Thank goodness for twelve days of Christmas-- I'm going to need all of them. My dining room table still looks like the first photo. I'll clean it off for tomorrow, but I still have plans for more sewing of Christmas gifts. I've sent out about 40 or so felt bird ornaments into the world with a few more to hatch tonight.
Yesterday afternoon (cutting it close), I finished a new set of fall napkins for our Thanksgiving table. I'm pleased with them as I've wanted some fall napkins for several years. I also cut out the fabric for a dress which I hope to sew today in between preparing the Thanksgiving sides. Ambitious? Yes. Thanks to my brother-in-law, the smoked turkey is already done. We also spent the day playing and talking with family, and my sister and I prepared a five- dish Indian meal-- probably more time consuming than our Thanksgiving preparations.
I haven't been around the blog in a few days because I've been busy painting two bedrooms and sewing for one. My 10-year-old daughter needed an update. I had promised to re-do her room at the beginning of the summer, and since I return to work next Tuesday, I had to get busy!
Gone are the green walls, curtains, and rug that we inherited when we moved into this house about 5 years ago. Instead, we painted lavender walls and made curtains and a duvet cover based on patterns and instructions in Meg McElwee's book, Sew Liberated. We still have a few finishing touches-- organizing stuff, cleaning the closet, sewing a new sham & a seat cover for the desk hair, making fabric covered bulletin boards, and re-hanging some artwork.
We love the new look-- perfect for a tween and her dolls.
Two cups of tea, two sewing machines, two sisters, and two sewing projects.
One cat who does a little of everything: reclining on the IPad with the instructions for one of the sewing projects, sniffing the sewing machines, playing with bits of ribbon and string, batting bunches of fabric, fetching a ball, messing up my applique design.
Two hours of afternoon entertainment. All three of us were purring.
I made this small sewing machine for very small projects. My daughter put the rest of the mini-sewing kit together-- small bits of fabric, small spools of thread (the travel kit kind), small buttons, small scraps of elastic, the small strawberry from my larger strawberry pincushion, and a button shaped like a pair of scissors. Perfect for small hands. She even put together a mini knitting basket using toothpicks for the knitting needles!
We also have a large sewing project planned. After looking online at pages and pages of girl's bedroom linens and "tween" sets, we decided to design our own using the paint colors she picked out at the hardware store. Very soon, she will have a lavender and light aqua room with purple and pink accents. We plan to sew curtains, a duvet cover, and paint before school starts. The best part is that we will design, sew, and paint together.
I love that my 10 year-old daughter is still young enough to play with her dolls and old enough play an equal part in a large project. Let's add this to my Loving list.
Call me Scarlett, please. I have made a skirt lined with an old curtain. It is a Barcelona skirt, to be exact, and the lining is a re-purposed, muslin curtain from days in the "Gin House" (our house in Tunica that was next to a cotton gin). The curtain was moved to 4 houses after the Gin House because I always knew that I would do something with it. I have more of these muslin curtains, and I have a feeling that I'll make another one of these skirts soon. I may also re-use these curtains in some quilts within the year. Stay tuned!
invisible zipper detail
lining detail
The skirt was a joy to make even though I ruined the first zipper attempt and had to make a run to the fabric store for another zipper. The hardest part about the invisible zipper was figuring out how to put the invisible zipper foot on my machine. I persevered, may have said a choice word or two, and learned how to put in an invisible zipper and a lining! Through making the other two garments shown with the skirt in the first and last photos, I have learned several new "intermediate" sewing skills including waist darts, facings, and pleats. The orange print dress is Built By Wendy's Simplicity 3835. The purple tunic/dress is Sew Liberated's Schoolhouse Tunic.
Remember, dear blog readers, I've been charged with daily posts about the cats while my children visit their grandparents, so here is the second installment. It also involves sewing. Our kitchen chair seats are covered in some kind of woven fiber that the cats love to use as scratching material. Some scratching posts for cats are even made out of this same fiber, so I don't blame them. Really. But I decided it was time to take action and deter this behavior with a little sewing project.
I used some fabric from my stash with which I had intended to make cloth napkins. I drafted a pattern with newspaper and measurements (very satisfying). I didn't really want a poofy cushion, so I only layered them with cotton quilt batting. I made several mistakes and fixed some of them. The result of my afternoon endeavor is four "seat quilts" (that currently do not have ties to keep them in place-- one of my mistakes in the inside-out layering process).
The cats wasted no time trying them out. I could hardly take photos to document my work before they were all over the seat quilts and posing for photographs.
I started piecing the tops for these pillows about 6-9 months ago using the wonky, log cabin method. Two of the pillows were completed yesterday with a sewing friend (a perfect way to spend a slightly overcast spring break afternoon). Even though both of us usually have our cameras ready for "process documentation," we were both so engaged with sewing and conversation that we forgot about photography. My friend Sarah made a snazzy, string-pieced shoulder bag from an online tutorial that I had used earlier in the week with single pieces of fabric.
These cases have envelope backs. Instead of quilting the tops with a layer of batting and muslin, I used a single layer of flannel to give the illusion of quilting and to protect the inside seams while washing. I machine quilted them with a random, square spiral from the outside edge to the center.
I still have several other wonky, log cabin pillows to finish for other rooms in the house. These live in the kitchen on some old, painted-red wicker furniture that has seen better days but is now cheered up with squares of color and fresh fabric. The knitted log cabin blanket for which I'm still weaving in ends (photo below from some outside knitting earlier in the week) will also find a home with these pillows.
I made my first quilt! Never mind that it only measures 16 x 19 inches. I made my first quilt. . . in one day! I used this tutorial with fabric I gathered over a year ago because I liked the happy prints of primary colors. Making it was infinitely pleasurable. Besides breakfast, a shower, a trip to the art museum to see and create puppets, lunch, a bundled-up walk with the children and dog, and watching last week's episode of Emma, I did nothing else today except work on this quilt. I started it in my pajamas and finished it in a different pair of pajamas. What fun.
Granted, I did not try any fancy quilting techniques. For that, I need a friend or a local sewing shop to help me learn how to change out the special presser feet I ordered almost a year ago. But I did learn how to make the binding from scratch and attach it properly.
Now, my daughter has another accessory for her dolls just in time for her sketchbook assignment for the week:
"It's a Doll's World. Gather your favorite dolls or action figures. Create an environment for them so that they relate in some way to each other. Use a light to increase the drama of light and shadow. Fill the page with your drawing."
The second photo is her staging for the assignment complete with the appropriate lighting and shadows. She will start sketching tomorrow, and I've already started cutting out the pieces for the next project.
Two sets of colorful napkins for two children. . . for each day of the school week. . . yes, I have made "day of the week" lunchbox napkins!
Don't ask me what prompted me to do this. We have plenty of cloth napkins, and we have been using them this year even in school and work lunchboxes. It may have been the bright Kona cotton solids on sale for half off at the beginning of January. It may have been the reason to try one of Amy Karol's fabric decorating ideas. It gave me an excellent excuse to practice using some of the decorative stitches on my inherited PfaffHobbymatic 955. But most of all, it was the desire to make the daily chore of packing lunchboxes a little brighter and give my children a colorful reminder of home.
It was a gratifying project that took four weekends:
one weekend to buy the fabric, wash it, and iron it
one weekend to cut the fabric (using the size guidelines and instructions here) and let the children pick out their color combinations
one weekend to apply the bleach pen to the top fabric and re-wash it (spelling out the day of the week on one edge and the children's names on the other edges of the napkin)
and this weekend to put the napkins together, sew them, and try out the fancy stitches.
The bleach pen took a little practice, and I would be more careful next time about applying enough to make my lettering bolder and more consistent. None of the local craft stores in town had the metal, precision tip (discovered after an afternoon of searching), so I ordered it from Joann Fabric and Craft Stores. I messed up several times trying out the decorative stitches on the sewing machine, but I learned several things by trial and error that will help me next time I want to use these. For the decorative borders, I used bright blue thread for my son and bright pink thread for my daughter so that we can easily tell the napkins apart when putting them away.
I think this project would make a sweet gift for anyone who mostly takes their lunch to work or school each day. It was the perfect way to spend a cold and slightly snowy day.
P.S. As reported by my 10-year-old daughter, taking cloth napkins to elementary school in Mississippi is just a little counter-cultural. When her friends asked her why she had fabric in her lunch box, she explained about global warming and reducing waste. I love that she tells me about conversations like this. Who knows, maybe we'll start a new trend!
