Just Sew You Know

Painting with a Twist 3

2011-07-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

For some reason I never posted my second Painting with a Twist visit, and then I realized when I went to look for a pictures of the experience that my friend Helen and I both forgot our cameras and that's why I neglected to post it. But I do have the painting and here it is:

Today is my 34th birthday and I invited some friends to go back out to Painting with a Twist with me. We had a great time! Carol E. did all of the photography and I think her photographs are art themselves, so I am posting my favorites and letting the pictures do the talking (for once).

So there you have it: "Ode to Britto"

My First Prayer Shawl

2011-04-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

I made this for my prayer partner. She is ten and absolutely fabulous. She chose the colors. I didn't have a pattern, just the freedom of knowing I was making it for a very forgiving recipient who is a seamstress herself and would focus more on time and intent than the perfection of my stitches.

I also want to recommend this book. So far it has taught me triple crochet, granny squares and the fun waves I did at the bottom of the shawl.

It more teaches stitches and techniques and less patterns for specific items, although it has some of that as well.

I love my new hobby!

Painting with a Twist

2011-04-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

March 29th was my cousin's birthday. For her birthday, she wanted to go to a painting studio called Painting with a Twist where they have one painting that they are planning on doing and they walk you through creating that piece.

My cousin and my aunt and I all went and it was a blast!

I particularly enjoyed the way the three pieces we did all came out somewhat different.

Here is my Cobblestone Streets.

Dresses for Twins

2011-03-01T22:01:00.000-08:00

One of my husband's old high school buddies and his wife had twins last August. We will be meeting the girls for the first time this weekend, so I wanted to make them a set of those easy-to-make sundresses, like I did for Zoe.

I wasn't sure, though, since we obviously haven't been around the family since the girls were born, whether or not the mother likes dressing the girls alike or not.

Because if she did, these dresses would be perfect.

If she purposefully tries not to dress them alike, though, something like this...

... or this would be better.

There is also a possibility in my mind that she likes for them to match, but not be identical, in which case, I should give her these dresses.

Happily, I was able to do it because I made the dresses reversible. Each one can be worn with the (mostly) solid print out or in. I had tried that before, but the problem was the need to have buttons that would be on the inside (since there are buttons on both sides) and I didn't want anything to poke the baby. At Joanne's, though, I found felt buttons which solved the problem all together.

I also tried do-it-yourself appliques on these. Mostly, I cut out butterflies from the remnants of the "busy" side of the fabric and then did a very close zigzag stitch all around them.

On the one hand, it means that they are more than a little lop-sided. On the other hand, I think it makes them obviously homemade and therefore made with love. :)

Aspiration

2011-01-02T12:59:00.000-08:00

I want to be very clear that I did not make this quilt. It was made by my husband's grandmother and I love it.

She makes such beautiful quilts and has done some really lovely ones for the kids, but this is the first quilt she made for me. She offered me a couple of different ones, but I chose this one for this one panel right here:

I have always had a thing for houses -- I love to look at them in person, I love to look through floorplan books and watch HGTV. I used to draw houses all the time. So this little house in the middle of the quilt is the thing that I looked at felt that this was my quilt.

So I wanted to put pictures of it on my sewing blog because although I didn't design it, make it, or have anything to do with it other than sleeping under it, I consider it an inspiration piece.

Because I had to name my sewing goal, it would be this: To be able to make quilts as nicely as Nana with such unique personal details.

My First Scarf

2010-12-31T12:42:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-28T10:17:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-25T18:59:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-30T21:10:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-07-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-01-03T18:05:00.001-08:00

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.

Taggie Square Craziness

2009-10-02T18:04:00.001-07:00

I cannot express how busy I have been this last week with making Taggie Squares for my church's annual harvest fest.

I know I have already posted the link to the tutorial and some other taggie ideas, but here's my "How to Mass Produce the Taggie Square" post.

First of all, set up your area:

Notice how I have the cutting board, pin cushion, scissors, materials, laptop with the tutorial pulled up and a Bumbo chair for my assistant (very important).

I went ahead and did everything in stages each night. Night one was cutting... I cut the ribbons, fabric squares and cereal bags.

Night two I assembled all of the squares and pinned them.

Night three I sewed all of the squares with right sides together.

Night four I turned all of the squares.

Night five I did all of the top stitching.

Final product:

I made 23 squares all together. I sent twenty to the church for the craft fair and held on to the three that I considered "extra."

Another Crinkly Taggie Square and Some Landmarks

2009-09-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

I have been enjoying the crinkly taggie square making so much! I promise to stop posting individual pictures of each and every square soon.

But in making this one, I reached two important seamstress landmarks and had to share.

Landmark #1
I did not go out an purchase this fabric. When you start sewing, or any other hobby, you have to spend a lot of time (and money) accumulating the stuff associated with the hobby. I finally have enough fabric that I was able to say, "I feel like making this" and then go through what I have at home rather than dashing out to Hobby Lobby or JoAnn's to buy fabric for the project specifically. I learned this from my husband's Nana who has a small craft store in her third bedroom. In fact, this particular piece of fabric came from Nana. A while back, she let me go through her fabric and take a bunch of odds and ends. Her only requirement what that I had to show her what I made.

So, look what I made, Nana!

Landmark #2
I am going to be making Crinkly Taggie Squares for my church's annual Harvest Fest this year. That's right. I'm crafty enough to make things for a craft sale. How 'bout that!

Of course, this particular one is staying at my house because I like that fabric a lot and it makes me happy that it came from Nana. But be on the look out for more squares, mass produced.

Baby Shower Gift for Elissa

2009-09-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't get to actually go to Elissa's shower since I came down bronchitis and everyone knows it's extremely tacky to get the pregnant lady sick at her own shower, but I was well enough to make coordinating giraffe and crinkly square taggies to send to the shower in my stead.

I was really pleased by how well they turned out.

Crinkly Taggie Squares

2009-09-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

You know what Taggies are, right?

The idea is that babies like the tag on blankets and so why not have a whole blanket with tags all around it. You can find them all over the place and they are pretty pricey.

Another thing that babies like is crinkly things. That's why so many baby toys have a crinkly part.

Put the two together and you have crinkly taggie squares:

I found out about these from Melissa over at Chasing Cheerios and she found the original tutorial here.

And since both of those lovely ladies have excellent tutorials on their sites, I won't both to post my own.

I will say, though, when Melissa says she uses cereal bags for the crinkly part, she means cereal, not crackers, not goldfish, not anything other random bag you can find in your pantry. Fail, fail, fail.

Only cereal bags will work (well, some people say wipes packages and microwave popcorn wrappers, but only cereal bags worked for me).

Yes, this does mean that all five kinds of cereal in the house are now stored in ziplocks.

But my son loved the square:

And since the squares went so well, I thought I would try Melissa's taggie giraffe as well:

Once again, her tutorial is excellent, so I won't include much of one on mine. But I will say, as I was trying to sew all around this giraffe, with all of it's rounded edges, I kept thinking of Melissa's step 5: "I handed the giraffe over to my mom, and she sewed all around it leaving a small hole for turning."

I wish I had a mom who would do the hard parts. :)

Final giraffe... very cool, I think. And notice that it coordinates with the taggie crinkly square as well. I'm thinking baby shower gifts (and if you happen to be the friend of mine whose shower I'm going to this weekend and you happen to read this blog, act surprised).

Alterations from the 70's

2009-07-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

A few months back, my mother-in-law brought over some old baby clothes... old as in 1979 old. They had been my husbands and she had held on to them for all this time.

Among the clothes were three outfits that all look something like this:

Each one has one shirt and two coordinating bottoms ('cause back in the day, with cloth diapers, a baby was way more likely to need an outfit change on the lower half, or so I was told). I thought the outfits were really neat and I loved the retro colors, but when I put them on the baby, the whole shirt tucked in look really bugged me. So I thought, hey, I can sew! I can alter this outfit and make it look more modern.

(I did opt to only alter one of the three outfits so that the other two kept the full retro look.)

The first step I took was removing the buttons so that the shirt could be on the outside of the pants. Then, without the buttons, the pants needed elastic added to help them stay on.

The elastic isn't the prettiest on the inside, but it works just fine.

Here's the outfit with those two alterations. It would be okay now, but the shirt was still too short (since it was originally made to come only halfway down the belly and the pants would meet it in the middle).

So I took the hem out of the shirt and then zigzagged over the edges to keep them from unraveling. I did also have to reclose the side of the side at the hem.

Unfortunately, in zigzagging, I stretched the fabric some and now the bottom edge has a little bit of a wave to it, and in pulling out some of the original stitches, the old fabric didn't hold up well and now there are three small holes in the back.

I also added the elastic waistband to the coordinating pair of shorts.

I'm not sure if you can see the holes or not, but there they are. I'm wishing now that I had taken a before picture of the baby with the outfit on... the shirt was so short! It barely comes to his natural waist now and I let out a two inch hem.

Here's the same outfit from the front.

Overall, I was really pleased with my first alteration. Some mistakes were made, but the outfit is fully functional and, I think from a 2009 perspective, a better looking outfit for my helping it along.

Algebra, Bears, and Dress Up Skirts

2009-07-08T20:37:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to practice more clothing sewing, but I hate that everything I make still looks homemade, and not in the cute, I could have paid top dollar for this at a craft booth way. I do understand, though, that the only way to get better is to practice. So I decided to start making skirts for my daughter's dress up box.

I recently ran across this tutorial on gathered skirts over at Ikat Bag and I decided that this might actually be a simple enough process for me to make my way through. I was particularly pleased that she used algebra. She called the waist measurement A and the length B and the whole thing made a lot of sense to me.

In my head.

In reality, I made these three skirts for the same little girl:

Yeah, it's like the three bears were doing the sewing. The green plaid is too big, the white one with flowers is too little, and the pink one is just right (mostly).

The green plaid skirt, the one that is way too big, was the one I made using the magical formula from the website, which for some reason or another didn't work for me. Happily, though, I am making these for a dress-up trunk and wanted various sizes and lengths that would work for little girls in a three year old to seven year old range, so the green plaid skirt is still a keeper.

The floral skirt is actually a pillowcase.

I though that since my goal was a rectangular tube that I would then put a waistband on, a pillow case would work well. It actually would have been the perfect size, but I second guessed myself while my model was asleep and brought the waist in a little too much. This one actually does fit, it's just a little snug and for a growing girl, snug won't last long.

But for now, it's cute.

The pink skirt was almost perfect. I was thinking I wanted it a little longer for a dress up skirt, but she likes it, and that's all I really cared about anyway. It's a little lose, but that makes it easier for putting on over clothes while dressing up anyway.

After making those three skirts, I finally found my own magic numbers (which turned out to be more like A + (2/3)A and less of a 2A+1, but whatever) and made this purple skirt:

It has the waist the size of the pink skirt with the length of the floral, so really, this is the "just right" skirt I was looking for... it just took me three tries to get there.

Correction: Four tries. I think maybe this inability to count might factor in with my sewing troubles.

An Apron For Peter

2009-07-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

A while back, I made a bunch of dish towel aprons. The directions can still be found at:

http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=11092

This one is for my friend Kara's son and so it had to be less girly than the other aprons I had made. Since the stock photo on the directions site is of a little boy in a red dish towel and he looked very not girly, I went with the same idea and chose a red dish towel of my own.

I sewed the corners (like the directions said) to put the apron strings through and since Peter is still a little guy, I went ahead and added three pockets because the pockets come out of the overall length of the apron.

Here's the finished product (with a spatula to kind of show where the pockets are, since they are hard to see in the photo):

Once I get the apron to Kara, I'm sure she will oblige and take a picture of Peter wearing the apron for me to add here at the end.

A First Try at Quilting

2009-05-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

After making four different baby blankets all the same way... one side a single piece of fabric, the other side a collection of squares sewn together in a way that looks like a quilt, but cannot actually be called a quilt, I decided it was time to experiment with actually quilting a blanket.

I have never taken a class on quilting. I was supposed to do that this summer, actually. With the new baby, that seems unlikely, but I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually. So really, all I know about quilting is this: a blanket becomes a quilt when three pieces of fabric are sewn together with the top stitching. Or something like that. I may be wrong about that definition, actually, but it is with that definition that I proceeded.

I have no idea how real quilters put the middle piece of fabric in their quilts. I wanted to do the whole sew the back and front to each other right sides together and then turn inside out like I did with all of my other blankets ('cause it keeps me from having to figure out how to finish the edges), but I couldn't make a third piece of fabric work with that. So I wound up sewing the middle piece to the top of the quilt, wrong sides together to keep the fabric in place, and then sewing the back on to the double pieced front wrong sides together and then turning the whole thing inside out.

I chose to do the top stitching in concentric squares because someone told me that was pretty easy... you just use the foot to keep the lines the right amount apart.

I'm doing each set of four pieces of fabric with their own squares. The quilt itself is 6x8 little squares, so there will be a total of 3x4, or 12 sets of quilted bigger squares, if that makes sense. I completed the piecing together of the blanket and 2 of the 12 top stitching parts tonight. Hopefully in the next few days, I'll finish the other 10 and then I'll have my finished quilt.

Here's a view from the back, which really just illustrates how much nicer the quilt would look if I would bother to put some sort of binding on the edge, but I think tackling one new technique at a time works best.

A Blanket for Baby

2009-03-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

I just finished my latest project: a blanket for the new baby. Ironically, I actually started another blanket before Christmas and still haven't finished it. I guess as long as it's done by mid May, I'll be fine.

For this blanket, I chose the orange because it's the color that I have come to associate with this baby and I chose the blue because I liked the way it complemented it with the stripes and the jungle animals. I was originally going to put blue bias tape around the edges, but in the end, I liked how it looked as is, so even though the edges don't have a fully finished look, I'm happy with it. The back is a solid piece of the orange fabric.

New Pillows

2009-03-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

I recently redid the pillows in my sunroom. It felt really good to be able to make these... pillows are strangely expensive and can really change the flavor of the room. Previously, I had a set that were more quilt-looking and gave the room a straight-up country feel. My house, with all of the exposed wood, already tends towards that home-grown country style and I really don't like it (I mean, I love my house, I don't like that country style). I do, however, want the decor to go with the house (so no ultra modern black and white, for example), so I aim for more a mission, Frank Llyod Wright style, or a somewhat French country look.

For the fabrics, I had to work with the sage green on the chair in the sunroom and the cream on the walls. I wanted to use toille because I thought it gave that French country look and I just like it. I chose to use a maroonish purple as the accent color.

This is my comfy green chair -- the one that in about three months I will be sitting in a lot, nursing the new baby. The chair is a little too deep, so I have a pillow for added support. I used the cream toille and a solid cream (on the back) to make a pillow case for a standard bed pillow. I chose to make a pillow case that would come off so that any baby spit-up could easily be washed off.

These are the futon pillows. I used a cream toille, a maroon toille, a stripe, a floral and then a solid maroonish purple for each of these. The solid green pillows that you can kind of see behind these are store bought and had previously gone with the quilted country pillows, but were solid and neutral enough to stick around.

This is the futon as a whole. I really like how the new pillows look with the old ones and with the existing futon cover and wall art.

For contrast, you can see the old pillows here.

An Apron for Suzanne

2008-12-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

I was really happy with the way this apron came out... in the end. See, it's the one on the right of the pattern book:

Well, on me, those scallops at the bottom look like huge arrows pointing to hips and saying "look at me!!!" On Suzanne's slender frame, though, they just looked like scallops. I also didn't like the top and modified it a bit, to good effect, I think. The apron is fully reversible with each fabric being used in the opposite way on the other side. Overall, a success!

Apron for Natalie

2008-10-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

This is my latest sewing project: an apron for a friend's house warming gift. I think the whole thing turned out well and I used the apron as the "wrapping" paper for a cookbook which was the other half of the housewarming gift.

This is actually a napkin I bought at Wal-Mart of all places with some cream fabric as the border. I also did a cream backing which I think gave the apron a nice weight.

And I think it goes especially well with Natalie's kitchen!

Bias Tape

2008-07-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

Turns out that bias tape, in addition to being something you might buy at the store, is something you (meaning me) can make. I followed these super easy instructions:

http://www.savvyseams.com/techniques/biastape.php

I haven't actually gotten to use my new home made bias tape, yet, but it looks like the real deal (only more flowery), so I think it turned out well.

The drawback, of course, is that I just spent two hours figuring out this process, cutting fabric, sewing, ironing, watching Grey's Anatomy, etc. and then measured the bias tape: I made 3 yards. I only need six for the project I'm doing next.... So, not as fulfilling as some other things I've done, but first of all, the next 3 yards will go much, much faster, and secondly, once I finish the entire project, I predict a great sense of pride in making the whole thing myself.

There better be a great sense of pride.

Apron -- Not a Failure : )

2008-07-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

This is my latest pattern -- Simplicity 3670. I like the retro look of the apron, and I think it might be more functional than most, since it covers the entire shirt. I think the first try went well. I wish the scalloped bottom looked better, but putting bias tape on a triple curve was a trick, let me tell you. Oh, and the apron wasn't as slimming on me as it seems to be on the 5'11" model on the pattern cover. Bummer.

Pants

2008-07-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

I just made my first pair of pants. These green ones were made in class, using McCall's M4497. I was hesitant on the ruffled bottoms, but the instructor convinced me that learning the technique would be a good idea. She was right.

And the ruffle isn't too bad:

But when it came time to try out the technique again at home, I opted for the plainer cuff:

Mostly, I was too chicken to try the ruffle technique without a cording foot to hold the cording in place to gather the fabric, and I haven't made it to the store to get the new foot, yet. But overall, I'll call the first two pairs of pants a success.

Photography

2008-07-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

I have always enjoyed the idea of taking pictures -- not just the kind that go on a blog or in a photo album, but the kind that looks like it might be art. So yesterday, when Jeremy surprised me by taking the day off work AND he took the little bear to the sitters so that we had the entire day to ourselves, I told him I wanted to go around town and take pictures. We focused on downtown and the university. This is what we came up with. (The first and last ones are Jeremy's, the others are mine.)

Baby Blankets

2008-07-22T12:42:00.000-07:00

I recently made two baby blankets, but had to wait until the respective mothers (and fathers) received the blankets before I could put them on the blog:

This one is for my old college friends who did their nursery in these great bold red and blue. They are also very active in their church, so I thought the Icthus and Cross fabric suited them well. I made the top with a simple patchwork pattern of alternating colors and the back is a solid piece of the Icthus and Cross print. I put an additional piece of the cream fabric in the middle to give the blanket more weight and to make the red and blue show through to the back less.

This one is for a couple I know in Houston -- the mother is a pediatrician and the father works for NASA. Guess who picked the nursery theme? I was excited to make the space themed blanket since stores don't really carry much of that, but I was worried that the father would take exception to the planets not being in appropriate scale to each other.... I chose the black and dark blue to go with the space backgrounds and then used the the light blue and grey to look like the sky. The back, which I didn't get a picture of, is a solid piece of starry fabric.

Broken Machine?

2008-07-15T00:19:00.001-07:00

Last week, my machine jammed up. I finally got it to the shop today. The place I take it is owned and operated by an older gentleman I'll call "Mr. C." Mr. C is amazing. He's old enough to be my grandpa, and he totes sewing machines around like nobody's business and can sew even more impressively. This is my conversation with Mr. C:

Me: I think I broke my machine, or slightly less likely (gesturing to my toddler), she broke it while I wasn't looking.

Mr. C: Well, let's take a look.

(Mr. C sets up my machine, threads it, and sews a perfect stitch.)

Me: I guess it's like going to the mechanic for your car. It's going to work just fine for you, isn't it.

Mr. C: Well, I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe you were threading it wrong.

Me: Let me try while I'm here.

(I sit down, thread the machine and then it jams up again.)

Mr. C: Hmmm. I'll look at it again.

(Another perfect round of stitching.)

Mr. C: Yep, you must be threading it wrong, but I can't say I see what you did wrong.

Me: Let me do again.

(I start threading the machine, slowly this time.)

Mr. C: Now, did you hook the thread here? (Gesturing at a never before seen hook by the needle.)

Me: No, should I?

Mr. C: Well, it won't work if you don't.

Me: I guess that was the problem, then.

Mr. C: It sure looks that way. Can I help you carry the machine back out to the car?

Problem solved. The new mystery is how I got it to work for three weeks without ever noticing that hook.

A Shirt for Me

2008-07-09T22:07:00.001-07:00

This is my first attempt at making a shirt for myself. It was too tight at the hips and the material didn't gather the way I wanted, but overall, I consider the first attempt a success in that:

a) I did learn how to gather the material, even though I wasn't very successful with the first try.
b) I learned that when the pattern says "use a stretchy fabric" it means it.

So, for my next attempt, I will use a stretchy fabric and see if that doesn't work better, as advertised.

Bookmarks

2008-07-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

For the Fourth of July, I decided to help my daughter make some bookmarks to take to our friends at a local nursing home.
To start, I let my daughter finger paint on plain white paper. A little warning here: red, white, and blue really do make lavender when mixed together by a toddler. I figured folks at a nursing home wouldn't care so much, but if I were making them myself, I would have preferred a little less color mixing.
Then I cut the paper into strips. I didn't worry too much about making them all the same size so long as they were all bookmark sized.
Then I used clear contact paper to make them a little sturdier and a little more finished-looking without the trouble and cost of having them laminated.

Finally, I used a hole punch to put a hole in the top and added some red, white, and blue ribbon through the hole.

All in all, I was very happy with the results. They look child-made while still looking good and being very functional.

Yucky Apron -- FAILED

2008-06-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

This is the apron I made today.

I hate it.

Really hate it.

In fact, it failed. Totally. (More about failed projects at the bottom of the blog.)

But I promised (sort of) in this blog mission statement that I would share successes and failures, so I feel compelled to share pictures of the yucky apron. And the lessons learned from it.

First of all, beginners should stick to using patterns. Period. Do not think to yourself, hey I'm a beginner, but how hard can an apron be?

Secondly, I just hate the fabrics. I mean, I know I picked them out, but I was choosing from the $2 fabrics at WalMart, 'cause let's face it, if you are going to make a colossal mistake with a patternless apron, wouldn't you rather do it for $2 a yard than say $6 or even $8? The flip side is, when you mess it up, it doesn't even have a pretty pattern or nice texture to distract from the awfulness. So even when buying $2 fabrics, hold out for colors that you at least sort of like.

And then, to compound things, I was determined to finish the apron even through I could tell early on that I hated it. So I finished it alright, but with some really terrible stitching. I mean, the waist was too high, so I just kind of gathered up some material from the waist and sewed it back (as opposed to taking out the original stitches, cutting some fabric off the waist, and then sewing it back. And my bias tape on the top looks terrible. Yuck!

Oh, and I think this apron makes me look fat.

Alright, now that I have shared how terrible I think this apron is, let's set some ground rules about failed projects. (Which I was always mark with the word failed at the top, so you don't accidentally consider my masterpiece to be a failure by mistake.)

Rule 1 -- Be honest. Don't send some smaltzy comment about how it's not that bad, yada, yada, yada. This is not a complement fishing expedition.

Rule 2 -- Join the bandwagon. In this case, it's the yucky apron bandwagon. Consider the offending item to be a person we are in a workshop or convention with and we really, really don't like them. Let's talk behind its back. It's the only thing that will make me feel better. Stupid apron. I bet it didn't even go to college.

Rule 3 -- It's going in the trash. Really, stuff that I consider to be total failures are going in the trash. If for any reason, you want this utterly hideous thing, you must first be a person I actually know, and then I'll just give it to you. So you can throw it in the trash. First come, first serve.

So if you are getting ready to deal with fish guts, let's say, and need something with good coverage to protect your nice clothes, and want to throw it away before getting in the car (less fish gut smell that way). Send me an e-mail or comment. The yucky apron can be yours.

Trash day is Thursday.

My First Commercial Pattern

2008-06-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

After all of the pillows, table runners, drawstring bags and aprons, I really wanted to get into making dresses for my daughter. The first pattern I have attempted is New Look 6578.

It was a really great choice for a beginner. Especially if you opt not to do the fancy appliques. Technically my sewing classes will cover "how to follow a commercial pattern" next month, but with just what I had learned about seam allowances and seam finishing in class, plus what I had learned about making button holes from the folks who sold my machine to me, I was able to complete this dress. Actually, I have now made four of these dresses and all of them after the very first one came out this well. But two of them are in the wash, having already been worn, and the latest one is waiting for me to go out in search for coordinating buttons.

I also had to look up an on-line tutorial for using bias tape (which is what gives the dress the nice red hem). I thought that this tutorial was the best:

http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/tutorialsrecipes/index.html

Not only was it helpful, but the lady who does it is so very funny. It's how to use bias tape with no swearing. ('Cause if you are sewing a dress for your toddler, you definitely want to keep from swearing.)

Aprons, Aprons, Aprons

2008-06-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Pretty cool apron, huh? I thought so, too, and when I realized how easy it was, I started going through all of my dish towels turning them into aprons for my daughter and myself. In fact, I got so dish towel apron crazy that when I went to do the dishes later, I found that I was out of towels!

Anyway, the directions on how to make this adorable apron can be found at this site:
http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=11092

Using their directions, and improvising some on my own, I made these aprons:

Then, for myself, I wanted a "tie at the waist" apron, so I took my prettiest dish towel, sewed the edges to make a trapezoid shape and then sewed some nice ribbon to the top edge. Since it's a dish towel, the bottom edge already has a nice seam to it.

Getting Creative

2008-06-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

Having learned the bare basics, I convinced my husband to buy me a sewing machine for my birthday (okay, it was an early birthday present, since my birthday is still a few weeks away).

I chose a Janome. According to the folks I talked to, it was best to buy from a sewing store (as opposed to Target or WalMart), so I went to Austin Sew & Vac. The gentleman there listened to my plans for what I wanted in a machine, and my budget, and recommended this one:

With my very own sewing machine and the barest information about how to make a pillow (remember the pin cushion from the beginning lesson?), I made a few pillows of my own:

Then, having made a drawstring bag which in the middle step looked like a table runner to me, I made my own table runner:

The table runner was pretty simple. I took two complementary fabrics, folded them in half. On the fold, I cut a house shape (square with triangular roof). I then sewed the two fabrics wrong sides together, leaving about four inches unsewn and then turned the whole thing right side out. For the part that was left unsewn, honestly, I didn't do anything. Once I ironed the whole thing, I couldn't see the gap and I thought with my current level of sewing, doing a whipstitch on the edge would be more noticeable than leaving it as is. And this way, I can finish the edge later once I've learned more.

How It All Began

2008-06-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

In early June, I started sewing classes. Looking on-line, I found The Stitching Studio. Here's the link, by the way:

http://www.austinstitchingstudio.com/

In the first two classes, we learned how to operate the machine and some basics. (I think that the part that really helped me in getting started was the "things will go wrong, needles will break, it will be okay" lesson.) I also learned to make a small pillow/pin cushion and a drawstring bag.

Overall, learning to sew has been everything I hoped it would be: a fun, creative outlet that keeps my hands and mind busy.