Prudent Baby Dress

Prudent Baby is one of the most inspiring craft blogs I read. Spending a few minutes there usually sends me up to my sewing studio full of ambition. Jaime's "One Shoulder Dressy Dress" caught my eye all the way back in July of last year and it has taken me this long to come around to it. But I finally cut into that beautiful Laura Gunn dogwood fabric I've been hoarding...I'm so happy I did!

I know I took the process pledge, but I've been hard at work this week doing a lot of finishes. So, I have just gone with the flow, neglecting to photograph along the way. This dress was slightly tricky because the tute wasn't super precise - there was a lot of eyeballing measurements (especially since I had to size it up a bit from her original 2Tin the tutorial). My favorite technique here was using bias tape to line the arm-holes; I'd never seen that before and I think it adds a really professional finish.

Want to make your own version? Check out the tutorial here. I love the generosity of the online crafting community!

Rocking Pillow & Tutorial

Before

After

So I bought this great little chair at a local thrift shop - it was handmade, heavy-duty woodwork and I even liked the sweet little floral detailing at the top of the chair. However, even though someone had gone through all the trouble to create this charming little rocking chair, they did a terrible job staining the wood - there were thick blobs of stain in various spots and lots of ugly irregularities in color - plus, the floral detailing was off center, and that bugged me. Because I already have a hard-core sanding job still unfinished (sigh), I decided to paint over this mess for any easier fix. It worked well for this project: none of the staining blobs show through the new layer of paint, which could have happened in the absence of sanding.

I decided to include a simple tutorial in sewing your own custom made cushion with piping. The piping adds a slight challenge to the sewing, but if you're well prepared with pins and a proper foot for machine sewing, it'll be a cinch!

                                                       

What you will need:

firm foam in desired thickness - I used 1.5"

sharp scissors or rotary cutter

ruler/measuring tape

fabric and thread

ready-made piping in appropriate yardage

pins

zipper-foot or piping foot for your sewing machine

First, measure your chair. I wanted a tight fit so I used exact measurements because there is no where to attach strings to keep the cushion on the chair, so it needed to fit snugly. Next, outline your cushion measurements on the foam and cut it out.

Get out your fabric, rotary cutter, and ruler. Take your measurements from the chair seat and add an extra one-inch to what you'll need to cut from your fabric. For example, my seat measurements were 11" x 12" - so I cut two squares at 12" x 13" - because I planned to use a .5" seam allowance. Next, cut four pieces for the sides of the pillow, adding an extra inch as before. The sides of my cushion were 1.5" thick and the lengths were 11" and 12" to match the top and bottom of the cushion. So I cut two strips at 2.5" x 12", and one more strip at 2.5" x 13". The fourth strip will need to have a wider width to accomodate a zipper. For this cut two more strips of fabric and insert your zipper, ensuring that the final measurement of this particular strip is just like your longest side strip you previous cut.

I neglected to photograph zipper insertion on one of the side strips. There are many good online tutorials for zipper insertion, such as this one.

Next, sew the four side pieces together, end to end. You may be wondering why I didn't just cut one long strip to fit - but I wanted straight up-and-down corners that wouldn't round out at all, which may happen with one strip.

Now pin all your piping in place, with the piping that will show on the cushion facing inward.

Then pin in place the side strip, being careful at the corners - use plenty of pins to ensure nice flat seams and square corners. Make sure your zipper is left open so that you can easily turn the cushion cover right-side out when you finish sewing. Double check that your cushion cover fits snugly over the top of the cushion before sewing on the rest of the fabric - make adjustments as necessary. Once this is done, do the same for the bottom of the pillow.

And you're done! Piping really does add such a professional touch to upholstery and I think it's well worth the added effort!

As for the fabric choice, I was lucky to have travelled to Sweden last year and I picked up some gorgeous home decor weight fabric in this cute fox and berry pattern. For transforming old furniture with spray paint,  Design*Sponge has a good tutorial here. For stenciling ideas, I was inspired by Lotta Jansdotter - her simple Scandinavian aesthetic is just my cup of tea.

I hope this tutorial is helpful to you!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I am loving the idea of an online blogger's quilt festival! It was only a few days ago that I blogged about my first quilts, but I didn't have much trouble thinking of another early quilt I'd like to talk about here for my contribution to the quilt festival.

Before I started quilting, I bought Denyse Schmidt's Quilts book to get inspired. I fell in love with all of her quilts in there but the one that really caught my eye was this shabby chic, modern country quilt in red and white. I didn't follow the pattern, but the idea. I had all these strips laid out on my floor for a couple of weeks while I pieced it together. It was a total mess. I had a lot of trouble with the wobbliness of the bars because of their slightly curved shapes. This was my first project of the sort and learned a lot about sewing "wonky" lines. Anyway, I got frustrated with this quilt many times and in the end didn't think it would turn out as nicely as Denyse's quilt in the book. However, once all those blocks were sewn together, the quilt top worked its usual magic on me and I fell in love. I decided against traditional binding, because I wanted a quicker finish to this already very long project. So I folded over the backing an extra two inches or so and machine stitched it in place. Then I hand tied it with red yarn, completing the very homemade look. What do you think?

Christmas Tree Skirt

I've been working on this Christmas tree skirt since yesterday. My daughter and I were both stuck indoors for the last two days because of a nasty cold, and this was a great way to keep my mind off my sore throat. I got the idea from the lovely lady at Tall Grass Prarie Studio (find the tutorial in the right-hand margin of her page). I don't have a Christmas tree skirt in my Christmas décor, but I do have some leftover holiday fabric from the stockings I made last year. I also wanted to try my hand at some new techniques, specifically the "wonky star" and these cool trees. I have a bigger quilt project in mind with a tree theme, and now I think I have the confidence to go for it.

This skirt is still a work-in-progress, but I was so excited by how it is turning out that I thought I would share. It's been a while since I have enjoyed every moment at the sewing machine, and this project totally put me there.

Sewing Clothes Kids Love - Dortje Pants

A few months ago I bought a funky little sewing book called Sewing Clothes Kids Love. This is the second garment I've made from the book and I am loving the patterns. The whole theory behind the book is sewing something for your child that they will just go gaga over - the examples in the book are a bit gaudy and over-the-top - but they are absolutely fun for kids to wear. 

Still long and loose - but these were a US size 4 equivalent!

These pants are pieced together, which made doing my first pair take a few hours, if you can believe that. I was just very mindful of potential errors that often come out when you're sewing from a new book - and me and my seam ripper are not on good terms at the moment. Thankfully, I only had to take out a few seams (practically nothing compared to my norm), but the process still took me a long time because I felt I had to read and re-read the instructions (spartan as they are, so I do recommend this book for intermediate or advanced sewists).

The fabric I used was all knit, because I wanted something I wouldn't have to iron and that she would likely be able to use around the house most of the winter. It's an easy wearing poly-cotton blend that I am very happy with.

The pattern is called "Dortje" - it's a German variant of Dorthea (I believe it's pronounced like Dor-t-ya, if you're curious). A useful tip: sew a size up and alter the waist for your child if you are sewing these with different knee fabric, this is especially important is your child has long legs like my little fairy above.

Interesting techniques you take from this pattern are:

• sewing pieced pant legs
• curved seams
• gathering knits (if you use them on the bottom ruffle)

I really like this book and I recommend it to anyone who sews for youngsters. The book includes patterns for girls and boys (though a bit lighter on boy patterns) and size up to age 12!

Gifted Quilts

front

I was searching through my external hardrive for old photos of etsy projects I could relist, when I came upon some of my first and favorite quilts.

back

From what I understand, my niece actually has this quilt hanging on her bedroom wall. While flattered that they didn't want it to get "messy," I couldn't help being slightly disappointed that she wasn't snuggling her little face into it each night. I had this dream of it getting dragged around on sleepy mornings, to slumber parties later on, and getting enough wear into it that the fabric turns ultra soft from so many washings. I never had a quilt growing up, but I have fond memories of my favorite blankies and I wanted this quilt gift to be one of hers.

this photo taken when my sewing desk was still uncluttered with projects!

 The process of quilting is very multi-step. Assembling the quilt top is the most dynamic and thoughtful part. When you finally square up and get all the measurements checked, the fabric backing cut, and the batting ready, you can begin to actually quilt the fabric sandwich together. This, for me, is extremely arduous. I usually end up with neck aches because I like to just get as much of it done in one sitting as possible. Plus, the anticipation of seeing it all together and bound can be just too much!

Anyway, back down memory lane...this second quilt still stuns me with its color. While I was sewing it, because it was my first more complicated pattern (other than patchwork squares), so I was nervous! Nervous about the color and pattern juxtaposition, nervous that it would be too busy, nervous that it wouldn't be liked...Even when I finished each block, I was a little bit unsatisfied with its progress - because my original vision was getting harder to imagine. However, once that quilt top was sewn together, I was shocked. It worked! There is a lot going on, but it's organized at the same time. Plus, it was a quilt for a baby and I just knew that with something this colorful she would probably be more entertained by her quilt than her mobile hanging above!

Lunch Boxes

 I felt really silly on my daughter's second day of playschool/playgroup. I forgot to buy her a little lunch box to take with her, so I had to send her in with one of my old purses with her lunch inside. She thought it was super cool to have one of mama's purses, but when I saw it lined up with all the other cute lunch boxes, I felt embarrassed! Clearly my issue, not hers. But I decided anyway that a lunch box was what she needed, so I did a search on the net for ideas of making your own lunch box/bag and this is what I came up with. There were various tutorials that weren't actually very good, so I just decided to put something together by eye, with some oilcloth I had already had on hand from previous projects.

                                          

Some of the projects I liked from other bloggers were cute, here for example, but they left the edges of the bags raw and I wanted something more durable and tidy. There were lots of little things I would change if I were to do it again, but I think the general idea came out just right.