Underpants for the little dude.

I managed to get 1.75 pair (the bottom pair needs leg casings) done during naptime. The boy didn't nap, of course, and now the girl is wailing at me because she woke up cranky and I won't let her play with my needles. Bad mama. I've got one more blue pair like these, and then I'll make 3 that have that weird-n-wasteful (of my time and energy) boy fly/flap thing. After polling my husband and several close dude friends, I don't see why they're standard, it's really not that hard to pull down the waistband, but I'll make some just in case.

The art of mending.

That should be a book or a blog or something. The topic is probably covered in The Gentle Art of Domesticity...
Anyway, D ripped some holes in the knee of a pair of Mama-made linen pants, so I needed to fix them... I save my scraps, so I *probably* have some of this fabric somewhere, but I wanted to do this quickly before the pants got swallowed by my to-do pile.
So I quickly cut out a car from this cotton-linen blend Echino print, interfaced the back of it (for stability), and blanket stitched the patch centered over the holes.
It took about 15 minutes to do (with help from the 20mo who sat on my lap and who thinks pushing buttons on my machine is great fun. So I guess I killed two birds with one stone: D got fixed pants, and the bean got time with mama to talk about color, steal some thread spools, and push buttons on the machine.
Well worth it.

fun designing...

my mom has been visiting a lot lately, going back and forth between my house and my sisters, to visit the grandkids...

She wants to make a quilt with Aylish, (my niece), so we designed this quilt with my Bernina quilting software...

I can't wait to see how it turns out!

My new bag!

I just finished it (it's 3am, but I REALLY wanted to finish it)

isn't it PUUUUUUUUURRRRRTY?!?!?!?!?

The print is all Far Far Away II, and I made my own piping to match the lining... the hardware is all "brass" (dunno if it's solid or just colored)...

the messenger strap is removable, with clips and D-rings... there's a key fob inside, and a zippered pocket, a cell pocket, and a pen pocket... on the other side is a big pocket to hold my sketchbook, or just paperwork... there's also an exterior pocket (shown above), just in case I need to carry something (like a car for D)

the original shape is from the Echino bag pattern, but all the useful stuff is my own addition...

LOVE LOVE LOVE it
(this is my anniversary present, I got to buy the fabric/have the time to make it for myself) YAY!

Happy Anniversary!

I bought this cowboy panel several months ago, and my dude sort of wistfully mentioned that he'd like a quilt...

so here it is:

and here's the back...

Friday was our 5th wedding anniversary, which is supposed to be our "wooden" anniversary, so I used a wood grain print (the medium brown used for the sashing and on the back), and the majority of the back is a wicker print my mom found for me.

the batting is pure wool, which was the first time I've ever used it, and I LOVE it.

I hand quilted most of it, all but the border, and will post close-ups of that soon...

water bottle cozies...

I found this wine-bottle cozy in the strawberry picnic basket I found at a thrift store a few years ago... cute, huh?

I made one for D too, using the Owl and the Pussycat print from Heather Ross's new line...
it perfectly holds his water bottle and absorbs all the condensation....

and I even sewed it up in about an hour, with (SERIOUSLY) a child on each knee while I was on the machine.

a gift for my gram to give...

my gram needed a gift for a friend, and she saw a project bag I made for myself, and asked me to make another, slightly larger...
Momen was out of the red print, but they had it in brown, so I bought that... The ladies are in a square dancing club called the Honeycombers, so I found a tiny print with bumblebees on it...

with the scraps, i made a striped fabric card to accompany the gift...

hope she likes it!

whoops, forgot the notebook....

so here's the bag again, and here's the notebook I made to go with it...

the outside is some remnant red ticking, with a stripe of the red fireworks and some fussy cut "blah" print

the inside is all blah print with firework pockets/card & pen holder, and the other side has elastic straps to hold a notepad in place so she can write...

luckily, she loved it!
Happy Birthday, Mom!

My Mom's b-day present

(I'm finally catching up on blogging all my projects for june)
My mom jusst finished her PhD in education, and is a teacher now, primarily in the junior college system, teaching remedial/esl english classes...
she loves the color red, and she loves fireworks, so the outside of this bag suits her to a t...

the lining, a reminder of what her students here if she lectures them

it's just the right size for her phone, wallet, pens, etc...

and it's reversible (the bottom of the Blah blah side is red with large white polkadots)

my echino bag...

Isn't it LOVELY!?!?!? I used laminated linen/cotton, by echino, for the exterior, and the unlaminated echino (in two different prints, a pink and a purple) for the lining and the upper handles (laminate doesn't feel awesome on bare shoulders)

I made my own piping with crochet cotton in some brown bias tape, because at that point it was 1am, and I really really wanted to finish....

so far my biggest complaint is that the side and front owls are so close to each other... this fabric is so expensive, I was trying to be frugal, not design-wise... live n learn...

the shape is based on an echino pattern, and using echino fabric (all from Momen+), but I don't read japanese, so I made up the directions, and added pockets, and all the seams are enclosed rather than being visible....

I put a cell phone pocket, and a pens pocket and a key fob on one side, and

I did it in about 5 hours, (9pm-2am) a few weeks ago.

I LOVE it, but have some personal modifications to make for the next one. I need a BIG pocket to hold my sketchbook against the back side, and maybe an exterior pocket, and I DEFINITELY need a zippered pocket to hide things from my daughter...

I'm gonna use Far Far Away II fabrics on the next one, because i LOVE it so much

Shh, don't look, Christopher!

My hand quilting would progress much faster if I were not being
assisted by this ball of orange fluff.

Project bag for knitting...

I found this super cute fabric at Momen+ a dew weeks ago, just a
remnant, but I med a lined project bag to hold my knitting. The ruler
print is super helpful. I made one slightly larger in brown for my
gram to gift to a knitting friend too. So handy!
I might make one more and post a tute. Writing directions is so much
easier than remembering to take pictures as I work... But start to
finish this one took about an hour... Of course, I used a puppy leash
(from the Pasadena humane society, where we got our puppy, Guinness),
for the strap, and elastic for the pockets, instead of snaps or flaps,
etc. It's a drawstring bag, so if my knitting yarn is inside, I can
cinch it up, and the ball won't flop around while I work.

Slowing down...

I've done my MIL, my husbie, my mom, my son, & father's day... Only
my wedding anniversary is left this month.
Since I'm almost done, I decided to chill for a little while and pull
out my knitting. I havent touched it for a few weeks, but I have the
legs done, just started on the rise, and then I'm almost done! I also
made a new project bag, I'll post about that next.

A farm cake...

D wanted a farm party for his birthday. Obvi, that requires a farm
cake. We put in all the (plastic)animals he sees at the farm, and a
farmer, (him), and a field of dirt to dig in. Of course, the real farm
has chain link fences separating the pens, but piped chocolate wooden
rail fences are so much cuter!

yet another item on my todo list

http://news.holidash.com/2010/06/14/diy-fathers-day-gift/

how flippin' awesome is this!!!!??? maybe for xmas?

Sketchbook shirt and shorts

I use the new(ish) Oliver + S boys pattern, and made this shirt and
shorts. I doubt D will EVER wear them together (unless I force the
issue), but I used some of the Heather Bailey (ordered online) stripe
to line the pockets of the linen/cotton blend shorts (fabric from
Joanns)

D's birthday western shirt

I used the Sketchbook shirt as a basic pattern, (perhaps to my folly, as I haven't tried it on him yet)... the mustard colored fabric is a linen-cotton blend from Joann's, bought to match the Heather Ross print I bought at Momen a few weeks ago... it's called "rabbits in race cars," I think, regardless, it's ADORABLE, and D chose it and loves it...

(still needs snaps, have to go get some tonight, luckily I have till
Saturday)

Paper flowers

I made the pastel bouquet about a year ago from a Martha Stewart kit
bought at michaels. It was so fun that I immediately ordered 2ply
crepe, but it took me till tonight to start making them. It's hard to
believe these are made of paper, they look SO real!

coloring wallets...

Jennifer Casa has these patterns for sale on Etsy (LOOOOOVE the strawberry fabric, don't you?), and since they're sort-of part of my mission to make the perfect note-pad-y thing for myself, and since D's birthday is approaching rapidly, I bought the pattern and whipped it up on Sunday while D was playing outside with C and the Bean

the fabric is from Momen+ (of course)

I followed the pattern exactly (but I don't have any memo pads the right size, will need to make some before I give it to the kiddo)
Since I have so much stiff stuff (it's like that brown stuff that clipboards are made of... not quite wood) from Lowes (they only had a big sheet that measures 4'x8', so I've got enough for LOTS of projects!), I made another one, sans finished-artwork-pocket, but with elastic to hold a larger pad, and with board backing on the pad side. I didn't put board on both, but will next time, as I LOVE the stability for a toddler's ease-of-use...

here're the two together, my design on the right


and here it is open...