Indigo Mouse

I’m home with a sick James today, who is now napping, so it’s the perfect chance to sneak a blog update in. With all of the gorgeous summer weather we’ve had here this spring, I realized that James needed a new sun hat. That realization and the discovery that I already had the perfect pattern in the Liesel Gibson’s book Little Things to Sew was all the prompting I needed to do some kiddo sewing. I love it when I can make a project without buying anything!

James’ hat came first from a solid oatmeal colored linen fabric and a woven plaid. I had about given up getting a modeled shot of the hat, since he would always whip it off instantly, but miraculously he left his hat on this weekend at the park. (I think when it’s really sunny and hot, he likes it.) So I chased him around the park (literally) with my phone camera, taking whatever pictures I could.

Of course, when Alice saw me making a hat for James, she just had to have one, and we had fun picking out the fabrics together from my stash. The funny thing was that Alice and James wear the same hat size, so that made all the cutting and marking easy! (As you can imagine, there are many So I Married an Axe Murderer “head” quotes bandied about our house.)

Alice picked out a lovely Erin McMorris print for her hat, and I talked her into lining it with a yellow Violet Craft print that coordinated perfectly. I was thrilled with the fabric she picked and a bit surprised, since she’s been in an “everything pink” mood lately. She was satisfied with the occasional pink flower of this print however.

She was an easier model, but there were definitely a lot of goofing around outtakes to sort through…

As for the pattern itself, I found it to be quick & easy, though obviously there’s a lot of sewing curves. I made a small mod with Alice’s hat where I sewed in the lining of the crown with RST and left a hole to turn it through, hand stitching just 2 inches or so, versus hand stitching the entire thing as the pattern instructs. It was easier with better results that way. I definitely see more of these hats in our future.

I have two hand-knit sweaters taking up space in my closet that I’d like to find I home for. I bought them during a sample sale when I worked at Knit Picks, but I was pregnant at the time, so I couldn’t try them on. Turns out, they are a skosh too small, and the Alpaca content in them itches my neck. I’d like to sell them for $30 each, plus shipping. It doesn’t matter to me if you want to wear them yourself or sell them in your Etsy shop. I just want them to have a good home.

Here are the details on each:

Sweater #1

Red cable & bobble sweater (I’m not sure the pattern). Size as best I can guess is a Small, about 32″. I can take the exact measurements for whomever is interested. The sleeves are nice and long, and it was knit and finished beautifully. The yarn used is Knit Picks City Tweed Heavy Worsted, in Blueblood I believe (photos show it true to hue, if a little on the light side).

Sweater #2

Gee’s Bend Pullover pattern knit with Knit Picks Andean Silk (colors as shown). Size is probably a medium, around 34″. Again, I can measure exactly if you’re interested. This one fits me, but I find the sleeves are slightly too short for my monkey arms, and it’s a bit snug for wearing a shirt underneath, which I have to do with alpaca blends. It was knit and finished very nicely.

First come, first served. Leave a comment if you’re interested, and I can get you a quote on shipping over email. Payment would be paypal.

So yeah, 4 months since my last post. I guess I predicted fairly well the hiatus that my new job would cause. Posting will be pretty sporadic at best, and reading blogs? Let’s just say I am woefully behind in everything that’s going on in the crafting world and leave it at that. I barely have enough time to actually do any sewing or knitting. But if I think about that too much, it’s a little depressing, so…moving on!

The dress I am forcing myself to blog about fits the overall theme of this post because it is one I started about 2 years ago. I blogged about finishing the muslin version of this Monique Dress in 2011 (see this post–oh my Alice is so little!), and cut out the pieces to make a “real version” with more expensive fabric shortly afterward. However, life got in the way, mainly in the form of finding out that I was pregnant and losing the steam to make a dress that wouldn’t fit me. With nursing all last year, I wasn’t able to wear dress like this either, so the cut pieces sat in the closet, neatly bundled. I thought about them often though, loving the Joel Dewberry fabric, so I recently resurrected this project.

I look quite pleased with myself, don’t I? This time I added about 6 inches of length to the bottom AND added a contrasting hem band. I hope it’s enough after it’s washed. My last Monique dress shrunk so much that I have to wear it with leggings, as modest as I am. You’d think I’d prewash my fabric, but meh. Prewashing takes time I don’t have, and I like the crispness of the factory finish to work with while cutting and sewing.

Here’s a peek at the back and the invisible zipper:

Next time I will use a non-directional fabric for the hem band I think. I ended up with two obvious seams. I could have avoided one by matching the pattern when I joined the strips, but it would have been unavoidable where the band joins together at the back. It doesn’t bug me too much though, and it’s still the perfect dress pattern for quilting cotton.

Soon I’ll be transitioning to a new full-time job, so I don’t know how often I’ll be able to post here. The new job is exciting, but it also adds a significant commute time, which I don’t relish. Anyway, one of the fun things that I’ve gotten to do at The Fabric Shop Network was to create a banner for the Visit Your Local Quilt Shop Day campaign. The banner was based on this graphic that FabShop’s talented designer, Crissy, created:

Click Here for More Info

And here’s the banner I created:

Grainy phone photo taken of me holding the banner up in the office.

What’s cool is that this banner hung in the FabShop Fall Quilt Market booth, and it was held up by many people over the course of Market. My favorite part was recreating Crissy’s patchwork heart and finding the right fabrics to match her color scheme.

I did the heart in reverse applique with two layers. The letters are fusible applique with hand stitching around the white outlines. The double layer of applique and the fact that I quilted around them makes them really poof out nicely.

I’m sharing all of this with you guys because I know most of you sew and take great pictures, and I want you to enter the Quilt Shop Day photo contest. Hop on over to Facebook and check out the contest. If you have a local brick-and-mortar independent quilt or fabric shop you frequent, all you have to do is take a picture of your quilt shop and enter it before January 24. I can think of some fun ideas to do with this, but I can’t enter. I do know that it’s important to convey the “quilt shop love” and include people. The prizes are amazing! The winner gets a sewing machine and $500 to spend at their LQS. There are also 10 awesome runner up packages, so go enter! (I’m talking to you Sara, Jacey, Jessica, Nicke, Michelle, Evelyn, and anyone else who reads this that I may have forgotten.)

I attended a trade show for work a few months ago and had the pleasure of meeting Jason Yenter of In the Beginning Fabrics, a fabric company from Seattle. Jason showed us his upcoming collections, and one that particularly caught my eye was Mooshka by Julie Paschkis. The Mooshka collection has a companion children’s book that came out this March, and all the fabrics in the collection are illustrated in the book. I didn’t have time to read the story closely at the show, so I recently asked Jason if he’d send me a copy. Being the nice guy that he is, he did.

I’m always on the lookout for good children’s books that have crafting of various sorts in them. There are dozens of them that feature knitting, but I’ve had a hard time finding good quilting ones. The ones I have found are too pedantic and not very entertaining. It’s like the author has set out to write a children’s book about quilting and it’s very forced. (Alice loves the book Mother Earth and Her Children, but the fact that the illustration in the book is actually a big quilt escapes her, so I don’t really count that one.)

Anyway, Mooshka is the first quilting-themed book that gets my enthusiastic stamp of approval. Alice was delighted by it. The story is very sweet, and it’s perfect for a child with a baby sibling. We’ve made a game of finding the fabric pattern that matches the illustration on each page, which she loves. Alice enjoys mimicking things she sees, so when I suggested that we take a picture like the one on the cover, she was thrilled.

We didn’t try to get the cat in the picture, as getting James to cooperate was enough of a struggle. They had fun with it though.

While taking these pictures, I realized that we don’t really have any patchwork quilts in the house that are completely scrappy and big enough for snuggling. The one we used just barely fit the two kids underneath. I’m resolving to remedy that next year. I will have to pick up some of the Mooshka fabrics when they come out this January, as they are full of colorful folk-art charm–perfect for mixing into a scrap quilt.