mostly hammocks, but almost done

This week was another busy week of sewing hammocks.  Among other things...

I teased you last week about the pink plaid.  It did not photograph well, but here you have it:

It really is more pink than this.

This one is like a lightweight oxford.  (So lightweight, in fact, that you can see my funky ironing board cover through it!)  It was about 60" wide, so I used the blue stripes for hammocks and the wider, thinner side stripes for a few more curtains.

(I don't think they're actually crooked?)

And some Christmas fabric!  Not what I might choose, but not awful either!  And though I had washed and dried all of these, this one, when hit with a hot iron, smelled a bit of a vet office.  I wonder where it lived before it came here?

This fabric was actually two pieces.  The first was about a yard.  The second was about eight yards!  And it is about 60" wide.  So that means the 15x30" hammocks are easily possible (not so thrifty when the fabric is 40" wide, so this is nice to make those longer hammocks).  And it is an odd fabric.  It feels like a woven, but when I got up close sewing, it looks to be a knit.  And it dried like crazy fast.  It was half dry just out of the washer.  So it got me wondering if this is actual military grade?

The selvedge wasn't immediately helpful, but good thing for the internet!  I actually was also curious about the fiber content, but only found this fun PDF:

(Image from the Milliken website)

It is used to diminish your thermal signature, so heat-sensing cameras or whatever kind of technology, have a harder time seeing you.  And yep.  Military.

Nine yards yielded 19 hammocks, so LOTS of ties/loops needed to be sewn.  I do this first, as they need to be pinned into the sandwich, and it turns out nicely, as this fabric does NOT like my traditional Coats & Clark thread - fair warning that a problem is imminent - before the real deal of sewing.  But throw in a slightly lighter weight longarm thread and it sews beautifully.

Bonus?  I'm using up bobbin ends and not caring much about the matchy-matchy of thread.  I'm currently working my way through the pile of these 19, and red is currently the color of choice.  I still have some orange and light blue and then a fair amount of light grey and white shades.

And then, I will move on to my last fabric!

Another camo, and I expect this one might be military as well.  Always an adventure, but I'm learning some tricks for challenges that quilting cottons don't provide.

Oh, also in the mix were 18 more ironing board covers, which yielded 9 long, skinny hammocks.  I sewed those with purple thread, so it shows a lot - they're off-white!  (But not very interesting to photograph, so I spared you that photo!)

No other sewing again this week, aside from these, but I can see the bottom of the box!  That means the floor of my sewing room will get bigger!  (Because the box will go away.)

Toby doesn't mind, so long as his poof-bed is available.

I turned around to find him like this, happy as could be.

Finn and Freddie take turns in the extra "executive" desk chair in the room.  But they are also not as present as this guy.  He seems to follow me around a lot.  He doesn't want pets or love, he just wants to make sure he knows where I am.

Once the hammocks are finished, I have a lot of "D"-shaped ends cut off from the ironing board covers, and now that I have also been given the sheets of batting-like-stuff that was the innards of the covers (they were long ovals of fabric with a draw string and then a sheet of batting to go under it - not like the covers we buy today that are all sewn together with an elastic edge), I will see if I can figure out how to piece those together (I'll trim them into even-sized rectangles first) to make some kennel mats.

The adventures never end.

I just hope that these hammocks (I'm up to 108 now and that final camo piece will add at least a few more) will keep the rescue group well supplied for a while and I can take a break.  It's been fun, but I've had over 70 yards of fabric to work with, so it's been a little overwhelming, too.

Today I'm going to take a break, though.  At least this morning.  The catnip fishies are in need of rehoming, and my intention was they would go around Christmas.  So I've found some holiday-themed cellophane bags and will work on packaging those up shortly.  Between rounds of stirring caramel corn in the oven and making batches of peanut brittle in the microwave and, when the hubby gets home, more fudge.

(By January, I'm going to need a holiday to recover from this holiday!)

Happy quilting!

Katie