New fabrics

The mailman brought me some gems. Echino fat quarters.

The new Heather Ross Far, Far Away III. This stuff is soft. Like almost quilt cotton soft. And almost with some drape to it. Almost. I love it.

Horses and girls

I've never been a horse girl. Never. I've ridden horses a couple of times in my life and I would be happy to again. As a girl, however, I never played with plastic horses (except for a few My Little Ponies, if that counts). It just wasn't my thing. I was more into other things (and I'll post on those next week).

So why I bought this fabric from Spoonflower, I will never know. But it's gorgeous. I splurged and chose the voile. It is soft and lovely. I was bummed at first when I saw that Heather Ross' Far Far Away III line included some of these same prints but they are on totally different fabric so it's all good. I am loving, loving, loving the ochre and browns. This palette reminds me of my early childhood before the '80s got all bright.

Design process

We are taking a little trip in a few days and I need the perfect bag for it. I searched high and low for patterns but nothing was working so I decided to design my own. I measured a few of the bags I already own to get an idea of size. I pulled a bunch of fabrics and spent whatever free time I had in two days to draft my own pattern. I just finished testing it with some dotted swiss I picked up at a yard sale and I think it's going to work.

I thought I'd show a couple of photos of my fabric process. I start by pulling out anything that seems good to me and then I think about it. Next, I pare down even more to get to the heart of it. Tomorrow I'll narrow this down with my pattern and decide what's going to go where. I like mixing prints but I don't think that will work for me in a bag. I have an ideal self that mixes prints but in real life, I'm damn boring.

The bag I designed has a finished size of 16" wide at the bottom (4" deep -- it's a box bottom shape). At the top it's about 14" wide with two nice box pleats. I might finish off the top with a wide-ish band to keep it clean. I'm still not sure about what I'll do for pockets on the inside or if I'm going with one strap or two but I'm hoping that will be a little easier. I hope to post pics when I'm finished.

Happy Birthday to me

While we were out of town, my long-awaited birthday gift arrived from Spoonflower. I told Mr. Lemon that I wanted fabric for my birthday so I picked it out and ordered it. It's much easier that way. These are from Heather Ross' new collection for Spoonflower called Macaroni Love Story. I decided to go with the organic cotton sateen. I have some of her cotton voile, some of the linen, and some regular quilting weight cotton, and of course this, so why not keep mixing it up? The sateen is very soft but feels hearty.

I love this design. When I go to pick out fabrics for a project, however, they are rarely like this. So I went with a test swatch of the two colorways that I was having trouble deciding between. I like having just a little bit -- enough for a pocket or some trim. As you can see for the aqua, I adjusted the scale from 300 to 375 dpi. It's not very noticeable but I just wanted to experiment. It made the people a little bit smaller.

These three are my little impulse buys. The Snow White is by Heidi Kenney of My Paper Crane, the yellow school buses are, of course, by Anda, and the awesome gnomes are by Paper Sparrow. I only remembered after I ordered the Snow White that I changed up the colors for the cross-stitch I am working on; it's not going to match. I'll have to figure something else out.

Thank you awesome computer for saving this entire post when Blogger didn't. Oh, and soon Andrea from Paper Sparrow will be doing an interview. Yay!

NYC Summer: Purl Soho

We took a weekend trip to New York recently to gather some supplies. Every time we hit the city, I make a point to stop into Purl. It was my first time in the new location and I thought it was great. Very roomy. They had a really nice selection of embroidery flosses, what seemed like the same amount of fabric, and a nice spot to look at patterns. Of course, there was the usual gorgeous crafty inspiration hanging out on every shelf and every corner.

The first thing to catch my eye were these little wool felt dolls by Mimi Kirchner. I didn't take any notes or photos of them while I was at the store but I couldn't stop thinking about them. When I got home, I did some snooping and found this awesome free pattern. I'm going to try to make one. I've had an idea brewing for a long time and I think this is what I needed to make it work.

I started my collection of Heather Ross' Far Far Away II with these lovelies. My color palette has been leaning toward this yellow and I bought several different versions of it on the trip (more on that later this week). The only embroidery floss available here is DMC and its generic counterparts so I decided to try some Trebizond silk (teal) and Londonderry spun linen (jonquil). They are both really lovely.

Of course, some Alexander Henry. I'd seen the larger print before but never the smaller one. I think they'll look lovely together and I have a pattern in mind. The polka dot trim caught my eye and I think it will look good with some fabric I picked up at Ikea. You never know...

Finally, I bought a teeny tiny bit of this Liberty of London gorgeousness to match the storage boxes from Target. I'm going to recover some pillows we have on the pullout in the office and I thought it would be nice to throw in a bit of this as an accent. It's not the same pattern but I didn't want to be too matchy matchy.

Project: Top Week Shirt Finished

I have finally completed my shirt for Top Week. I didn't think I'd actually be able to do it even though I had it mostly done last weekend. There was something bothering me about the collar but I just tacked it down on each side of the back closure and I think it works.

But here's the deal: It's too big. Don't you think? I altered the pattern I used to make this shirt (so much so that I don't even think alter is the word for it). The original faux silky shirt fits well but this shirt is hanging off of me way more than I'd like. I think it's because the knit is so fine that it has absolutely no structure. It's just pulling itself down.

Having learned from my first encounter with said pattern, I made the belt a good bit longer and also a little wider. It looks cute from the front but because of all the fabric I added to the back for the gathers, it looks awful. Bunchy bunchy.

I love the Heather Ross fabric I used for the top panel. It was lovely to work with and I still have a little bit of it left to hoard. I also liked working with the knit. You will no longer hear me complain about it. I'm good. I used a hook and eye to close it up at the top. I thought there was enough going on in the back so I didn't want to add a button.

More photos on flickr. More about changing a vintage pattern to fit my design here. And more about the fabric and inspiration here. How hilarious is it that without thinking about it, I am kinda in the same pose as the model in the ad up there in my first picture.

Project: I finally spent my Christmas money

So now that it's March, I finally got around to spending my Christmas money -- and in one fell swoop at that. I went nuts on Spoonflower and bought these rad Heather Ross gnome and mushroom prints that I have been drooling over for ages but could never find. Best of all, I got this fantastic alligator (crocodile) repeat from Anda of boosterseat.

I don't know what I'm going to do with the gnomes but I got a yard of each and a yard of the mushrooms. The mushroom color matches both gnomes so it will be a nice border or trim or cuff or collar and I should have some left over no matter what.

I'm going to make a super cute romper with the alligators. I'm using a vintage pattern that I borrowed from my mother in law who made a few for my husband's sisters when they were Zadie's age. I don't know why but Zadie is crazy for alligators and crocodiles. Do you know how to tell the difference? The crocs have a severe underbite while the gators have an overbite. Chomp! (I once saw a gator fly out of a small pond and eat a sunbathing turtle. I am not lying. I have a witness and I will never forget that sound).

Check out Anda's gallery at the bottom of her spoonflower page. Zadie is nuts for school buses (and thanks to my local BOE closing the historic school we can see from our house [and the number one reason why we moved to our otherwise third-choice neighborhood], she'll be lucky enough to ride one every day grrrrr....).

4 yards of fabric plus shipping was about $79 but I can do whatever I want with my Christmas money and a new living room rug is so boring.

Project: Pattern Challenge

Yesterday on Facebook, Sew, Mama, Sew posted about the new pattern challenge project over at Come and See the Seitz. When I was developing my ideas for Project: Project, honestly, the thought to make stuff for myself never crossed my mind. Faced with the temptation of a new challenge, I decided to jump right in.

So the deal is that participants have to set some goals, put them in writing, and join a flickr! group. Done, done, and done! (And that last part was easy -- you know me and flickr!). Since this is a pattern challenge, I have to use someone else's patterns and challenge myself. Sarah's hopes for the project are that by the end, we'll have a huge archive of pattern reviews that will be useful to other people attempting to make those same designs.

I haven't made a garment for myself since I took Flat Pattern Design in college (1997 to date myself). I am starting to realize that I've never actually made anything for myself from someone else's pattern. I think this challenge is off to a great and challenging start. We're in the middle of some bizarre freezing rain, snow, and ice so I can't exactly drive to the fabric store (45 minutes in either direction). My meagre stash of sewing books will have to do for now. My first two challenges come from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing: the Go-Everywhere Shirt Dress and the Kimono Dress with an Obi Sash. When I have time, I'll find a vintage pattern to sew from and something from the fabric store.

My personal goals are to sew one item for myself each month for at least 4 months. If the Pattern Challenge is still in swing after that, I may just keep going.

For more on Project: Project, read this post.

ocd, just a little

After seeing Heather Ross' gorgeous Mendocino fabric collection, I decided to make Zadie a quilt for when she moves into the toddler bed version of her crib.

I bought the Mixtape pattern from OhFrannson (who also has an amazing blog -- if you're into quilting, you should take a look).

And now I'm trying to choose fabrics. I'm going to use the Favorite Songs pattern because it will give me the largest blocks. Since I'm new to this, I think that's the best way to go (larger = fewer). The fabrics have some pretty big prints so the bigger the block, the more space they'll have.

Anyway, on the Freespirit site, they have swatches of 36 prints. When I was searching Etsy, I found a few more. Now I'm getting all ocd and feel like I need to see them all in one space before I'm able to make my decision. I wonder if someone can help me with this...

I often wish I lived in a city with a huge fabric store that would have everything. It is hard to buy fabric online.