Another white shirt

I finished another white shirt for me, this one sleeveless and made of a lightweight cotton lawn using a Vogue pattern.  I'd been searching high and low since about May for a well-fitting sleeveless shirt.  I had to finally give up and make my own.  Well, it took less than a week so it wasn't too bad.

This is after altering the armholes, darts, and painstakingly placing and sewing on the pockets.  Getting the pockets lined up precisely and stitched on took the better part of an hour, phew.

Front, buttoned most of the way up.

Front, buttoned all the way up.  I'm pretty happy with the how the collar turned out.  

Back.

One more

This one was a fast make, and Lucy went and made mud pies right afterward, so it's in the wash tonight!  It is made from a Robert Kaufman strawberry cotton knit, traced from a nightgown.

Still tracing and cutting the odd teal and red quilt piece here and there, and gathering supplies to make a couple more shirts.  

Minty fresh dandelions

Lucy has a new summer dress based on an old nightgown, enlarged of course.  Took about an hour from start to finish, and used maybe 2/3 of a yard of mint-blue quilting cotton with a dandelion motif.  Here she is spraying in the yard.

And us out this morning.

Button-up

My white button-up shirt was badly stained, so I went looking for a replacement but couldn't find anything that worked.  Fortunately, the fabric shop up the street had a comparable pattern and some white cotton/linen blend.  

It started out much longer, but I couldn't put my hands in my pockets easily so I chopped off a few inches.

Lots of top-stitching, and it came out pretty well. 

I like how this shirt turned out, but next time I may track down a pattern with a collar stand.  Camp collars work, but they're not my absolute favorite.  Either way, this ought to get a lot of wear this summer and I'm happy with the result.  

Test squares

I went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston a couple weeks ago and there was a quilt exhibit.  And there was a quilt done in the "Rob Peter to Pay Paul" pattern that I loved - it was done in two plain contrasting colors.  So at home I doodled in my sketchbook for a while to try out color ideas and remembered I had a magazine with a paper pattern for this block.  (Thanks, Mom.)  Then I looked through my fabric and found a red-orange silk/linen and a teal linen, colors I was thinking of using.

An hour or so later, and here's the test blocks:

Definitely not perfect, and I need to square up the blue corner....but well, it's a start.  I just read that this is a square for "experienced" quilters.  Guess I'll just give it a try, anyway!

I also sewed the bottom band on Lucy's dress and neglected to take a picture, and have a shirt for me half-way done with no photo.  Photographer, I am not.  

Polka dots and paper

I realized, since I actually work on so much I ought to actually take photos of what I'm doing, not just wait for something to be worthy to show.  These things I'd consider "ordinary" and not really worth showing normally, but maybe they're fun to see.

First, some origami.  I've been making modular sculptures for several years now, folding a few pieces here and there.  They help pass the time when I'm thinking a lot or sick.  This one is following a tutorial for a large starburst.

Second, another little girl's dress.  Lucy picked out the blue fabric, and I added the grey.  It needs a band of blue on the bottom and it's done.   From an Oliver and S (time consuming!) pattern.  Nothing is absolutely perfect, but I don't really ever mind.

Front, there are v's in the neckline and pockets

Back

No photos of random paper cutouts and lots of watercolor doodles.  Maybe I'll remember to take some pictures.

A Technicolor Quilt

Or maybe a pixelated quilt.  Anyway, it's done!  

The slightly wonky perspective is deceiving.  It did end up a rectangle with straight sides, which was reassuring since I didn't trim the batik strips I started with, and they were slightly different widths...woops.  Anyway, all's well that ends well.

Some failure

First there were the skipped stitches on the middle few rows.  

Tension problem?  Going too fast with a walking foot?  I don't have enough experience to know.  I sewed the rows down, going very very very slowly.  Didn't have the patience to unpick and re-sew.  (Sigh.)  But it doesn't look too bad, for a first try at all this.  Ahem.  And the  butterflies are doing their job of distracting.

I felt better, so I got out the binding I had cut out and sewn together over the weekend.  I sewed it together just like binding for clothing (I thought) except I managed to somehow sew one strip to the front of one, then that strip to the back of the next, alternating back-front-back-front, the entire way.

(This is with it folded to show the alternating seam problems.)

So......I must cut it all apart and re-sew.  What's that line about falling off a horse?

Before and almost after

It's so close to being done.  This was at 3:30pm, right before I started quilting.

A couple hours of stitch-in/around/near-the-ditch, then dinner and cleanup, and then I did the last bits.  This was later tonight after trimming away the extra batting.

Next up, cut binding.  Phew.  

Bright and colorful quilt top

I finished it!  And it only took four months, ha.  The patchwork matching is a bit sad, but I don't mind that much.  At least it can only get better.  Here's a photo with Lucy this afternoon.

The colors are a little off, so the hot pinks aren't as bright, and the dark greens aren't nearly as dark.  We're off to the fabric store tomorrow to look for batting and backing.  Woohoo!

Some crafts

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down with a cup of tea and some knitting and asked Lucy what she'd like to do.  First choice: play dough.  She flattened it out and poked holes, looked for doodle bugs, chased them around the house, and finally put them back in the play dough.  Then, she put the play dough away and got out the pipe cleaners we had picked up on a whim.  I was just knitting, and Lucy sat next to me with the pipe cleaners.  We talked, sang a whole bunch of songs, and I told "baby Lucy stories" (her favorite, besides baby Daddy, baby Zoey, and baby Mommy stories).  A little while later she announced, "Mommy, I made you a spider!"

Then she made a second spider, for herself.

Next to them is my knitting, which looks fairly controlled and joy-less, especially when compared to those technicolor spiders.  But, that will turn into a nice scarf of lace-weight merino wool done in a slip-stitch to show off the color changes, which are unfortunately hard to see in the photo - greens, browns, and turquoise.

As we were working on our things, she announced that some day she would knit, too, but today she wanted to just make stuff.  Oh, to be two again.

An orange hat

Still working on the quilt layout, which is happening on an old bed sheet that I can roll up to store.  In the meantime, Lucy needed a new hat, since hers is getting too small.  (sigh)

I took her to the yarn shop and led her to the easy-care yarns, and she picked some orange yarn with tweedy flecks.  Pattern was this bonnet.  It turned out well, but just in time for more spring-like weather.

Bonus: with my small head, I can wear it too.  

Messed around with quilt squares today before a sick little girl woke up, came up with this.

Hm.  I'll keep thinking.

Carnations, Paints, and Fabrics

Last week, I picked up white carnations on a whim.  We put food coloring in the water and seven days later, they're looking colorful.

Lucy wanted to splatter paint on some paper, like we do with watercolors, but wanted to use tempura paint.  That only works on big surfaces, so I put down oilcloth, got out a big canvas (yeah, I keep canvases on hand just in case), gave her some plastic cutlery and paints, and watched the magic begin.

I am slowly but surely cutting out fabric.  It is January and bleak out there, and a friend of my mom's (you know who you are) made the most beautiful BRIGHT quilt recently.  I was inspired!  So this is the beginning of my first quilt as an adult in bright batiks.  It'll be a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants thing.

Lucy and I were looking for something to do this afternoon.  It is cold, snowy, and dark, so neither of us felt like going for a walk.  Instead, we pulled out some scraps and old buttons and made this:

She seems to like it.

Something got finished

Whew, I finally got something finished.  Sort of ground to a halt on the last top I was making her, due to weather and other malaise, but I did get a pair of brown knit pants cut out and sewn.  They were in the works for a week, just waiting for the hour it took to get them stitched up.  Today I finally got them finished, and the little girl is thrilled.  I'm glad to get that done with!

So excited, she could hardly hold still.  

Too Hot

I meant to have another small garment finished by today, but it's just been too hot to do anything lately.  Hopefully it'll cool off and I'll recoup over the weekend, because Lucy needs the pair of pants I have cut out and yet to finish.  I'm also hoarding some red silk-linen and debating making a dress.  But who needs a red every-day dress, really?  (My husband thinks it would be great.)  I'm thinking I'll make a normal dress in brown or green broadcloth and use that to fine-tune a red version, which I'd wear for all the RSCDS (Scottish dancing) balls and parties I'm scheduled to play for in the winter and spring.  Festive!  Now I just need to procure some brown or green broadcloth, no polyester please, at a good price.  

Second verse, same as the first

Number two is in size 2T in a quilting cotton.  I didn't get a good shot of the fabric detail, but it is a medium pink background with white, pink, and orange dots.  I wanted orange buttons, but these are ok.

Front

Back

The cotton is a bit stiff.  A good wash ought to soften it up a bit.  But, as it is, it's a cute shape.

(Turning around and saying "cheese")

On to the third!  Next is a light blue cotton lawn that incredibly soft.

Finished!

This came together fairly quickly, once I was able to put in twenty minutes here and there.  It helped that Lucy wanted to "sew", too, so one afternoon I spent an hour and a half sewing while she sat next to me and stuck pins in pincushions, etc.  I sewed on the last buttons yesterday evening, and then Lucy wanted to wear it for a while.  The light was terrible, so I didn't get any good photos.  Another time!

The front

The back

The fabric is a light peach cotton lawn (I'm guessing it's a lawn, because it's crisp and not drapey like a voile) that stays a little wrinkly, but it pressed nicely on all the hems and pintucks.  It didn't ease well on the sleeve caps, but I'm ok with that.  The buttons are from the fabric store up the street.  The topstitching went well, thanks to easy seam guides on my new machine.  

I am really satisfied with this project.  This was hands-down the best clothing pattern I have ever used.  The outside is lovely, the insides have no exposed seams.  I can't wait to trace up the next one and try other patterns.

Pintucks

There are twelve of them.

I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked because my sewing machine is too loud to use while Lucy sleeps - every time I have tried to get something done quickly, she comes out of her room and lets me know it's too loud.  Trying to sew while she is awake was somewhat productive, but only as long as she was distracted with pins and a pincushion.  Long story short, my husband convinced me that maybe a newer, quieter machine would be a good idea.  Frugality and thrift runs in my family (though I didn't get a huge dose), so I didn't want to give up my perfectly good free machine from the 80's....but, I found a really good deal (necessary to appease the thrift gene) and caved.  Hello Singer 9660, hello uninterrupted sewing time.  It is a very quiet machine and I am very happy.