The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

This is a book review that I read and reviewed in my reading blog, Moonwishes Reads about a book that I thought other sewers might appreciate if only to appreciate what many of us have in our sewing rooms.

As a seamstress and a reader, I was impressed by this book. Even though there might have been technical flaws with the timeline of the book, the story itself was astonishing. In our world today, most of us who sew have sewing machines, if not more than one. We also may have embroidery machines, all sorts of notions and gadgets, access to all sorts of fabric and the freedom to use them any way we like. Here is a story of women risking their lives to sew to provide needed financial help to their family. This book will make you appreciate your freedom to sew. This review is from my Amazon Vine book review.
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The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe
by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

As a seamstress I was fascinated by this book. When their world has gone mad and life as they know it had changed, the women of Afghanistan found themselves in a peculiar situation. They could not leave their homes without a male escort, they could not work out, they had a new dress code that was so old fashioned many of the women had to borrow clothes to leave their home as they didn’t have the proper dress to satisfy the Taliban. As many of them found that they were widows with children to support they were left in a quandary. How do they support their families, feed their children and keep a roof over their heads and still follow the rules? If they didn’t follow the rules they could be beaten, tortured and killed. For women who were used to going to school (now no longer allowed), holding down jobs, and being able to shop and visit at will, not only were they in financial straights but bored beyond belief. They were essentially under house arrest.

For one family of many daughters, Kamela Sediqi found a way to be productive, earn an income and involve not only her many sisters but other women and girls from her area. She became a seamstress. With one sewing lessons from her married sister that was a tailor, she set up shop and made her first garment. Escorted by her younger brother, she went to the market, avoiding the Taliban soldiers, and took orders for the dresses she and her sisters would make. As someone who has sewed for 40+ years, she did something I would never even think of attempting. But she got orders and took them home and carefully she and her sisters cut the cloth and hand sewed and embroidered the garments. Her business grew, all being secretly done in her home, to the point she was able to hire other women and girls to help her and thus also help with their financial difficulties.

Sewing by lamplight and eventually with sewing machines during the times of infrequent electric power, Kamela and sisters and friends, beat their boredom, supported their families and showed that even when the chips were down, they could succeed against all odds,

I very much enjoyed this book although there were some areas that were confusing, especially the timeline. I was reading the advanced reading copy so I hope someone caught the discrepancies before actual publication. Other than that, it was a very inspirational true story that I enjoyed very much.

Check out this book now:

Project Linus Quilt 2011

This year I made my Project Linus quilt using my 2" x 4" bits and pieces of bright primary color print scraps. I think any small child should be happy with all the bright colors and things to look at. It is backed with a yard sale find of what looks like bright jelly beans on a black background. I got about 4 yards of this fabric for I think it was $2 last summer and knew it would be great for backing Project Linus quilts. I try to make a quilt each year to donate. I have been so richly blessed with sewing supplies that I want to pass the blessings on and to who better but a child going through a serious illness or trauma. I trust the parents of the child will also be blessed that someone cared for their child and prepared a quilt for them long before the need arose.

This quilt was pieced on a Janome Memory Craft 9000 and was quilted with decorative stitches on the seam lines with a Janome Horizon 7700.


It is amazing how cheaply you can make a nice quilt for a project like this, just using scraps that you color coordinate. Scrap quilts, if you are careful, can look as well planned as a quilt that you have bought fabrics for. For 2012 I'm hoping to use some of my pastel scraps to make a more 'girly' quilt. With my son's wedding quilt I'll be using mostly primary colors and know I will need a rest from them when that quilt is finished.

Spray Basting a Quilt

I finished my Project Linus quilt two days ago. I don't have the photo downloaded yet, but one of the echniques I used was spray basting it and it turned out great. Here is a terrific video on both spray basting

and using your wall to spray baste on! I can hardly wait to show hubby this technique! In the meantime, I'm sharing it with you.

Terrific Quilting Sites

A question was asked on our Janome Horizon 7700 sewing digest as to who inspired us. The group came up with a lot of names of websites. I've listed them on my sewing and quilting page for every one's convenience including my own. If I find a neat site on the big desktop computer and save it to favorite places, then when I'm relaxing and want to find those great sites, I'm usually using the laptop that of course never got those favorites marked. Now all I have to do is go to my blog and click on interesting links and so can you. One of the things I try for with this blog is to be a resource for others so that they can enjoy their quilting and sewing hobbies.

I also got some great magazines in the mail the other day and just loved reading through the old copies of Dressmaking With Stitches which used to be called Australian Stitches It encourages me because of the great way they explain sewing techniques and the clothes they make are normal people clothes. You know, the kind of thing that you wear to the grocery store, a parent teacher conference, the library, living life. I only wish it was cheaper for a subscription!

Nicole's Designs

We have added another embroidery designer to our embroidery designer page. It is Nicole's Designs, which specialize in modular designs. They are perfect for decorating children's items. usually each design set has a freebie that goes along with it.

Wedding Quilt Part 1

When my son Ron proposed to Savannah we were all very happy and I started thinking wedding quilt. I started asking what type of quilt they might like and colors, etc. One day Savannah sent me a schematic of what she thought they would like.

I was very happy to have a goal of some type in mind since a queen size quilt is a large undertaking and I wanted them to like it. I got my crayons out and David made me some graph paper and I got to work converting her ideas into something that could be sewn and without too many odd angles to sew. It took several attempts but at last I had a reasonable rendition of what she had drawn, expanded into a queen size quilt. When she was her at Christmas she gave her stamp of approval to the final design.

The above picture represents only one half of the quilt. It will be made with 2 1/2" squares for the most part. It is to be a scrap quilt using a huge variety of fabrics. This of course, meant I got to go through all my stash pulling out the different fabrics that I thought might go. I also pulled pre-cut 2 1/2" strips and squares. I did have to buy some more yellow fabrics as I didn't feel I had a good enough selection of them and I didn't wanted to have too many repeats of the same fabrics.

My calculations tell me I will need to cut over 1700 2 1/2" squares for this quilt. Since that seems like a mammoth job, I stuck all the colors except for the red and purple fabrics in a box until I get the red and purple cut up. Then they can go downstairs to sew during my breaks from doing dishes, etc. and I can pull out the next colors to work on. I look forward to making this quilt and sharing it with you. Hopefully it will be done by the August 2011 wedding.

Sherlock Holmes Wallhanging

When Embroidery Library came out with some great reading related designs, I just knew I had to make something with the Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Design for my husband. David is a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and has helped suck me into being a fan also! I had thought originally to embroider out the design and then frame it in a conventional frame, purchased at the thrift store and spruced up by me. Well when the first sew out was in process, something got caught behind the machine and messed things up so I had to start over. Then I ran out of thread, but thankfully was able to substitute another color and it doesn't show too much! But when it was finished, I really liked it until I tried to frame it. It was just a tad too big which meant I had to think through what to do with it. First I quilted it and then tried some techniques that were new to me. I mitered the corners and used a facing to the front instead of binding it and did a raw edge applique for the frame shape. I had a great time trying out some of the decorative stitches on my Janome Horizon 7700; a very fun machine to work with! David was very pleased with his gift and now all we have to do is decide where to hang it.

Oma's Place Embroidery Designs with a Message

Oma's Place has an assortment of different designs, including those for parents with special needs children, Christian home designs and other. Many of her free designs have the .pes extension so be sure you can reformat the design before downloading or buying a design.

4-Hobby Machine Embroidery

Happy New Year to all! May this be a great year with lots of wonderful sewing projects completed. I had posted about this site before, but in case you hadn't seen it yet, I did want to remind you that 4-Hobby Machine Embroidery carries a selection of Judaica symbols in machine embroidery and several Hebrew alpha bets. I know these types of designs are fairly hard to find so for those who are looking, please check this site. They also have several other types of ethnic designs including Hamsa.

Buying Fabric On Line

After searching our one and only local fabric store for several months for some Atlanta Braves Fleece for my son for a Christmas present, I went on line and tried to buy some several weeks ago only to get the dreaded out of stock box. Well on Christmas Eve, finally got a note saying it was back in stock. I was busy then, but within 4 hours when I tried to buy it, it was back to being out of stock. At that point I did what I should have in the first place and searched the web. I found two sites that had the fleece in stock and plenty of it. Both with lower prices than the other store. Fabric.com won the purchase 'contest' by having the lowest price plus I was able to find an on line 15% off coupon too, so that theirs was the rock bottom price. They also participate in Big Crumbs money back program too! Considering it was Christmas weekend when I ordered it, can you imagine my surprise when it was delivered on Wednesday! I'm always happy to talk about a company that delivers better than I expected and I was very impressed with their service. I'm sure my son will be thoroughly surprised when he gets this gift as he is not only a huge Braves fan but the biggest Christmas snoop in the world. We haven't had our 'Christmas' yet as we have waited for my other son and his fiance to get here. So on New Year's Day we will get to celebrate Christmas knowing it is much more than a time for presents but a time to celebrate family and being part of God's family.

Happy New Year to you all and trusting that it will be a good year for each of you and knowing what trials that may come help to make us stronger. I'm still trying to decide my personal sewing goals and goals for our store. I would love to know what others are working on this coming year. My one really big goal is a wedding quilt that needs done by August.

Sew Terrific Embroidery Designs

We have just added another machine embroidery site called Sew Terrific to our Machine Embroidery page. Even though Christmas is just past, they have posted a great set of Santa Claus designs and Free Christmas Tree design in all the popular home machine formats.

We have also added another sewing site to our Sewing and Quilting page. It is Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing with all sorts of interesting sewing info.

We are always happy to learn of new sites to add to these pages as it helps all of us with our sewing.

I was very excited to get Threads magazine's latest issue #153. I have a tip published in it!

Snow Lady Designs

There is still enough time to make another machine embroidered Christmas ornament isn't there? Snow Lady Designs has a fantastic, FREE free-standing lace ornament. Visit this site soon to see what else awaits you and your embroidery machine!

Innocence

If you sew, quilt, make art or just love beautiful things, you need to visit this blog: One Designer's Journey. She has the most incredible quilt called Innocence.

I just finished a little quilted wall piece for hubbies Christmas present. I can't even think about posting it yet after seeing the quilt pictures I just saw. but soon. I tried several new to me techniques in it and that is what I want to be doing, still learning and growing not stuck in a rut doing 4 patch quilting the rest of my life.

Janome Life

I have added a new link on my sewing and quilting page here. It is for Janome Life . It was brought to my attention for her article on using the Janome quilt binder for mitering corners, apparently something that doesn't come with the instructions. I love savings these links and having them handy for everyone because I know if I ever get the money to buy the quilt binder, I will have forgotten otherwise where to find the article.

I also got some great news today. One of my sewing tips that I sent into Threads magazine is to be published! That put a little spark in my step to get that news. Look for issue #153, which is the one it should be in.

Happy Sewing Everyone!

Free December Designs

Embroidery Library has just posted their FREE December winter designs. They can be downloaded for free until January 3, 2011. They also has lots of NEW Holiday designs for your last minute crafting or for planning next year's sewing. Be sure to stop in and visit them and all the other machine embroidery sites that are listed on my embroidery sites page here.

Need a present for a sewing friend (or yourself)? Sew-Retro is a delightful book that anyone who likes to read about sewing and especially vintage sewing would enjoy. I got my copy with birthday gift certificate cards and I highly recommend it.

Woke up to at least an inch of snow with up to eight inches predicted by the end of the week. That always puts me in a sewing mood and I hope it does you also. Happy crafting!

Sarah Ann Smith

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I'm grateful for a great husband who was willing to wait several days for the turkey since I was flaring up and couldn't manhandle the beast plus side dishes on my own. In the end, he still had to do the turkey for me but I was able to make the potatoes, stuffing and gravy. It was a simple meal and a simple time but we enjoyed it.

I wanted to add another site to our quilting and sewing resource page. It is Sarah Ann Smith's blog page. Sarah is a great quilter, writer and teacher. She also is a frequent presence on the Janome Horizon 7700 digest. She is a published author and her book Thread Work Unraveled is an excellent resource for doing machine quilting and threadwork. I own this book and highly recommend it either as a gift for a sewing friend or for yourself! Be sure to visit her blog and see what she is up to.

Sew Janome

We have just started another page here on this blog as I would dearly love to have this be a great resource for all who sew. We have a page for machine embroidery design sites and now we have added a sewing and quilting site page. If you have sites that you would like to see added, please lets us know!

Today's site is Sew Janome with some great information for Horizon 7700 owners and owners of other Janome machines.

Hope everyone has a lovely Thanksgiving. I'm so thankful for my hubby, my kids and that I have activities that I enjoy while dealing with chronic illness. I'm especially thankful for my Janome Horizon 7700 and 300E as I intend to give them a workout today and tomorrow!

ABC Embroidery Designs

Just added ABC Embroidery Designs to our Embroidery Designer Page. right now you can get a free lovely Thanksgiving design. Even if too late to use this holiday, be sure to download it to have for next year.

I've been working on making Christmas presents, but can't post them since the folks getting them have access to my blog and Facebook account. Maybe after the holidays. So many ideas and so little time and I'm still looking for ideas. It is so much fun to have a girl in the family now to sew for!

Secrets of Embroidery Machine Embroidery Site

Secrets of Embroidery is one of my favorite websites for getting lovely embroidery designs. I noticed that they have a sale going on that you might want to know about. They are offering a 2010 Winter Bonus Set with over 30 designs as a free gift with orders of $30 or more from anywhere on the Secrets site. Sounds like a GREAT deal.

One tip for when you do your embroidery. Don't think that you have everything out of the way when you are setting up an embroidery project. I didn't this weekend. Something fell and jammed my design up and I lost an hour's worth of embroidering. :(  . I did however, put my Horizon through it's paces and hemmed up some heavy jeans of my husbands with the help of a few of my internet friends. I ended up with a bent needle but an old point turner I had gotten free in the mail one day also had a space to tuck in under my presser foot and allowed the foot to go over the bulky seam (except the one that bent the needle). I probably need more practice, but since I'm tall and hubby is 6'2" you wouldn't think I would ever need to hem up pants!

Happy sewing on your holiday projects and enjoy the process!

Cristmas Bag Toppers

What a unique idea that The Purple Hat has for this Christmas season. They are Christmas Bag toppers that you can put treats in a Zip-Lock(r) bag and the topper makes it a gift! Visit The Purple Hat for this and other unique designs.