Meet Sophia

Sophia has been a long time coming. If memory serves me correctly she was first cut out at the same time as the weekender bag. That must be at least three years ago now, but it could be more. Sophia was my filler project. It was what I worked on when I couldn’t figure out what I really wanted my next project to be. I would iron on interfacing or sew a seam or two and then move on to my next big project.

I finally ran out of seams to sew and my filler project is now complete. Meet Sophia. She will be a great companion to my weekender bag.

Putting the "Play" in Play Suit

Summer has officially arrived here in the North East and we've had a string of lovely weekend days, perfect for herding three little girls out of doors. We recently met up with Aunt Tory for a picnic and the girls wore their Oliver & S play suits that she made them for their birthday. These little ladies have a lot of clothes (thanks, Grandma) but based on Sunday's field test, the play suits may just become their summer uniform. Take a look:

Contemplating the dizzying heights from the top of an old stump.

"It doesn't look that far down, I think I can make it."

Built for stretching and bending.

"Don't put the stick in my mouth? I don't know what you're talking about, I'm just holding this stick."

And, the activity of choice, illicit stair climbing onto the bandstand. Not pictured, running around said band stand (Mommy was too busy preventing stage diving to take a photo.)

Thank you, Aunt Tory, we all love the play suits!

Dressed for Summer

Oh, to be the little girl who gets to hop, skip, jump, run, somersault, swing, slide, tricycle-ride, and eat frozen treats in these outfits all summer long! Sigh.

You can't win them all

Little Miss Bee is the best mama to her baby dolls. Each and every night they get a bottle before being tucked into bed. They then get a bed time story “read” to them. Before Bee heads off to bed herself, she pats them on the back and tells them good night. Super sweet, right?

When I saw the pattern for the doll carrier in the Oliver + S book I thought it would be perfect for the little mama. I phoned my sister and started describing it to her. I was barely two sentences in when she yelled out, “You HAVE to make that for Bee. She is driving me crazy with the one we’ve tried to fashion. It doesn’t work.” Auntie to the rescue!

Well, it turns out that Miss Bee wasn’t as sure about the doll carrier as her mommy and I had been. Upon seeing her most beloved baby doll strapped in she kept proclaiming, “Oh, no baby! Oh, no!” And then she refused to try it on. Harumph. But, I have high hopes that one day, when it is her own idea as they must be when you are two, she’ll be wearing it everywhere with baby safely strapped in.

Hello, baby

When a bouncing baby girl enters the world just ahead of the summer season there is only one possible baby gift, a dress with bloomers. Wait a minute, it’s really the bloomers I find most necessary. How cute is a poofy, diapered bottom covered with a ruffly legged pair of bloomers? Cute, I say, very, very cute.

A delightful night's sleep

Little Miss Lou thought I was visitng over the long holiday weekend to celebrate her birthday. And she was right, but it also provided the perfect opportunity to give her a suprise bed makeover.

When she went back to school on Tuesday I went into action stripping away the old bedding. In its place went a new bed skirt, white jersey sheets, and the half square triangle quilt.

I anxiously waited the bus drop-off and tried to casually suggest she change out of her school clothes into some play clothes for an afternoon outside. We all followed her upstairs to her bedroom. As she went into her room she exclaimed, "What in the world?!?!? These are my favorite colors." Awesome!

When I talked with her the next day I asked how she had slept in her brand new bed. With a big smile on her face she explained, "It was delightful." My sister further elaborated that as soon as she got up that morning Little Miss Lou was found carefully making her bed, smoothing out all the creases, and proclaiming that her little sister Little Miss Bee was not to touch it.

Yeah, I think she likes it!

The quilt is done!

The quilting is completed and the binding attached. I handstitched 26 feet of binding in 7 short hours. That might not seem an impressive speed but I’m blown away. I had set aside time over the course of three weeks to finish the binding by hand. And you know what? I only needed 20 or 30 minutes here and there over the course of 10 days to get it all done. I’ve clearly gotten better at this hand stitching business. In fact, I really enjoyed it. I was a little sad to see it come to an end.

The next time you see this quilt it will be donning Little Miss Lou’s bed and I can’t wait to see her reaction. I hope she loves it half as much as I do. Stay tuned.

So Many Options

Have you been noticing all the great new fabrics recently? I have and it’s got me thinking about how I can justify buying up a bunch of them. My answer: that stack of napkins on my handmade list. The way I see it, with just half a yard of fabric I can make two napkins. That means for a week's worth of napkins I’ll need 7 half yard cuts. I should allow for some realistic delays in laundry though. Perhpas I'll need 8-9 half yard cuts to be safe, right? The hard part could be narrowing it down!

Weekender

So, so long ago I alluded to the fact that I had made a weekender bag. And then I never told you about it. It may have been because I needed space and time and healing after that project. It was a doozy to put together. There was laughing, crying, swearing, and a little bloodshed. At the end of it, though, I had a gorgeous weekender bag ready for trips here, there, and everywhere.

Though truth be told I’m too afraid to take it on an airplane. It could get filthy in the overhead or under the seat in front of me! After all the work I can’t bear the thought of my masterpiece ending up covered in grease or grime or spilled beverages. This bag is now the official bag of road trips. I’m wondering where she’d like to go this summer?

Progress Report

I have a finished quilt top and I love it! It looks just like the picture I had created in my mind. It is huge though. Little Miss Lou could crawl underneath it and not be seen for days. It measures 72” wide x 84” long which is an appropriate size for a twin sized quilt according to the internet.

I’d been a little stumped about what to do for the backing so the quilt top has spent the last few weeks folded neatly on the back of my sewing chair. I was leaning towards something quiet and calm since there is a lot of color and pattern on the quilt top. I finally decided I'd do a band of patchwork with the leftover bits from the quilt top with a wide swath of white above and below. However, as I put together that wide strip of patchwork it all went wrong. Somewhere amdist all my piecing something became horribly stretched and no matter what I did my patchwork strip would not lay straight. It was shaped more like a patchwork rainbow with a huge bump in the center. I could not continue with that! Instead the backing became the very simplest it could be: all white.

But all is not lost. I think the plain white backing will work better with my original plan to quilt it on the diagonal along the prints. If the patchwork strip had worked out I think I would have wanted plain vertical quilting and that just seems a little boring next to all those great half square triangles!

The quilt is now sandwiched, pinned, and the quilting begun. I hope to get the quilting completed by the weekend and then I can sit back and stitch the binding while Netflix keeps me company.

We all scream for ice cream

When I first bought the ice cream dress pattern I was really only interested in making the blouse. (I have to admit I thought the dress with the pockets and contrasting yoke and hem band looked a little like an old lady’s housecoat.) But as I finished my first blouse I kept thinking how cute the dress, as view B, would be done in bands of solid.

As I bounced my idea off my favorite partner in sewing crime, we veered off in the direction of using what is already in the fabric stash. I already had white and pink solids. Being an excellent enabler she pointed out that all I would have to do is buy a bit of brown and I could make a Neapolitan dress. Get it? An ice cream dress done as Neapolitan! I loved it!

So I made two. One for Little Miss Lou and one for her partner in crime, Little Miss Bee. I cannot wait to get my hands on some pictures of these girls side-by-side in their ice cream dresses. And in that picture I think they should be eating ice cream cones. Neapolitan, of course.

Rainbow Bright

Rainbow colored pencils all lined up in a row makes me happy.

A finished pencil roll makes me very happy.

It's the middle bits of this story where the sad part lies. It was being stooped over my kitchen table for what felt like hours and hours cutting 60 – 1.5” wide strips after ironing 20 bits of carefully chosen fabric that had me feeling sad. Then on top of that there were the pockets, the pocket linings, the exteriors, and the flannel linings. So perhaps it was my insane decision to make three pencil rolls at once that contributed to my unhappiness. My reasoning was that if I was going to suffer through all that cutting I might as well have three items to show for it.

I know I can’t be the only sewer out there who suffers from this logic, right?

Hello? Spring?

Around here spring seems to be having an identity crisis. It’s barely made it above 40F for more than a week and it's snowed…twice. This is not the spring I was hoping for. While mother nature makes up her mind, I’m beckoning her with a bit of spring and summer sewing.

First up, a set of playsuits for Little Miss Bee. Being fresh off a set of six playsuits these came together in no time at all.

And second, an ice cream blouse for Little Miss Lou. It was my first time with this relatively new Oliver + S pattern and I’m now smitten. In fact, it resulted in the first addition to the handmade list since I first rolled it out. Make an ice cream dress with solids for Little Miss Lou.

Now, how about some warmer weather?

Project Report

Huge, huge progress has been made on the half square triangle quilt. When last I left you I was hoping to get all the squares cut apart and ironed by the weekend so I could start the (re)assembly of the quilt top. Not only did I do it, I got two of the blocks put together. Since then I have completed two more.

This weekend brings the completion of the final two blocks. And if I’m really ambition I might even sew those six blocks into a completed quilt top. But that’s something like 120 feet worth of seams to iron so that may be more than I’m up for. Perhaps daydreaming about what the back will look like is more my speed.

What’s on tap for your weekends?

Birthday Suits

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since the Bean, the Bear, and the Bandit were welcomed into this world. Wow! One minute those teeny, tiny babies are being wrapped like burritos and in the next minute they are standing all by themselves. Again, wow!

I tossed a few different ideas around in my head as to what I should make to mark such a significant milestone. The only idea that kept coming back over and over again were the Oliver + S playsuits. I kept picturing three little girls toddling around the backyard this summer sporting coordinating playsuits. And that mind’s eye picture was all I needed to convince myself that not only was it the right present, it was the perfect present.

The girls may have been more interested in the ric rac and fluttery pennant I made for the front of the gift than they were in the playsuits inside. I think it is safe to say, though, that their mommy and daddy were more than a little smitten.

Happy Birthday, sweet girls. I wish you hours of blissful play.

The Half Square Triangle Quilt

My obsession with half square triangle quilts started after the doll quilt. I adored the crisp white with the pops of colors and the precise geometric arrangement. I had to make a human sized one.

It just so happens that my need to make intersects with Little Miss Lou’s need for an Auntie made quilt for her newly decorated big girl room. Of course, that big girl room prominently features her favorite color orange along with doses of white and turquoise. Sounds like the perfect quilt combination!

I had a few oranges and turquoises already in my stash and the rest came as a result of a 40% off sale at Joann’s. Then came the backbreaking part: cutting out 378 squares, each measuring 4 and 7/8 inches with the goal being a finished block size of 4 inches.

I am now deep into the block assembly process. All the squares have been stitched together and I am spending evenings at the ironing board. I alternately snip them apart into their half square triangles and then iron all those seams. (Oh, how I wish I could hire out the seam ironing!) The plan is to get all this done before the weekend so I can start on the fun part, the layout and quilt top construction!

Wish me luck.

No. 4 on the Handmade List

Olivia + Arthur

Let me introduce you to Olivia and Arthur, better known as Olive and Archie. They’ve undergone a name change as a way to distinguish big sister’s dolls from little sister’s dolls.

Olivia and Arthur were part of Little Miss Bee’s Christmas present. I couldn’t just stop at a set of dolls though. You see, I love gifts that are part of a larger theme. So along with Olivia and Arthur came a doll bed, mattress, pillow, and quilt.

The whole gift was a fabulous success. And how do I know, you ask? Upon opening it the little miss grabbed the neck of one doll, picked up the quilt, and desperately tried to fit herself into the bed. It was a sight that had us laughing all Christmas morning.

Sold!

Towards the end of last year one of my co-workers came to me and said she wanted to hire my skills, specifically my quilting skills. I laughed and blushed and said, “Oh, shucks.” But she was dead serious. She was ready to talk fabrics and design. I was hooked.

And that is how this baby quilt was born. It’s my Path to Pop Garden quilt scaled down to baby size, each final square measuring 7 inches. I worked in a color palette of greens and blue, the only real requirement of my “client”. The fabrics are from Nicey Jane, a line of fabrics I had somehow managed to resist buying up until that point, with a print from Bijoux thrown into the mix; a sunny stripe from Urban Chiks backs it all.

Winter has been cruel to New Englanders so I especially love how in the midst of all that swirling snow I was able to create this bit of spring. Can’t you just imagine taking baby outside on that first really warm spring day for some playtime on her quilt? I can. And it warms me through and through.

For my Valentines

Simple stitched cards made from scraps too lovely to throw away

An Oliver + S jumprope dress in gray fine wale corduroy with calico accents

A tiny baker's apron with ruffled detail

The Handmade

1. Make a stack of fabric napkins (fabric options scoped!)
2. Make an apron....for myself!
3. Finish the Sophia bag (done!)
4. Make a half square triangle quilt for Little Miss Lou (done!)
5. Make a pinwheel quilt for Little Miss Bee (in progress!)
6 . Crochet enough sunshine squares for an adult sized afghan (96 + counting!)
7. Embroider a wall hanging
8. Make one or two playsuits for Little Miss Bee (done!)
9. Make a birthday party dress for Little Miss Bee
10. Make lazy days skirts for Little Miss Bee (done!)
11. Make an apron for Little Miss Bee (done!)
12. Make a super-cape for Little Miss Bee (done!)
13. Make a long-sleeve jumprope dress for Little Miss Lou (done!)
14. Make a tooth fairy pillow for Little Miss Lou (done!)
15. Make lazy days skirts for Little Miss Lou (done!)
16. Make a school photo dress for Little Miss Lou
17. Make an ice cream blouse for Little Miss Lou (done!)
18. Make flannel pjs for both Little Misses
19. Make a fabric pennant garland (made a mini!)
20. Make fabric cards
21. Make an ice cream dress with solids for Little Misses Lou and Bee (done!)
22. Make the doll carrier from Little Things to Sew for Little Miss Bee (done!)

Part of the 2011 in Lists Projects