Clear Eyes, Full Hearts

I've finished three quilts since the last time I talked to you, but unfortunately no photos until next week!

In the meantime I thought I'd show off one of my favorite projects from back in 2011.  This was originally a little gift for sweet baby James, and I liked it so much I made one for my own baby too.  I like the idea of decorating onesies (or pillow cases or wall hangings or t-shirts) with meaningful quotes, but I rarely come across any that are quite right for what I want to express.  But as fellow Friday Night Lights fans, I knew this baby's parents would know exactly what I was trying to say!

For those that haven't watched Friday Nights Lights, I'm sorry that you haven't truly lived yet, but the tagline for the show, painted in the locker room and repeated before every football game is "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose." It's a nice team-building chant, but I think it's equally appropriate for just about every other challenge you come up against in life.  It's exactly what I want to say to every new baby, new parent, lawyer about to go to trial, or girl working up the nerve to ask out her crush. It's just motivating and confident and forgiving all at the same time.  I imagine when Josie's eight and scared to do something I'll lean down in front of her, put a hand on each of her shoulders and say "Just remember girl:  Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" and she'll think I'm such an awesome mom for always saying the right thing, just like Tami Taylor.

Anyway, here's J on the way home from the hospital in her own version (this one was done in my own handwriting instead of fancy-font):

Last month, another FNL fan/friend of mine was blessed with a little girl.  They only got a few hours warning that CJ was on the way (don't worry, this is an adoption story, not an "I had no idea I was pregnant" story), and with clear eyes and full hearts they went out to meet this baby and totally won.  Like shutout won (oops sorry, wrong sport?).   I didn't have anything made for them, but then J said "dadaa da doooo dooo da da do!" and I was like, "you are so clever! I will totally dig out your onesie and send it to them!"

So welcome to the world baby girl - in the words of Coach Taylor "Y'all did good!"

From Bits to Pieces

I'm just dying over here, trying to finish up these WIPS (Works In Progress, for you people that actually complete one thing before starting another).  They are the big projects that you can never get finished.  I have about eight of them right now.  I bought a book on procrastination three years ago but didn't get around to reading it until recently - that's not even a joke.  One of the exercises was to break down your productivity pattern to see where you go wrong.  So here goes:

Week 1:  I get the idea, and with it comes a rush of enthusiasm and planning.  This quilt/shirt/Christmas stocking is going to be AMAZING.  Plan for project, make shopping list, picture how I'm going to use it/who I'm going to give it to when I finish it next week.
Week 2:  Drive to three different fabric/yarn stores looking for the perfect material.  So fun, I wish I could just live in Week 2 forever.  Once I've bought it, I wash fabric immediately and hang it over the banister.  For the record, there are currently 22 pieces of fabric hanging there.
Week 3:  Iron and cut.
Week 4:  Sew.  Things are looking good and really coming along
Week 5: Sew, but just here and there, start to feel like it's kind of chore-like, but never as pressing as, say, doing the dishes or reading the Daily Mail.
Week 6: Come up against a problem.  Think about how I'm going to solve/overcome it.
Week 7-9:  Think, think, think.
Week 10-18: Forget about project.
Week 19: Come across project again, because it's taking up that corner of my sewing table, and I can see dust on it now, which drives me crazy-that means it's been there awhile.  Feel bad.
Week 20: Start working on it and fix problem (this usually occurs on a day with plenty of sleep and caffeine and childcare). Catch the fever again.  Finish a major part of it, like the top of a quilt.
Next couple months: Think about how I should learn to quilt better before I quilt this particular project.
Week 25: Realize I'm not going to be a better quilter before this project is done and quilt it.  Find myself surprised at how little time it takes since my skill level keeps things so basic.
Week 26-45:  Think about what a pain it's going to be to bind.  I mean, it's going to take like, forever.
Week 45: Bind during one episode of the The Voice.

This month, I decided to start on the little projects on my list, the things I wouldn't let myself do until I finished the big projects - and this has really turned things around.  The satisfaction of finishing anything, even something small, gives me the energy to tackle the big stuff.  It's working so well, I'm predicting three quilt finishes by the end of May!  In the meantime, here are some bitty projects that have paved the way for the bigger pieces:

1.  The first was patches on some jeans.  I was that girl in high school who pegged all the girls' jeans.  Did people outside of Seattle do that?  It was a thing in the late eighties, Levi's hadn't figured out that they could sell three times as many jeans if they made bootleg and straight leg and skinny legs yet; there was just one kind of 501.  If you wanted them skinny you either had to fold in the extra fabric and roll the cuff, or sew them up the side.  And I became quite expert at sewing up the side.  So it gave me a sense of deja vu when my sister-in-law asked me to patch her 15-year-old 501s.  I used fusible web  to hold them in place for stitching.  There's definitely an orange preference on that side of the family, so the result is pretty cheerful:

I managed to yank the leg down my sewing machine arm to sew the top and bottom of each patch, but I had to do the sides by hand (if you don't sew, think about the fact that the leg is a tube - if you sew straight through, you're sewing through the back of the leg too).  I did the littlest patch totally by hand and I actually like the messiness of that stitching the best.

I think they came out pretty cute, makes me want to buy some hole-y jeans just so I can patch them.

2. My second project were these little yoga pants for J.  I had this Target nightgown that never really fit, but the fabric was really, really soft and stretchy and I liked the print.

So I used a pair of her existing pants as a guide and just eyeballed it - I figured if they were baggy enough you wouldn't be able to tell - this was maybe the quickest, sloppiest, most impromptu sewing project I've done - there's not even a front or back on them, but they do the job.

Testing them out in Downward Dog:

3. Finally, I found this fabric at Cambridge Quilt Shop and fell in love.  Dahlias (the dinner plate kind) have been my favorite flower in recent years, and I just thought the white on dark blue gave it  a Japanese look I loved.

I bought the most simple shirt pattern I could find (requirements: no zipper, no buttons, no ruffles) and I actually think the simplicity of it goes nicely with the flower pattern - feminine but not too frilly.  I made one for J and one for her cousin.  Can't wait to see them doing twinsies this summer!

We are at a stage where I can't get J to stand still for a good picture (or if I'm feeling generous "she prefers action shots these days") - but if you stand her on a table in the rain and hold her hand she'll give you three seconds to get that shot:

Here's hoping I can keep riding the creative wave!

The Great Bunting Barter

I keep meaning to get a project finished and written about every two weeks - that's my goal.  But other things keep getting in the way, like thwarting the escape artist

and admiring the spring that has finally, finally sprung

and digesting the craziness that first terrorized and then united this city I've come to call home.

But with May around the corner, I'm trying to get back on track and stop letting myself get distracted by all the things floating around my head!

I don't think I could ever craft for money, because
1. my technique is pretty crappy (the result of my disinterest in practice);
2.  I don't like doing the same project more than once;
3.  when people say "wow you could make those and sell them for like $20 a piece!" I'm thinking wow, that would earn me roughly $1.20 per hour.

But a friend who is getting married next weekend wanted some bunting for her wedding and suggested a barter.  Which is fun, considering she wanted something almost as old-fashioned as that word.  So bunting for babysitting it was!  Now, if I'd really thought ahead I would have had her babysit while I sewed, but you can't exactly ask someone to take off work the week before their wedding to babysit - lessons learned for next time.

Miss K wanted something a little old-fashioned in a creamy/white or muted pastels color palette.  Like Jane Austen meets Anthropologie.   So she picked out these lovely fabrics as a base (we lost our camera, but hopefully an iphone and bad lighting can still convey the idea):

I've got a stash of old square ivory linen tablecloths from the grandmothers, some of which are rust-stained, so this seemed a perfect opportunity to put one of those to use.

A couple of years ago I started collecting little old embroidered hankies.  My mom gave me my first, at my wedding, and it was just such a sweet and useful thing to have when you wear mascara and think you might cry.  As it turns out, these guys regularly make it into the thrift shop at my mom's retirement home, so I get a package of pretties a couple of times a year.  I've thought about appliqueing them to pillowcases, making quilt squares out of them, sewing them together into a kitchen curtain.  But they're so old and delicate, and the thought of putting them together into one project always seemed like it would take away from the uniqueness of each one.  So they stack up and stack up, and I remain confident that I will find a way to use them some day.

I love the simple white ones:

 And especially the ones with red or my favorite color combination red & purple:

This one I have set aside for the travel quilt I'm making J:

They seemed to be just the style we were going for with this bunting, and each one could star in its own flag, not patch-worked onto its neighbor on some bigger project.  So for some flags I just fused double sided fusible web onto the corner of a hankie and then appliqued it onto one of our base fabrics.

For other thin hankies with enough fabric to be their own flag, I fused a whole triangle to a plain white fabric to make it thick enough.

In the end I was really satisfied with the result.  And how fitting that these beautiful scraps of 50 year old fabric will be hanging at a wedding where two lovely and loving people will make promises to spend the next 50 together!

I Prefer Months With Three Letters

I finally figured out April Fool's Day - it's just funny people imitating a New England Spring.  Like, 'ha  ha you are so relieved to see those snow drop flowers peeking out of the ground after that long hard winter and you think spring has sprung, well check the weather tomorrow because I'm sending some REAL snowdrops to kill them.'

(survivors)

I really love/hate April - it brings those first reminders that life is really worth living, but it's also the month I'm most likely to get frostbite, because it's freaking APRIL so why shouldn't I wear ballet flats and not take gloves?  But there are finally signs of REAL spring here; we are reportedly hitting 70 today after a week in the 40s.  No magnolias or cherry trees in bloom like you west coasters, but little signs.  Crocuses.  We start small.

We moved last year and I love my new neighborhood.  A 12" wide strip of dirt by the sidewalk? These people will put a deer and a daffodil on it.

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It's with a mix of regret and excitement that I give up my community gardening plot and try to do something with my very own first yard.  And while I'm grateful and lucky to finally have one to call my own, the whole thing is shaded by a huge maple so anything that wants sunlight better be up and done by May when the leaves grow big enough to block the sun.

Which leads me to bulbs - bulbs - bulbs.  I went crazy last fall and planted upwards of 200 daffodils, iris, crocus, snowdrops and tulips.  For those that have planted bulbs, you know that 200 is actually 34 after you account for pillaging squirrels.  All October and November I watched the scheming little buggers running back and forth across our back patio, but I was encouraged that I never saw them in the front where the majority of my bulbs lay hidden under the ivy.

This weeks stuff has really started popping up and it's cute... but wrong.  All those iris that were supposed to shoot up through the ivy are turning out to be two inches tall.

And the daffodils too.  

Apparently my subconscious  started planning this April Fools joke last Fall when I bought an entire garden of micro flowers by "mistake."  I'm so frustrated, I dug out the labels, and Home Depot actually had the nerve to call them plain old "Iris."

My mixed April feelings continued for Easter.  I should mention I'm having real issues with my oven, it's being really passive-aggressive. ("It's so interesting you think I'm under-baking all your fancy desserts, when those frozen pizza always seem to come out perfectly")  My sister-in-law requested a flourless chocolate cake with raspberry accents for her birthday so I turned to my favorite and most trusted recipe of all time - the Chocolate Cloud Cake from Classic Home Desserts.  I have made this cake flawlessly for 20 years, but recently it's always undercooked (it's hard not to second guess myself because the last instruction in the recipe is "be careful not to overbake").

The trick to baking the cake is you have to bake it until the top cracks, otherwise it isn't done.  I actually wrote that in the margin of the recipe 13 years ago.  And yet, on Saturday - after baking the cake for 1.5  x the suggested time, I took it out of the oven, crackless.  And then had to start over.   Why am I so dismissive of 20-something Julie? Why would I write that in the margin if it weren't true?  I baked the second one until it cracked, and it was fine.

Then when the cake cools, the center sinks leaving a hollow chocolate shell you fill with whipped cream, or in this case raspberry mousse.  Kind of reminded me of an easter egg.  I topped with raspberries and chocolate curls.  I'd give it a solid 8.

Also got a new cookbook out of the library (I'm a big fan of trying a couple recipes before investing money and shelf-space).  This was  Bake It Like You Mean It from Gesine Prado - tried the Tangerine DreamTea Ring, and was pretty happy with it.

Pastries can be a real doozy - I mean anything that involves rolling out dough and egg wash pinching can be dangerous for me and my low tolerance for frustration, but this went together easy and had a lovely presentation pre-baking:

And check out my little fishy!

It looked pretty perfect post-bake too!

Now unfortunately, despite a 25 degree hike in temp it wasn't cooked in the middle, but it was good enough I didn't mind re-baking it piece by piece.  Just like I won't mind planting 200 more life-size bulbs in October, or putting on gloves again next week.  Ready for May, though.

Separating the Blankies from the Blankets

I always wondered what separated the blankie havers from the blankie have-nots (I mean, other than the blankie).  I was a have-not.  I don't remember needing anything specific to fall asleep and I swear I loved each of my stuffed animals equally.  The only thing I remember my parents frantically searching for were my bifocals and my retainer - neither of which I really wanted found.

But my husband was a blankie haver.  He has a horrible family story about the time his parents, in an attempt to comfort their distraught son, had to search through a hotel basement laundry room in the middle of the night for his missing blankie.  Knowing that blankies run in the family, I've always been a bit wary of letting J get too attached to any one object whose absence will affect her ability to sleep or be happy.  And so far so good - she doesn't seem to desperately need any one thing, though she certainly has an appreciation for this blankie-type blanket, a gift from her auntie (I am not in denial, I swear I am not).

Her favorite thing about it is the satin binding.  Apparently satin tastes great because she isn't the only kid I see sucking on it.   The problem is she's getting a little too big to fit under it so we were in the market for something a little larger, but equally soft and silky to keep her warm.  I was also in a bit of a hurry because j's daddy was starting to "look around online, just to see what's out there."  

I've been enjoying this scarf I got from Frugal Fannie's for $9.00, it's made out of something soft and 100% synthetic called cashmink:

So I decided I'd just buy three and sew them together for the quilt top.  They are super soft and pretty thin.  For the bottom, I wanted to use Minky.  What is Minky? It's like the stuff my Target bathrobe is made of, but even softer.  I think it might be made from unicorn eyelashes or something.  It's like a drug for babies.  This is what they do when they encounter it:

I used a thin cotton batting and of course, there had to be a satin binding- I sewed it on so that the blanket came right up to the crease, but I think J actually prefers it when the satin hangs off the edge a little more.  Maybe because it's easier to fit in her mouth.  I also don't think Wright's satin binding is as silky as stuff that comes on a ready-made blanket, but I couldn't find a good source for higher quality binding, and I was in no mood to try and make it myself.  (suggestions welcome!!!) At any rate, she's not so taken with the binding on this quilt (maybe that's what separates the blankies from the blankets?).  Here's the finished product:

And the satisfied customer:

It's no blankie, but she's already got one of those anyway not the type to need one.

There's A New Girl In Town

Is there anything weirder than watching a good friend get bigger and bigger and then BAM there's suddenly a brand new person in her arms?  One of my besties brought a baby girl into the world this week.  There's the wonder of the little hands and feet, but also the wondering who she's going to be - this little one that will grow up and annoy her sister and ignore her mother's advice and do brave things and fall in love.  But right now she's just so sweet and tiny and new!

For this little one I wanted to try a quiet book (one of those cloth things that won't hurt the cat when you throw it and that has some interactive stuff).  I knit her older sister a hoodie when she was born, and not only was it like, six months late, but the hood was totally messed up and ended up lying like a cape down her back with no form whatsoever.  But my friend is super appreciative of anything homemade, so I knew she wouldn't mind being a guinea pig once again.  I just wanted to deliver (haha) this one on time!

So here it is.  For clarification,  Carroll and Fox are family names.

The little door has jingle bells sewn inside!

Very proud of my removable bagel top (velcro attached)

That water is a pocket, people.

This was harder than you might think, but in the end, someone with a small hand CAN stick it in this mitten!

For this one I traced a girl out of Little Stitches because I cannot draw.  I love her patterns; they are very simple and quick.

This is my first, and maybe last, quiet book.  I really enjoyed it - every page was like starting a whole new mini-project, so the nice thing was that I never got bored.  On the other hand, confronting 'how on earth am  I going to do THIS*' every day can be challenging (*sew a bagel inside out, insert a mirror so that it'll stay, attach just one half of a very thick mitten to very thin fabric, bind 16 pieces of fabric together).  There were days when I ignored it in frustration and longed for the mindless repetition of cutting and piecing a quilt.  It was fun, but I don't think I'll do another one anytime soon.  You people with your spring babies can expect something else!

Then there are the burp cloths made from gerber diapers and leftover fabric scraps from the book.  I made some of these for myself and found them vey practical ("can you pass me the ostriches?  I've been using the dandelions all day so it must be getting kind of nasty").  These have become my go-to baby gift - who says spit up has to be all bad?

I got the idea from here, but honestly haven't had to refer to the tutorial again, it's pretty basic.

So welcome little girl, now it's time to gear up for the soon-to-arrive boys!