Monday, March 29, 2010

Sewing for littles

I have a pile of patterns and fabric just waiting to be made into summer clothes for Addy.  Plus a top for myself.

But I also have a stack of UFOs that I need to get to, and lots of "little" projects jumping onto my to do list.  Or more accurately, jump straight into my hands late at night when I'm not thinking straight and decide I must start-and finish-said project right then and there.  Sigh.  I think I'm my worst enemy.

I've been trying really hard to finish the already started projects before I have some fun with the little girl clothes. And it's been going pretty well.  These are the two projects that I have finished for Addy so far:

PJ Pants!!  Matt and I are headed to Springfield, MO on monday to check out the area.  Addy is staying with Matt's parents, and as much as she loves her grandma and Jidu, I think she will miss us.  Our house has been pretty chaotic lately, with Matt constantly traveling and me, well, just trying to hold it all together!  So I'm going to sneak these pants into her overnight bag.  She saw me sewing them, but we ran out of elastic before they were done.  They are made from a super cute knit that I found on clearance at JoAnn's.  Apparently it was a much coveted fabric at some point.  Because yes, there really is such a thing as a much coveted fabric.

And as often happens, I decided that 1 pair just wasn't enough.  These pants are incredibly easy to make, so we picked out some fabric to make a pair for 2 of her friends.  I'm in love with the striped ones.  The boy pair  turned out cute, although I wish I had better boy fabric on hand!  Oh well, they are just pjs!

And the other project was a spring jacket for Addy.  I ordered this fabric through a co-op, and just happened to get it in the mail a few weeks ago.  I don't order from them too often, so it's usually a fun surprise when my stuff comes in.  This is Amy Butler home dec fabric from the Nigella line.  I had ordered 2 yards of 2 different prints, with no purpose in mind.  But the second I saw this fabric in person, I knew that it had to be made into a coat.  It is the most perfect shade of khaki.  And the teal is a really unexpected pop of color alongside the conservative khaki.  The lining is kona cotton.

The pattern is from Make It Perfect, here.  Despite my efforts to bribe Addy with marshmallows, I didn't get any great photos.  But trust me, the jacket is adorable!

I really liked this pattern, it went together easily and looks great.  This was a bit of a trial run, because I also have this pattern for myself.  When I get the time, I'm going to sew it up using the Amy Butler fabric from last year.  I would link to it, but I can't seem to figure out if it's from the Midwest Modern or Midwest Modern 2 line!

Here are a few more pics of Ad, just doing her thing.  Lately it involves a lot of "ribbit" hopping like a frog. :)
 

And one more thing, because it's so stinkin' cute.  Today at Target the cashier told Addy that she was cute.  Addy responded with, "My mommy made my coat!"  Awwwww.  :o)  She *is* cute!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Living room....family room....that room with the tv in it!

This room is as close to finished as it will get.  The large, plain wall with the single black shelf on it was to be a wall of photos.  My 1st college roomie has taken family photos for us for 3 years now, and I ordered prints of her great work for the wall.  But in an attempt to de-personalize the house as we put it on the market, we didn't put the photos up.  We did still put the photos over the fireplace, because it was too bare up there!




The front door:

The cute little phone cubbyhole.  This is the view looking into the living room (the laundry chute is the door below the cubbyhole).

In this room, we painted the walls, trim, and fireplace.  My mom and I made the curtains.  I made this fun pillow for the couch:
The pattern is from One Yard Wonders.

I also started a quilt for the couch, but my quilting machine threw a fit in the middle of quilting it up.  So it's sitting on the frame, waiting...

The last thing that we did was sand, paint, paint, and distress the tv stand.  It is from IKEA.  What I love about it, is that it's a corner stand but it also works on a wall.  What I hate is that it's soft wood.  The distressed treatment may have been the perfect solution, however, because it seems to be doing well!

A few close-ups:
 

And lastly, something every room should have: a basket of quilts. :)

The rest of the house is pretty much as we bought it.  The bedrooms are very boring.  I don't think they've been painted any color other than off-white EVER!  But I don't think we'll spend the time on them.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

My Sewing Room

I finished the last wallhanging and a few small baskets late last night.  And not a moment too soon, the pictures shown here are some of the same ones that I sent off to the realtor listing our house.  I love the space, and I've learned a lot about how to best arrange my workspace.  I can't thank Steph enough for helping me decide on the fabric to use, paint color, how to arrange the room, etc.  So THANKS!! :)

The view from the door:

My sewing area:

My cutting area.  Usually the table is flipped all of the way up:

An IKEA bookcase with some storage boxes:

Some of my favorite details about the room.  My wall art:
 
The hand embroidered Haitian doll is a pattern from AllSorts.  After hand embroidering, I added a border and wrapped the finished piece around a canvas.  The Love and Peace wallhangings were ideas that I found on the Amy Butler website here.  I changed the dimensions, used different fonts, and added borders.  These were quilted.

Small fabric baskets that I made at the last minute.  Pattern here.

And my chair!

If we were staying in this house, we would build some new organizational pieces for all of my fabric and supplies.  There's a reason I didn't include pictures of my closet. ;)

Up next, the living room!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

A Good Folks tie

Matt is on his way to a job interview.  A few days ago when he set up the interview, I decided that I wanted to make him a tie.  Whether or not he will actually wear it, is yet to be decided.

I really like the pattern that I used, which is a little bit surprising since it's nearly all hand-stitched.  But it seems like a good movie project.  I think that if the fabric was cut and interfaced already, the hand stitching would take about 1 movie to complete-with a brief pause as one point to press a few seams.
The only hiccup I experienced with the pattern was that the pieces didn't fit together quite right. What worked for me was to keep the straight edge that is placed on the fabric's fold straight as I pieced the pattern.  This was only critical for the tie front, back and middle.  The interfacing shape is very forgiving.

The fabric I chose is from Anna Maria Hoerner's Good Folks line.  I've been saving this fabric for something special, something that would stay in my life. I first picked this fabric because I had it on hand, and I'm so happy with how it turned out!  The print is fun, and remarkably masculine for a fabric with pink and floral!

 

I hope this turns into a lucky tie, and brings Matt home with some good news on the job front!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Argyle, it's not just for sweaters any more!

The dining room is complete!  We had the argyle wall about 75% complete when we really came to grips with the fact that we will be moving soon.  And I thought about repainting it to match the other 3 walls.  But we (Matt) worked so hard, I just couldn't paint over it.  It's one of those things that homebuyers will either love or hate.  And if they *really* hate it, I'll repaint it for them!



Before (walls were a sage green color):




After:


 


I think this is actually my favorite part of the room:

 



We are really happy with how it turned out.  And we already have plans for what we can do with argyle in the next house!

In case anyone is interested, this is the tutorial that we used for the argyle wall.  It provided great details for how to get started, which was the hardest part.  The biggest change we made was with the thin yellow stripe that runs through the diamonds.  For those, I marked the centers of all sides of the diamonds and taped off the lines.  I just eyeballed the thickness of the line, and I like the variety that it resulted in.


I'm just about done with my sewing room.  I have 2 wallhangings left to create, and then I'll share pictures of that project!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Lots of free crafting stuff!

We just finished painting my sewing room in preparation for potentially selling our house (although it now looks so cool, I don't want to leave it!).  What I've found in the decorating process is that it's hard to hide lots of junk!  I've already packed up 7 or 8 boxes of stuff that I haven't used in months, and in the process I've also found a ton of stuff that I just don't need anymore.  The list is below.  If you want something, comment or email me and I'll hold it for you.  Locals can pick up any time.  If you're not local but you really want something, I will ship but you'll have to paypal me the shipping cost before I send it.


IKEA curtains that I've been cutting up to use as muslin.  Cream in color.  I think there's over 3 yards of usable fabric.

2 PVC hand quilting hoops (13"x19", 11" square)

Foam scraps (the 5" green foam and some 2" white foam).  1 large (16"x11") and 1 small (2.5"x13")  green scrap.  White scrap is 11"x15" square

bag of quilting cotton scraps.  These scraps are pretty small, less than 5" square

bag of fleece scraps.  Some are up to 2 yards long, maybe about 10" wide

2 bags of scraps that aren't 100% cotton.  These range in size, print, weight, etc.  Some home dec, garment fabric, drapery lining, JoAnn's version of minky scraps, etc.

NIB baby photo album

roll of contact paper

cross stitch projects.  1 baby boy project that I started, 1 new baby girl project, 1 other project that I started.

Sewing machine bobbins.  I have no idea what type of machine they are for.  Probably either a Singer or New Home.

scrapbooking metal edge tags

book light

itty bitty clothes pins

tiny red and white rosette thingies



That's it for now.  I may have more to add later!