Where's my sewing Mojo?

I seem to have lost my sewing mojo. It happens every spring. There is so much sewing that takes place around the holidays. Last year, I had the wedding then we moved right into the holidays. Come January, I don't want to touch my machine. There's a double edge sword here. My sewing room is a mess. I don't want to sew in it but the only way to clean it out is to get busy and sew up some fabrics. There's way too much on the floor.

I also haven't been good about getting some blog articles written. Let's see, new computer and Windows 2010. It took a while to figure out pictures resizing with the new Windows. Oh wait, I can't use Windows for that now.  Really, is this an improvement? Finally, after researching, I found a program that will resize my pictures. I'm also not liking the whole downloading to a file. I guess I need to get over it and keep working getting used to this. I signed up for a blogging class at the local technical school. Wouldn't you know, there wasn't that many people interested in learning how to blog so my class was canceled. I've been blogging for two years now. Yeah, I know the basics. What I need help with is editing in Blogger and getting rid of the great big white spaces that occur sometimes. I thought the new upgrade to Blogger was suppose to make editing easier.  I spend way too much time trying to make the article look nice. It makes me not want to blog due to the time involved. I will work on researching how to better edit so I can stay on top of this.

Enough of my complaining. Here are a few things that I made for Kayla. For the Easter pillowcase, I used the Jelly Bean Rick Rack font from Five Star Fonts. The ice cream cone applique is from Digistitches and the little ice cream hair clippie is from GG Designs Embroidery.

Now the dog coat. I cut this darn coat out a long time ago. So long ago, that I'm refusing to tell you the exact length of time. Good thing I cut it out a size (or two) larger than what she needed at the time. I didn't feel like sewing it up. It actually went together pretty easily. I guess I didn't feel like working with polar fleece. The pattern that I used is McCall's 4961. I decided to use decorative buttons instead of doing any machine embroidery on it.

Here's hoping that I get my mojo back.

Fabric Dyeing

Have you ever said never? I have. Plenty of times. Let's see. I never want to learn: smocking, hand applique, how to make makeup, whole cloth quilting, fabric dyeing, art quilting. I know there are other things I'm forgetting. Why don't we want to learn new things? For me, it's about the level of perceived difficulty with fear of failure thrown in there. Last month, I scratched another skill off that list.

My friend Pat had taken up fabric dyeing a few years ago. When she first mentioned it, I knew it was something I would never ever want to do. Pat would always show what she was up to. Yes, it was always fun to look at what she did but just not my cup of tea. What was it that made me change my mind? It was a scarf. A few years ago, Pat gave me the most beautiful green silk scarf for Christmas. I had gotten so many compliments on that scarf. I loved the subtle shades differences in that scarf. Sadly, I lost the scarf a few months ago. I wore it to a football game and somehow, I went home without it. It wasn't the fact that I lost it but the idea that maybe I could learn how to create something that beautiful.

Last year, Pat gave Taylor and I an invitation to hang out with her while she worked with the dyes. Between all of our schedules, it didn't work out. In addition, the temperature needs to be above 70 degrees for the needed chemical reaction to take place. I was also a little fearful of showing my lacking color skills. Lucky for me, an opportunity came up. The local community college has a sewing and quilting expo every year. Last year, I spent a day going to lectures focusing on garment sewing. This year, I took a day long class in fabric dyeing. Of course, I always seem to be put with a group of over-achievers. The gals at my table were fiber artists and they all had business cards. My classmates all had certain colors in mind or patterns. Me, I didn't want any tie-dyed patterns. I wanted mottled colors. Maybe in the future, my dyeing and quilting will become more adventurous. I was happy with my first try though.

I was very tired at the end of the day but excited practice my new skill. I'm hoping in the next month or so, the weather here in Wisconsin will be warm enough so I can play.

Quilt Camp March 2011

For some reason, it doesn't seem like I accomplished much this time around. I still need to unpack a few things and take pictures. I haven't done any sewing since getting back from vacation and camp. I brought up maybe three kits and a few quilt patterns but didn't do any quilting. I'm trying to whittle down some of my garment fabric. I need to get the sewing room under control so I brought garments to work on.

A while back, Jacqi got our table started on making mug rugs. Each retreat, someone is responsible for the fabric. It was my turn this time to bring the fabric. It's a heavy responsibility. If your fabric is a failure, trust me, the table will let you know. You also get heckled if your mug rug is over regulation size. (5"x5") The fabric is Yippee from Michael Miller. 

I have been wanting to make this sock monkey shirt for some time. It's fairly easy to do. I enlarged the pattern a little bit. My friend Pat used a slightly narrower satin stitch on hers. I think that looks much better than my wider stitch. You can find the tutorial here on Moda Home Mom.

The Irish Cutie is a pillowcase for my niece Kayla. It wasn't going to get to her in time, so I saved it to work on at camp. The font is from 8 Claws and a Paw. St. Patrick's day apparently isn't a big deal for fabric companies. It's slim pickens for fabric for this holiday.

The Traveling Quilter Goes to North Carolina

I'm in North Carolina this week for spring break. The real purpose of the trip was for Taylor to do some research for one of her classes. She is studying Frederick Law Olmsted. The father of Landscape Architecture. So here we are at the Biltmore mansion looking at his work. I did find some time to do a little bit of shopping though. Originally, we were going to travel to Mary Jo's outside of Charlotte. The Detroit airport decided they didn't like that plan. After a major scramble trying to keep our plans on time, the airline routed us to Knoxville instead. We did manage to find a quilt store that wasn't too terribly far from our hotel.

The Asheville Cotton Company sells Bernina and Baby Lock machines in addition to lots of fabric. I found out about the shop via a brochure on the Fiber Fabric Bead Trail. The tag line for the shop is "keeping the mountains in stitches." The ad for the shop states that it has over 8000 bolts of fabric. Now, the shop is large but I don't know about the 8000 bolt bit. The shop gals were very friendly. The store sold a lot of the big designer names like Riley Blake and Amy Butler.

 
While you drive around the countyside, you may stumble upon one of the barns that has a quilt on the side. I saw three or four but only was able to get one picture. If you are traveling down south, I know that you will find info on the web on where to find them. And they're not limited to North Carolina!

Finally, this morning we spent time at the North Carolina Arboretum. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot blooming. As we were walking the grounds, we came upon the quilt garden. Each year is dedicated to a different quilt block. How wonderful it would have been to visit during summer to see this. There are two educational buildings on the premises. We were told that one of the buildings usually has quilts on display but  during our visit, there were dolls there. The Asheville Quilt Guild invited Eleanor Peace Bailey to the quild to give a class on doll making and the guild members dolls were on display here. The dolls lined three corridors.

Meet Molly

This is Molly. You may have remembered her from this post. I finished her last week at when I was at my friend Pat's house. I came home and looked at her and decided she looked like a Molly. I also decided that she definitely needed to have an outfit of some sort.

There always seems to be some dumb story or a major mistake with my projects. No different with Molly. You see, my sock monkey had to be a girl. When you make a sock monkey, there is an opening in the, um, crotch area for you to stuff your monkey with fiberfil. As I was constructing Molly, the knit in the sock ran like a nylon stocking. Yep, there was a run running right up her front . I had to stitch the run closed and that resulted in Molly having girly parts.

I have given the link to several people on how to make a little girl's tutu. Funny, I had yet to make one myself. Well, now was my time. You can find the instructions at Plum Tickled. The tutu went together quick which is always a good thing.

Nautical Chic

 
What are some favorite things from your childhood? Do you still have them? I can't think of anything that I still have in my possession. Two of the things I would give maybe an arm for would be my Barbie's, especially my Midge doll. I tried everything to get the flip in her hair to straighten out but it never did. The other item is my sailor dress. I've thought of that dress often. About a year ago, my mom gave me a couple of shoe boxes with items from my childhood. In one of the boxes, she put this picture in it. I don't know why I was the chosen one to receive it but I can't tell you how elated I was to have a picture of my dress. Also, I love this picture of my siblings and I.

This picture was taken in 1967. We are missing my youngest sister Jodi. She came along a few years later. I will have to ask my sister's if they remember anything about the dresses that they are wearing. I'm thinking that those might have come from Grandma Kennedy also.

Why does this dress mean so much to me? Well for starters, it was one of the few pieces of clothing that I had. I wore this to church every Sunday, really. I went to Catholic school and we wore uniforms so we didn't have a need for a large wardrobe. Also, most kids didn't have the clothing that kids have now. The second reason is that this was sent to me from my Grandma Kennedy. She was the nice Grandma. My other Grandma didn't like children. At all. We saw her once every two years and she wanted nothing to do with us. I can't understand why some mothers and Grandmothers are absent of maternal genes. So you can see why this dress was special.

Long before my mom gave me the family picture, I was collecting sailor dresses. I loved my sailor dress. I love the simplicity of sailor outfits and the sweetness that they portray. The copyright dates in my collection range from 1887 on up to 1995. Unfortunately, some of my patterns are not in very good shape. Hopefully, I'll be able to find nicer replacements in the future but for right now, I'm thrilled with what I have. Here are a few patterns from my collection.

 

 Advance 6807 circa 1950's

 Simplicity 2402 Copyright 1957

 Butterick 2760 Copyright 1963

 McCalls 4384 Copyright 1957

 Butterick 4703 Copyright 1923

Simplicity 3183 Copyright 1950
Alright, I've shared with you a special dress from my childhood. Now, what about you? Is there an outfit from your childhood that you have wonderful memories about?

A Present for Julia

A dear, sweet co-worker of mine gave her notice and today was her last day at work. Instead of giving her a going away present, I made something for her baby. Julia is turning one. The outfits are RTW from Wal-Mart. I went with a size 24months so hopefully, they'll fit the baby by summer.

The poodle design is from Lynnie Pinnie and the Ooh La La font is the Frenchie font 8CAP. The poodle was made with a fur fabric. I think the fabric is called Santa's beard. I could be wrong about that but I purchased it at Joann's. The little tutu design is from Planet Applique and the font for that is Back To Basics, also from 8CAP. Sarah made her first tutu for the baby so I thought the tutu design would be fun.