WIP Wednesday

Looks all nice and finished, but it doesn't fit over the poor girl's head!  The rest of the measurements are dead on, so I'm hoping that I can just figure out some sort of button in the back, she'll have a new dress.  The pattern is from Sew Easy Being Green, and it's pretty great, except for my child's large head.

Still in love with this color!

Also, plugging right along with my Sweatshirt Sweater.  I'm almost back to the point where I frogged it before.  It looks much better this time, so fingers crossed!

This poor quilt's been half quilted for a year because I can't figure out what color thread I was using when I ran out!

And, I think I'm going to put the geese quilt on the back burner for a little bit.  My maths were just off enough on the curve to make the entire thing wrong.  So, instead of just getting frustrated and ripping it all out, I'll take a breather and see about finishing some of the other quilts in my stack.

So many dangling threads!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

T-Shirt Remake (On the Road to the Ivy League!)

About two years ago I started reading sewing blogs, not just quilting blogs, specifically, Made By Rae and MADE.  And there was this light bulb moment, where I realized I could make my kids real clothes, not just the super cute dresses I'd gotten as a child.

Of course, I had to wait for the newborn craziness to die down before I could actually get into it.  And it's been kind of awesome.  I got to use a bunch of my old "never going to fit me again" shirts and "why did I buy so many maternity" shirts to make the first batch of toddler shirts for summer, but now that it's fall, the kids need long sleeved shirts, and I tapped out my drawers.

The "P" stands for "Pretty Awesome!"

Enter, the second hand shops!  We have two brand new shops near us that are filled with gems, like this Princeton shirt that I just managed to chop down for my two-year-old.  (For real, it started as a women's small, and I only had to take in the side seams an inch!)

I used the Basic Tee tutorial from MADE, to make a pattern from one of her shirts.  Then, because the shirt wasn't big enough to also cut sleeves from it, I used a purple knit that I had on hand and a basic sleeve pattern piece from another shirt.  

Princeton on a softball scholarship?  It could happen.

I also used the purple for the neckline, the Basic Tee tutorial also really explains how to make the neckline look nice.

Mommy's little secret, give her a little coffee, and she'll pose for hours!

Now, off to make a bunch more before the weather turns on me!  There's a pretty rad Bob Marley tee in my second hand finds that I might have to remake for the four-year-old. 

Sneaking in some playtime with Brother's cars while he's not home!

Linking up with Better Off Thread for Sew Cute Tuesday and The Train to Crazy for Make It Wear It Thursday!

Leaders and Enders (Or, How to Make a Quilt Without Really Thinking About It)

Way back, my grandmother taught me how to always run a chunk of fabric through the machine at the beginning and end of my work, so you'd never have that awful moment when you sew a big seam and realize that your needle un-threaded itself.  She'd always have a scrap attached to her machine.  I actually think that when she handed down her machine to me, it came with a scrap that had been heavily stitched.

Happy little bucket!

And I totally ignored the advice and proceeded to get very grumpy every time this happens.  Because who can resist the awesomeness of an automatic thread cutter.  It just sounds so efficient, until the un-threading happens.

I know, dark picture, but I sew in the dungeon basement.

Then I happened to come upon a post from Just a Bit Frayed (who talked about this post) that pretty much had the same advice as my grandmother, but with a twist.  Instead of just a bunch of scraps to run through the machine, keep a bunch of squares by your machine.

Light-ish and dark square, ready to be sewn together!

So now I have a happy little bucket of 2.5" squares.  Once I'm done sewing a seam, I just run a pair of these through.  I'm trying to match a light with a dark square, but I'm not that particular, and I sometimes just grab the two at the top of the bucket.

See my tiny stack of sewn pairs?  They're making friends with my flannel, oil, and thread.  

When you've got a bunch of pairs, you start sewing them into fours, then eights, and eventually you've got a decent sized block.  I haven't decided whether to make a completely scrappy patchwork, or to do an Irish Chain, but there's plenty of time to figure it out.

Not enough! Must keep sewing!

Linking up with Flamingo Toes!

 

Here, Let Me Distract You With A Cute Pouch!

So I really intended to do some sewing on my Flying Geese quilt, but totally got a headache, which lead to caffeine, which lead to an urge to stay up late and make something where I don't have too think to much.

Anyway, I bought a bunch of zippers to make pouches for kids stuff.  I got big ones, like 22" to make bigger lunch/car trip pouches, and small ones to make "quick, my children are out of control and need a quiet distraction" pouches.

I think this will be exactly what I use it for.

After much searching the internet for decent free pouch tutorials, I decided on the Open Wide Pouch from Noodlehead.  Seemed really easy to make, and the kids can actually see what's in there without having to dump everything out.  (Though, they will probably dump everything out anyway.)

Look how many cars fit in there!  We could have a Restaurant Table Grand Prix!

The pattern called for a 10" zip, but I had 9" and 22", so I just used the 9" and shortened the bag an inch.  I also cut the corners on the bottom a little smaller, but the rest is the same.  It was really quick too, so I managed to finish before my caffeine crash.

I love this little fox!  Glad I saved at least one from the corner trimming!

The bottom is pretty awesome. 

And while I had all those little bits of pretty scraps around, I figured I might as well make another pin cushion.  Plus, my cup of tiny strings was full, so it made just the right amount of stuffing for this little guy.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday!

Block Swap Blocks!

Finished up my blocks for a swap I joined on Flickr.  It was my first swap, so I was a bit nervous about the time commitment, but it looks like so much fun when other people do it.

This one might be my favorite, probably because they're totally my colors!

The way this one works is that you pick some colors, and send it out to the Flickr-verse and you get paired up with five other people who send you colors.  Then you choose a block pattern to make and make it five times in the colors that the other people have chosen, and just send it on to them.

This is supposed to be low-volume.  The fabrics low separately, but I think their volumes have added up to too loud.  We'll see.  

Love that it's super quick, since you don't have to wait for other people to send you their fabrics, or learn how to make a bunch of different blocks.  And, with this group you can jump in for a month or jump out for a month, depending on how crazy life is.

This was my mosaic for the group to use.  I've been wanting to make myself a quilt from these colors for a while, but selfish sewing always tends to get shoved to the bottom of the to-do list.  But, this was the perfect opportunity to use this, and I can't wait to see the blocks all together in person.

WIP Wednesday

Pulled a bunch of fabric from the scrap bin to work on blocks for the Sew Pieceful Block swap.  Almost finished, just have to do the last couple and decide if they're good to send or if I want to redo the colors.  (It's so hard to pick colors for other people!)

Trying to figure out the layout for my flying geese.  Drew this up, did some geometry, realized that I forgot how geometry worked after my half curve up at the top left turned out wrong.  I did salvage it and managed to get both half curves done, but now I'm a bit sewing machine shy.  So I'm putting off the two full curves.  

Hemmed the second Washi Dress in the car. Yeah, that's right, I got some coffee and hemmed in the parking lot.  I have a problem. 

Finally got past the ribbing!  I'm redoing my Sweatshirt Sweater and practicing my Continental Style knitting.  It's pretty slow-going since I'm still trying to form the muscle memory, and because ribbing is sometimes evil, but now that I'm past it, we'll see how just straight up knitting goes. 

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

Hugs and Kisses Wristlets

I love going to the Farmers Market.  We get to go play in the park, buy some veggies that hopefully my kids will at least look at before snubbing them, and there's maple ice cream.  I could write sonnets to that maple ice cream!

So my mission is to always get some veg, get some ice cream, then go lounge while kids run around like wild beasts.  I usually just walk by the other stalls so we can complete the mission (and get to the ice cream faster), but I decided that the kids needed to pet the lambskins and poke the balls of fluffy wool at the wool stall.  Plus, Riverslea Farm is right down the road, so we should at least go say "hi" and check them out.

So we stopped and I was completely taken in by their colorful display at the back.  Why is it not right up front?  It was like they'd picked out all my favorite, ridiculously bright colors and made them into yarn.  And at $9 a skein I couldn't not buy some.  

(Fingers free to do Metal Horns!)

Little man helped me pick out this awesome purple-y blue, though he was a little concerned that there were color variations.  He kept looking for a skein that was the same color throughout, and I had a hard time convincing him that it was okay.  Silly kid.

(Thumbhole!)

And with my two skeins (though I ended up only needing one) I made these Love Me Forever Wristwarmers from Gecika Knits.  The x's and o's are begging me to call them Hugs and Kisses, though.  It's a free pattern on Ravelry that was really fast and easy to follow.  I was able to knit these up in a week, though I don't know why I was rushing through them in the middle of summer.  At least I know they'll be ready for me in the winter when I'm trying to quilt in my freezing cold basement.

(Love the color, but it looks different in every light.  When I bought the yarn, it was blue, and at night it's purple.  I don't know, but I love it)

Best part is that the pattern is really great, but it can be a blank canvas for whatever design you want.  I might try an owl cable pattern next, or this one from The Walker Treasury.  

Linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday at Better off Thread!