Fatty and I gave Jane a guitar for her 10th birthday in December.  Included with the gift were lessons and the promise of a mommy-made guitar strap.  A promise because this girl is picky.  If I had gotten it wrong in any way, she wouldn't have used it.  She may not have ever played the guitar.  That's how particular she is.  On the upside, it's good she knows what she likes and she isn't afraid to tell me.  (No pink, but still girly.  Green is good and so is aqua.  Remember, no pink!)  As a result, this project was a complete collaboration.

The bummer about having a December birthday is that your mom might be a little too busy to sew your guitar strap right away.  (Ahem.  And let's not even get started about the birthday shirt.  I swear it's next on the list!  Again, I was afraid it wouldn't be right...)  Thank goodness that her lessons didn't start until January - that bought me some time.  It was a good thing, too.  There were a couple of fabrics that she liked and then abandoned.  But when I bought fat quarters of Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane, she zeroed in on one print in particular.  Ten days later, she was still sold on that print.  On Saturday, she picked the others to go with it, laid them out in the order she wanted them and I started cutting.  She went to swim practice and I got sewing while bread was baking.  It was finished when she came home.

I made two other guitar straps for friends this past fall.  With both of those and this one, I bought inexpensive nylon webbed straps and cut them apart for the hardware.  I searched the internet a few times and couldn't come up with decent leather bits at a reasonable price so re-purposing was necessary.  I made all the straps (one for an adult, two for children) adjustable so that the fit would be just right.

She likes it a whole heck of a lot.  That makes both of us smile.

I made these t-shirts for the last local craft swap of the year.  I used a kit from EZScreenprint that Amy recommends in her newest book, Bend the Rules with Fabric.  (Fantastic book, by the way!)  I wanted to make embellished t-shirts, similar to the ones I have seen from J. Crew.  I doodled a bit and came up with a design.  I burned my screen in the sunlight (really!  so easy!) and then used it to print on t-shirts.  After the t-shirts were dry, they sat around my house for a few weeks until the day of the swap when I got busy embellishing. 

My vision was an all over beaded design like the one above.  That didn't happen because this one shirt took me 2 hours to bead.  2 hours x 6 shirts = way more time than I had.  I changed course and ended up embellishing the centers of the flowers/stars/snowflakes (really, whatever you want them to be).  They still turned out cute - no picture, though.  It was dark when I finished.

I have one shirt left to embellish - it's for me.  I'm looking forward to sitting in front of a movie, with needle and thread, and beading.  I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed hand sewing and beading together.  Who knew it would be so relaxing?  Once I get the shirt done, it may be time to make one of these.  I think I have everything I need on hand.  Perfect for a day when you don't want to leave the house.  And it fits in well with one of my goals this year:  sew more clothing for me.

Trust me.  You do.

I was sitting in the carpool line, chatting on the phone when it hit me:  tonight is Kate's last piano lesson before Christmas.  We need a gift.  Now!

We drove straight from school to Starbucks where I bought each of the kids an after school treat and a gift card for the piano teacher.  I came home and retreated immediately to the sewing room and whipped up this coffee cozy.  It took less than a half an hour, start to finish.  Granted, my machine is set up, the pattern was at hand and I have made dozens of these so I don't have to look at directions.  But picking out the button and then sewing it on by hand easily took 7 of those 30 minutes.  Fast, I tell you!

 
The pattern is here.  It makes a great gift for just about anyone:  teachers, babysitters, dog walkers, paper delivery people and on and on.  Making them assembly line works really well, too.

What are you waiting for?  Go on....get sewing.

You guys are the best!  Seriously.  You had so many great ideas to solve my costume dilemma.  I went with the first one - I think it was Autum's.  I took some off-white curtain lining and ripped six strips that were about 2" by the width (54" or so).  Then I sewed two strips together along the short end so I would end up with three long strips.  About four minutes later, I had a nice long braid.  Easy, fast, free.  Yay!  I whipped up a super simple skirt - one seam, one hem, one elastic casing - and cut an old brown t-shirt of mine into a tunic.  All in all it took less than an hour and Kate's pretty pleased.  I'll try to take a photo of it when the sun comes out.

I've been meaning to share these little trees with you.  I made them as part of Betz White's online holiday workshop awhile back.  I think it was in October.  I can't share details of how they were made, but I will tell you that I find them quite addictive.  I've been searching thrift stores for white and cream wool sweaters because I can just see a whole forest of these lining our sun room mantel or on the black chest in the kitchen.  Bonus is that they would look just as nice all winter long....not super Christmas-y, but festive nonetheless.

Still have my cold.  Still sucks.  Still shopping.  Haven't addressed the cards.  Cookies to bake and aprons to make.  Then wrapping and shipping out of town gifts.  So yeah.  That's what I am doing.  But being back at habit this month has made me realize how much I miss blogging regularly.  And how much I had lost my photo mojo.  So I am going to try....really try....to be in this space a little more often.

And gosh, if it's going to be so cold outside, could it please just snow?

I received a copy of Quilting for Peace by Katherine Bell a few months ago.  In it, Katherine highlights the stories of people and organizations that are sewing for different causes.  Each project in the book corresponds to a particular initiative and range from full quilts to shopping bags, small pet mats to sleeping bags.

Inspired by the book, the girls and I decided to make one of the projects in the book.  Mirabel the owl is the project for Softies for Mirabel.  Softies for Mirabel is a holiday toy drive that collects handmade, soft toys for the Mirabel Foundation in Melbourne, Australia.  I chose this project because it is simple and I knew the girls would be able to help me make the softies.  Additionally, I knew that my children would be able to relate to the idea of giving to other children who might not have as much as they do.

It was definitely a team effort.  Kate and Jane chose the fabrics and trims that they wanted out of my stash.  I cut out the owls and they traced the other pattern pieces onto fusible interfacing.  I did most of the cutting, ironing and machine sewing.  They embroidered the eyelashes and stuffed the owls.  In a little over an hour, we were finished.  The girls were excited to show the softies to Fatty and spent a long time guessing what kind of child would end up with their creation.  They also asked if we could do it again another day and maybe take those softies to our city's children's hospital.  Of course.  Then they asked if they could make one for themselves.  I had been waiting for that!  Of course.

I am so glad that I carved some time out of this busy week to work on this project with my children.  It's important to me that they realize that even at their young age, they can do something for others.  And I loved that the three of us spent time working together.  Also, it wasn't me that insisted it get finished.  After I proposed the idea of making the owls to them, they were the ones that kept reminding me that we needed to do it, that we should get busy sewing.  Thanks to my girls, I was reminded that no matter how busy I am, no matter what needs to be done, chances are I have an hour or so to do something for someone else. 

Quilting for Peace includes many easy, doable projects and information on theorganizations that could benefit from your crafty talent.  There's a 30-minute shopping bag pattern in the book that you could whip up for gifts.  Or maybe sew a quilted mat to donate to a local animal shelter.  I encourage you to take a look and see if there is something you can make for someone else in need this holiday season or in the new year.

I am giving away one copy of this fantastic book.  If you are interested in winning, leave a comment on this post that includes one thing you have done or will do for someone in need or a particular charity this holiday season.  I will close comments Wednesday, November 25th at 5:00 p.m. EST.  The winner will be announced on Friday or Saturday.  In other business, I'll be back tomorrow with the winner of last week's giveaway and some shop talk.

I started following Malka Dubrawsky's blog, A Stitch In Dye, after I happened upon a photo of this quilt on her flickr stream.  At first glance, I gasped.  The colors are so vivid and the pattern is so interesting - there was nothing about this quilt that I didn't like.  After a moment or two of gazing, a few of those fabrics looked familiar.  Upon closer inspection, I realized that she didn't piece those circles into those squares.  The fabrics were dyed!  A whole world of possibility opened before my eyes.  Dyeing printed fabric?  Wow.

How did she do it?  Well now I know, and so can you.  Malka's new book, Color Your Cloth, A Quilter's Guide to Dyeing and Patterning Fabric arrived on my doorstep a few weeks ago.  In the first part of the book, Malka explains in depth the how's and the why's to wax resist and over-dyeing fabric.  In the second part, she shares directions for projects that she has made with fabric she had dyed and patterned herself.  And her fabric is fantastic - crisp, bold colors that really pop and make me want to run out and buy dyes and experiment a little myself.  If only the holidays weren't right around the corner.

 

Lucky enough for me, Malka sent me a stack of her hand dyed and hand patterned fabrics to play around with.  I knew instantly that I wanted to combine the prints with something neutral so they could really sing.  I grabbed some linen, my ruler and rotary cutter and got to work.  More than a hundred triangles later, I started sewing.

I went with a zig zag pattern that I sewed to a rectangle of linen to make placemats.  I used solid linen on the back and cotton batting in my quilt sandwich.  I sewed the three layers together leaving an opening and then flipped it right side out then quilted it.  I love the way the crisp cotton contrasts with the soft linen.  The colors stand out against the neutral ground and the piecing takes a pattern that was already interesting and adds another dimension to it.  And the finished placemats look great on my table.

I highly recommend Malka's book if you are looking for more information on dyeing and patterning fabric or if you just want a good dose of inspiration.  The sewing projects include small items like coasters and totes and larger endeavors like quilts.  Malka has an etsy shop where she sells her fabrics and sewn items.  Her book can be purchased from etsy as well or on Amazon.

Malka has generously offered a copy of her book to one of my readers.  If you'd like a chance of winning, please leave a comment on this post before Friday, November 20th at 12:00 p.m. EST.  I will use the random number generator to pick a winner.  Good luck!

Every year, I make the girls a birthday shirt.  It's always appliqued and I now know that it needs to be short sleeved and a size too big so it will fit all year round.  This year I wasn't feeling extremely creative.  Or more to the point, I wasn't sure how I could top the tally mark shirt from last year.  I asked Kate what she wanted and she didn't have a preference.  Fatty came up with a couple of good ideas and I was ready to use one of those when it hit me.

 

Of course.  It's perfect for my girl.

This weekend was a wash craft-wise.  I had big plans - sewing some quilt squares and working on my next swap project.  Neither of those happened.  I did, however, make some progress on the state of our house.  I taught my girls how to clean bathrooms and watched them do just that.  Nice, huh?  I also went through my plethora of knitting bags and chucked all the unfinished projects that I no longer wanted to make.  Socks, anyone?  In the process I found about 6 cable needles, dozens of stitch markers and the illusive size 7 dps.  That was good.  I spent 15 minutes trashing out the sewing room and it barely made a dent.  Baby steps, people.  Baby steps.

Last night, I found myself with the laundry folded and the house picked up so I cut into a felted orange sweater to make this pumpkin.  It was serendipity that I actually had an orange sweater and the ribbing from a brown one to pull this together.  I made the whole thing up and in about 30 minutes, the basic form was finished.  I spent another 15 minutes adding the stitching lines today.  It's not totally what I envisioned, but I kind of like it anyhow.  We'll see what the girls think - they are my toughest critics.

I'm off to buy a better paper shredder.  Fun stuff, huh?