Quick Fashion

Since I declared that March is Mine, the powers that be have decreed that it's a great time for me to be sick. For two weeks I was fighting a combination of head cold and something else. I may not be the best authority because I rarely get sick, but colds don't give you fever, right? Some kind of virus lived with us for us while. My Pixie suffered for exactly five hours (including fever and upchucking). She has an untainted immune system. It makes a parent proud.

Today was my first day back in front of my sewing machine. I drafted this pattern over a year ago and pulled it out for this occasion. It kinda looks like nothing special.

I cut out four pieces from knit. Sometimes I will use 2 knit and 2 cotton or flannelette, just to change it up.

I pinned the pieces together in pairs, right sides together.

Then I serged around all sides, leaving an opening for turning. I like to tie the tails into a quick knot instead of using Fray Check.

After a turn and a quick press (with steam), I tucked in the opening and pinned. A couple of inches of straight stitch closes it up.

The last step was to fold the pieces so that the lining was on the inside. I pinned the sides together and sewed closed four inches up from the bottom, and one at the top, leaving a 2 1/2" opening.

The result is these super warm wrist warmers/fingerless gloves! They are also reversible and popular with the young teenage crowd. They make an interesting fashion statement....

I've also made several pairs for my Punk. She is obsessed with having her hands and feet covered. I may make a few more for her, because she keeps chewing through her old ones.

And now that I have regained my equilibrium, I need to step up the quilting for the House Of Love quilt. It is my Scrap-Attack project. The deadline is two weeks from now!

Breakfast Time!

I couldn't wait to quilt this. I wanted to use it ASAP.

Because it is meant to be my breakfast place mat, I used as many fruit prints as I could. I bound it in blueberries - my favorite berry.

I love it! It goes well with mangoes. It is the perfect size for breakfast.

What's up next for Me March? Cuddling my sick Punk. She had a fever of almost 104 last evening, and she's slowly trying to keep food down.

I do believe that, between angelic spurts of housecleaning, I will get back to cutting the background for my Green Quilt. After all, it's for my bed.

March Is Mine

I need a month.

I hardly ever take the time to sew for myself. After remembering that good feeling of making stuff for me (refashioned pants into skirt), I decided that March is my month! I will make two small exceptions for Easter dresses....but March Is Mine!!! I feel like I've conquered something....

I started today by trimming the ends off of some scrap strips. I took them to the ironing board so I could more clearly see them. They look much better pressed.

I transferred the pieces to my design table and began eliminating colours - starting with pink. I need this to be bigger than a mug rug, but not as big as a placemat.

My plan is loosely based on the "Confetti" blocks that are floating around cyberspace. I debated between two greys for sashing before choosing the light grey.

Finalize the layout and then briefly flirt with making this in ticker tape style. Do I or don't I? It would look good....

Naw! I cut tiny 1" strips from the grey. I wanted to use traditional piecing methods, but still maintain the size. I eyeballed the layout and mentally divided into easily sewn units. Then I started sewing sashing on.

Here's a shot of the magic....a very simple 1/4" seam, followed by a little trimming.

Have units: Add sashing.

Sew all of the units together. Trim where necessary. The chartreuse was waaay too big. Some of the sashing had to be pieced. This'll happen when you're using scraps of scraps.

Last step for today: square up. Incidently, it ended up being 12"x10" - exactly the size I had planned, even throughout all of my eyeballing, random trimming, and non-measuring. Sweet!

Tomorrow I plan to add outer borders....sandwich, baste, quilt, bind. All the things that steer my soul into happy waters.

Refashion #1

These jeans have been sitting around in my scraps pile for a couple of months. They've been patched once and I don't feel like patching them again.

So I chopped them off.

I sewed the center closed.

Then I took apart the legs, added some more scraps, and pieced some strips. I double topstitched all of the seams.

Then sew right sides together, press up and topstitch.

The bottom strip I did not take pictures of during construction. I sewed the patches wrong sides together so that the eventual fraying would be a design feature. Instead of a hem, I straight stitched 3/8" from the raw edges to create a stopline for the fraying.

Here is what the skirt looks like if I take a picture of myself.

I'll run it through a wash cycle to fray and then have someone else take a couple of photos.

Because I promised, here is a pic of my Punk in her new jumper, ready to go to school. She loves it. She actually had a tantrum when I took it off of her in order to hem it.

Next project!

It has been slowly hatching in my brain that a mugrug is too small to eat breakfast on.

See what I mean? If I put one bowl and a glass on it, I can't see the mugrug in order to enjoy it.

And if I have a bowlful of berries and a dish of mango, the mugrug disappears completely.

I must remedy this situation, stat!

Just Playing

This weekend's snowstorm made the adults lazy and the kids bored.

To entertain the girls, one of the activities we did was playing with shaving cream in the bathtub. It was fun for all of us, and an easy cleanup (and good coverup!).

We spent quite a lot of time baking because there is nothing better to do while the snow falls. 5 loaves of bread and two pans of meatballs to start. Plus a raw apple pie. (So good.)

This picture has nothing to do with the text.

 On the sewing front, I dug some blue corduroy from my stash and cut out a school jumper for the Punk. My reasoning told me that light blue would make very bad play pants, but a very good play dress.

I put a zipper in the back because I don't like messing around with buttons on corduroy. I'm waiting for the Punk to get home from school so that I can hem it and take more pictures.

Free confession: On Sunday evening I spent 6 hours on my butt in front of the tv. I haven't done this in years. It felt good to veg out for a while....just entertaining ME. I couldn't have done this if there was not another adult in the house; so thanks, Mom.

Flimsy? Mais Oui!

Yesterday I sewed as fast as I could. I wanted to be able to link up this flimsy finish with some Friday linky parties.

It was not to be. With two borders yet to be added, we headed out to the grocery store to stock up for the weekend. There was a snowstorm predicted, but we beat it. Today there are many new centimeters of snow in my yard, but we have no reason to leave our cozy spot and go into the storm.

It sure makes me happy to lay out a finished flimsy on my bed and take photos. It is 84"x 68". My next step is finding a sheet for backing, locating the perfect quilting thread (<3 King Tut), and piecing some frankenbatting.

Someone must have a good idea for how to quilt this "House of Love" and what binding to use. Suggestions, please!

Makes Me Want To Grrrr.

I am not a numbers person. I barely passed high school algebra. It's safe to say that mathematics and I should not mingle at the same party. We just don't get along.

It's a love/hate relationship because Quilters need Math.

Emotional break: here's a random shot of my breakfast. Green juice and a bowlful of mango, strawberries, and bananas.

Back to math. See these strips? The sashing between them was easy to calculate. It is the same length as the blocks.

Here's a Pixie for size comparison. The blocks finish at a foot square.

I decided that the sashing should be 1/3 of the width of the blocks. Putting 4" strips between the blocks should mean that the rows are five feet long. You experienced quilters reading this instantly know that the sashing between the rows has to be either pieced or cut on the lengthwise grain.

I chose to piece. It is a scrap quilt, after all.

What a mess! I miscalculated the length and had to add pieces to both ends of my w.o.f. cuts. The only saving grace was the last piece added was exactly the length of a block and I had a seam to match for reference.

This pile of strips and sashing covered my chair for a while.

I discovered that hiding seams in sashing strips is as easy as pressing them open and not to the side.

At this moment, I have a section that looks like this:

And one that looks like this:

Plus the strip of violet for the bottom row.

After that I'll only have to add borders. Cross your fingers that those calculations work out well. I wanna finish this and get it to it's family!