Category Archives: Sewing

WIP–My First (Endless and Ongoing) Quilt

Posted in Quilting, Sewing, Stuff to make by

When I refer to the abbreviation WIP, I mean Work In Perpetuity. Sure, there’s progress, but it’s so slow. Who knew sewing a quilt would involve so much sewing? Maybe I should have guessed as much after dutifully cutting 278 4″ squares of fabric. Here are the squares “chain-pieced” into piles of pairs:

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For newbies like me, chain-piecing means sewing two patches right side together and then just lifting the presser foot and feeding in the next pair to make a continuous chain. You cut the pairs apart later. Two other rookie things I’ve learned: there’s no backstitching in quilting, and quilters really dig a 1/4″ seam allowance (so if a pattern doesn’t give an allowance, bank on that one).

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Now I’m sewing my pairs into strips. According to Alicia Paulson’s Ollalieberry Ice Cream quilt pattern, the squares should be random. Tell that to my brain! I can’t stop myself from trying to create patterns from the chaos!  Order out of entropy! Here Captain Wonderpaws overlooks my work:

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Autumn Projects

Posted in Fabric printing, Quilting, Sewing, Stuff to make by

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Nothing cheers me more than a VW bus parked on my block. This belongs to my neighbor’s son. It used to be completely green but has since evolved into something weirder–and more autumnal, don’t you think?

Kind of like this:

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Autumn colors and old vehicles bring to mind two projects I want to tackle this fall. First, I’d like to try my VW bus pillow freezer paper print again, but this time on a throw pillow backed with groovy vintage fabric.

Second, I really, really need to return to my abandoned quilt project. The pretty picture below is actually not a pretty picture. I had to dust the fabric off in order to snap the photo–that’s how long these fabric squares have sat on my table.

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I’m afraid that I may need to actually count each individual square to make sure I have the right number. So, stay tuned as I make myself some coffee and contemplate a whole lot of counting.

Finished picnic quilt

Posted in Quilting, Sewing, Stuff to make by

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February in Florida is picnic weather–bright and sunny, no humidity and no mosquitoes. So this weekend, I am packing up some delicious fare and taking my family on a picnic. This quilt replaces a woolen picnic blanket that is far too hot and itchy for picnicking anywhere but the Scottish highlands. The backing is olive green, and I used a delicate floral for the binding–perfect for the great outdoors.

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Marimekko bench cushion

Posted in Home Design, Sewing, Stuff to make by

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This bench cushion was (honestly, I swear) easy to make. I bought a big slab of green foam from Jo-Ann Fabrics (half price!) and then cut it to the right size with a bread knife–weird, but it worked perfectly. I wrapped the foam in cotton batting to add some softness. The little village on this Marimekko fabric fit perfectly for the dimensions of my cushion. Basically, I made a shallow box with the fabric leaving one long side open, and then stuffed the foam in–slightly unwieldy but otherwise not hard at all. Both the Liberty Book of Home Sewing and Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts have excellent instructions for making a bench cushion. I decided to add piping to my cushion to give it a finished look, and to add a touch of navy. (The bench itself is my daughter’s old bookcase tipped on its side–the shelves make perfect shoe cubbies!)

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Chatting Crafts: Catherine Newman

Posted in Kids, Paper, People we've met, Recycled materials, Sewing, Stuff to make by

My Photo(This is our first in what we hope will be a series of interviews with folks who like to make stuff).

Catherine Newman, author of Waiting for Birdy, and the Ben and Birdy blog, is a fantastic cook, jigsaw puzzler, trash-talker, lollygagger, and friend. She’s also always making something. I recently sent her some questions to find out what she’s been up to lately and learned so much about her that I may now send out questionnaires to all my friends. Try it–so illuminating! I personally feel that the homemade pube/dryer lint beads (yes, you read that right) could find a home on Etsy. Thanks, Cath!

What kind of crafter are you? Plotter and planner or just-wing-it type?

A little of both. I am a wing-it-type overall, very scrappy and always wanting to use stuff we already have in the house, and not follow a pattern and not wait too long for the glue to dry. But if there’s something I have in mind, I will try to make sure I have the materials I need.

What type of crafts do you generally gravitate to?

Oh, many, many types. Like you, I love doing tiny things. My friend Emily [Neuburger] published a book called Show Me a Story, and the signature project is something called “Story Stones” where you basically modpodge a miniature paper collage onto a rock, and I could have made those forever. I did a mason jar, a pear, a cup of coffee, and a star. I was technically only there to help my daughter, but I think she left the table long before me. (so glad I’d had the random impulse to fill a bag with stones at the P.town beach!) I also love anything that involves turning clothes into better clothes (cutting t-shirts apart to make skirts, e.g.) or that involves felting wool sweaters and cutting them up and making patchwork blankets.showmemama's

What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever tried to make? Your biggest Martha Stewart moment? Your most spectacular craft snafu?

My biggest Martha Stewart moment? Gosh. Those wool blankets are so gorgeous I can’t even be modest about them. So maybe that. But weirdest? I have made prank barf (out of glue and paint and oats). I tried to make beads out of dryer lint, and they were so disgusting, with pubic hair sticking out of them, that we couldn’t stop laughing.  Oh, another MS moment: I made the kids velvet/cashmere (repurposed fabrics) cupcake stuffies for xmas, and they came out so cute! I was copying something Birdy had seen at Barnes and Noble, only mine were nicer.

I know you are great at including kids in the kitchen–how about with craft projects? Do you prefer family crafting or a more self-sufficient, Thoreau-style “leave me alone in my cabin by the pond” type of crafting?

I really, truly like both. We have this game Modern Art–it’s a very complex board game with an auction theme–and all the art in it was so terrible. There are, like, 100 pretend paintings and they were all so ugly. So the four of us sat down and made all new tiny paintings for the game, and it was one of the best days of my life. So I love that–love sitting with the kids to make Fimo donuts, or beading together. But I also love to be just me doing something, like sewing.

What were the most mutually satisfying and successful craft projects you’ve done with kids?

Ah, please see above! Modern Art cards. Artist Trading cards, which are just little magazine collages we do on cut-up cereal boxes, then cover in duct tape. Love those.

As far as mama-kid craft projects go, what strategies would you recommend to avoid a messy end of tears and recriminations?

Ah! That’s a good question. I have surprised myself by being able to bite my tongue and not offer the kids all of my excellent advice, even though it would make their trivet or puppet or coin purse SO MUCH NICER.

Who/what is your current craft inspiration?

pinkblanketI love the book Cute Stuff for inspiration when crafting with kids, especially when we’re trying to think of presents to make people. I love Show Me a Story (above). I love Alabama Chanin for sewing, and my friends’ sewing book Improv Sewing [by Nicole Blum and Debra Immergut].

What are you making right now?

I am making Birdy a patchwork wool blanket from all of the aqua and turquoise sweaters I’ve been saving and felting for years. I made Ben a pink one. They like to say that these are their “college blankets,” which makes me want to cry.