Number 2 - Baby Hat

I am missing two things for a successful picture of a baby hat - natural light, and a baby head to model. You get the idea with the lamp though, right? Haha! I can't believe I didn't even have a stuffed animal in the house!

This hat is truly adorable, even the hubby admits. I was nervous about working with knit fabric but it didn't turn out to be that difficult. I purchased an interlock knit, which I think helped. You can read about knits here. The part to be careful of is that you are not stretching them as you sew, but it isn't that difficult.
The hardest part of this little hat was sewing the ears. I guess I have never really tried sewing sharply rounded pieces because I had a lot of difficulty getting a smooth curve. Maybe I am just still getting used to my machine, but either way, the ears turned out a bit wonky, but they are cute. As far as applique, the fusable web is definitely the way to go here because the stiffness helps the ears stand up.
If you have noticed that it is still only December 29th and I have completed two out of three of my projects for January you are wondering the same thing I am... am I going to be done with this by June?

The Project

Sometime this year I bought a book at Joanne Fabrics, to feed my pattern-book buying habit. Unlike other books I have bought in the past, the more I looked at this book the more I liked everything in it! There are literally only one or two patterns that I am not crazy about, and everything else I think so so darn cute I just want to make them all.
So my sewing-book buying habit... I have a similar problem with cookbooks.... I love to buy them, then I make one or two patterns, and the book sits on the shelf forever.
There is something about choosing a project to work on, choosing a pattern that I find difficult. I have a hard time just opening a book and saying, I'll make this one first, and the rest later. I feel like I have to decide on the perfect pattern because I don't want to loose interest. But once you have made the best pattern the the book and eliminated all the others in the process, well, it kind of makes me not want to make all the others as much as I did before. So, inspired by a favorite movie of mine "Julie and Julia" I thought, I'll just take this book from which I love almost every pattern, and start from the beginning and sew my way through! Yay!

So the book is Making Children's Clothes by Emma Hardy. This is my new machine (<3, <3, <3, see my last post about how I love my new machine). And there behind the book is the first project, the baby booties! Now there are 25 projects in this book and they are all quite easy... so given that fact the I have a full time job and a lot of being lazy to do... this will not be an all consuming project, just a fun thing to do. I have decided to make two patterns a month, and will probably still work on the fifteen other things that are always lying around wanting to be finished.

Project Number 1: The Baby Booties

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These booties turned out to be much harder that I anticipated - they are very small and hard to maneuver on the machine. A couple things I would note on the pattern. When you sew the straps, you have to sew them at 1/4 seam or you won't be able turn it right side out, so ignore the 1/2 inch seam instruction in that part. Also, I think the lining is a little too large for the bootie. It just doesn't seem to fit, there is too much fabric! I would in the future maybe use the smaller size, and a 1/4 inch seam allowance, or something to allow for this. Also, I would plan on making three booties, one to mess up on and two to wear :) These look adorable, but I'm not honestly sure they would be wearable..... but not bad for the first project!

"I'm in Love, I'm in Love, and I don't care who knows it!!"

I am the proud owner of a real grown up sewing machine.....
When I was making my registry for my wedding I thought to myself, "every household should have a sewing machine." Just a simple one to fix things and make homemade curtains on. I had a little sewing experience, but not much. When I moved to Edwards (aka, middle-of-nowhere), CA with my darling husband, and began searching fruitlessly for a job (and I'm a nurse, yeah, go figure) I got re-interested in sewing and made a few little kit quilts and the aforementioned curtains.
It wasn't until I took a class at the local quilt shop that I knew that there was anything wrong with my sewing machine. I shouldn't say wrong, but different. The instructor said, "lower your speed on the machine" and I asked "how?" and she said "oh.... your machine doesn't do that." My machine also has five stitches, maybe six if you count a straight stitch moved over to the right. I purchased attachments and had my husband make a table to extend the surface, and made some pretty beautiful things on this little "kiddy machine" as I have taken to affectionately calling it.
Here is a treasury of sorts of things I have made on this machine, some of which were already featured on this blog.

Sigh... well farewell little Singer Prelude... you have served me well. I can't say that I am that sad to see you go though, as you also gave me much trouble in the process. What is going to happen to said Singer? I thought about selling him at the Thrift shop but then thought someday I may want to tech my children to sew and it might be nice to have a little machine that I am not worried about them breaking. Plus it was my first machine and I do feel a little sentimental towards it.
But on to bigger and better things!
The story of my new sewing machine begins with my friend E in the apron photo. She wanted to learn to sew so I taught her on good old singer to make an apron. Then she started a quilt and I have her hooked. She wanted to buy a machine so I was looking up some machines and found the Brother CS6000i and just sent it to her as a suggestion - it had lots of nice features, looked to be a good machine and was a great price. She bought it and set it up and I was in love! I had sewing machine envy! I kept looking around to see if there was anything better out there, but for the price, this is the best machine in it's class, it gets great reviews and is honestly, just wonderful to use!
So begins a new era of me and my sewing machine which my husband purchased for me this Christmas. I am starting a Julie and Julia-esque project for this year... but more on that in a later post.

Handmade Christmas Gifts (or, frantic sewing followed by overpriced overnight shipping)

Story of my life - I get a good idea for a handmade Christmas gift, I plan and start it way in advance, then loose interest because let's face it - there are two more months until Christmas.  Then four days before Christmas I am frantically stitching away in my living room where I have temporarily set up camp despite having a perfectly good and much bigger sewing room right across the hall, but it sadly lacks a TV and DVD player which is really the only thing that can keep me glued to my sewing machine for close to 400 four inch blocks of piecing. Although I am discovering that podcasts (for sewing I like "radiolab" and "this american life") are quite good as well.
anyway, my point in all of this rambling is that I have made the largest quilt I have ever attempted, and probably the largest I will ever attempt. And yes, it is a gift that needs to make it from Edwards, CA to New Hampshire by Christmas Eve.
Sadly, it has been raining here for days and the sky remains gray and cloudy which does not make for very good pictures, but I will do my best to capture this quilt.

 

Maybe it's all the hard work I put into it, but I love this quilt. The fabric is Martinique by Moda. The pattern is my own, it's basically just 4 inch squares, 18 by 21 with a 7 inch border. 

Usually I just zigzag stitch the binding on, but since this quilt is special I handstitched the binding, which took forever. 

But the hardest part about this quilt was packing it up into a box and spending $70 to overnight ship it to my sister to get there in time for Christmas. *sigh* 

Merry Christmas!