holding my breath

Tags

sewing, tova, tova top

Do you hold your breath when you are doing something new and challenging? To the point where you suddenly get dizzy and your heart pounds, and you think, gee, what is wrong with me–and then you breathe, and you’re like, oh.

I am a perpetual breath holder. I know I do it, and there’s still no stopping. My head rings, my heart bumps. And I am trying to figure out why it is so exhausting OMG to just cut out a danged shirt?! Silly me. Breathe in, breathe out.

Thus commences my first garment sewing. I’ll check in as it goes! If this one turns out (this is the Maria print from Maya by Leah Duncan for Anthology–I KNOW it’s gorgeous. You should feel it, it’s unreal), then I’ll proceed with my Liberty Tova.

When I made my first quilt I kept telling myself, you are born to this. My mom, grandma, great-grandmother, they all quilt(ed). Well, nobody’s a better dressmaker than my momma (except for maybe my paternal grandmother 🙂 ) so I’m born to this too, right? fingers crossed.

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storm day (and other hysteria)

Tags

fire drill quilt, quilts, sewing

We’re OK!

NEB closed, like most MA businesses at the request of Gov. Patrick, so Nate was off work today. Happily, we had power all day. (knock wood for tonight.) More happily, and thanks to Lucy’s Halloween tutu and pumpkin (who knew it was so much fun to carry candy around while wearing a tutu? Seriously, hours and hours of fun), I spent a big chunk of my day at the sewing machine. I managed to finish all of my Fire Drill blocks:

I’m working hard to get this top totally pieced by the next meeting of quilt guild, so I can have a new quilt project for show and tell. Piecing this has been not a picnic, but it hasn’t been too awful difficult either. I look at this picture and think, man, it looks like I worked hard. Sure I did work hard, but…this wasn’t any kind of tricky, either. The result is so classic and lovely but also just a touch different. Prediction: more people will make this in 2013, and it’ll become a modern quilting classic a la wonky crosses or similar. Truth.

I also finished my “one-night, easy, seed-stitch cowl,” aka My First Knit. It’s LOVELY. Pics this week? This afternoon while watching Call the Midwife I finished tacking down the binding on my Spinning Stars quilt, so I also need to post a wrapup of that one. Preview: I don’t hate it anymore.

I wrote myself a little to-do list for this week, and it’s hysterical. In all senses. I just counted the weeks until the mail-for-Christmas deadline and I’ve got to make about 1.5 gifts (aprons/pillow covers) per week to make my deadlines! Plus, seeing as how the Fire Drill is for my MIL and I’ve never made ANYTHING for my own momma, I’d like to get her a quilt in the works for Christmas (I’m thinking the Grass quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts, only in teal/turquoise; I’ll call it “Sky”?). I’d also like to join in on the Value Added QAL by doing a version of Badskirt’s Bargain Basement. And there’s the issue of my quilt guild nametag. And my Tova. And the knitting, which is becoming a new, insane problem.

So if I’m not here, I’m either keeled over from exhastion. Or I am at the sewing machine. 🙂

under the wire

Tags

quilt, quilting, sewing, spinning stars quilt

I admitted last week that my goal for finishing my Spinning Stars handquilting was today.

There’s nothing like admitting to a goal in public to hold you to it. Against all odds, and just under the wire (i.e. ten minutes ago, i.e. thirty-five minutes before the end of Nap Time), I put the last hand stitch in this beast today.

 

I had hoped to bind it off by today, too, so I could sit under it this weekend. Alas! Life gets in the way. Oh and also, in the way, the cowl I started knitting. Which I only might share if it turns out okay. I’ve ripped it out and redone it probably 7 times so far. (Funny. The pattern claimed it was an “easy, one-night” cowl. *shakes fist* damn you Pinterest!)

And I caved and bought the Tova top pattern today. Someone was wearing one at quilt guild this past weekend and I cannot. stop. thinking. about making one. I’ve only been coveting the Liberty J.Crew Perfect Shirts since, oh, the very moment they hit the shelves, so I’m thinking a Liberty Tova? It’ll be about $100 cheaper if I can make it work. I ordered the fabric today (Liberty Lifestyle Bloomsbury Gardens Catherine Colorway A), so so so…

that Sam-I-am! that Sam-I-am!

Tags

costume, halloween, sam i am costume, sewing

I do SO like that Sam-I-am. 🙂

Yesterday was Nate’s work Halloween party. Every year I am AMAZED by how much they pull out the stops for this thing. They have beer and wine for the grown-ups, a huuuge spread of snacky foods, piles of candy and treats for the kiddos, a pumpkin carving contest, cornholing, a donut eating contest–and these people do not kid around about their costumes. I maybe saw one other homemade costume running around the place–most of the others were very elaborate and impressive.

Lucy, who does not yet particularly care what she is for Halloween, recently became infatuated with Green Eggs and Ham. I have green-eggs-and-ham’ed until I am blue in the face. She can say “HAMMMMMM” in a bizarre voice. I thought this would be a precious costume that reflects her right-this-second interests.

I think I bought 1/2 a yard of yellow felt (72”) and 1/4 yard of red. Then some felt scraps of white, green, and black to make the eggs and ham. Taking a cue from a costume I found on Pinterest, I made a little wrist strap for her plate of eggs and ham. Lucy still wasn’t crazy about carrying the eggs and ham so people thought she was a gnome.

Still, a little gnome in a tall red hat is pretty durn cute, so whatever. I am trying to make an annual tradition out of Lucy-in-her-costume-with-her-Daddy-at-work pictures, so here’s this year’s:

Crappy lighting (mix of natural and artificial light gets the camera every time!) and Sam has her mouth full. Of sugar, no doubt. Still, her costume turned out cute, cost about $11, and took a hour or so to make. I’d do it again!

low light

Tags

family, sewing, space, teacup apron

 

Pardon the silence here. We’ve gone through a few minor changes this weekend: we’re now a 2-car family (hooray! no more driving husband to work and picking him up on days that Lucy needs to go to the Little Gym), and we have a new dining room table and chairs. Funny how having all those books forces one to downsize in other ways. Because my “sewing space” is also our eating space, my sewing space has changed, too.

We went pumpkin picking. Yeah, my 18-month-old says “pumpkin” AND “jack-o-lantern.” I love the long stem on my big pumpkin, and don’t think I can bring myself to carve it. Lu’s pumpkin is destined for pie (it’s a special variety of pie pumpkin) but shhh don’t tell.

And I made that Teacup Apron from Sew Liberated. In Liberty prints natch, for a special friend who’s a modernist. Couldn’t resist some Bloomsbury Gardens prints for a fellow Woolf-y.

I know this picture is blurred to heck, but I love how it is a quiet, still space full of things I chose and made and love. And if you haven’t bought your pumpkin yet…do it. now.

Sewing hard! I hope I can come up for air from all of this week’s stitching to show more brag pictures.

piecing fire drill

Tags

fire drill quilt, quilts

I’m writing this while the baby’s sleeping in and I’m enjoying some coffee-blogging-Honey Boo Boo time. (Sometimes you’re in charge, and sometimes you just put your feet up and watch Honey Boo Boo while eating things.)

I’ve pieced quite a bit of my Fire Drill quilt (destined to become my MIL’s Christmas gift) since Sunday, even though I’ve been pretty lazy and haven’t spent a lot of time at the sewing machine. I think this one grows quickly–my favorite kind of quilt pattern! Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I need to play with the layout a bit, and make a better effort at picture-making, but…really, you can’t argue with that, yeah? I think it’s bee-yutiful. And, once I was through cutting, it wasn’t all that hard to do! (Honestly, the hard part of this one was the cutting, by a long shot. It’s all the different-size strips you have to cut and count. BUT EH’s done all the real work for us, so let’s be grateful and rejoice.)

It’s not a sit-and-sew quilt, though. I joked to my husband that it was called Fire Drill because I’m up and down to the iron so often that it’s like doing a Fire Drill, over and over again. My ironing board is in the opposite end of my apartment from the sewing machine, though, so if you’re blessed with a better setup, you won’t feel like you’re all over the place.

Probably the up-and-down isn’t so bad. I’ll be glad to burn off some of these Honey Boo Boo calories.

Hoping to spend this Friday and some of this weekend making more blocks, and maybe I’ll start an apron or two. I’m setting a tentative end date for my Spinning Stars hand-quilting at…next Friday. I’d really like to have that one done so I can start using it! Hoping the fall weather brings you all lots of sewing time, and some lovely baked goods.

also

Tags

books, Eleanor Catton, knitting

I read, a little. (Or lots.) Did you know? I find I haven’t checked the “books” box on this blog often enough lately. Probably because I haven’t felt particularly inspired by anything I’ve read lately. Oh sure, sure, there was Gone Girl and Marjorie Morningstar, both of which I sort of put off posting about while I chewed on what I felt about them, both separately and together.

But last night I bit my husband’s head off because he disturbed me while I was trying to finish a book. The nerve! Could only mean one thing: I was deep into a really, really good one.

‘Oh, but why can’t the two girls just perform a duologue about themselves?’ the saxophone teacher says, enjoying herself. ‘A play written for two girls.’

‘There aren’t any,’ Julia says. ‘There aren’t any plays about two girls. There aren’t any roles like that. That’s why you have to pretend.’

The Rehearsal, by Eleanor Catton, is the kind of book I wish I had the talent to write. It’s intimate, about women without being domestic (so rare and difficult to pull off!), and is just slightly odd and off-kilter. At the heart of the plot is an affair between a male teacher and a 17-year-old female student. The book is fallout: people close to the affair, people far away from the affair, talking, writing, performing, reacting to what happened between Victoria and Mr. Saladin.

The narrative shuttles between a saxophone teacher, whose students have been more or less touched by the affair, and an 18-year-old boy, a drama student across town. Both figures are guideposts for the other characters, while being pretty confused themselves about how they fit into their own lives. As the characters from the two spheres start to interact, the story both comes together and starts to unravel.

I loved most the descriptions of female adolescence, of girls relating to other girls, to adults, to boys, and to men. Catton’s two years younger than I am (!!) and she seems to remember well what it’s like to grow up smart and observant in a sea of hormone-addled peers. Instead of skewing sentimental, as so much writing about girls does, Catton stays sharp, clean, and poised, and the book is unusual and refreshing for it. Also, it is brilliant.

(See the snarled pea-green yarn knots? I’m also trying to practice my knitting so that one day I can make one of these gorgeous cowls that everyone else seems to just oh la make for themselves. It’s going to take a LOT of TV time for me to get that good. 🙂 )

from a weekend

Tags

fire drill quilt, quilting, sewing

Thursday into Friday, we had a little ol’ flu scare.

Not. fun. Especially for Momma, who cleaned-fed-clothed-laundered-Lysol’ed-consoled (Lucy did NOT understand why Daddy was shut in the bedroom by himself! Why no Lucy love?) for 48 hours, solo. There’s not enough wine in the world.

Saturday Nate woke up feeling better. So I dragged him to the outlets in Kittery, ME and spent a bunch of money at the J. Crew. And I made him go get Chipotle. And we drank a bottle of Pinot Grigio. And on Sunday, I put my foot down and I cut and sewed.

 

I rotary cut and then pieced and then hand quilted until my hands and wrists were stiff and swollen. I’ve never been happier. On the cutting board/in piecing: my Fire Drill quilt, cut using the templates I won in EH’s blog giveaway. “In quilting” is my Spinning Stars quilt which is looking MUCH better with some block rearrangement and tons of hand-quilting. No sneak peeks; you’ll just have to trust me. It’s going to be gorgeous.

 

I’ll post more this week about piecing the Fire Drill, but cutting it? Whoo dogies, this one’s intense. I chose a rather involved color scheme so it doesn’t really have to be this bad, but by the time I got all my little strips rationed into bags, I felt like some kind of drug dealer.

Eh, fabric. Drugs. Same diff sometimes. Digging in the stash certainly improved my weekend!

some ‘splaining to do.

Tags

fabric, quilts, sewing

Wow, when you stack it all up like this, it looks like I might sort of have a problem.

 

Needless to say, Stash Up 2012 is complete. This is a lot of fabric, yeah. No, I don’t really have an excuse. (Except that I did get it all on sale, on clearance, with a coupon code, or a combination of two of the above, pinky swear.)

Yes, I feel totally stashed up, prepared for Christmas crafting and the year of sewing ahead of me!

 

This little pile to the right of the main “stash rainbow” is a couple of little scrap bags I picked up from Pink Castle Fabrics when they ran their 20% off bundles sale a couple of weeks ago. Best. Fabric. Purchase. Ever. These are WOF scraps ranging from about 3” to 8 or 9”, and every last piece is good stuff. No uglies. I’m planning a scrap vomit quilt for early 2013, so even uglies would have been fine by me. But no, I got some FMF 2012, a piece of 1001 Peeps, some Aneela Hoey, some Lori Holt, Pezzy Dots, and that GORGEOUS piece of Anthology Maya right in the middle. (Have I mentioned that I immediately hit Etsy and found more yardage of several prints from this line and I have 4.25 yards of that still coming?) Scrap bags. Do it NOW.

 

And now I feel like I have my favorites from every line of fabric that came out this year. Seems it was an extraordinarily good year for fabric, and there has been so much to pick from that I haven’t been able to catch everything that I wanted. I got some Madrona Road (though not that Memoir print CURSES), Field Study, (more) Seaside, Hope Valley, and was lucky to find a few Pearl Bracelet prints on Etsy.

Whew. Forget ‘splaining. Somebody has some sewing to do.

craft-stravaganza apron

Tags

aprons, dresden apron, sewing

Christmas Craft-stravaganza aprons!

While I’m still organizing my thoughts re: Christmas crafting–Craft-stravaganza-ing!–here’s the beginnings of the whole shebang. I’ve ordered probably 25 yards of fabric in the past few weeks (in case my husband is reading: don’t worry I had coupon codes… :[ ) and have decided that this might be the only/last year that I have time to make it a homemade Christmas. Tree skirt? YES please. Table toppers? Quilted stockings? Handmade gifts? EMBROIDERED GIFT TAGS?! Well, maybe.

But this apron is a good start. The ever-talented Maureen Cracknell of Maureen Cracknell Handmade posted this tutorial at the Riley Blake blog about a month ago, and I knew it’d be a big part of Christmas 2012. I have a grandiose packaging-gifting plan (to be shared once I’ve gathered the bits and pieces) and it involves aprons, and it, in part, involves this (free! super-cute!) apron tutorial.

Another title for this post could have been, “why did it take me so damn long to buy an EZ Dresden ruler?” because, seriously. I’ve been drooling over Dresden blocks and Dresden quilts of all ages and makes for the three years I’ve been sewing but I had pretty much convinced myself that Dresdens were fiddly and hard and I should just save them for when I knew what I was doing. Cut to now, when I still don’t know what I’m doing, but managed to whip out these two Dresdens for the apron pockets in about two hours, during which time I also fed, bathed, storytime’d, and put to bed a toddler. Easy-peasy.

Normally I don’t have much use for half aprons, but when I saw this tute I had a hunch that the wide waistband was meant to be tied high–at natural waist, not where your jeans hit–and I was so right! It’s pretty and flattering AND it’ll keep Thanksgiving pie flour off my shirt. Right where the counter hits my midsection is my messy spot, and this apron’s got it covered.

Self-portraits are the awkwardest, yeah?