My First Prayer Shawl

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

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

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

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

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?