A Small Break in the CQ Flow

Awhile back I posted a picture of some Alexander Henry fabric I'd bought called "Las Senoritas." Well, I ended up buying a second piece of it to make Michael a Hawaiian-style shirt. Here's how it came out:

I used a McCall's pattern that is marketed as a "2-hour" project. This is an optimistic estimate, but it's a simple pattern, and for the man's version you don't need to make any darts. For the first time I used the button-holer on my Janome 6500, which is approaching its first birthday. I even sewed the buttons on by machine, which I'd heard of but had never tried. It's very cool, though I'm not sure it actually saves that much time.

Michael is an avid collector of Hawaiian shirts, so he was very happy to have this one. When he bought one with pin-up girls and martini glasses on it, I knew he wouldn't be self conscious about wearing "Las Senoritas." If I had it to do again, I would make sure that the repeats in the fabric didn't line up in the front. Those two women with the hats side-by-side draw a lot of focus to themselves.

I do have an update on my CQ fans. I decided to sit down and tackle some of the stitches that had given me some trouble. I set up my computer and read through step by step the very helpful stitch dictionary directions on Sharon's blog with the sampler and the threaded needle in my hand. Here are my yellow bullion stitches, which I tried with both 6 and 3 strands of floss, my up and down buttonhole stitch with pink oyster stitch embellishments, a pekinese stitch in which I used a thin green ribbon to thread the back stitches, and some embellished rick-rack.



I marked the curved line for the up and down buttonhole vine with a quarter and a sliver of soap. I may move to embellish the open areas now, and leave a few fan blades for straight line embellishments in the series that I can't resist.