Category: Making

sewing

KCWC – Day One

 

I’m already hip-deep in fabric for elsie marley‘s Kids Clothes Week Challenge. I started tracing a pattern for one project, then realized I’d never held any piece of the pattern up to Caitlyn to see if if needed adjusting. I pulled out a project that’s been on the to-do list since last fall, then decided I need to check measurements on that one, too. This is what happens when I don’t do the prep work before she heads off to school on a Monday! Fortunately, I have a project that’s straightforward enough not to need a pattern or terribly precise …

quilts

Now you see it…

In preparation (sort of) for Kids’ Clothes Week starting in the morning, I’ve finally managed to finish (sans borders) the top to the disappearing nine-patch I’ve been occasionally working on since late last year. I found Rachel’s tutorial for this pattern about a year ago, probably when I was looking for something else and decided that I needed to make one, immediately. I’m particularly pleased with myself for not buying a charm pack for the starting squares, instead digging through the stash for Things That Worked. Most of these fabrics were part of a fat quarter bundle I received from …

homesteading, sewing

Bags for small things

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Maybe it’s the proverbial spring cleaning, but I’ve been on an organizing spree lately. I’ve got bags of out-grown clothes to take to Goodwill, books to drop off for the Seattle Public Library book sale, and dead electronics and computers finally making progress toward Re-PC and Total Reclaim. If it’s been ignored for years, I’m making an effort to decide what to do with it and then follow through. I’m pretty good about bagging up Caitlyn’s old clothes a couple of times a year, but they usually move as far as another closet, not actually out of the house. Mixed …

sewing

Finishing Things

 

Sometime when I was in elementary school (I think), I received a latch-hook rug kit as a gift, probably from my grandparents. It’s a unicorn with a rainbow background, and it’s oh-so-80s. Like many of the projects I worked on then, I liked doing the details, changing colors frequently and filling in small spaces. When it was time to do the background, interest flagged. The project was tucked away and forgotten. It resurfaced sometime after Caitlyn was born, discovered during one of Mom’s excavation projects. She finished that neglected background and brought it up to us, and I tucked it …

Seasons, sewing

Caitlyn’s Easter Bunny

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I went through a phase when I was about 13 or 14 when I made stuffed animals. I was taking a sewing class as an elective in junior high and somehow there were these kits you could order: “fur”, plastic eyes, stuffing, instructions. I made at least three of them: a cat, a turtle, and a parrot. I never did figure out how to not get the fur caught in the seams, so they all look a little weird, soft and fuzzy except where the fabric pieces come together. And then I finished the class, went on to high school, …

sewing

Kids’ Clothes Week Challenge

 

One thing that is on my list of Things to Do with Caitlyn over Spring Break is to go through her closet. Time to set aside the things she has outgrown (all her pants, I think) and make a list of things she needs (shorts and t-shirts, probably). Someday, the sun will come out and it will get above 50 degrees and she’ll want to wear summery things without 15 layers underneath. Conveniently, I discovered that elsie marley is hosting the spring 2011 edition of Kids’ Clothes Week. I’ve got fabric on hand for a dress and at least 2 …