So, I did say at the end of my last post that I had two important finishes to share...Well, I would if I had been a little less procrastinatey, however as of today, we are down to one sad sack boy:
The boys have loved their little sack boys (which is good, since they bugged me mercilessly to finish them), made them little clothes out of cut up tee shirts, and taken them everywhere with them. Hence, the incident of many tears...my five year old lost his sack boy at school today. A search party was sent out, but with no luck. The search will recommence tomorrow, but sack boy may be gone. The kindergarten teacher asked me to make more to put in the auction for the spring fair, so she could bid on them for her nice and nephew, so I may be starting a sack boy production line, with two for spring fair, and one for a sad little boy.
In other news, I finished an ice cream dress for my little one.
I was going through some of my patterns recently and realized that my copy of this only goes up to size four...eek! This little one is going to be four in the summer, and I bought this when she was one, I think. Must use patterns before they are outgrown! So I spent a weekend morning cutting two different versions of this dress out for her (she approved the fabric choices, of course), and sewed this one up yesterday afternoon. Just a couple of hours. Honestly, I think struggling with my loop turner for the button loop was the most challenging part. She dressed herself this morning, and I thought the cherry dress accompanied by rainbow leggings and monster socks was too cute! I guess you could describe her style as eclectic :)
That's all for now, thanks for visiting!
The kids ended up having a five day weekend, due to the Easter holiday, and their dad visiting from Toronto. Dad had to leave on Sunday, which left me wrapping up the long, long weekend by myself. Let me just say, I love my kids and I love hanging out with them, but by Monday afternoon I was counting the minutes until the school doors opened!
Fortunately the rain clouds parted long enough to enjoy some of this:
This is my favourite time of year in Vancouver. I first moved out here about thirteen years ago, in April. It was still wintry and dirty back East, but Vancouver was green and lush, full of these beautiful buds of spring.
I did manage to finish a couple of started projects over the weekend. The first is a second 241 Tote. This one is for my cousin's birthday. Last March. She chose this fabric, based on the buttercup bag that I made the School Fair last year.
This is Ruby Star Rising fabric, lined with a vintage sheet. I perfected the zipper pockets on this bag (not so perfect on the last version), and used an adjustable handle and added the key fob like last time.
I heart the hot pink top stitching. I started doing the top stitching on my featherweight, but ended up finding that using a denim needle on my newer machine gave a better result, and struggled less with the thick seams.
I did however use the featherweight to make this:
This is the Shearwater Kaftan made with Wrenly voile. My other sewing machine kept trying to eat this lightweight fabric, but the straight stitch plate on the featherweight made it no problem. I bought that featherweight off Craigslist last year for $175, and I keep seeing them all over CL for around $500. They're not selling, just keep getting relisted. Crazy!
Overall I'm happy with how this turned out - although telling the right side from the wrong side of the voile was so hard that I ended up with a piece the wrong way out - oh well, I figure if it was that hard for me to tell, then no one else will notice. I am still learning the secrets of bias binding, I found the bound neckline was a little stretched, but still wearable.
There were two other important finishes, but I will have to save them for another day!
Thanks for visiting!
So far, my eight year old son has made us Swedish Meatballs and Jamaican Jerk Chicken with Mango Salsa for dinner. Since their dad is working out of town for the next few months, I have really been giving them a lot more responsibilities (aka chores) around the house. They empty the dishwasher, fold laundry, set and clear the table, clean their rooms, and now, Ta da! Cook dinner! (With my help and supervision of course.) It's a beautiful thing. Plus, they're a lot more interested in eating their own cooking than mine (barfing, simulated and real, has actually been elicited by my cooking, and I'm really not a horrible cook).
This morning, on an impulse I bought the PDF version of the Wiksten Tank pattern. I should have been cleaning the house, but instead I printed the pattern and cut it out from a vintage sheet. I blame Leila at Where the Orchid Grows where she posted a beautiful Wiksten Tank made from Liberty, after seeing that I couldn't resist. I will probably make mine out of voile, but am starting with a vintage sheet to make sure the sizing is right -- I know it's a tank, and it doesn't really get any easier than that, other than making yourself a headband, but I have had such bad luck with fitting lately that I just want to make sure.
Also on my to-do list for this week is to make these little charmers:
These are Easter Nests from the original Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson. They are not super healthy, but they check all the other boxes when it comes to Easter treats for my kids' classmates, even for their gluten-free friends. Not to mention, they are too cute!
Now, a crafty blog needs at least one crafty item, and I do have a huge backlog of FOs to show. This is the item that probably gets more use than anything else I have made:
It's a zig zag quilt made from vintage sheets (you have probably figured out by now that I have a thing for the vintage sheets, and have a rather large collection). I used Amanda's brilliant tutorial at Crazy Mom Quilts in order to avoid the HSTs. It is a bit smaller than twin sized and lives on our couch. I love it, but if I were to make another one I would sash it with a solid (like in Amanda's tutorial).
The binding is hand sewn with some unknown but well matched stripey fabric from the big cupboard. There is nothing so sweet as seeing your little ones all snuggled up in a quilt that you made :)
Thanks for visiting!
Here is the most recent quilt that I made for my sweet new baby niece, Adeline. It is the Baby I Do pattern from Cherry House Quilts.
It was obviously pretty straightforward, with the exception of the circles. I have never pieced a circle, or anything curvy, before. Fortunately the pattern suggested using Dale's 6 minute circle method. This worked like a charm - those circles are pretty flawless, however, her six minute method took me about twenty! I managed to get it down to about fourteen by the last one, but still. I guess there's a reason my Ravelry name is turtlegurl -- and it's not just because I love turtles.
Baby quilts are the perfect size to practice free motion quilting - big enough to give you time to develop a rhythm, and big enough that little mistakes disappear, yet small enough that you don't have to give yourself a hernia wrestling it through the throat of the machine. I hadn't planned to do it, but decided to quilt around the white pears - they disappeared into the white background on the top ofmthe quilt a little, and were asking for a little extra pop. This is what they look like on the red backing.
I regretted it when I had to tie off and bury all the ends (I could have just made them join up with the rest of the quilting, but I thought this looked better) but it ended up looking cute.
I have quite a few quilting finishes to post soon, just have to upload the photos. In the meantime, here is a picture that I did just upload, this is my baby girl, on the beach in Mexico last year, about to fly off into the stratosphere like the crazy little tinkerbell creature she is.
Thanks for visiting!
