KCWC 1

so i'm a little behind on the kids clothes week challenge....but better late than never:
                               

i made this little tunic for my baby.  i think it will start to fit her soon and i can't wait to see it. 

fabric: mustard linen blend from joann (i want to hoard this fabric!!) 

trim: from golden d'or in dallas

buttons: ebay

pattern: made by me

newborn baby gift

i've said it before and i'll say it again.....i'm a little snobby about baby clothes. i think i like them to look like miniature adults.  that being said, i think newborns deserve to spend most of their time in soft, comfy clothes.

here's a baby gift i made for a friend's newborn daughter. i can't wait to see these striped legging/sweats on those skinny little baby legs.

also, i love this long sleeve tee...it has the look of a onesie....without any snap setting necessary. also thought the subtle contrast with the polka dot turned out cute.

part 2

(see part 1 here)

i talked about the book natural patchwork in the part 1 post. the hot pads made by author suzuko koseki were one of the main reasons i bought the book. i love them:

my hot pads were loosely inspired by hers, but i'd like to make another set that are as identical to these as possible!

here are mine:

 close ups

these two have pockets on the back to slip your hand into when taking a pan out of the oven.

 my binding didn't go on as smooth as i wanted, so i did a wide zigzag stitch in a contrast color around all 4 sides. i ended up loving how it looked. some mistakes are happy accidents i guess!

i made these with insul-brite heat resistant batting from hancock fabrics, so they should be pretty safe for handing hot pans or going underneath something hot.

these were part of a wedding present given to a friend of mine.

we are in our new apartment now.  somehow we only got here with one hot pad. (????) the other night we had some friends over, and i was making homemade fries in the oven at a high temp.  the smoke alarm kept going off (even though there was no smoke in the house) and it was such a loud noise. to top off all the commotion, i couldn't find our one and only hot pad. it was pretty funny.

that hot pad is still AWOL. so i have a set of homemade hot pads at the top of my to-make list.

and in the mean time, if anyone sees a lone green hot pad, tell it to come back home :)

part 1

i had a gift card to barnes and noble a little while back and picked up this book, natural patchwork by suzuko koseki.  it has lots of cute little projects and i love her aesthetic. also i need to get my hands on a milk bottle like that.

anyway she has a cute little coasters tutorial that i had to try.

here is my set.

i made them mostly out of different scraps.

and a close up of each one:

i actually gave this set away so i need to make another one to keep.  a housewarming gift to myself for our new apartment sounds appropriate...ha ha

i have a few other projects that went together with this one this i will show next week.

sewing for the husband

it is the end of the term...i will have lots of odds and ends to show once they are all graded and returned to me!


for my last knits project, i made andrew a t-shirt.  it is his birthday this week and i like sewing for him when i can.

 also for my last photo project, i had to do a portrait.  i used andrew for obvious proximity reasons, and cause he's so cute of course.  we had tried to do a few the night before they were due (nothing quite like procrastination) but they didn't turn out.

so this man woke up with me at 6:00 am so we could get the "sweet light" and redo the portrait before my 9:00 am class.  

yes, this is what he looks like straight out of bed with no shower.

 in this one you can see the contrast thread and double needle.  if you look in a nice t-shirt (not a free giveaway type) from j. crew, etc. you will notice that they reinforce the shoulders and back collar with a piece of knit cut lengthwise, topstitched with a chainstitch (you need a coverstitch machine to do that stitch).  i echoed this technique with my stretch double needle.  since the fabric is so thin, the reinforcement was a must.


this is also the 1.5 month beard he's been growing.  it is almost time for it to go.... no comment on who's decision that is! ha ha.

 [it was pointed out to me that in this photo he has a big log about to stab him in the head. i choose to ignore this]

after this photoshoot we both had severe allergy attacks.  ha

the fabric i used was a tissue weight knit, which is really nice, soft and comfy, but kinda hard to sew with.  i used a double needle for all of the topstitching...but when i tested it on the fabric, the double needle was pinching the fabric layers together too much.  does that make any sense without a visual?


well if you've ever tried a double needle with super thin fabric before, you'd know what i mean.  so to remedy this problem, my teacher taught us a trick. using a pattern paper as a third layer stabilizes the stitch and helps it to lay flat and smooth.  after you finish, you just tear it out.  pretty tricky little maneuver if you ask me.


all in all, i think we're both happy with it. oh, when i get it back from school i'll have to get a close up of the tag i made with his initials embroidered..

projects, plans, promise

projects projects projects.

they are piling up. 

some are for school and some are not.

 (these will not get done immediately because my husband outlawed me from working on non-school projects until the term is over. good advice, because i have been getting so stressed out lately).

here it goes, random thoughts, swatches, etc.

for my next swimsuit project for school,  i'm thinking of doing something pieced like this: 

via anthropolgie

out of these three swimsuit knits:

 

the stretchy lace one is actually not a swimsuit knit, just a regular knit.  

i'm hoping i can underline it with white swimsuit knit and no one would be the wiser.

i am working on a swimsuit quite a bit like this, only a tankini:

via shabby apple

out of this fabric 

blogged about, and see a bigger swatch here

it is almost done.  just need to finish the straps and tie.

and the bottoms.

i'm doing a blouse, just for fun, like this:

 this pattern is from the 70's..via my grandma.  i've already made a dress out of it.

i'll post another time.

i'm doing it out of this fabric.  i only had one yard, so i'm not sure if this will turn out completely.

i'm really fudging it. 

next up...for my knits class, i'm making this dress. 

it is actually coming along a little wobbly. i'm not sure if i'll even like it ha ha.

i made a size small, and it would still fit me if i gained 100 lbs. 

don't get me wrong, i'm all for style ease, but this just might be excessive.

anyway, here it is:

and here is the fabric i'm using for it:

it is a navy blue knit (it looks darker than it really is here)

and a pleasant contrasting lilac floral knit.

it's on the inside of the pockets and is used for the drawstring.

i bought this pattern to make this skirt (blogged about here)

via madewell

 [i have yet to buy the fabric. because i haven't found that perfect shade of dated light denim yet. but don't worry, i'll track some down.]



and lastly,

this is the fabric for the cardigan i talked about in this post

and this is the fabric i used for the first, most basic swimsuit i made in class.

i got an A!

i will post a picture when i get it back from school.

laptop case

disclaimer: sorry, the pictures are terrible.

 i made this laptop case for a friend's birthday.  it was pretty easy and really fun to pick fabrics to put together.  

 detail of the stitching and lace

 i was kinda inspired by those envelopes that have the closures with two circles that you wind the string through (do those have a name?) and did the same with buttons.

 these are my signature buttons. i love them

 the front

action shot with the laptop in it.  (it fits i was just showing the laptop going in).  now i need to make one for myself!

tangent:
and i really do need one, i know from experience.  a couple semesters ago i was working in the university preschool. all of the student-teachers had to do a literacy activity where you read the kids a book and then they did an activity that related to the book.  so i read "the very hungry caterpillar" and then we made a lifecycle of a caterpillar on a long strip of paper, starting as an egg...yada yada.  the "chrysalis" stage was a big pasta shell that they glued down.  anyway, i had to make one as a demo, and then i shoved the whole paper in my backpack later on to take home.  the pasta shell cracked into a ton of little pieces and i didn't really think about it to vacuum out my backpack.  a little while later i noticed my disc drive was making really funny noises and then found a piece of that cracked pasta shell in my disc drive! needless to say it's never worked since.  a little laptop case could have saved me the trouble.

gosh, aren't you glad you read that story?

a wedding present

i am big on these two things lately.  

at the beginning of this year, my brother-in-law got married to a girl from madrid! the wedding was there so all of my husband's family got to go to spain to be there, and it was such a great trip.  i will have to post some pictures when i get around to it.  anway, for my wedding present to them, i thought i'd incorporate both embroidery and maps in a "quilt"--a map felt appropriate since this was an international union.

some of my preliminary planning

i don't pretend to be a quilter.  this is actually more of a pieced blanket.  also, the pictures aren't the best because we had to take them quickly in a cramped spanish apartment while the bride and groom weren't around.

 the breakdown:

i used mostly muslin for the main parts and then pieced some nice thick cotton solids in navy and green. i  filled it with 2 layers of thin cotton batting.  to get it to spain, i put it in a vacuum bag in my suitcase.

i sewed the layers together with a chevron pattern.  it took a bit of measuring but the result was cute.  i bound the edges with a striped seersucker that i love.

also, you can barely see it in the photo above, but in the upper left hand corner of the blanket i embroidered their names and the date.

i embroidered a world map on a separate piece--this is what i worked on for most of the plane ride.  i highly recommend this project for the plane (if you can sneak the needle and tiny scissors past security like i did) because the time went by so fast.  it was relaxing and almost mind numbing.  after i finished, i ironed all the edges and then slipstitched it onto the quilt by hand.

i absolutely love how the embroidered map turned out.  i am definitely going to do this in future projects.
 if you look closely, you can see where i made little x's in both texas and madrid (their homes) and connected them with a little dashed line.  there are also x's where both of them served full-time, 2 year LDS missions (this was long before they met each other). brian's was in ukraine and noemi's was in utah.

and here is the back.

i hope they enjoy it as much as i loved making it!