For the past year now I've been sewing monthly blocks as a part of Heal at do.  Good Stitches, a sewing circle that makes quilts for hospice patients and their families.  I have to say that when Nicke asked me to be a part of the circle I was very hesitant to join - not because I don't think it's an amazing idea (because I do), but because a quilter I am not.  Quilting is all about precision and accuracy and I operate in the world of "good enough" and "close enough."  I was truly worried that after about one month I would be kindly asked to remove myself from the Flickr group, but somehow after twelve months they're still  putting up with me.  And that in itself is a true testament to the kindness and grace of these women.

With the craziness of the holidays the group decided to take a little break from sewing blocks and participate in a sewing swap.  Can I confess that I'm a sewing swap virgin?  I've never participated in one and so I spent a lot of time brainstorming about what to sew for someone who no doubt has much greater skills than myself.  In the end, I settled on a potholders because

1) who doesn't need new potholders? and

2) it doesn't really matter if they're perfect because they're just going to get food all over them.

After trolling the internet for ideas, I ended up settling on this little one by Amy and it was absolutely lovely to sew except that it doesn't note what the seam allowance should be when you sew on the binding and so for my first potholder I used too large of a seam allowance making it so that I couldn't get my binding all the way over all those layers of Insulbrite (and there are A LOT of layers of Insulbrite).  That potholder is now the reject potholder that resides in my kitchen (score for me!).  On the other two I used a scant 3/8" seam allowance to sew on the binding and it worked perfectly.
As for the fabric I tried to mostly use what I had leftover from other projects, but the recipient happens to be a lover of the combination of orange and purple so I did run out and purchase some dark purple Luxe In Bloom purple fabric for the binding.

Hopefully she loves them.  And hopefully all those layers of Insulbrite do their job and she doesn't end up burning herself when using them - because maiming someone during your first sewing swap is probably a bad thing.

PS - One of the little chocolate sticking out is from Justin's... have you ever tried them?  They make some seriously delicious chocolate and peanut or almond goodies.  Seriously delicious.

A Place for Everything and Everything In Its Place

It seems like every weekend I have some new plan to finally clean up a disaster area in our house, but by the time the weekend is over I quickly realize that my plan was an epic fail.  I can't even tell you how long I've been trying to clean off the top of my dresser and yet when Sunday rolls around it's always piled  high with clothes that need to be folded and put away.  How does that happen?

My plan last weekend to clean the top off of C's bureau/changing table fortunately was a bit more manageable since in addition to being a much smaller space it's not where our piles of laundry go to die at the end of the week.

The task was also a bit more fun than my usual attempts at organization because it involved a bit of sewing - namely the whipping up a Divided Basket.  With a divided main compartment and a divided outside pocket it made it easy to find the perfect space to put all of C's crap stuff.  Like her diapers and lotions and creams and sprays and medicated ointments and vitamins.

Apparently our one year old is a very high maintenance child.

God help us when she's a teenager.

Pattern: Anna's Divided Basket Pattern

Fabrics: Main fabric - Cruzin by Barbara Jones for Henry Glass and Co.
             Accent fabric - Clown Stripe Red by Michael Miller

Modifications: I interfacing the outside pocket to make it a bit more substantial and I made the handles narrower (because I'm a dumb-butt and used the wrong pattern piece to make the handles.  I'm obviously incapable of reading instructions properly sometimes).

Faux Fur Pillows And Yet Another Renfrew

If you had asked me a week ago what I was going to be sewing for Christmas, I would have told you "the same thing that I sewed last year" (which was nothing, in case you're wondering).  You see, I generally don't like sewing under deadlines and I couldn't think of a fantastic project to make for that special someone.  All that changed, though, when I dragged my little sister into a fabric store last weekend and she became obsessed with a giant role of faux fur and the idea of a large pillow cover made out of that fabric. 

Given that my sister is ridiculously hard to shop for (especially since she's heading back to Pakistan soon...and is then moving again in another month or so) I couldn't say no to a present that I knew that she would actually use and love.  So I pried the role of ridiculously soft faux fur out of her hand (and again out of O's hands when she discovered it in the living room) and whipped up a 20 x 20 pillow case with an envelope closure on the back.  I also used the leftover fabric to sew a little pillow for O (and I have to say that this pillow was an absolute hit on Christmas morning.  Who knew that a tiny pillow made out of scrap fabric would be one of her favorite presents?)

I know that Rae posted some very helpful tips on sewing with faux fur recently, but I have a couple of my own to add.

- Faux fur generally "grows" in one direction. It's helpful to indicate this direction on your fabric so that you can make sure that your pieces are laid out in the right direction.  I did this by drawing an arrow on the back of the fabric in the  direction of the nap.

- Once you trace the pattern piece on the back of the faux fur (and this is a must - don't even try to pin it on the fabric and cut around it), cut the pattern out with a single edge razor blade, cutting only through the knit backing of the faux fur rather than through the actual fur itself.  This will prevent you from having fur fuzzies  flying all over your sewing room and it'll keep that nice, luscious fur intact.

- When you're putting your pieces together, push all the fur (or as much as you can) so that it's on the right side of your fabric rather than sticking in the seams.  Here's a hint - it's much easier to do this if you hand baste your pieces together before you sew them on the machine.

- When it's time to sew your seams together with the machine, use a longer stitch than usual (I think that I used around a 3 mm).  This will allow you to pull any fur through to the right side that gets stuck in the seam when you're sewing (I did this with a chop stick that I happened to have laying around).

- And if you happen to have trouble (like I did) with your machine trying to eat some of the long fur pieces, try sewing the pieces together with a piece of tissue paper between your machine and the fabric.  This will hopefully prevent the fur from getting sucked into the machine and it can easily be ripped off after the pieces are sewn together.

- And like Rae already mentioned, remember that a walking foot is your best friend when sewing with faux fur.

And in an attempt to "go big or go home", I actually whipped up one more item for my sister (in fact, I cut it out and sewed it up on Christmas Eve, finishing it just before we were due to head out to a family event.  Talk about cutting it close!)...another Renfrew Top!  After giving her the first one, I wasn't convinced that she particularly liked the shirt, but it turns out that it was just the color that was bothersome to her (she's planning on taking it back to Pakistan and having it over-dyed there) but she actually really liked the shape of the garment itself and requested one in a more wearable color (What?  Bright yellow isn't wearable?).  Luckily we found some gorgeous dark gray bamboo and hemp fabric at the fabric store and I was able to make yet another Renfrew Top for her (Again, with the cowl neck and long sleeves.  And yes, she apparently likes her sleeves that long.).

The only sad part of this story is that I thought that I bought enough of this fabric to make a shirt for myself as well, but I think I estimated wrong and I'm a little short on what I'll need.  So much for my superior estimation skills.

New Pillow Cases? Why, Yes Please.

There are things that I love to make (like clothes for little ones and food that put me into a near diabetic coma) and then there are things that I loathe make - like most a home dec projects.  Don't get me wrong - I love when you make home dec projects and I usually drool over what you come up with.  But for me, I usually lose interest in the project before I even begin (have I ever mentioned exactly how many times I purchased fabric to recover the same chair?  No?  Good.  I'll keep that little secret to myself).

But in spite of my dislike of home dec projects, I actually made one this.  Well, two to be exact.

Allow to me introduce my new pillow shams, entirely inspired by this tutorial and my desire to not spend an additional fifty dollars to purchase shams for my new pillows (whoever said that being cheap was a bad thing?).

I'd actually never made a pillow sham before and the pillows that I bought are ridiculously poofy so I was a bit concerned the whole time that by just making the pillow case the size of the pillow I wouldn't be able to close it but in the end my fears were completely unfounded and I probably could have made the pillow shams just a tad bit smaller.


As for other things that I learned through this process?

1) A 1/4 seam allowance may work well in quilting but it is the pits the when gathering fabric and sewing gathered seams together.
2) I hate gathering fabric.
3) Holy crap!  There were a lot of threads to cut off of these pillows once they were done.

But I love these little pillow cases and surprisingly enough even Ben and O had some kind words to say about them - like when O exclaimed "look at these cool  pillows."  Look at these cool pillows indeed.

Pattern:  Based on this duvet cover tutorial and this basic pillow sham tutorial
Fabric: Used almost an entire twin size flat sheet

Eating Like Civilized Folks

I know that I've been quiet on the New Year's Resolution front, but don't be fooled because there are definitely a couple things that I hope to improve upon around here in the coming year - the first being just to waste less.  There's nothing like a massive cleaning spree (which I feel like we've been on for the past three months) to convince you that you probably shouldn't have bought or accepted half of the stuff that you own in the first place.  And so in addition to slowly making our way through all the crap in our house I've also been thinking of ways that I can also waste less every day.

Which has led me to cloth napkins.  You see, we are not fancy, sophisticated people around here and truth be told, we usually just end up using paper towels as napkins for most meals.  And while the majority of those end up in the compost bin, we could probably all benefit from not using them in the first place.  So I dug through my fabric stash (bonus points for using fabric that I already had, right?) and picked out those fabrics that I'm really not in love with anymore and cut squares that measured 20 x 20, aiming to get as many squares out of each piece of fabric that I could.  And then I just sewed a hem around all four sides.  I will say that I attempted to get all fancy and do proper mitered corners, but in the end I ended up doing some made-up version of a mitered corner and while they may not be perfect, they're certainly good enough for me (and for napkins).