stockings

I whipped up some Christmas stockings last weekend in an effort to try and make it look festive in our house. We don't have a tree because I'm paranoid about Fenix trying to climb it and potentially pulling it down on himself -- not worth the anxiety!

So we hung garland over the the doorway, wreaths on our front door and in another spot inside, and the stockings are hanging above the mantle.

The stockings were really easy to make. I bought a yard of blue and gray felt and a quarter of burgundy felt along with a spool of burgundy satin ribbon. I drew the pattern freehand on a big sheet of paper and then used my Olfa rotary cutter with a scalloped blade to cut out the pieces of fabric.

I cut the letters freehand and then stitched those onto the blue front panel first. Then I stitched the front and back panels together with a regular old top stitch - sandwiching a strip of ribbon folded in half between the two to make a little loop for hanging.

I finished it off by making a pompom from some variegated scrap yarn that happened to match perfectly!

Here they are, waiting to be filled:

hand made, mcg made

photo: me knitting a baby hat whilst still pregnant, august 2007

So apparently handmade gifts are super trendy this year. I'm feeling kinda good about this because it's always been really important for us to put a personal touch on the gifts that we give to our loved ones.

My friends are very creative people and I feel lucky to have received handmade gifts from them. But the good news is that you don't have to be creative to make nice handmade gifts. They can be really easy and in most cases none of it requires a lot of work or money to execute.

Last year we gave away homemade vanilla extract, pregnant belly salve, lip balm, infused whiskey, rosemary limoncello, change purses made from upcycled leather, mulling spices (for wine or cider), and things knit by me

This year we plan to give away more whiskey and mulling spices to folks that didn't get any last year as well as more hand knit and home sewn items.

What are you making this year?

simplicity 3692

So I finally got around to making that dress that I mentioned ages ago. It's a Built By Wendy pattern... Simplicity #3692.

Now that I've made my first dress, I can't believe how easy it was and I feel stupid for being intimidated by the idea of making clothes.

For this dress I used bamboo jersey in a heathered dark purple color. The pattern has 3 options -- A, B and C. A is an a-line dress with short sleeves, B is a 3/4 sleeve tunic style shirt and C is a sleeveless top with a gathered elastic bottom. I made a combo of A and B -- a dress with 3/4 length sleeves.

The most taxing part of this project was the sewing of the sleeves but even that wasn't really too troublesome.

Here is a photo of me in the finished product:

goodbye cords, hello skirt

I came across a project on cut out and keep the other day that totally inspired me. It's a pretty basic idea - you take your old jeans or pants and turn them into a skirt. This was right up my alley.
You see, I am very guilty of holding onto clothes that don't quite fit properly in hopes that I will some day regain my girlish figure. This is not happening folks. That's where this project comes in since it's good for those old pants that are really cute but are a little too snug in the thigh and ass region.
Click here for the tutorial.

Check out my finished version below. I have another pair of these cords in yellow and I'll be skirtifying them in short order. Notice that I took a little more care in the finishing than what is shown in the tutorial by using the cut off pant leg to form a panel in the front and back of the skirt. This makes a more a-line silhouette which is more flattering on someone with a curvy figure (such as myself).

tribute quilt

Holy cow! An incredibly talented woman who works with my mom made this amazing quilt using photos that she found on our flickr site.

There are some mean people in my life right now and I've been feeling a little bit down about it. But now my faith in the goodness of people is restored. I can't believe that someone took the time and energy to make something so lovely for a baby that she hasn't even met yet!

Thank you Rosie! Hopefully we'll get to meet you when we fly out there in May.

cute clutches

I've been putting my new sewing machine to good use since I got it. After a bit of experimentation I've refined some ideas that I had about little clutches that I wanted to make and I have a couple of finished pieces that I'm really happy with. I'll probably sell these on my etsy site.

Here they are:
Black leather with green chenille leaf applique:




Loden green, wool felt with black felt f hole applique:

sew happy. sew very happy.

I got my new sewing machine. Finally. I went in looking at one model and as I am often prone to do, I ended up buying a much more expensive one. But it was on sale. Half off! But it's a freaking dream boat. I love it. Now to get 5 minutes of free time so I can actually use it.

Side note... Jason is building me a craft room in the back half of the garage. He's already started the work! So those 5 free minutes are really going to be hard to come by over the next several weeks but the end result is that I will actually have a proper place to sew and craft and do whatever the hell I want to do without making a mess out of the common areas of my home.

Anyway here is a picture of the sewing dream machine:

how much fabric can i order?

Seriously how much fabric can a person reasonably stock pile before it becomes hoarding? Mind you, I'm not there yet but I can see how this is a very slippery slope that I'm headed down.

So why am I rambling about fabric anyway?
Check out this fabric store:
http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/fabric

They have some of the same stuff that repro depot carries but then there are lots of other very cool things that repro depot doesn't have. Also it looks like just about everything is roughly 9 bucks a yard. That is a sweet deal in my book.

Some faves from purl soho:

another blankie

I went back to the fabric store and got more minky dot backing in yellow and pink as well as some nice printed flannel and a brown and pink polka dot fine wale corduroy.

I also switched to a top stitching method for attaching the front and back of the blankets so that they will have a more squared edge.

What I don't sell at the fair, I'll either keep and use for Fenix or give away to a few of my pregnant friends as gifts.

Here is one of the fruits of my labor from today:

saturday is sewing day

Today I tried my hand at sewing up some small baby blankets. My friend Tyesha asked me to participate in a craft fair with her next weekend and I wanted to have a little more to sell besides just a handful of baby hats. I've been trying my hand at knitting booties too but these blankets come together so quickly that I'd rather just make a bunch of these to fill out my contribution to the sale.

I bought 4 different types of fabric and made two different designs from them. The store didn't have much in the way of fabric with modern prints so I'll be looking around town for something more interesting. I plan to make several more before next weekend.

Anyway here are some of the designs that I made: