Sept - Oct - Nov - Dec

I didn't get back into sewing so much in September after the kids went back to school, because that's when I was asked to take on a major leadership role in our church ... one of these days ...

But I did SOME sewing through the end of the year!

SEPTEMBER
September is National Sewing Month and I set a goal to sew every day. I got 10 of 30. Sigh. Of course, on the 15th, I got the leadership assignment at church so that definitely threw things off.

mending: 3

quilt blocks: 4. I made four letter blocks to start working on RG's Extreme Reader quilt (even though I'm still not done with Night Sky).

a skirt for ME!: this was a long time coming. I even assigned it to myself as my last Faith in God pass-off - the children's church goal program that I was the leader for (so I did it myself with the girls, to encourage them along). When we wrapped up the program in September because of transitioning to a lot of new things, I had one week to just do it - park my butt down and make my skirt.

It's brown linen, made with the Anywhere Skirt instructions from Made Everyday. (This is the second time I've used this pattern - the first was for SM's theater costume in 6th grade.) It suggests you use twice your waist-measurement for a full skirt - I did about a quarter more than my waist because I wanted it pretty toned down. I ordered painted wood buttons specifically to go with this fabric, and they're my favorite thing about it.

OCTOBER
Night Sky quilt: the top is 100% done! And pinned in its batting/backing sandwich! HOORAY! It's 60 by 80 inches, so a scaled down twin bed size. And then I set it aside for another month to take care of some other things on a deadline ... sigh ...

other quilt blocks: while finishing the Night Sky top, which took some Tetris skills to get all the differently sized pieces together, I needed to just sew something fast. We had a bunch of cut 4-inch squares left from the "A Doll Like Me" doll quilt project in February, and someone had contributed a bunch of brown. They were just laying around on my table - I think one of the kids got them out - so I mixed the brown with other colors to make what I'm calling a "chocolate checkerboard." To get it big enough for a 48x48-inch back for a jeans picnic blanket, I need more brown ... Checking the scrap bins, and then I'll send out a request to quilting friends to raid their scrap bins. I have 28 4x4 blocks so far. Laid out for the photo, I like it even more than I thought I would!

NOVEMBER
mending: 2

quilt repair: Adam's mom made a quilt for him incorporating his baby blanket. We let RG have it on her bed because it's quite heavy and it acts as a sort of weighted blanket for her. Unfortunately, her autism fidget issue is that she shreds things - paper and ... fabric ... and she was rather extensively destroying the baby blanket section literally one thread at a time before we caught on. So I confiscated it from her and got some large flannel pieces from my stash. They had been intended to be made into baby blankets if we'd had a boy, but obviously that didn't happen so the fabric has just been sitting here all this time. What's left of Adam's baby blanket is now entirely enclosed and quilted under Dr. Seuss flannel and some flannel pieces left from making Adam's pajama pants - it looks kind of new but it's not really. Just a new piece added to an older quilt with some additional quilting.

baptism dress: TA was baptized on November 30, and per our family tradition (let's be honest - Adam insisted on this one), I made another baptism dress. It was down to the wire - I finished it the day before. The pattern was the Oliver and S Pinwheel dress, because of the flounces on the bottom. It's actually two pieces - an under-dress with the lower flounce, and a tunic over the top with the upper flounce. I made the under-dress out of lining rather than cotton because TA likes silky fabrics against her skin. The pattern idea is that the two pieces can be worn separately if the child wishes - this one can't because the lining is somewhat sheer. But that's okay. I can make her another.

It's also TOTALLY typical of this girl to insist that she wear sneakers. She hasn't worn "church shoes" in ... I don't know when she ever did. So Daddy took her to get some new white ones to wear with her white dress. The only thing missing was that she wanted white leggings to wear with it too, because that's her style - dress or t-shirt, a hoodie, leggings, sneakers. I need to get a picture of how she has styled this dress to church since her baptism: the white dress with black leggings, the white sneakers, and a black/silver zip-front puffy vest over the dress with the ruffles sticking out underneath. It actually looks pretty cool.

DECEMBER
I still have A LOT of church work (it's at least three years in this position), and even some editing work ... but WAY less than last year. Just a couple of hours here and there - not rewriting an entire freaking book in two months.

I did no sewing at all this month until Christmas day, when I spent the entire afternoon quilting the Night Sky quilt. And then some more the next day, and I got the diagonal lines done in one direction. I thought about leaving it like that because it looks kind of cool, but Mindy said that she was told that if you quilt only one direction, the quilt will eventually warp. Sigh. So I will go the other direction for the criss-cross. Then fold the backing around to the front to be the binding.

April finishes

- the doll quilt project was finished up with the last of the labels being attached, and shipped out to Wisconsin.

- JE's birthday dress

- a pair of knit shorts for pajamas. The Kid Shorts pattern from Made only goes up to a size 10, and three of my five have outgrown that largest size in the past few months. So I attempted to scale it up to a 12-ish size, and this was my test run. I need to make a slight adjustment on the height of the rise to the waistband, but mostly it turned out fine.

- I gave myself a deadline to finish the Night Sky quilt: SM's birthday in 8 days. I made 7 more blocks and got the second section of three done. I was trying to entirely finish the pieced top today, but got sidetracked by an emergency visit to the orthodontist. It will be done by this weekend, and then I'll have Mon/Tues/Wed next week to quilt it. The binding will be easy - the backing is HUGE because I bought super-wide flannel (120 inches instead of 60), so I'm going to flip it around to the front and enclose the edges with it. 

crazy cat girl

I'm not sure if she's a crazy cat girl, or a cat crazy girl ...

This is the child who, about a year ago, wanted to get rid of all of her clothes, and get all new clothes ... with cats on them. I saw this print online and figured what the heck. So I bought the fabric to make this dress for her, and happy birthday to our newly-minted 9-year-old!

I hadn't worked much with knit before, so I went for it and bought some higher end, more expensive knit for this. SO cute! SO soft! SO annoying to work with! The edges curled like nobody's business. I had to pin the crap out of it, seriously like every inch. I could steam it flat with the iron, but as soon as the heat went out of it, it curled up again. Now that it's done, it's a fabulous dress, but making it took awhile because of having to go so excruciatingly slow.

The pattern is the Girl on the Go dress from Oliver+S. The fabric is Cat Nap Pink by Dana Willard in the Blush collection.

And because this is the 500th POST!!!!! - I actually have an unopened copy of the Girl on the Go pattern that I will give away on April 29 (because that's the next 9 day, for my 9-year-old). US/Canada only. Comment what your hints are for working with knit fabrics because whoa, that was less than fun.

skirt "decorating"

RG does not like plain/solid colored clothing because it's "boring." Last spring, I made her a basic skirt in plain blue linen-ish-weave fabric for Colonial Day at school (in April or May, but forgot to put it in the journal notes). They didn't have calico prints in that time period, so sorry, Kiddo, your skirt is boring.

Once Colonial Day was over, she still had this perfectly good, brand-new skirt. So I've added some fun details, and NOW I will put it in the sewing journal! (I probably should have just left it alone for future Colonial Days at school, but whatever.)

I have the sewing book Stitch by Stitch from the writer of the Whip-Stitch blog (which is posted on far too infrequently for my liking), and in one of the "learn your machine" exercises, the "assignment" is to figure out thread-drawing. You drop the feed dogs on the machine - the little teeth that pull the fabric under the needle - and change the foot to a free-motion foot. Your hands are now 100% in control of how the fabric goes under the needle.

I like flowers and garden scenes, and they're easy to draw. So that's what I did. It probably looks like a little kid drew it, because it was my first attempt at anything of this sort. But I like it and I don't care what anyone else thinks about it. I don't see THEM trying to draw with thread!

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

2019 To-Do / 2018 Ta-Da!

I know this sort of post isn't required, but I really like to see my to-do list become a Ta-Da! List.  2018 was full of fabric and sewing.  It was wonderful!  My posting dropped off those last few months (my personal blog is at least six months behind!), but I was still very busy - my sister got married and I made four dresses for the flower girls!  And the twin quilts (or Twilts and I've started to call them) that I talk about below...

QUILTING

• Maple Mission: My own design!  My parents love it.
• 2 Doll Quilts: Made for and donated to A Doll Like Me.
• String Bean: My first Project Quilting challenge, and the string piecing I wanted to do.
• Mini Pink: Little doesn't always mean faster. 
• 2 Narwhal Quilts: Started and finished in time for two new nieces!
• Christmas Cake Quilt: All the blocks finished. Hoping to finish in 2019.  I also started a table runner with the scraps!
• Block of the Month Twilts: This is probably where I put in my most sewing hours, and yet I haven't posted about it at all.  Trina suggested we do the Squared Away Block of the Month on Academic Quilter and then share blocks with each other.  I've made 44 10" blocks - two identical sets of 22, half for me and half for her.  So much work!!  We haven't gotten the last of the blocks sorted out so I can't finish it yet, but I've been cutting even MORE little squares to make a scrappy border for it.  Countless hours of work, but I love it!

As for my non-quilty sewing, I actually accomplished most of what I had hoped to.  My color challenge fizzled out, since I didn't give myself any rules.  And I never made jackets - which I should do soon before Cupcake grows out of the pattern!

• two sets of pajamas and a sleep sack
• six towel baby bibs
• two Mckenzies
• 
• two baby peasant dresses
• four baby crinkle toys
• two Ishi dresses for Easter
• four Alder skirts for me
• Maggie Mae sheepy top
• matching My Little Pony outfits for me and my daughters
• MLP purple top
• Strawberry top x4 (two for my girls, two for a friend - they wore them for family photos!)
• 
• four TMNT drawstring bags, plus four Christmas ones
• six eye patches
• 
• Quilt-As-You-Go placemat for a church activity (and helped with many others)
• Sailor Mercury costume pieces
• six Garden Party dresses (two for Christmas)
• 
• four Everyday Necktie (two for Christmas)
• and mended 49 items.

This year I hope to work on Christmas projects (including at least one [maybe three!] quilts) throughout the year, so I can give more homemade, meaningful gifts. (I'm so over the commercial aspect of the holidays it isn't even funny.)  I've got ideas for ornaments and a few other surprises, so I hope the week after Christmas is full of project posts.  I want another skirt and I've already got some Ravenclaw flannel set aside.  Cupcake will be needing more pajamas.  For quilting: paper piecing and hexagons are still on my list, and I've added economy blocks (unicorn fabric?), perhaps as a pin cushion.  Lots of ideas but I also want to be flexible enough to join in on Sew Alongs as I am inspired (I've already got my eye on a few blocks from this Harry Potter one).  Happy sewing to you!

school skirt

SM came across some glitter-infused denim about a year ago in the fabric piles, and there was just enough to make her a skirt. I used this tutorial on how to make a skirt pattern, but didn't bother with making a pattern - I just drew it straight onto the fabric.

There are no directions on making the skirt itself, so that got ... interesting ... I'm glad I already knew the basic idea of adding darts - there are four, two in the front and two in the back. I had to wing it on adding the facing. This was so I didn't lose 2 inches of fabric on the top from folding over to add a waistband, and also because that fabric would itch if the glitter side was against her skin. I just lost the teeniest seam allowance.

This is only the 2nd zipper I've added in clothing - the first time I put it on, it was twisted so I had to remove the whole thing and do it again. It still isn't as "invisible" as it should be because I didn't put the seams in tight enough, so there is a slash of mint down her hip ... it's a design feature, not a mistake. And I barely did a hem, also to maintain as much skirt length as possible - bias tape beneath.

Makes me laugh that the inside is all colored and detailed more than the outside. I wasn't aiming for a mini-skirt but it is a couple of inches above her knee. Siiiiiigh. She's getting too tall. I made her put on cut-off leggings underneath, because it went halfway up her thigh when she sat down.

And here she is, ready for 7th grade! 

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!!

We match!

My Little Pony - Alder Skirt for Mommy?  Check.

My Little Pony - Maggie Mae for Cupcake?  Check. (Finish-A-Long #4)

My Little Pony - Baby Butterfly for Snowflake?  Check!

Check it out!  We all match!

Y is for yellow

I was not going to do a Y post with yellow - Mindy already did that. But for the second Thursday night in a row, I found myself with a sewing project that needed to be done RIGHT NOW.

Found out yesterday morning that Field Day was today at school, and the 2nd graders needed to wear yellow shirts. After some looking around, I figured out that the only yellow shirts for children that we own are all pajamas. But ... there's some yellow knit fabric ... and I did just get the Girl on the Go dress/shirt pattern from Oliver+S ... so at 10 pm last night, I made one.

Size 8, with the length at a size 10 because I like shirts to go a little further onto the hip. It took about 2 hours, because the knit was thin and kept rolling up on me, and I went reeeeeeally slow because I didn't want to warp it while it went through the machine.

Here's our fearless warrior girl ready to go to Field Day this morning!

I did a decorative stitch for binding the facing down, just for fun.

May journal

SEWING
Quilts, crafts, and clothes. Covered it all this month.

1. X is for X block in the Squared Away Block of the Month. The X was March's block, and I also did April's block. Green done, yellow done. Still working on pink for May.

2. Four more blocks for the Night Sky quilt. I'm trying to get section 2 done of the quilt, but it's not quite coming together yet. I wanted to do more on this project, but at least I hit the minimum.

3. Two pairs of shorts, one of TA and the other for JK. More coming.

The purple speckles was from the remnant bin at Hobby Lobby. The ice cream cones are from Made EveryDay, the Boardwalk Delight line.

I think I resolved my Shorts conundrum. I have the Kid Shorts pattern from Made Everyday but it only goes to a size 10. SM is way out of that now. I was trying to figure out how to size it up, and I probably still could. But I discovered that Oliver+S has a FREE!!! Sunny Day Shorts pattern online, so I printed it off. They're made differently - Kid Shorts does not have a separate waistband, Sunny Days Shorts does. They're put together differently, even though they look pretty much the same when they're done. And hey, I don't know that SM will even fit into a 12 anymore - I've been buying her 14/16 at the store, and even went to the Juniors section when we were shopping for a dress for her last week. So we'll see. But at least I have one more size up after the Kid Shorts 10.

4. On Sunday night this week, I got a sewing bug, and in just a little while, I made a swim cover for JK. Adam asked how this dress is different from any other dress ... it's not. It's regular fabric. But the top is too loose to be modest so we'll call it a swim cover. JK found the bow in my basket of random items and asked me to add it.

She's ready for the pool! Bring on the summer!

5. I started ... another ... WIP ... a fabric pennant garland for summer camp. I'm going to our church's youth camp with SM as one of the adult chaperones, and this is girly in that campsites are "decorated" somehow. So enter a pennant garland. This is just getting started so no photos yet.

It has the typical triangles but also flowers scattered randomly in between. I made a bunch of flowers as a hand-sewing project (and one was even swiped by JK - she had me stitch it to a hair tie). The gathering stitch would be MUCH faster on the machine, but I wanted a hand project to carry around and knocked out over 20 of them just while sitting in a women's church conference. This particular version of a pennant/flower garland is from the book Sewing Bits and Pieces by Sandi Henderson - I got it from the library for a different project, but this looked cute too.

This has been a great way to clear out blues that quite frankly, I'm not going to ever use in a quilt because the fabric is too rough, doesn't go with anything else, or I just don't like it. Putting those fabrics in a garland that's going to get the crap beat out of it by being outside!


THE HOUSE
We have a baaaaaaaack-splaaaaaaaaash!

This was the last major piece of our kitchen puzzle, and kind of on a whim, we just got it done. I wanted glass tiles in some shade of blue. When I was running errands at Home Depot once, I went through their entire in-store selection and really wasn't happy with it. It's mostly brown-toned, which doesn't not work with our gray/black counter at all. I found a couple of things and took samples home but nope. So we tried Lowe's and hooray! They had a lot of blues! We brought home a bunch, and the all-white that Adam liked and grabbed at the last second was the winner. The blues didn't look right with the counter - that was a hard match. The white/gray was also the cheapest - score!

I went to a Saturday night book club and when I got home, Adam had most of it up. (I need to leave him unsupervised more often.) I just had to come through behind him for the wipe-down of the extra mortar. (Typical. He makes a mess, I clean it up.) It still needs the grout and to be polished off, but the tiles are up! Hooray!

Maggie Experiment

What I really wanted was another Mckenzie, since it is my favorite.  My little girl is NOT little, and she has grown out of that pattern. *sad face*  I was going to grade it up but to make it easier, since she still fits in the Maggie Mae just fine, I used this idea to make the Maggie look at bit more like the Mckenzie.  I even squared off the neckline a bit (sorry you can't see it very well!).

See that fuzzy lump in the upper left corner?

No, behind the bush. 

That's what we've seen of our new pandas so far!

I gave Cupcake a variety of fabric to choose from, and she chose the light pink/orange to go with the fabulous My Little Pony fabric that we got from Trina (picked out by JK and TA).  The pattern came together easily, but even though I used a size 10 it came out a little more snug than I expected.  She likes it though, and I've still got a 1/2 yard of MLP fabric to play with!  Woohoo!

New statues AND a new bridge at the zoo too!

My kid has a fabulous sense of style, yes?

This finishes #5 on this quarter's Finish-A-Long, not quite as planned, again.

Maggie Remix

Last spring I made Cupcake an Easter dress with the special lavender lamb fabric - because my kid loves sheep.  I chose my coordinating fabric poorly, and a few months later it ripped right across the bodice.  The precious sheep were untouched though so I set it aside to remake later.

It only took me nine months to get around to it so I'm glad that it still fits!  I was going to make it a shirt, but overestimated the length of the third fabric so when she tried it on she insisted it be a dress.  I scrambled to find a fourth coordinating fabric, but Cupcake couldn't be happier. And I think it is pretty stinkin' adorable too.

I think the reason I held off remaking this dress was finding the right fabric to pair with the lambs.  I wasn't going to go out of my way to find coordinating fabric because I generally avoid going to the fabric store and try not to buy fabric at all.  But I did recently bring home a fat quarter bundle of cute sheepy fabric (because sheep) that had just what I was looking for.  That grey fabric?  It says "baaaa" on it over and over!  And the bottom band used exactly one fat quarter of pink daisies.  And the main skirt (with tiny blue and purple flowers) came with lots of other yardage from a sweet old lady at church who doesn't sew anymore.  I love the gift of fabric!

I've loved Shwin Designs for a long time, and have made the Mckenzie pattern many many times.  But Cupcake has grown out of it (since at 5 she wears at least a 10, and it only goes to an 8) so I was happy to rediscover this pattern, the Maggie Mae,  Not only does this size 8 still fit (shocking since I made it last summer) it also goes up to a size 10! Yay!

And for the Finish-A-Long, turns out I didn't have enough of the pictured fabric to make into the skirt piece (even at a shirt length).  Those flowers became the pockets instead!