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new doll quilt

After an 8 (or so) month long break, I felt the urge to make another doll quilt for Phoebe. I was inspired once again by Jen’s photos from the International Quilt Festival in Tokyo. This one in particular was whispering doll quilt in my ear. I thought it was perfect because it’s the sort of thing that is awe-inspiringly crazy in a full size quilt but seems kind of quaint and homey in a doll size quilt. I also liked that it was another “+” thing, like the quilt that inspired the first quilt I did for Phoebe’s wall.

Further inspired by Jen and her post on hand-piecing on Sew, Mama, Sew I decided to ditch the sewing machine and finish piecing it together by hand. It was lovely. Just the right sort of project (tiny) for some relaxing handiwork. The quilting was fun too although I got a little too distracted by the tv (buffy) and my +’s sort of sway off grid a bit. But I love the finished product. I knew I couldn’t go wrong when I picked these fabrics and the pink, black and green color scheme. I’ve had most of these fabrics in a pile for a project for, um, over 2 years now I think. So even if I totally botched it I’d be happy with the pretty colors.

here are some details: the finished size is 14″ x 18″, the squares are 2″, cotton batting, vintage bias tape, perle cotton for the quilting, vintage and new fabrics.

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fairy stitchette apron

I’ve been thinking for a while that I needed to come up with some fun projects for all these stitchettes I have laying around. I make up the samples for the patterns and then stick them in a drawer. They’re crying to see some action. So here’s my first outing, an apron for the fairy stitchettes. I made this on the fly from a thrifted dress I was saving because of its cute fabric. Luckily I didn’t run out of dress before I finished. I wanted the apron to be adjustable in size so I made big long straps that go through loops at the back of the waistband. Oscar modeled it for me and he’s swimming in it but it still looks cute. I think it would work for 3 up to, well, grown ups, depends on how wide you make the waistband.

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smock on a peg

Lots of new things today: a new smock for Phoebe, a newly hung peg rail in her room and the sun!

The smock is a copy of a vintage one (here’s Phoebe modeling it) — oh! another new thing, a couple of them actually, Phoebe can now push herself up to sitting from laying and pull herself up to standing from sitting. She whipped these new tricks out yesterday and the day before. bam! I have a feeling she’ll be trying to break Oscar’s record of walking at 9 months. I need to stop sewing and start babyproofing, but back to the smocker, here’s a close up of the matryoshka fabric that I bought at kitty-craft and I’m so proud of myself that I tackled this because I dread catching ric-rac in a seam. I love the way it looks but I have the hardest time with it. anyone have any pointers? I did okay this time — even with Oscar complaining to me that it was taking forever — but still had to go back and fix half a dozen spots where I didn’t catch both sides of the fabric. But I think it turned out really cute…and I made fabric covered buttons for it. Fabric covered buttons make everything right.

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Kit, Chloe and Louise

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.

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basement day!

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.

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wip’s

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.