Project: Press

The play kitchen we made for Zadie was featured on Ohdeedoh today. It's one of my favorite blogs. I usually store up a bunch of posts then read them once or twice a week during lunch. A lot of the inspiration for the kitchen came from their archives so it's nice to be added into the mix.

Project: Decisions (or, So Much Fabric So Little Time)

I bought some Oliver + S patterns a few weeks ago and realized that I was hoarding them like my cutest cuts of Japanese fabric. Yesterday I decided to break out the Playsuit pattern and go for it. It's sold as part of the Tea Party Sundress set.

Although the samples feature a solid fabric or a solid paired with a print, I really like mixing prints so I got out some of my favorites and starting messing around. How surprising that this Lizzy House Red Letter Day fabric (Pearl Bracelet and Stripes) goes so well with the Michelle Engel Bencsko Shade Garden line (Snail Trail and Sprouts).


So which one do you like the best?

(Playsuit image from the Oliver + S website.)


For more information about Project: Project, read this post.

Project: Storybook Cape

I'm a huge fan of the Grosgrain blog. Kathleen is an amazingly talented seamstress, designer, and photographer. I don't know how she does it. All I know is that I'm lucky enough to have a kid just a few months younger than hers so if she keeps posting patterns like this one that fit her kid, then I'm all set with cuteness.

This cape was incredibly easy to make. I'd like to say it took longer to cut out the slippery velour than it did to make the entire cape but I screwed up (what, again, really? no.). Something that should have been simple, of course, took me a couple extra hours.

So I chose this incredibly soft dark chocolate brown velour to pair with the super bright turquoise fine wale corduroy. Kathleen said not to choose stiff fabrics so I was worried about the corduroy but it was perfect to give some needed weight to that crazy velour.

Zadie came with me to the fabric store to pick everything out and she was dying over the velour. When we got home she was draping the yardage over herself like a kimono and would pile herself dramatically on top of it on the floor all while shouting, "Soft! Soft!" So I hurried to cut out my pattern pieces and stitched her up a little soft of her own with what was left over. "The soft" has now joined the entourage in the crib (Mila, blankie, Elph the elephant).

What I did wrong: Because I used such a slippery fabric, the two layers weren't holding together very well. So I decided to tack them together at the top and bottom of the sleeve holes with a horizontal stitch. I did this before sewing the bottom hem so I couldn't turn it inside out to make a blind hem, I had to pin it together and topstitch the entire thing. With velour, you need to pin every inch or it goes wild. I like to pin and I love to topstitch (as I've said before). But ugh. Then I had to rip out a few sections where it got all bunchy bunchy and re-stitch.

The end result is amazing. Zadie loves it and we can't wait for Spring when this becomes a permanent fixture in the outerwear collection. Check out Grosgrain for all the giveaways and help out her friend win the wedding of her dreams.

For more information about Project: Project, read this post.

Project: Mod Sampler Quilt

all my rows stacked and pinned

A few months ago I started the quilt-along hosted by Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson! I had discovered the quilt-along because I saw Elizabeth’s quilt patterns for sale on Etsy. Her work was so inspiring that I bought one or two of her patterns and all the fabric to make a quilt for Zadie’s toddler bed (even then I knew it would take me forever to do it so I was thinking way ahead – no crib quilts here, I know me). I followed the links to her blog the day she started the quilt-along – what great timing.

I had only made one other quilt before, the patchwork crib quilt from Amy Butler’s In Stitches. Although that was technically a quilt, I didn’t really feel like I had made a quilt. There was something just not quite patchworky about it. I thought the quilt-along would be better as a beginning project than just jumping in with my precious Heather Ross fabrics that I had bought for the toddler bed quilt project.

I was very excited to get started. As I moved quickly through the first few steps and was able to keep up with the instructional posts, I photographed my fabrics, my stacks of pieces ready to go, and the different blocks along the way. I even posted everything to flickr and put them in the pool. I got all of my blocks pieced together and then I stopped. Cold.

I piled everything up on top of a storage box in the office and left it there. I’ve been looking at it become a fixture for all these months. Then all of a sudden, Elizabeth started posting on her blog more frequently. Then she started another quilt-along. Instead of going absolutely insane and joining in, I decided to finish my Mod Sampler. I got everything out and pinned together my rows. Wednesday night I sewed two of them together and last night I did two more. There are two more left and I’m loving it.

But as I’m learning more about the process, I realize that even though I’m still a beginner at this, I can do things my way. I do not like sewing on the freezer paper so I’m taking it all off and won’t ever use it again (quilters use freezer paper to help add on some width to a cut that is too short). I also don’t like my quarter inch foot so it’s coming off and I’m going to make do with my regular one.

I never thought I would learn so much by simply picking up an old project where I left off. I feel like a better stitcher and am more confident in the decisions that I make with my craft. I’ll post again with pictures when the top is finished. I’ll definitely need some help picking a fabric for the binding.

For more information about Project: Project, read this post.

Project: Someone Else's Project, THE 2010 HANDMADE OLYMPICS!

The rikrack studio is hosting the 2010 Handmade Olympics. I've been a follower of their Twitter feed for some time now and just learned of this awesome event.

So here's the deal: you can nominate yourself and others in 8 different handmade events from eco-friendly goodies to a handmaking-focus blog. I just submitted my first nomination and then posted that to Twitter (I can't bring myself to type the word tweet as a verb in that usage just yet except in parentheses like this. The same thing goes for Google as a verb, journal as a verb, and blog as a verb. I'm sure I'll get over this one day but my years as a lit. major are still winning my inner battle with technology.).

Anyway, check out this post for all the details. I might even nominate myself.

For more information about Project: Project, read this post.

Project: Sometimes you never learn...

Creamy broccoli was made this evening with vanilla almond milk. I guess the gravy we made that one time with the vanilla soy milk didn't taste bad enough.

Anybody have a fix for this (other than never buying the delicious vanilla flavored versions of our non-dairy beverages)? We're sure to make this mistake again.

For more information about Project: Project, read this post.

Project: Cape

I made my niece Gracie a fabulous cape using this pattern I found on the Martha Stewart website thanks to my amazing crafty friend Nikole who made an even more amazing cape for her daughter for Halloween last year from the same tutorial (hopefully Nikole will agree to be interviewed for Project: Project sometime soon).

Gracie is the girliest of girly girls and just turned 5. So for Christmas I put together a bin of dress up clothes for her since I had heard she was the only girl in the neighborhood without one. I picked up a few things here and there but that box just seemed empty (even though it was overflowing with tulle). I decided a cape was in order and set out to make it happen.

The directions were pretty easy to follow but I did have some problems. The Red Riding Hood cape pattern calls for 28" of fabric but FOLDED. So that means that you must have yardage that is at least 56" wide (so from a 60" bolt). The silver satiny stuff that I bought was 60" and it worked out just fine. Then I started to cut the pink and realized that it was from a 45" bolt. So even if I were to cut the pattern and create a seam, I wouldn't have had enough fabric. Keep that in mind if you want to make a cape from this pattern -- and really do your math if you want to make one of the longer ones.

But what a happy accident. I pieced together a panel from some of my favorite and most girly of girly girl prints to extend it. If I had remembered to add seam allowances to my cuts, this would have been simple. Ha!

I used some grosgrain ribbon to make the tie and topstitched all the edges because I'm crazy and I love to topstitch. I think it turned out great and Gracie loves her special cape -- and it's reversible (if only I had a steamer).

For more information about Project: Project, read this post.