FO: Baby girl top

I saw the cutest picture, recently. Somebody blogged about an adorable shop selling adorable patterns of kids clothing. Can't find it for the life of me now.

Anyway - one top really stuck in my head. Too darn cute! So, sans pattern, I decided to give it a go.

Part of the reason why I am loving sewing so much lately is that my brain loves figuring out how to construct things I see. And sometimes it even works out! So I have to give the designer credit there, as soon as I can find her...

Would love to adapt it for myself.

Bib Frenzy

I made bibs!

Clearly, I am still on a sewing kick. Sorry guys, I promise I am still knitting. (Sewing is just so....immediately gratifying!)

We loaned some housing supplies to a friend for a month, and upon their return somehow came out with a few extra towels. They were nice enough but since we are already overflowing with towels I decided to try and repurpose them.

So many ideas for old towels:

• bibs
• burp cloths
• door sweep
• boot leg stuffers
• scrub glove
• hot pad (rice filled)
• bean bag

...and who knows what else.

For my first go, I did bibs.

I just copied the shape from one of the baby's existing bibs and traced it onto the towels and some other stash fabric. Then I sewed on the hook and loop pieces in the appropriate places, and pinned the two pieces facing each other.  Sewed all around leaving a two inch gap, pulled the bib right-side-out, then seamed the gap.

For some reason I traced the bib a little large, and didn't end up sewing with as much seam allowance as I had planned (bad habits die hard). Consequently, the bibs came out larger than I planned. This made them a little awkward to wear, and the neck hole was too small on a few. Easy enough to remedy for next time.

Good thing I have an easy audience!

Destiny Fulfilled - Felted Knee Patch

Remember me joking about how this felt knee patch wouldn't last?

Here's the car after one wearing:

Little fingers love poking through little holes!

And predictably, this was the result:

Sad panda!

The patch tore off completely within one week of application.

Oh well!!

Working with the kid on projects like this is so fun. Creating something he asks for is like magic! But I guess the downside is there are a few extra tears when it is ruined. (Tears don't last too long though...he has already requested a 'purple house' for his next patch! This time I'll dig around for some more durable fabric, though.)

I am not afraid of my Serger Part II: Piecing The Quilt

I am still working on photos for this portion, so you'll have to do with words for now.

So: Once I finally had my arrangement decided upon, piecing was easy.

I followed the recommendation from the original pattern and just picked up pieces in a single row, then sewed them all together. Since I was working with the machine it made things a lot faster, which meant no need to carefully stack every row and place in labeled zip-lock bags - each row only took about 5 minutes or so to piece together! I tested out the style of stitching I wanted with some scrap pieces beforehand and was able to get some nice looking ladders:

Using this blog post as a guide to flatlock stiching, I was even able to emulate the look from the original pattern! (Which is all hand stitched...admirable or masochistic, you decide.)

Once I finished piecing all the strips I ironed them out and miraculously, they are all pretty much the same length. I was careful when building the pattern to find pieces that added up to the same length - glad to see that it actually worked out.



Although it was super tempting to just continue to work and try to finish the quilt, I had already spent an exorbitant amount of time on this project and my son needed to go to sleep (which means no more machine running...we have a very small house).

Funnily enough, I went into labor this night. One of the first things I thought when I woke up with contractions was "But my quilt!! I wanted to finish that today!!" I was so disappointed!! So, we'll see when I get time to put the final touches on this. The great news, however, is that when my step-dad came to see the new baby he brought our old Singer sewing machine with him! So I will have no problem finishing all the non-Serger aspects of this baby. (I was really scratching my head about how to border this thing...ever impatient am I.)

I am not afraid of my Serger Part II: Practicing With Felt

I recently inherited several boxes of fabric, one of which consisted entirely of felt. A few new pieces but mostly ends and scraps and strange bits. I knew this would be perfect for meditation and practicing some more Serger action, but I didn't know exactly how.

I adore Purl Bee for all their amazing patterns and fabrics, so this was the logical place to look for inspiration. They even have a section of felt projects, which made it really easy to browse. After considering coasters, placemats, bean bags, and a memory card game I finally settled on this quilt as a guide:

Because why have a bunch of useless bean bags when you can have one useless quilt? :)

So far I've managed to cut a million squares, iron them, and arrange them into a pattern I think I can like. Since this is basically just to keep me moderately occupied (I'm at home waiting for a baby to fall out of me) and to get some extra practice with the machine, it's nice to not have to worry about being precise.

Also, cutting through felt with a rolling cutter is so incredibly gratifying. I cleared the box in no time at all - look at how many squares I had!

ok, it's hard to tell. but those stacks are really high! 

Here's a picture of the arrangement I settled on. Can't wait to start sewing.

The black triangles are covering some of my slightly inadequate squares.

Update: If you've been attentive you will have seen that the baby DID fall out of me...so whaaa? I write posts in advance and schedule them for later publishing...that's why the time warp. Funnily enough, I went into labor the night I was putting this together.