Finish-a-thon!

Twenty five days from today, I will be moving.  Packing the house into a U-Haul, and driving 1,500 miles back to Massachusetts.  I really hate having to move half-finished, neglected projects, so I'm going to set myself a goal of finishing all of these sad, lonely fellas. 

1) Wedding cake toppers for Meg.  These are mostly done, I just need to sew on some limbs and give them faces. 
2) Lightweight striped cardigan.  Need to weave in ends, block, and sew on buttons. 
3) Floral print fitted t-shirt.  Fabric is cut, I just need to sew it together.
4) Gray skirt.  Nothing done yet except for washing the fabric.  Not sure if this will be elastic waist or if I will practice my zipper skills again.
5) Casual knit cotton dress for lounging around the house.  I'm copying a store-bought version that I've had for years, in a different color.  Should be pretty quick and easy, once I actually get around to it. 
6) Mend giant rip in pajama pants.  I love them, but can't wear them because the hem has ripped and the leg ends up flapping around my ankle.  Very irksome.
7) Modify one pair of jeans to have more flare.  The skinny jeans look is not for me.

Unfortunately, this list is not exhaustive - I have at least a couple knitting projects that I know won't be done before we move, and this doesn't include the less concrete sewing/quilting plans I have.  But, if I get through all of these, I'll be feeling pretty good about things.

Scruffily quilt

My first-ever quilt!

This was started sometime in September, and I slowly worked on it in spurts, finally finishing in March.  I'm so happy to have it done, and to be able to use it!

I used the Scruffily Quilt tutorial for the top, which made quilting seem so easy and non-intimidating.  I'd been keen on making a quilt for a while, but it all seemed so overwhelming.  Then I came across this pattern, and noticed some cute layer cakes at a local store, and next thing I knew I was laying out squares on the floor of my basement studio.  I used two layer cake stacks, using 36 of the squares as is, then cutting more into quarters and then sixteenths for the medium and small squares.  The back is a straightforward pieced back.

Once the top and back were done, I used Elizabeth's (of Oh, Fransson) awesome quilt-along guide to make the quilt sandwich.  Seriously, I don't think I would have had the courage to start a quilt without her tutorial, it's so great.  I hand-tied the quilt with embroidery floss (tied in the middle of each small square, and at each intersection of the large squares), then used the quilt-along instructions again for making and attaching the binding (I made a pieced binding out of leftover squares from the layer cake).  I'm pretty sure I hand-sewed the binding on wrong, but it seems sturdy and it's good enough for me.  Gotta leave something to learn next time, right?

The batting is wool batting from Beaverslide Dry Goods, which is wonderfully warm and cozy (although I think the fairly loose wool batting makes this a hand-wash only item, but that doesn't really bother me).  

It's about 55"x55", which is a nice size to curl up with on the couch.  Made with two Moda layer cakes (Cotton Blossoms by Bonnie of Cotton Way & Camille of Thimble Blossoms), with lots left over.  The back was a pretty pink floral I found on sale at the local fabric shop.

Knotty alpacas

I made this a couple weeks ago for my parents, who recently adopted four alapacas.  I was inspired by the adorable sheep at incy wincy stitches, and wanted to try my hand at something similar. 

This is my first embroidery project, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out.  I was having a real mental block about French knots for a long time, and couldn't do them at all, until I looked up a youtube video and finally got it.  Once I did that, these little guys went really quickly.   My only issue with this project is that I forgot which alpaca has the white spot on his chin - it's the brown one, not a black one.  Oh well, I'll just say the black one has his buck teeth hanging out - they have really goofy teeth. 

Here they are, enjoying the end of winter.  You can kind of see their buck teeth in this shot.

Apron set

 
A friend asked me to make aprons for herself and her 2 year old.  The only requirements were that they coordinate with each other, and that they be "funky."  I spent way too much time on the fun task of selecting fabric - what awesome colors should I choose?  Just how funky should the pattern be?  Where is the balance between something that appeals to a little girl but isn't too girly?  I finally settled on Heather Ross' Mendocino (Seahorses in Rust and Underwater Sisters in Fuschia) - just crazy enough when combined, but still really cute.

I used the following tutorials to get a rough idea of sizes (because I didn't have any full size aprons in the house to measure): adult size and child size.

And as a side note, I made more pillowcases for my aunt, who loved the snowmen set I made her for Christmas.  They're so cute! The owls are from the Alice Kennedy Apple collection.  I kind of wanted to keep them for myself, but I think I have another good use for the half-yard I have left. 

Pillowcases

I bought a half yard of this snowmen fabric a couple months ago, intending to make something for my aunt who loves snowmen.  I think I was originally intending to make coasters or napkins, but I realized a couple weeks ago that the amount of fabric I had would be perfect for pillowcase edgings.

These were super easy to make.  For each pillowcase, I cut a piece of snowmen fabric 40" x 9", and a piece of white fabric 40" x 28".  I folded the snowmen piece in half the long way with right sides out, so the fabric was doubled and cute snowmen were visible on both sides.  I sewed the 40" long sides of the patterned and white pieces together, then folded the whole thing in half to form one long edge of the finished pillowcase, and sewed the other side and end. I debated embroidering my aunt's name or a snowflake, but decided against it as the snowmen are cute enough on their own.













I gave them to my aunt for Christmas, and she loved them!

Winter of hats!

From left:
Turn a Square for my father in law (Rav)
Generic hat in green stripes for my dad (Rav)
Maze for my sister's fiancee (Rav)
Three-Spiral hat (in handspun!) for me (Rav)
Generic ribbed hats in stripes, for a friends kids (Rav)

I hadn't really planned on making any Christmas presents this year, but between a couple requests for hats and a few patterns that I've been wanting to try for a while, it turned into a winter of hats.  I also made a few other non-hat type presents, but they just don't look as cute all lined up.

Flannel scarf

This scarf is destined to be a Christmas present for a friend who I think could use a little extra coziness this winter.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to make for her, and then remembered a wonderfully big, cozy scarf I'd oogled on tv the other day.  A quick trip to the fabric store, and a flannel version was underway.

The finished size is 9" x 75".  It's probably long enough to wrap twice, but I find it's warm enough wrapped once, with nice long ends in front.  It was made of pieces 19" wide and from 5" to 10" long (the plaid cut on the bias), joined together and then the whole thing was folded in half the long way.  I bought 1 yard of the plaid (60" wide) and a 1/2 yard each of the black and white (44" wide), and it was more than enough.  I could have gotten away with less of the plaid if it wasn't cut on the bias.

It needed a little something else to feel more personalized, so I added a star in the corner.

Maybe I need a version for myself?

Hot water bottle cozies

 Cozy monster!

I'd never used a hot water bottle until a couple months ago, but I'm a total convert now. Getting into bed on a cold night is about a hundred times nicer when a hot water bottle has been warming it up for a few minutes. And in the morning, there is still a little heat left to curl my toes around for a couple minutes before dragging myself out.

Once we started using the bottles, I wanted to make fleece cozies for them, but then my sewing machine broke. Several weeks later, I finally got it fixed, and yesterday I popped out a couple of awesome cozies.

 
They are super quick (the eyes and fangs took the most time).  To make a pattern, I just traced around the full bottle then added an inch on all sides. I used the pattern as is for the back, and then for the fronts I folded it just above and below the midpoint and cut out two pieces so they would overlap. The monster's eyes and teeth are felt. I did the monster first, and when it came time to do the dinosaur one, I think it took about 5 minutes total.

The monster (we call him Cleveland) is for my husband, but we are both getting a big kick out of him.  It's incredible how putting eyes on something gives it so much personality.  But the dinosaurs are pretty cool, too - here is my favorite (I like his goofy teeth):