Indigo Mouse

My wonky log cabin blocks are coming along swimmingly. I finished the first eight blocks. Now I need to measure the wall on which I plan to hang the quilt to figure out how many more blocks I’ll need to make. I put up some white flannel over my sewing table for a design wall, so I could audition block layouts. I still can’t decide if I want to frame them with white sashing, or join them with no sashing. (The colors aren’t quite that bright–my camera was struggling with those oranges in the weird winter light.)

With sashing

With the white space in between (above), each block is like an individual piece of art. Without the sashing (below) the wonky blocks interact and create a lot of movement in the overall quilt. Any votes? (Mom, I know you suggested black sashing, but we just bought an almost black bedroom set, so I think that would be too much dark color in the room.)

Without sashing

When I started these blocks, intentionally didn’t do all of them at once because I planned to incorporate some Connecting Threads fabric collections that I knew were upcoming. Now they’ve finally arrived. I just love these brights! The top row is a bunch of fat quarters from the new Sip of Summer collection, and the bottom row is from Cheep Talk.

New bright collections from Connecting Threads

So fun!

While I muse on the wonky log cabin quilt, I’m also still considering my options for the Macaron Dress. I’ve picked out the top fabric, but I can’t decide between an orange Kaffe Fasset Shot Cotton or a brown lightweight corduroy for the bottom. The corduroy seems like the safe choice, but the combo with the orange is so fun.

Fabric options for Macaron Dress

Would it be totally crazy to wear a handmade dress made with butterfly fabric on top and orange fabric on the bottom? I’m thinking I’ll use the corduroy no matter what at some point–it’s just a matter of if it goes with the butterfly print or not. Oh, and I picked out some orange piping for the bodice and waistband accents. Oh, piping, how I love you so.

2009 was my least productive crafting year, not just in total number of projects completed, but in projects that turned out well. No big surprise, really, seeing as how much my time was limited and my attention divided. What surprised me though is how much I actually changed as a crafter. Before motherhood, I never understood the crafters who didn’t want to think about their projects–who just wanted to sit and knit miles of stockinette and follow a pattern to a tee. I used to love planning projects, making modifications, and figuring things out for myself. Now I just don’t have time for all that. I can get in some rows of knitting while riding in the car on a trip to Costco or Babies ‘R’ Us or while sitting in a meeting at work, but that’s about it. Those environments aren’t particularly conducive to actually applying brainpower to the project. The best evidence of this is with my most recent finished sweater (Ravelry details). Yep, I finally finished it–four months after I started.

Let's get this FO photo over with.

As you can see, this is not a flattering or very wearable sweater. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but I know it isn’t getting any rotation into my wardrobe. As I was knitting it, there were all kinds of red flags that were popping up along the way. Old me would have stopped and addressed the issues as they came up. New me just kept following the pattern because I didn’t have the time to stop and rework it. It’s very easy to get upset when projects don’t turn out because of how limited my time is, but I’ve decided to remain positive on this one. I’m going to borrow Peacock Chic’s FO format this time because it really works on this one:

THE GOOD:
- I tried out Mary Scott Huff’s steeked sleeves technique and loved it.
- The yarn was a pleasure to work with, and I did end up liking the stripe pattern.
- The pattern directions were clear, especially the tubular cast on and bind off directions–two techniques I’d never done.
- I had something mindless to knit and keep my lap warm all fall.
- This was my first pieced sweater, and while I don’t like how hard it is to judge fit, I do actually like seaming. Go ahead and call me crazy.
- I learned how to knit ribbing continental style, which made it much less tedious.

THE BAD:
- The body of the sweater is about 2 inches too short to be worn comfortably.
- The armholes of the sweater are too shallow, so the shoulders end up much too wide.
- Because it was pieced and sewn together, there is no way I am ripping it out and redoing it.

THE UGLY:
- Because of the wide shoulders and the placement of the yellow stripe at top, I look like a linebacker.
- There is no shirt I could wear underneath that would look good because of how the sweater wants to fall off my shoulders.

So there you have it. I’m going to count this as a sweater fail, but as a entertainment value success. I learned lots of great techniques and enjoyed working with some lovely yarn. Maybe I should rename this the Pollyanna sweater.

Since getting back into sewing this past couple of years, I’ve noticed that there’s tons of cute baby patterns, toy patterns, and home decor patterns, but I can never find good clothing patterns for me–especially using cotton fabric as opposed to knits. As an extreme hourglass, most patterns don’t have enough shaping to them to be feasible. Recently, however, I discovered the Portland clothing designer Sarai Mitnick and her new line of Colette Patterns. So perfect! Her patterns have that retro flare that I love with shaping for curves, and they use the fabrics that I want to sew with.

I decided that I had to try one of the Colette Patterns, so I picked the Macaron Dress and promptly drove down to Bolt in the pouring rain with a baby in tow to get the pattern locally (and browse their fabric, since I’d never been there). What a fantastic little shop! I had a terrible time picking out which fabric I wanted for the dress. I’m still not sure about what I ultimately picked (I’m too lazy to go take a photo of it). I don’t know why I can pick out fabric for quilts, baby clothes, etc so easily but freeze up creatively when it comes to clothing for myself.

Anyway, after my clothing sewing disaster with the Juliet tunic, I got smart and decided to do a muslin this time, using some cotton fabric I had yards of leftover from an even older sewing disaster (do we sense a theme?). It took me several weekends, but I am so glad I did it. Not only did I discover what I think is an error in the pattern template, but after trying it on, I think I’m going to skip the pockets. They are cleverly concealed in the pleats, which is cool, but it means the pleat has to go down quite a ways and my short waist and wide hips need the room sooner. So it will be shorter pleats for me. Here’s a photo of the muslin on my dress form (It actually looks better on me, but I was not about to show a photo of me wearing it, since it’s skin colored fabric and there’s a big slit in the side where the invisible zipper will go–this isn’t that kind of blog!)

Overall I’m very pleased with the pattern. It’s very nicely written and presented, and I’m looking forward to making the real version with my fancy fabric. Oh, I almost forgot: The muslin was a good excuse to try using pattern weights and cutting out the fabric with a rotary cutter. Long ago when I learned to sew, it was all about pinning the pattern to the fabric and cutting with scissors, which was always puckery and slow for me. The rotary/pattern weights method is awesome! So much faster and more precise.

I was going to buy pattern weights, but when I saw how much they cost ($2.50 each), I decided to make my own using some big flat pieces of metal from the rebar section at Home Depot and hot glueing that no-skid drawer liner stuff to them. Each weight cost about half of what a commercial pattern weight costs. Cha-ching!

The past six months or so there weren’t any fabric collections that came out that really spoke to me, so I’ve been very good about stash acquisition. Until now, of course. I like to splurge on colorful fabric in the depths of winter, and there is finally lots of awesome fabric out there to splurge on.

Recent additions to the stash: On the left is a mix of 1/2 yard cuts that appealed to me, on the right are random scraps that I got as a grab-bag, and in the middle is the pièce de résistance, the elusive Echino Birdsong print in green. I only managed to score 1/2 a yard, so I’m a little unsure what to do with it as of yet. Any ideas on how to best use a panel of 18″ wide by 45″ tall fabric without much mutilation? I’m thinking either some kind of organizer, a growth chart, or just plain old decoration.

While I was taking photos at my cutting table, I had to get a photo of my Christmas gift from Jason, which is accented here by a pile o’ tabby.

It’s a light therapy light that has an adjustable stand and can double as a work light. I have a hard time doing any sewing in winter in the evening because I block the overhead light, so I can’t see what I’m doing. Jason has very nicely solved that problem. This thing is great! Maybe I’ll have more energy in the evenings now as well.

As for actual crafting, I’m still plugging away at my wonky log cabin blocks. I am almost done with the sleeves of my striped sweater, but it was set aside to knit Turkish slippers for my sister for Christmas (which are still not done–a hazard of writing the pattern as I go). Oh, and I did finish the mystery knitalong project, which has now been dubbed the “Elegant Organizer”.

I swapped out a couple of the colors on the second side, so I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. It has a zipper on three sides with a fabric lining and pockets on the inside. I am glad to have that off my plate, though I do still have to write up the pattern in a complete and compact form for non-mystery knitters. It’s hard to be motivated to do it because it’s one of the last loose ends I need to wrap up at work in my old job. I just got a big promotion that takes me away from the knitting part of the company and plants me firmly on the fabric side of things. I’m a manager now, so it’s weird to wrap my head around having a job that’s 90% planning and directing, rather than actual doing. I’ve always been a “do-er”. I also won’t be doing graphic design, which will be a big adjustment. The promotion does come with some perks including my own office that has been recently painted and carpeted. There’s a big blank wall, and I’m thinking this is the ticket for decorating.

You know how you’ll blog something in your head, but then don’t have time to actually write it out? And then by the time you do have time, you are so over the project and don’t really want to talk about it? Yeah, that’s where I’m at. I’m hoping if I just get this post out of the way, I can resume my usual blogging.

Last December I made a quilt top with some fun flannel fabric and then it sat neatly folded up with the backing and everything. Alice didn’t need another small baby quilt, so I figured I’d save it for a gift. Well, some friends of ours recently had a baby girl, so I decided that it was time to finish it up. This turned out to be a horrible, massive baby quilt fail. My first mistake was quilting a spiral. It looks really cool, but despite my pinning of the layers, the entire thing shifted in a spiral-like direction, so that in order to make it square the top and bottom look ridiculously crooked. Ugh.

There was no way I was going to take out the machine quilting, so I decided to just forge onward, despite the crookedness. Then, I bought some yellow flannel for the binding, but I managed to buy just not enough and didn’t discover that fact until I had cut it all up into strips. Disgusted, I bought pre-packaged yellow binding (which I’d never used before). So then the binding looked lame because of the unevenness that results with sewing both sides on at the same time.

Undaunted, I embroidered the name on the back (which can double as a front). Because the baby is half Japanese, half American, I had her dad send me the Japanese version, so I could embroider that on as well. I chose the phonetic, casual version. I was quite proud of my embroidery–the best stem stitch I’ve ever managed.

Then, I washed the quilt to prepare it for packaging and shipping. Not wanting to waste a laundry opportunity, I threw in some of Alice’s blankets that needed washing. Of course, one of those blankets was a brown fuzzy number that got little brown pills all over the flannel on the baby quilt (as you can see in the above photo). Resigned to my fate, I sat down in front of the TV to laboriously pick the pills off and discovered this:

That’s right, one of my pieced seams had raveled and was exposing batting. Why? Because this was the baby quilt of doom. It just was not meant to be. It was at this point that I decided to scrap the whole thing. I was tempted just to buy a present to send, but I looked through my supply of quilting books and found the perfect pattern.

In the book, it’s a duvet cover, but I decided to make mine a blankie, so I sewed it shut and put soft, fuzzy fabric on the back. No quilting, batting or binding for me. No sir. And applique? That I can do.

(The only thing that bugs be about the applique is that you can see the pieces underneath. Does anyone have a solution for that?)