Busy Fingers

All sewn up

nobody@vox.com(deschampsia) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:34:27 -0700

I tested my newly tuned up sewing machine by making a little needlework bag. I bought the materials for the bag a couple of years ago and kept over analyzing how to build it. In a fit of procrastination last weekend I just did it without making a pattern first. There were a couple of expected snafus and a few unexpected, but it is a cute and useful little bag.

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Little lace jacket

nobody@vox.com(deschampsia) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:05:20 -0700

Gp543037-00vliv01

This is driving me nuts. For the last couple of seasons I keep seeing these adorable crochet lace jackets for tots and little girls, but I can't find a pattern anywhere. Last year I tried to copy a crochet top bubble jumper that I saw and ended up with something that will fit V *this* summer, when she'll probably want to potty train. Duh! So I'd really rather make a jacket from a pattern than try to figure it out for myself. Why aren't the designers up on this?

I'm not sure I know enough crochet to try to copy this. :(

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Little stitches

nobody@vox.com(deschampsia) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:38:55 -0800

F Needlepoint #1

Kids' Embroidery: Projects for Kids of All Ages

F made his second project in needlework, a needlepoint drink coaster. I think it came out rather nice. Eric and I probably did about half of the work, but F did all of the edging and is very proud of it.

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Checkered Pasttime

nobody@vox.com(deschampsia) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:51:29 -0800

On Christmas Eve I completed Miss V's quilt. Hooray. She's only 13 months old, she'll never know, right?

Many thanks to drinkumbrella for creating and tracing the Amish Wave quilt pattern for me. I will never do scalloped bias hemmed edges on anything again in my life. We can add it to never doing patchwork or applique (quilting is not so bad, comparatively).

Difficulty: 7 out of 10. It was tedious and finicky, but not overly hard (not like those damn ladybugs). I used Yvil's shortcut for making the checkers in big patches.

Time: Somewhere between 80 and 120 hours spread over 18 months. No kidding.

Source: In the Nursery by Jennifer Sampou and Carolyn Schmitz, 2001

Adapted from "Yellow Ribbons" on page 70

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Brown sweater

nobody@vox.com(deschampsia) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:15:48 -0800

I finished the 9 month size raglan sweater. Just in time, too, since it just fits her. The 12 mo. that she has been wearing is a mess, it shrunk up so it fits, but it is too wide and the neck hole is always around her shoulders.

So a sweet new sweater for her to wear. Unfortunately in the same yarn as the blue one. sigh.

p.s. Check out the girlie's new shag haircut. I hate haircutting day, but I love the results.

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Where The Buggalo Roam

nobody@vox.com(Beca) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:34:37 -0800

I sacrificed listening to Heidi's radio show today (*sniff*) for the greater good (a.k.a. peace in our household): I finally sewed together a stuffed Buggalo for three-year-old Annika. One of Annika's favorite TV shows is Futurama, and her favorite character is Amy Wong. Amy Wong's parents own half of Mars and raise buggalo - buffalo sized bugs - and Amy's favorite pet buggalo is named Betsy. AJ has been begging me for months to make her her favorite pet, and today I finally caved and made a Betsy for Annika.

A Girl & Her Buggalo

I sketched out a rough pattern for a leg (x12), a flat belly, a wing (x2), a flat under-head, a half top-head (x2), and a bug bottom (a little triangle to sew between the rear of the wings to suggest a hard bug body underneath). Buggalos are classic black-and-white cow colored with pink underbellies, so we bought black and white fur, pink flannel, and black pleather for the legs.

AJ & Betsy

I cut the pattern for all the top parts bigger, and took a few tucks here and there to shape Betsy and give her some roundness and volume on top. The most annoying part was placing the stuffed legs inside the flat right-sides-together body to sew in place; keeping each set of legs at matching angles when the legs were inside a shapeless fuzzy empty Betsy body was a little challenging.

The end result won't win me any sewing awards - there are definitely a few things I'd do differently next time - but Annika is overjoyed with her new buggalo Betsy.

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Pink dreams

nobody@vox.com(deschampsia) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 10:14:47 -0800

I dragged the kids with me to the fabric store this week for more felt for my Christmas decor project. While there, Freeman was immediately taken with the fake fur. I thought about it and decided that a little bed pillow was something I could do. He approved. So I asked what color (he was holding the pink); did he want blue, green, white, red? No, he wanted pink. It is his favorite color, except when he's had recent indoctrination from other little boys.

Here is Freeman with his new pink fur pillow.

Difficulty: 3; Ripping the fur on the lengthwise grain caused on of my measures to be off (I had to patch mid-project) and pinning so the fur stays outside of the pillow case is annoying.

Time: Around 3 hours from cut to finish, including a zipper. I'm slow.

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Why Turn When You Can Twirl?

nobody@vox.com(Beca) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:04:49 -0800

McCalls M4814 - Tiered Dress

I knocked out a pullover flared & tiered dress for the twirling dervish today. Now that the weather is chilly, Annika only wants to wear dresses (naturally), and the bigger (longer, swirlier) and more princess-like the better. The fabric store was having a pattern sale so I picked up a few patterns and selected the poofiest one to start with: McCall's M4814.

Star Dress

As I did all the cutting and finished sewing the bodice and most of the tiers before the client came home, not knowing patterns generally run large I played it safe and made the next size up. It'll be a couple years until she grows into it (damn it's big)! She was barely a 4 and I made a generous 5. After turning up the ends I took an additional full inch hem on it just to keep it off the ground. I can pick up a pin to gather the back of the bodice until she grows into it, but the Little Miss is tickled to death with how twirly the skirt is. "It's a beauuuuteeeeful dress, Mommy! Thank you!"

(I thank her, for being such an easy-to-please client.)

Difficulty Rating: 2.5 out of 10 (10 being difficult, 1 being easy)
Toughest Part: Looots of gathering, then matching smaller non-gathered pieces to larger gathered ones. It took some time. No zippers or buttons though!
Total Sewing Time: 2-3 hours (incl. cutting and some hand-sewing on the bodice lining. I'm passing on the rick-rack trim.)

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Tutu Much Pink

nobody@vox.com(Beca) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:49:02 -0800

Pink Skirt

Between the extreme girlieness I have been sewing for AJ and my Scrabulous addiction on Facebook, my dreams have turned into weird pink problem-solving affairs where I'm trapped in yards of gathers and lettered tiles. But I digress!

Here is the latest offering - New Look 6582 - modeled by it's muse. It's so pink. It's so froofy. She loves it. It wasn't that hard to make, and due to the endless tiers of gathers you can be fairly sloppy with the sewing and it's pretty forgiving. She is a size 4, I sewed a size 4, and miraculously everything fit. The waist is big enough that if the skirt survives long enough for it to get tight, I can pop open the waistband and insert longer elastic. Easy peasy, but maybe not necessary given the pattern size goes from 3-8 and was so easy to put together. Once again, the only "difficultly" was evenly easing out the gathered tiers to match up to each other and sew - and truth be told that wasn't very hard.

Sewing time: 2 hours
Difficultly: 2 out of 10 (10 being tough, 1 being easy)

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Sweater model

nobody@vox.com(deschampsia) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:50:51 -0700

My model shows that the sweater is too large, so now I am knitting a smaller size. *sigh*

IMG_0004

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Busy Fingers

All sewn up

Little lace jacket

Little stitches

Checkered Pasttime

Brown sweater

Where The Buggalo Roam

Pink dreams

Why Turn When You Can *Twirl*?

Tutu Much Pink

Sweater model

Why Turn When You Can Twirl?