Notes of a Middle Child

Reason #305 why I love my neighborhood

I had a lovely day in New Haven with my sister Saturday and took the Metro North train back in the evening.  I'm so grateful for this train.  My older sis lived in LA for many years and we were only able to get together a few times a year if we were lucky.  Now it just seems amazing that I can pay $14 to see her in less than 2 hours.  The only downside to returning home on Saturday night is that everyone in Connecticut is heading into the city for the evening.  If you take the 4 or 5 pm train, you get cute kids and their parents heading in to catch a Broadway show.  But if you take the 6, 7, or 8 train you get college students heading in for a night of partying.  The ride is often rowdy and crowded (as it was last night) and I just put on my headphones and settle in for a podcast marathon.  Despite the raucousness of the train ride, it was a fun day.  The cherry on top, however, was stepping off the subway in my neighborhood to the sound of Star Wars.  Our small neighborhood park plays movies once a week in the summer and I always seem to miss them.  So I was thrilled to catch the last half hour of Star Wars last night - cool weather, a nice seat on the base of a statue, surrounded by neighbors, a movie I love on a big screen!  Ah, Carroll Gardens, I do love you so!

Pizza Porn

I wish I could send everyone a slice!

After such amazing fall weather, it went and got hot again!  But the forecast looks season-appropriate next week so I'll cool my jets and keep waiting patiently for true fall.  I'm heading to New Haven, CT tomorrow to spend the day with my big sister who turned the big 3-5.  We usually shop when we get together and on tomorrow's agenda is: a) pants that fit b) a new lipstick c) those dream boots I've been looking for for the past 15 years.  Wish me luck!   

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...

Just the Blogosphere.  It wasn't planned, but as I got busier and busier with life it just seemed easier and easier to ignore the blog.  Pangs of guilt would hit at times especially as I saw all the great projects and posts on everyone else's blogs, but I recover from guilt rather quickly!  Anyway, if anyone is still reading, I'm sorry for dropping out for a few weeks!

Ah, fall...it is hands down my favorite season.  Being a school nerd, it always meant new school supplies, new school shoes (I wore a uniform through 8th grade so the excitement of new school clothes didn't kick in until high school) and kicking leaves around on the walk to school.  I still feel like my calendar year really starts in September rather than January.  Just in the past few days fall weather has blown in - literally, it's been windy - and I'm loving it.  Jeans and sweaters - my old friends, how are ya! 

Do I have any sewing projects to show you?  Nope!  After a year of working from home on my own schedule, I've taken a freelance job for a few months that requires me to - gasp! - put on real clothes and sit at a real desk in a real office for a few months.  It's at a company I worked at for over a year so besides getting up with an alarm clock every day, the adjustment has been pretty smooth and it's nice to work with friends again.  But, heck, how does anyone work a full-time job and still have time for life's necessary errands like laundry and grocery shopping!  That was something I'd forgotten about.  Getting home at 7:30 and just starting to think about dinner is a real drag.  All I want to do is eat something and crash in front of the tv for a few hours.  Oh, and I'm still blogging thrice daily for these guys so that takes up a lot of my free time.  So sewing has been sitting on the back burner for awhile. 

I recently added all my blogs to Google Reader.  Have you done this or used Bloglines yet?  Wow, it's really changed how I read blogs.  I used to check each blog in my little favorites folder one-by-one to see if there were any new posts.  It's so much easier for Google Reader to just let me know when they've been updated (say "Why don't you just tell me what blog is ready to read?" in your best Kramer voice).  However, I was SHOCKED to see how many I actually had in that folder - 216 blogs, y'all!  Most are craft blogs, some are food and the rest fall into the design/shopping category.  Whoa!  So rest assured that I may have fallen off the blog writing wagon for a bit, but I was galloping along on the blog reading wagon!

Meet Ivan and Bjorn

I told you I was going to buy this book, but you probably didn't believe me.  I took it up to my sister's place this weekend and announced that I had brought a craft project.  Normally there would have been some major eye rolling as a response, but she still owes me for helping her schlep all her earthly belongings around New Haven last weekend so she really had no choice but to indulge me.   First, a little book review.  It's a fantastic book.  It begins like a children's book narrated by the dog on the cover and you could actually read this to a kid.  The photos are adorable as are the creatures.  The instructions are all in the back and both the written how-to and the diagrams are extremely clear and easy to follow - something I wasn't expecting from a book translated from Japanese. 

About half the creatures in the book call for socks and half for gloves.  The ones I was most interested in making were from gloves and most of the gloves shown in the book are simple, cheap gloves that you can buy, according to the book, at home improvement stores.  After a trip to Home Depot, a dollar store and TJ Maxx we were still gloveless.  We gave in and bought a 3-pack of super soft creamy white socks for $2.97.  What we hadn't thought of at the time was that some of the animals look best if you use socks with a colored heel or toe, neither of which ours had so you might want to keep that in mind when choosing your own socks.   The only embellishment our socks had was a mustardy line near the toes (this will come into play in a moment).

I chose to make the dog (not the one on the book cover which is the glove version) and my sister chose the cat.  The aforementioned mustardy line ended up as part of my dog's ears which was cute.  But for the kitty it ended up across her forehead leaving us no other option than naming "Bjorn" after Bjorn Borg.  You'll even notice my sister made a little tennis skirt (we decided this was a girl Bjorn) to complete the ensemble.  So Bjorn could have a tennis pal I named my doggy Ivan after Ivan Lendl who was a tennis player I never liked, but the name seemed to fit.   

If you're not great at figuring out stuff like softies on your own, I highly recommend this book.  They're very easy and you'll find yourself marveling at the author's ingenuity.  Since glove season is right around the corner, you can expect to see more of these from me.

Topstitching makes it all fancy and stuff

I spent last weekend helping my older sister move apartments in New Haven, CT.  I thought her old apartment was cute, but I'm in love with her new place.  It's old and huge and has so many windows (which also means it will be cold in the winter, but whatevs).  To my New York City eyes, the place was a palace.  She also moved onto Whitney Avenue which has huge, beautiful homes filled with Yale faculty that are so neat to look at.  To top it off, she lives across from a park - a pretty and quiet one not the ballfield and hot dog stand type.  Sigh...

Anyway, I was helping her unpack (I'll skip the story of how my sisters and I managed to squeeze her huge heavy sofa up the stairway) and I saw these coasters I had made her last September.  I'd only had a sewing machine for a few months and this was one of my first projects.  I used squares from an Amy Butler charm pack (with different prints on their backside) and some cotton batting.   From a distance they're cute, but I really laughed when I got a better look at them.  The corners don't come to a point, calling them "squares" is generous as they are very misshapen, and they aren't even topstitched.  I think I remember my mom giving me advice over the phone and explaining what topstitching was and why I should do it, but it seemed like too much of a bother at the time.  Knowing my mother, an excellent sewer, would be visiting my sister later I begged her to put them out of sight.  I didn't want my mom to worry about how she could let one of her daughters go out into the world without teaching her about topstitching!  Never fear, I always topstitch now and, despite my offers to take back the coasters and fix them, my sister insists she likes them as is.  I guess imperfection runs in the family. 

Check, please!

 
Here's my first project from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing.  I will probably give it to my mother who is the only person I know who still uses checks on a regular basis.  It was also my first stab at mitered corners which isn't supposed to be that hard, but left me throwing up my hands a few times.  It was an easy project (if you don't mind the mitering) and I can imagine doing it again on a different scale to hold a book or photo album or something.  A few people reported on their blogs that it turned out a bit big to snugly hold their checkbooks, but mine seems about right. 

I've noticed that comments aren't going to my email like they're supposed to (and used to) so I may have missed responding to a few of you.  Thank you for taking the time to comment or say hello - I really enjoy hearing from you!

Psst!

Now I'm not one to spread stories, but have you heard about Craft Gossip yet?  It looks like it's just revving up so I look forward to seeing the content build. 

Is that it, you say?  Yep, sorry I'm tired.  Hope to have some new projects to show soon.  I did just pick up a bunch of washed fabric at the laundromat so that should get me going.

Dabbling in Embroidery

As I've hinted at before, I've become more interested in embroidery lately.  Which might be another way to say that I've become more interested in crafts that I can do in front of the television.  On my trip to Nova Scotia I took my hoop, some thread and a needle thinking I'd get in practice during the 5.5 hour ferry ride, but I realized I only knew about two stiches (not to mention the seasickness that came and went) so that was kind of a bust.  To learn more, I took these two books out from the library.  Anchor Complete Embroidery Course is from 1998 and is pretty traditional, but a good resource for learning the basic stitches.  Colorful Stichery has some beautiful and inspiring projects and is much more modern and in line with my aesthetic.  Then I saw these gorgeous French Knot pillows at the Purl Bee and knew I had to learn how to do that.

Here are two kick-ass resources for learning embroidery:

Primrose Design's Stitch School.  Bless her for putting up instructions and step-by-step photos of so many stitches!  Her whole blog is great - you'll see all the Stitch School posts listed on the right-hand side.

NeedleNThread's Video Library.  If you, like me, have a hard time figuring things out by looking at photos - go here!  They've posted videos showing a whole caboodle of stitches.  I promise you'll be less intimidated by french knots once you've watched the video.

It's raining today (again, but no tornado this time) and I'd like nothing more than to hunker down on the couch and start practicing, but I'm off to New Haven this weekend to help my sister move.  Excuse me while I fluff my halo...

Fabric Report

So I took advantage of Z&S's storewide sale last week and indulged a little bit.  In my defense, these are mostly half yards.  But new fabric always inspires me to sew so I'm not going to feel too guilty about it.  As much as I'm a proponent of prewashing fabric, they are so nice when they're unwashed, unwrinkled and folded up like this. 

Here are my favorites of the bunch.

You'll remember my angst when the gnome fabric was out of stock everywhere so I'm so excited to see that both the blue and yellow versions are now abundant.  And I couldn't resist these doggies from Heather Ross's Lightning Bugs line.  I have to say, her fabrics are so soft!  Perfect for kids.

I knew I would love Joel Dewberry's woodgrain fabric - who was I fooling by only ordering it in one color?  I'll be getting more of that for sure.

These are the first I've ordered from Amy Butler's Nigella line.  They are described as suitable for home decor or clothing which seemed weird as most home decor stuff is on the stiff side.  These really are a happy medium.  They have a bit of structure, but would drape decently.  My only disappointment is that online it looked like these two matched and I had visions of Frenchy bags dancing in my head.  In reality one is an olivey brown and the other is decidedly black.  But who says I have to be all matchy-matchy right?

I was hoping to do a bunch of sewing this week, but I'm working out-of-the-"office" (which means I'm leaving the house!  And pajamas!) this week so it will have to wait a bit.  I hope you are all inspired by your own fabrics and making more great stuff, as always!   

My new sewing tool

I'm sure other (frugal) people have devised clever ways to make multiple patterns out of multi-sized patterns, but I don't know what those are.  When I was sewing my lemon dress last week I didn't want to cut into the pattern to make a size small since most of the dresses I plan to make will probably be larger.  I had saved a bunch of butcher paper that had been used as packaging with the idea that I would use it to trace patterns.  But, of course, it was really too thick to use as tracing paper (and I don't have a ready supply for large tracing paper - do you?).  So I cleared off our glass desk, put a flashlight between my knees and that provided plenty of light to transfer the pattern to butcher paper.  Voila, I thought!  Then I had an even better idea.  I usually resent the closet space that my husband's photography equipment takes up and I try not to touch it as it's mostly expensive and I already have a (somewhat well-deserved) reputation for breaking things.  But I remembered he had a large lightbox which he rarely uses so I set that up on the dining room table and it was fabulous!  It gives off tons of light and made pattern tracing super easy.  So if you have access to one, I recommend it.  But the glass table trick works well too.  If you have other ideas, please share!