a little bit of my dream come true

Ever since I got the sewing bug while I was pregnant with Brenna and in my last days of art school I’ve thought it would be fun to design fabric. Then I became a quilter, discovered designers like Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner (who also has 6 kids) and have thought over and over, “I could do that….. if I could just figure out how to do that.”

Well, I decided this is the year that I will learn to be a fabric designer. I got myself some books

which have helped me immensely. I learn by reading. If I can read about how to do something in a book, then I can do it, but reading directions on the computer, experimenting by trial and error– they just don’t do it for me. Kim Kight’s Field Guide to Fabric Design is fantastic. All the tutorials for digital design are for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, but since those aren’t quite in the budget I’m having to translate things into GIMP and Inkscape, which are free. I also got a vector drawing app for my iPad call iDraw and a stylus so I can draw right on my iPad. It’s like a glorified sketchbook, though I have been using my real sketchbook a lot too.

And then there’s Spoonflower. I’ve known about it since it first started in 2008 or 2009 and signed up as soon as it wasn’t just by invitation only, but have never figured out how to make designs until now. And look!

My first test swatches came in the mail!!! My designs are printed on real fabric!!!

Anyone remember the story I told about Ian coming downstairs one morning and telling me, “Mom, we’re going to get a girl baby and her name is going to be Eva and she is going to be zero and she will have a pink shirt that is a dress”? Well, he further described that pink shirt that is a dress as having blue butterflies on it and a skirt that is blue with pink butterflies. I’ve been on the look out for pink shirts with blue butterflies, pink fabric with blue butterflies, blue fabric with pink butterflies. None. I guess I’ll have to make some.

And I can!! How fun is that?

little shoes

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.

a finger and a blankie are all she needs

Eva has taken to sucking her finger and we think it’s the cutest thing. She holds her blanket up to her face with her right hand and sucks her left pointer finger. None of our other kids would ever really suck on a pacifier, let alone a finger. It’s so adorable. (I know it might not be when she’s 5 years old, but it sure is now at 4 months.)

It’s a good thing I made her some more blankies for Christmas– one side snuggly flannel and the other side silky voile from Anna Maria Horner’s Little Folks line. If I were a better blogger you’d know that I LOVE the voile that several Free Spirit Fabric designers have prints on because I have made several things out of its silkiness (a School House Tunic, a shirt for Brenna, a shirt for me), but only about a third of the things I make ever get blogged about, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. I love that fabric and I love that my sweet little girl likes to tickle her face with it as she sucks herself to sleep.

that Thanksgiving post

I know it is January and Thanksgiving was way back in November, but that’s just how things work for me these days. I get to it when I get to it.

Here are some family pictures from our trip to Idaho. I wish I had taken photos of everyone sitting at the dinner table, of the kids playing legos for hours on end, of my sister in-law pouring over the Black Friday ads. But, alas, I was too busy actually experiencing it all to remember to pull my camera out.

It was so fun to all be together.

One of my brothers is missing, but he’ll be in the next family picture for sure. (And I promise my Dad really does like all of us– just not the picture taking part I guess :))

Look at all those cousins! The boys definitely out number the girls. That’s how we do it.

And look at the babies. My brother’s wife came down with severe preeclampsia about a week after Eva was born. There were a few scary days and finally the doctors decided they had to do an emergency c-section to save her life. Her little baby was born at 32 weeks and just 2 lbs. 14 oz. There was a scary lung colapse when she was about a day old, but since then she’s been a tough little girl. Just tiny. Here they are at 3 months old– Eva is about 15 lbs. and Savanna is 7 lbs. How fun is it that we have girl cousins one week apart?! Very fun, if you ask me.

We also visited friends on our trip and had so much fun. I think a post about them is in order too. When will I get to that do you think?