Chemistry Couture

Tuesday Tuesday

I really couldn't think of an appropriate title for this post . . . so there you go.  And here I go!

I am at work, and it is very very cold in my lab.  It's about 60 outside right now but the AC in the building is on full blast and they can't turn it off.  Because it is BROKEN.  So we are all trying not to shiver too much whilst we pipette things and do research.  I am wearing a shirt, a sweater, one of Randy's sweat shirts, and a jacket.  Brr.

However, this post made me all warm inside and made me hop around in my seat like a little kid who has had too much sugar.  I MUST get home and make some stripey tights for the Bean.  The pattern and tutorial are from Rae of Made by Rae, and I am now in love with her and her site and will be spending the rest of the day scouring the blog for more goodies.  How great would pink and white stripey tights look with some cute bloomers?  Gah!

Also, I am so proud of myself.  Well, I didn't do much, I only got together the best friggin quilting bee group EVER!  Kelly's month is April, but she sent out her fabric a little early (oh the excitement!).  And boy did she send out some fabric!  Go over to the flickr site and check out some of the awesome blocks these ladies are already making.  Anne of Film and Thread got put on the front page of Flickr Explore whith her picture of the block she made!  Tho, really, everything Anne makes is awesome so, yeah.

And Kelly, if you are reading this, I have started my block but I decided to do it by hand since we had some extra time.  A bit ambitious, but I hope it will be worth it!  I can't resist an opportunity to applique.

So there you have me, on a tuesday, shaking from the cold and the excitement and the pride. 

Oh, and that picture at the top?  That is our cat, Penguin (though Randy has lovingly dubbed her The Witt), racing down the stairs in our apartment.  She got really sick last month.  We didn't know what was wrong and the vet thought it might be the C-word.  But one tooth extraction, lots of meds and half of my tax return later she is back to her old frisky self.  Thank goodness!

"My New Skirt" or "The One Where She Makes Something Out of a Book"

I really really want to make one of the dresses out of the new Alabama Studio Style book.  But I wanted to practice a little, so I made a skirt using the pattern from Alabama Stitch Book and combined techniques from both books to embellish it.

Please forgive my pale pale legs.  I don't tan well, and even when I do it disappears as soon as the weather gets cold . . . and it's been cold a looooong time.  Today, however, we have some pretty amazing weather so maybe I'll get some sun.

OK, back to the skirt.  I couldn't find organic cotton jersey that didn't cost an arm and a leg, so I got this cotton/lycra blend from Joanns on SALE (weeee!) for about $3 a yard, and I needed 2 yards for the skirt.  I already had all of the embellishments on hand, so my grand total for this project is $6.

I used the leaf pattern from the first book and stenciled a repeat of the leaves around the bottom of the skirt.  I used a gold paint pen that started out very gold and then kind of burnished into this bronze-y color as I handled the fabric more and more.  Thats fine by me, actually, because it matches my little bronze flats.  I chose to do reverse applique on the design, so I stitched around the outside of the leaves with a three-ply embroidery thread in cream and cut out the center of each shape.  Since I used two layers of this red jersey, the effect is kind of subtle.  I assembled the pieces using the embroidery thread, and finished it by creating side-felled seams with a simple running stitch.

When it came to embellishing with beads I was a little bit lost.  I started out with black bugle beads, but they looked to stark.  Then I tried a pale gold bugle bead, but that just wasn't doing it for me.  I tried beading around the outside of each leaf, then the inside, then random placement, and on and on.  What I finally decided on is what you see above.  I used a running stitch to run the beads in a line between the leaves to look like a stem.  Then I filled in a few leaves on each stalk to add some shimmer.  I used a combination of the pale gold bugle beads and a mixed bag of gold and brown beads that I used on another project a while back.  Overall I think it looks fun but not too overwhelming.

This took about a week to finish, working on it a little bit each evening.  I finally finished it up last night by adding some elastic to the waist.  Natalie Chanin reccomends using fold-over elastic, but as I had none on hand and couldn't find any at the store the last time I looked, I kind of improvised the waist.  I simple made a loop of 1/2 inch elastic and placed it against the inside top of the skirt.  I folded the top of the skirt over the elastic to cover it, and then stitched the folded fabric down with a stretchable herringbone stitch (from the Studio Style book) that encased the elastic, but did not stitch through it.  You can kind of see what I am talking about in the picture of the skirt above.  The herring bone stitch is visible on the inside of the waist-band, while the outside has two parallel lines of stitching.  The elastic fits in between those two parallel lilnes.

I am quite happy with the skirt.  I think when I make the dress I will shorten the length a tad so it hits just above my knees.  I've got the fabric all ready to go!  Have you guys ever made anything from the Alabama Stitch books?

This and That

The weather here in SC has been aweful this winter.  The good new is that spring starts on Saturday and we are supposed to have some very very nice weather for the next few days.  Some of the trees around town are in bloom, so amidst the bare limbs and too-often dreary skies there are some bursts of white and pink and yellow.  It won't really be spring, though, until the magnolias and the dogwoods bloom.  I'll remember to take pictures.

I find myself, once again, in the middle of a few projects that take too long to finish.  I'm almost done with a couple of them, and I can't wait to show you!  Until then, here is a little peek at some hair clips I made my niece.  The Bean has beautiful reddish-blondish-auburny hair, so bright colors look really great on her.  I already handed these over to my sister, and put the green star in Elizabean's hair myself and dang if it isn't the cutest thing!  I did not have my camera at the time, but maybe next time I go home I can get her all dolled up and take a few snap shots.  If they are still in one piece, that is.  I was having a little trouble attaching the charms to the clips.  We'll just pretend for now that they are still all stuck together.

You may recognize the colors, they are from her fabric covered letters I made last month.  The letters, by the way, are being proudly displayed in her room above the window.  Makes me feel all warm inside!

The Stitchin' Bee is underway!  Our first Bee of the month already has her fabric packaged up, ready to be shipped.  Follow along on the flickr page if you want!  We have a group of 13 ladies, some who are old hands and some who have never sewn before but want to learn.  I can't wait to see how things turn out!

Oh, and anyone out there with a bit of money to spare who wants to buy me this, go right ahead.  I'll make you brownies in return. or perhaps a pillow :)

SSS Block for March

 

March's Snip.Sew.Send block is for Tina.  She wants to make a quilt for her daughter, so she sent up lots of pink white and blue strips of fabric and asked for "squares within squares."

I must admit that I really really wanted to take the little kerchief girl square for myself and just "forget" to include it in the block, but my conscience got the best of me.  I included lots of very thin 1/4" pieces.  I've used them in some of the other blocks and I put them in my own quilts, so I feel like it makes the block sort of mine.  Definitely my style.  Overall this block was improvised as I sat at the sewing machine.  Sort of a sew as you go kind of thing. 

I tried to include a few little suprises.  Something you wouldn't see unless you really studied the block.  I hope Tina and her daughter love it!  I'll be putting it in the mail on Monday.  By the way, Tina is doing a quilt along over at her blog.  It just started so check it out and join in!

The Birthday Suit

A friend of ours in Texas just had what she called "a horrible etsy experience."  She ordered bloomers and a bib for her little girl's first birthday party TWO MONTHS ago, and has yet to recieve her order.  So I whipped something up for her:

I know it's not exactly what she originally ordered, but dang if it ain't cute!  The bib features a hand applique cupcake with a number one birthday candle, and soft pink minky fabric on the back.  The bloomers, which I think turned out better than I ever expected them to, have four little ruffles in pink and brown on the backside.  The only thing I am really worried about is the fit, since Katelyn wasn't here to try on the bloomers, but I think it will be fine. 

The applique on the bib was super easy to do using the pin turning method, and you know I can't resist hand stitching.  Even Randy thought it was cute!  I did cheat and buy a package of bias tape to finish up the bib, but I just hate making my own when its that tiny.

The ruffles on the bloomers were easy as well.  I used a pattern to cut out the body of the bloomers and then added the ruffles using the following steps:

1. Cut four strips of fabric, two inches wide and the length of your bloomers plus three inches.
2. Narrow hem along one long edge of the fabric strips.  Or serge, or whatever finish you think looks nice.
3. Baste along the other long side of your strip, a 1/4 inch from the edge, leaving long tails at either end. 
4. Pull one of the threads on either end to gather your fabric and create your ruffle until it is the length of your bloomers.
5. Mark with chalk lines where you want your ruffles to lay on the right side of the back of the bloomers.
6. Place the ruffles face down on the bloomer along your chalk lines, narrow hem side closest to the waist of the bloomers, ruffle side closest to the legs and along your chalk line. 
7. Baste along the same stitching line you used to create the gathers.
8. Fold down the ruffle along your basting stitch line so that the right side of the fabric is now showing, and the narrow hem edge is closest to the leg holes.
9. Stitch along the top folded edge of the ruffle, 1/8 inch from the fold, to secure the ruffle in place. (you can see a close-up of my stitching above.)

You'll want to start from the bottom layer and work your way up so the ruffles don't get in the way of each other while you sew.  Note that you will be attaching the ruffles BEFORE you sew up the side seams of the bloomers.  Essentially you will be working on a flat piece of fabric.  This way, when you do finally sew up the sides to create the bloomers, you can catch the short edges of the ruffles in your seam all nice and tidy like.  There my be a more efficient way of doing this, since I kind of made this up as I went, but the results are nice.

Katelyn has a whole outfit, but I can totally see a little one year old (or six month old etc.) wearing nothing but the bloomers and the bib with a face covered in cake and ice cream.  Thus I have dubbed it "The Birthday Suit."  If you want more info about making them drop me a comment or send me an e-mail.

Jen, the package is on it's way!  I really hope you and Katelyn like them, and I hope the has the best first birthday party ever.  Miss you guys!

 

Hello people in blogland. Last call for the Stitchin' Bee. We're almost at the limit of 12, but I'm gonna leave it open for another day or so in case anyone just heard of it and really really wants to join. Having a few more people won't hurt, if anything it will add more variety ;)

Calling all Wanna-Bee's (ha!)

I love being a part of the snip.sew.send quilting bee.  I love it so much, in fact, that I've decided to start another.  I've decided to make it an open call instead of inviting people, so if you are interested in joining up you can click on this link and join the Flickr group.  I'm trying to keep a limit of 12 people (buying fabric for more than 12 can get pricey), but we'll see what happens.

If you aren't already signed up with Flickr it takes about ten seconds to join and then you can add yourself to the group.  We will be posting all pictures to the Flickr group site, and doing most of our communication via the discussion board on the group page.  Here are some of the details:

1) You will be assigned a month at random.  At the beginning of that month you will need to send fabric (and instructions for the type of block you want) to your fellow bees.

2) When you recieve fabric you should try very hard to complete the block in a timely fashion and send it back to Bee of the Month.  Preferably before the next bee sends out his or her fabric.

3) You do NOT need to have a lot of experience.  One of the best ways to learn about quilt construction is to practice practice practice.  And what better way to practice than to have people give you fabric and instructions!

So if you want to join a bee (or join another one), this is an open invite.  Join the Flickr group (It's called The Stitchin' Bee, by the way), and send me an e-mail with your name and mailing address.  Once we have all 12 members I'll send a group e-mail letting you know your month.  If it fills up quickly we'll start on April 1st!

Once again, here's the link to the group page.  Just click on "join group."

I See London . . .

Be warned, you may see more of my legs than you ever wanted to see.  But I had to show you my Madeleine Mini Bloomers.  You can find the free pattern for these at the Colette Patterns blog.  I haven't tried any of her other patterns, but now I really want to.  The instructions were very clear and simple, and best of all her sizing was true.  I hate buying patterns from the store and having the sizing chart tell me I am one size when in reality I am two sizes smaller.  Am I the only one with that problem?  Her measurements and sizes were spot on, though.  Big plus in my book.

I wanted to make these becaues I LOVE pajamas and lounge clothes.  And Randy HATES it when I wear baggy t-shirts and sweat pants.  So this is a wonderful medium.  Cute comfy clothes.  I won't be wearing these outside, no way, but I have a feeling Randy won't mind a bit if I wear these around the house.  OK, last warning.  I have very pale legs.

I used a silky navy blue fabric that I had in my stash.  It only took a yard, and a yard is what I had.  I already had the 1/4 inch elastic I needed, and I went out and bought a spool of red ribbon for about fifty cents at Joann's, so I would like to think these shorts cost me mere pennies.  I would show you how cute the back is, but I couldn't take a picture that didn't reveal too much.  These are very short shorts. 

I've heard bad things about these print at home patterns, but I had no problems.  All of the lines on the paper matched up perfectly.  I didn't use a whole lot of tape (I only taped at the eges and one in the middle), and it only used about 24 pieces of paper, give or take I can't remember.  So keep that in mind before you go a-printing.  Maybe print at work if you won't get caught.  Also, remember to make sure that your printer isn't automatically resizing the images on the pdf file for printing by checking that the Auto-Scaling box is listed as "none."  You'll be able to check that when you click "print" and the print conformation box comes up.  Go make these, and have fun!  I will be making a couple more, myself.

SSS Block for February

February was Kris's month for the Snip.Sew.Send bee.  She wanted little trees and houses and, I must admist, I was totally intimidated by this block!  That's why I kept putting it off.  It was silly of me, though, because it was a lot of fun to make.  I kept holding the pieces up while I was working on them, showing them to Randy, saying "Look!  Isn't it cute!"  Randy didn't say they were cute, but he did say "Oh" every time I held them up, so at least he was sort of paying attention.

The tree is based off of the flower tutorial that Kris posted on her blog a little while ago.  I didn't have enough fabric to complete the block, but Kris can add more fabric to it when it arrives.

The house is my favorite.  It's a dog house!  And just in case you couldn't tell it was a dog house, I appliqued a little dog onto the block.  So there you go.  If you recognize the colors, I used the scraps from the fabrics I used to make the Zakka pillows.  I love these colors.  Love them.  Hopefully Kris will like them to.

This was fun fun fun.  I think I need one of these neighborhood quilts now!

I'm a Pillow Making Fool

Randy and I left most of our furniture in TX when we made the big move to SC.  We made a trip to the Charlotte Ikea in January and got bedroom furniture, a couch, tables, chairs, etc. etc.  We had everything we needed to fill up the apartment.  Except, people, we had no pillows, and pillows are very important.

Randy hates these chairs, but they were what we could afford.  Dark grey horseshoe chairs that came with these pathetic little pillows.  They look pretty boring.  So I made some adjustments.

I think they look much more inviting now!   I am fortunate enough to live with a man who takes some pride in his home and has quite a few opinions on how it should be decorated.  We're talking colors, fabrics, Randy knows what he wants.  So I didn't want the pillows to be too cutesy.  And he didn't want them to be too bright (even though they did turn out a little to bright for his taste, but we must compromise!).  They are perfect for now, I can always change them later, and the best part is they were inexpensive!

The fabrics were all from my stash.  The background fabric is a nice, soft, natural color linen that I've had for a while.  The cottons match the colors of some of our favorite pieces in the kitchen, which is open to this sitting area, namely the orange and blue of my tea set and the green of our Le Creuset pot.  The pillow forms were bought on sale at Hobby Lobby and are 12x16 inches.

The assembly of these pillows was SUPER easy.  Just cut and sew, basically.  The piecing was done with 1/4 inch seams, the pillow construction done with 1/2 inch.  The backs of the pillows are overlapped like a pillow sham for your bed, so the pillow forms just slip right in and out and I'll be able to wash these if they get dirty.

I made another pillow for our bedroom so we can prop up on it to watch movies or read.  It's 24x24 inches and plenty big enough for both of us if we don't mind getting a little cozy together.  This color was definitely approved by Randy before I started, but once I was done his comment was "Nice.  Why is it textured?"  My heart sank a little.  Then he actually layed down on it and declared it comfortable.  Win!

The green fabric is a jersey I had in my stash (I have NO idea when and where I got it!).  I cut the front panel extra long and made 1/2 inch pintucks across the front (that is 1/2 inch in height, but 1 inch of fabric total was used to make the tuck.  If that makes no sense let me know and I can put up a little tutorial).  Then, going perpendicular to the pin tucks, I sewed across the pillow, laying the pintucks flat as I sewed across them, but changing the direction of my sewing with every row.  This gave the pillow a wave effect that I think looks pretty darned awesome.  Again, if this is at all confusing, or if you just want to see one, let me know and I'll put up a tutorial.

So there you have it.  Two kinda cutesy slightly bright zakka inspired pillows, and one great big thoroughly modern pillow.  Ta daaa!  Now I have to start making pillows for the couch!