Completed: Pink Potholders

Just in time for Valentine's day: exceedingly pink potholders.  I needed to replace my old (missing, thanks baby girl) potholders.  I've seen lots of cool scrappy potholders on tha interwebz and even have a few tutorials pinned.  I pretty much ended up winging it with these, though...

I won't bore you with construction details as there are tons of tutorials out there and, let's be honest, you can probably figure it out just by looking at it.  Instead let me just say Happy V-Day!  I hope you got to celebrate with lots of chocolate and wine instead of Tylenol cold and tissues (as I did at home sick today).

Thurlows I (I MADE PANTS!!!)

I made pants!  Real pants!  They have a zip fly and pockets (fancy pockets at that) and they fit and THEY.ARE.PURE.AWESOME.

I'm kind of excited about it... can you tell?

That's right.. can't you see the excitement?  No?  How odd....

January and February have been unusually sunny this year, meaning I have no excuse for not getting pics of my recent makes other than shame at passers-by seeing me struggle with my digital camera settings on my lunch break (it may be sunny during the day, but it's still dark at 5:30).  For above reason I stick to snapping pics on the weekends when it's just me and the kids...  Which is why I'm not wearing makeup.... or a clean shirt.  Sorry.

Pardon the lint and cat hair, but look how pretty my welt pockets are.  They kind of gape open a little bit when I'm wearing them though :P  For subsequent versions I'll definitely baste the lips together and see if that helps.  (I won't pretend I came up with that on my own; that one came from Lladybird's incredibly helpful Thurlow Sew Along.  I'm telling you, if you're making these pants just check it out.  The welt pockets and fly were so well explained with lots of great pictures that I didn't even manage to sew anything backwards!  That's kind of a big deal.  In all seriousness, though, her sew along did make the construction of these pants seem relatively effortless (as opposed to trying to figure it out on my own with the rather sparse instructions that came with the pattern.  Not that it would've been impossible, but it certainly would've taken longer). 

Gaping sighting.  Oy.

I flatfelled the side seams and the inseams just cuz I think they look nice that way.  Plus I don't have a serger so it's either that or zigzagging them... or bias tape but FTN I hate finishing seams with bias tape it takes FOR.EV.ER!  If I take the shortcut I inevitably end up missing the fabric in one spot and then it totally defeats the purpose.  You probably don't eve know what I mean by that because who does that seriously???  I do.  All the time.  It kind of drives me crazy that both the sew along and pattern instructions pretty much assume you'll be serging everything.  What about the rest of us?  Ah, well, I'd rather have flatfelled seams than serged seams on my pants any day.

Pretty flatfelled seams... and less pretty belt loops :P

You may remember that I won this pattern in a giveaway from Handmade Jane (thanks again Jane!).  I made up a quick muslin over summer out of some lightweight cotton.  As it turns out, though, I misread the size chart and they were two sizes too big (epic fail!).  I still wore them around the house quite a bit last summer, but I'll probably be cutting those up for quilt pieces sometime soon (trust me on this one, it's just so.bad).

Honestly I was a little intimidated after that and, even though I traced the correct size off right away, I didn't touch the pattern again after that for months.  I've made a lot of quick, simple projects so far this year (skirts, baby clothes, things like that) and I was feeling the urge to tackle something bigger.  I originally intended to make a new dress, but it's cold as F*CK outside and has been for ages.  It seemed like a good time to tackle the Thurlows again.

I had bought this black bottomweight fabric at Goodwill ages ago with the intention of using it to muslin up some Thurlows.  Of course it turns out I'm super happy with them, so they've made it into my regular work rotation.  Hopefully the fabric holds up for awhile!  It's a very drapey bottomweight fabric with (to be totally honest) a weave that's a bit loose for pants IMO.  Surprisingly they hold up very well with little to no sagging/stretching between washes.  This leads me to suspect they may be something other than cotton (surprise, surprise) but they're comfy as hell so who cares?

By the way, I've always been an avid stripe-avoider but this shirt was so soft and so new at the by the pound Goodwill I decided to try it out.  Only looking at these pics do I see how pregnant it makes me look.  Suffice it to say, I am not.  But I will probably be taking the shirt in a bit.  Maaaaaybe that'll help.

Oh God how excited am I about the zipper.  The bright ass green zipper.  It's my faaaave.  It makes zipping up my pants strangely fun.  That was waaaay TMI wasn't it?  I also like how the striped fabric I used to line the waistband ended up making chevrons at the CB.  Not even planned.  Awesome!  I just used whatev was lying around for waistband/pocket lining, since these were supposed to be a muslin.  As it turns out, though, the inside of these pants are way more fun than the outside.  Not that plain black pants aren't fun... I know they are for me =D

You can see all my ugly zig-zagged seams :P  But look: party in my pants! ;-)  Haha!

Now that I've made pants I"m pretty excited about making more.  I've already made one more pair and my next fabric purchase (remember I'm trying to destash this year) will def be some nice pants quantity 

Seahawks Fever

Really I should have gotten around to blogging this shirt before the Super Bowl to show my 12th man spirit... but I literally just got pictures of it today (such as they are).  And I really only got pictures today because I figured posting it after the Super Bowl would just be lame.  So here we are, two hours after the Super Bowl and I suck for not busting this post out this afternoon.

I hate to admit that I'm not really much of a football fan... but when I was offered free tickets to a pre-season Seahawks game I, of course, said Hellz yeah!  I didn't have any Seahawks gear, though, and that shits pretty pricey.  I knew my dad had an old Seahawks tee he never wore anymore (never let my dad near your laundry unless you like bleach stains on ev.ery.thing) so I decided to go the cheap route and make my own.

I had seen some cool UW shirts done in this style with the multicolor raglan sleeve.  I took my knit shirt block and raglanized it.  I had scraps of the green laying around (by the way, I didn't realize this was an oooold shirt and the Hawks have totally changed from kelly green to lime green.  boo).  I can't remember where the grey came from... but i think it was part of the original shirt.  I really just sewed stripes of knit together and then cut the sleeves out of the patchwork.  All in all I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.  And obviously... GO HAWKS!!!

Jungle January: Bite Size Edition

Aww, she's so wiggly she always comes out blurry!

I never participate in Jungle January, not being much for animal prints, but the making of this top just so happened to coincide with it so I figured I'd steal the catchy name.  I bought a rather large woman's button up shirt from the by-the-pound Goodwill which is the main fabric for this little shirt.  It's not just an animal print, it's some kind of crazy paisley, multi-species animal print.  I saw it and had to have it.  Then I used some of it to make a gal at work a Christmas stocking (which I wish I had a picture of because yes it was awesome!!!)  As such, there wasn't really enough left to do a full garment for myself, so I opted to put it on Baby Girl.

She's such the little model, I know.  If you can't guess, this is another iteration of McCall's 8473.  This time with the matching pants.  The pants pattern for this is weird...  It's designed to have suspenders and snaps in the back and along the legs (obviously for diaper changes, I got that much).  Honestly, though, I just don't have time for that so I simplified it a bit (a lot).  I just use the  main pattern piece with the extra snap overlap fabric cut off (yes I traced the pattern first, geez!)  The pants pattern is a bit big, but she grows so fast I'm not too worried about it.  This way she'll actually get to use them for more than a month or two (hopefully!)

The pants are black velour (I think that's what it is anyway).  It's from a maxi length skirt I had in high school for band concerts.  The skirt was definitely showing some wear (most notably from when I tried to hem it with purple thread WTF?) and had generally seen better days.  There was actually just enough for the pants, collar, and cuffs.  The fabric is stretch so it was rather a bitch to do the collar and cuffs, but the pants were easy peasy and oh so warm and soft.

There are four big black buttons on the back.  I was almost surprised I found that many matching ones.  They're all from the big bag o' buttons I found at the thrift store...  Or in the big bin o' buttons that came from my mom.  They're all pretty well mixed together at this point.  It's nice to have lots of buttons on hand for when you need some, but it gets messy finding a number of matching ones!  I started organizing my buttons by color, but kind of petered out at some point.  I really should finish doing that...

The collar on this one is a little crazy but, again, it was really hard to sew that stretchy velour to the not at all stretchy animal print polyester.  Again, I could probably fix it, I just lack the motivation.  

All materials were from stash (yeah! for shopping the stash) but even considering what the main fabric and buttons cost when I bought them, the whole outfit wasn't even close to costing a whole dollar.  Score one for thrifting!

I really like this outfit.  I feel like it's kind of sophisticated since they're less childish fabrics/prints.  She's more like a real person every day!  (A tiny person, but a walking, talking person nonetheless).

FO : Pink Poodle Skirt (sans poodle)

Enter: Hollyburn the third.  (No, you still haven't seen the first one.)  I love this pattern!  It's just the shape I like my skirts... although all the old people I know call them poodle skirts.  Especially this one because, obviously, look how pink and voluminous!  All I need is to applique a poodle on the bottom and I'm set for the sock hop ;-)

I do think it's weird how the grain lines run on this pattern and I don't really understand how things are supposed to hang.  This skirt is cut accurately (I thiiiink) using the pattern grain lines, but there are some weird lines as the front and back seam stick out a little oddly.  The odd thing being that they stick out directly to the side of the seam instead of along it.  WTF?  I don't even know.  My grey Hollyburn doesn't suffer from this problem so much as the fabric is very fluid and drapey.  The fabric used for this one, on the other hand, is a super stiff cotton (cotton twill perhaps?) so it has a lot of body.  Incredibly it doesn't really wrinkle that much; these pictures were taken after I'd been wearing the skirt all day.

My face was actually so scary in this pic I cropped it out.  You're welcome.

This is View B, the medium length.  This one and also my grey one both have pretty sizeable hems (about 2 to 2.5 inches) and this one I still think is a bit long.  I'll probably go back to the shorter version with a nice narrow hem (much easier to ease in!) for the next one.

This being my third rendition, it went pretty quickly with only one big problem....  I forgot to interface the waistband!  If I don't tuck in my shirt you'd never notice it... but for some reason I felt the need to share, so here you go.

My shamefully floppy waistband

 I seriously love the pockets on this skirt.  They're big enough to hold so.much.stuff.  Next time I make a full skirted dress I may well just use the hollyburn skirt and pocket pieces.  The pockets look so oddly shaped, but they are certainly effective.  You can even fit a small orange in there!

Wait...  Is that weird?

So pocket happy!

Speaking of the pockets... I actually didn't have enough fabric to cut the pockets out of my main fabric, so the pocket front is a contrast fabric.  I found this fabric at the thrift store (so obviously the skirt was uber cheap, just like my last one).  Much to my chagrin, that contrast fabric peeks out just a bit.  Next time I'll do it the way the Thurlow pattern does it (that's right, next up: pants!).

 Let's get real about zippers for a second.  Look how awesome my zipper is.  Since this is my third time making this pattern it should be perfect (which it isn't, obviously the waistband is maybe half a centimeter off at the center back GAAAAAAHHHHH!) but I only had to sew the zipper in once and it looks pretty friggin good if I do say so myself.  It miiiiight not look as nice on the inside, but I'll never tell ;-) 

I'm getting closer!

What else is there to say?  The only thing I can think of is: expect more of these in the future.  In a far-off, warmer future where there's sunlight past 5pm and tights don't have to be worn all the time perhaps... but they will certainly happen.  I'm not sure it's possible for me to have too many Hollyburn skirts.

Dusty Rose Baby Shirt

The second iteration of McCall's 8473.  Can I just tell you briefly how completely in love I am with this pattern?  There are gathers, a peter pan collar...  It's just so damn cute.  Fortunately Baby Girl is a pretty good sport about being dressed up and photographed (so far).

The actual pattern

And she's so cute!  In pictures, especially, as she's much quieter in that form.  I had just a little bit of this brown fabric left after I made myself a button up shirt.  We have not had a chance to dress up in our matching shirts yet, but we will I'm sure.  The piping is a pink and white plaid I used on Baby Girl's Christmas stocking (oh no!  I just realized that one hasn't been blogged yet.  I'm working on it, promise!)

I didn't have enough of the brown or the pink to do matching pants, so this time it's just the shirt.  I used the same view because, well, basically because I love it.  I do want to try it with the poofy sleeves sometime, though.

The collar sort of sticks up oddly and I'm not sure why.  It's done the exact same way as the first one and I didn't have any problems with it.  Actually, now that I think of it that is a lie.  I couldn't find any interfacing when I was sewing this, so I just doubled up on the fabric on one side.  Maybe that's why we use interfacing... I think if I tack it down it will probably be ok.  Now I just need to work up the motivation to do so.

I'll admit that the back is an epic fail.  I forgot to make sure the hem lined up on either side... and then one button turned out to be sewn on just a little bit off.  In case you ever wondered why most button holes are vertical instead of horizontal: here's your answer!  Vertical button holes are infinitely more forgiving.  I have ripped off the offending button and not bothered to sew it back on.  After all, the hem will still be uneven.  Le sigh.

But that's ok, it's still too cute from the front!  Even with the wonky back and collar I still love how adorable she is in this.  That's two projects completed for small people this year, so far (actually, three: one you haven't seen yet!)

Dinosaur!

My first knitted FO of 2014.  This year is already off to a good start knitting-wise.  This is the Steggie pattern from Knitty.com.  I didn't like the super baggy fit and the Boy is rather on the thin side so I opted for the smallest size but lengthened the sleeves and the body by an inch.  I do wish I'd lengthened the body by a couple more inches, though.  

My goal with this sweater was just to use up some age old acrylic in my stash (bought for baby sweaters when the Boy actually was a baby!)  I stumbled across this pattern searching Ravelry and knew it had to be. As you may recall, the boy loves dinosaurs.  I did manage to use up almost all of the dark blue and the turquoise, but had to buy the variegated for the spikes (doh!).  Two steps forward, one step back.

He was pretty enamored with it the night I finished it (and the entire time I was knitting it) but since that night it's sat pretty much unloved.  Of course, he hasn't wanted to keep his clothes on for most of that time, so apparently we're regressing to that phase.  Oh good, just what we need in the middle of winter.  A preschooler who lives in his socks and undies.

At least he kept it on long enough for me to snap some photos.  The original motivation, now that I think of it, was to knit the boy a sweater upon which to sew these car buttons.  He's been going through my big button collection to pull these out and play with and I decided it was probably time to actually use them.  Big plastic car buttons are only cute up to a certain age, after all.  

He really seemed to like it when I took these pictures, so hopefully I'll get him to wear it (and pants) again.  I would like to see this sweater gets lots of love before it's retired to the hand-me-down pile.  And of course, don't forget the Sewing for Small People Sewalong hosted by Leah over at Struggle Sews a Straight Seam.  I plan on doing a round up post about the time things wrap up in May to see what all I've managed for the small people over the course of four months.  And if you don't follow Struggle Sews a Straight Seam check it out, Leah's hilarious!

WIP Wednesday: Is it spring yet?

Lace and pastels...  Is it spring yet?

New Year's Resolutions

I know some people think New Year's resolutions are, for whatever reason, silly.  Not I.  I love the feeling that this year could be the year.  The year you get organized or lose weight or learn Chinese.  Whatever.  And the way I see it, you've got most of January to decide what's most important to you to work on this year.

Umm... Obviously.  But what about crafty/bloggy goals?

 I've got some personal goals, of course... but I'm sure you're most interested in the bloggy/crafty ones so I thought I'd share.  First of all, I'm sure I didn't quite reach my goals last year.  That's fine with me.  Goals are just that: something to work toward.  Even if you don't make it, it's the journey that counts.  I think that's enough trite expressions for one post.  On to the goals:


1. Knit more.  Last year was not a good year for me in knitting.  I had projects go terribly wrong, run short of yarn, and even get lost.  I think it was hard for me to work knitting into my new full time working schedule.  I feel like I've finally got the hang of it now: I knit smaller projects on the bus and at lunch with some time in the evening for larger projects (Anna Karenina, I'm looking at you!).  Specifically, I would like to finish Anna Karenina sometime in 2015.  That might not sound like much of a goal, but I've got a good couple of feet to get done this year if I have any hope of finishing it next year.  Right now I'm probably half way done.  Progress is slow.

18" ruler for sense of scale.  It's clear, though, so boo.

 2. Sort, use, and organize the stash.  Oh my gawd I need to get organized.  I'm tired of never being able to find anything and, to be quite frank, I've got too much stuff (fabric and possibly yarn included) lying around.  A lot of it I'm really not in love with and some of it is small quantities (think baby stuff).  I have an idea of how to make this work so that I can start 2015 with significantly less stuff than I have right now. I am going to bribe myself with new fabric (wait, that seems backwards right?).  The plan:

I must finish five complete sewing projects and do any required fixing/mending before I can buy fabric.  Fabric must have a purpose in mind and it must be used immediately.  I don't know how I'll deal with thrift store finds in this framework, yet, but unless it's something I specifically know I'll need (like backing for a quilt or Christmas fabric) I'll try and let it go.

For every two pairs of completed socks I can buy one skein of sock yarn.

For every two (or three?) completed sweaters I can buy one sweater quantity of yarn.  This one's tricky as sweaters do take a lot of yarn, but I know I've got enough yarn to do a fair few sweaters this year.

3. Make an advent calendar.  I'm particularly fond of this one, but I've seen lots of cool ones through the sew-a-long late last year.  I want to do a mix of activities and treats.  I feel like this year there were so many things I wanted to do during the holiday season that we just never got around to.  Having the advent calendar would help keep me accountable.

4. Sew better.  I feel like I sewed a lot last year, but this year I really want to get better at fitting and finishing stuff including linings (I'm looking at you Bemberg I will defeat you!!!) and zippers (I think I've mentioned my ill success in this department recently.  Also using apparel fabric more and quilting cotton/sheets less.  Not that there's anything wrong with those, I just want to focus on making clothes that I will love and will last.

5. Blog more!  I don't feel like I've quite figured out how blogging fits into my crazy schedule but I like doing it and I'd like to be more consistent.

I feel like those are all pretty vague/attainable goals for the coming year.  Now let's get on with it!

More (exceedingly late) Christmas makings

I'm just getting overwhelmed by all the makes there are to be blogged.  There's just so much stuff... plenty of it from Christmas.  Therefore, this post will (hopefully) be a more or less wrap-up of Christmas gifts, with an emphasis on the BIG ASS CHRISTMAS QUILT (OF DEATH?)  Why do I always feel the need to add "of death" to the end of my quilt names?  

Why do I always

I think quilts are kind of like young children....  Everything is sweeter in retrospect.  Let's be honest, a two year old can make you tear your hair out... but so can a quilt of this dimension on a regular (i.e. not a long-arm) machine.  Honestly, the quilting on it is pretty half-assed.  I started out doing two lines on each side of each seam.... but it's only one line towards the middle.  It was reeeally hard to maneuver this behemoth.  It's something like 7x9 feet...  I can't remember the exact dimensions but it's pretty frickin' big.

I tried to focus on purple, blue, and grey for this quilt, as well as plaids... but it's a scrap quilt so I worked with what I had.  The only things I had to buy were two sheets from Goodwill for the backing and, of course, the batting.  All in all, maybe $30... pretty cheap for a blanket of this size.  This was actually a special request from my mom.  She really wanted a blanket to cover their bigger than king size bed.  I told her no, and then I felt really bad about it so here's her blanket.  

Some of the fabrics were from the Goodwill Outlet, some are old clothes that have outlived any usefulness as clothing, and some are scraps leftover from previous projects.  I love that each fabric has a story, at least for me.  Some of the fabrics are my parents old clothes, too.  Whether or not they recognize them is a different story though.

The binding, as well as a lot of the squares, are made from the leftover sheet from my garden gate dress.  The back is pieced... there are two big pieces.  I'm not going to show you the whole thing, though, as it's horrendously ugly.  But it's pretty on the right side and so soft and warm so I'll call it a win and just be happy it's all over.

Aside from the quilt (it's somehow hard for me to believe I made more than just the quilt, but continuing on) I made hubby a new undershirt with my precious pirate fabric (that is true love) and a new pair of PJ pants.  The boy has matching PJs, but of course.  The fabric is from a flannel sheet I originally bought to back above quilt, but I just loved it so much it had to become pants.

Hubby hasn't worn his PJ pants yet, but he's sitting on them in this pic...  Not quite the reaction I had hoped for I guess but he loves the shirt.  The Boy's pants are waaay too long, but I'll eventually cuff them til he grows into them (hopefully before he grows into them!).

I guess that's all that'll make it to this post.  There's more (quite a bit more, actually) but it can wait til next time.