I Want To Quilt -- No, REALLY

I know I'm not crafting much recently, but I've been really big into drawing (another creative hobby) and playing Japanese video games (another gigantic and useless time suck that leaves me better able to determine that the Japanese are really weird, but kind of awesome) and baking cookies (third batch of royally iced cookies so far). However, I was just sitting at my computer, trolling through my feeds, when I came across a fabric line that made me want to quilt HARDCORE.

Anyway, there I was, innocently looking at sewing blogs when Bookworm Bethie attacked. All sweetly, she posts about how she got a charm pack of Sherbet Pips from Moda. I hit NEXT SEWING BLOG on my browser, but then, I stopped and went back. Were those people on scooters? Were they wearing scarves? Were the scarves striped? Was it impossibly adorable? Check, check, check, check.

This line is done in red, pink, turquoise, grey, and white! It features people on scooters in the winter. It features little girls swinging. It was possibly designed with me in mind. I'm fairly sure of it!

I tried to think of skirts or sleep boxers I could make from some of the yardage, but I knew what I really wanted to do. I wanted a quilt. A nice simple quilt with lots of white to offset the busy patterns. I'm pretty sure that as soon as yardage becomes available in April, I'm picking up several yards of various pieces so I can make my dream quilt. Then that fabric can sit with my neglected needles and sewing machine and they can all cry about the fact that I ignore them.

Still... it's so cute that I suspect that I will not resist.

CHOO CHOO!

Ugh, so much to say here that I feel overwhelmed! So, this is the choo-choo shirt I bought material for about eighteen hundred years ago. In fact, when I originally planned to make it, it was going to be size 2T. Guess what? I made it 3T!




Why do I have so much to say about this shirt? Because, it is my sewing introduction to many things such as collars, buttonholes, plackets, and setting in sleeves! I mean, I just learned so much about sewing and so many things I did with this shirt came out well.

The pattern is from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing. I am going to admit that I like the finished look of this shirt, but this pattern was kind of a bitch. The collar was all kinds of messed up and you can tell when you look at this shirt!

It took me four or five tries to get that collar done and I'm still not pleased with it. Also, though I did not find any errata, I could not at all get the collar and shirt to line up. I had to undo the sewing I did on the collar and cut it up prior to attaching it to the shirt correctly.

And the drawings Ross did in the book don't really look like the pattern pieces. Occasionally, I'd look blankly at the instructional drawings and just pause and examine the pieces I cut out. I'd re-open the pattern pieces to make sure I had really cut everything correctly!

In other news, I'm not recommending this pattern. Try to find another button down shirt pattern for young boys. I hear Oliver + S is offering one, and I'm considering buying it since I do love the look of my son in a button down shirt that I've made him.




I am pleased with the sleeves since this was the first time I've set in sleeves! I was most worried about doing that and I flipped out while pinning since I was sure that my machine was going to walk the sleeve faster than the body of the shirt such that I ended up with too much sleeve. However, it all looked great in the end. I think the sleeves might be the nicest part of my work on this shirt, though the placket also turned out pretty.




I'm rather tired right now, so I'm going to cut this a little shorter than I originally expected. I finished the work on Sunday while Nathaniel was awake. He was fascinated by my sewing machine, begging to sit on my lap. He talks a bit about the shirt, telling people that his mommy made him a choo choo shirt. In fact, one evening after a nap, he woke up and stared at the scraps of fabric I had thrown away, and he panicked! He said to me, "Choo choo shirt!" I had to reassure him that his real shirt was in the living room, waiting for him to wear it.




I really enjoyed sewing this, but I'm getting a little gun shy about sewing from this book. I think it might be time to move to some Simplicity patterns.

Babies, Autumn Is In The Air

So, I'm back to blogging now that I have a working computer that is mine, mine, all mine once again. Perhaps, if you follow me on Facebook or Flickr, you've already seen hints of how busy I've been recently, as I received my iPhone a full two days prior to receiving my laptop. Sadly, my post today will be forced to make use of my iPhone photos since my gorgeous new laptop is unable to use my mother-in-law's copy of Photoshop quite yet, which means that my new hat will continue to go unblogged. Let's ignore that sadness, and get going!

Since I've been Crafty McCraftsAlot while I was gone, I got back into sewing. I know, I know. I'm finally going to make use of those eight billion fabrics Paul bought me, right? WRONG. I finished up a project I was working on eighteen billion years ago, instead. I'm normally a one project (in a particular craft) type of girl. I can't help it. I wanted to do new stuff, but that bag was taunting me. It was saying, "You last worked on me when you were a YEAR younger, Kitten. What up with that?"






Check out the gorgeous low quality of that photo. I decided to whip the finishing of the bag out, but that didn't really happen. Though sewing is, indeed, faster than knitting, it's never as easy as I think it will be. First, I got to get my sewing area ready, then I need to pull out my ironing board and iron and clear a space on the always dumped with stuff dining room table for that ironing board. Then, after all of that, I always am pinning. I know some people hate pattern cutting, but my least favorite part of sewing is the obsessive pinning. I must have pinned that bag together about eight hundred different ways to make it work and you can see all my shoddy workmanship still. Also, it kind of looks like a boring toaster cover in that last picture, no? But, surprise!





Cute bag interior! That's the same fabric as I used for the awesome boxers. Back when I originally intended to make this Weekend-Away Travel Bag from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing book, I had also meant for this bag to go to Helen as well. My disappointment in the bag's finishing (and its lack of interior pockets) means that it will stay at home with me instead. Sorry, Helen. I'm working on something else for you, though! The only thing I am proud of with this bag is the slip stitches I did on one side of the bag. The other side, however? Let's not speak of it.

Lastly, remember, Helen's baby requires a pretty blanket. Knowing Helen's rather decisive nature regarding items, I let her pick both the pattern and the color of the finished blanket. I might not have started it promptly, but I'm already a skein and a half into this eight skein blanket!



Lovely, no? I'll keep you all updated. So, hello again. Let's hope my computer is back up to what I consider normal soon.

Moody

As some of you might or might not know, my husband occasionally works out of town for longer periods of time. When he recently went to New York City, I got pretty excited and told him to eat dessert at ChikaLicious and to buy me fabric since he was working directly next to the fabric district. He ignored me on the dessert front, but like a great husband, he wanted to get me something for my crafting.

As with everyone on Earth, we have both watched Project Runway so he decided to hit up Mood. Or, at least, he tried to! The first night, he spent roughly an hour and a half wandering NYC in a heat wave, only to fail to find it. When he told me that, I told him that any fabric store would do and that he should not worry about it if it was too hot.

He never mentioned another word about it during the week, so I assumed he had not had time and did not ask. When he got home, he told me he had a surprise for me, but I had totally forgotten about asking him to get fabric, so I think I thought I was getting something from the hotel he stayed at. (No lie, we once got a pillow case embroidered with his name from one of the hotels he stayed at.) He told me to give him a kiss and hug, but I wimped out in the heat and gave him a sort of half kiss and then a sort of half hug. I know, I know, what kind of welcoming wife was I? The extremely overheated and exhausted kind.

Luckily, he gave me the bag from Mood anyway, and told me what had gone into getting the fabric. He had asked employees there what type of fabric to get me based on the fact that I am a beginner fashion sewer, and they told him to get me a cotton knit and they referred him to a certain section. (What?!) He asked me if he had gotten a cotton knit.





I told him that he had not, but that was okay since I had never worked with a knit before and would be afraid to. I was happy to have gotten a woven instead, and it was cotton, but very sheer and very soft and very drapey unlike the quilting cottons I was used to. He said they suggested two and a half yards, which I agreed was a good amount since I could probably make a dress with that.

We immediately ran for a photo shoot in the dying light, but my baby decided he wanted to 'help'.




We quickly derailed from there, so today while he napped, I snapped a quick photo of the non-washed, non-ironed fabric.




I kind of love the fabric, but I've never worked with such a sheer fabric before and I've never lined anything. Anyone have recs for a dress pattern that has a lining but is also instructional on sewing? Should I just sew something simple and use a slip?

A Christmas Stocking

Growing up, I had no idea what sewing entailed besides that somehow it must require that giant desk/sewing machine that every woman I know had, but which was never in use. When my cousins moved over from California, I quickly found out that my clothes horse cousin was wearing a lot of handmade goods. Her mother would whip together things like fully lined cropped wool jackets for her that were just gorgeous. Occasionally, I'd receive a hand me down from my cousin (like said jacket), but I almost disbelieved that a human I knew could make polished clothing for real.

When my mom's family had their big New Year's Day celebration, my aunt was there with a nice gift for Nathan -- a handmade stocking.



There were other gifts too, but I knew I had to share this with you. The buttons are all sewn shank, and there are letter stickers placed over them.



My aunt even used a contrasting colored thread on the tie that holds the stocking to the mantle.



I sort of wonder if she ran out of the green thread that she used with the main print. If I had, I might have used red thread for the tie. I'll chalk it up to a bit of artistic flair, but if it was just a refusal to run to the craft store for thread at the last minute, I would totally understand.

This was a neat gift to receive after spending a year reading about sewing and attempting to finish projects. I'll make sure Nathan appreciates it one day! It'll also save him from my somewhat lame attempts to glue glitter onto a cheap-o stocking. I'm sparing you all from pictures of my sad stocking with the word 'Jenny' falling off of it.

Darlings, I've Missed Sewing. And You.

Let's not speak of the week we were separated, let's talk about our future together. Wait, let's talk about the last week. After all, it affected my blogging. First, Paul had off all week, so we took one of those fancy Staycations! A year and a half ago we did the Babymoon. I love these trendy new terms so much that I must do them. We celebrated my birthday with dinner, a gift, and a cold. (Nathan provided the illness, screaming, general lack of sleep, and bad temper. I provided the cuddles. Paul provided the gift and dinner.) I then spent several nights playing on my new Xbox 360. It's even dragged me off the internet prior to midnight. It was a miracle and it has helped ween me, slightly, off the need to hang on my computer to all hours. Says the girl blogging at one in the morning.

Either way, after several days of devouring Fable II, I came up for air yesterday and decided to start crafting again. I finally cracked down on that make-up bag I've been wanting to make, and I started to actually sew. You can see my awesome sewing area here.



Do you see that fancy zipper? That's nearly as far as I got before I realized I needed Elastic Thread. Damn you, Heather Ross! I've never worked with this stuff before and now I'm all nervous about it. In fact, I think most of the reason I haven't been working on this make-up bag before is that I'm terrified I'm going to screw it up. It looks so complicated. The zipper part of this bag took me roughly an hour. I had to figure out how to use my zipper foot, figure out where to sew on the zipper, figure out how to pin three layers of fabric evenly.

The pattern called for me to pink some of my fabric at one point, so I pulled out my mom-mom's awesome pinking shears. She was born in 1901, I believe, and as you can see, she paid a high price for these shears!



Today, I went to Jo-ann Fabrics to grab the thread I needed, but also to pick up some fabric for a button down shirt for Nathan. It's some awesome train fabric, which I got two yards of. I should have enough to make him both a shirt and some PJ pants.



I will now end this horribly written post. I'm clearly too tired to blog.

Depression, It Has Me

I crafted tonight. Or, more accurately, I am crafting tonight. It's sending me into a depression spiral that I can't seem to get out of.

The thing is that I have one major problem with sewing (and many other minor problems). That is, I can never seem to place my patterns properly on grain lines. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, but it's super depressing and annoying and hateful. It's okay now that I'm making make up bags and slippers and other stuff that doesn't really hang on the body, but what's going to happen when I make a dress or jacket and I can't true the fabric and cut on grain? It's going to look hideous and I'm going to die of shame. Does anyone out there have advice for getting your fabric to true and cutting on grain. If your advice is pull on the fabric on the bias or slip a thread from the weave or weft free and use that as your guide, please explain more fully. Pulling on the fabric has not trued my fabric in the past, and I can't damn well seem to pull a thread free.

Hopefully later this week I will have some finished sewing projects to post (and a camera to use to photograph them), but until then, it's Linky Tuesday. Like how I just pretended that I always post links on Tuesdays?

Here's some of my favorite crafty finished objects! Let's start with my newest obsession, quilts. I love, love, love this beautiful quilt from CharlotteCarotte. First off, it looks simple and modern. Second, it looks soft. Third, it looks gorgeous. It makes me want to quit with the idea of fashion sewing.

Then, there are the cookies. I love cookies and I always want to be able to make beautifully decorated cookies, but if I could make ice cream cone cookies or starry window cookies, all I'd do is make cookies and charge ridiculous prices for them at craft sales.

You all know I love to cross stitch, but it takes a hell of a lot of time to do the 'good' designs because they intersperse colors very thoroughly to get a more natural looking finished product. And the really good ones that require beads require even more time and energy. That's why this finished mermaid cross stitch is a phenom. If I had made this, I'd frame it and put it up in the middle of the most seen wall in our house and I'd tell everyone that came into our house that I had made it.

Nathan is obsessed with trains, and I'm obsessed with clothes for Nathan. That means I love this adorable Kai shirt made of a very train-y fabric. I'm thinking of how it would look fantastic over some thermal shirts this winter as part of his every day wardrobe. Slip that on over some jeans and he'd look stylish without looking like a tiny little man. Helen has often pointed out that most boys are dressed like little men, and that's true, but the pointed use of cute prints can help alleviate that fact.

When I was younger, my mom would try to teach me to craft and fail. This is due to two things. One, I'm a horrible person learner. I've had fantastic people try to teach me, including my own husband (a patient tutor that many of my friends have told me is extremely patient with those willing to learn), and I can't learn from them. I dislike people telling me what to do. I hate when they keep going on about something I understand already. I dislike telling teachers I don't understand, so I let them stop teaching me when I don't understand the subject matter. I get angry with myself for disappointing people who are attempting to teach me. Two, my mom is a horrible teacher, apt to blame her 'student' for failing to learn or likely to not care about teaching. "You picked out horrible yarn to learn from, and that's why I can't teach you to knit." "I never installed zippers or buttonholes. Your grandmother did it for me. I mostly just made elastic pants." If you can't guess, these two things are probably related. That's why I'm always amazed to see these blogging mothers featuring their child's amazing creations, such as this Wall-E stuffie, or this awesomely chic knitted sweater.

I hope that one day, Paul can teach our children well or at least filter my instructions well. I can already tell that I'm more a teacher like my mom.

Hello, Cupcake!

As many of you might know, I'm obsessed with Heather Ross, her fabric, and her book, Weekend Sewing: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Stitching. I think her fabric is delightful and whimsical while still being usable.

When I fell in love with her book, I decided to do the simplest clothing pattern first, and we all know what that means. Pajama pants. Quick, cute, yet also useful around the house.



Pattern: Pajama Pants for Everyone from Weekend Sewing
Fabric: Printed Quilting Cotton from Jo-Ann

I really wanted to love these pajama pants, and they were mostly good, except for the following flaws:

1. The butt was tight, but the rest of the pants were normal. I'm not particularly booty blessed, so I'm not sure if this was because my hips are much larger than previously believed or if the pattern allowed for no butt at all. I will try to make myself a medium some time in the future to see if this resolves issues. After all, I need a flannel winter pair.



2. The yardage called for was incorrect, even after I checked the errata. I bought three yards of the fabric even though two yards were called for. I'm very glad I did.

3. There was no "neaten the seams" instructions or hints in the book. I neatened a few seams on my own just to make the final product feel more finished.

4. I had the brilliant idea to put in a little tag in it to differentiate the back from the front. Only I stupidly put the tag in the front by accident.



The fabric I used was an adorable little woven cotton from Jo-Ann.



One suspects that this is the type of fabric that cheers a person up even when life is handing them sad no-cupcake days.

I'm definitely going to have to try the Yoga pants from Sew Everything Workshop as well, sometime in the future, but I do like these PJs. I want to make Nathan a slightly match-y pair. I love family matchiness!



It's so much fun doing a photo shoot on your front lawn in your PJs.

Pride Goeth Before the Fall

During our last murder mystery, Helen kindly lent me a dress to fit in with the 1930s vibe of the night. She told me it had probably belonged to her grandmother and that it didn't really fit anyone in her house because it was for short people. (She might not have said it like that, but I know what I heard. She might as well have called me shrimp.) It was a nice dress, and a tiny bit tight, but nothing worrisome. If anything, it wasn't tight so much as well-fitted. However, during the course of the night, I felt a few stitches rip and I was horribly embarrassed about my fat tummy.

Later on, while removing it, I saw that the frayed thread looked pretty old and I realized that while my habit of chugging frappucinos had not helped the dress to stay in order, it hadn't hurt as much as I thought. The dress broke away from the zipper mainly because that thread was so old that it had become fragile. I told Helen what had happened and promised her I would fix the dress. I mean, I have a sewing machine, no? I could just whip that sucker up.

Things happened, however, and I forgot about the dress until this evening when I examined the zipper and its lost threads in more detail. Folks, this wasn't some machine made dress. It was hand-sewn. That easy fix is going to require some invisible stitching to attach the outer dress to the zipper. The inner lining will be a much easier straight stitch, but I'm not going to bring down the awesomeness of this dress by machine sewing it.

I pinned the whole thing together for my ease of sewing, and I've got plans for tomorrow night. I had been going to make myself a cute pair of pajama pants, but I foresee some hand-sewing now. I would do it tonight, but it is late, and I will need to practice whipstitching invisibly prior to working on this dress.

I can't believe I thought I was just going to machine stitch this vintage dress. I'm an idiot.

Here's a picture of the dress in murdering action:



Totally cute, no? I mean, not as great as Helen's or Paula's outfits, but it is something!

Foxy Foxy Boxers

Pattern: Foxy Boxers from the Sew Everything Workshop
Fabric: Woven cotton from Jo-ann Fabrics

There are weeks when I don't feel like doing anything with my crafting. I just do stuff for half an hour here or there to make myself feel like I did something. Then there are weeks I'm driven by a certain project. This week was one of those weeks. Check out these boxers.



Last weekend, I took two days to trace and cut out the pattern. On Monday night, I cut out and marked the fabric itself, which I'm still horrible at. I think the number one thing I should be improving with my sewing currently is the cutting and marking of fabric.

On Tuesday night, I whipped most of it together, leaving the legs unhemmed as I had run out of thread in the correct shade.

On Wednesday, before running to Helen's, I finished the leg hems, ironed it, and photographed it.

I am both disappointed by and excited by my results. On one hand, these boxers are so ridiculously huge that they almost fit Paul, who is an XL in men's sizing. I cut the medium. I should have guessed that things were going south when I came to the directions for the elastic waistband and it told me to cut 36" inches. I ended up cutting the elastic three inches less than the size small suggestion and I could have cut smaller than that too. I could have made myself an extra-small of these boxers easily, if the pattern had come in that size. It did not.

On the other hand, I did some gorgeous stitching and had no problems with this pattern which is for "Advanced Beginners". Look at my leg hem!



My zig-zagged edge stitching was even, perfect, gorgeous. My fly top was professional looking.



This was definitely my best sewing product yet, and... it doesn't fit. How disappointing.

For those of you who might want to try and make this yourself because you keep hearing me gab and gab about this book, I would suggest that you really consider the sizing carefully. I'm fairly sure the size large would have fit Paul who normally wears an XL. Secondly, I read another blog post about how the elastic was hard to insert because of the fly overlap. Yeah... They were not effing kidding, folks. I spent most of my sewing night trying to insert that bloody elastic. I finally cut a hole in my fabric to pull the elastic out because I knew I was going to stitch the x'ed out square over the fly anyway. Be warned. I suspect if I ever made boxers again, I'd just go buy a simple Simplicity pattern or something.

I do think it is time for my to (1) review Sew Everything Workshop since I have sewn three different patterns from it, and (2) make something from one of the patterns I've bought rather than continuing my book sewing trend. Next step is a Sew Easy Simplicity pattern. I don't know when I'll get to it since I'm kind of in love with cross-stitch again, but I'll get around to it.

Oh, if you want a men's Medium pair of boxers in an outrageously awesome Chinoiserie cotton, let me know. I've got a pair that is very very gently used laying around. They're pretty good for lounging too.

Sadness: I Has It

I had no updates. I had no words. I had nothing to give to you today, audience. I barely did anything last week that couldn't be condensed down to: didn't get off the computer, didn't craft much, didn't do anything new, didn't do much at all with sewing or knitting. The problem with working on large cross-stitch projects or long in the round scarves is that even when you manage to make a few hours worth of work on them, it's still 'ho hum', you know? And with Nathan being suddenly the world's worst sleeper this week, I haven't gotten any sewing done either. I'm not motivated to sew and, if I do sew, the machine is loud enough to set him off.

I was pretty depressed about having no updates and considered not updating my blog this week, pretending the whole week had not occurred. I was at my mom's today, thinking about this, and how it sucked, I got kind of whiny with my mom. (Not that my mom doesn't have her faults, but she did not deserve the attitude today.) When she was sitting there with Nathan, I passively-aggressively asked if she was ever going to put any of the cross-stitch I made for her up on the walls. Or did she just lose the cross-stitch that I did for her at her request? The set that took me ten years to complete? Did she just lose it. My mom looked at me, a bit shocked, because she had forgotten about them. She said to me, "Well, my house is done. I should put them up. It'll cost too much to frame them."

I told her to just put them on the floor, and I'd photograph them. Readers, I'm going to dole them out to you when I have nothing else to show you. That's how I roll. I'm willing to take old projects and make them NEW. So, going back in the day, here's a cross-stitch I completed when I was 19, back when I was ambitious and willing to cross-stitch everything. This is not part of the previously mentioned set. This is my baby polar bears cross-stitch.



The cloth is some type of aida, but I don't know what size (14, perhaps).

As for my sewing, well, I did cut out some stuff for the cloth book my mom wants me to make for my cousin's child.



Isn't my mini-ironing board cute? That's also my crap iron that I love more than I used to love it because at least my crap iron didn't melt my sewing thread like my mom's scary iron of doom did.

How are you guys doing? Getting stuff done? I'm not going to make any firm plans for the upcoming week. If I can sew, I will. If I can't, I won't. If I get nothing done at all, I'm going back to truly firm planning.

How Goes The Plan, Stan?

Just a week ago, I decided I needed to create a plan for my crafting/free time as I was spending too many hours on the computer and not enough doing anything else. How did it go, you ask? Well, sort of okay. So, on Thursday night, I was due to work on Nathan's PJs. That went as expected. The weekend was my free time, so on Friday, I worked on the PJs again. I also worked on them Saturday night. I was even going to work on them Sunday night, but I was frustrated by my lack of proper sized trim, as described in my last post. It is quite clear that I'm obsessive about finishing my sewing projects. I finished my PJs on Monday night, the night I should have been knitting a scarf. I justified it by telling myself that it was too hot to knit a wool scarf and that I could knit on my scarf when I was in proper air-conditioning. I did finish the pajamas, so I had that, at least.



That face is just telling you that he already know that his mom loves to make excuses for when she overrides her own plans.

On Sunday night, I did work on my cross-stitch for the first time in well over a year. Since I only worked on it for one hour, I didn't get much done and it won't even be worth taking another WIP picture until I spend another nine or so hours on it. I really want to work on it again now!

I knitted on the socks on both Saturday afternoon and on Wednesday night, so that went as planned. I'm mostly done the second sock of my 'barf' pair as I affectionately call them. I'm already decreasing on the second sock, in fact, and I expect they'll be done very soon, allowing me to cast on for Nathan's matching ugly socks.



So, where did I fail? I didn't work on my sewn boxers, but I wasn't too sad about that. I've decided I only want one WIP for sewing unless I become one of those people with lots of spare time on Saturdays or Sundays who goes around cutting fifteen projects at once to be sewn during their spare time. (I would love to be one of those people.) I also didn't work on the scarf, but... I'm not too sad about that.

I have decided I'm going to redraft my plans for each week from now on, keeping weekends free for anything I'd like to do. This upcoming week, it'll be:

Thursday: cross-stitch
Sunday: sewing, another cloth book
Monday: knitting (scarf if it isn't too hot, socks if it is)
Tuesday: cross-stitch OR drawing
Wednesday: knitting (scarf if it isn't too hot, socks if it is)

We'll see how it goes. I clearly wanted to up my cross-stitching and take a small relax from the sewing.

Both Sophy and Wit stated that this type of plan would stifle their creativity, but I work in the opposite way. I love plans, lists, and schedules. They make me feel happy. If I follow them, I'm getting things done. If I ignore them, I'm being a little wild. It's win-win. The worst time for my crafting this weekend was on the weekend when I had the choice to do anything I wanted. I mostly just surfed the internet.

I remember reading that the human brain likes to have a limited number of choices. No choices and we feel hemmed in, too many choices, and we become indecisive. I think that my plan limits my choices and makes me more able to break away from the computer at night. Instead of wondering which craft or activity I should be doing, and then doing nothing or defaulting to socks, I have a plan and I get to doing it. For instance, prior to my plans, at night, I could watch TV, play on the computer, read, draw, sew several items, cross-stitch, or knit on one of two items. Now, I've basically taken it down to play on the comp, craft, read, or draw. And that's something I can choose between.

Though, what I really should do is spend more time with Paul.



He's a good husband and maybe I spend too much time crafting instead of spending time with him.

The Cat's Pajamas

As you all know, I've been sewing. And sewing. And sewing. I think it is official. I'm sewed out for now. I need a break, and that might mean I need to rethink my plan. (More on that in a different post.) However, for all that sewing, I got a finish project. It's Amy Butler's Kimono Style Pajamas from Little Stitches. This project is adorable, but to be realistic, everything in Little Stitches is adorable. There is a reason Helen and I call it the cutie book. I mean, some of the other pajamas I've seen on Flickr make me drool. Trust me, if Nathan weren't already in the 12 month pajama size, he'd have a set for every three months of his first year.

So, last week, I started to trace and cut out the pattern. I carefully cut out the pieces, then pinned those pieces to the main fabric and realized I needed a touch more fabric than Amy calls for. Well, to quote Tim Gunn, I made it work. I moved that pattern around until I got all the pieces into the yardage called for. I then cut out all the strips of the second fabric. I read through the directions to make sure I didn't need to cut out anything else before I threw out the scraps. With a sinking heart, I read about... Bias tape. Oh man. I hate making bias tape. I mean, it's so pretty, but I'm so sucky at it and... Bias tape. That night, I set down the project and went to bed, a little downhearted.

The next night, I was all psyched. I had cut out all the pieces! They didn't need marking! I just had to get that stupid bias tape cut and I was ready to sew. I cut it out, and I cut out that bias tape perfectly. I was cautious, light with my chalk, perfect with my scissors. My strips were all the perfect size and cut on the bias correctly. In fact, the damnable bias tape is the one thing I'm most proud of with this project. Well, I sat down to sew and read the directions and started step one, pinning the front top trim to the front panel of the top and realized that my trim was just a bit short. I stopped and considered. Maybe this was on purpose. I looked at the directions for cutting and saw that I should have two front trim pieces cut at eight and seven-eighths inches by three and a half inches. I measured and nearly shrieked in pain. My stupid trims were seven and seven-eighths inches. I put everything aside and took a deep breath, measured all the remaining trims to make sure they were the correct size, and went to go do another project for the night. I stuck the mis-cut trim in my purse too so that I could buy another fourth of the fabric to recut my trim.

I get the fabric, recut the trim, sew the bias tape together, and start! Everything is really clear right up until the bias tape section. Wow, then the directions were crappy. According to everything I've read online, Amy Butler has terrific directions. This must mean that my reading comprehension is really far below what I used to think it was. I looked at the sole diagram presented, read the instructions a few more times, and finally figured out WTF was going on. By that time, I was tired, so I intelligently went to bed rather than continue on.

The next time I worked, I finished the top with a minimum of fuss. Most everything went right other than slightly puckered/wonky sleeves, but considering the fact that I had never set in a sleeve before in my life, I decided not to worry too much about it. I'd try harder not to screw up next shirt.



After taking the above picture, the angel and demon on my shoulders started a little fight. The angel told me to answer my email, take a shower, and go to bed. The devil told me I could finish the pants. The angel told me I was tired. The devil said, "He could be wearing these tomorrow."

I paid for listening to that devil, folks. I ripped out about fifteen seams (no lie) working on those pants. Those pants should have been as simple as all hell, and they took me forever. At one point, Nathan had a funky shaped long skirt because I had screwed up so hard. I did discover that I wanted to make myself and everyone I know pajama pants. I think if I were less tired, I could whip out a pair pretty quickly, even for adults.

Here is Nathan enjoying his outfit.



It's got an awfully cute turtle pattern on it.



You can see that the pants are already a little too small for him, but I like the project regardless.

Here he is standing up so you can see the pants.



My mom and I even took him to the park in his pajamas!



My final verdict? I wish Amy Butler had more diagrams and that her instructions were clearer, but it's an awfully cute pair of pajamas.

The Crafting That Doesn't Ring Any Bells

As I'm sure all of you fellow bloggers know, there are some blog posts that are hits, and others that are misses. The hits are normally the ones where you post some incredibly gorgeous finished project. The misses are where you talk about your lame work in progress. This is the lame work in progress post, only it is even more boring than that. So, I've been working on my hideous anklet socks which bring me down every time I look at them. Both Helen and Paul (who are creating a cooking blog between them, the traitors) ask me why I keep going on these socks that are sucking my will to live out from under me. I answer, because I must. Once I start something, I always feel I must finish it. It's the way I roll. I'm going down the foot of the second one now and if I just dedicate like two or three nights to them, I'll finish them, but I'm not even out of the hole then! I still have to make Nathan a matching pair of ugly socks since I will have approximately two hundred yards of sock yarn left when I'm down my own ugly socks.

Also, if you like to cook, you might want to check out the H & P cooking blog, The Secret Is Salt. Paul hasn't posted there yet, but Helen has already built up a good number of posts. I've already run the idea of cooking at my mom's place once in a while across them since my mom redid her kitchen to be twice as large as it once was, and it is mainly composed of counter or table space. The only bad part of that idea is that Paul would need to pack up most of our kitchen tools and pantry before we went.

So, what other non-sexy, non-ugly-sock stuff have I been doing? Well, buying sewing patterns, fabric, and slip stitching stuff. I ended up a failure in the cloth buying department again. Twice. I bought some lovely embroidered silk for a top. I needed a yard and three-fourths for the top. I got two and an eighth. I bought some kitschy cotton (with cartoon cats drinking coffee) for some silly boxers for myself. I needed a yard and three-fourths. I bought a yard and a fourth. I think I'm not meant to buy fabric, people.

I did buy a soft cloth book kit from Joann. It was fast to make (most of the work is pinning the layers together), and it was a cute result. Please ignore the fact that I've protected Nathan's full name from the internet with some awesome Photoshop scribbles.



Nathan was totally not interested. Five seconds after I took the next picture, he threw the book at the floor and nearly kicked it.



I liked the results though, and my mom has never been so impressed with me! Take that, Nathan!



After finishing this on the machine, I spent one full night just slip-stitching crap. I've learnt a lot from that. First, I'm a suck-ass slip-stitcher. Seriously. Check out that first picture in original size on Flickr. You'll see where I 'slip-stitched'. I ended up whip-stitching on my first attempt after I screwed up. By the third slip-stitched page, my work was improving to non-hideous. I also slip-stitched the waist band hole for my wrap skirt, which allowed me to finally hang it in my closet.

Since I haven't been getting much crafting done, I've decided I'm going to take some advice from Gives Good Knit, the podcast. She has decided to have projects for days of the week. I think I'm going to do this too. I have sewing, knitting, cross-stitch, and drawing. I'm just going to have to divvy up the days. I will detail more about this in the future.

Zippers -- Totally Not Mastered

Last night, after a lot of thought, I decided to pull out the machine and make two more cloth napkins (pictures coming later) and a zippered pencil case. Even though Sophy tells me all the cool little kids don't like cute stationary any more... (How did this happen?)



I have three different books at my house for referencing. One suggested I get some kind of mending tape to do the basting. The other suggested fabric glue, pinning, or hand basting to baste the zipper into place before hand. The last just assumed I knew what I was doing and roughly told me to baste it into place. I chose to hand-baste and I'm not sure that I'm happy with that.

I am going to try and get fabric glue for my next zipper project. Places where I was especially unhappy with this zipper? The top of the zipper. Also, I totally f'ing forgot to move from a basting stitch to a normal stitch when I was putting the zipper in, so this whole thing could fall apart at any moment.

In this next photo, you can see a tiny bit of the orange thread I used to baste!



I feel like I at least understand how to put in zippers now and I am tempted to try a real project with zippers.

BTW, I'm totally glad I made this. I stuck all my credit and gift cards and lipsticks into it and now I have an easy way to move the items in my bags from purse to purse without having a bunch of meaningless crap move too!

Finished Skirt!

Helen asked, in comments to my last post, if I should consider a miniskirt. I had, in a highly delusional moment, considered just chopping off a quarter of a yard off of each pattern piece and making a miniskirt wrap, before thinking about it rationally and buying the extra yard.

This was so stupid. I should have lopped off the pattern pieces. The night I wrote my last post, I also decided to do some basic sewing and hemming of the main pieces. The next night, I put almost everything together, but left it unhemmed on the very bottom. This led me to a horrible realization. This skirt was way way way way too long on me. It covered my knees, even with the hemming calculated in, by a good amount. I decided to do what I did not want to do. After showing it to Helen, who pointed out that it would be the perfect length for her, I decided to chop it severely. I took six and a half inches off of the bottom of the skirt. Then, last night, I hemmed the whole sucker up.



It's really hard to see the pattern in my full pic, so I included a little pic of it. I love this skirt. It's a great summer skirt, and one that works well with my collection of tanks and tees. It's adorable and perfect for casual wear. I am always wearing jeans in the summer and that is sometimes way too hot. Now I have this skirt to wear as well! I call this project a complete success.

On to my next sewing project now! What should it be? Pillowcases? Curtains for Nathan's room?

My Epic Fail -- Sewing Edition!

I decided several months ago to make myself the wrap skirt from Sew Everything Workshop. I was all excited about it and everything. Then, I did nothing. I mean, you all know how dead this blog has been. I knit one or two things, I sewed a few napkins and a bag, and I stared at my toes apparently.

Last week, I went to the library and, using Paul's card, got myself several books on sewing. After reading a TON, I decided I still wanted to make that skirt the most. So, I went and I bought really cute brown fabric with tiny white polka dots on it. I envisioned wearing it with my blue or green or pink shirts. (Sidenote: I own neither blue nor pink shirts.) I pictured it with cute kicky brown sandals. (Sidenote: At the time, I did not own such sandals, but Nine West came through for me.) I got jazzed. I even purchased some pattern paper. Last night, finally, finally, I managed to get the energy up to trace the pattern from my pattern page. I didn't want to cut it since I'm faintly optimistic that I might get back to a size small in the future from my current medium. I cut all those pattern pieces. I marked them all up. And I realized...

I had bought the amount of fabric described for 60 inch wide fabric, not 45 inch wide fabric.

EPIC FAIL, KITTEN!




I managed to buy another yard of the fabric, but I was so depressed about the whole thing that I could only barely manage to cut and mark the pieces tonight. I'm going to go take a shower and wash the fail off of me.

Tokyo Tie Bag

After I got my sewing machine last year, I also got a basic sewing book called Sew Everything Workshop.

I have finally made something from the book, and it's the Tokyo Tie Bag!



Sorry for the horrible photo, but I was at home, alone, and rushing to take a photo during Nathan's nap. I was lucky that I didn't smack myself in the face with the camera accidentally. I spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out the timer function on my D50 before saying 'EFF this' and just hanging the bag up and snapping a photo.

It's a cute bag made of corduroy both on the inside and outside. The outside is a black and white polka-dot and the inside a bright red. Originally I had intended the opposite, but Paul suggested that the other way would be better. I have no trust in my own fashion sense and went with his suggestion.

I like it, but I do not love it. I think I would have been better to go with a more Amy Butler-ish fabric on the outside. I was expecting a larger bag, and this bag is teeny. It also has no pockets on the inside. I'll use it, but... not much.

I am glad I made the bag since it allowed me to, for the first time: draft my own pattern, clip along a curve, grade seams, and try something called a French seam. I don't believe that it actually was a French seam compared to others I've seen online, but it was something different, at least.

Next up? Either a skirt or more napkins.



I had to show just one more photo!