where am i

Whoa.  Life has caught up with me.  A surprise super-long family visit (with guests staying in the sewing room!), a weekend away, a hurricane (although I actually got a little sewing done) and then a week of some flu kind of thing.  I'm going through some serious sewing withdrawal.

So to start catching up, here are some baby gifts I made for my good friend Kim to give at her baby shower almost a month ago.
 
(Obviously this is not Kim's baby - he's not here yet and obviously would not be that big if he was!  This is another friend's 16-month-old daughter who I visited earlier in the day.  She had, uh, mixed feelings about being my model.)

I love these bandana bibs from Purl Soho's tutorial - so much cooler than regular bibs.  I thought Kim's rockstar husband might approve too.

And a newborn hat/bootie set made from Sirdar Snuggly Bamboo.

my first, last, and only quilt

Phew!  These things are a lot of work!  All the quilters out there are probably chuckling right now - I have a newfound respect for you guys!  I made this quilt for my cousin's wedding (in July, but this took me a while) and it is pieced with scraps from our Nonna's fabric stash (she passed away in 2003).

I am ashamed to admit that it took me a minute to contemplate parting with those scraps, but now I'm glad I did so that I could share something of hers, hopefully something that my cousin and her husband will pass to their kids as an heirloom.  I'm also ashamed to admit how much I began to really not enjoy making this, but that is how much I love her I guess!

OK, you're really going to laugh now.  All my moaning and groaning?  This quilt is like, 45"x 60".  Uh, it's really small.  Like lap blanket or baby blanket.  88 4"x"4 patches with a 5" border and thin bamboo/cotton batting.  It felt like a king size battle!

Since the patches were kind of all over the place with colors and patterns, I attempted to use a checkerboard pattern with darks and lights to make it somewhat cohesive. 

I think my cousin likes darker pallets and I didn't want to make it too cutesy, so I used a gray pinstripe linen and an olive binding.   I have to say I'm really pleased with the colors and contrast.

Hated:  Cutting the squares, sewing the binding (I machine stitched it), and jamming the thick parts through a machine that didn't want anything to do with it.  And the length of time I spent on this project!

Loved:  Connecting the pieces, making the sandwich, and sewing the quilting.  Aside from the corner above, I did a decent job aligning seams.

OK, I guess it wasn't all bad.  But this is my favorite part:

I hope they like it!  Because they will be the only ones in the history of man possessing a smunch-made quilt!

little clothes

Ooh, sewing baby clothes is fun and gratifying if you've been sewing only big clothes for a while.  I made this little dress for one of my faux-nieces, who turned one on Friday. 

The cool thing about this dress? The pattern, Simplicity 5333, is a pattern of my Nonna's that I found in her collection. Even cooler? It is copyrighted in 1981, the year I was born, which makes me wonder if she ever made one of these for me. Mom, any idea?

The fabric is Fairy Tale Friends.  I love it and I think I would wear it myself.  I figured everyone gives little girls pink and flowers so I wanted something cute but different. Guess what else? The buttons were from my inherited stash from my Nonna too.

I only mailed it 2 days after her birthday. I'm getting better.

koaley

I thought I swore off knitted stuffed animals, but my friends keep having adorable babies and I keeping knitting them up (that sounds like if your baby wasn't cute I wouldn't knit it one).  This one is officially the least crooked one I've made.  He has a cute little face, huh?  It's also the first time I haven't butchered a face with over-embroidering. 

He's a little guy - in this photo he's sitting in my hand next to a coffee mug.

Pattern:
The Koala Baby from Susan B. Anderson's Koala Mama and Baby

Yarn:
Gray - Seedling (100% organic cotton)
White - I forget, but something similar to Berroco Plush
Black - Luna (100% organic cotton)

Modifications:
Shortened the arms because he doesn't have a mama to wrap them around (that sounds so sad, doesn't it?)
Left out the optional fingers and toes.

My only regret is not taking a photo of the little one with her koaley.

one line a day

i know this project has made the rounds of pinterest recently, via design*sponge, via ashley from under the sycamore - but i actually made this over a year ago!  i never used it, i didn't think it was the right gift for anyone else at the time, and then lo and behold, perusing pinterest a few weeks ago i saw that my lovely friend kim had pinned it!  just the right gift.  i surprised her with that one!  i will say i took virtually no creative liberties and copied this almost identically from the original.  i guess there was nothing to fix.

one reason i never used it was because i got this journal in 2011, and I LOVE IT.  and now i am loving filling in 2012 and seeing what was going on this time last year.  fun to see prophecies, such as pondering whether or not we will end up in baltimore when we were on a road trip last may, or wondering if elmore was getting sick back in july, a month before he died.  wait, that one was not fun.  but interesting, or maybe eerie to see i guess.

slowly but surely, home projects are to come...

a little bunny

for my favorite "faux-niece" (one of my best friend's daughters who calls me AUNTIE LALA.  i love it.)  e turned 3 last month, and i got this bunny to her in the timely manner of one month late.  i've had a lot going on.
 

this bunny is the Well-Dressed Bunny - i liked the simplicity of it, as well as the fact that 3 is a good age to dress and undress things. non-human things i mean.

miss e also loves fairies so i fashioned a set of fairy wings (this took a few tries and some experimental wire until i just decided to make stuffed wings).

i used lion's brand fisherman's wool (that skein just doesn't quit) and made no modifications.  the whole bunny has a lopsidedness which, fortunately, i think is cute, but was unintentional and a result of poor stitching on my part.  she doesn't sit on her bottom very well either!  stitching the mouth was hard for me, apparently because i overdid it (as usual).  when i got to the eyes, i did about 3-4 quick stitches, and they were just right.  will ever remember to go easy?

if there is a soul in the world who cares to know the pattern i concocted for the wings, i will post it, but i figured the chances were slim that there is a need for them!

tomorrow is my first day off in a couple weeks, and hopefully the eve of my return... how dramatic...

l

addendum:  did i never post e's gift from her 2nd birthday last year?  that is weird because i was happy with it and i usually think WAY too much about posting things.  well, here is manti, in cascade 220 superwash, the collared verstion, with blue buttons:

(the third picture i mostly just posted because of those eyes!)

august gifts and too many buttons

three birthdays on two days in august, one day apart...












this was ben's birthday loot - i made this little bag out of a map of bar harbor using this tutorial.  this might be my favorite thing i made!

every year i try to make him a gift (except last year!  i couldn't think of anything!) but it's getting harder to think of things to make.  the first year i drew him pictures of three of his favorite musicians (one of which is in my first post) and the next year i made him this shirt, which was quite an undertaking for that point in my sewing timeline.  this year he kept talking about needing a wallet, so i made him one from [kids] wallet tutorial. 

i thought it looked a little too kid-ish and i was worried the slots weren't deep enough for the cards, but he says he likes it  i used leftover black wool and remnants from his birthday shirt two years ago!

for my brother's girlfriend i made this reversible, adjustable bag.  i like the size and shape, but this was the beginning of Too Many Buttons.  the tutorial actually calls for 20 buttons (5 on each end, on each side) so that you adjust the strap to varying lengths, but i just couldn't take that many.  i did 16 and that was excruciating enough.  ok, enough drama, but it was a little tedious because you're sewing two buttons at once each time (which, yes, i know is better than 16 individually).

and for my co-worker i made a little purple mug warmer.  i liked it so much that some of you loved ones out there may get these for christmas gifts...!  i made another one to get started on that.  and thus, more buttons. 


i used this pattern and made a dent in some stash yarn.  this is quick and easy and i love the smocking stitch pattern.  i thought it was genius - is this a stitch pattern that everyone knows about except me?  at first i got really excited and thought i would make some really cool hat with it and find my way to modification monday and then the next day i saw a pattern for a hat with the smocking pattern.  right.

anyways, i tried a tight gauge and two buttons to make this somewhat adjustable, although the brown is actually too big for the narrow mug it's on and both would not fit a super-big mug.  so the warmers need the right mug for the job.

and thank you pinterest because each and every one of these projects i found on that stinkin' website.  more pinterest love.

reversible bag

the inspiration for this bag was the bag i purchased from //between the lines//, along with this tutorial from her, which helped a lot wit the clever way to attach the straps. in fact, i traced my own //between the lines// bag because it is such a good shape and size.



another simple good one.

the babies are coming

two important friends are having babies any day or month now. like a good faux-aunt (or, faunt, if you will), this is probably the first of many baby projects. i used this mama makes stuff's rockin' baby gown tutorial for this swee' pea gown.

i surprised myself with this one and sewed with jersey without it coming out wavy and woggly and stretched out funny. in fact, the tutorial prepped me for this possibility, and i prepared to be frustrated, and lo and behold, it worked.

not as nice of a result for the sushi roll changing mat and wipes holder i made - i didn't realize that i didn't take pictures before i gave it away, and i wonder if that was accidentally on purpose. i used batting in the changing mat and pretended that if i didn't quilt it it would stay in place, and i washed it and it didn't, and the wipes holder is crooked. i gave them to her anyways so maybe they can be a back up to her back up.

hippo stash-killer

i made a little hippo for a 2-year-old birthday gift, and took care of some extra yarn stash too. i made the hippo from susan anderson's itty bitty toys. the only modification was obviously the stripes, which i used to offset the fact that i only had two skeins of debbie bliss baby cashmerino, and as usual lately, i came to within inches of the yarn left. the stripes are some type of boucle that i don't remember the name of. i was inspired by this hippo by tentenknits because it has the sweetest face, which i tried to replicate, but....

if you can't see the smile, it has demonic white eyes..... yikes.

a little corduroy pouch

i made these little pouches - sort of a miniature version of this bag - and gave the one on the left to my brother's girlfriend for christmas (they are here visiting right now!) they kept coming out not-quite-right in my opinion. the one on the left was made first and i wasn't happy with the shape (too tall and narrow) so the second one was an attempt to fix that - i cut a polygon rather than a square, with the top longer than the bottom before pleating. i think the shape of the pleated section came out well, but i wish i had made the top panel thinner. maybe i'll try a third one.

i didn't take pictures of the linings, but used a vintage replica barkcloth-like fabric (that i also used for our stockings last year, which i guess i never blogged) for the smaller one, and a lightweight white cotton with turquoise dots for the larger one.

a new tradition and some overdue pictures

this morning we watched a mindblowing sunrise, the first of 2011.

i think this is going to be our new tradition - i'm about as into getting drunk and screaming at midnight as i am into a turkey dinner. well maybe it's not as bad as a turkey dinner. so instead, we'll celebrate the dawn of day in the new year. i loved it! and we enjoyed these jelly donut cupcakes from veganomicon as well. two each at 7:00 am. oh many i love that cookbook. home-style potato roll dough rising as we speak. type.

oh yeah, and there are a slew of projects i hadn't photographed and posted. christmas presents:

basket rib bath mitt for a handmade comfort gift basket i made for a work raffle. forgot to photograph the basket for the second year in a row. another tradition too, i guess.

another pair of pajama pants, this time for my mom.

heat wrap for my dad, in the softest vintage flannel (more of this later) with lavender-scented rice.

and another heat wrap for a coworker for secret santa (along with some slippers i forgot to photograph. and a mug, hot chocolate, and a can of frosting. to each person's comfort their own).

more to come, including a long-awaited project.

a honeymoon gift or two

i spent the past weekend with a group of girls in the beautiful countryside of my home state, virginia (not too familiar with this part of va, though) for my good friend kim, who is getting married at the end of august. it was gorgeous out there... this was our view from the backyard pool:

since i didn't get to attend the bridal shower, i thought i would make a honeymoon gift for her, using this "dopp kit" pattern as a basis... and uh, adjusting the pattern after numerous calculations and mistakes because i bought the wrong size zipper. sounds about right.

i packed the bag with some bubble bath, cute unmentionables, and a little vial to save sand from the beach. i liked how the bag turned out and will probably make one for myself. this was the first time i covered seams with bias tape, and i like the results, but the corners were difficult, and don't look very lovely. fortunately, they are on the inside.

little did i know, i would be creating another honeymoon gift, one for which i actually won a prize! the bridal party held a "project runway" challenge in which we chose a simple item of clothing (my name was accidentally not put into the hat, so, picking last, i got a pair of light tan boy short underwear). we were given various craft supplies and tasked with making a winning item to be "featured" at the honeymoon. pictured below is my winning design... look out heidi.

oh, and um, this is the back, not the front. the front i left untouched. don't want to overdesign, per tim.

i'm thinking i should try out for the real deal, whatdya think?

p.s. thanks jenn, for being my third reader! maybe now i can stop counting myself! i'm a reader of yours too and love the colors in your latest painting! and what a beautiful post today too.