These three little gals have been on my mind for a looong time. They’ve finally made it out of my head here for a little debut. Kit, Chloe and Louise are three best friends who are up for all sorts of adventures and hijinks. What kind of gals are they? Well for one, these are the kind of girls who know how to stitch in a ditch.
Today is basement day and the Langs are very excited. Today we spend the whole day in the basement working on projects. The basement fast became the dumping ground when we moved in and fixing it up is our Winter project. I spent this morning unpacking boxes marked “Fabric – basement”. These were filled with mostly thrifted finds that haven’t seen the light of day in years. They’ve been moved from one basement to the next. I seriously weeded through it all and I think I’ve finally gotten it down to the stuff that I’ll actually use. I was looking at everything with new eyes this time. Now that I’ve got a girl I was thinking a lot about doll clothes, dress up outifts, did I have big enough pieces for toddler/little girl outfits, etc. I’m feeling pretty good about where I’m at now. Good enough that I’m dying to go thrifting. It’s a sickness. What I really need to do is come up backstairs and start sewing! But it’s still basement day so it’s on to the rest of the tasks… toys, books, magazines, etc.
A big part of what made the whole fabric reorganization so fun were the huge garbage bags full of new to me second-hand fabric that I was lucky enough to pick up yesterday. A gal who reads the blog emailed me that she was helping a friend take apart her mother in law’s home and that she had a bunch of old fabric that needed a home and was I interested. Interested? Heck ya! Here are a few pics I snapped while going through it all. I’m so excited!!
Sifting through bags of old fabric is easily in the top five of my all time favorite activities. What will I pull out next? What could I make with this? And I love the notions boxes, all sorts of little treasures. Heaven! Thanks again Angie for thinking of me. You made my weekend!
I was thinking it’d be fun to spread a little basement love so if you want a silly little package of oddities from my basement leave a comment and I’ll send them out to the first 5 commenters.
I considered going all dyson today and complaining about my horrible sucky (or non-sucky really) vacuum cleaner. It’s 5pm now. I’ve been hoovering since dawn and my house is still a giant tumbleweed of fuzz and legos. I can totally see why that guy freaked out and invented his own. Actually I could write a really long post about how much I hate cleaning of all kinds. What I’d rather do is show some cute fun project that I’ve finished but all I’ve got to show for this week’s efforts is a still-not-that-clean house so instead how about some works in progress pics. I really hope I can get to one of these buggers soon.
these gals have been patiently waiting on my desk for their photoshoots. they have been pokey pokersons. some sitting around for days with no hair, weeks with no faces, months with no outfits. now they’re all finished and waiting for the sun, and for me to have the time and concentration to do some set ups.
I just finished making the first of the dolls from my christmas break sketching session. I stenciled the pattern on the velvet skirt. I was so excited about this part. There were supplies to get and paint colors to pick out. The design was going to be a lot more elaborate but man, cutting through acetate with an exacto knife is tricky! I need more practice.
The rest of her turned out very close to what I’d envisioned. I love her big loopy braids although I think she might need one more braided bun. Yes, all the star wars watching is getting to me. Soon my dolls will all have queen amidala hair. Instead of my usual wool or flannel body this gal’s is heavy canvas and I love how stiff she is. I definitely want to tweak a few things on the next one but I’m very pleased with my new girl. she’s hanging with this little sheep.
After all the work on her outfit I’m actually most fond of what’s underneath, her striped underthings and yarn shoes.
These two are the latest additions to Phoebe’s wardrobe. I used one of P’s other jumpers as the pattern for this cord top and the gathered plaid one is from a pattern in one of my Japanese sewing books that I resized. I love them! Phoebe sewing is addictive.
I know it’s not very Christmasy to swear so I will spare you the stream of happy cursing that’s running through my head. I just finished the last project on the “stuff I really want to get done this Christmas” list. I did it! Carol, look! I made it! No one is more amazed than I that I finished up this quilt not only before Christmas but enough before Christmas that I can actually sit under it and enjoy it for a while before it needs to be packed up.
Back in November when Carol and I hit the fabric store for holiday crafting supplies I was full of big plans and bought accordingly. It was partly that hit to my pocketbook that was really motivating me to finish what I’d started this season. I’d bought gingerbready fabrics with the vague idea that I’d make some sort of gingerbread house quilt. One of my favorite things about crafting is starting with an idea and then, as I get
into it, seeing it twist into something new. At first I was thinking how I could piece fabric together to get candy designs, then I gave up on that and went to an applique idea with lots of different candy designs on the polka dot backing. I liked the sketches but it was feeling kind of fussy, not too mention time consuming. Then I remembered one of my favorite illustrations from Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever (updated to add: that I found a pic of me reading it!). Don’t know why, but this has been etched into my brain since I was a kid. So I got super excited to make a quilt with a line of gumdrops across the bottom. I thought it would look really simple and cool and conveniently, that it’d be quick and easy to do.
The next thing to figure out was how to quilt it. Once I’d decided on gumdrops I wanted to do something that would make the gumdrops look sugared. I was initially thinking shell or pearl buttons that I’d sew to dot the gumdrops and then sew over scattered white dots throughout the quilt. The thought of all that button sewing was really not appealing to me though so I turned to pearlized snaps. I thought I was so clever and skipped off gleefully to the fabric store to pick up some snaps for my brilliant solution only to deflate when I realized the snapper gun thing wouldn’t make it into the middle of the quilt and the snaps were pricey. But I was too into the idea to give up on it so I bought 5 packs of 12 snaps and decided to go at it the manual way with a hammer and spool. I tried to be thrifty by using the circle on the back half of the snap for the dot snaps and the pearly ones to sugar the gumdrops. Since I was already hammering at the quilt I decided to ditch the lovingly handsewn parts to quilting and – quick quick! zip zip! – sewed the gumdrops and binding on by machine.
It just got it out of the dryer (the pics are from before washing & drying) and I love it! The snaps worked to crinkle it up nicely and it fits on the sofa perfectly (which is nice since I neglected to measure it as I was cutting). I love how the cold metal snaps feel with the warm snuggly quilt and I really love how fast the whole thing came together. Immensely satisfying! So I’m going to tidy up around here a bit and then get started on the rest of my holiday plans, all of which involve sitting under this quilt…snuggling the kiddos, watching christmas movies, reading blogs, knitting, flipping through magazines, eating cookies, snoozing maybe? nope, not likely, got carried away there for a minute.
A captivating gang of 24 huggable, lovable creatures to sew—from classics like Margot, a topsy-turvy doll, and the button-jointed teddy bear Bjorn Bjornson, to irresistible Evelyn, a wool felt inchworm decked out in mod glasses and a kerchief, and Koji, a fiercely cute spiked softie monster. There’s something for everyone here—from kids to grown-ups and from beginning sewers to advanced dollmakers. Published by STC Craft, August, 2010.
