lotsa projects, no time to take pictures.

Seems as though lately, I've made bunches of things, but they've gone out the door faster than I could remember to take pictures of them.

There were:
- quilt squares for Sara
- quilt squares for Marina
- a purse for me
- a brag book for the in-laws
- printed tees and onesies for friends we visited while we were on vacation
- an oilcloth wallet prototype

I also received 5 (yes 5!) books and/or magazines on knitting in the last 2 weeks. I don't knit, though I wouldn't mind learning. I'm just getting pretty good at crochet, and this winter, I am determined to crochet a sweater for myself. Once it is completed, I might try my hand at knitting, but first things first.

Our quilty group has a name and a blog and a URL! No website yet, but we're slowly working on it. I think we'll just park the blog there for awhile. I have yet to really get the blog up and running and to make it accessible to all the ladies. The name of our group is "Underground Sewers" and I'm working on a cute logo. The blog address is undergroundsewers.blogspot.com and the URL is www.undergroundsewers.com.

Crafty To-Do List

I got this idea from Deirdre. I'm now keeping my list of crafts to do on my blog. My list on paper had been missing for quite some time, but I found it today. It was behind a bunch of junk--it had fallen behind my craft table to live with the dust bunnies. (Maybe that's why my allergies are acting up!) On my blog, it will never be lost. Hopefully.

On a side note, Andy got me a sweet new iron for Mother's Day. He gave it to me 3 days ago and I still haven't even had a chance to plug it in. Ah, weekends.

for all the junk in my trunk

I've made a few things out of Amy Karol's Bend-the-Rules Sewing but here are my two most recent: The No Cash Wallet and Pleated Beauty Handbag.

The book comes with patterns in the back that you enlarge on a photocopier in order to get them to the right size. The wallet was made this way and came out WAY too small. Maybe the scaling on the Kinko's copy machine was off... but I followed the instructions to a T (and I hardly ever do.) This is the outside of the wallet. The button is just for show—it actually snaps closed.

Here's the inside of the wallet. As you can see, my cards are standing vertically in the pockets... I'm pretty sure they were supposed to be in there horizontally. Oh well. I keep membership cards, gift cards and the like in there and still use my trusty old travel wallet for money and credit cards. One of these days I'll get around to making an oilcloth wallet that holds all of it. It's on my list of things to make... someday.


Here's the purse I made. I made the base of the purse from some random fabric in my stash—it's probably nylon or polyester—it wouldn't hold an ironed crease at all. Blech! The patchwork parts are from a charm pack Kathryn gave me for Christmas. Love them! Overall, this purse went pretty well. I used it today, and it's HUGE! So much bigger than the purses I'm used to carrying; I lost things in it. I had the same amount of stuff that I usually carry in a smaller purse in this new purse and it felt empty, like I was going to have to crawl inside it to find what I was looking for. (And it's really not all that big.) I plan on making another with added dividers and pockets so it doesn't feel so cavernous inside.

I guess I'll never really be caught up...

This quilt was made by our group as a birthday gift for Nikki's boyfriend, Tony. It's the first group quilt that has been finished, because though we worked on Kat's first, she has been immobilized by back pain and can't even sit up to sew. I completed an extra 9 or 10 blocks for her quilt in the hopes that she'd be able to work on her quilt after a steroid injection, but it has done little good to this point. (I should have taken pictures of those blocks to post here, but I was so excited to give them to her that I forgot.)

Anyway, back to Nikki's quilt. Since it was a quilt for a guy, we had to make it manly, and Tony is way into fish and water and surfing. Nikki gave us the dimensions and the flowy, organic water theme and let us run wild. Below is my strip:
I cut the background waves out with my rotary cutter and straight stitched through the middle of each. Then I realized I would have to zig-zag stitch the edges down to avoid too much fraying. I found scientific illustrations of the fish on the internet, separated out the colors and chose fabrics for each of the colors. I then made a freezer paper applique of each of the colors and fused the top ones to the base fish shape. Then I machine stitched the 3 fish to the strip, and around each of the appliqued colors. Then I hand-embroidered the details (eyes, fin lines, etc.) on each fish. It was quite a process, but it was fun and I was able to try some new things.

Here are everybody's strips together on the morning of our show-and-tell meeting.

This is everyone, minus Kathryn, plus Tony. (L to R) Marina, Deanna, me, Tony, Nikki, Sara and Deirdre. Tony's birthday is the day before Ava's, so Nikki gave him his quilt at Ava's party. His parents and sister were also in attendance—it was great to meet them and to show off our "mad crafty skills" to a new audience. :)

I'm all caught up!

Woo hoo! That was soooo much better than adding things to my old site!

I made these for Danielle for Christmas, with fabric I bought in Hawaii close to 3 years ago.

My first quilt! A super-simple strip quilt with a polar fleece back.

A diaper bag... really just one of my purses made larger—much larger.

Part of a group project; these squares will end up as part of Kat's couch quilt. I think 10 or so of us ladies are in on it.

Almost up to date now...

A sweater I crocheted in 1 week for Susannah's first birthday. A super easy pattern.

Our camera bag was too much to schlep around all the time, and I was afraid the camera would get scratched up in my purse without a cover, so I busted out this cozy in about an hour's time.

Ava is always losing her socks and shoes or pulling them off, so I crocheted these booties with ties so they'd stay on. She hates them.

Ava hates hats, too. So I thought I'd crochet one for her with ties. It stays on only slightly longer than the booties.

Andy liked Ava's earflap hat so much that he asked for one his size.

Sorta recent crocheted stuff.

It took a few months (15-30 minutes at a time) to crochet this sweater for Ava. Thank goodness it still fits her.

This pin cushion was a birthday gift for Sara.

This pin was a Christmas gift for Nina.

This wrap was a Christmas gift for my Mom.

Then I got back into sewing.

This was a gift for a 2-year-old. She may not use it for awhile, but that's okay.

Ava sure likes this taggie and its button eyes.

This was a gift for a friend's baby. I made the thing on the left, too. :)


I got this pattern from Sara. These dresses are reversible: one side is a print fabric, and I block printed on the other side.

Then there was the baby boom.

I just had to make gifts for all of them...

Damn you Martha Stewart. I already have more than enough to keep me busy.

While on maternity leave, while Ava was still quite little, I watched an episode of "Martha" on which the guest block printed on t-shirts. The main gimmick of my letterpress business was hand-cut linoleum blocks, so I had plenty of material to print with. These are the ones I printed for Ava.

Woodworking.

I made this as a wedding gift for some friends. They have a Craftsman-style house and needed numbers at the time. I used a router to remove the wood from the number areas, then cut sheet copper and hammered it before gluing it into the recessed numbers.

Tiling.

I took a tile mosaic class and covered lots of things with glass and ceramic shards for awhile.

The beginning of crochet.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up knitting, but was never really good at it. I tried crochet when a friend had a baby and knocked this one out of the park. I haven't gone back to knitting since.

Purses.

I found this pattern on craftster.org and altered it to suit my needs. It was so easy that I made several and taught a few friends how to make them. I traded 10 of these purses to a local store for a vintage movie poster. I have yet to make the last 5. I am slacking!