the busy heart

The only way I'm staying sane lately is to make objects for baby. At night when I can't sleep, I imagine her nursery in great detail, and then I send Sam to the fabric store (what a hero, no?) and in the evenings, after I've worked from home, I turn on Netflixed sitcoms and make whatever has struck my fancy. One morning I woke up with the idea to make the baby a stuffed monster. Sam and I dig those Ugly Dolls . You know the ones? (I think you either get them and love them or you don't ... we love them.) And we've talked about getting her one. But it occurred to me I'd like to make her one, and this was the result. Sam loves the monster, and was soon very excited about her photo shoot. He wanted a picture of her everywhere, as you'll see. (She was loosely inspired by these monsters , which I found whilst Pinteresting, of course.) Her mouth, eye, and hair are all felt. Her legs are orange on the back and yellow on the front. I hand-sewed the whole thing...

Some time back I began to experience angst about how hard it is to find modest dresses. When I got pregnant, I developed an instant aversion (okay, inability) to wear anything aside from flowy and loose dresses with leggings, and it began to just irritate me that everything I bought had to be paired with a tank-top (because it was too low-cut), a sweater (because it was sleeveless), and/or leggings (because it was too short). Quite often, I had to add all three, and I began to just be annoyed as I put on all of those layers of clothes. The point of dresses was to be easy ; the point of dresses was to have nothing touching me. Wearing a dress andandand missed the point. And really, while I don't generally get indignant about this stuff, I began to wonder what is wrong with this world that I can't find a dress that doesn't expose my goodies. I mean, I confess my aim for modesty is related to my religious tradition, but it also it just seems like I'm a grown woman , you ...

So, I have a dear friend who lives in Utah and has two exquisite boys and I had a Christmas present for her, but I forgot it at home when I saw her over Christmas, and it only took me until, oh, March, to actually send it. But! It was because I decided to make a gift for the exquisite boys as well. And here is what I made. A bunny and a giraffe. Both were Pinterest-inspired . I made the bunny first, and when I finished it Sam rather sheepishly but utterly sincerely asked, "Ummm, may I have the bunny?" How could I say no to that request? So the first bunny lives on his bedside table, and I made another. Both bunnies were made from a shirt Sam used to wear while we were dating, and this shirt, whenever he would wear it, would make me swoon. So I am glad the bunnies are wearing it now. I am pleased with how the giraffe turned out, too. It's for a baby boy. I even bought a cheap (and exceedingly ugly) soft rattle toy and dissected it, stole its rattle, and used it for ...

I got an iPad some time back, and I am loving it.  But I needed some kind of cover for it.  There's a little special cover that they sell with them, but it flops open if it's in your bag, and I can't have that , so I was using a plastic gallon-size ziploc, and thinking I would have to buy another cover and thinking it was going to cost me 40 bucks or something to get a decent one, and then it hit me: I sew!  I know how to do that thing.  And I have fabric that I fell in love with sometime back and haven't put to use.  And 30 minutes later, I had an iPad case.  I can't describe how happy this made me.  To have a problem, and to have made my own solution and carried it out and had it be pretty to boot.  I kept walking around my house saying, "I made a thing!  I made a thing!" and Sam kept saying, "Yep, you sure did."  It was a happy evening. I took pictures.  And Sprouty insisted on modeling.  She is the queen.  We mu...

There once was a shirt.  It looked like this: It grew too big for me.  Much too big.  But I liked the pattern so much--look at those delightful, firework-y bursts of white!--that I saved and saved it, thinking I must someday do something with it. Yesterday, I did something.  Before work I took that gathered bottom of the shirt and turned it into the top of a skirt.  This was very exciting.  I used the sleeves to give it a bit more length, at which point I had the following:  [I'm shy about the pictures, so I'm posting the awkward ones ...] Not too bad, eh?  I rather liked how it turned out.  I may have gone a bit crazy adding color, but I'm having way too much fun to tone things down.  The skirt is actually just the top piece.  I also made the little lacey petticoat type skirt over the weekend, which is what's underneath here.  I've been wearing it under skirts and dresses that are just a...

Remember the friend who made the miraculous quilt ? She's teaching me to quilt, too.  I thought I was just going to learn to use the sewing machine I got for Christmas, that maybe we'd make a skirt or something equally simple, but when we got to fabric store, E had a plan.  "A quilt," she said, "is the best way to learn to sew. All straight lines."  And so we picked out fabric, went back to my house, and while the husbands played guitars and talked about music, and sweet potatoes roasted in the oven, we cut out little squares and spread them out according to a chart that E drew up in about ten seconds.  This is what it looked like, spread out (with cat). (This is the thing about cats: they seem to get quilts.  When you even suggest you might make one, they know we're dealing with a potential blanket right off, and commence utilizing it.) I found something fascinating once I got the hang of putting those rows toget...