on injured reserve

I've been knitting like a crazy person on my Faux Russian Stole - this is 3 complete repeats of the pattern, with 2.5 left to go. So I'm past the halfway point! It is still a very enjoyable knit and I am excited about the finished product, but unfortunately I was starting to have hand and wrist pain while working on it. I had to pretty much stop working on it over the holiday weekend. 

So while I rest my poor arm, I will accomplish other things. 

Sorry about the glare in the photo - the sun was directly behind the tree but this was the only place I could hang the dress and not have it blow away. The sewing is straight, but it is so windy the dress would not hang straight.

The dress is the second half of a birthday gift for the daughter of our good friends (the purple sweater is the other part). She just turned 3, and her party is coming up. I'm so thrilled with this little dress and pattern - I wish I'd had it 4 years ago when my own daughter was that age. It's Simplicity 2377 and it is just a perfect little dress pattern. 

This little girl's favorite color is purple, so I tried to find purple fabric but nothing called out to me in the store.  I went with this girly butterfly print and now I'm just hoping it's not too.....loud? Oh well, it's a tad obnoxious but you can get away with that when you're 3. 

I can highly recommend this dress pattern if you have a little girl in your life. It's 4 pieces that fit together like a perfect puzzle, and the elastic sleeve and neck openings are SO EASY. There's no need for any other closures (zippers or buttons) because of the elastic, which also means a gal can dress herself. Woot! I'll be making some of these for Daughter for sure (the pattern goes up to size 8). [I also like that you don't have to buy a bunch of expensive notions to make this...half the time I get a great deal on the fabric for kid projects and then have to spend a fortune on notions. Why are zippers, like, two dollars each??? This whole gift, start to finish, cost maybe $10 plus my time.]

It's incredibly hot and humid today - thunderstorms are rolling in and they can't get here soon enough. They're supposed to drop the temperature about 20 degrees by nighttime and I will take it! I love warm weather but not when it's so sticky you can't get anything done. Blech. So we'll see how the wrist feels later...I might have an update on my stole for Wednesday's knit along post, or perhaps I'll stick to sewing for a few more days. Heaven knows there are enough projects piled up to keep me busy for a long time.

one project at a time

Do you ever have so many things you want to make and do staring you in the face that you become almost paralyzed into doing none of them? I'm in that boat right now...so, so many awesome projects I've stumbled across around the web, so many little piles of supplies building up around the house, just waiting for me to find the time...there's the sewing pile, with pinned pattern pieces sticking out all willy-nilly, the knitting basket(s) with balls, skeins, patterns, and half-done projects languishing, and the cookbooks from the library stuffed with post-it notes to mark the recipes I want to try. Then of course the floors have dust bunnies, the laundry never stops, the ironing is building up and Hubs needs clothes for work, AJ is sick and needs constant nose-blowing assistance, our beloved speech therapist went and had her baby 3 weeks early so I'm scrambling to replace her, and my family somehow wants 3 meals a day (selfish!). I look at all that, and then I give up and flop in my comfy chair to browse the internet until bedtime. Pitiful!

It's just the usual stuff, the mommy stuff, the stuff we all deal with. It's challenging, it really is, and I wish we'd all acknowledge that more often. Today I was feeling pretty ace because I got the bedrooms straightened up, beds made/changed, clothes put away, rugs vacuumed...only to discover that while I was running the vacuum my son dragged furniture into a configuration that allowed him to scale the kitchen countertops and retrieve my glass pyrex measuring cups from the second highest shelf in the cupboard. Because he heard me mention making homemade granola bars today and he "just wanted to help." *sigh*

We did manage to make the granola bars. Only a little bit of the dry mixture ended up flung all over the kitchen...due to the aforementioned helper.

These are pretty good. I started with the recipe as written, subbing chocolate chips for raisins. I baked mine for only 25 minutes and could have even shortened that a bit (the recipe says 30-35). I used a dark pan and mine were not entirely even, particularly at the edges (again, I had "help") so the outside bars are a bit dark and crunchy. They do have a remarkably granola bar-like texture and they taste good.

Next time I will reduce the cinnamon (or skip it), and make some "grownup" bars with dried fruits and nuts. And probably some chocolate too, 'cause who am I kidding? Tiny chocolate chips are awesome. If I can perfect this I will switch to making my own all the time because even with the sugar and honey I bet they are better for us than the processed Quaker bars I buy by the truckload. Heck, they have wheat germ in them. Boom, healthy!

Ok, moving on, my sister asked me to take a bridesmaid dress she wore several years ago and re-make it into something for the bride's daughter. Should I admit that the daughter in question is 2 years old and my sis has been asking me to do this since the little girl was born? And that my sister has been asking me approximately every 6 months when I'm going to be able to get around to making the dress? Nah, I'm going to skip that part.

Anyway, I finally did it. The color of the dress defies description, so I was nervous about finding thread and a zipper to match. In some light it is yellowy, sometimes peach, sometimes pink. The underside of the dress fabric is actually hot pink. The lining is a pretty straight-up peach. My sister is very tall and it was a floor length dress so there was a lot of fabric to work with. The corset top was useless...I tried to pick the zipper out to re-use it but it was hopeless. So the entire toddler dress is made from the skirt of the bridesmaid dress. I chopped off the top 14" or so of both the dress fabric and lining, and made the bodice (and bodice lining) from those. I must mention that this fabric is a complete nightmare...the instant the scissors touch it the fibers disintegrate, basically. It was very difficult to work with!

I was able to then use the rest of the skirt from the original dress to make the smaller skirt you see here. The pattern pieces wouldn't fit on the remaining skirt, so I simply left it sewn together (front to back panels), gathered it, crossed my fingers, and sewed it to the bodice. The lining remained sewn in, too, so that was easy enough! Bonus: those seams were already serged.

More difficult was placing and sewing the zipper...I went with a regular zipper rather than invisible because I don't have an invisible zipper foot...oh, and I've never sewn an invisible zipper! I didn't think this was the project for trying new things, so I went with what I know. I used peach, and carefully pinned it so the dress fabric overlaps it perfectly in the back. The sewing gods were smiling on me, because it came out just right.

Then it was just a matter of hand stitching the lining down over the waist seam and hemming it (the skirt was the original length from the dress...I had to slice off about 15"). I did a pretty good trick, I think, to hem it. I measured down from the waist and marked the cutting line, then sewed a line of straight stitching on that line first. When I cut it a scant 16th of an inch away from the stitches, that stitching line prevented the fabric from unraveling while I folded and hemmed. I did the same with the lining.

Finally, the dress needed something to jazz it up. It was too plain. I took it to Michael's and was lucky to find this ombre ribbon that matches almost too perfectly. It was wired so I had to carefully pull the wire out of each side, but then I was able to turn the ends and stitch them, tack it in 3 places (center front and side seams), and tie a bow in the back.

Done! I hope my sis likes it and I hope her friend does too.

Oh, it is a size 3, using the bodice from New Look 6309.

Back to the to-do list.....

tiny (and frugal) baby tunic

Oops, once again I didn't mean to be gone so long. I was having, uh, mood issues. The combo of constant dark, dreary days, my general anxiety problem, and Hubs being away on a boondoggle business trip had me barely able to get out of bed and function, much less create and blog. But hey, today I feel myself coming out of it, hallelujah, so I need to take advantage. 

There's bread dough rising, I made a batch of muffins to use up the homemade applesauce that's been languishing in the fridge, and I managed to get a photo taken of the one handmade Christmas gift that's actually finished. Above you see a wee baby tunic for my sweet niece.

This is Simplicity 4243, in XS (7-13 lbs). The baby was 8.5 lbs as of last week when I spoke with my sister-in-law, so I figured this size should get her through Christmas. They live in SoCal, so I went with just the tunic (view D) rather than the longer dress. She can hopefully wear this with some little red leggings, which I hope to find pretty quickly so I can send them with the tunic, along with a white onesie and the white lacy sweater that I hope to finish in time (needs 1.5 sleeves and it is done). 

The frugal part is that this fabric was Daughter's Christmas jumper 4 years ago, when she was just 2 1/2 years old and I was about 5 minutes pregnant with AJ. Ah, the good old days, when I only had half the gray hair I have now. Anyway, I had maybe - maybe - a half yard of this corduroy. I had to smooth and adjust and smooth and adjust some more until the pattern just fit on the fabric. It was extremely simple to construct...just a front and two backs, a zipper, and some bias binding. I made that myself because I find the storebought stuff to be too stiff for tiny babies. Mine is just black quilting cotton cut 1.5" wide, folded in half, stitched to the right side, then turned to the back and topstitched. The only really tricky part was those tiny armholes. They did not fit around the free arm of my machine so there was some fabric gymnastics involved in getting that binding sewn down.

But it worked! And it is so sweet and wee and soft. I love it and hope they do too.

parade o' gifts...sidelined

Aw, dudes, I am so frustrated with myself right now. I finished up an adorable baby package for my bro-and-sis-in law who are expecting their baby girl in two weeks (squee!), and then wrapped it up without taking any pictures.

I ask you, what kind of blogger does that?!? I am so lame.

Oh well, I can still tell you about it. Along with some store-bought Gerber gowns and a Captain America little golden book (the dad is a pretty big fan...has a C.A. tattoo, even), I made this sweater in pink, some coordinating booties, and a small quilt.

The quilt...oh, I wish so much I had photographed it. Those of you who have hung around here for many years might remember this quilt. Gosh, was it that long ago already? Anyway, I had all that fabric separated from my main stash, and a lot of it already cut into 2.5" strips, so I figured I'd use it for a baby girl quilt. But when I opened the bin, I found lots and lots of finished quilt blocks, leftovers from that original quilt. Score!

So I made a mini version, using a 7 X 7 layout. The blocks are 6" so it ended up about 42" square. I used the same franken-binding from the original, too...still had several feet of it so I just added strips. It came out so sweet and cute. *kicking self for forgetting pictures*

Mmmmkay, that's done. Tomorrow, Halloweeeeeeeeeen! I have a bee and a ladybug to show you!

birthday gift sewing

On Friday we got home from the hospital around lunchtime. We all ate a bit, then Hubs (who is suffering from a sinus thing) crashed on the couch, and AJ crashed in his crib for a monster nap, so I decided to start the birthday outfit I intended to give as a gift on Saturday.

Nothing like waiting until the last possible minute.

I used Butterick 4176 in a size 2.

{As an aside, let me just say that I have no concept of appropriate sizes to sew for other people's children. When I asked my friend to measure her daughter's chest so I could make the right size, I almost fell over when she gave me the exact same measurement as Daughter...who is SIX YEARS OLD. Folks, believe me when I say I have some skinny kids.}

I must recommend this pattern if you have little girls in your life. It's easy and it's adorable. However, I must also recommend you trace the pattern pieces carefully, which I did NOT do. I therefore ended up with a dress back, and more of a "tunic" front. Somehow my pieces were off by about 2" which really cannot be fixed (I had pinned and cut them). There was nothing to do but chop off the bottom of the dress front and make the whole thing into more of a tunic-length top.

But I didn't feel I could just give that piece with a lame story about how I screwed up at the very last minute. So after bedtime on Friday I made a late-night dash back to Joann's and thankfully they had a bolt of coordinating fabric so I could rescue myself with some wee matchy pants.

I washed and dried the fabric Friday night while I finished stitching the top, and then whipped up the pants on Saturday between our zoo outing and the birthday party. I used french seams throughout both pieces so there are absolutely no raw edges except for the crotch seam, which I zig-zagged for strength and to prevent lots of fraying.

I love this pattern. It just comes out so cute every time.

Here's the back, with the sweet coordinating blue button I found in my button stash. I did purchase the fabric for this because it was a gift, and because I don't have many cuts of fabric in my stash that are appropriate for toddler garments.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to house-and-yard-work while I dreamed of the eleventy-billion projects I want to do. I went shopping in my yarn stash and came up with two lovely skeins of alpaca yarn, and for the first time I am joining a knitalong! I've pretty much been a lifelong anti-joiner so this is a big deal for me. I'm off to watch Doctor Who with Hubs and knit a few rows...I'll be back with more on that soon...