Week in the Life—Monday

Last week Ali spearheaded a movement to document the week as completely as possible. I usually participate in this yearly event, but the timing just wasn’t right for us. Bj asked if we could push it back a week, and since he is instrumental in me sticking to it I said of course! As usual (here is an archive to the last years I’ve done this) I’m focusing on the photos and not words. Thanks for peeking into our days this week.
9:05

9:49

9:52

10:39

11:04

11:56

12:23

3:05

4:00

5:07

6:05

6:21

6:35

6:41

8:28

9:28

9:57

10:47

Swimsuit, in which I got off the knits deep end

I’m not sure exactly what made me do it. I think Bj and I were looking at a swimsuit and he asked me if I could make one for Tuesday. Hmm. I had pinned a tutorial a while ago, maybe I could! Never mind that I’d never used a double needle and had no clue about specialty elastic and knits. We went to Mill End during our anniversary weekend and I picked up a lot of swimsuit material. First up was some really cheap practice stuff, then some more fun patterns and textures.
For the tutorial I used you draft your own pattern using an existing swimsuit. I’ve drafted a pattern from an existing garment before so I had some confidence in this area. A bit too much. Tuesday tried on the swimsuit that was quite high cut and said she’d love to wear it. I had to break it to her that we don’t wear swimsuits that don’t cover all our private areas (ya, her whole chest was showing). I went back to the drawing board and this was swimsuit number too.

She wasn’t that interested in pictures during her interpretive dance…

This is better, and certainly wearable. But the bottom was still a bit small. The bottom on the store bought suit was really big so it was hard to come up my own measurements. I thought the top could still be higher. And my biggest problem was double needle tension.

Polished looking, it is not. I made myself sit down with the specialty elastic and material (on the straps here you sew through three layers of it) and figure out the best tension. Once I did that I knew I could do a third swimsuit with much more success.

I finished it the night before swim class and laid it out for her to find in the morning. She loved it! I saved myself a lot of trouble on the last two by having her try on the bottom half before the top was finished, that way if I was way off I didn’t have to waste a lot of time on something that wouldn’t work.

I’m sure I’ll continue to get better, but for now I’m considering this as pretty perfect and I am so pleased with myself for figuring out a lot of things about my machine, and sewing in general.

I’m glad I can make her a whole pile of suits for next to nothing that she can live in this summer. I don’t have to worry about a couple of store bought ones getting trashed by some three year old adventure. I just have to figure out how to make bottoms now (I’m thinking little boy short type) for the dollar swimsuit tops I bought at the Hanna outlet last month.

The little house

I bought a little wooden dollhouse for Tuesday at Tuesday Morning (fitting, no?) a while ago. Like the end of last summer. Even though Tuesday was over the moon when she saw it I just had to dress it up a bit.

It was a pretty awesome deal for $20.

Minus one little thing:

The freaking labels! They took forever to get off. What kind of glue this was, I have no idea but it was a nightmare.
Then I let Tuesday help me paint the dollhouse. She thought it was fun, but I admit to being too crazy anal to let it stand like that so it set for a while (months) while I waited to re-paint it. Finally a combo of her constantly asking me about it and wanting the space back in my sewing area made me just finish it up quick.

Maybe someday I’ll get around to the sandpaper shingles I had planned, or the little frames I started painting for the walls inside, or faux hardwood floors…

I only got her one little set of furniture, because she is so into the baby thing. And then she decided what she wanted to use from the set the dollhouse came with and this set we gave her for her first birthday. It’s all about beds and sleeping and night night so of course I was easily persuaded to whip up the bedding when she brought me over scraps.

Nothing like having a three year old over your shoulder asking if a project is done the second you start sewing it. I decided she needed a bigger part than just picking material so I taught her to stuff the pillows. She did a pretty good job with it (I just gave her scrap wool roving).

Then she had to design some clothes for her “guys” (we have tons of these calico critters, some were mine, some my brother’s fiancee’s, and some new). I HATE dressing these animals (oh my god that freaking squirrel with the tail, ah!!!), so I tried to go as simple as possible. After we made the dress and “kimono” Tuesday convinced me to make, “the most perfect kimono ever” to send to Chloe.
I have this feeling that it will not be hard to convince me to make things with and for Tuesday. I love that she has an interest in crafting. I have a feeling this is why my mom put up with requests for dresses with even bigger sleeves and more petticoats when I was little. When I make something for her and she says, “oh mama!” I just feel so happy. And when she wants the plain wooden dollhouse to play with, but I must decorate it? Well that’s ok too, after all I’m still a kid at heart.

And again with the advice please

I know I’ve mentioned re-doing our dining room table before. In that post I was talking about possibly painting the top of the table a chalkboard black. I think I’m set now on NOT doing that. I’m thinking white top, black base. The reason I want to figure it out is because we finally got new chairs for in there and they just don’t go with the old style we had. Here is the most recent before. With a hodge podge of chairs (and decorated for the baby shower):

And the awesome new ones that came today:

I love them. We had picked them out way back in September but because they are from Design Within Reach we had to wait for their sale, which was last month. Totally worth the wait. We have been thinking about chairs for years, but didn’t want to commit.

We got the 111 Navy chair in charcoal. We were going to do a mix up of colors, but thought this would be a little longer lasting in terms of style. And because they are plastic and really durable (made from recycled coke bottles) we can also use them outside if we ever want to.

The chairs are very lightweight, and have straighter backs so they won’t crowd against the wall as much (something that was driving me crazy with the old ones). I think the rug has to go for them to really work in here, and of course we need to figure out the table. I don’t love the table but it is a very nice hand me down because the leaves make it stretch to seat 10 or more easily. And I never worry about it when we’re doing art projects and such. But the color, hmm…
And yes, I’m still dreaming of french doors.

Ribbon Blanket

It was time for another crew girl shower. We love to celebrate! And that doesn’t just mean first babies 🙂 So to welcome Karen’s baby boy (she had twin girls three years ago) I whipped up this fast and easy ribbon blanket. Even though I made a tutorial on this for Ribbon Jar a while ago, I figured it could use an updating so here it is.

First step: gather the supplies. I usually use a minky type material for one side (a polyester fleece that is super soft and has an embossed design) and flannel on the other. Minky comes in a larger width than flannel so I get more than a yard of flannel to match up to a yard of minky. This makes a generous sized blanket great to grow with baby. It can be used to bundle, as a floor play mat, in strollers, and, if you’re Tuesday, every night tucked into bed. Pre wash all the fabric. Gather up lots of fun ribbon scraps.

After squaring up the fabric and trimming off the selvedges pin the ribbons with the tabs facing IN towards the center of the blanket. I leave a larger than average gap between two ribbons for flipping inside out later, it’s hardly noticeable and makes the job of closing up that seam much easier. Stitch all the way around the blanket with a 1/4″ seam allowance.

Once the ribbons are sewn down lay the minky on top, right sides together. When you pin the minky be sure not to stretch or pull it, as it can be quite slippery and stretchy. Pin along the edge catching each ribbon tab as you go. This step is important because if the tabs are not pinned they can shift around between the fabrics while you sew.

A gap in sewing needs to be left to turn the blanket inside out (remember the extra large space left between two ribbons?). To remind myself I double pin this opening, in the hopes I won’t close it. Sew around the whole thing with a 5/8″ seam allowance or larger. This way each ribbon tab is sewn twice into the blanket, ensuring a baby won’t pull it out.

Trim away the excess minky. I always sew with the flannel on top, it’s sturdier and gives me more consistent results. I used a walking foot this time (it just happened to be on my machine) and it worked great.

Pull the blanket out from the opening and push out corners.

Stitch up the opening by hand. Match the flannel color, worrying less about the minky. Because the material is fuzzy stitches disappear into it easily. You could also top stitch around the whole thing, but with no visible seam this blanket is soft all the way around. I haven’t had any issues washing these besides some static cling. A good shake seems to get it into shape no problem.

Super easy blanket that babies really do love. It’s 100% washable, even if you need to fry it in order to get some nastiness off. I also throw them in the dryer without worry.

Some of my favorite ribbons for these are ric-racs (my mom even has rayon ric-rac that has to be felt to be believed) , velvets, satins, and at least a few jacquards (the woven designs hold up well and add a lot of interest).
Since I’m packing up orders this week if you want me to pick out a few scrap pieces to match what you order for a ribbon blanket of your own just mention it in the notes section when you checkout through Friday, April 28th. And don’t tell my mom!
Oh I almost forgot.

Be sure to wrap it cute….

And then just sigh when your friends all out do you!
Karen loved this blanket and was so glad to have something handmade for the third baby. Happy to oblige, I just love making these!

Far too much fun with the sewing machine

I have mentioned this again and again, the way I go into spurts of different crafting/hobby obsessions. Right now I’m in full on sewing mode. I even made Tuesday a swimsuit! I mean it turned out horrible and totally showed her nipples so there is no way she can wear it, but come on! So yes, a little fun foray into knits and then I heard that pull of the cotton. The relative easiness of straight lines. I couldn’t help myself. The last week or so has been a blur of pins (real and the Pinterest kind), broken needles, not quite the right solid color, and much fun in the big space downstairs.

Of course I was interupted often, as is the case with a three year old about. I don’t mind that so much, I’ve gotten quite good at doing things in little bits and pieces. Besides taking a break to teach Tuesday how to stuff mini pillows for her “guys” is fun. I’ll do a little post on the updates we’ve done to her dollhouse you saw in the This Moment post last week. Let’s just say, I’m bring out all the fun stuff to keep her busy. And you can tell, the basement is a little worse for wear.

And of course there are little threads on absolutely everything. I love these periods of frenzied crafting so!
Oh and I’ve been interspersing it with Hunger Games and Twilight reading, so you know, it’s a good thing you hear from me at all. Now to cuddle in bed with a book or down to sew?

Oh those triangles.

Oh this quilt. Oh those triangles.

I’m not going to lie, this quilt has just been a pain in ass since I started it. Seriously. I can’t find any post about when I started it (because I still need to go back and organize 2005-2009), but I did find this one about pre-washing all my fabric from 2006. In it I talk about starting a new green quilt. This is that green quilt, started soon after. Ironically I also talk about paying attention to seam allowances. Which I did not do, as I mentioned the next time I brought up the quilt in 2009.

I mentioned it again a few years ago, and have worked on it occasionally in since. In the 2009 entry I specifically say, “Hopefully I won’t be blogging about it in 2012.” GUESS WHAT? IT’S 2012. Oops. I wish there was some great reason about why this took me forever (before that Ceara’s quilt held the longest quilt title, at five years, and was so awesome). And I really wish it turned out so perfectly it was worth all the heartache.
The truth is the directions in the book have mistakes, the triangles are a pain, it was one of my first quilts, and well, it just got annoying. It was never so exciting to me that all I wanted to do was work on it (as opposed the quilt I’m working on now, wait until you see it!!!). I’ve been trying to re-organize my stash, purge some things I don’t need, etc. And I came across a few works in progress. This one was the longest outstanding so I decided to finish it up first. The problem with the directions in the book had to do with the last triangles on each row (there are supposed to be white half triangles on the ends). I didn’t want to go back and deal with that so I just hacked the green ones I had on the ends in half and called it good.

The points on the triangles don’t really all line up, but I’m not horribly worried about it. I ended up quilting a line (made with a ruler) through most of the points, I split the difference if I couldn’t get them lined up. I think the effect works. I love the backing fabric that I found at my local quilt shop. I was going to go with something just white and green and am glad I found this instead. I used a lovely wool batting so the quilt is nice and crinkly and warm!
At 85.5 x 70.5 the quilt won’t quite fit the bed, so I’m not sure where it will live. I’m just glad to have it done!