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.

New year, new look for my chairs!

Many, many moons ago, my chairs were looking pretty grubby, and I hatched a plan to recover them (and Jenn hatched a plan for me to blog it.) Easy peasy, right? All you need to recover chairs like these are some fabric and a staple gun!



WRONG. The fabric was easy to acquire. Jenn escorted me to Jo-Ann's, and we selected a lovely navy pattern... in 2009. And then it sat, and sat, and sat, waiting for me to do something with it. First, I needed to borrow a staple gun. Then, I needed staples. How long can this take? A mighty long time. Finally, the impending arrival of a new baby provided sufficient motivation for this long-overdue craft project.

For the first chair, I decided to remove the existing cover. It was also stapled in place, with a far more powerful stapler than any I have encountered. To pry that fabric loose took roughly 2 hours, screwdrivers, two people and quite a bit of elbow grease. Needless to say, the subsequent chairs have their original covers under the new ones.



The only upside of all that work? I could use the existing cover as the template when cutting the new fabric.

Stapling is a two-man job. You need a second person to hold the fabric taut while you staple. Additionally, I had to hammer the staples in a bit to get them fully flush. Each chair takes about 5 minutes, once you have your system down.



Once we finished the first one, though, the other 3 flew by. Before I knew it, my capable assistant was reassembling the newly covered chairs!



So, over a year, 2 hours, 20 minutes and 9 months later, I think we can call both of our recent projects a success. And now I'm considering another, similar project... recovering my bed frame, that is.

Want Tutorials?

So, I wanted to clue you in on the two crafty things that I did discover this Christmas season. 

One, I've figured out how to turn my multitude of wrapping paper into paper bags.



Not the most useful thing this year (except it works for cookie deliveries), but I suspect that when I have a child at grade school, it'd be neat to send in lunches made out of wrapping paper or such at Christmas time.

Two, I finally learned how to make a damnable bow out of wired ribbon.



For years I've lusted after this ribbon, only to reject it, because it was nearly useless in my wrapping efforts. Now, I buy this ribbon ALL the time. That's my new Christmas wrapping rule.

Any one want tutorials on either of these items? If so, let me know. I think I'd enjoy putting those online.

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.

I Finished Something But This Isn't About That

I promise that I'll be posting about my finished (sewing) project this week, and I might even have teaser pictures tomorrow, but I have a link to a great tutorial for hand picked zippers today. I've been hearing a lot of my dressmaking blogs talk about hand picked zippers and I'm always made WTF face at my computer screen trying to figure out how you would even do one.

Turns out Sewaholic could practically see my WTF face and she decided to tutorialize the heck out of the sewing!

Oh, I can't resist a grainy, blurry teaser pic of the finished project that I shall parade before you later!




Do you appreciate the way that my son is already hideously embarrassed by this all?

Coming Out Of Hibernation

To tell you that I'm excited about three things.



One is my new secret obsession. Japanese washi tape. I mean, I'm obsessed with office supplies in general. However, the cuteness that is washi tape kills me. Seriously, the store Cute Tape is making me flip out. It sells cute stickers. And cute labels. And cuteness. It might as well sell kittens.

Oliver + S is going to publish a book of patterns. I'm no secret admirer of Oliver + S. I think the children patterns they put out are adorable, modern, and sweet. I just can't justify the cost of one or two or EIGHT BILLION when I don't sew enough.

Turtlegirl has posted a tutorial for an adorable twisted garter cuff for a sock. It makes me want to knit that pair of socks right now. Maybe if I didn't have two pairs of Cookie A socks on the needles right now.

Let's Not Lie To Each Other

I've disappeared. I'd like to blame my son's asthma (which flared) or my cats (who got fleas and colds and liver problems) or my mom (who decided that she hates surgery and will let her knee fall off). However, the real problem has been laziness, weird weather, a slight cold of my own, and Vampire Diaries. Have you people even seen that show? It's like crack. You know, if crack were deliciously handsomely evil with gorgeous eyes. I'm going to recommend you all watch it if you like teen dramas (and that includes all you Veronica Mars and Buffy fans). Power through the stupid first three episodes, with all their Twilightesque silly drama, and get to the part where crazy stuff goes down.

Anyway, every night I say to myself, 'I should sew', or 'I should knit'. Instead, I check out my computer, watch an episode or two of television, and then go to sleep. Well, I've been reading more sewing blogs. There are so many gorgeous ones our there with people making clothes that make me weep with envy. And I've been surfing Gilt Groupe and ModCloth. Actually, I've been avoiding ModCloth, otherwise, I end up with roughly thirty some tabs open with dresses like these.



Darn you, ModCloth! I want ALL of your dresses because they make me weep with joy. Either way, all that awesome dress web page surfing makes me want to sew, but I need more incentive! Well, I got that incentive today. I have had the fabric for my son's train shirt sitting on our dining room table for months now. Today, my son saw it and went crazy over the fabric. "Choo-choo! Choo-choo!"

I asked him, "Do you want a choo-choo shirt?" His enthusiastic reply was all I needed to feel a little energized. So, I wanted to say hello again before I cut out my fabric. I hope to talk to you soon. (Maybe I'll start processing my digital photos again so I can show you the cute new sweater tights I bought to go with my imaginary ModCloth dresses.)

What Do I Want To Do

As you know, I'm already working on a pair of socks and a blanket (both super slowly right now due to my latest obsession), but I'm planning ahead too! I want to knit other things, so here's the first of my hopeful queue.

1. Monkey Socks





I'd like to make these for my mother-in-law out of the pumpkin colored Gloss sock yarn I have.

2. Auto Vest

For my darling Nathaniel.

I'll add to this later, but isn't that vest the most darling thing ever?

I'm Crafty, For Reals, Plus WIP Wednesday!

So, it's crafty.ninjakitten.net! Thank you for the feedback, and you should see this in any feed readers you use due to my new found love, Feedburner.

Are you bored by that blog business? So am I! Here's my "What I Did On Summer Vacation -- Crafty Edition" essay. Well, as I think I might, or might not, have mentioned, we went to the shore last week. (For those of you who don't live local to Philly, the shore is synonymous with the beach in my area. It normally indicates the Jersey shore, but I visited Ocean City, MD instead.) Thinking that I'd just knit knit knit all night, I brought along the nub's blanket and a lot of yarn. I don't know why I thought I'd knit so much, but mostly I slept every night because I was so darned tired. I did get some knitting done, though.





And, because I love to ask for trouble, I visited Salty Yarns while down at Ocean City. They bill themselves primarily as an embroidery shop, but what right minded person names their store Salty Yarns and doesn't sell any yarn? Not the owner of Salty Yarns, luckily. I wasn't going to go in, because they did have an extremely sparse yarn collection, but I spied something special through the windows. That's right, Lantern Moon needles! They had Sox Stix! The next trip to the boardwalk, I was there to purchase myself a nice set of size 1 needles in rosewood. I know it's extravagant, but they make me so darn happy when I'm knitting and that makes a difference. (As an aside, I got pretty indifferent service at Salty Yarns. Perhaps it was because I came in late just prior to Labor Day, but I was not greeted especially warmly, and the person who was at the register seemed both unaware and uninterested in what Lantern Moon needles they had available.)

Excited by the needles, I came home and wound up some very special yarn for a pair of socks I've been wanting to try from Cookie A. I'll leave the particular pattern nameless to surprise you all later! The super special yarn was Sundara Sock! I've been dying to try either that or my Madelinetosh, but when asked, Paul said he thought the pink of my Cranberry Mousse colorway worked better with the pattern. He helped me wind it and my heart sunk like a stone as we did. It went from being beautifully pink and cream in the skein to being a tiny bit like...




Grape juice vomit. I wanted to cry as I stared it, but I held myself together and decided I needed to use it anyway. I asked myself, somewhat crazily, what drew me to grape juice vomit yarn. I was angry at Sundara who was 'supposedly' a great dyer. I was cranky and tired and mean when I cast on, but what a difference a few rows can do.

Only half an inch later, I was back in love.




The yarn slid easily and beautifully from sharp pretty needle to sharp pretty needle. It knitted up tight, but not too dense. And, best of all, it was knitting up into a pretty petal pink. Some areas are slightly lighter, others darker, but it's as if it was a flower petal, all gentle flows of color. I apologized to whomever Sundara's dyer is, in my head. This is the reason people camped out on the Sundara website to try to get a skein. It was perfection.

So, now I'm knitting two different items for the first time in a while. I've mentally committed myself to working on the blanket half the time to try and crank it out, and working on my other stuff, including some sketching once again, during the rest of the week. We'll see how this all turns out.

Bye-bye, from one crafty ninja kitten!

Fabric Stash And My URL

Okay, first up, prior to my boring you with my babbling about how awesome my husband is. I finally managed to figure out how to change my damnable URL for this blog to use my personal domain without losing all my feed traffic and readers. It only took me a year. Anyways. I am using blog.ninjakitten.net for my family blogging. (You know, the stuff that would bore you so I shunt it off onto some sad sack blog.)

That leaves me looking for a URL for this blog. I was just going to go with crafts.ninjakitten.net, but I was wondering if crafts sounds too... 'arts and crafts' as in macaroni and popsicle stick stuff. Then I thought, brilliantly, crafty.ninjakitten.net. Then I was worried that was lame. knitting.ninjakitten.net is out since I sew. clothing.ninjakitten.net seems a lie too since I'm not really discussing clothing so much as my making of items that might or might not be clothing.

What do you all think? Any suggestions? attack.ninjakitten.net? i-am.ninjakitten.net?

Anyways, let's forget about all that for now. Let me soothe you with some delicious silk my husband picked up for me at Mood while he was in New York city. Again.

Interestingly, my husband got me a yard of each which has left me browsing for cute, but short skirt patterns and for tank type tops. I bought a few Simplicity patterns during a Joann sale, but I'm too afraid to cut into silk!



That's actually much hot pinker in person. While it's my least favorite pattern of the three, I suspect it would actually be the most versatile made into clothing. Just goes to show that you should shop with other people and that you should consider what the finished item will look like.



I really love love this stripe, but with one yard of it, I'm at a complete loss. I mean, I've never matched up stripes before. Maybe I should use this as the bodice of a dress? Or just the short skirt of a dress?



The second I saw this one, I fell in love. Paul was mystified about what made this my favorite. I think that I like that it is slightly whimsical while still having a deep red to it. I am saving this one for last for use because I love it the most and am most afraid of it.

While picking up patterns at Joann, I also picked up some corduroy for myself.



How adorable are those owls? I definitely want to make a skirt out of that fabric and wear it every where. Because that would be the definition of autumnal fun -- wearing that skirt with my cute new J Crew tee and a cute pair of shoes that I do not currently own. Perhaps I could wear it while picking out pumpkins for the display I am planning for my front porch.

Okay, so, peeps, get back to me on that URL, please? Also, try not to mock me for having the fashion sense of a ten year old. I like my whimsy, okay?