the Burkeshires

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Busy Busy Busy!

Had to go to Momen+ today to get supplies for a commisioned project,
and stocked up on some of Heather Ross's new line Far Far Away II.
LOVE IT. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Last minute gifts for the dude.

I'm waiting on little bits and pieces to be shipped before I can
finish his bday present, so I just painted this blue jay (his self-
proclaimed favorite bird) on a black t-shirt. Part stencil (I designed
it using this tutorial from a photograph of a jay found on google images), part freehand
painting. I'm super-psyched about the finished product.

Monday, June 7, 2010

LAMQG miniquilt

My guild had a mini-quilt blind-swap last night, so here's the one I made...

sneaky of me, but I used leftover squares from another quilt to whip this one up in one day... I forgot to measure it, but I'd guess it was about 16"x20"...

I decided to try "utility quilting" with perle cotton ala Anna Maria Horner, and I LOVED doing it. not sure I'd enjoy it on a big quilt, but it was really fun on this little one...

I just signed/located/dated it...

I got an awesome one in exchange, full of Denyse Schmidt fabrics, but I haven't photographed it yet...

MIL stationary set

I have this idea in my head for making the perfect little notepad holder/wallet-y thing for myself... so I bought some patterns that have interesting/helpful elements, and set to work... Of course, I didn't want to use up the fabric that I bought just for me, so I used fabric my MIL would like, and followed the patterns with little to no tweaking, just to see what they'd do...

I used Iron-on vinyl on the cover of this one, made from this pattern, because the cotton was SO lightweight.

I don't think the stabilizer provides quite enough stabilization, so next time I'm going to use chipboard inside...

Then I found THIS awesome free large portfolio pattern by Amy Butler, and I used the suggestion from this blog to use stiffener from a hardware store (I prefer Lowe's, but potayto/potahto)...

here's the outside...

and the inside. the top pocket is probably useless, but the bottom pocket holds cards/envelopes, and the other side will hold a half-letter sized notepad. C designed/printed the stationary (with email and phone number at the bottom, which I blurred out for her privacy), and I made 3 notepads for her...

pretty awesome birthday gift, if I do say so myself!

a busy bee

that's me!

I've been a MANIAC over the past 4-5 days...

here's the list so far:

Letter-sized padfolio (for MIL's birthday)

stationary-sized notebook (ditto)

SECRET SURPRISE for C's birthday

a Mini-quilt for a swap at the LAMQG meeting tomorrow

a baby blanket for an upcoming baby shower

a secret surprise birthday present for my mom

another secret surprise birthday present for my mom

a large bag for me (LAMINATE! ECHINO! fun!!!)

a crayon folder (using Jennifer Casa's pattern)

another crayon folder, this time of my own design

plus, you know, life with small children and pets and a wonderful husband.

(who took pictures of all of these things so I can post them soon. but it's almost 2am, so I think I'll load them on the computer tomorrow)(or at least the ones that have already been gifted/aren't for people who read this (like my 3yo)...)

Monday, May 31, 2010

Updates

It's the 22 week of the year, and I have 33 crochet blocks done! Yay!
Obvi, I'm gonna try to stay ahead of things, and maybe it'll only take
two years instead of 3 to make my dream blanket.
I'm working on a pair of overalls for the bean/any possible future
babies/grandchildren. I'm using the tute from Purl, but not doing the
provisional cast on, because I want to be able to adjust the hem. The
Bean is so skinny, I think as long as I can lengthen it, it'll fit for
a while. I chose the bright red linen, so it'll be reasonably gender
neutral. For $50 worth of yarn, plus oodles and oodles of my time, I
want to get as much wear from these as possible.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

gosh, it's been a while!

I've been on my laptop lately instead of on my sewing machine...

I'm working on a top-secret birthday present for my sweetie...

here's a little sneak peek:

I finally got it stitched out tonight (49 minutes of machine embroidery! probably the longest design I've ever done)

while I waited for that to happen (cause, of course, I did a tester first, which means I was waiting by my machine for 1.5 hours), I altered a bunch of the Bean's onesies into t-shirts... she's so tiny, even the 6-9mo tops still fit width wise, they're just not long enough to snap under her cloth diaper.... so I cut off all the snaps, and zip-zap-zopped them through the serger (with pink thread!), so now she has about 15 *new* shirts...

gotta love quick and easy fixes, especially when they're cute and free!

I also FINALLY stopped procrastinating on this one project... I made this dress about a year ago (purposely too big, cause babies outgrow things too quickly for me to want to sew newborn-ish stuff), and it's about ready to fit her, maybe...

but I'd never sewn on the closure at the top (*hand sewing* iew ick!)...

so, today, the Bean and I looked at buttons, and chose this little one with an apple on it, and then I opened up the other side seam, stuck in a piece of elastic, and resewed it. It took all of 3 minutes of work, MAYBE, so I'm not sure why I waited so long... but it's done now, and it looks cute, and maybe tomorrow I'll actually try it on her...

I also did as much as I could (on my serger, so no topstitching) of this week's Frock By Friday shirtdress... of course, I wasn't paying super close attention, so I cut a big chunk of the front off... Might have to go buy more fabric if I can't figure out a pretty way to fix it... maybe ruffles... oooooohhh...

Oh, and I'm at 29 finished (of 64?) string blocks, and 30-something crochet squares, so I'm on track/ahead of schedule so far on my long-ish term projects. Yay me!