little update

I got some tips from this blog and also used the new (to me at least) blogger template stuff and changing things around wasn't too difficult. The photo could be better, I know that. But it's good enough for now.

2 sick kids

The boys are sleeping on the couch and the big chair in the living room. I wish they could just get and stay healthy.

I worked on sewing some maternity pants last Saturday and they are too small. But very cute. Too bad. I haven't done any sewing since. I did make a banner for the top of my blog but I'm a little scared about trying to tweak things.

watercolor quilt top

Well, I didn't finish this by the end of March as I'd hoped, but I did get the watercolor quilt top finished.



I'd like to put a 6 inch or so border around it, and am considering dark brown or black. What do you think?

Unfortunately it is going back to UFO status because I have a bunch of other things I need to make before I'll have time to finish this one. There are more pictures and a bigger view, if you're interested, at my flickr account.

MIA...

Well I finished the watercolor quilt top a few days ago but haven't gotten around to taking a picture yet. My sister's baby is due in less than 2 months and I need to make her Noah's Ark quilt... better get on that. And my latest project was surgery on my son's baseball jersey--why they buy adult size t-shirts for 7- and 8-year-olds is beyond me. It looks pretty good on him now and isn't super weirdly bulgy when he tucks it in anymore. I also fixed up my friend's son's shirt as well.

I have a few other sewing projects lined up and ready to go... whenever I get some energy. The main reason I haven't been posting or sewing for that matter is that I'm working on a bigger creative project, baby #3. I'm about 9 weeks now and am having some good days but I'm tired a lot and dealing with some nausea issues too. Hopefully I'll feel much better by June!

Finally!

It seems like we were waiting forever for my oldest to lose his first tooth. He's almost 8 years old, and the dentist has been telling us for the last year or so that he would start losing teeth soon, and to call him when it happens. Well, last week, my son told me his tooth was growing "over the gum" in his mouth. I looked in his mouth and it turned out that his permanent tooth had already erupted... behind his decidedly non-wiggly baby tooth. We had the dentist take a look and were told that the roots weren't dissolving and D needed to get his teeth pulled. So... today was the big day! D got 3 shots to numb the whole area, but our dentist is so good that the shots didn't hurt and getting those two teeth pulled was no big deal for my boy.

We designed the tooth pillow together this afternoon. The mouth there is a pocket, you see. Cute, huh?

Quilt-Along, Step 1

I've been thinking about posting the directions for making a Square in a Square quilt... this one:

We'll start with fabric requirements. The yardage listed here is for a baby quilt, approximately 38x50 inches. I may or may not eventually do the math and post fabric amounts for larger quilts. We'll see how things go. In the coming few weeks I'll post instructions for the two blocks used in this quilt and describe how to add the sashing (the strips in between the blocks) and put it all together. For now, here are the fabrics you need:

*5 fat quarters of coordinating fabrics for blocks. These cannot be regular quarter-yard cuts of fabric, they need to be fat quarters (18X22 pieces of fabric available at quilt shops or chain fabric stores)

*1 yard of a fabric for the sashing and to be used a little bit in the blocks (the stripes, in my quilt)

*3/8 yard of binding fabric

*1.5 yard of backing fabric

So... get your fabric ready (I recommend prewashing, machine drying is optional) and check back in a few days for the next step!

couple of finished projects!

I finished these up last night while we watched Bee Movie. They are made from Berocco Jasper yarn, and the pattern is Dashing, from Knitty.com. It's not the right weather really to wear these anymore (halleluia!) but they will be ready for next winter.

And, my skirt.

This is made from the Redondo girls' skirt pattern, adapted to fit me and also be a longer length. The picture is weird; my assistant photographer was holding the camera at a funny angle. The skirt is really a few inches shorter than ankle length but longer than mid-calf. It is a handkerchief weight linen blend and it feels really cool when I walk. I might need to make myself another one. I might even make one with two different (but not hugely contrasting) fabrics.

It feels good to finish up some projects!

Back from vacation

We got back today from an unexpected trip to Utah last week due to a death in the family. I'm tired but feel refreshed overall and glad to be home. I'm a little afraid that I might have forgotten a load of laundry in my washer while I was gone. I'm going downstairs to make sure in just a few minutes.

In sewing news, I need to get started on my sister's baby quilt. I know I mentioned that. She's due around the end of June. I also told Grandma that I'd make her a quilt from some of Grandpa's shirts. She gave me a bag full of shirts and I need to do some calculations and drawing to see if I'll have enough fabric. I also need to work on keeping up my end of the deal I made with Jan back in January--I'm going to finish my ages-old watercolor quilt top. By the end of the month. Guess that means I'll be getting it out tomorrow. Fun!

things to check out

I ran across the Big List of Sewing Blogs a few weeks ago and submitted my blog to the list. And now finally I'm updating my links. Go check it out, there are some cool blogs on there!

Another site I wanted to mention (have I mentioned it here before?) is Pattern Review. It's a great site for researching sewing machines (something I should do some time so I can start saving up and quit complaining about the machines I have now). You can also look up pretty much any pattern, from any company, that you're interested in making, and see how it went together for other sewing folks.

I need to get busy!

So I didn't finish any sewing projects in February. Oh well. Here are the cute skirts. I saw zebra and leopard fabrics at the fabric store, I might have to go back and get 1/4 yard of those for the Noah's Ark quilt I'm going to make.

skirts finished

I don't have a picture yet, but I finished two really cute pink and brown Redondo skirts today. Amidst screaming and slappy children. I was going to type slapping but slappy came out of my fingers and... I kind of like it. I have logo tags to sew on them, too! I'll also show a pic of those tomorrow. I really need to get going on some sewing for myself. Fabric shopping...sigh.

I'm off to watch Dr. Who with my husband.

better GReader

I use Google reader to keep up with the blogs and podcasts I like, and I get frustrated to no end by the ones that don't put the entire post in their feed. Dawn posted about Better GReader, which is available as a firefox add-on, and makes it so you can click the posts within Google reader and read the entire post. I installed it yesterday and it's great! Now I won't have to unsubscribe from the blogs that I wanted to read, thought had good information, but didn't allow their complete posts to be sent through the feedreader. This was the first time I've done anything to customize firefox, and it was easy!

In sewing news... I've been doing some custom sewing for a friend (I'll post photos of the cute pink and brown Redondo skirts when I get them done) and pondering doing something new and a bit different in the blogging arena. I think I'm ready to make the leap.

I'm going down to watch Moby Dick with the boys now. And thinking... how's that (the title back there) going to affect my search results?

Dashing--fingerless mitts

I'm making these. I've got one done except for weaving the ends in.



One of my new knitting needles wandered off while I was making the thumb here... I hope I can find it!

fabric cutting measurements for 3 sizes of scrappy log cabin blocks

For a 4-inch finished block:

center square 1 1/2 inches
logs 1 inch wide

For a 9-inch finished block (pictured above):

center square 3 1/2 inches
logs 1 1/2 inches wide

For a 12-inch finished block:

center square 3 1/2 inches
logs 2 inches wide

For all of these, I use one center square and then 3 rows of "log" strips, so a total of 12 log strips. There's a good tutorial for making these blocks at Melly and Me.

projects

I finished up some underwear for my boys the other day. I really like the football fabric, as underwear at least. The gray and olive fabrics are recycled t-shirts. I might make spring jammies for my younger son with the football fabric.



And, I started work on my watercolor quilt again. It's going pretty well! I'm not sure if I have enough of the medium-light fabrics to finish. I better figure that out so I can send out requests for fabric if I need to. I will be working on this more today.

linking love

I was so excited yesterday when I saw that the Annie Smith of the Quilting Stash podcast talked about my blog and linked it on her website! Thanks, Annie! She talked about my "Made in 2007" collage and I should have done this in the first place, but that post was inspired by Kristi at Lost and Found. I've been reading Kristi's blog for a while, and ought to get to know her better because I'm good friends (in the real life, down the street way) with her sister (who ought to get her own blog one of these days). Kristi has great vintage and thrifted finds and seems to be a very accomplished mom, always doing lots of great activities and projects with her kids.

Also I need to mention Jan here, the Creative Instigator. Jan is another real world person in my life; she works with my husband and I'm glad I've been able to get to know her. I love the creativity tips at Jan's blog. I love today's tip--when you want to apologize for something you've made, say "It's fairly new, but it smacks of genius." Can we come up with something like this for the housekeeping apology? I really want to stop apologizing for my house when my friends come over.

Fluffy, ruffly, outfit.

My niece just turned 6. I think she's going to like this. Just about a year after I made a similar outfit, I finally got hers finished. This is the Redondo skirt with flounces in between each panel, and the Hermosa shirt. Both patterns are by Studio Tantrum, which has cute and interesting and fluffy, ruffly, flouncy girl patterns. I get mine at Sewzanne's Fabrics.

J is requesting underwear. He is dragging around the fabric he wants it made from. I'm going to do that (have to trace a new pattern size) and then get out my infamous insane quilt project. I'm going to finish it this time, really.

Cuteness

I finished my small scrappy log cabin quilt. It is good to make one just for me, for fun, after making 4 complete quilts and working on at least 3 others last year, all for other people.



Not the best photo, I'm working on that.

I did not do a traditional binding because I wanted each side bound with a different fabric. I decided not to worry about the quilt police on this one.

I did small swirly quilting all over. It was fun and easy.


I pieced the back with some of the leftovers from my (small) 30's print stash.


I really like it.

Next up, I'm working on a flouncy outfit for my niece. More cuteness!

Made in 2007

So here's a collage I made... a sampling of things I made in 2007. I wonder what this year's will look like?

I have finished all 9 of my tiny scrappy log cabin blocks and will be putting them together soon. I thought my camera batteries were dead, but they're not, so here's a pic.



I'm probably going to use a layer of flannel instead of batting, and I don't know what the quilting will be like yet. I'm planning on putting plain white sashing between the blocks, and for binding... maybe a different color on each of the 4 sides. We'll see.

disappointing projects

I made a Japanese stab-stitch bound book today. I had such high hopes while I was working on it, and it ended up kind of a flop. I used the instructions in the current issue of Craft and in theory it worked out ok but there were a few minor issues that left it looking kind of... lame.

So I keep telling my perfectionist child that he isn't supposed to get things exactly right when he's a beginner, but I'm feeling that feeling right now, the frustration of things not working out how you'd hoped, when really, they should have. I really thought it was going to be so good, and it's weird, and some of the pages have 2 sets of holes punched, and the holes don't all line up as nicely as I'd hoped. Oh well.

I was really happy with how the paper cutting went; I put an old (not good for fabric anymore) blade in my rotary cutter and it worked wonderfully. So at least I'm not intimidated by cutting paper anymore.

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I wanted to say hi to the folks from Craftster.org; I was super excited to see that I had a bunch of visits from there yesterday. I've had a membership at that site for a long time but don't hang out there often. I should poke around there a bit and see what's going on.