Have you ever sewn leather?  It’s always seemed a bit scary to me, but my sewing machine has a special button for sewing leather and every time  I’ve sat down at it I’ve wondered, “Could I really sew leather?  What would I make?”  It was an itch I needed to scratch, so the other weekend I ventured to Denver Fabrics.  It’s a crazy HUGE place that is completely overwhelming for me, but I knew I could find pretty leather.  That I did.  I bought a supple brown lamb skin and brought it home.  I made 2 projects with it, but today I’ll just show you one.  (The auto focus on my main camera lens is dying and I only got okay photos of one of the things I made.)

Behold the little shoes:

Aren’t they perfect?  I love them.  They are such a cute shape, with a wide toe.  Robeez are cute, but sometimes the decoration on them is a bit much for me.  I used this pattern with a few modifications.  Since I was using leather instead of fabric I didn’t make the heel or sole two layers.  I did line the toe part with some fabric, though, so I had a little channel for the elastic to go through.

I used the suede side of the leather for the sole and a decorative flower stitch to topstitch them.  The actual sewing was just like sewing regular fabric.  I made sure I had a leather needle in my machine and that was it.  Piece of cake.

And because I can’t resist it, here are some pictures of the other end of my little shoe model.

The camera clicking woke her up.

How will I survive when she’s not a baby anymore?  I need to freeze time.

Here’s Eva’s corner in my room– full of things that could each be a blog post in and of themselves.

There’s the new Moses basket I designed that will be my next baby gear sewing pattern (the SweetPod Sleep Spot maybe?), new handknit booties and hat for a fresh head and toes…

the newborn diapers all freshly washed and waiting…

a newly slip-covered rocking chair and a hexagon stripe quilt…

On Monday I had contractions every 10 minutes ALL DAY LONG– from about 7:30 in the morning until 9:30 or so at night.  While I could tell that it wasn’t quite the real thing yet I also felt like it could turn very real any second.  I was on a roller coaster of thought and emotion.  I wasn’t ready!  I need this one last week!  My shelves and refrigerator were empty– so a major grocery shopping trip was accomplished and eased some of the unready feelings.  We braved the new Ikea to buy that new dresser we really needed when the last baby was born so we could have a place to keep clothes and blankies.  I think my body was just trying to tell me to get with it, stop dilly-dallying.  There will be a baby coming next week, or the next.  My days with Hunter as the baby are numbered– as are my days of needing help rolling over in bed.

Last night, as the sky looked like this:

I relished in the wonderful day I had swimming with my kids and stocked my freezer with 3 pans of Chicken Enchiladas.  Today is Lasagna day.

And I’m feeling ready– with each day a little more.

I’ve been having fun redecorating the family room walls, but I’m not quite ready to take pictures of it all and say I’m done.   I decided today that I need to do something different in my fireplace mantel/ cubby thing so I’ve been looking for inspiring mantel arrangements and dreaming up what I could do with what I already have instead of the family photos that have been there for a year and a half.  (And, to be honest taking photos of just one corner of the room is much easier because I can keep the baskets of unfolded laundry and explosion of k-nex behind me.)

What I can say is done is the sewing of these pillows and some quotes to hang on the wall.  I have a friend who had a pretty quote printed as a photo at Costco, framed it, and gave it to me for Christmas– and I thought it was genius!  So, I took some sayings I’ve wanted displayed in my house somehow, made them into big images using Inkscape (which is kind of like Adobe Illustrator, but free), printed them as photos at Costco, and framed them.  They’ve been done for a while.  I just decided they should go here.

The top one is from Doctrine and Covenants 29:34 where the Lord says “All things unto me are spiritual.”  It’s a good reminder when I’m cooking dinner, picking up toys, helping with math, ignoring laundry that even all the mundane things that need my attention have a purpose–  they’re spiritual.  The second is a quote from Charlotte Mason that says “Education is the atmosphere we breathe, the envelope of wonder that surrounds us, held by the gravity of our daily habits.”

The 2 colorful pillows were so fun for me to make.  They’re basically 4 little quilts, pieced and quilted and turned into pillows.  Here’s one side of the first one:

I used the Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow fat quarters I had been saving to make another quilt like this.  I never was really going to get around to making that quilt, and I decided this is a much better way to enjoy the fabric anyway.

This is the other side.

I got a little crazier with the second pillow.

This one is just quilted with straight lines.

I loved making these because I got to do everything involved in making a quilt, but on a much more immediate, instant gratification scale– and I can see and enjoy them every day.

I also used some home decorator weight fabric I had in my stash to add one plain pillow.  It took all of 20 minutes (invisible zipper and all).

Here’s all 3 again in a different corner:

Obviously these are usually on the floor being jumped on or laid on, but they looked pretty here for a little while.   I’m hoping at some point this year I can get a few Rollie Pollies made for jumping and rolling and reading.  We’ll see.  I probably really should be replenishing my supply of baby girl things– and will probably be more excited about doing that as the days go on.

So, anyone have some favorite mantel photos they want to send me links too?  Feel free to leave them in the comments!

So, if you’ve read my blog for any amount of time you’ve probably noticed that often when I show you a finished project I say something like, “I’ve been making this in my mind for a long, long time,” or “I’ve been dreaming this up for a couple of years,” or something like that.

Well, this is no exception.

We were living in a tiny apartment in Alabama in the beginning of our summer of transition to Denver when a good friend sent me this link with exclamation points and excitement that I HAD to make one– it made her think of me.  And I completely agreed that I NEEDED one somewhere in my new house, whenever it would be that I got settled.  Since we’ve been here (for 2 1/2 years) I’ve been imagining those little birds in corners and bedrooms and had settled on just the place– a corner of the front room above the love seat that needed a little color.

But now that it’s made it is a little big and I’m afraid it would swing into the blinds or the bookshelf and be too much of a temptation for the climbing 2 year old to bat at.  At the moment it is hanging in the doorway between the front room and my art room, but I’m thinking today I’ll put up a hook over my drafting table and let the birdies live there.

I’ve been on a bit of a spring-cleaning/ redecorating kick lately with a long mental list of things I want to do around the house and this was one of those things on the list.  In a burst of spontaneity the other morning Jonah and I went through my scrap bin with bird pattern in hand and found pieces that were the right size, cut them out, matched them up, and whipped up some birds.  That went really fast– especially with his help stuffing them.  With all that built up momentum I gathered some sticks at the park the next day and started sewing birds to branches– only to have them hang upside down like bats.  I discovered I needed to put some weight in the bottom of the birds so they weren’t top heavy and to use screw eyes to secure string to the branches so they wouldn’t twist.  I dedicated the next day to ripping out tail seams and spooning in rice, then attempting  to hang and balance it all again– to no avail.

Finally, when Barry had a free night we tried it all again.  We found a few helpful things:

-Attach the birds to the branch with wire instead of sewing them on so they are easy to reposition.

-Thicker branches twist and roll less than skinny ones.

-We ended up using thin picture wire instead of invisible thread to hang the branches because it was more stable.

-Once we found the perfect bird positions we squeezed a little hot glue in to keep them there.

So, now it’s done and so fun to look at!  When my art room is all decluttered and organized I’ll need some photo documentation, so I’ll show you its permanent home then.

It was a long time ago that I carved this block to print an all over design on fabric.  Since then sewing projects took over my studio and left me no room to print.  Last week Barry had Veteran’s Day off and he helped me dig out of the mess and organize it– which left me with a clear drafting table and room to print fabric!

Add to that Pillow Week hosted over at House on Hill Road and I had a perfect use for my handprinted fabric.  Even though I didn’t get this photographed and blogged during Pillow Challenge Week, I did get it made.  That counts, right?  You should check out Erin’s pillow posts– there’s lots of information on closures and stuffing, and lovely pillows to look at.

I printed on plain linen and am pretty happy with how it turned out.  My pattern matched up!

I’m wondering if I need to add something to my ink so it’s not quite so sticky next time and soaks into the fabric a little.  This went really fast, though.  I went from cutting and ironing my fabric to cleaning up my ink mess in less than an hour– printing 1/2 yard of fabric.

I also made a simple striped stamp and printed a long 1/4 yd. of fabric, then cut it into triangles to make the other side.  There’s an invisible zipper in the bottom seam, so the pillow is totally reversible.

I’m excited that my all over pattern repeated so well!  It’s fun when experiments work out.

I used McCall’s 3436.  My criteria for making this dress were– modesty (it is so hard to find dresses with sleeves and enough cleavage coverage), simplicity, and something I could put a big flower around the waist.  The advantage of this pattern was that it was in 2 pieces so that I could make the top a smaller size than the bottom.  That meant I had to buy 2 copies of the pattern since it came in sizes 6-7-8 and 12-14-16.  I think I said in the last post that I’m lucky I made the top in muslin (twice) first because the measurements on the pattern said I needed a size 12 top which was way too big.  Then I went back and bought the smaller patten and tried a 10, which was just right.  After looking at the finished measurements chart on the pattern they included something like 4 inches of ease around the bust and waist.  Who wants 4 extra inches?  Totally weird to me.  I also added about 2 1/2 inches to the bottom of the top to make the length of it a little more modern.  The skirt worked fine in a size 16 (Seriously?  I’ve gained a lot of weight since I stopped nursing.), but I had to shorten it by nearly a foot.

I used pretty buttons down the back and made a flower for my hair.

The entire dress is lined in a navy china silk.  I serged rolled edge hems along both sides of a strip of it, then made a line of gathering stitches down the center, to make a ribbon for my waist.  I used scraps of both fabrics and the peony pattern from Martha Stewart weddings to make my flowers.  I used the smallest template for my big flower and then copied it at 75% to make my smaller one.  To make sure that the petals didn’t unravel I put fray check around the edge of each flower I cut out.  That was time consuming and stinky!  It stiffened the silk up a bit and made the petals hold their shaped well, though.

It was so comfortable!  I didn’t have to worry about things shifting the wrong way and showing all my under clothes, and china silk against my skin was truly luxurious.  I don’t think I’ll ever buy a polyester dress from David’s Bridal again.

Now, I know you all want to see pictures of Barry in his mess dress, right?

Sorry I didn’t notice I needed to straighten his tie.

Now, I wasn’t the only one who did some sewing.  Behold the party shirt–

When all the formalities are over and the dancing gets going the guys take those hot jackets off.  And, if you’re a cool Air Force guy you have a party shirt.  So, Barry ordered some spacey fabric (that has glow in the dark stars) and borrowed my seam ripper, then used the old pieces as a pattern.

He needed a little coaching, but he did all the sewing himself.  Pretty awesome, huh?

It was a pretty inspirational evening and I left feeling really proud of my husband.  What he does is pretty crucial to the well being of our country, those soldiers on the ground, and the whole world.

I’ve been sewing.

There is an anniversary gala tonight for Barry’s program at work.  Somehow I can’t fit into any of my gala worthy dresses, so this time around I decided to make one.  I found a gorgeous blue/black silk linen blend at an amazing store called Denver Fabrics.  This is the first time I’ve ever taken on a clothing project like this.  Pattern sizing is CONFUSING!  By my measurements I needed to make a size 12 top– luckily I made it in muslin first and it was way too big.  The size 10 fits just right, though.  For the skirt I had to make a size 16, though I wear a size 6 or 8 if I buy clothes at the store.  I have been cutting and sewing for hours and hours and up until midnight most nights this week, but all I have left to do today is hem the sleeves and add the finishing touches to my accessories.

I’ll show you the whole thing on Monday.

Here are a few things I made lately and then sent them away.

My brother served a 2 year mission in Mexico and a friend from there just had her first baby.  She wanted a baby carrier that was more than a long piece of fabric, so I made this up for her.

The lining is a honeydew green which I think is a fun surprise.

I’m also behind on some baby gifts, but it’s always nice to get a surprise when your baby is 8 months old, right?  And the weather now is just right for a Sweet Pea pilot cap or two.

I found this pig fabric a while ago at The Fancy Tiger which was crying out to be made into bibs.

Wouldn’t you agree that piggies are for bibs?

We interrupt the vacation chronicles with a very important post about a hat.  Yes, I made a hat…

It’s a cute hat, is it not?  When my friend Meg (Montessorian, pregnant with her second child, blogger and pattern designer extraordinaire) asked if I’d test a pattern for her I jumped at the chance.  With a cover like this, who wouldn’t want to make one?

I originally wanted to make 4 hats, one for each of my boys.  Could you imagine how irresistibly cute those pictures would have been– the four cutest boys that ever lived in cute caps?   But the testing period ended up being the week before we left for New Hampshire, so I had to settle for one.  Logan was the recipient.  He’s my dresser upper accessorizer, and the middle child, so I thought he would most appreciate it.

I put it all together in an evening while the kids watched Old Yeller (they just finished reading the book).  When I gave it to Logan in the morning he immediately donned it, pulled a Shel Silverstien book off the shelf, and performed an impromptu poetry reading for our listening pleasure.

The pattern is designed to fit sizes 6 months- 10 yrs. and was pretty simple to sew up.  It’s got a comfy elasticized back and is fully lined.

So, if you’ve got a little head or two that needs covering this fall head on over to the Sew Liberated pattern shop and get your hands on the Huck Finn Cap pattern!

I’ve had this quilt finished and rolled up under my drafting table all summer.  I have a friend at church whose oldest daughter just got MARRIED, and this daughter of hers is a photography major and likes artsy things, so I felt like I needed to make her something for a wedding gift rather than head to Target and buy something.  I ordered the fabric in time for the big day, got it all pieced too late, but in time for a visit this spring.  Unfortunately my free motion quilting wasn’t going quite as planned, so I missed that window to give it to her as well.  Finally this past weekend she was here again and I hurriedly unrolled it to take some photos before whisking it over to her.  Here it is, wrinkles and all.

I ordered a fat quarter pack of Joel Dewberry’s Modern Meadow line (not the colorway in the link, though).  I took 8 of the fat quarters and cut them into big 17 inch  squares and made 2 rows of big blocks in the center of the quilt.

Then I added big solid stripes of some Moda Bella Solid and Cross weave on the top and bottom and called it a quilt top.

For the back I took scraps of the fat quarters to make a narrow stripe and used some more Moda Crossweave, all the same color this time, to complete it.  I really like the simplicity of it because it shows off the loveliness of the fabric so well– and it was fairly instant gratification.  I added ties to one edge so that it can be rolled and tied and taken on picnics for years and years to come.

I quilted it in my signature swirls, but had a hard time getting my machine to cooperate this time around.  I was just using the foot my machine came with and my tension was crazy and my thread would break every time I changed directions.   It made me want to swear.  I didn’t swear, of course, but I really wanted to.  Then I tried RaeLyn’s spring loaded foot and was able to buzz through the whole thing in an afternoon at her house.  I spent about 4 hours on 12 inches of the quilt before our sewing date and then did the whole rest of it in an afternoon between the hours of 1 and 4– with lots of chatting and eating and kid chasing mixed in.  (RaeLyn– We really need to get together again.  Soon!)

So, anyway, here’s the quilt that’s been hiding all summer.  I have fat quarters cut to make another, just need to get some more solid fabrics to go with them.  And I think I’ll keep the next one.