For Little Feet

A while back I bought some cute little baby shoes on etsy. Ever since, I've thought about trying to make something similar. A friend of mine is having a baby soon so I thought it would be a good opportunity to give the wee shoes a whirl. I found a pattern in one of my sewing books, but those shoes had a strap with a snap fastener, and I wanted mine to be slip-ons. After searching around on the internet a bit, I found this video tutorial. I printed the pattern and got to stitching. These were sooo easy to make. I did do one thing differently, and that was to have a contrasting fabric for the sole, in the interior. You just pin it (with wrong sides together), to the outside of the shoe, so that the right side is facing out when you sew. Then when you turn it in, it is in the interior. The only tricky part was pinning the sole to the upper. I ended up making two pairs and a bib to go with one of them. Now I'd like a pair for myself.

Amsterdam Stroll

I finally finished my little embroidered Amsterdam that I started in Jessie Chorley's embroidery class. And here it is! I loved Amsterdam so much, that at the class I decided it would be my theme, and I used canal houses as my first bit of inspiration, specifically the roofline of the houses, which is what makes them look so interesting as you're walking along the canals. I made a short video just so you could see the entire piece and to see the scale against my hand. It is very small but still hard to capture the entire piece well in one image. I look forward to making another one. I think Paris will be next. And I look forward to Jessie and Buddug's Tea Party on August 13th! If you're in London and don't have plans, head to the little shop on Columbia Road. Here's more info (scroll down to the post on the 29th, as I can't put a link to that direct post for some reason).

        

Room to Sew

You might remember that when we were looking for a new apartment last winter, one major draw to our current place was an extra room. I say "extra" room because our place isn't technically a three bedroom, but there is a small third room next door. It's more of a utility room in that it has exposed pipes and wires, and doesn't have a bathroom, but it does have pretty nice wood floors and heat, so I decided to make it into a guest room / craft room. Initially I thought I would make it an office for Andrew and try to give it a masculine vibe, but he thought I might use the room more than him and suggested I let it be a room to sew. He does like to work in there as it is though. He thinks it's pretty cozy. The daybed that used to be in Lois's room is in there, and our old bar, turned potting table, is now my sewing table (and desk), and my bike lives in there too. It was a lot of work getting it to this point. Do you remember what it looked like before? Like this (scroll down), ugh. My sister helped me so much at first when she was visiting, but then for a while I was stuck. There were so many things in there that we wanted to keep like camping stuff, old baby things, Christmas decorations, etc. Every time I'd go in there I felt overwhelmed. And when I'd start to unpack and sort it out, for a while I ended up just making a bigger mess. But somehow I got it to this point. Behind the curtain all our storage stuff and my craft supplies, fabric and whatnot, is stored in bins and stacked almost to the ceiling. I still have some work to do in there--one wall (across from the daybed) has a ledge that is holding a bunch of random stuff right now. But it's a good start. Now I just need to get busy stitching! 

Sewing Nook

A while back I gave you a little peek at my sewing nook. I'm pretty much finished with it now. I was just waiting to amass enough buttons to make a button border on my inspiration board. And my mom helped me out with that. Over Thanksgiving she let me raid her button stash and take all I wanted. Oooh, buttons, so fun! This little space is a work in progress, but it's a start. This area started as the bar (see how it started looking as a bar here), but the shelves were too narrow and too far apart to make it look good with bar accessories, and since we rent here, and I know the landlord isn't too keen on changes, I thought it would work better as a something else, and I've been wanting a craft space. Now that my machine and supplies are out of the closet, I have no excuses! Here's to more sewing in 2011. Happy New Year!!

A Pillow For Lois

Last year I made a bunch of bedtime story pillows for the kids in my family, but I was pillowed-out by the time Christmas came and planned to make one for Lois sometime after Christmas. It took me a whole year to get to it, but I made one for her today. I like the way it turned out, and it looks really cute in her room. I embroidered the text like a bookplate--"this book belongs to"--because I love bookplates, and I thought it would be fun to have her name on her pillow. Now I have to wrap it and put it under the wee tree!

Sewing Christmas Cards

I'm a little behind in getting my cards done this year, but I finished last night. I thought I'd experiment with sewing on cards, and it worked! It worked well enough anyway. I was trying to only use papers and supplies I already had, but I did ruin a few cards, so I ended up also using some leftover cards from previous years. For these cards I cut little tree shapes out of some vintage papers I've had for a while and sewed a zigzag stitch around the border. Cute! Here are some other fun handmade card ideas I read about recently on Seeds and Stitches.

Sewing Nook Peek

Lately I've been working on creating a little sewing space in our apartment. This area used to be the bar, but I'm turning it into my sewing nook instead. I'm just not motivated to sew with my sewing machine in the closet. I've been spending more time putting the little space together than actually sewing, but that's part of the fun. I'm not quite finished yet, but here's a peek. My favorite part so far is the wall that I covered in book pages from an old sewing classic. The book was falling apart anyway, so I didn't feel too guilty. I actually covered poster board so that I wouldn't have to peel the pages off of our rented walls one day. I just need a few more things to complete the spot, and then I'll post more pictures. 

Making Things

Last week I started making some Christmas presents, yay! Every year I tell myself I'm going to make Christmas presents, but I usually start so late that I don't get many done. I have a few things planned out, and I'm trying to keep things simple so that I actually finish them. Up first are some coasters (which I can show you because they're for someone who has her hands full with too many children to be doing any blog reading). I used some Liberty fabric, a newer print called Yoshie. This print comes in hot pink too (I bought some of that to make something for Lois), but I went for the dark charcoal grey for her coasters, and used white linen on the undersides. I should probably top-stitch them to give them more of a finished look, but I'm nervous to do it because I'm still not so great at a straight line. If the top-stitching is sloppy, then the whole thing looks sloppy to me. So I'll give that some more thought.

A Place to Sew

We have a shed in our garden that I'd love to turn into a little craft / sewing room just like this one that Artemis created. But alas, our little shed is filled with garden supplies and our storage (stuff I don't want to part with like christmas decorations and camping gear, etc), and it doesn't have windows. But isn't her shed so adorable! I won't be turning our shed into a craft room, but I've decided to make a space to sew in our little house. Even though it just takes a few minutes to take everything out of the closet, the fact that my sewing machine and all my supplies live in the closet is a big deterrent to actually making anything. So I'm going make a home for it outside the closet. The area that I consider to be the bar is becoming my sewing / office station. It's small, but I think it will work. Pictures to come, maybe in a week or so once I have it all together. In the meantime, enjoy Artemis's shed!

Sew Excited

If I can ever get my paypal account sorted out, I'm going to sign up for this class: Home Ec, an online beginner sewing class! I've been hunting around for sewing classes around London and have found a few, but they are usually pretty expensive and often only cover one or two projects in each class. Home Ec is a go at your own pace class. It covers 26 fun projects, with each project focusing on a particular sewing skill, starting from beginner level working up to more advanced sewing techniques. Head over to The Freckled Nest to read more about it. Class starts today but you have until the 15th to sign up. I hope I can get my paypal sorted by then! (It won't accept my billing address for my debit card here--it seems to only accept US addresses. If anyone knows how to sort this issue, let me know. The "help" section in paypal has not been very helpful on this topic.)

Images from The Freckled Nest. 

Sweet Peony Pillow

Here's the little pillow I've been working on. My first pillow with a ruffle! It's inspired by the pillow you see below, clipped from a magazine. (I think it's an old issue of Country Living.) The peonies in our garden were beautiful but have withered away. When I saw this pillow in the magazine, I thought it would be a nice way to remember them. We're also in need of some summery pillows (a tad behind here, I know). I don't think the embroidery looks nearly as nice or peony-like as the one in the magazine, but I still like it. I just sketched the drawing freehand by looking at the magazine. It probably would have been much better if I had actually made a copy, blown it up and traced it. Oh well. I made the ruffle from some old curtains my mom gave me. And the back of the pillow is ticking. Awww, sweet peony pillow!