My First Scarf

My first finished crochet project!

I owe a big thanks to Karen, at Needle Arts of Georgetown. She helped me select a great high quality yarn and then walked me through single and double crochet techniques.

The next day, she helped me out when my scarf was mysteriously shrinking... turns out you really do have to count those stitches to keep from losing one every row.

The next day, she helped me untangle a massive knot.

Then, just a few days later, she showed me how to finish the scarf and hide those dangling yarns.

Thanks, Karen! I couldn't have done it without you.

Pockets, Pockets, Pockets

In my forays into painting and crocheting, I don't want anyone to worry that I've given up on sewing.... crocheting is just easier to do with a toddler on your lap and painting is quieter in the evenings after babies have gone to bed.

But I was looking around for some inspiration for my next sewing project and wandered back to LiEr's blog and found....

Pockets.

Lots and lots of pockets.

As in, more pockets than I ever even knew existed.


She has tutorials for all of them, though my favorite is the one pictured, the inset pocket with frame because she's right. Small children think hidden pockets are like magic.

On her blog, you can see her pocket quilt and she talks about how she used it as an Advent calendar and is now giving away the second one. (Fingers crossed. Pick me. Pick me.) But it does inspire me to make my own Advent calendar. How fun would that be?

And if I start before the New Year, I have a hope of finishing it before Thanksgiving.

I'll keep you posted.

A Basket of Yarn

When I was a little girl, I had a dollhouse and a bear family lived in it. Mama Bear always had a basket next to her chair that was filled with little tiny balls of yarn that I rolled up for her.

How nice is it to become Mama Bear?

The Other New Hobby

This is Strawberry Shortcake. She is sporting a brand new CROCHETED scarf-like thing.


The point is, I guess, I am having a very merry Christmas and my amazing mother-in-law gave me hand-me-down crochet things and Hobby Lobby money and my fabulous mother gave me a gift card that is going to turn into some one-on-one crochet lessons here pretty soon.

The New Hobby

I had the honor of having many very special grandmothers and great grandmothers. One of them, Mama Robbie, learned Spanish, took trips to exotic places, went back to college for a philosophy degree and learned to paint all after she retired.

I always knew I wanted to be like Mama Robbie when I was older, but it recently occurred to me that being like Robbie could be really hard work and I should start now.

So I took up painting.

My first painting was an acrylic because twenty minutes of looking at painting books taught me that you need special stuff to clean up oil paint and I still have a toddler.

I bought myself a "how to" kit that walked me through paint mixing and techniques like gridding to copy a design. I picked this one of an old mill because it was for my sister and her married name is Miller, so you know, it's funny.

The Millers by RC

Overall, I was really pleased for a first attempt at a landscape and my first painting done in a medium other than poster paint. I mean, you can totally tell it's a mill and the water actually sort of looks like it's cascading down the rocks. The leaves lack detail, but I think that's a style some people do on purpose, so I'm happy with it.

How to Make Chrismons

But first of all: What is a Chrismon?

Developed in 1957 at the Ascension Lutheran Church, a chrismon is a white and gold ornament made in the shape of a symbol of Christ's name or nature. A lot of churches use them to decorate the main tree in the sanctuary during Advent.

This year, I wanted to make an Advent tree in our home, so I found this site with excellent patterns and ideas for chrismons. I think the only patterns I didn't get from that site was the crown which I found here and I honestly don't know where I found the pattern for the shepherd's crook, but I can tell you that it was really a candy cane coloring page.


Having found my patterns, I copied them into a word document so I could play around with the sizes since I was decorating a small four foot tree at home, not a giant church-sized tree. Then I printed them out on paper and cut each symbol out.

From there, I used my amazing disappearing ink to trace each pattern onto some white felt that I kid you not, showed up on my front porch one day as a surprise offering from a former girl scout leader who was cleaning out closets.

Then I cut out the ornaments.

I used two pieces to make one ornament. Using embroidery thread, I stitched the details, like the "jewels" on the crown or the eye on the dove on the top piece and then sewed the two pieces together, going around the outside.

I then used another piece of the embroidery thread to make a tie to hang the ornaments on the tree.

Right now I only have a dozen ornaments, but I decided the tree would be more fun if I added to the ornaments each year, so I'm leaving it a little bare this year with room to grow.

The Easiest Baby Dress You Can Make

In my last post, I was talking about how a baby blanket got away from me and turned into making a baby blanket, two taggie squares, a taggie blanket and a gown.

You thought it ended there, but it really didn't.

Because while buying all of that fabric, I stumbled upon this pattern.*

I don't really do clothes very well, but everyone says this is THE easiest baby dress to make. So I bought the pattern and some fabric.

I actually made this green one first. With any sewing project, the first one is the one you learn the most from. The green dress taught me to do all embellishments before sewing on the facing. It doesn't show on the front at all, but inside, you can see a lot of unsightly stitches that might also rub against baby's sensitive skin.

I also learned that this pattern does two things I really don't like. First of all, the whole reason this dress is so easy is that it can be made in two pieces... the shape of the dress x 2 sewn together right sides facing and then turned. But in the pattern, they have you cutting the sides separately, making six pieces, and adding four seams for very little reason.

Also, I learned that I should read more carefully. I wanted a 3-6 dress for a January baby. That way it could be worn in spring into the summer. The package says that the small fits 6 month and I thought the small would be 3 month. Not a big deal, as a size 6-9 month dress would still be summer for a January baby. Only the dress I made following the pattern for a "small" was big enough to fit an average size nine month old.

So I got out one of my daughter's dresses of this type and made my own pattern.

I also tried some different embellishments.

I made the flower by sewing the petals (two pieces of petal shaped fabric sewn together and turned) separately and then making a circle for the middle the same way. I then sewed them all down by going around each part of the flower with a simple stitch.

Here is my first attempt with rick rack. I got the idea of sewing on the rick rack to the top and then sewing the facing and turning it all from one of my daughters dresses. That way the rick rack sticks out the ends and has a different kind of look than if you sewed it on the top.

This one has the same ribbon flower as the first one, only this time I did all of the sewing (including sewing the tops of each loop down to keep the flower from "wilting" before attaching the facing).


Finally, to give an idea of how fancy the outfits can be:

I did buy the bloomers at a boutique, but they go with all three dresses and it was so much easier to buy the bloomers than learn how to sew them. The headband and fancy flower are both from Hobby Lobby. The flower was $3.99 but the headband was only 99 cents, so still significantly cheaper than buying the same sort of thing from a specialty shop and the flower is just a clip, so you can change out the clip on the same headband or move the clip to another headband.



*By "stumbled upon" I do actually mean "went with the express purpose of finding" -- but I really didn't think I would be making so many dresses when I found the pattern. They were just SO easy and fun to do.

How a Blanket Becomes So Much More

My sewing machine got away from me this last week. I started one project and it just grew and grew and grew.

My first idea was to do this baby blanket... just a simple quilt.

I was happy with the quilt because as a baby gift, it was particularly rife with meaning. The dotted fabric came from my mother's 1980's collection of baby fabrics and I used some of it on a blanket for my son. The pink gingham comes from my husband's grandmother's collection of fabrics. The butterfly fabric was used on a dress for my daughter. The pink with the brown dots was used on an apron for my sister. And the white cotton is from a receiving blanket I had for both of my children. The other fabrics were bought for this blanket, but so many of them were ones I already had and had used in some really special ways.

So obviously, that blanket would be a fine gift all by itself.

But then I had scraps.

So I made two taggie squares and a taggie blanket.

There. Now I should be done.

Then I saw this adorable gown in a local boutique. It had a t-shirt or onesie material top and a chenille or fleece bottom portion and was absurdly expensive price tag. But I wanted it. So I bought it. Then I got it home and really looked at it and said to myself, I could make something like this. So I took it back and went back to the fabric store for more of the pink fleece.

I took one of my daughters old gowns, cut off the bottom and measured out an amount of fleece equal to the circumference of the top of the gown (with seam allowances). I added elastic at the bottom, sewed up the back and then pinned the right side of the top to the right side of the fleece and sewed around.
I think it's cute as is, but it was even cuter on top of the matching blanket.

There. Now I should be done. Right?

Wait for next post.

Nap Mat Covers

One of my primary goals in learning to sew was to be able to do those projects (usually for school or church) where the kid needs something and someone involved looks at you, the parent, and says, "You can just make one -- they are so easy to sew!"

A nap mat cover falls into this category nicely. It's really just a pillow case made to measure with velcro (and I think you could make one without the velcro and it would be just fine).

I "measured" the fabric by putting the nap mat on top of it and cutting around, leaving enough for the seam allowances and the thickness of the mat, with extra room at the top so that the cover could stay on the mat when it's folded up without slipping off.

I then took the two pieces and hemmed the top, sewing the velcro on the folded over edges.

Next was just putting the two hemmed pieces right sides together and sewing the other three sides.

I went ahead and finished the edges on the inside so that the whole thing wouldn't unravel against the mat and then I made a coordinating pillow and blanket.

I can't say this makes nap time fun, but it can't hurt.

The first one went so well that I did the exact same thing for my son, just in more boyish colors.

Shorts from Leggings

I remember when my daughter was little and most, if not all, of her little dresses came with little matching bloomers and even when one of the dresses didn't, I could always find a plain white or pink one from another dress and use that.

At a certain point, though, I guess dress makers decide enough is enough and moms are on their own.

I found this site that sells shorts specifically designed to be worn under dresses and thought that was a really neat idea, but wasn't ready to spend $16 a piece on them.

So I decided to put my sewing skills to good use and make my own.

I made the first pair this last winter out of a pair of black leggings and they worked so well that I just got finished making six more.

First, I gathered up leggings in her size. Some of the pairs were given to us as hand-me-downs and actually had a couple of holes in the knees so this was perfect. Others were worn this last winter and I decided to just go ahead and get maximum use out of them by cutting them up since she probably won't be in the same size next winter. The black and brown ones I actually went to a consignment store with the intent of buying cheap leggings to make into shorts because I have found that you can't have enough black or brown shorts.

Then I basically just cut the legs off of leggings and hemmed them. Except I don't really know how to hem so I just folded the bottoms, pinned, and sewed two lines. It works well enough for wearing under a dress.

And since every sewing project (at least for a beginner) should have a lesson learned, here's today's: Cheap thread. Not worth it.

So frustrating.

Oh, well, I made it through and we should be set for the summer into the fall.

And I did go ahead and keep the legs from the leggings and I'll let you know if I decide to make homemade babylegs and how that goes.

A Truly FIRST Sewing Project

My three year old daughter was bugging me to let her have a turn at the sewing machine, and I thought, "Why not?"

Then I thought, what in the world could she actually make?!?

So I sewed two pieces of felt together with two lines in the middle, like so:


She stepped on the pedal and made lines across and learned to stop when she got to the end of the fabric to let me reset it.

Which along with never, never, never, never touch the needle and you can only sew when mama's right here were her first lessons in sewing.


And then I cut the rectangle into two squares and viola, two mini quilts for her little bear family.