Down and dirty quilting

My latest project took a few hours, but let me start at the beginning of the story.  My competition horse, Oliver, lives most of his life outside.  When he is inside, he gets bored and starts to get into mischief.  He has flooded the barn twice by turning on the water faucet, he can open his latch and door, he likes the windows open, if they are closed he'll bust them out.... 

After bringing a pony home for my kids, he decided he would gallop around the field showing off, he then misjudged the distance and footing and slid into a gate, caught his legs in it, and sliced open his leg.  He had to have 4 big stitches.  Now while his leg heals, he has to live in a stall for the next three weeks.  I put away his outside blanket and I had to pull out the inside sheet and blanket.  They both had seen a little wear, so after washing them again, I had to patch them both and sew and quilt the patches on the blanket.  A few hours of work sure beats spending $100+ dollars on a new blanket and $60+ on a new sheet.  Sometimes you do what you gotta do... Now back to my art pieces.

Finished quilt

I finally finished my second art quilt.  I don't think I posted a photo of the first one I did, I could do that later...  Anyway, I took a photo of this beautiful clam, Tridacna squamosa, a female that spawned about a year ago.  I took the photo at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps in San Diego.  This giant clam which is also called a fluted clam lives in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans.  A very nice scientist at Birch named Fernando identified her for me.  I took some liberties with the surrounding sea life.  But it was a fun quilt to do.  It took a really long time because of all the embroidery I did.  I really like making these quilts by hand.  We'll see how long the next one takes.  It is a companion piece to this one, that is, it is another aquarium piece.

What to wear...

After having two children, and not buying any clothing for years, I have reached the stage of major frustration.  I find shopping really frustrating.  Either the clothes are made for 17 year old who is into the latest fashion, which right now I really hate.  Who wants to go back to hip huggers and hippy, flowing flower tunics?  I know I don't, been there done that.   Or, the clothing seems to suit a more mature sensibility; I am not ready to dress like I am 80 yet.  I am happy that at this stage of my life I still have a good figure. I just want some interesting stylish clothes that fit well and look good.  Is that too much to ask?  What do I wear???? 

I started sewing again when my daughter who is now 6 turned 2.  I wanted to buy her a dress appropriate for a formal type brunch.  One of my husband's colleagues was being inducted into the National Academy of Science and all she had to wear were hand-me-down's from her brother.  I went shopping and was appalled at how hoochie-koochie the dresses were for little girls.  She is a little girl, not a teen pop idol.  I finally found a cute little corduroy dress, but it was $40.  I bought, but then vowed that I could sew dresses for her just as cute or cuter and for much less than $40.  I admit, my first few dresses were not so great, but over the years I have started to become an accomplished sewer.  I did take the required home ec class in high school and had to make a hideous skirt which promptly became a rag.  Between college and grad school I took a class to learn tailoring for a very accomplished sewer and tailor.  I then made a beautiful blazer, a winter white wool coat with bound button holes, and lots of other things.  Once I finished grad school and went to work I was done with sewing until Linden came along.  Here are a pair of jeans I recently improved upon for her.

After trying to buy myself some clothes a few years ago.  I started sewing for myself.  I like to be able to have my clothes fit, look the way I want them and to be stylish.  Although I have to admit, not all of them end up being as stylish as I would like.  However, I have had lots of women approach me to ask where I bought a skirt or one of my sweaters.  Here is a scarf and sweater that I made recently.  The scarf is a scribble lace pattern based on Debbie New's.  I thought it would be really quick and easy, but I took much longer than I intended.  However, I am pleased with the results.  The sweater is sleeveless, mainly because I ran out of yarn, which was hand dyed.  I won the yarn at an art show as a prize for one of my hats that I designed and knit.  The yarn was a bit too heavy looking for me, so I lightened it with Kid Haze mohair.  It turned out great, looks great on, feels great, but I wanted a scarf to cover my cold arms on winter evenings out.

A couple of years ago, I read a review of Natalie Chanin's book Alabama Stitches, I had looked through the book quickly at a book store and passed it over, but after reading this review I gave it another look.  I then bought the book and started by making a couple of headbands, one for me, and one for my daughter.  I can't say mine does much for me, but Linden's was adorable on her until she lost it.  I then moved on and made an appliqued scarf, which I really love.  It was a lot of work.  I took the idea of the scarf in the book and then by freehand drew my leaves and flowers and appliqued it to a doubled piece of t-shirt fabric.  After I appliqued the flowers and leaves on, I thought it was a bit plain so then I got our the embroidery thread and started embroidering it.  I am really pleased with how it turned out, and love wearing it.  Again, it is something that draws women to come up and ask where I got it.

This summer, I moved on to making myself a reverse applique skirt.  I wanted something a bit dressy for evenings out or parties, so I selected a black fabric and got the dark grey t-shirt fabric on sale.  The reverse applique went much faster than the applique scarf, but then I decided to bead it.  The beading took a LONG time.  However, I love the results.  I call this my "don't touch" skirt.  Again, I sketched the leaves free-hand.  Does anyone recognize the plant?  I have to say, the skirt doesn't look so great hanging on the hanger, but it looks and fits great.  However, about halfway through the process of making the skirt I realized that I didn't have a top for it.  I hurried back to the fabric store, and luckily they had just enough t-shirt fabric to make a corset top.  It fits really well.  I love the corset top and will definitely make another.  Natalie Chanin suggests using used t-shirts to make her clothing, but I have to admit that any t-shirts that we have laying around used are only for the rag bin.  Living on a farm, I really use my t-shirts.  My good shirts that I buy for wearing to town are then used for mucking stalls and gardening, and by then they are so disgusting, stained and holey that there is no way to use them for anything remotely wearable, so I used new t-shirt fabric.

I am also doing some art pieces, but they are in the works and not ready to be shown.  I will show some soon though...

My foray into Stained Glass Design

Over the summer, as our house was being renovated, we had a spot where the architects had prescribed three stained glass window or art glass panes.  Tom and I looked around and tried to figure out what we wanted in the space.  We found some interesting pieces, the most modern being in California.  Since spending his graduate days and post-doc in California, Tom loves the ocean.  I decided to design a modern piece for the space that was reminescent of waves.  I sketched out the design both in a small sketch and then to-scale, and then we went to a local artist Vee Oswald and had him make the piece.  I selected the glass pieces that I liked;  Tom and I selected the colored pieces that we liked, and then Vee executed the work.  We were very pleased with the outcome.  Hope you enjoy a peek.

Valentine Crafts

Every year Valentine's sneaks up on me and the kids and I scramble trying to think about what to make for Valentine gifts. For some reason this year I got a major inspiration. My daughter, who is six, wanted to sew something. At six, her sewing skills are not many, but I have a stash of buttons, felted wool sweaters and old ribbons. I had a flash of inspiration, and what we decided to do was to make heart book marks. We cut or rather I cut the hearts out of two old sweaters, and I cut the ribbons, my daughter is choosing and sewing on buttons that attach the ribbons to the felted hearts. She is inspired and excited that she can do the sewing on her own and that she is making something special. Here is a quick look at two of the ones she has made so far...

The ribbon on the left is one from Laura Foster Nicholson.  I bought a grab bag from her of ends.  The ribbons are lovely, and I have just really started to use some of them now.

A blog hiatus

I have been taking a hiatus from this blog because after ten years living in a 1960's ranch house with our two children sharing a tiny bedroom crammed with two beds, we decided to renovate. We moved out and basically gutted the house. Gone are the black asbestos tile floors (okay, not gone, just well covered and hidden (the right thing to do for us and the environment)), gone are the faux gold and brown and white marble laminate countertops, gone is the double kitchen sink in the bathroom that I bathed the kids in for so long until they got too big to fit, gone are the brown speckled flooring in the kitchen and hallway, gone are the white painted fake panelling everywhere in the house, and gone are the decrepit acoustic tile on the ceiling.

We have lightened up the house with white paint, bamboo flooring and real white marble from Vermont. It sounds rather shallow when looking at the troubles in this world, but to live in a place of light and beauty makes me feel better. I love waking to the a clean white ceiling rather than the water stained acoustic tile, and looking out our beautiful picture window on our farm. One of the most exciting things that happened was that I got my own small studio space. I have had my stuff strewn in our crowded little office and in the kids play stuff. Now I have my own space where it is all "neatly" stored and easily accessible and best of all, I can get in start projects and not have to clean them up in mid-stream.

While the construction was going on, we lived in a house with no high speed connection. Dial-up and blogging was just too frustrating, so I gave it up for a while. Now I will start adding posts again, and showing just a few things that I have finished over the past few months....

More than weaving

I finally decided that I needed to put ALL the handwork things that I have been working on in this blog. If you look at my blog, it appears that I don't get much done, but in reality, I don't get much weaving done. Instead, I make toys, knit, make clothes, patch my sons ever growing stack of holey clothes, or cut off holey pants to make shorts. I decided to day to upload a couple of things I recently finished.

I was reading Disdressed, one of my favorite sewing blogs, and was inspired Liesl's transformation of her daughters old toddler jeans into a skirt. I don't have toddler jeans left, but I do have lots of jeans from by son with blown out knees. I took a pair of these and converted them to a skirt for my daughter. I was too lazy to put on handmade yo-yos, so instead I used some ribbon that I had laying around and put it on top of pink bias. I put on a heart patch over a paint stain and used the leftover ribbon to swirl around to cover up the little paint stains. I thought it turned out really cute. I am thinking of making one for myself now.

Speaking of Liesl and Disdressed, she has a company called Oliver+S, a really cute company that makes kids' patterns. I bought the Sunday Brunch Pattern. I love it. It was easy to sew, although I did struggle for a little bit how to add length for my very tall but skinny daughter. Other than that, the pieces sewed together easily, except for a minor errata with the waistband, but I emailed the company and Liesl herself got back to me quickly and helped me find the fix. I have sewn two skirts with the pattern and one jacket. I have to say, I hate to set in sleeves, these are sewn in first and not set in, so the jacket went together very easily. I thought the outfit turned out very professionally. One of the skirts I modified by sewing on a flounce.

Finally, I found this great book called Wee Folks at the library. I thought it was a beautiful book. I have tried many times to make little toys for my kids. The books that I get often have beautiful toys, but I find them difficult to make, or that they don't turn out like the pictures. I feel that I am pretty crafty, so I find this kind of discouraging. But, this book was different. It has clear instructions, and the fairy/knights that we made came out wonderfully. The kids love them and so do I. My son, who is 8, sewed some parts of the pants and wrapped some of the pipe cleaners. Hope you enjoy them