Project Pics

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'm going to give it a try!  Life isn't allowing me much time to blog, so I'll post some pics of what I've been making.

Also, check out the new blogs I added to my Awesome Blog List on the sidebar; I am mama hear me roar and MADE.  Cool and inspirational!

Finally, I've been part of a crafty, creative, monthly meeting organized by Trace of Making Schtuff.  It's helped me to stay connected to this part of me through the busy first months of life with an infant (and a preschooler, and two dogs, and the holidays...you get the picture.)  It's also been just plain fun to swap ideas and dreams with other like minded souls.  Thanks, Trace.  Muah! 

To all of you: are there some like minded souls in your life you could pull together to muse on a set topic you all share an affinity for?  Food for thought, as it really is quite fulfilling to share excitement, observances, set-backs and the corresponding support, inspiration, and enthusiasm that surround a shared affinity for something special. 

My best to you ~J.




Upcycled Cashmere Baby Hat for Carter

 



Upcycled Wool Longies and Cashmere Baby Hat for Adrian

 

Rustic Thanksgiving Banner for Lynne (our gracious hostess)



Flower Pom (added after the first photo)




Close-up of the Banner.  Burnt Umber Paint on Burlap - Simple!



Fabrics for Baby Emma's Quilt



Baby Quilt for O's PreK Teacher in Progress (forgot to get finished pic, sniff.)



Fun Fabrics for the Next Quilt

More Fun Flannels and Minky

Betty Boop Baby Blanket, Anyone?!

Ta-da...Nursery Progress

This is going to be mostly a pictorial blog entry since I've only got 2 full days left before heading to the hospital to have Big Baby Boy #2 (and lots of loose ends to tie up before we go.)  Time flies!  The nursery isn't ready, but it's getting close.  Which is fine, since our 1st baby didn't spend a lot of time in his crib or his room for the first 6 weeks or so anyway! 

Here is the "project complete" list - I've sewn the crib skirt, recovered generic cream bumper pads from IKEA, recovered the glider rocking chair cushions with a vintage blue bedspread, and saved enough of said spread to use as the backing for a quilt.  I have never made a quilt before mind you, but my pregnant brain thought this would be a fun time to try.  It was fun, but don't look too closely.  I took lots of liberties hat would probably make a proper quilter's blood boil, but in the end I'm very happy with how it turned out!  I also completed the "You are my Sunshine" wall hanging using an old screen I scavenged last summer and have been anxious to use, some raffia ric rack that I love, part of my button collection, and some scrap fabric.  Finally, the collection of thrifted embroidery hoops has been filled with pieces of fabric from the nursery project and hung over the crib.  Love it - they look like giant, vintage polka dots!!

The " project not-so-complete-yet" list includes adding ties to the tops of the bumper pads (there is only a lower set,) sewing buttons at the corners of the glider foot stool to hold the cover in place (it was expertly gathered and pinned by my good friend Jen months ago,) embellishing the plain linen fabric in the largest embroidery hoop (maybe with baby's initial once we settle on a name,)  and a host of other little details I'd like to do but aren't essential.

It's been a really fun project and I can certainly take it farther after babe is born if I can find the time, but for now I'm pleased with the outcome.  Enjoy the pics!!

Nursery

Rag quilt front




Rag quilt back

 






I have no idea why this one keeps rotating, sorry!

Close up of wall hanging

Satisfaction and Sewing

It seems like lately the song in my head has been "I...can't...get... no-o... sat-is-faction" (complete with Mick Jagger's voice and inflection,) "but I try...and I try...and I try - I can't GET NO...."  I'm happy to report that things are finally different today!  Thank heavens!

In the interest of full disclosure, my husband and I just returned from a week of warm weather, sans 4 year old son, which undoubtedly had a lot to do with my shift in perspective.  Like most parents, we love our little guy immensely, but we also need a break now and then to allow that love to flourish.  Being pregnant (tired, nauseous, victim to random aches/pains) during this extremely snowy MN winter had also taken its toll on my psyche, so the change of climate was a Godsend on many levels. 

Organizing my ideas and fabrics so I could start sewing for the new baby's nursery today, the satisfaction and contentment settled in as I began sewing my first project, a crib skirt.  The radio was on in my sunny new arts and crafts room, the space heater was cranking out warmth, and I was humming along on my good old White sewing machine, while the little guy happily kicked away in my abdomen.  I was right where I wanted to be, doing exactly what I wanted to be doing!  It was glorious!  It was a luxury - and one well worth the other luxuries we forgo in order to live without steady income from me.  It was a feeling of bliss to start giving shape to the ideas floating around in my head for this nursery.  Ahhhh, satisfaction....     

So what are these ideas, this master plan for decorating the nursery you may ask?  Now that we know it's a boy, I picked a theme of natural linen, ticking stripes, and chenille - call it rustic/country french perhaps?  I am using one of French General's new La Petite Ecole fabrics to pull together the neutral linen, cream, blues and reds of the tickings.  It's vintage typography shown here:

The fabric pictured above will be used to cover inexpensive IKEA bumper pads (incidentally, I purchased the fabric from uncommon yardage on Etsy.com if you're interested in buying some yourself.)  I got a roll of natural, decorator weight linen at a garage sale this summer for $4 (a steal) which I will use to sew a crib skirt.  The skirt will be trimmed with a wide band of cream and red ticking stripes at the bottom, also from the same garage sale.  See them pictured in the upper right corner of the photo below with my other lovely fabrics for the nursery.

My plan is to use the heavy, vintage, blue chenille bedspread I thrifted for covering the cushions of the gliding rocker in the nursery.  I am a sucker for chenille!  I think there's enough to also make a quilt for the crib, although babies don't really use a quilt, so maybe I'll just drape it casually somewhere in the room.  I think the glider's ottoman will be covered in the fine, pale blue stripe sitting on top of the chenille in the photo.  Ric rac, pom-pom ball fringe, and grosgrain ribbon are my choices for adding detail to pieces.  I can't wait to see how it all turns out!
 
I will sew a wall hanging to go above the crib - not sure of its design yet.  I'm toying with using the cream flannel squares and squares from all of the other fabrics to make a patchwork design fabric hanging resembling a quilt.  It would be mounted on a metal rod, ala French General's Kaari Meng in her book Home Sewn.  Or, I may sew giant letters saying, "bebe" or simply an "E" for our last name, to a large piece of linen backing and hang it behind an old window I have been dying to use in a project (the window would act as a frame.)  So many ideas!  Got anymore for me?
 
Finally, I will sew fabric liners from the various ticking stripes for the many baskets that will coral all of the baby supplies.  I will pull it all together with a deep barn-red colored rag rug and a cream woven rug with barn-red stripes.  (I have ideas for a mobile of sorts and some other accessories, but I need to get the basics sewn first and do a little painting - with zero VOC paint, of course.)  The journey has begun, my friends!  I'm happy to have you along for the ride. 
 
May your week hold a bit of satisfaction and contentment somewhere along the way... All my best to you ~J.

Home-sewn gift

Here it is, already Thursday night!  Where o' where has the week gone?  Oh yeah, that's right, it was spent with a 3 year old whirling dervish chasing robins, playing Chutes and Ladders, going on walks with friends, and actually chipping away at the massive cleaning our home so desperately needs.  Yes!  It's been a good week.

To start the week off right I attended a super fun baby shower for a former coworker.  Since we'd already had the "work shower" where a bunch of us went in on some items from her gift registry, I decided something home sewn would be in order for this soiree. 

Here was my creation (their last name begins with "D" and they're having a boy.)  I loved it!!  Fun to do (albeit a bit frustrating when my tension went awry and made holes in the shirt, so I hand stitched a blanket stitch around the area to fix it.)  Mom-to-be was very surprised by the gift considering she didn't know I sewed, and that made it all the more special.  I have 3 more friends with babes on the way and I'm excited to try another project or two or three!  Not a big investment of money goes into a gift like this, but a huge investment of LOVE certainly does, and that's why it's so fun to give (and to get.)  Right?!

With Father's Day right around the corner I'm looking for some fun ideas O and I can do for dad.  Any thoughts you're willing to share?  Post away!!  Have a super weekend, everyone. ~J

Shopping for a good cause

My friend Abby alerted me to a fundraising garage sale last Saturday at the Textile Center in Minneapolis.  Cool, cool, cool!  My sister and I, who are both garage sale (and thrift store) junkies and avid crafters who also love to sew, decided to check it out.  Three hours later we emerged with giant grins on our faces and giant bags full of goodies!  We had so much fun searching for buried treasure on the tables and tables and tables of donated items for sale.

My sister scored sunny yarn in yellows, corals, and oranges for knitting ($7 for what you see in the photo.)  She showed amazing restraint!  I fully indulged and left the sale with fabrics, trims, felt, notions, beads, googly eyes, sequins and all manner of other fun things.  Here are a few pics we took while sorting all of the goodies... This event is DEFINITELY on our calendars for next year.

If you're unfamiliar with the Textile Center, a National Center for Fiber Art, please peek at their website.  They offer classes & workshops on a variety of fun topics like knitting & felting, sewing, design & creativity, as well as summer camps for children ages 6 to 16, and kids' classes.  At their home in the Prospect Park neighborhood of Minneapolis they have a shop and library (you can also search their catalog of books online.)  The "Textile Mobile" is their fun way to do community outreach, taking textile arts experiences on the road, and it's for hire!

What amazing, cool, or interesting community resources and organizations have you discovered of late?  Please share so we can also check them out, or search for a comparable organization in our own community!!

Signing off on this sunny Tuesday evening - time to get outside (again!)  Enjoy your evening, my friends.

Double take

Hello, friends!  Hope you've had a good week thus far.  I just finished planting 4 terrariums late last  night and I'm so pumped (probably because it's the first time I've ever done this!)  But that's the topic of my next blog post, when I have some photos to share. 

I got my new issue of House Beautiful  magazine yesterday and cannot wait to delve into it this weekend.  The cover, however, made me do a double take!  There is a pillow on the couch that looks so strikingly close to a pillow I finished about a week ago, proving to me that no idea is original anymore.  That's not to say there are no good ideas anymore, or that it's bad/sad in some way, it's just that so much of art and design mimics or has a foundation in something else that it's hard to come up with totally original ideas.  And that's okay.  It's the whole history repeats itself thing... 

Anyway, I'm so proud to have come up with the same idea as some excellent (probably highly paid) designer, all on my own!  So cool.  Here are the pics folks, you decide for yourself...  My pillow in red (cream linen and muslin circles layered on a red pillow, but in one corner only.)

Their pillow (circles layered on cream pillow, completely covering it)...

Bored? NEVER!

I recall as a small child telling my mom, probably a little too often and in a voice a little too whiny, "I'm bored."  To which she'd respond with some wonderful idea like seeing how many 4-leaf clovers could be found in our yard or ironing my dad's shirts for $.25 a piece.  Now as an adult, I simply cannot fathom boredom.  The list of projects I want to tackle, crafts I want to sew, books I want to read, blogs I want to read, people I want to catch up with, yardwork and gardening I want to do and much, much more is simply endless! 

A few top items on my list are sewing some awesome placemats and maybe a table runner from my cool thrift store fabric finds, figuring out how to rearrange our space to accomodate 2 desks which will become a cutting/sewing table that I purchased from a friend who's moving, dividing the sedum along our fence line since it 'tis the season, installing edging around our newly created boat parking pad (thanks to Mike and his dad,) locating a Bakeri Blue Spruce and planting it at the front corner of our house (must be done in spring,) determining if I want to rehab another property in the coming months, seeking alternative employment opportunities, and more! 

My list of books is bordering on crazy - I had to return My French Life by Vicki Archer to the library before I could finish it, and I haven't yet begun Entre Nous: A Woman's Guide to Finding her Inner French Girl which is due back soon (probably because I've been skimming Sew Darn Cute, Button Girl, House Beautiful The Home Book, and the Finishing Touch book from House Beautiful in my so-called "spare time", HA!)  I have yet to finish Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy, despite really enjoying it, and Anthony Bourdain's The Nasty Bits (I managed to read Kitchen Confidential and loved it, being the ex-waitress I am!)

Me, bored?  NEVER!  You see, I think I inherited a gene that keeps me forever curious and motivated to try something new.  Life is simply too short not to reap all it has to offer. 

One of my favorite sayings from Curly Girl's Leigh Standley is "The world is full of people who will go their whole lives and not actually live one day.  She did not intend on being one of them."  (This is also the woman who came up with "I am fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world."  What's not to love?!) 

So tell us, friends, how will you keep from being bored in life?! 
Hugs to you this wonderful Saturday morning! ~J

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