Drago[knit]fly

(I'm just going to ignore the fact that this is my first post in nearly a year an a half...) With just under a month past its Christmas due date, I cast off on my niece’s Christmas sweater.  After tearing up the internets for the perfect pattern, my sister send me some links to sweaters she liked, including this one .  Something about the simplicity called out to me and so I checked out my yarn stash to see what would work.  I gravitated to the little hearts, but when I remembered I had this shocking pink just itching to be used, visions of colorblocking danced in my head (sorry, it is a Christmas sweater, though, people! And I am a big, giant dork.)  Anyway, as is the standard, I went back and forth between shocking pink and winter white and shocking pink and oatmeal...winter white… shocking pink.  I eventually decided on the pink/oatmeal combo, only to soon doubt whether or not I could pull off using two fiber types.  Surely it’s been done. ...

When my sister got engaged almost two years ago, planning a wedding quilt was high on my list of to-dos. I thought about making her a bed-sized quilt, but somehow that seemed almost too personal. How could I pick out her bedroom set colors? I guess I could have just consulted her, but I wanted it to be a surprise and I wasn’t willing to spend HOURS (years for me and my procrastinating) slaving on something that could wind up in a linen closet all sad and alone. Also, all the ladies in my family tend to be drawn to some more outlandish designs and colors and that didn’t seem appropriate for their first set of bedding. So, I decided to go completely wild with color and pattern and make a smaller throw quilt. Of course, I went to one of the masters of quilting herself for this String Quilt Tutorial . Timeline I see bloggers churn out a queen-sized quilt in a weekend and I’m in perma-awe of those rockstars. I don’t know if it’s my limited attention span or what, but every quilt I’ve ...

The past couple weeks, months even, I've been crafting away so that when the new baby decides to make her appearance (due date's tomorrow, yet no sign of baby) she'll be greeted into the world with a healthy bounty of handmade goodies. Sixth Time's a Charm Quilt While I know babies don't use quilts on their cribs (Alice still doesn't use more than a muslin blanket and she's approaching two!), I can't imagine not making a quilt for the little baby chicklet. When I made Alice's quilt, I conformed to the overall color scheme for her room. This time, I let myself loose with colors. I figure the chicklet will most often use the quilt during tummy time or any time she's on the floor and I don't want her covered in dog hair and what baby doesn't love bright, fun patterns during playtime? So, I settled on some fabrics from Michael Miller's Hedgehog and the Big E collections and some coordinating Kona Cottons. In line with my recen...

I’ve been obsessed with all things AMH these days.  Pretty much anything that pops up on her site, I have to make.  So, when I saw this dress on her website a few months back, it wasn’t long before I had some Little Folks Dobby in my cart.  I’d been eyeing this particular fabric, but didn’t pull the trigger because I couldn’t think of a pattern worthy of the fabric.  I did end up modifying the pattern a bit to make it more wearable for me.  I don’t own a slip and knowing me, it would take me a year before I actually bought one.  To remedy that, I lined the dress with some straw lining material.  In a perfect world, I would have lined it with some coordinating solid voile, but that’s a little rich for my budget, so I opted for some regular ol’ lining material from Joann.  I also shirred the waistline instead of zig-zag stitching elastic just because I thought it would be easier.  Lining and Shirring I didn’t intend to wear this dress whi...

First of all - Happy Birthday, Mom!   Hope you enjoy your special day! It’s rare that I can receive fabric and cut into it within a day or so of receiving it.  I like to gaze it from afar, pet it, imagine all the good times we’ll have – you know, normal stuff.  Not this fabric.  I couldn’t wait to slice into it and make it into something.  It helps when you have the perfect project in mind.  In this case, Anna Maria Horner’s swaddling blankets.   My one concern about jumping in – I didn’t prewash my fabrics and I have little experience working with either flannel or voile so I’m unsure of the shrink factor.   Working with the flannel and voile is like working with butter and um, melted butter?  Both so decadent, both so perfect to have cuddle your baby’s perfectly soft newborn skin.  As proof, when I opened the package Alice quickly snatched a piece of the voile and proceeded to wrap herself up in it.  It appears I’ll b...

February 2009 – buy fabric. February to Summer – pet fabric, envision gorgeous quilts, remain paralyzed in fear of cutting beautiful fabrics.  Scour flickr for quilt inspiration. Summer – Select quilt pattern.  Engineer how to make quilt.  Cut bazillions upon bazillions of little triangles. Get sick of cutting. Fall to Winter – Forget about quilt. Spring – remember fabric half cut for quilt.  Dig out pieces.  Remember plan.  Finish cutting other bazillion triangles.  Start piecing.  Interest in other projects surpasses interest in quilt.  June/July – In fit of motivation, finish piecing quilt.  July – Momentum continues! Quilt top finished, sandwiched, bound, and quilted.  Now the real question is how do all you flickrites manage to post freshly finished quilts on a weekly (or less!) basis?  Pattern:   No real pattern. I found a couple photos of kaleidoscope quilts on flickr and fell in love.  I bought a 45 degree ...

When I got pregnant with Alice , we converted our office/craft room into her room.  My sewing machine and piles of associated sewing / craft stuff was relegated to the guest room and closet.  While picking up a sewing machine and carrying it downstairs to the dining room doesn’t seem like that overwhelming a task, I dread it and will knit a sweater or bake ten pies before I carry the machine down a flight of stairs. Of course when I do drag the machine downstairs, I take over the dining room and often spill into the kitchen, much to the chagrin of my clean-freak husband.  And of course since Alice was born and we have another on the way, there are eleventy billion cute little baby projects that I must sew.  During my maternity leave, I spent hours sewing during Alice ’s marathon newborn naps, the sewing machine humming along while she slept peacefully in her little swing.  Sewing these days requires much more planning and usually onl...