My muse is born

The blog will be on maternity leave for a little while, I'm delighted to announce. Here is why:

This little bundle of love arrived on Saturday, May 24 at 6:58 p.m. and weighed 6 lbs. 14 oz. He looks great in all of my creations!

Stardust Shoes

Inspired by yesterday's success with felt booties, I decided to stay in the footwear department today with these stardust shoes. I found the construction a bit awkward at first - many layers that needed coaxing to be pressed or folded as the pattern demanded - but ultimately, quite satisfactory. After a pair or two, you won't even need to look at the directions! Tips/modifications: trim all interfacing 1/4" around before applying, don't interface upholstery-weight fabric, join heel to heel lining by sewing right sides together instead of pressing under along short sides, use fusing to join sole to sole lining. For fabrics that fray easily, beware that the raw edge joining the sole to upper is visible (for my red velvet slippers, I handstitched a lining over the sole's rear half and joined it to the upper). Specs, in order: roosters, Moda sock monkeys, Martha Nagley turnips and peas, red & gold upholstery with floral trim, diamond upholstery with Kaffe Fassett shot cotton lining. All soles are made from velvet or ultrasuede upholstery.

Bitty Booties - A Love Story

I found this delightful felt bootie pattern on the web awhile ago, but I only got around to trying it yesterday. I used high-quality wool felt that I bought at Portsmouth Fabric Co. and a variety of notions from my stash. This is a really great stash-busting project, by the way, because you can make dramatic use of tiny amounts of ribbon, a pair of buttons, etc. The red and purple pairs feature leftover JoAnn's ribbon and buttons (the kind that come with store-bought clothes and promptly disappear when you actually need them...), and the green-yellow pair have ribbon I bought at RetroDepot. On the purple pair, I used the flower embroidery stitch on my Bernina. Somehow I've owned that machine since 1988 yet never used the embroidery functions - what a terrific discovery!

Baby Legwarmers

After doing some reading online, I went to Target and bought ladies' knee socks at $4/pair to make baby legwarmers. I am hoping these will be an affordable alternative to the $12 variety I'd originally registered for. In photos two and three, see the results of my ultra-quick foray into the land of baby legwarmers. I cut off the foot of the sock right before it started to curve (easy to see on striped socks!), salvaged the straight portion of the foot, folded that in half, and attached that as "ribbing" (not an accurate term, since it's in the same knit as the body of the sock) to the cut edge of my socks. This yielded an icky bulge but was otherwise very efficient and satisfying. Now I will keep my eyes open for cute, cheap knee socks!

Restocking the Stash

Thus far I have spent my third trimester stash-busting in many forms. Today, however, I broke that trend and went out and bought NEW MATERIALS for some fun new projects. I went to Freddy Farkel's Frugal Fabrics and raided their samples section. I bought a dozen chunks of velvet and tapestry upholstery fabrics, which I think could make good fabric shoes for a baby and hip bags for a mama! Total cost for these fabrics: $13.13. See, thirteeen *is* a lucky number!

Oil Cloth Bibs

As my due date approaches, I'm focusing on short-term projects. Today I made a trio of bibs from oilcloth. I used the pattern from Chickpea, but added a front crumb-catching pocket and bias tape in lieu of lining. This pattern uses very little fabric, so a little oilcloth will go a long way. My machine had no problem sewing the oilcloth when I used a "denim" (size 16) needle and longer stitch ("3" setting). Pulling on the bias tape as I sewed allowed me to get fairly smooth edges without pinning, gluing, or pasting (all time-consuming options I'd read about on other blogs). Since I am still in the fantasizing stage with a snapsetter, I sewed on snap tape for closures.

Two More Rompers

I love this pattern! It has just a few distinctive details (front pleats, pocket) and seems very practical with the snap crotch (not that I know anything about these matters, yet). The upper romper is size 3 months and made of cotton. There's a coordinating blue onesie somewhere in my stack. The lower romper is size 6 months and made of Guatemalan cotton purchased a few years back in Panajachel. I found it useful to interface the facings of the rooster model to stiffen the straps; using denim to face the Guate version made this unnecessary.

Garter Stitch Cardigan

I bought this luxurious Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in pale pink several years ago and let it languish when I realized that it's a color that looks a bit horrid on me. Now I'm bringing it back to life, with the help of some accompanying browns, for a baby sweater (from Knitting for Baby). I found the gauge a bit loose (although correct, according to the directions) in that it yielded a very stretchy, spongy sweater. In the past, I found that the buttonholes were too far from the edge of this sweater (especially once you add the knitted border), so I tried a zipper this time instead. It seems to have the effect of shortening the body a bit. The coordinating hat, a garter stitch cloche, features two complementary pompons.

Burp Cloths!

I made these after seeing many examples on the web, and a few in person. Last weekend, a dad at synagogue was pointing out the un-ergnomic shape of rectangular cloths, so I made sure to follow the hourglass shapes I saw on various craft blogs. Here's how I did it: I bought cheap "bird's eye" diapers at Target ($10 or so for a dozen), washed them, and then folded them into thirds (warning: this required a lot of ironing). Then I cut them into the hourglass shape and serged the long sides. Next I added my fabric/ribbon embellishments (what a satisying use of all the leftovers from my previous projects - plus they match the existing outfits for Petit Loup, which I know is obscenely precious, but still...). Last I serged the short sides, often including the raw edge of whatever embellishment I'd used.

Fair Isle Cardigan

This pattern comes from Debbie Bliss' book but I modified the construction to take advantage of Elizabeth Zimmermann's seamless in-the-round technique. I also lengthened the body by an inch based on a suggestion I got on Ravelry. The sweater's made entirely of leftover cotton scraps, mostly Saucy Sport by Reynolds, and was a great stashbuster! I loved knitting the sweater in the round, but I did get some scary raveling when I cut up the front (my machine-stitching needed to be even tighter, apparently) and I found that EZ's joining technique left me with bunchy underarms, even though I swear I followed her EPS carefully. The matching hat features a pompon.

Grande Onesie Finale

As I near Week 39, it is time to decorate every last onesie. I continued with my animal from earlier, using penguins, giraffes and polar bears from Animal Paper Chains and a dove I found on the internet. The ribbon between the giraffes comes from RetroDepot. I attempted a freezer paper stencil (see the polar bears) but was unhappy with the coverage of the fabric paint I used (cheap Tulip brand from JoAnn's).


Then I completed a little Jewish series as well, with the help of printable fabric. This features a "shabbat shalom" onesie welcoming the Sabbath, a onesie with the biblical verse "for this child I have prayed" with a coordinating hat, and a third onesie with the verse "You fashioned me in my mother's belly." Unfortunately, layering the printed Hebrew on top of the under fabric required two layers of fusing and made the resulting onesies very stiff. Something to improve upon...

Baby's First Suit

This was a fun project: a matching outfit made from purple narrow-wale corduroy and striped Guatemalan fabric (purchased several years ago in Panajachel on Lake Atitlan). Although all the styling details (collar, pockets & flaps, tab closures, knee patches) were a bit tedious, they definitely make the design. Now, the big question: can a boy baby wear a purple suit???