Project: Ironing Board

photo of the shelves taken when I was pregnant. we were getting everything moved into the office

I've just spent the last hour sewing the sashing from my Mod Sampler Quilt to the first two rows. Wow. I'm beat from the ironing and the pinning! I have a tabletop ironing board on the floor next to my desk. It lives there because I use it all the time and I'm too lazy to put it where it belongs.

There is no other place to lay out my strips so after ironing my pieces, I carry them from the office I share with Mr. Lemon and the play kitchen to the living room and pin them together. Then I carry all that back to the sewing desk to put it all together. Back and forth and up and down and ouch my back hurts.

What do you guys use for an ironing board? I asked for one for Christmas but Mr. Lemon said he wasn't about to get me anything because he knew I would just not find it perfect enough and he'd have to return it. He's right. I'm picky.

We have room to store the ironing board between that shelf and the wall. I want something light that folds up easily. My last ironing board was a beast from Ikea. I hated it and it did not survive the move to this house. I would appreciate any recommendations.

For more about Project: Project, read this post.

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.