Brian Haggard: A Creative Mind and the Power of Thread
Brian Haggard, a quilt artist, teacher, and lecturer extraordinaire is coming to Threads of Time in September to give a workshop, and we can’t wait! You won’t want to either.
When we first met Brian and his partner, Kevin, a few weeks ago, we formed an instant friendship. Lots of great ideas and funny stories were exchanged in a delighted free-flow of conversation. Yesterday, we had the pleasure of visiting their absolutely stunning studio. It was at that moment that I realized we were in the presence of genius. Pure creative genius. Brian utilizes his eye for design, a fantastic color sense, unbelievable talent for stitching, and a mind that sees things in a new and different way to make incredible projects. His first book, Crazy Quilted Memories, is filled with great techniques and multitudes of projects. He’s got a new fabric line from Windham Fabrics coming in the fall, and a second book coming soon which I’ll be telling you about soon.
What a fantastic day! Brian’s use of photographs, buttons, and all kinds of embellishments bring his sewing projects — and his surroundings — to a higher level. Visit Brian’s website at www.brianhaggard.com to learn more about him. Consider doing a workshop with him in his beautiful studio, pictured below.
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The “Hand-Me-Down” and Hand Sewing
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My daughter is now almost 28 years old, but she had given me one of her old sweaters from her early college days. I loved the color, and it was a really nice weight, so eight years later, I was still holding onto it. Taking my trusty, sharp Gingher scissors, I fearlessly cut off the hoodie. (What did I have to lose? It was an old, already-used sweater discarded years ago by my daughter and sitting in a mending pile for eons!) I folded the new neck edge and hand-stitched it under. The wristbands also were eliminated and cut into strips 1/2″ to 1″ wide. I put aside the cord that used to run through the hoodie to tighten it.
Now for the fun. I rolled strips of the soft wool into flower bud shapes by simply curling the first end of the strip and wrapping it around itself. The “buds” were stitched by hand onto the sweater form around the neckline wherever I thought they looked good. The cord from the hoodie was stitched down to look like stems. The soft fabric was easy to work with and extremely forgiving. The hand-stitching process was extremely easy and fun and done while I was watching television.
An old cast-off is now one of my favorite garments. Oh what a little hand-sewing can do!
What Hand Sewing Can Do for a Raggedy Old Quilt
One of the best seamstresses I know says that doing anything “by hand,” makes “hand” a four letter word. When we mention any project that might involve stitching with old-fashioned needle and thread, she wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “If I can’t do it with my machine, why would I want to do it at all?”
Funny. She’s in her 70′s, I’m in my 50′s, and it’s me who is in love with handwork.
Sewing by hand is relaxing. There’s no pressure, no hurry, no noise. I can do it while I’m watching t.v., riding in a car, or sitting in bed. But what’s even better about hand work is what a few well-placed stitches can do. Take, for instance, my obsession with fixing old quilts. I buy them at flea markets and yard sales. Usually, they’re in terrible shape, with blocks and panels and parts coming unstitched. Often they have gaping holes and shattered fabric. But that’s part of their charm. I love spending quiet time literally “re-connecting” the dots, fixing the stitches of the frayed and frazzled seams. There’s joy in repairing things, in revitalizing something old, in appreciating the beauty of something tattered and real.
This is Project #3 in my completion of old quilts. I’ll post the first two I did in the near future. I know that I am not an expert stitcher. I’ve never been trained in repairing old quilts. I’m even including some close-ups of the resulting ridges and puckers from imperfect repairs. But it’s not perfection I’m after. Just a face-lift. Bill and I will enjoy these old quilts and take pleasure in their age and their beauty, knowing that if I hadn’t cared, they’d be languishing away, tearing their stitches out, in some old pile at a flea market.
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Voila! It took longer than expected, but….
I did it in half-hour stints, but I certainly didn’t get to sew a half hour per day…more like a half hour a week. Nonetheless…
Here’s my fun, funky, re-purposed shirt. Notice that instead of using the cuffs as ties on the front as the Indygo Junction pattern suggests, I used them on the back. Now, my husband is a big guy and I’m a little woman. (Please note that I didn’t say, “The Little Woman,” as if I’m a diminutive version of a homesteading female,) but Bill’s shirt was way too big. So I put the cuffs on the back, edged them with decorative stitches, and used them to pull the shirt a little tighter.
I love the half-feminine (effect gained by adding lace,) and the half artsy-feel of the shirt. I’m pairing it with a navy t-shirt, navy leggings, and a cool blue amulet-style necklace.
Isn’t it wonderful what you can do with a little bit of sewing and a bit of imagination?
If you’d like the Indygo Junction pattern “Restyled Shirts,” you can get it at www.threadsoftimefab.com and click on the on-line store.
“A Half Hour or Sew”: Productivity for the Busy Seamstress
Anybody out there REALLY busy? Do you work long hours, have multiple responsibilities, and run like a madwoman to get things done? (Ever felt like Ophelia losing her grip, escaping into nature, singing nonsense songs, and laughing mindlessly at the chaos of everything around you?)
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Okay. I’m not quite that far gone, but one of my biggest regrets is that I don’t have as much time to sew as I would like, and I run around working all the time. It’s hard to relax and create. But this project I’m working on is an experiment in the “Half Hour or Sew” philosophy….
Since I don’t have much spare time, I’m sewing in tiny stints of 30 minutes or less. This approach certainly doesn’t make for fast projects, but since I’m a slow sewist anyway (see the post entitled “The Joys of Slow Sewing,”) it doesn’t matter that I don’t get my visions created quickly.
The old brown shirt of Bill’s that I’m re-styling into a cuter garment – (See ”What Can You Do With an Old Shirt?”) - has so far been done in 30-minute-or-less stages:
1) Stage 1: Read Pattern. Take off buttons, cut off cuffs, shorten length of shirt. Cut pieces. (20 minutes.)
2) Stage 2: Prepare placket covers and stitch on both sides of shirt. (25 minutes.)
3) Stage 3: Add outside collar fabric. I also added an inside neck band in the same fabric as the placket. (30 minutes)
Next sitting, I’ll add the bottom ruffle and prepare the sleeve ruffles.
I’m hoping to wear this “old-brown-shirt-transformed-into-funky-cute-shirt” in a few days! Results to follow. 
What Can You Do with an Old Shirt?
What can you do with an old shirt? I’m taking one of my husband’s old brown dress shirts and playing with it via ideas from Indygo Junction called “Restyled Shirts.” This is a simple, fun project that doesn’t take much time. I just started working on it last night after work, and in a few days you can see the finished piece and what it wanted to be when it grew up.
Indygo Junction has great ideas for interesting garments. These are a little bohemian in feel and encourage creative use of fabric collections.
