Finished Quilt

The baby quilt is done!

Once I decided how I wanted it to look, it took far less time than I had expected.

It's a 9 block quilt, I'd call it "log cabin inspired" more than anything, since there's a central motif and the pieces around it are more or less mirroring the idea of a log cabin quilt.

But it's not exactly one, which is about what I'd expect from me.

Because not all the blocks were the same size, and because I wanted to use some of the other pieces of clothing that didn't make it into the blocks, I did strips in between each block and around the edges.  It used up a bit more fabric and added a few more prints to the mix.

I have to give props to a mom who dresses her child in such nicely coordinating colors.  There were literally only a few pieces I didn't use, and most of them would have still worked.

When I sent her a progress picture and told her I was going to back it in a neutral fabric I had on hand, she was fine with that.  We also decided on a light gray binding, which was from a gray t-shirt I had in my stash for that purpose.

All the years that I thought I didn't need a serger.  I could kick myself, except then I'd have to take my foot off the pedal of my serger.  Because every piece of fabric in this is a knit, this entire quilt was assembled with my serger.

I think my favorite bit is the central LOVE panel.  It was two sides of a jacket with a separating zipper.  I reinforced it before cutting, removed enough of the zipper top and bottom to be able to run it through the machine without hurting anything, and kept it as is.  I could have probably picked out the zipper and sewn the fabric together, but to me that would have changed the point of the piece -- it's meant to be Katy's outgrown baby clothes, and losing the zipper would, to me, lose some of that.

Baby Clothes Baby Quilt

Center squares - images from tiny shirts and jackets

Last month, I was contacted by a mom who had purchased one of my receiving blanket bears.  She and I had talked after the bear's arrival about doing something else, but the project never happened.

When she contacted me this time, she was ready.  She had been cleaning out her baby's clothes, she said, to give to a friend who was expecting, and there was a pile of stuff she just couldn't bear to give away.  Would I be able to make a quilt out of her little one's outgrown clothing?

But of course!

The clothes arrived last week, a whole copy paper box full, in bags labeled 1, 2 and 3 (order of importance for use).  I didn't cut up everything right away, because I'll either return or donate the unused pieces, but I ended up using all the pieces in bag 1, a good bit of bag 2, and some of bag 3, because I needed some solid colors to break up all the prints.

Katie trying to tell me to take a break.

Originally I had wanted to do something a little more free-form, like the baby clothes stockings I do, but then I saw that a lot of her pieces were infant-sized and I wasn't really going to be able to get a lot of pieces out of them.  So after I found 8 shirts with writing a central motif, I embroidered a 9th piece with the baby's name, and cut everything else into 2" wide strips.

It's sort of a bastardized log cabin, but not really.  Most of the central squares were 4", but a few of them were slightly off.  I put the largest in the center and worked outwards, inserting extra strips to make things line up.  The central "Love" square still has a zipper down the center (edges removed before serging and then anchored from behind so it doesn't unzip).

It's not quite done.  I gave it a good pressing after the last photo here, and now I'm looking around for backing fabric.  She didn't send anything large enough for that, so if she doesn't have any objection, I'm going to use a section of ivory sheet that I had on my shelf for this purpose.   Not sure yet if this quilt is going to get stitched or tied; it's small enough (32x32) that I could get it through the machine with minimal swearing.

Finished photos to come, hopefully by the end of the week.

The Precious

I read recently, either on Instagram or Facebook, that some Patternreview members were going to do their best in 2017 to sew up "the Precious."

For those who don't sew, or (somehow) don't stash, the Precious is the fabric that is so breathtaking, so perfect, so . . . unusable that we buy it, we pet it frequently, and we never cut into it because no project that we can think of is ever good enough for the Precious.

Yeah, I have a lot of Precious left.

But not as much as I did.

I bought this candy pink embroidered velvet at PR Weekend in 2007, at Metro Textiles.  I bought it, gods forgive me, to make jeans for myself.

Pink. Embroidered. Velvet. Jeans.

Even 10 years ago, I didn't have the ass for pink embroidered velvet jeans.  This is not being down on my body, just realistic.  (And even if I did have the correct ass for said jeans, in the intervening decade, my desire to make them or wear them has gone down exponentially).

So I turned the velvet into 4 toddler dresses to list in my Etsy shop for Easter.  They don't have a lot of embellishment because this fabric doesn't actually need anything more done to it.

And that's 2.5 yards of Precious gone.  I feel lighter.

Almost like I could fit into those jeans.  Almost.

Repeat Customer

Cuteness 2015 - wearing her new dress

Super Cuteness 2016 - with her new doll

Donations

Ever since people found out that I recycle fabrics, I've come home to the occasional care package on my front porch.

It helps that I live on the same block as a really good thrift store.  They support my habit nicely, but it also works in the reverse -- friends who would normally donate to the store will leave their donations on my porch for me to pick through first, and then donate whatever is left that doesn't suit my needs.

These three dresses came from one of those care packages.  All of them were pillowcases - two yellow-and-white striped ones and a larger sham, striped on one side, the other with the really cool compass and ship images.

There were others, including some really, really large 1990s cabbage rose linens (think toddler-head-sized roses), which did make the journey to the store.  The nautical pillowcase went into the thrift bag, came out, went back in and was sitting there, waiting to be taken down the street when I sprinted down the steps and pulled it out, because I had just gotten the inspiration for the dress, and I was really hoping that Mario hadn't decided to help me out by getting rid of that bag for me.

The yellow striped dresses just feel like essence of summer.  I've had several yards of that daisy trim for the past couple of years.  I bought it to use on a dress for myself, and then I could never decide on a pattern (or use for the trim) that didn't look way too young and/or childish.

Considering how good it looks on these size 1 and 3 dresses, I think I was right to save it.  Much better for small people, right?

Show tomorrow.  Everything is packed up and ready in the hall downstairs, ready to load into the Outback in the morning.

More later.

Clothes for small people

One last PR Weekend related post, and that's the end.  I promise.

Unless I think of something else.

This dress was made (and mentioned) several months ago, but I didn't want to post it until I'd handed it over to the recipient - Deepika - which I did at our Friday evening dinner at the Berghoff.

Here's the dress for the official Patternreview baby, based on Burda 9680, and made from a combination of Amy Butler remnants, a brown-and-white spotted man's shirt, lots of white eyelet ruffles and a handful of rosebuds. 

I was going for cute, and I think I succeeded.  Any cuter, and it might make your teeth hurt.

The best compliment I got on a garment during all of PR Weekend was on this - someone looked at it and said, "If I didn't know you'd made it, I'd know.  It looks like something you'd make." 

Which it does.  I hadn't really thought about my baby clothes being as me as my own clothes.

Snug as a Ladybug

So this is what I made myself sew when I couldn't think of anything to sew.

I've got to start sewing for me - first it was the drinking shirt for my boss, which he wore at Friday's in-office happy hour, now a sleeper for my friends' baby, who is getting christened the weekend after the wedding.





I got this ladybug print fabric a while back at PA Fabric Outlet on 4th Street. I'm not generally big on printed flannels, except for PJ pants, but ladybugs are a special thing with my friends and one of their nicknames for baby Claire. So I had to buy it.

Then I stalled on what to do with it.

A few weeks ago I made a trip to the Norristown Jomar with friends, and I really didn't find anything. Which is good, since I don't need fabric. But I did pick up a yard of tomato-red fleece, thinking I could tie it in somehow with the flannel. I'm not a big fan of fleece, and now that my cutting mat is filmed with fleece fuzz, and my machine is coughing it up, I remember why.

But it served the purpose here, which is to keep Claire toasty warm. This was put together from several different pattern ideas and some of my own.

The hood is lined in fleece and I made the liner a little larger so that I could topstitch the edge and pull a little of the fleece outward to act as a border. I edged the sleeves in red and put a big red zipper down the front.

It looked a little open at the neck area, so I added a fleece tab that snaps on one side with clear snaps.

Here's the full review.

Recycled Baby Dress

The other day, a friend saw the dress I made for my co-worker's imminent baby, and said, "It's a shame you're so busy with craft show sewing and the wedding; I'd love for you to make a dress for my friend's daughter who's turning one later this month."

I emailed her today to ask if she'd gotten her gift yet, and when she said no, I told her I'd meet her after work with a surprise.

This is yet another variation on the Burda baby pinafore, 1 year size this time, with added collar and pocket.

The dress began life as a skirt. I'm not even sure what to call the style, but I regret to say I wore it, and often. It looks much better as a baby dress. The uneven ruffle always bothered me (I didn't make it or I would have probably picked it off), but it looks interesting on something that small.

The collar is made from the original pocket flaps from the skirt, and the pocket was part of the pocket. I used the existing hemline and just tweaked the shape of the skirt pieces to accommodate it. I didnt' mind taking apart the skirt but I didn't see the point in picking off the rayon seam binding used as trim (no way that would have survived) and trying to reinvent the wheel when it was a perfectly good wheel to begin with.

Best of all, my friend loved it. She thinks it looks like something a little girl would have worn in a British children's book from the 1930s, and I take that as a compliment.

Little Pink Houses

Thank you for your compliments on my gorgeous Gorgeous fabric - I can't wait to cut into it and show you what it's going to be. There was some serious Frankenpatterning going on in the workroom last evening and . . . count 'em, two muslins.

I hate muslins, have I ever mentioned that? I know that at times they're necessary (way more often than I choose to take advantage of them), but I prefer muslins of the wearable variety so I get an extra piece of clothing out of the journey. Not this time.

In other news, the craft show sewing is FINISHED. Unless I decide to make something else, that is. I stopped at 60 pieces, and I'm okay with that number. If I get inspired to make more, or if - fingers crossed - something sells so well during the first week that I'm willing to do it again, that's a whole other thing.

Today was the last day of my long weekend, during which not enough sewing got done. But today, instead of working on my dress, I knocked out a gift for a co-worker whose wife is due fairly soon. It's the same BWOF pinafore dress I made recently for my friends' baby (the purple ladybug dress) except this one was made from a great shirt I found at the thrift store - minty green with little pink houses. I did all the topstitching in hot pink and used more of the endless stash of pink buttons I seem to have inherited from my non-pink-wearing relatives.

The whole thing, cut to final pressing, took a little over an hour. I think it's cute, but I'm almost over the clothes for small people thing. If I had an hour to sew, I could have knocked out another BWOF turtleneck, or a KS tshirt of my choice, or been well on the way to another pair of my favorite TNT pants.

Maybe tomorrow. Mario has a class tomorrow night and that means I have 3 hours of quality time with my new friend, who is performing just like my old friend.

An oddity in closing. I bought the shirt at the thrift store on Friday. They had a Black Friday sale. They had 6:00 a.m. doorbusters and 65% off all merchandise. The discount had dropped to 50% by 9:00 a.m. when all the sane people ventured out. They even had coffee and doughnuts for the early birds.

What does it say about the economy when the thrift store observes Black Friday???

Baby Project Complete

It didn't take long to finish the bonnet to go with the baby dress. The bonnet was very easy. It's also lined with white cotton batiste, and trimmed with more stash lace.

As far as the photo is concerned, that's a very unwilling and somewhat mortified Annie. It should have been Max - he has a bigger head - but he needs wrangling and my cat wrangler was upstairs at the time.

Here's the full review for the dress on PR.

Other than that, I've been doing some more craft show sewing - I went for coffee the other day with a friend and ran into the woman who runs the organization which holds the craft show. She saw me doing handwork on the baby dress and invited me to participate in the show. I said that I had last year, but it was nice to know for certain that I was going to be this year as well, since I've gotten so much stuff finished.

Back to work tomorrow. I had 2 days off, and they were definitely not enough.

Cutest thing ever?

It has come to my attention that is probably a very good thing that I never had children, particularly a little girl.

I would spend so much time making things like this that I'd probably forget to feed her.

My friends' baby is due around the 10th of October. I missed finishing this before the shower deadline - then again, I missed the shower because I couldn't get there - but I'll still be done before she arrives, unless she's a very early girl.

When I found out they were having a girl, I told them I wanted the privilege of making her very first Easter dress. After receiving the ladybug dress a few months ago, they cleared this with both grandmothers and I was given the go-ahead to make something in a 6 month size.

I've had this fabric since the day after their wedding in November, 2007. The next day was a Saturday, and also a PR Weekend in NY. I bought this candy-pink embroidered velvet at Metro Textiles thinking that sooner or later two of my favorite people would be bound to have a little girl. It only took 3 years - not bad, considering the age of some of my stash.

The dress is an older BWOF pattern (it started out as a christening gown, which I shortened and changed up a bit). The bonnet yet-to-be is from the same issue, as are the shoes that I'm still debating to go with it.

Making stuff for little people is both easy and complicated - easy because everything is so small and can be done with scraps and remnants, and hard because they're . . . well, delicate, and every seam has to be encased, and the petticoat has to be between the dress and the cotton lining so it doesn't scratch. I don't think this hard about my own clothes, and I've definitely made dresses for myself that have taken less time.

And I have to say I would never fold and stitch rayon seam binding on the edges of petticoat net for something I intended to wear.

I had today off from work but ended up running downtown for an hour because somehow in all my accumulation of notions, I didn't have any ribbon the right color, and I had no snaps at all. I got this sea-green ribbon in two widths, one for the dress and the other for the bonnet ties. Clear plastic snaps so as not to clash with the pink velvet. And the little rosebud appliques for the neck, the sleeves, the bonnet and anyplace else I can think of to stick them.

The dad knows that something pink and ruffly is coming their way; he doesn't know precisely what. The only thing this dress will require is a pair of ruffle-butt panties, and I think I'll let the parents provide those. I've had enough with sewing on lace already.

Clothes for small people

Baby and kids clothes are not something I make a lot of - not many of my friends have kids and the few co-workers who've had them aren't generally the type to appreciate something me-made - as opposed to something from whatever fabulous baby store I'm supposed to buy from. So they get what they want, and those with better taste get me.

One of my best friends, and the most stylish man I know, is expecting. Well, okay, his wife's expecting, but he's so excited you'd think he was. Once they found out they were having a girl, I have to say I was almost as excited as they were.

You see, I've been planning for them to have a little girl long before they were. They got married in November, 2007. The got married on the Friday of PR Weekend, 2007, so I could only go on Saturday, just a few hours after coming home from their reception. And one of the things I bought on that marathon shopping day was a piece of candy pink velvet embroidered with flowers. I wasn't quite sure why it called to me so loudly in Metro Textiles; I was too tired to see straight, much less think about a baby from a marriage less than 24 hours old, but subconsciously, I think that's just what I was doing.

Can anybody say first Easter dress? As a practice run, I put together this little number, BWOF 10/05 #139. A little garish? you say. What baby wears purple? you ask.

I'll tell you. This baby.

The mom's favorite color is purple, and her dad's nickname for her since she was a baby is Ladybug. So when I realized I had enough fabric left over from Mario's recent shirt, I decided to make the dress. I went digging through the trim boxes in search of something coordinating, and came across this ladybug trim, which I've had for so long I don't remember getting it. (I'm thinking some time in high school, which means the trim is older than the mom and dad).

To tie it all together, I got out a twin needle and did all the topstitching in red and yellow. The pinafore straps are buttoned with yellow flower buttons (and red buttonholes). I added a third yellow flower button over the join in the trim above the pleat.

I handed it over on Thursday. Dad loved it. I swear I heard the mom squealing that night.

Apparently, I'm going to be that aunt. You know, the one who makes the stuff that no one else would ever consider putting the kid into.

Good thing the parents have taste.