Ex Patria

Henrietta

When Doug is gone, I sew more.  I don't know why this is -- I'm alone a lot and in the evenings, when I'm done with putting kids away and cleaning up the kitchen and I'm not going to haul out the vacuum cleaner at 9 pm, I sit down and sew.

I sewed a sleeping bag for Leah which I made up as I went along and it's nice but the shoulders sit too high.  That's easily remedied, though, and maybe I'll get around to it on the weekend.

A project that was both fun and exasperating was Henrietta.  For some reason, I made a bunch of stupid mistakes and when I realized it, I very patiently ripped all the seams open and started from scratch.  It eventually turned out... nice.  Not perfect - I couldn't get the legs stuffed and also they ended up being too short as I had already notched the curves before I ripped the seams and re-sewed the entire thing.  So now the belly touches the ground and not the legs.  It's a bit wobbly, and I hate it when things don't turn out the way they should -- but somehow, she's growing on me.  So she's all wrinkly and wobbly - she fits right into this crazy wobbly household.  Sweet Henrietta (yes, the kit is called Edna but I think Henrietta suits her much better).  I'm absolutely not sure I would ever make another but that's okay.

Here she is:

And now I have to put kids to bed.

3-2-1 Finished!

I've always wanted to quilt.  I love quilts, and I especially love baby quilts.  Something about them just makes me all warm inside. 

I've had the idea to make a keepsake quilt for the kids from their baby clothes.  I've kept some little outfits of theirs and thought it would be cute to make a baby quilt or throw out of them -- after all, if you put the clothes into a box, you hardly ever look at them again, right?

I even cut some squares but then I got overwhelmed.  I just didn't think I could do it.

Then, yesterday, I read this blog post by Modern Organics.  (H/T to Everyday Beautiful.)  And I thought to myself, surely even I would be able to do this?

So I got to work.  Remember the bumpers I made for Leah's crib?  I had tons of fabric left from this line of fabric by Sandi Henderson, already bought for this purpose.  (I conveniently forgot about that.)  So I cut, and arranged, and sewed.  I sat down at around 7 pm or so, and I was done before 11 pm.

That might seem a long time to accomplished quilters but I took it slowly, and kids interfered for a while, and all that.  But I'm rather pleased with the outcome:

 

The tutorial is just great and I loved every step of making the quilt.  I'm rather ridiculously proud of it - especially the fact that it all squares up and such. How a piece of fabric can make one so skippily happy is a bit embarrassing.

I arranged and rearranged the fabrics for some time to figure out the best combo.  The back looks like this:

See those quilting lines?  I went ahead with Melanie's suggestion and simply quilted wild diagonal lines and it really makes this quilt a quilt, rather than just another patched baby blanket.  I love how it looks like the palm of a hand.

Here's the beauty one more time:

 

It will now go and live in Leah's bed.  Oh, the finished measurements are 90x120 cm -- I tweaked the US measurements a bit to fit European standards -- and my quilting ruler.

I thought I could embroider Leah's name on the back somewhere in a corner but that will have to wait at least until tomorrow since I have no embroidery yarn in the house.

I'm afraid that now I'm hooked. I'm already debating ordering those cute organic fabrics from Melanie's store for some lucky baby.  Or maybe I should make a bigger one for my niece's birthday?  And then there are all those baby clothes sitting next to my desk...  We shall see.

Upside down pants

Here's an important lesson:  You cut your fabrics correctly and you want to sew the sides up like described in the instructions but they don't fit.  You try the paper pattern and you check the cutting and you see that the pattern is actually not symmetrical.  You ignore this all and plow ahead and you have to futz around and cut some fabric off to make it all work...  in the end, the pants look nice and adorable although you wonder why they didn't give you a guide for the top hem but instead for the bottom...  then you might want to consider that you had the pattern upside down! D'uh.

I'd bought this really cute pattern from Farbenmix.  It contains several pieces - a jacket, a T-shirt, a pair of normal pants, a pair of comfy pants.  I have hesitated making anything because the pattern mainly calls for jersey fabrics and jersey and I, we are not friends. But yesterday, I looked at this pretty jersey I had bought ages ago and thought, I should do something with this.  Also, the kids were playing quietly, Leah was not clinging to me (anymore) like a barnacle, so what to do with all that spare time?

I cut the paper pattern while chatting to my cousin on the phone.  Bad mistake.  She can tell you that I said to her, "I probably shouldn't cut the fabric while having one ear on the phone", and when I tried to line the sides up and said, "Huh, that's funny, those sides don't match!" and then, "That's even weirder, the original paper pattern doesn't match up either."

Well, no, they didn't.  What I tried to match up as the inside seam of the legs was really the front and back seams of the lap part.  But instead of slowing down and rethinking the entire venture, I went ahead and futzed.  Out came this:

It's cute if somewhat... shapeless.  It wasn't until I decided to make a second pair from a different piece of fabric that I had the idea to check the website of Farbenmix.  Conveniently (I forgot), they have step-by-step photo instructions on their site.  Then it dawned on me...

The second pair fits much better although the first one works well, too.  In those sizes, such a mistake isn't too horrible, plus I learned to sew jersey.  Then I went ahead and made the shirt too, just because.  I don't really love the fabric pattern (those stripes are very... I don't know.  They remind me of something but I can't quite say of what).  But the sewing was easy and the outcome very satisfying.

I also finally finished the dress for Leah's first birthday:

And I got all those cloth napkins sewn that I had started, oh so long ago.  Now everybody has a cloth napkin and now we'll save money and resources on paper towels and paper napkins, yay!  I just better not forget to wash them regularly...

Words you live to regret

I sewed the dress for my niece yesterday.

I took a Burda pattern and changed it a bit.  I took out the godets because I didn't like them, and made the dress with the sleeves.  It was my first time with sleeves and I was a bit apprehensive that I could make it work.  But hey!  It worked out nicely:

I got the first sleeve in and it looked nice.  I showed it to the husband and he approved.  It was getting late and I said to him, "You know, I'll just quickly sew in the other sleeve and then I call it a day.  I'll do the hemming tomorrow."

"Quickly" and "sew" should not be used in the same sentence, at least not by me:

Nicely sewn in.  Fits and all. But it's INSIDE OUT!

Seam ripper, my old, friend, where are you hiding?

Pay it forward

Let's see if I can get you guys to comment.  I know I have quite a few readers, only nobody talks to me. 

Here's a meme I first encountered on Facebook when my friend Monique posted it.  I really wanted something cool from her (she's a great photographer and also has incredibly good taste) but I couldn't imagine what the hey I could make that anybody would actually want from me.

Then I started the MSCE challenge and now I have plenty of ideas - weird ones, cool ones, impractical ones, odd ones, nice ones, great ones, really small ones.  And then Dot from the MSCE fame posted it on her blog but I was too late to register as one of the five commenters.  But then I thought, so what? I'll just do it anyway!  Here is how it works:

The first five (5) people to respond to this post will get something made by me.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. Whatcha get is whatcha get.
2. What I create will be just for you, with love.
3. It’ll be done this year (2009).
4. I will not give you any clue what it’s going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be weird or beautiful. Or it may be monstrous and annoying. Heck, I might bake something for you and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something strange.
6. In return, all you need to do is post this text on your blog and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to your blog post.
7. Send your mailing address - after I contact you. (Be sure to leave a working email!)

IMPORTANT: The fun part of this is keeping it going, so don't forget to post this text on your blog if you want to play. This text was used from dabbled.

And now, comment, people.  I'll die from embarrassment if nobody comments on this one.

Creative April Day 4 - Constellations!

I'm tired.  We worked in the yard all day long.  It looks fabulous but I'm really, really tired.  Jacob is having a sleep-over at his Oma's, Leah is sleeping peacefully, the boys and Doug are off to the movies to watch "Monsters vs. Aliens".  Before I take that Häagen-Dasz ice cream and curl up with a mystery novel, here's my five-minute easy-peasy impressive craft of the day:  Teach your child the constellations with window cling scraps and craft punches!

Get some solid colored window clings (I had left-overs from another craft I did with the boys last year) and your craft punches. Punch out stars.

Peel off the backing and arrange your punched-out stars in constellations on your kid's window.
Ta-dah!

 

You can even get fancy and include galaxies into your constellations.

Actually, it taks less than five minutes but kids love it.  Well, mine do.

PS: I had really nice pictures made but now Typepad acts funny and doesn't want to upload them.  I'll try again later.  Or tomorrow.  That ice cream and I, we still have this date...

Creative April Day 3 - Snail Garden Day 2 and headband

Gorgeous weather, so we spent almost all day outside.  I'm not sure how much a protracted project counts for the challenge, so just an update on the snail garden - it's coming on real slow (snail, slow, get it? as my kids would say).  We had no time to get the stones for the walls today - the trailer was full of composty dirt that needed to be worked into the flower beds and rose garden.  We did fill the bucket with water though as it might take some days for the sand to settle - which will be never as my boys think it's the best thing ever to dig up the sand in the bucket.  Hrmph.

And here's my project for today: a headband made with a free pattern by the talented Heather Bailey:

Looks nice in the cherry tree, doesn't look half bad with my hair color, either.  The girl likes it, so she may get one too...

Picture taken by husband, with love (he insisted).  Of course, with the 70s charm of the headband, maybe the picture should look like this:

(Made with the Polaroid image maker.)

Tomorrow, there will be more yard work, lots more.  Not sure we can get the stones for the snail garden before everything closes at 1 pm (we are in Germany, after all).  However, I did finally get the fabric for Leah's crib bumper, so I hope I can get started on that.  I also got loads of ribbons (I love me some ribbons) and some very cool velours stickers for clothing.  Om, is all I say today.

Creative April Day 2 - Snail garden Day One

No, it's not a garden for snails.  It's called "Kräuterschnecke" in German, which means "herb snail".  It's a three-dimensional herb garden that looks sort of like this:

(I nicked this picture from Garten Fröhlich. Ours is supposed to look similar but not exactly the same.)

The point is to get four different vegetation zones - wet, moist, normal and dry, for the different kitchen herbs which require different climate zones.  You get to mimick their natural habitats - from swampy to sandy.  You start out with a little water feature - in our case, a giant bucket.  Then you add the stone walls, creating a snail shape (thus the name!), ending two feet higher than you started out with a "Mediterranean zone".   And then you get to plant gazillions of herbs, yay!  I love herbs.  I use fresh herbs a lot and it will be great to have an actual herb garden.  Also, we needed some focal point in the backyard which is all level plains, and there was this big bare spot which needed covering up.

So we dug a hole.  A giant hole, and somehow we got in the way of roots.  Tap roots.  Strong, fricking huge roots. I mean, they look like alien monster roots, if you ask me.  Maybe this was because that bare spot in the garden had, suprise! a tree taken down some years ago? D'uh!

We got it barely deep enough.  We think that with the surrounding fieldstones, in the end it will be all right. Maybe we can scrape out some more centimeters tomorrow when we continue the project Snail Garden.  And what did you know, of course the boys want goldfish in the miniature pond. I'm very dubious about that.

So, Creative April.  Me, I think digging a giant hole in your backyard is plenty cool for the challenge, no?

Something creative

Over at Dabbled, Nancy is challenging me (well, not personally) to do something cool every day for the month of April.  Since I'm doing this anyway right now, I feel up to the challenge. I'm never one for perseverance so this will be interesting.  Unfortunately, for you guys this will mean lots of posts/pictures about my crafty period.  I hope you will indulge me!

Are you creative?  Join in on the fun!

What you do when the sky falls on your head

I guess you panic.  And I'm not panicking.  Which means the sky is not falling.

We've just lost a few leads on prospective and/or fairly certain short-term/long-term jobs.  The fact that I'm not in panic illustrates the ultimate faith I have in my husband's abilities to find work, and his brilliance, and that someone will see this brilliance and offer him a wonderful job.  Because that's exactly what will happen.

So, there, fate.  Bite me.

(Doug will wince. He's part Irish, and Irish people are superstitious, even if they are not, if you understand what I mean.)

In other news, I finished another project.  Going off on a not complete sequitur, here comes one advantage when your relatives don't read your blog: you're free to talk about them, and to show birthday presents in advance without a care that you might spoil a surprise. 

So my niece is turning 7 in a week, and she'll be celebrating in Florida with her family and my in-laws.  That's entirely wonderful and they will have a great time, I'm sure.  We asked what we could give her as a present and the answer was uninspiring:  Books.

Don't get me wrong, I love books.  I buy a lot of books.  I read a lot of books. But I don't see the little girl in question more than maybe once a year, and I have no idea what she's read and what she likes.  So I had the idea to sew her a summer dress.  She can wear it now as she's in Florida, and she can wear it in two weeks when it gets hot and humid in DC. (Just kidding.)

I chose a very simple design, and a beautiful fabric.  Alan picked out the ribbon that I appliqued on the dress, and voila!  The perfect summer dress.  The nice thing and the bad thing all wrapped up in one: I learned a lot (zippers!) and I had to fudge a bit.  But it turned out like it was intended, and I think it's a nice enough present.