Adelaide Lemonade

Catching Up

Ugh.  It's been ages since I last blogged.  I hate when I do that!  I could just dive right in and start blogging about whatever I'm up to now and pretend the last two months didn't happen, but I'd rather try to catch you all up.  And I'd like to have it "on record" for when I forget and want to go back and read it all later.

So here's what we've been up to, since I last posted (almost exactly two months ago!) . . .

My husband and I had a lovely night away in Portsmouth, NH.  We had a nice, late dinner at Mombo . . .

and breakfast the next morning at The Friendly Toast.  Both great, but if I had to choose one, it would be The Toast with their funky atmosphere . . .

and homemade, thick Anadama toast with my asparagus and goat cheese scrambled eggs.

Frank broke his leg skiing.  It was his second time skiing, and he was with my 17 year old son.  We weren't even there.  We were an hour away at home, so they had to deal with the whole thing by themselves.  Boy did I ever feel guilty.  

We met them at the hospital as quickly as we could, and Frank is feeling much better.  He has a boot now and healing well.  I feel like I'm doing okay with this being the first broken bone in 47 collective years of parenting.

My mom, sister, and I have had several (okay 2) shopping excursions in Kittery and dined both times at the When Pigs Fly restaurant.  I love that place.

My mom and I found matching coats . . .

How cool are we?  For the record, we were most definitely NOT shopping at that store in the background.

Oh yeah, and I got a new job.  I'm still working at the same company, but I'm in a totally different role and department.  I'm loving it so far and am just a bit worried it's too good to be true.  I'm able to be a bit creative in my job as a developer (instead of managing developers) which I didn't realize I'd missed until I started doing it again.  I liken it to living in Maine - you have to go away and come back to realize how much you love it (although I really do question that every February and March).  I felt a little bit like I was going backwards in my career and giving up on being a manger (which I really think I was not bad at), but I now realize how silly that was.  I'm a thousand times less stressed out and can actually leave work at work and have room in my head to think about other things rather than obsess and worry about work.

My older daughter had lots of Irish Step Dancing events in March.  'Tis the season.  Then just last week, I took her to the World Irish Dance Championships in Boston.  

I thought it was going to be crazy - like regionals times ten - but it was actually really well organized.  Even though we spent the better part of 3 1/2 days there, it didn't seem so bad.  We had two days off in the middle, so we went shopping with my mom (that's what the girls in my family do) one of the days and the other day, I went on a bit of a foodie excursion in Cambridge/Boston visiting the famous Flour and picked up some gorgeous bread . . .

and Formaggio Kitchen and bought some fancy flour to make my own bread (or pizza dough as it turns out), and couldn't pass up these gorgeous macarons . . .

In the midst of it all, we decided to do a major rearranging of the house, so everything is a total mess, but yesterday, I finally got my craft room back in order.  I feel like a new person!  We still have a long way to go.  Only one of the kids currently has a room that's not complete chaos.

I really haven't been all that inspired creatively, but since I last posted, I did make my sister one of Noodlehead's Open-Wide Pouches for her birthday.  Of course, I had to make one for myself, too while I was at it, or as I told myself, to learn from any mistakes.

I didn't even take time to take a proper photo.  I was going to try to edit one, but why not just let you see my craft room in it's true state?!

I've been knitting a bit.  I made my sister a Dogwood hat for her birthday and Frank an Insulate hat.  (He's a Dr. Who fan.  I like how the pattern is pretty subtle.)  I'm working on a Judith sweater for myself.  

I just finished the body, now on to the sleeves.

I've been kind of in to cooking lately, but more on that another day.

My husband and I started the Couch to 5K program and are actually in our 6th week.  I'm quite proud of us considering I've started this about a dozen other times without making it past week 1.

I ordered some seeds.  I'm hoping to garden again this year.  Last year, I just knew I wouldn't have time, and the year before, I was in Australia during four of the big gardening weeks.  I've ordered from Seed Savers Exchange in the past but decided to go with more local Fedco this year.  I'm anxiously awaiting for them to arrive in the mail now, so I can start the tomatoes inside.

I'm sure I'm missing some things, but I think that mostly covers it.

I feel like I can take a breath now and think about sewing.  I'm hoping to make a top for Spring Top Sew along, and I definitely want to make some things for Kids Clothing Week (except I think I might be out of town that week.  Ugh.  Maybe I can bring my sewing machine.)

Hope you're all well.  Thanks for still reading after all this time.

Dark Cloud, Be Gone

Whew.  I think I'm finally out from under my black cloud of craftlessness.   I guess I wasn't exactly craftless - just finish-less.  I finally finished my crazy lunch bag project which was hugely getting in the way of anything else.  I just finished cleaning up my craft room and have had the last week off of work to forget about any work woes that were weighing on my mind.  I also have a new pattern that I want to start, but I refuse to do so until I finish the dress I started for Addie over a month ago.  Nothing motivates me like a new pattern to try!

So back to those pesky lunch bags . . .  I'm really not sure why I decided to make so many.  I think it really came down to not being able to decide on one fabric, and the idea of having some gifts to give when needed was appealing, too.  I used this tutorial which is a really great one that I had used before, but my heart just wasn't in it.  Or it was in the beginning, but it just didn't stay there.  

I had a lot of trouble sewing the layers together without creating lots of puckers.  I like to think that I'm not a beginner sewer any more, so it was all the more frustrating.  I tried my walking foot.  I tried pinning different ways, but nothing really worked.  I'm convinced that my problem was using weird fabric for the bag linings.  With the nice cover to the bag, the inside really doesn't show that much, so I didn't want to waste any good fabric on that.  I had a couple different colors of pretty heavy weight canvas in my stash that I used for most of the bags.  I think it had too little stretch where the quilting cotton had too much.  The only bags where I didn't have problems with puckering were the ones where I used similar weight fabrics inside and out.  Now that the bags are done, I don't notice the puckers so much.

I added embroidery to a few of the bags.  I got in my head that it would be fun to add something food related, so I scoured Etsy for a pattern, and I found one called "Not so Square Meals" in Wild Olive's shop.  (I don't see it there now, but hopefully, if you convo her, she'll list it again.)  It came with 12 different round food item characters.  I chose, "Bitter Grapefruit"

And "Leafy Lettuce"

I'm not sure that the lettuce really looks like lettuce.  What do you think?  Addie said it looked like a brain.  I'm sure it's just my sub-par embroidery skills.

I also added some simple embroidery to the cover on the owl bag.  

I think it might be my favorite.  If only I'd thought about how the bag would end up shaping up before I cut the fabric.  I would have put the upside down owls on the bottom and the right side up ones on the top.  Duuh.

Addie picked out the Busy Town fabric about a year ago.  I'm not normally crazy about that kind of fabric, but I drag her around to so many fabric stores, I like to let her pick some out every once in a while.  I thought it would be a nice lunch bag for her to bring to school.  What was I thinking?!  She has a Barbie lunch box.  Oh, how I hate that shade of pink and everything else about it!  Not only that, but Addie informs me that she was little when she picked that fabric, and her tastes have changed, and she'd like to pick a different fabric.  Now, that, I can understand.

I had the crazy idea that it would be fun to make a bunch of coordinating accessories; a napkin, a coaster (or a large coaster - that might really be called something else - I just don't like the cheesy name), some of these cute little snack bags, but I'm so over the whole lunch bag thing right now.  Maybe I'll do that later.

Back soon with more completed projects.  (I hope.)

A Quilt Finally

I've had a bunch of quilt tops ready to be quilted for quite some time.  Most of them have been sitting around for almost a year, and one is almost two years old.  I like the actual quilting - well mostly - and don't really mind the binding, but I hate crawling around on the floor and basting.  

Except for a few pillows, I've always used safety pins, but a friend finally convinced me to try out the basting spray.  I had visions of the quilt, batting, and back bunching up and sticking together all over the place.  I could just imagine all the layers being stuck to me with me going in circles to try to detach it like a dog chasing it's tail.  I even had visions of myself and/or the quilt being hopelessly stuck to the floor.

But I took it easy with the spray, and it actually went pretty well.  I laid everything out on the floor, so there was still a fair bit of crawling around.  My friend recommended laying everything out on a table, but I was too worried about getting sticky stuff all over my table.  I have one of those plastic-y Home Depot ones in my basement.  Maybe I'll dig that out and try it next time.

It wasn't a very fancy quilt or even a very big quilt, but I wanted to make it simple to show off the cute little Aneela Hooey designs.  I had managed to snag a charm pack before the yardage came out of her first collection.

I ended up quilting it simply, too.  I just machine-stitched my sewing machine foot width away from each seam.  I ended up going back and forth between my walking foot and my regular foot.  I've used my walking foot in the past, and it really hasn't done anything for me.  There are a few places where I ended up with a pucker in the fabric (frustration!), and I almost think the walking foot made that worse.  I plan to use the same quilting for my Heather Ross quilt, so I hope I can figure this out before then.

In hindsight, the solid blue binding wasn't the best idea.  There are some squares of the same blue in the quilt which, afterwards, I remembered placing strategically next to the non-blue squares, so it wouldn't clash with the other blues that weren't similar enough or contrast-y enough.  Oh well, it's such a light blue that I think you don't really notice the binding that much and can just focus on the quilt.

This time I did try machine binding.  I used this tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts, and it worked out great.  It takes me forever to hand bind a quilt - even a small one.  This was so much faster and still looks very nice.

I don't know if it was the simple quilting or the all-cotton batting that I used, but I love the softness and drapy-ness of this quilt.  The other ones that I've made and quilted with all-over stippling have seemed much more stiff.

I ended up giving this quilt to my mother for her birthday.  I know the Aneela Hooey fabric is probably considered a juvenile print, and the colors in the quilt are kind of baby-ish, but my mom had said she liked the colors when she saw the quilt top months ago.  She seemed to like it.

Anyway, it was a good quilting experience.  I might just get inspired enough, brave enough to do another one.

Something Other than Clothes

I haven't sewn a stitch clothes-wise since KCWC.  I have to admit, it's driving me a bit crazy.  Was it only 3 weeks ago?  I guess it's not so bad then.  

The last two weekends have been busy.  The first one, I got to spend the weekend with 3 of my good, good friends from college.  Then last weekend, of course, was Mother's Day. (I finally did get some sewing in that day - because it should be about doing whatever I want, right?).  Unfortunately, as often happens, my husband's birthday fell on the same day.  Neither of us think it's very fair to have to share.  

Then, this weekend coming up, hopefully, has some sailing in store.  And I'm all packed up to visit my mother tonight for her birthday.  And I have book club tomorrow night.  All fun stuff, but Addie is running out of clothes!  Just kidding!  She is so NOT running out of clothes, but I still have two things already cut out to finish up, and I just really like sewing clothes.  If I didn't know what was good for me, I might just lock myself in my sewing room indefinitely.  Hopefully, Memorial Day weekend brings some nice, uninterrupted sewing time.

I have been sewing a few things here and there.  Ever since I saw this post, I've been wanting to sew this bag.  I had a thought to make one for each of my friends that I got together with the weekend before last.  Then I had a thought to make one for my mom and sister for Mother's Day, but my sewing can't seem to keep up with my thoughts, and I only managed to make one which I donated to my husband when he needed a gift for his mother.

It's a great pattern, and I love the finished product.  I will definitely make it again.  Maybe I'll whip up a batch with my new Denyse Schmidt fabric.  (Like I said - production not necessarily keeping up with ideas.)

Hope you had a great Mother's Day!

Cloth Napkins

It feels a bit like cheating on my Fabric Challenge, but I made some cloth napkins this weekend with two different fabrics from my stash.

It feels like cheating because it was so easy and fast compared to sewing clothes and because it used up a lot of fabric fast.

BUT, I did buy that fabric with cloth napkins in mind.

When I was folding up my prewashed fat quarters for my Heather Ross Far Far Away quilt (which I really will make one of these days), I thought the linen cotton blend seemed like such a nice weight for cloth napkins.

I collected up a bit more FFA for this purpose, but then I decided I might want to use that to make a bigger quilt, so I ended up buying some Echino.  Is that fabric buying rationalization at it's best, or what?  (Don't worry this all happened before I started my challenge.)

I've made napkins before where I basically sewed two fat quarters together, but since that uses twice as much fabric, I decided to try out mitered corners.  A quick Google search brought up several tutorials.  I ended up using this one from Prudent Baby which I highly recommend.

I did use one of the fat quarters from my FFA stash for my first attempt.  I'm not really crazy about the girl with horses print.  Even if I liked it, it didn't seem to quite fit in with Sleeping Beauty anyway.  I squared off the fat quarter and ended up with something like 18" x 18".  I used the 1/2" and 1" fold over measurements from the Prudent Baby tutorial.  It's a bit small for my taste, but definitely works.  (Oops.  It's the one chopped off in the photo.)

For the next attempt, I didn't square off the fat quarter.  I guess you'd say I rectangled it off.  It really didn't seem to make much difference that it was a rectangle.  That's the one from the eyeglass fabric.  It came out a bit bigger which is nice.

Because I just knew fat quarter napkins weren't going to be big enough for me, I bought 2/3 yard of each of the other two Echino fabrics.  The first one, the dark purple with the bikes, must not have been quite as wide as I thought, but I was able to start with 21" x 21" squares, and with the stripe-y one (which is lighter weight, too), I was able to start with 24" x 24" squares.  For both of those, I also used a 1/4" and 3/4" fold over.

We used them last night with dinner, and I'm quite happy with them.

Now if I can only keep them in good shape.  Our basement steps go right off of our kitchen.  Our washer and dryer is in our basement.  When something gets dirty in the kitchen, it usually gets thrown down the basement steps.  We live in an old house, so our basement is pretty nasty.  The floor is often wet, and I've spotted several big, nasty slugs (snails?).  I can't stand the thought of my gorgeous fabric touching that floor!  Then there's the whole issue with mildew.  I'll be the first to admit I'm not on top of the laundry situation in my house.  (Have I managed to convince you to never eat at my house?  Or at least to bring your own napkins?)

So I'm about to install a laundry basket at the top of the basement steps.  A simple solution (I hope) to a going-on 7 year problem.

Hope you have a great week.  How's your stash-busting going?  Check out my dwindling pile.

Woo hoo.  Almost halfway there.  If all goes well, I'll be cutting into the 10th tonight or tomorrow morning.

One More Japanese Sewing Tip

This is a really, really good one that I stumbled across while surfing the net last weekend in this great Japanese pattern drafting tutorial from Purl Soho (I totally want to visit there someday.  Have you been?).

I kind of skimmed the post because I thought I had the whole drafting thing pretty much figured out.  Then some Japanese characters jumped off the page at me.

Finally the mystery solved about which is the back and which is the front.  I had been limping along finding different ways to rationalize which was which.  What a simple, elegant solution!

I copied them down on a piece of paper to keep near me when I'm drafting and cutting.

It was kind of fun to try to draw the Japanese characters.  For all I know, I wrote something completely different.  Doesn't matter, it's close enough for me to tell which is which.  The last two patterns I made didn't have an obvious front and back, so this has already been a huge help.

I feel a little silly for not trying to figure this out sooner.  Oh well.  It's always good to have a challenge.

p.s. Happy Mardi Gras.  Are you giving anything up for Lent?  I've been to the dentist twice recently and they keep telling me how bad carbonation is for your teeth - even just sparkling water.  I love having a Diet Pepsi every once in a while (okay, like almost every day), and when I'm being "good" and drinking my water, I much prefer the sparkling kind.  So that's what I'm giving up for Lent - anything carbonated.  I'm even including beer.  Wish me luck.

Backpacks

 

These cute little backpacks were my big accomplishment for the weekend.  I made them from a pattern I've been coveting for a while.  When my sister mentioned that my niece wanted a backpack for her birthday, I finally committed and bought the pattern from Made by Rae.  I'm really glad I did.  It's a pretty easy, quick pattern, and I'm really happy with how the backpacks came out.  They look like something you might buy in a cute little boutique - professional - not homemade.

 

This is my two year-old, Addie modeling one of the backpacks.  I made both backpacks at the same time because I didn't think Addie would let me get away with giving one away if she didn't have one of her own.  It turns out that she loves it even more than I thought.  She's hardly taken it off, since I completed it (which makes getting her in her car seat more of a chore than usual).

So the only problem with the backpack for my niece was that I didn't finish it on time.  I guess (okay I know) I'm a procrastinator, so it seems to often happen that I'm finishing something up at the last minute then I end up being late for the party (or wherever it is I'm going) and yelling at the kids.  I decided I wasn't going to do that to us this time.  As it was, my 11 year old daughter was wonderful about helping knowing that I was trying my best to get the backpack done.  She washed Addie's face, cut her fingernails, got her dressed, and brushed her hair - all without even being asked.  Is she a saint or what?  (Note to self - go back and read this when said 11 year old is throwing an emotional, hormonal tantrum.)  I was really close, but I just didn't make it, so I threw the three to-be-sewn-together pieces in a gift bag and presented those as her gift.  She's a pretty savvy four-year-old, but she definitely thinks I'm crazy.  Oh well, I did finish it the next day and will get it in the mail for her this week.  I think she'll enjoy getting her very own mail.

In my defense, I had some pretty good excuses for being behind on things such as this family movie night sanctioned by my 8-year old son.  We ate lots of junk food and drank Shirley Temples up in my bed and miraculously didn't even spill anything.

Then my favorite somewhat local fabric store, Alewives, was having a 20% off everything sale.  I didn't really need any fabric (what halfway serious seamstress can say that with a straight face?!), didn't really have any money to spend, and I really didn't need to spend two hours that I didn't really have in the car driving there and back, but after a lot of soul-searching, I decided I just couldn't resist. Among a few other things, I finally bought the fabric for a Birdie Sling Bag.  I've had the pattern for a while, and just hadn't found the right fabric.

My final, probably most frivolous distraction was stumbling across a reference to this Pioneer Woman web site.  At first, I glanced at it quickly, checked out her "About Me" page then moved onto other things (more accurately other blogs), but something made me want to read more.  Luck would have it that she has the entire story of meeting, falling in love with, and marrying her husband on her web site.  I was immediately hooked and frittered away the whole evening reading her story instead of working on my backpacks.  There's something about it that's really appealing.  She has a great down-to-earth, self-deprecating style, and her story of marrying a rancher is just so interesting to me.  I highly recommend it.

And speaking of distractions and stories, a friend of mine just sent me this link to this writing contest where you try to write 50,000 words by the end of this month.  The idea is that you'll be in such a hurry you won't get caught up in all the things that might normally prevent you from writing a novel like plot, character development, wording, etc.  What you write might be terrible, but it might prompt you to get past whatever excuse you've been giving yourself to note write your great American (or insert your country name here) novel.  Speaking of excuses, I think I'm going to wait until next year to try this one when I can actually start on November 1st, but I love the idea.

Finally, although they really have nothing to do with anything, I just had to include these photos of Addie's first leaf-pile jumps.  She loved it.  Remember when it took so little to make you this happy?

 
 

 

Fabric Serendipity

I finished my first ever quilt yesterday.  Yeah!  It was so much fun, and I'm so happy with how it came out.  I can't wait to make another one.  I'm not quite sure yet what kind of quilt I'll make, but yesterday I had a moment of perfect crafting good luck.  Almost a I was finishing my last stitch on the quilt (seriously I had about 5 stitches left on sewing down the binding), my 8-year-old son brought me the mail which contained my first ever internet fabric order.  I mean, how perfect is that?  To finish one project and receive the fabric for the next on at almost the very same moment.

I'm usually quite disloyal to my craft projects - especially big ones.  I'll work on it for a while and when a new idea pops into my mind, I have to stop the original project and start the new one.  Unfortunately, it's happened once or twice (yeah, right, I have a whole stash worth of yarn in unfinished knitting projects) that I haven't ever gone back to the original project.  That just adds to the list of a gazillion things I have to feel guilty about.  Not good.  This was definitely not the case with the quilt.  I really actually enjoyed working on it through every step.  I was able to convince myself for the moment at least that I actually AM the kind of person who finishes one project before starting another.  That made the timeliness of my fabric order all that much more serendipitious.

Here's the back of my quilt.  I really love it except that somehow I got the wrong amount of the fabric on the top.  I really didn't want to buy any more, so I had to improvise with my leftover sashing strips.  It really doesn't bother me too much, but it would have looked nicer without them.

My biggest problem now is figuring out what to do with it.  After all that work, I really don't want it to get dirty, but not using it kind of defeats the purpose.  I really want to use it for going to the beach or for a nice picnic with my husband with my homemade french bread and some brie and some red wine.  IF my husband weren't working all the time.  IF we weren't doing the Vegan thing and could eat cheese.  IF I weren't worried about spilling red wine on the quilt.  It's not really the right size to put on anyone's bed which is fine - I wanted to make sure I could make one first - before I invested the time and money in a full size one.  My 11-year-old daughter would probably appreciate one the most, but I'm not sure I see that happening, since she's really into nail polish right now.  Yikes.

If you're interested in making the same quilt, check out Oh Fransson's quilt-a-long.  She explains every step perfectly.  I didn't think I could make a quilt - at least not one I would be happy with, but following this quilt a-long made it easy and got me hooked.  Now I just have to come up with some of my own designs!

Here's the fabric order I was so excited about receiving.  I'm collecting red, blue, and brown fabrics to make a cover for an old hole-y down comforter.  More about that another time.

Advent Calendar

Finally, here's a photo of the Advent Calendar I've been talking about in the last few posts.  When I first saw it, I was desperate to make it, but I didn't have any Christmas-y fabric.  I was determined not to buy any new fabric for the project, so it didn't end up having the traditional Christmas colors or prints, but I love it anyway.  I got to showcase a lot of my favorite fabrics - even ones I didn't have much left of.  I have it hanging on a door in my craft room, and as you can see, I'm starting to fill it up with notions.

This was my first experiment with free motion quilting.  Actually, it was my first experiment with the whole quilt thing; making the sandwich, doing the binding, etc, and I'm hooked!  I think I mentioned in another post how great Oh, Fransson's blog is for directions on how to do all that, so I won't go on about it again here.  Definitely check it out if you want some help and motivation to make your first quilt or Advent Calendar or whatever.  It motivated me to make my first quilt which I may have already mentioned.  I'm about halfway done with sewing down the binding, so I hope to post some photos of the finished product soon.

I'm off to bake some bread, work on those tutorials I mentioned yesterday, and go to work.