The colour is not the best, but it’s neutral and I can’t complain because I used stash fabric.

Changes for next time

• Use a stiffer fabric
• Interface the base of the exterior with something very stiff interfacing
• Instead of external side pockets maybe try an elasticated pocket on the front and a zippered pocket on the back

Numbers

Final Comment

In the end I really like this bag. It will be a great to use as a run-around bag. I’m not sure if I would make it again, but it was fun to give it a try.

The main reason I don’t sew from my sewing books is because my sizing falls outside a lot of the sizing included in the books. I know, I know, I should just suck it up and grade patterns; that’s the whole point of sewing your own clothes-you can make pattern adjustments and make things fit you. I know, but insert-some-lame-excuse-here. #lazyseamstress

For easy reference I’ve now added the sizing to my Sewing Books with Patterns page.

ETA (30 June 2015): Woops! I forgot to thank Gillian for giving me a great #sewingdare and hosting a fun sewing challenge

Do you have sewing books with patterns?
Do you sew from them?

Let me know in the comments.

Until next time,

The post #Sewingdare Done! appeared first on Make It Nifty.