life of seven

Worth the wait?

 

Lest you think that I've forgotten about Clementine's Ravi Junior, never fear, it is still getting worked on: one sleeve to go. Why is that second sleeve always such a chanllenge? Currently, I have three sweaters that need only one sleeve left. The issue is that once you have knit that far, in your mind the sweater is actually done, because it is semi-wearable with one sleeve. There is nothing new in the knitting of that second sleeve, so therefore mentally it is diffcult to work up the stamina to finish. Finish I will! There, I've said it, so now you can hold me to it.

The doll head you saw yesterday, of which I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of making, was just the sort of satisfying project I needed. I took hours needle felting that head, laying the skin fabric over it, readjusting, trying again, etc. I broke an entire package of felting needles and now I'm down to just one. It takes a while to get the feel of exactly how much pressure to use: or do you guys also regularly break needles when felting?

Now that I'm satisfied with it, I just like looking at that head with no eyes. Haven't begun the doll body, or dreamed up an outfit for the doll to wear. And I say "the doll": because I haven't even decided if it's a boy or girl yet. Don't know what hair I'm going to use. Weird as it sounds, I'm going to keep looking at it for a few days till I know just what it's going to be. I would say, "Until it tells me what it wants to be" but that gets a little too touchy-feely for my tastes, haha. But there is something about letting an idea simmer for a bit. It's always a marvel for me to discover over time ideas that I didn't know were there upon the waiting. And since my time is quite limited these days, wait I must. Hopefully it'll be well worth the wait since I have no say in the matter! Same goes for the sweater: worth your wait, Clementine.

A Little Sewing

 

A little bit of sewing with my very favorite fabric, Liberty. Evie's skirt needs to be hemmed (it'll be a  shorter, to be worn with tights or leggings). I can't wait to have these items available in the shop. It's nice to do some quick sewing. Lately, it seems my scattered brain can't work on any one project for very long. Sewing fits the bill, though it does add a lot of mess to a house that's already a challenge to keep up with.

Favorite Things

A baby, a knitting project, and Liberty of London fabric- sounds like I should start belting into song: "These are a few of my favorite things!"

The sweater is for Clementine. Because, naturally, she doesn't have nearly enough knitted items. I forget what the pattern is called but I'll link up to it on ravelry when it is finished. Little Cloud, maybe? Anyway, it is for a short sleeve sweater but I am going to make it long sleeves. Yarn is Malabrigo lace held double and this is a pretty inexpensive and beautiful option to knit with. Soft and light as a cloud.  Baby things, especially in the three month size range, just knit up SO FAST, so by default, Clem gets most of the knitwear. A sweater for her is not much longer to make than the doll sweaters I used to knit all the time for my shop. 

Speaking of the shop, that fabric you see in the background, Liberty of course, has been sewn up into a skirt. I am tweaking the pattern just a bit, so I am just going to have to make the sacrifice and keep the skirt for me. Oh, the hazards of commercial sewing...anyway, I plan to have the skirt available in a variety of fabrics and sizes in a few weeks. I am going to try to make some for the girls and once I have the sizing figured out I will be ready to stock the shop with some more items. I tried the skirt on last night with boots (let me add boots to the list of favorite things) and I kind of squealed with excitement. A skirt like this is just the type of thing I will wear All. The. Time. I can't wait till I can make them available for you or your girls.

Finally, what else was on that list? Oh yes, babies, and have we ever got a cute one around here.  Check out those baby toes! What can be more wonderful than Clementine and her little piggies? "...I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad!"

Shop Open!

Shop is open (really, it's just my facebook page where you can leave a comment below the item you wish to purchase). I love how these turned out.

And here are a couple gratuitous puppy pictures for you as well:

Craft Room Clean-Out

I'd thought I'd show you my sewing/craftng space today, or one of them anyway- I typically have quite a few crafting projects floating throughout the house, and I have a closet in one of the bedrooms downstairs full of crafting things as well, but this in the main one, and I share this space with the master bedroom. It gets a little crowded when I am in the throes of a project. Also, messy- thanks to the midwife home visit on Tuesday, I got inspired to clear this space out and organize it, which mainly involved lots and lots of fabric folding, and then that little detail work of putting each little item back where it belongs- knitting needles here, pins there; scissors, measuring tape, patterns and all sorts of odds and ends back in the proper spot. It takes a while and my sewing room hasn't looked this organized in months.

Here is the other side of the room, where our bed is. I'll most likely have the baby in this room, thus the need for it to look more like a bedroom and less like a creative crafty person's haven who happens to be in the middle of ten projects at a time (I'm sure my husband appreciates the junk getting cleaned out, too). 

While I love looking at pictures of people's sewing rooms, I always smile a little when I do so, and wonder if that is what they always look like, or whether they are only 15 minutes away from a new crafty mess. In general cleaning it up right away has always worked best for me, however, over a period of months, mess and chaos build up and a thorough clean out becomes necessary again, and I wonder why on earth I waited so long. For me these spaces have always had a life of their own, like a garden that gets overtaken with weeds if not weeded weekly or daily. Well, this time around I am going to do better (she says, with the same resolve she says every time the craft room gets a thorough clean-out)!

What Summer Vacations Are For

You know that project I told you I was working on? Well, it dictated a visit to Fancy Tiger Crafts. I know, I'm really having to suffer here. It's in Denver, about an hour and a half's drive. 

Let me just say, It's worth the drive.

This is the best fabric/yarn/crafting store I have ever been to, and maybe that I have ever dreamed of. Then again, I have never visited Purl (a dream of mine) so I don't know how it would measure up to that, but let me just say that Fancy Tiger is pretty much close to perfect. That would be my absolute dream job- shopping for unique yarns, fabrics, patterns, trims, tools, accessories, buttons, then putting them all into a cute old building with exposed brick and beams and all the fun details you get from old buildings, and then arranging and decorating everything just so in the most adorable way....aaaahhh! That would be awesome.

I got a pretty big stack of fabric- a few of the Liberty prints you see there in the picture as well as more linen and linen blends. Yes, I know I mostly took pictures of the yarn (that yarn wall!) but I was really there for the fabric, since that is what I need for my project.

Since I'm not so cruel as to drive everyone to Denver just so I can take an unusually long trip to a fabric shop, I had arranged to meet my mom at the swimming pool and we hung out there all afternoon while the kids swam- pretty fair payoff, I'd say.

That makes for a pretty exhausting day for a pregnant mama and I had to pull over halfway through the drive home (this was AFTER the coffee from Starbucks....) and close my eyes for about 20 minutes. Most of the kids were asleep, anyway. We quickly threw together sandwiches for dinner and then went to a friend's house to watch another chunk of Anne of Green Gables- best movie ever made. I only need to hear the musical score and my eyes well up with tears. The kids hadn't seen it in a few years, and not since Cate and Grace had read the books, so we've been trying to watch it with another couple of familes (it's long. It takes a few nights). Gideon didn't remember seeing it at all and it is so sweet how much he loves it, I mean LOVES it, my tough, action loving boy. 

"Mom, why is Anne so MEAN to Gilbert?" Yes, son, those are the questions you should ponder and discuss if you want to win a girl's heart. Tell her you love Anne of Green Gables and not much else needs to be said to win her over.

Fabric shopping, long swims, late night movies, falling into bed well past bedtime exhausted, missing out on piano practice and anything else really getting done...that's what summer vacations are about: well deserved breaks now and then for some very hard workers.

Perfect Project

It took all day between trying to keep the house clean, making meals, and keeping the little kids relatively happy, but the girls and I got those lovely skirts all finished. What great pattern the Hollyburn Skirt is. I am pleased that Sewaholic has such great, easy to follow instructions. If you are planning to make this, if you follow the size recommended for your waist measurements, it should come out exactly right. Both girls' skirts are a perfect fit. We made the B length skirt with the C waist band, and contrasting pockets. Fabric amounts were spot on as well. This is definitely a pattern we will use again. I will certainly want to sew one for me once I know what size to make. 

I love those Gray Mochi Dots!

And the lime green is spectacular as well.

What a great project.

 

Sewing and the ideal skirt

Yesterday I determined I wanted to do a bit of sewing. I have a project in the back of my mind that I want to work on (hopefully more on that later). I stopped at Joann's and discovered a 50% discount off their linens. Mustard yellow, plum, and deep blue linen? Sounds just about right.

Then we stopped at our local sewing shop that carries all the fun quilting cottons, Japanese fabrics, and the like. While we were there the girls and I ran across the cotton/linen Mochi Dots. Um, linen polka dots? In chartreuse, aqua, raspberry, and two shades of gray? And then the owner pointed me to the Sewaholic pattern, Hollyburn. A polka dot skirt with POCKETS? 

"Someone made this in the chartreuse Mochi dots and it came out so awesome," she told me.

So I took a look at the pattern, saw that it went all the way down to a size zero and told Cate and Grace we would make the skirt- one for each of them, in whatever color they wanted. Well, we had such a fun time picking out fabric: Cate chose dark gray and Grace went with the chartreuse. We went home and found some contrasting prints for the pockets out of my doll fabric stash. I do have a pretty large amount of fabric, but most of it is in smaller than quarter yard pieces. We managed to find the perfect fabric for each skirt.

I love summer because I lay off on the schoolwork and school books while concentrating more on projects, which in my opinion are every bit as educational as the school books, but we just don't have as much time for projects during the school year. We got all the pieces cut out yesterday, and today my eager sewists are begging me to come upstairs to the sewing room/master bedroom (not necessarily in that order....???) and get the skirts sewn up. All right, I'm coming...

These skirts are making me daydream of the perfect skirt for me. I'm envisioning a skirt with a stretchy knit waist band that can be folded up or down (and therefore wearable now while pregnant as well as afterward) with the skirt part made of a flowy, lightweight floral lawn-type fabric. Oops, did I just describe Liberty of London fabric? Hmm, can't imagine how that happened. I can't be the only one who would find this to be the perfect skirt, surely...Well, once the girls and I are finished with their skirts, maybe I can try to draft this skirt of my dreams. Anyway, the dreaming part is fun- maybe the most fun of all.