artsy-crafty babe

those pillows

I got sucked in.  No, that wasn't the plan.  It all started with the idea to make a valentine pillow, cotton jersey reverse applique Alabama Chanin style.  I made my stencil, cut it out with my new cutting tool (fancy exacto knife that i don't know the proper name of), then went to town.  It came out much, much better than I expected.  I was so pleased with it that I had to make another (of course!!).

This time I went with "love".  After wasting too much time searching through free fonts to get it just right, I gave up and made my own.  I don't know why I didn't do that in the first place.  It's funny how you look at things like font differently when your purpose is to make a stencil out of it.  I didn't love this one as much, so I had to try again.

How about a rose?  A red rose.  Yes, that seemed like a good idea.  And it was.

That rose naturally evolved into another flower inspired by that anthropologie pillow that so many of us are gaga over.  This time I got a little crazy.  I strayed from my usual formula by adding a third fabric.  Sewing through three layers of cotton jersey isn't so different than two.  The only tricky part was making sure that I was cutting away the right layer, but it wasn't so hard.  I think the key to this type of work is having super sharp scissors. Needless to say, I'm pretty much in love with this one.

You're probably wondering what I plan to do with these...I don't know!  I told the girls that they can put them on their bed, but I don't think they need 4!!  And the sad part is that I want to make more.  Now my wheels are turning on what I can make next!

hearts

I'm not usually one for holiday decorating, but for some reason I'm feeling it this year.  Not oodles of decorations, just a bit of pink & red here and there.  It all started when I came across the felt heart garland in my sewing room (while searching for that stupid pattern!!).   Sure, that would be nice on the mantle.

Then I read that next month is pillow month at Sew, Mama, Sew!.  Yes, a pillow would be nice.  And with all my thoughts on making some jersey dresses, why not make a jersey pillow cover?  I got busy on a stencil and now I'm on to the stitching.  A perfect activity while I'm home with a sick little one. Okay now, back to stitching - I want this done in time to enjoy it!

planning ahead

It's that time again, time to plan for some spring dresses (yes, i'm already sick of winter!!).  I do it every year, declare that it will be 'the year of the dress', but I end up with a dress or two then fizzle out.  There's nothing wrong with that, at least I get a dress out of it, but the problem is that I never end up wearing those dresses for some reason or another.

This year is going to be different.  Instead of making something I *think* I'll like, I'm going with tried and true - a wrap dress.  I love wrap dresses.  Wrap dresses work for me, especially if they're made from a jersey knit.  Cool, comfortable, dressed up or down, that's my kind of dress.  Seeing this dress from Lilly Pulitzer got my wheels turning.  As soon as I saw it, I thought "I can make that".

I dug around in my pattern collection and came up with some options.

1. McCall's 6163 - I like the raglan sleeves and the collar, but not so much the straight skirt.  A definite possibility, but I think I can do better.
2. Simplicity 4074 - Another good option, it has the right kind of skirt and the gathers at the shoulder are a plus.  I wish it were a true wrap and not a mock.
3. Vogue 7693 - I've made this one before.  It worked, but I didn't like how the top part is a wrap but the skirt isn't.  I guess this is why I never made another one.
4. Vogue 8646 - Now this is what I'm looking for.  I forgot all about this pattern.  It should be easy enough to add a tie to make this a true wrap, and a BIG positive is that it includes adjustments for different cup sizes.
5. Vogue 8379 - Oh but wait, this is perfect!  Exactly what I was looking for.  I think I found a winner, BUT I can't find my pattern.  I *think* I used it for another dress I started 2 years ago but never finished.  

Shoot!  Now I'm going to drive myself crazy with this - where in the world is that pattern??  While I'm looking, I might as well finish the dress.  All I have left to do is hem it and add the sleeves.

Once I find the pattern (or buy a new one, which I'd rather not do) I'm going to get started.   I'm not crazy, this is south Louisiana you know - it may be freezing one day then in the 70's the next.  An elbow length sleeve wrap dress will be the perfect layering piece to have in my wardrobe.  If all else fails, I'll make Vogue 8646.  If the fit is right, I just might make a whole wardrobe of them.  Come on Spring, you can't get here soon enough!!!

pattern giveaway

Please pardon my stupidity.  You'd think by now I'd remember to offer a giveaway with the release of a new pattern - duh!!  I have no excuse other that my usual absent mindedness due to trying to juggle a million things at once.

In honor of the giveaway (and because I didn't want to post the same photo of a Nanette tote again) I decided to make another one.  With spring on my mind, I used my favorite vintage sheet with a  bit of ric rack and a covered button, just because.

My weekend was busy full of basketball games & birthday parties so mot much "making" took place.  By Sunday evening I was craving some time with my sewing machine, so a new Nanette tote seemed like a logical choice.  I'm sure y'all understand.

Oh yes, I'm sure y'all want to know about the giveaway - just leave a comment on this post and be sure that you've entered your email address somewhere so that I can get in touch if you win.  By the way, can I mention how annoying I find it when in order to win something you have to practically sign away your first born?  Enter here, tweet this, follow that...no thanks.  All I need is a comment, easy peasy.  Three lucky winners will receive a Nanette tote pattern, or another artsy-crafty babe pattern of your choice.  I'll leave comments open for a week, choosing a winner with the random number generator Sunday January 30th.  Good luck and Happy Monday!!

p.s. if you're interested in this bag or any others, just email me.  

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#192 - Marcia

#188  - Jabba

#17 - Patricia

All winners have been emailed.

you asked for it...

(richelle with loads of junk behind her and lots of junk on either side cropped out of the photo!)

With all your sewing, what type of machine do you use?

I currently use three different sewing machines and use them all at different times depending on the project or my mood.  I have a workhorse industrial machine, Richelle.  She is a Riccar RD-102.  I purchased her years ago used from a drapery seamstress who was getting out of the business.  I didn't touch the machine for a few years after I bought it out of fear!  If you search "richelle' on the sidebar, you can read about my experience getting to know her :-)  Now I use her for heavy duty sewing or for things that I want to do quickly, like sewing straps or quilting.  She is FAST and powerful - I've sewn through my finger more than once.

A few years ago I bought a Janome Memory Craft 4800.  I mostly use this machine for sewing clothing and bags when I sew at the dining table.  Richelle resides in my sewing studio, which is in the loft area of my house, so I don't always get to go up there to sew.

My latest addition is Miss Kitty, my little Hello Kitty Janome machine.  I bought this to take with me to Seattle for the Dottie Angel workshop, but ended up leaving her at home.  She is a 3/4 machine, which I thought would be easy to travel with, but I chickened out.  For a bare bones basic machine, it works pretty well.  I may have been lucky in getting a good one, but it has been well worth the money I spent on it.  This was the only machine I sewed on for months. 

I also have a Juki serger, but I'm still working on getting over my fears on that one.

What kind of interfacing do you use?

First off, I HATE fusible interfacings.  Hate them!  I can't stand how they distort the fabric and make it feel all icky.  Yes, I do use them on occasion and my patterns sometimes call for them, but I try to avoid it.  I think they work best in small applications or for things that need to be strong, like straps.  My favorite interfacing is Pellon 926.  It is a sew-in interfacing, has good body, but isn't crinkly and doesn't crease.  I've mistakenly purchased Pellon 65 Extra Heavy Stabilizer, which feels like thin cardboard in my opinion - 926 is nothing like that.  I used to purchase HTC or HTCW (I've seen it both ways) Ultra Firm, which is pretty much the same thing as the Pellon 926.  This is my go-to interfacing for bags.

To use the sew-in, I cut out my pieces like you would any other interfacing, then attach it to the fabric at the center of the piece with straight pins.

(i hate wearing my rings around the house.  they're usually on the window sill.  i dusted the sill before taking this photo)

...i was wondering if you had any binding tips or tricks?

No, I wish I did!  I use this technique, sewing the binging on by machine on the front, then flipping to the back and hand stitching.  I tried to use this machine binding technique on Kyle's quilt, but it was a horrible fail!  I definitely need more practice with that one.

This is a silly question from a newbie! I've been sewing/crafting for quite some time, but am doing my first show this Spring. Do you have top tips/suggestions for a beginner?

Strike two for me!  Sorry, I've never participated in a show before.  I'll have to come to you for tips if I ever decide to do a show.  I've thought about it and even told myself that I was going t do a show, but I never have the time to build up enough inventory to do such a thing.  Maybe one day!  I think I'd really enjoy the interaction of doing a show.

I've always wondered how you take such wonderful pictures indoors and in low light.

Agh, low light!  That's always a struggle.  I am certainly no photography pro and still have LOADS to learn, but I'll share what works for me.  First off, I never take pictures on automatic and I never use a flash.  I either use aperture priority or full on manual.  In either of these modes it always takes me a few shots to get it right.  I usually do aperture proitory for low light and set my camera to the lowest aperture my lens will allow, which for my 50mm is 1.8 and I bump up my ISO to 800.  Oh, be sure you have your camera on the correct white balance and you can always tweak the exposure if it is still too dark.

(there's never ever a shortage of laundry!!)

How do you balance it all and keep creative juices flowing?

This is easy to answer - I DON'T!!  I sure hope I didn't fool you, but most of the time things are sorely out of balance.  Take this past weekend for example - it was all about getting that quilt made, so the laundry, the dishes, and most everything got ignored.  We ate just about every meal from a restaurant.  The only way I was able to survive was that it happened to be a 3 day weekend, so I did the grocery shopping on Monday.  If you came to my house right now, it would not be pretty!  I have no less than 7 loads of clean laundry piled up in my bedroom waiting to be folded and put away and there are still at least 4 that need to be washed.  There are dishes in the sink and you'll find dust bunnies in the corners (it is the year of the rabbit, isn't it?).  Oh, and while I was busy sewing Matt decided it would be a good time to clean out the attic.  It looks way better now than it did a few days ago, but there is still stuff everywhere.  And my sewing room?  In its' current state, it puts me on the verge of an anxiety attack.  I need to do some SERIOUS clean up in there.  It doesn't help that the door to the attic is in there.  Believe me, the balance is always a struggle!!

(the girls's room, which needs to be properly put back together after painting their floor over the holiday)

One question: how did you become featured in different magazines/ books? Did it all follow from blogging?

Yep, it all came from blogging.  I've never sought out anything.  It all started with an email in my inbox.

I have a question about your process on coming up with a new bag. Do you usually just wing it and use fabric first or do you use muslin or another type of material first?

I've done both and have success and failure with both as well.  I always start my bag making process on paper first - a sketch and then an actual paper pattern.  If I'm feeling confident about it, I'll use good fabric first, but if I know there are still tweaks to be done, I'll use ugly stuff.  My tastes in fabric have changed over the years and as tempted as I am to get rid of the old stuff, it comes in handy in testing out patterns.

(collection of prints from artists on etsy - I need to blog about this)

what blogs do you find yourself frequenting? Do you leave comments or just read and leave? 

Seriously, I have over 500 subscriptions in my Google Reader (should I have admitted that?).  I look at a LOT of blogs.  Notice I said 'look' and not 'read'.  In my reader I keep them all categorized - friends, quilts, decotating, design, yarn, etc.  I'm constantly editing my feeds.  Not every feed has daily posts, and many I only skim.  Today, I can't really say that I have any favorites.  Yes, there are those that I consider friends, who I've followed a long time and gotten to know, and I always visit there, but those usually fall in the infrequent post category.  If a blog doesn't publish full content and I can't see it in my reader, I usually unsubscribe.  I don't leave many comments anymore, but I'm trying to do better, especially with those who comment here.

(Mr. Snaggletooth lost a front tooth yesterday)

Favorite thing to do with the kiddos?

My favorite thing to do with my kids is to act silly.  When I get in that mode I make up silly sing-song names for them and sing goofy songs.  And I maybe throw in some spactic dance moves.  This is when I let my up-tight self relax, which I wish I could do more often....I'm working on it.

I am about to make my first patchwork (no instructions or tutorials) and I'd like to know what do you use for other side of the pachwork? Plain fabric or another pachwork?

I'm not sure I fully understand the question - are you making a quilt?  If so, I use both solid fabrics and pieced fabrics.  Well now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I've ever used one solid backing on a quilt, they've always been pieced - not to the extent of a quilt top, but pieced nonetheless.

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If you made it through all that, Bravo! 

 

 

serendipity

Hi there.  I feel like I kind of dropped the ball after my consecutive posting streak, but oh well, that's life. There are certainly things to tell, but I'm a little preoccupied with leather at the moment.  Yes, more leather.  I'm still working on your questions, so look for that in the next few days.

I don't know what was wrong with my thrifting ju-ju back when I was looking for leather a few months ago, but it seems to have corrected itself.  Last night I dove into (with my seam ripper) a jacket I found.  Oh my, did that ever get my wheels were turning!!  Before I purchased the jacket I looked for a tag to make sure that I was indeed buying leather, but there wasn't one.  Turns out, the jacket was handmade.  Yeah, HANDMADE!!  Whoever made it was pretty darned awesome.  Looking at it in the store, I never would have guessed that someone MADE it.  See that photo up there?  It says "I love you".  It was written on the interfacing of the front pockets.  How sweet is that?  Whoever made this must have really loved the recipient, who probably never knew it was there.  I can only imagine!  My bag isn't finished yet, but the two "I love you"'s are still in tact on the inside of my bag.  Love!

Oh, thank you for all your positive comments on Kyle's quilt - you make me blush!  I honestly don't think I did anything extraordinary, just lending my talents where I can :)  I am happy to report that the quilt was indeed well received.  Alex ended up forgetting the quilt in Matt's truck yesterday morning, so Matt had to bring it to the kids' school (across the street from his school) during his off hour.  As he was explaining to the school secretary who the quilt was for and where it was supposed to go, she pointed to two women who were sitting in the office - they were Kyle's mom and grandmother!  Matt said his mom cried when she saw the quilt.  That just warms my heart!!

Serendipity, twice in one day. *smile*

a quilt for kyle

Last week Alex came home from school with a note from his teacher saying that one of his classmates lost everything in a house fire.  Alex was quick to tell me, "mom, he doesn't even have a book sack!".  As a first grader, all this info is a bit difficult to process.

The note went on to say that the school was having a donation drive, but if we had any ideas for the class to do something special for their classmate, that would also be appreciated.

Well you know me, my mind immediately turned to what can I make for this boy?  What can I do with the kids for this boy?  A quilt seemed like an obvious answer.  A quilt that every kid in the class could contribute to.  As soon as I could, I emailed Alex's teacher with my idea and thankfully she loved it.

The next day I sent to school with Alex some fabric squares that had been ironed onto freezer paper (much easier for little ones to draw on that way) and some fabric markers.  My only instructions were for the kids to draw Kyle a happy picture and sign their name.

Oh my goodness, the pictures I got back were so sweet!  I can't help but smile when I look at them.

This weekend I got busy on the quilt.  My original plan was to border each drawing with a colorful print and back the quilt with a solid gray, but after making block, I decided that was a bit much.  I didn't want to detract from the drawings at all, so I alternated a solid gray border with a print one, then I threw in some white to make it all pop.

Using gray on the front meant that I didn't have enough for a solid back, so that got pieced.  I personally like a pieced back better anyway, so that all worked out.  

I'm so happy with how this turned out!  My quilting is wonky and I machine stitched the binding on entirely, but in this case, done is better than perfect.  Tomorrow I'm sending this quilt to school with Alex to give to Kyle.  I sure hope he likes it!

keeping it going...

Holy cow!  Can it be possible that I've posted 5 days in a row, this post being the 6th?  I don't know if I've ever done that in all my 5+ years of blogging.  I wonder what's gotten into me?  I guess I'm just feeling chatty lately :)

Do you care to entertain my chattiness?  I'm opening myself up to questions - fire away!  Is there anything you want to know about me?  about the things that I use, the things that I make?  After having had this blog for so long I feel like I've already told you everything, but I forget that not all of you have been here since the beginning.  I'll do my best to answer your questions, within reason of course.

I can't tell you how happy I am that the weekend is here, a long weekend at that.  I have a very special quilt project planned that will be keeping me busy.  I can't wait to show it to you all when I'm done.  It needs to be finished this weekend, so it WILL be done.  Have a great weekend, friends!

**cookies & bowl are from Cathy, who stopped by for a quickie visit & some fabric :)

a hat + some soup

I don't know if you've heard, but it's been cold in the deep south. Much too cold for my liking. Thankfully we don't have any snow or ice to deal with, but it's still a pain when you're not used to it.  All I've wanted to do since the cold front came through is cook and knit, which isn't necessarily bad thing unless you're trying to move more and eat better (I'll get to that next week).

What better to knit for cold weather than a hat?  Now that I've discovered the joys of hat knitting, I'm all in.  Do you like my hat? (I can't help but think of Go, Dog. Go! when I say that)  I must admit that I feel a little silly wearing it, only because I'm not used to wearing hats just yet.

This is the Felted Bucket Hat by Chic Knits.  I used Ella Rae classic yarn.  This yarn felted like a dream.  If I were to make it again, I'd knit a few more rows to make it a little taller, but I was getting low on yarn - the pattern calls for 220 yds and the ball of yarn was 219.  I got nervous and cut it a little short.  That's probably why my top is more rounded than the picture on the pattern.  I had to stretch it down to cover my head resulting in a rounded crown, which is fine by me. 

To give it a little kick, I added a wool felt flower brooch on the side.  I was into making these a few years ago, in fact I had to search through my archives to remember what they looked like.  Has it really been 3 years since I've made them?  That doesn't seem possible, but I can't argue with the archives.

Okay, now on to the soup.  This evening I tried out this broccoli & cheese soup recipe.  I had a bunch of broccoli in the fridge that needed cooking, so it just made sense.  I must say, this recipe isn't too bad.  It has a lot of flavor, which I like.  I ended up trippling it and had to do some improvisions, but overall I followed the basic recipe.  This is more of a broth type soup than a cream one, not too cheesy, perfect with a bug hunk of french bread.

Okay, now that my belly is full my knitting is calling.  See ya!

irresistible

With my first leather encounter fresh on my mind, I decided to try the thrift stores again in search of more.  Maybe I was searching at the wrong time of year before, but I did happen upon  some leather this time.  I found a mini skirt for $25.  Yes, twenty-five, not $2.50.  Um, I don't think so!  Seriously?  It was a thrift store!!  That skirt stayed on the rack along with the others which were just as expensive.  (but I did find a too big cute printed twill skirt that I may or may not cut up for something else)

 

 

 

Naturally, my attention turned to the sheets.  Yeah, I know that I don't need any more sheets, but I can't help it.  I may have struck out on the leather, but I found some beauties in the linens. 

 

 

 

Oh my heavens - that pink one!  The first thing that popped into my mind when I saw that was Lilly Pulitzer.  Wouldn't that make the perfect Lilly-esque tunic?  I know I've tried sewing clothes out of my linens before and ended up not wearing them because it felt weird to me, but I don't think I'll have that problem with this one.  Did I mention that it's a king size flat sheet in perfect condition?  Love.

 

 

And this green one, I love it too.  I don't know if I'll be wearing this one, but I can certainly see a large bag made from this one.  Maybe with some bamboo handles...to bring to beach while wearing my pink tunic.

 

 

I would have been perfectly happy with just those two, but I couldn't leave those other pretty ones all alone, could I?  The yellow one is just plain sweet and super soft.  I'm thinking it would make a nice night gown for miss a or pajama bottoms for Lil. I already have the blue flowered one in my collection, but there's always room for more. 

For a non-linen focused buying trip, I don't thinkI did too bad!