June - July - August

Since May, when my sewing momentum was completely shut down, I haven't done much at all. The busy-level of the summer felt a lot more hectic this year, even though last year was had the exact same pattern: 17-day vacation followed by summer theater followed by two camps, and then back to school. I'm getting old ... anyway ...

JUNE
mending: 6

zip totes: 4 for teacher gifts at the elementary school, made literally the day before school year ended. But they were done, and they were gift-wrapped and ready to go when the girls left for school on the last day!

quilt blocks: 1 - the cake block from the Spelling Bee book. My intention is to make a "Happy Birthday" banner to hang up for birthday parties and include this block, but this is as far as it's gotten.

crafting: lots and lots of "tornado streamers" for the summer theater production of The Wizard of Oz. The choreography was that Dorothy and Toto spun in circles while the Munchkins ran in circles around them, first with the dark colored streamers for the storm, and then switching to the colored ones to indicate her travel to Oz. I came up with how to do the streamers - I bought the plastic-y tablecloths from the dollar store, cut them into strips, and hot-glued them to craft sticks. We made about 150 of these (total, both sets combined) and each one had 3 to 8 streamers. It was a lot of cutting and a lot of glue, and a lot of time. But only about 10 bucks.

JULY
mending: 1

quilt blocks: 4, put together in a quilt-as-you-go small project. I did this at my friend Sarah's house in Utah so she could teach me the technique. I took a bunch of photos with the intention of posting a tutorial here, but obviously we haven't gotten to that yet.

summer theater: I am such a glutton for punishment. I still agreed to be the costume manager again, even though our family wasn't even IN the show this year. On the morning of THE SHOW - not the THREE dress rehearsals - Adam helped me figure out the Tin Man costume, and that gave me fits all the way through the show. Every break, I was pinning it somewhere just to keep it on the guy. We were both happy to take it apart and throw it in the trash within an hour of the final curtain!

- I'm most proud of our Yellow Brick Road - it was a PERSON! She danced, and Dorothy and crew followed her. I made the cape, and this cute girl was so excited when I told her she could keep it when the show was over. I hope she dresses up as the Yellow Brick Road for Halloween.

- a lot more tornado streamers
- elastic waist/knotted tulle skirts for the Munchkins
- I altered the dress for Glinda - I had to take in the bodice of a formal gown so it didn't fall off her.


AUGUST
- mending: 1
- zip tote: 1 for a birthday party gift
- fabric shopping bag: 1. A new state law in Connecticut requires you to pay for any store plastic bags you use, to try to encourage people to use fabric bags. Yay for the environment and less plastic! Really, I support this. Now I just need to get my bag supply up to speed.

No photos of anything in August.

February's list

Quilting
1 - Squared Away: the last 4 blocks are DONE!! Hooray! I did the final two sets - dark green and purple, and got everything boxed up and into the mail for Mindy. I was apparently so excited to get them done and out the door, I didn't even take pictures of the last block. Ha! I just got her last two blocks a couple of days ago, so as soon as I get the doll quilts done and on their way, I can lay out this quilt and start putting the full top together. Hooray!

2 - Night Sky: 5 more blocks made, and section 2 of the quilt put together. So the entire top section is now done, and it's 60 inches across. The plan is to make it 80 inches long - right now, it's at 33. I was running out of the gray in the top center spinner, so in the bottom left Hunter Star, I used the gray scraps from SM's apron from last year's theater costume. It will be fun for her to have that memory incorporated into her quilt.

3 - Letter blocks: one so far, for a new mini quilt project. I got this quilting book called Spelling Bee by Lori Holt and it literally is the instructions to make every letter of the alphabet, both upper and lower case, plus a bunch of punctuation marks and some fun extra bonus blocks. The globe was the one that got me to buy the book. I have so. many. ideas. of what to do with the letters.

4 - 15 doll quilts to be sent to A Doll Like Me: the two TA and I made a year ago, the star one that JE started in January, AND 12 more made this month by our church activity group. My part of the 13 made in the past 60 days:

• organized all the adults for the evening activity, plus some other adults helped with the fabric 
• cut 230 squares, other people brought more and we had probably around 1000
• made the "Made by kids for kids" labels
• after the activity, I finished 4 of the quilts at home
• made 7 quilt sandwiches, 6 to go but I ran out of pins

Another woman from church, who donated some of the fabric, has agreed to do the bindings. Bless her forever!


Other sewing
1 -  two more scripture tote bags ... I made the ten in January for the church activity girls and had a little fabric left over. So I made two more for my girls who didn't have bags for church items. For our family, the "quiet" materials are sketchbooks and writing utensils (pens, pencils, markers, etc).

2 - more service sewing, this time for Days For Girls. My church's women's organization is part of an interfaith group that makes fabric reusable menstruation products to be taken to developing countries, where the women and girls don't have hygiene items during their cycles. The original intention was to give girls these products so they don't have to miss school during their period, but I'm sure it's spread further than that. Our local group is getting a shipment ready to send to Senegal this spring and I went to a Saturday sewing day this month. I have a schedule conflict for the Saturday in March, so I brought home 25 shields to finish here, and a friend will take them back. They're done and ready to go.

SM goes with me - she and her friend JM put snaps on one of the pieces, and they're knocking out quite a few service hours!


Mending: 8

January in Connecticut

I'm finally sewing a lot again! Hooray! I missed it. Now I need to get back into blogging too, so things get their own posts throughout the month instead of a big photo dump at intervals.

Clothing
1 - circle skirt for SM - I watched the video from Made Everyday and used her instructions. It was pretty intimidating at first because of the curve, and sewing directly to the elastic. And ... yeah, don't look too closely at that part. Good thing her shirt covers the top! But it's sufficiently twirly for her, so she's happy.

2 - peasant top for RG - tutorial from Things of Cloth. It's the same pattern that SM is wearing in the above picture, that I made last spring (yep, these are two different shirts in the pictures!). Now RG has one as well, but she's worn it only the one time. ???? Maybe because she has deemed it a spring shirt? Or maybe it will end up in SM's drawer. The peasant top I made for SM last year has been worn SO much that it's becoming very, very thin.

Quilts
8 blocks for 3 different quilts ... 4 for Squared Away - I'm FINALLY getting back to it! Just two more colors left - dark green and dark purple.

JE and TA wanted to try their hand at machine sewing, and they worked with me on 2 blocks each. I did all the cutting (I don't trust kids yet with the rotary cutter - I gashed my own finger with it a few months ago), and I helped them with the machine. JE learned chain-stitching, which she thought was nifty.

JE made two of these star blocks with her own selection of fabric, to be put into a doll quilt. She did the chain piecing for all the half-square-triangles (HST), and was excited to put them all together into one star.

TA has plans for her own twin-sized quilt for her bed, which obviously I've not made yet ... happy to have her assistance! She did two blocks as well. We're using the house block pattern from Intrepid Thread.


Crafting
1 - Ten canvas tote bags for a church activity. The 10 girls in my group decorated them with fabric markers, and hot-gluing ribbon and fabric flowers and "jewel" sparkle thingies to them. Yes, I could have bought them. But buying 10 would have cost $45, and the fabric cost only $15. I had the time to make them, and I have other ideas for blowing my budget money this year.

2 - While I had the craft supplies out, JK found some leftover fabric circle flower things kicking around, and decided one needed to be a hair clip. Sure, why not!

3. Edge stitching on a large piece of fleece to make into a throw blanket for the TV couch.

Mending: 5

stylin'

So fashionable for age 5.

October journal

- RG's Gryffindor robe. My only Halloween sewing this year, and she was Hermione of course.

- Letter Z for zig-zag stitching - my rope purse! It's actually kind of heavy because of the amount of rope, and I'm terrified the handles are going to rip right off if I put anything more in it besides my wallet and phone. They're only glued - it's too thick to sew.

It only took me an entire four years to do the Sew All 26 Challenge, but I have persevered and completed it!

- one 10-inch block for the Night Sky quilt, for the first time in months. I have the second section of the quilt top almost together - just a hole of 10 or 11 inches. I'm debating about another 10-inch block (there are already four in that section), or a group of 4-inch blocks.

Z is for zig-zag

Four years and six days later ... I have FINALLY finished the Sew All 26 Challenge!! With lots and lots and lots and lots of zig-zag stitches. I ended up with this: a purse made of rope.

I got the idea for a rope tote bag from this post by SouleMama - second picture down. LOVE that. I didn't have enough rope to get quite that large, but still ended up here and I'm excited to use this! The bottom is 11 inches long, and the widest point of the curves is 14 inches. The height is 10 inches.

The curves are totally accidental but I like them a lot!

The handles were glued on with a whole lot of hot glue. My sewing machine will barely fit one layer of rope under the foot. No way I was even going to try with two layers.

The general idea when sewing with rope is to set a zig-zag stitch, and put two sections of rope right up against each other. You just keep turning and turning the piece until you get what you want - lots of people do bowls because they don't take much rope. I made some small rope bowls in 2015 - they hold random little things, and one is currently on JE's dresser to hold a bunch of hairbands.

For the Sew All 26 Challenge, I'm excited this is my grand finale!

September journal

At the beginning of the month, I wanted to get back into my quilts after a crazy summer, and it's fall! It's quilt season! But there was a bunch of random stuff all over my sewing table, and all these unfinished little projects annoyed me. So that's what I started with.

1. Zip pouches for TA and JK - my last two girlies who didn't have their own bags. They chose the fabric forever ago and have been waiting so patiently, and I finally just sat down and made them. They were SO excited, and immediately put their markers in the bags. TA calls her's the "everything bag."

2. Squared Away quilt blocks: 4 pink (2 of each fabric set) and 2 aqua.

That's it. Didn't even take pictures of the zip bags. I meant to do a lot more, but I've been editing a book this month. I really want to get it done so I can get back to sewing!

August journal

1. 60 feet of a pennant garland for camp

2. cross-body bag for my phone

3. an a-line denim skirt for SM

Now that I'm finally HOME for awhile, after a crazy-busy summer of being gone all the time, I can get back to more sewing. After I put my house back together. It's a wreck.

Y is for youth camp

One of these days, I will get back to my original Y plan and actually execute it!! But first ... youth camp. At our church, there's day camp for ages 8 to 11, and when you turn 12, you can go to sleep-away camp. SM turned 12 this spring, so it is time for Girls Camp! Our area always goes the third week of August.

I weaseled my way into being one of the adult leaders because I just wanted to go to camp myself - I LOVE CAMP!!!! - and I want to experience this with my daughters. There's also the fact that she has ADHD limitations and I felt like I should be there to help her navigate this new thing. (Second daughter is on the autism spectrum, so this will not be my only year as an adult leader at camp.)

Because it's GIRLS Camp, we decorate. My contribution was this pennant garland that kept going and going and going ... it ended up being put together in three different sections that were each 20 feet long.

It turned out to be a good thing that it was in sections. I had planned to put it around our central pavilion ... which we didn't have. The tents were in an oval grouping with just some picnic tables in the center but no covered area, not even a pop-up canopy or tarp. So I strung it between the tents.

I also made myself a small cross-body bag for my phone. The kids were banned from even bringing their phones to camp. The adults, on the other hand, were required to have them on their person at all times. I had a backpack, but I wanted my phone more accessible. Plus it will be handy to have going forward when I want to carry my phone and just a couple of small things instead of an entire purse.

I used the same zip pouch tutorial that I've used all the other times, so this is number 14, I think. But I resized it to 6x9 inches to start, and put the zipper across the short end rather than the long side. That made for a really small opening to flip it right side out after sewing, but it worked. Eventually. That was some tight maneuvering. I couldn't figure out how to insert the strap (which was just 5 feet of 2-inch grosgrain ribbon) between the outer and lining fabrics with the zipper there, so I just attached it to the outside.

And now I have a small cross-body bag for my phone! Camp or no camp. Yay!

July journal

Just two projects this month: the seven mermaid tails for Peter Pan ...

... and continuing work on a decorative pennant garland (May journal #5) that I'm making for youth camp in 2 weeks.

The garland pieces will all be attached across the top by a (really, really long) strip of dark blue with stars on it. So far I have 60 triangles of various sizes, depending on the size of scrap fabric I was working with, and 40 circle flowers done. I'm using every piece of blue in my scrap bin that won't be added to a quilt because it's too scratchy, too flimsy, or I just don't really like the print. It's going to be outside at camp, so I'm using the less-loved fabric that I don't care about it getting trashed. (And for that matter, it's all scraps that were given to me when people were cleaning out their sewing - someone else's rejects!)

still insane

Two years ago, I went a little insane with making ten togas for the community theater's summer production of The Music Man (which I was in with 3 of my girls). We weren't able to do summer theater last year because it was the same week as our family reunion (it was Annie, which we were very sad to miss) but we are back at it this year! Peter Pan!

I am still insane, because this year, I declined taking an on-stage role and instead, I was backstage as the costume manager. I figured I needed to be backstage to help take care of my own kids - JK is technically too young to be in the production (the rule is 6/entering 1st grade - she's 5 and entering Kindergarten), but she was going to be dragged along to all the rehearsals anyway. As for me, well, I can sew or figure out costume planning, as already demonstrated with the togas, so that's where I ended up even before the end of the auditions.

JK arrived at the audition and marched straight up to the executive producer, Jane ...

JK, very firmly: I want to be the pink mermaid!
Jane: Oh? Is pink your favorite color?
JK: No. My favorite color is purple.
Jane: Don't you want to be the purple mermaid?
JK derisively: There aren't any purple mermaids. I want to be the pink mermaid.

Her role was pretty much cast in stone at that point. And since I'd already agreed to take care of costumes, I needed to figure out mermaid tails ... seven of them.

This is a small community theater that's all volunteers, so there's no big costume shop. Everyone is pretty much on their own, unless it's a specialty piece. My job was basically to decide (with Jane, and some consulting with the director) what the costume guidelines would be for the various groups - pirates, lost boys, islanders - and everyone was on their own to get a costume. The theater organization was able to rent an outfit for Captain Hook and a few of other pieces. We also raided the high school costume room (where we perform) for some more items. Lucky for us, the girl playing Peter Pan is a major cosplay fan, and had multiple Peter Pan costumes of her own - the director chose the one he liked best. And I'm traffic control for all of it.

Back to the mermaids ... specialty piece, so I made all the mermaid tails. Most was fabric pulled from my own boxes, but I did go buy PINK.

I looked up a couple of tutorials, but basically they were all made totally freehand and based on each girl's measurements. The body part goes all the way to their feet, with the fin separate. The fins have stiff interfacing between two pieces of fabric. I couldn't figure out how to enclose the seams and still be able to turn them on the curves, so I left them raw edge and finished them on the machine with a wide blanket stitch. I also sprayed everything really thoroughly with starch to cut down on fraying and unraveling, and used glitter glue on the edges. They're holding up pretty well.

Some of the girls did their own decorating with tulle, pearl beads, shells, and flowers. I worked on the ones for my own kids and a couple of the younger girls. Lots of glitter paint. Another mom covered them all in a glitter spray. They seriously look really awesome.

The mermaid scene is that they help Peter play a trick on Hook, when he "disguises" himself as a woman and covers his head with a lace shawl/veil. There's a duet between Peter and Hook that's really funny, "Oh My Mysterious Lady." My two littles are bottom right, and you can see that JK is indeed The Pink Mermaid.

Another costume I'm proud of is Tiger Lily - this one was all me. I decided that she'd wear a Polynesian sarong, and I made her flower crown.

(When TA and JK were not being mermaids, they were also islanders so they could run around and not have to sit the entire time.) 

So this is what we've done nonstop in the three weeks since getting back from vacation. And probably what we'll end up doing most summers for as long as we live here. It's long and tiring, but it's FUN. Theater is AWESOME.

P.S. Because I've been asked - yes, all 5 of my girls were in the play. SM was one of the Lost Boys. RG and JE were islanders. TA and JK were islanders and got the extra of the mermaids.

June journal

1. the snail tote bag.

2. Y is for yellow shirt.

3. More zip bags! Two for another sister-in-law, Laurel (London got the travel set before), because every time she comes to visit from Virginia or we go there, she ends up cutting my hair. When she was here visiting in April and cut my hair again, I wanted to do something for her in return. She chose the fabric but I just finally got them done ... and then forgot to mail them to her before we left on vacation. So they're still sitting on my table. Oops.

4. Our church's youth group is doing "Trek" this year, where they dress up like 1850s pioneers and drag 500-pound handcarts around in the woods for a couple of days. (I am not sad that my own children are not yet old enough for this event.) The girls at church made their own skirts and AJD didn't like how her's turned out. She'd cut it in a huge rectangle, probably 2 yards long, and then just put elastic in the waist to bunch it WAY up. I was bribed with a multi-year-loan of a serger (!!!!) (while AJD serves a mission and goes to college) to fix it in one day, 2 days before we left on vacation. I chopped the top elastic strip off, cut the rectangle into more of an A-line structure, and used my Anywhere Skirt instructions to make a fitted waistband with a button placket. Muuuuch better!

So except for JE's field day shirt, all of the sewing this month was for other people. And all of it was done really fast, almost on the fly. June was a crazy month with the end of the school year and leaving on a 17-day vacation an hour after school ended from which we got home yesterday ...

July sewing is costumes for summer theater and the performances are in only 3 weeks. So I gotta get moving on that. Maybe in August I'll finally have time to do my epic letter Z, and sew some new clothes for the new school year for my girly girls ... and THEN, in the fall, I will get back to the quilts. Whew!!

another way to use a quilt block

JK's friend BR is really into snails, which utterly confuses her parents. It's really hilarious. But they humored her at her birthday last week (she turned 5). They had a garden themed birthday party on Saturday and even gave her live snails as a pet for her gift.

A couple of nights before her party, I was randomly surfing quilting blogs and came across a snail quilt block. Stop. The. Presses. I am making this quilt block for BR and putting it on a tote bag for her gift. Now. I didn't buy the pattern, but eye-balled it, and this is how it ended up:

The snail itself is 6x8 inches. If I were to make this again, I would start with an 8-inch colored square instead of 6 to give more room for the seam allowances. The body started at 3 inches wide. The corner squares started at 2 inches, and then were sewn on the diagonal and the excess trimmed off. The smaller size worked great this time because BR is a tiny girl.

   

The block isn't quilted at all, but there is interfacing behind it. I used this tutorial from Simply Notable for the bag itself. It's a good sized bag for a small child for library books and carrying random toys around. I also experimented a little bit with the handles - I originally cut the strips at 2 1/2 inches wide like usual, and then folded them shut like bias tape. My addition was that I tucked a 1-inch wide strip of low-loft quilt batting into the fold before I sewed the strip shut. I like how that turned out - makes it softer to put over your shoulder! Planning to use that again with future bags.

T is for travel

More zip bags! This makes 11. (I need a card on the wall to make tally marks - I'm going to lose track one of these days.) I made these as a set - they're reversed from each other with the inside/outside fabrics.

The larger tan/red one is identical to the one I made for RG's teacher at school - my sister-in-law saw it and wanted one too. She didn't have toiletry bags for traveling, and her birthday was coming up anyway ...

And here they are in her luggage ready for their spring break trip.