May the Force be with Baby: A Star Wars Quilt

We've had a good first week of school! This is Dorothy getting ready to blow out our circle time candle on the first day. I've learned that a) homeschooling takes a lot more of my day than I had been able to comprehend (although I'd been warned about that) and b) I need to make some curriculum adjustments or we'll both get bored in a hurry. I've purchased a ready-made kindergarten curriculum and I love many things about it but it's a little soft on some skills we're ready to march on into. That's a great thing about homeschool, I have to say, because I can easily make these adjustments to suit my specific child.

And late last night after my wee padawans were snug in their beds I snuck back down to the sewing machine and made a baby quilt to gift to a friend. This is for the first baby of an old college pal. This friend is the only person with whom I've attended a midnight movie showing (he was in costume) and the only person I know who owns (or owned? It's been a while...) red contact lenses. When he told me he and his wife were expecting a boy I knew I had to make him something cool and nothing light blue or fluffy.

I bought one fat quarter of Star Wars fabric on Etsy, then found coordinating prints on Fabric.com. I used the licensed fabric to make homemade patches and then made strips of the rest. I'm not much of a quilter but I like the cutely haphazard look of strip blankets. I machine stitched it all and didn't use batting because I wanted it to be thin and flexible enough to actually wrap the baby in. The finished size is 34 by 38 inches and the back is a soft black flannel. It felt funny to have the sewing machine threaded in black to make a baby gift, but I think this one will be appreciated by the baby's father, at least.

Our entryway and a perpetual calendar

I sometimes enjoy reading other blogs and often get inspired by them. There are only so many ways certain tasks or projects can be done, so there will often be some overlap between the creative projects of different crafty bloggers. There is a difference between inspiration, intentional knock-offs, and flat out copycatting, right? Last winter I bought yellow paint to makeover my family room, the exact same color I've used in my living spaces in my last two houses. I tried to think of ways to make a user-friendly entryway spot to keep my family's accoutrements tidy near our main (side) entrance. I purchased a row of hooks, a little step stool from IKEA, and a big basket to keep everyone's shoes in. I decided to blog about it after I painted the wall behind them. The very next week Soule Mama blogged about a very similar project and I had to laugh--maybe great minds think alike? Then I realized she actually did it a bit better than me because she included a row of hooks for the children, not requiring them to use the step stool like I was. So, inspired by her execution of a project that exists in many homes' entryways, I added a row of bottom hooks myself after our recent paint job. The space now functions better. Isn't sharing ideas great?

I'd like to make the point that while taking inspiration from the beautiful marketplace of the mama blogosphere is acceptable and even lovely, actually taking someone's intellectual property and passing it off as your own is not okay. It is hurtful, wrong, and fundamentally uncreative to take something that belongs to someone else and present it to the world as if you own it. Inspiration is lovely. Following tutorials, giving credit and back-linking is grand. Passing another person's intellectual property off as your own, especially in a way that diverts search engine traffic from the blog for which it is intended, is stealing. (Um, yeah, sorry I had to get all preachy, right? But I wouldn't say it unless I felt like I needed to...)

Moving on, Dorothy has been asking me every day for a week how many days are left until we start school. Although homeschooling kindergarten at my house is actually going to be a pretty informal and fluid event, I have decided to follow the school schedule of our local public schools so that Dorothy and her public-schooling BFF next door will always have their days off together. It seemed high time for me to finish the perpetual calendar we will be referencing every morning and to let her see for herself how many days we have until we officially begin. I sewed rows of clear vinyl pockets over fabric that matches my new kitchen curtains. I printed off little cards with the days and numbers on them and inserted them into the pockets. I will task Dorothy will decorating/labeling the special days on our calendar (like the first day of school!) and she'll add a sticker indicating the morning's weather to each card as we go. Who knows, maybe the whole family will be better organized now that we have a pretty, easy-to-update calendar right there in the kitchen. (Yeah, right.)

Some summer accessories

For the last couple years I have been sewing this pattern when I feel like I need a new wallet.  I've made it at least a half dozen times. It's an awesome wallet because it has the right compartments for all my necessities, is a perfect size, and is straightforward and simple to make. I usually prefer the look of a snap closure to the velcro but this time I was sewing in the middle of the night (yes, that is reality with kids; sometimes a girl just needs a new wallet, and sometimes she's already been rudely awakened in the middle of the the night...) and I didn't want to wake anyone else up by my hammering in snaps. I sewed a decorative button on the front to make up for the velcro.

The fabric is scraps from my living room. I have no idea where I got the fusible fabric stiffener I used but it was awful. It didn't provide much structure and it wrinkled the fabric. I'm tossing it out and hoping to not accidentally buy that brand again--who knew there was so much difference? I should keep better track of where I get stuff like that so I know not to waste money on it again. Still, I like my punchy new wallet.

(Aside: notice there is no wallpaper on the wall behind me? The family room is the last wallpaper-removal frontier! It will hopefully be painted yellow this time next week.)
In a break from this most recent home renovation push I stitched up a new skirt and matching headband. I've sewn this same skirt pattern over and over and over and over, but it's so great. It's just the skirt and waistband pieces from Simplicity 2758. I sew it in knits and leave out the zipper, making it super fast and comfortable. I've sewn it in varying lengths and with various embellishments around the hem so it doesn't feel like I have six or so of the same skirt. This time I made it long, in a swishy and slightly shiny polyester knit.

I used scraps from the bottom ruffle to make little rosettes, which I glued onto a plain black headband. Of course now Dorothy wants one too. Rob took me to some sort of business dinner tonight that we interpreted as more of a social event (hence the long swishy skirt and floral headband, and we dropped off the kids with their grandparents) but it turned out to be more of a business event where exactly zero other participants brought a spouse, and everyone was dressed as if they'd come straight from work. Oops!  I felt like some sort of chubby trophy wife. But actually the event turned out to be rather fun, with an interesting speaker and yummy food.

And finally, some happy news regarding my car-related teeny tiny sorry ass first world problem. It's over! I turned back in my unlovable rental and was reunited with my family car today. I managed not to make out with it in the parking lot but it was tough. (LOL, please.)

The garage door and an accidental nightie

Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend! We took the puppy to the celebration at Crescent Hill. We thought the pet-friendly event would be nice socialization for her and that if she got too sidetracked by the sights and the smells I could just carry her. That plan worked okay except I failed to anticipate the mobs of children and old men who would want to stop and pet the puppy. So we made our way slowly through the celebration and really that was just about perfect. There was enough time and puppy love to go around! My kids were also looking pretty cute in their patriotic hand-me-downs. (I [heart] generous friends with older children!)

I realized on the morning of the 4th that I didn't really have anything red, white or blue I felt like wearing. I thought of some cute cherry fabric in my stash and I had just enough time before we were to meet friends at the celebration to whip up a new tank top. Unfortunately, even though I altered the pattern I'd used to make pajamas recently the tank was still too loose and poofy for me to want to wear it out in public.  I made do with a plain white t-shirt instead and will sew sleep shorts to match this tank, now an accidental nightie instead of day-wear.  Oh well, new pajamas are nice too, and I doubt I would have wanted to wear cherries on many days besides the 4th anyway.

This project is one Rob and I have worked on together over several weekends. Our detached garage was looking decrepit, with peeling paint on the door and a rusty old light. Rob sanded the door and we painted it in white with the gold in the grid to match our front and side entrance doors. Then Rob sanded and sprayed the light fixture red and that really perked it up, making it look like a garage that really belongs to us and our house instead of an afterthought stuck in the back yard. I think I'll use red on some shutters on the side of the garage as well. The colors are consistent with what we've been doing on the side and front porches. I actually need to finish up that front porch and blog about it--the UPS woman made my day recently by asking where I'd purchased my (homemade) chair cushions in the front! I love giving this old house new life.

One unhappy event and a dog bed

A nostalgia photo: me with the keys to the only car I've ever chosen for myself, March 2008. 

It's been an eventful week. Dorothy's at a drama day camp, we had a nice visit from Aunt Stephanie, and, unfortunately, we had a car accident. Belle seems to like riding in the car so I'd taken her with me to pick Dorothy up from camp. We were almost home when the light turned green for me at an intersection and I drove forward. Unfortunately, Mr. Wears-the-Same-Color-as-His-Sports-Car-With-Vanity-Plates thought that his red stoplight did not apply to him and he zoomed through it--and right into my car. I honked/swerved/braked and all of that, but the impact (to my front passenger side) was still pretty fierce. My back got quite a jolt and the pup hit the floor. Thankfully, the kids seem to have come through the crash just fine, safely secured in their correctly-installed car seats and Worth still rear-facing. The pup picked herself back up with no ill effects, and I'm hoping my sore back is a temporary issue. My car, however, is not so fine. The impact sent us on a little half-spin that seems to have made one of my rear wheels tilt toward the center. Not good. I drove the vehicle the remaining blocks to my house at about 5 mph, with my father-in-law carefully following behind, but the conditions deteriorated such over the course of the short drive home that I'm quite worried about what's going to happen to my beloved car. It shakes and trembles, screeches and takes jolty little nose-dives to the left without any input from the driver. I'm trying to remember how grateful I am that all my humans (and one canine) are still in one piece, but I'm also pretty upset about the car.
My mother has been sweet to loan me hers until we can come up with a better interim solution, but it's a lousy feeling to be without my wheels. My car has the hitch, so there will be no camper-towing for a while. I'm also almost ridiculously fond of my car (I get gently made fun of for this sometimes) and it makes me sad to be without it. My car is just such a great fit for my life--there is a perfect spot or feature for all of my little people, gadgets, or travel-related needs. It's not too big and not too small. Up off the ground but not towering. I spent many hours researching and reviewing cars after my old Civic was crashed (along with, unfortunately, my right arm) back in Dorothy's infancy, and I've always felt that though nothing can make up for a right arm that never got back full range of motion and always knows when it rains, getting to pick just the right vehicle for me while my husband was still in law school was a nice consolation prize. My fingers are crossed that the damage isn't as bad as it seems, and that maybe I'll be back on my own wheels soon.

 

Ok, enough of my whining. Belle needed a special comfy place and I've made her a dog bed. I used two standard-size pillows that I hooked together with snaps along one long side of each. This way the pillows can be detached for easy machine-washing. Otherwise I think a well-padded dog bed for a pooch the size that Belle will be would not fit in the washing machine. The bed is located in the hallway right outside the bedrooms of our human family members. I used leftover bird fabric from the curtains in my bedroom, machine basted to an old flannel sheet for added body and sturdiness. The bottom is just cut from a thrifted sheet, with overlapping edges for easy removal. Belle seemed to know exactly who the bed was for and plopped right down. I'll have to take regular photos of her on it as she grows, to record her growth as her puppyhood speeds by. She's a sweet little dog. 

I've been reading up on puppy training since we're such dog novices. I love this book, written by a group of Eastern Orthodox monks who raise and train dogs to support their community. I hadn't expected to enjoy reading about puppy training, but was pleasantly surprised when I fell quite engrossed by this bit of puppy prose. They take their dogs very seriously--I sometimes wonder if some of their very serious anecdotes and advice are a bit tongue-in-cheek?--and present all of their information and recommendations thoughtfully and thoroughly. I recommend it to anyone sharing a home with a puppy.

A bird in the hand

Before the puppy madness began I was spending some time working on our outside spaces. This is our side porch, and since we park in the back it the entrance we use primarily. I'd post a before picture but it would be too embarrassing to show you the messy jumble of miscellaneous junk I'd allowed to accumulate there as we were moving in. Sometimes it was easier to dump stuff on the porch than to find a better home for it. Anyway, I cleared off the junk and set up the grill. There isn't room for chairs on this little porch but it needed something else on it so I potted some herbs in pots I painted, then let Dorothy and her friend next door paint our old, recently-replaced front porch mailbox a bright yellow color and set it out to use as an exchange spot for messages to each other. The girls loved this project. Then something was still missing--I thought the window looked like it needed curtains, but curtains on an exterior window seemed a bit odd so I thought of pennants instead. I made the little string of flags out of scraps from Aunt Stephanie's room and I think they look very fresh and cheerful there. They tie in the colors of the pots, the little girls' mailbox, and the mustardy-gold I painted on the exterior door. Why not?

We traveled over the weekend. We had campground reservations at Rough River State Park but they were cancelled by the park several days before our trip due to flooding. With a weekend already blocked off for travel but the weather unappealingly hot for camping we decided to move forward some travel plans we'd intended for later in the summer. Saturday we visited Kentucky Down Under where Dorothy got to pet an emu, a kangaroo, and encounter this beautiful bird. The park had the feeling of a place that is still up and coming but we enjoyed the several hours we spent there. If I had it to do over I'd have packed a picnic as the cafe food was not very good--let that be my tip if you go. After the park we drove on into Bowling Green where we dined at the surprisingly good 440 Main on the charming town square and stayed the night at a hotel. The next day we visited the National Corvette Museum which I think has my husband vowing to work harder and earn more money...for a Corvette. Oy. It was a fun weekend getaway just a car nap's drive from home. On the way home we shared our favorite memories: Rob liked the Corvettes (go figure), Dorothy enjoyed the hotel pool more than either paid attraction, and I most enjoyed our dinner at the nice restaurant. What can I say?

Our puppy may now have a name. I really think she's a Pippa, but Dorothy seemed wedded to her suggestion of Isabelle. I pulled some Mommy magic today and had her convinced that naming the dog Pippa was her idea. She'd totally embraced it, started calling her that, and even proudly introduced the dog as Pippa to the next-door friend, but then Rob came home surprised by her change of heart and totally foiled my plan. "Is that really what you want to name her? I thought you were naming her Isabelle?" not realizing I'd already carefully achieved buy-in and was not pressuring her to pick a name I preferred. Then I think Dorothy got the impression that her father actually preferred Isabelle and has firmly switched back to that. Sigh...
Bella, which would be my top choice for a nickname if the dog must be named Isabelle, is the most common dog name, according to this web site. No fewer than three people have told me that they know other dogs named Bella. This will drive my crazy. I don't like to do things like other people. No amount of channeling good memories of the trip I once took to Italy will stop me from writhing at the idea that people will think I chose to name my dog the single most popular dog name currently in existence.  Rob and I carefully chose names for our children that didn't even make the top 1000 baby names the years they were born. That was not an accident. I think we'll call her Belle for short as opposed to Bella, with the one letter's difference (and nod toward France instead of Italy) at least making the name slightly more "beautiful" (pun intended) to me. And if I show up at the dog park and can't get my dog's attention since all the other doggie owners are calling their pups by the same basic name, well, I guess I'll just have to remember that allowing my 5-year-old to choose the name and venting my frustrations on the blog instead of in her earshot was the right thing to do. Belle it is.

Our nest

I finally took some photos of our nearly-completed bedroom. The only work left in here is to paint the ceiling and trim. The photo above is the master bedroom before we moved in. Those dusty old valances are making me itch just looking at the photo!  We had intended to paint this room a sort of soothing neutral color, but when we stripped away the wallpaper we found a wall that had been a light turquoise. We liked it so well we ended up changing our color plans and painting the walls a deep turquoise instead, inspired by the color that had been on the wall in some previous incarnation.

I used fabric from Joann for the curtains and pillows in here, Legacy Studio's Nestled in Branches. I fell in love with this fabric when we were house-hunting, and once it finally came time to work on our new bedroom I was relieved that they still carried the prints. I bought the whole bolt of the curtain fabric! I still have some left and will probably do a small lap-quilt down the road. I did the pillow shams (as well as a slightly different alternate set so one can be in the laundry, not pictured) in strips of the bird fabrics with some solids as accents. I used a decorative stitch along each seam and binding along the edges. Once they were done I felt like I'd taken what could have been a very simple project (shams made of two pieces of fabric stitched along three sides) and made it needlessly complicated, but I really do like the final product. I also shouldn't discount the enjoyment I got out of stitching the strips!  Life's about the journey, right?

The whimsical bird print against my new white blinds and the new black curtain hardware makes me happy. Those windows wanted to be free of the dusty, stuffy old curtains that must have looked fresh and pretty when they were new, but had long since outlived their moment. Waking up in this room is wonderful!

I needed something on top of our wardrobe, so I combined a metal basket from my mother-in-law's yard sale with a bird intended as yard art to complete our free bird (ha ha) theme in this room.

And this wasn't really intentional, but seemed serendipitous. My grandmother's lamp looked great in the living room of my old house but was having trouble fitting in to any of the spaces we were creating here. Now that everything is put together it looks like I actually created a room just for this lamp. I don't get much into emotional attachment to objects, but it is nice when an object I love in its own right, like this lamp, also shares with me the memory of my grandparents' living room where it shed light on many family moments over many years. My paternal grandparents died during my two pregnancies (Grandpa during Dorothy's, Grandma during Worth's), and now their lamp shines on the baptism portraits of my beautiful kids. I think they would have liked that.

Gifts and summer pajamas

I put the home related sewing aside this week to make myself a pair of summer pj's. Sleeping in old t-shirts and well-worn pajamas pants is comfortable, but sometimes I just want to feel a little cuter at night, even if the only person to notice might be my still-won't-sleep-through-the-night toddler. I used a free pattern I found online for the tank, but I'm not going to link to it because I really didn't care for it. I had to make many alterations and it still is a bit big, even though the pattern involved taking my own measurements before starting. It'll work fine for sleeping though. I made bermuda-length sleep shorts to match by cutting around pants I already own and they fit perfectly. The pajamas are made from super-soft thrift store sheets in 100% cotton. I love the pretty print, and that new fabric could never be so wonderfully soft. (Aside: Wondering about that beautiful turquoise wall behind the pajamas?  That's my bedroom! It used to be covered in "tropical" wallpaper. More on that project is forthcoming!)

 

This was a Mother's Day project I'd almost forgotten to blog about. I bought some little silver charms at Joann that are intended to hold tiny photographs. Then I printed out a whole page of empty squares just the right size on cardstock and let Dorothy draw mini pictures in each one with pen and colored pencil. We chose our favorites and I glued them onto the charms, then we covered them with several coats of brush-on gloss glaze. The flower charm was a gift to my mother and the bird is now mine. We strung them on silver chains.

Dorothy had a major milestone this past week--she finished preschool! As much as I'm looking forward to having her home next year it was emotional and a little rough to watch all her treasures come home from school. It was like watching the sweet and nurturing space they'd created for her there being dismantled. She has laid her beloved resting rug on her bed here at home and has been sleeping on it, and we put together a small bag to hold her other treasures such a her photo album and name card. To honor the lovely women who have given her the treasure of such a warm and lovely year of preschool we made homemade shopping bags. Dorothy chose the fabric (from the same sheet as the pajamas) and helped me sew the seams on her little sewing machine.

Her confidence is a wee bit ahead of her ability, but the slightly off-kilter seams don't show unless you're looking, and they prove that the love and work of a five-year-old went into the construction. I made small drawstring bags so the teachers can easily stash their shopping totes into their purses or glove compartments.

More Aunt Stephanie's Room

The guest room is officially done! The neighbor girl who plays with Dorothy walked in, not having been in the room since we were using it for post-move storage, and gasped. It was so gratifying. And then she was so impressed that we had a whole room just for guests that it made me remember Anne of Green Gables and Aunt Josephine and I secretly vowed to invite her over to sleep in it sometime. It does feel sort of indulgent to have a guest room after we seemed so cramped with the four of us in our two-bedroom six months ago. I made up the bed with clean sheets today and am feeling that much more settled here. Ignore that the brass bed really needs to be polished. I augmented store-bought bedding (Target and IKEA) with homemade toss pillows and I sewed homemade bias tape along the bottom of a plain store-bought bed skirt.

In such a bright room I wanted bright photographs too. I painted old gold picture frames black, then snapped photos of the kids posing against a backdrop of the (uncut) curtain fabric. It's not like you'd walk in and notice that the photo backdrop matches the curtains, which is just as well, but the overall effect does help tie everything together in this bright and colorful room.

I wanted to bring some of the room's black accents onto the bed so I made one pillow using this terrific owl fabric I found online. It didn't quite work, though. You remember that Sesame Street game from when we were kids?  Which of these things doesn't belong?  It was totally this pillow. I thought that if just one owl could be orange then it would really make everything look harmonious, so I grabbed an orange Sharpie marker and colored one owl in. Let's hope the cat doesn't puke on this pillow because I have no idea how orange Sharpie would wash, but I love the way it turned out. Now the pillow looks like it belongs perfectly.

I also embellished the white pillowcases that go with the plain white sheets on this bed. I used more of the homemade bias tape (do I need a support group for my recent bias tape problem?) and some of the decorative stitching on my new machine.

My success in painting the hokey flowers on the thrift store rocking chair inspired me to try something similar on an old milk can. I bought this jug at a yard sale when we lived in Oak Park and kept it on our front porch at our last two houses. It was already black but was starting to look sort of pathetic and rusty, so I sprayed on some new black and painted on the flowers and our name. I may get tired of looking at my own unprofessional art work every time I enter my front door, but it shouldn't be hard to spray on over the decoration when that time comes.

Aunt Stephanie's Room

I've been working on the guest room, otherwise known as Aunt Stephanie's room.  (Stephanie was my college roommate, is honorary and beloved "aunt" to my kids and is my favorite and most frequent houseguest, hence the room is named for her.) The walls are a creamy yellow that look more or less intense depending on the light. I hung simple white shades in the window for nighttime privacy, then made slim curtains with tie-backs so they don't obscure the view. I love the crazy orange bird print, which is Pretty Bird Spice by Michael Miller.

The rocking chair was a thrift store find, $12.00, and it was your basic old wooden rocker with an awful, dusty cushion. I ditched the cushion, painted the rocker black to tie in the picture frames and curtain rods, and free-handed some orange flowers on the top. I love the way it now looks like it was made for the room.

For most of the rooms in the house I've chosen a group of favorite fabrics as a starting point and this room was no different. The Michale Miller Pretty Bird fabrics appear on the lamp shade, the pillows (here and more to come), the bedding (stay tuned), and the curtains. Gluing homemade bias tape on lamp shades is slightly addictive because it's so fast and it looks good.  Now I've got my mother doing it too. The funky candy dish was a vintage eBay piece because I just had to--how could I do a room in orange but not have something made out of that crazy fiery retro glass? Other bits of this room are still in progress and will be done soon--so if you're thinking of visiting me and staying in my guest room, pick a date!

Locked in the basement

First a finished project. I made a super-comfy skirt out of a thrifted jersey sheet. It's soft like pajamas! It's casual but cute--a skirt to wear with flip-flops. I love wearing skirts in the summer because they are cooler than capris and don't have all the thigh-rubbing (sorry, I'm just shaped like that) and burning-legs-on-leather-car-upholstery issues of shorts. I think this one will become a summer favorite.

Next a funny story. Dorothy has been a little high-strung lately, perhaps due to all the talk at school about final days and transitions. She was passive-aggressively "waving" a doll apron at her brother, in a way that just happened to involve whipping him with apron strings. I asked her not to, she told me she was just fanning him and continued to do it. I asked her to go to her room and settle down. She stomped off to her second-floor bedroom angrily. Then I noted that the baby seemed to be happy tormenting the cat (whipping him with apron strings, perhaps?) so this seemed like a good moment for me to run some Costco purchases downstairs to our chest freezer. When I came up the basement stairs I found that the baby had tired of tormenting the cat and had moved on to fiddling with the basement door--in a way that involved locking me in the basement. As I stood there on the steps he opened the tiny cat door and waved at me pleasantly, thinking it was some kind of game that I was staying on the other side of it. It had been on my mind that I should get a screwdriver and remove those old locks before something just like this happened, but of course I hadn't had the sense to do it yet. So I had to stand there on the basement stairs, frozen turkey bacon in hand, and yell for my exiled daughter over the sound of Pandora on the Old Crow Medicine Show station. She finally heard me and came down, sort of puzzled by the very short amount of time she was required to spend in her room. I explained the situation as calmly as possible and gave thanks that she's still young enough that she just laughed at what her brother had done and let me out without further torment.  Shew! Now I really will take off those old locks before she gets old enough to be vengeful, or is waiting to be picked up at preschool next time I get locked in the basement.

Finally, I just joined Twitter but I don't know anything about it. What do I do next? I'm RenataHomemade.

A new machine

This is what I was working on when my sewing machine died--toss pillows for the guest room bed. The room is now painted and cleaned out but I'm still working on the details.

This is an upcycled vase for the guest room. I found it at a thrift store, classic in earth tones but with a chip that I'm sure is what landed it in someone's donation pile. I painted it, using a contrasting color for the raised pattern. I'm not much of a painter, but I don't think this kind of project requires a look of perfection. Now it matches the colors I'm trying to tie together in the scheme for this room. I clear-coated it in Triple Thick Gloss Glaze to make it shiny. This stuff is kind of addictive. The first time I'd used it was on our eggs. It brushes on so beautifully and it dries hard and it seems to be durable. It's much thicker and less messy than spray versions I've used in the past. Any kid art project (or goofy vase paint job) will look more professional with a coat of gloss-glaze, right?

Last but not least, I've moved on the sewing machine issue. I did two days of obsessive internet research and decided that I actually needed to replace my broken machine with two inexpensive machines.  Buying a new machine that would sew over thick materials and provide lots of stitch options was cost-prohibitive, but I got the best of both worlds with much less expense. I ordered an inexpensive computerized machine that does lots of decorative stitches and a vintage machine from eBay that offers few options but will sew over anything. The two machines together cost less than one really good machine, and if one of them meets a terrible Worth-related accident (or any other malfunction) it won't leave me without a machine at all.

The eBay dealer who listed the vintage machine actually posted video of this sewing machine stitching over crushed aluminum cans. Wow! I'm not sure I'll use it for that (ha ha), but hopefully this machine's decades of stalwart performance won't be destroyed by a project like pillows with thick cording, which I suspect is what did in my last machine. The vintage machine should arrive today; the computerized machine came in earlier in the week. It's...computerized. Sewing with it feels like driving an automatic when you are used to a manual transmission. Some bond between the operator and the machine is missing. Hopefully I'll learn to like it better. The stitches, at least, are nice. It has many more options than I've had before. I tried it out (above) by stitching this little vine pattern onto a plain white drawstring bag that new sheets came in.

Matching Easter dresses

Dorothy was in her ballet recital this weekend. The cuteness of a dozen girls in fluffy tutus under bright lights really can't be exaggerated--it's priceless. We love the low-stakes casualness of the recital our studio puts on. The girls have every reason to feel good and no reasons to feel anxious. I took Dorothy to the park near our house last week to take some informal pictures in her recital costume.  This one is my favorite. Such a free-spirited dancer!

I finished our Easter dresses yesterday, just in the nick of time. Dorothy's is Simplicity 2237 and mine is Butterick B4443. I lined both of them fully in a lighter lavender. I made hers in a size 5 but it is a bit wide for her. It's still cute and I'll use the pattern again but next time I'll cut it to be more narrow.  I made mine in a size 14 even though I'm usually a size 10 because the pattern measurements suggested that's what I'd require, but it was wrong.  The dress is too big all over, especially the armholes. I felt discouraged when I looked at our pictures because after going to the trouble of making us matching dresses I wanted to like the way I looked! It is never flattering to wear clothes that don't fit. Now I've ripped up much of the bodice and taken in the seams, so next time I wear the dress it should look better. I will probably make this pattern again because I still like the overall style, simpleness of construction, and that it doesn't take much fabric, but next time I'll make it in my usual size.

I used inexpensive cottons for our dresses so they are both comfortable and washable. The contrasting bands around the waist are of a pretty batik. I glued fabric and ribbon flowers onto plain white headbands so we could match in accessories too. I suggested that Dorothy make a practical footwear choice like me but she'd have none of it! As it turned out the rain stopped, so I could have worn my (planned) white sandals after all.

The little imp edging in our picture here is my niece Lila. She doesn't need a purple dress to look like me, does she? Don't tell her that, though--it makes her furious!

Pillows and a lamp shade

I finally found time this weekend to finish the throw pillows I'd been working on for the sofa.  I used a really thick cording around the edges which looks nice but is such a pain to do that I may never do it again.  I broke four needles in the process and am making a mental note to use thinner cording in the future (if at all--what a pain). The pillows look pretty good but I don't think I needed to put as much work into them as I did.  With such punchy fabric I could have just sewn very plain pillowcases and they'd have looked great. Now they are done, though, and I like them.  They are really comfy, too, because I sprang for nice, down-filled pillow forms.

I also worked up a lamp shade for the living room. I couldn't find one that was just the right color so I bought a white one and painted it myself.  I mixed the blue paint from the dining room with the living room's green shade to get just the right color.  The edging is more of the Pop Garden fabric I've used in the curtains and pillows. I don't know what I did before I owned a bias tape maker.  Who new that such a small, inexpensive item could be so handy?

New life for old towels

I debated whether or not I should do this project.  Having to keep track of specific hand towels for a specific bathroom seemed like a bit of a hassle.  But after living here for a few months and establishing a routine I realized that the downstairs bathroom towels already get thrown in with the kitchen laundry and returned to the same bathroom so there was no reason not to spruce them up a bit if I wished. I took three basic hand towels and bleached them to freshen them up and remove stains. Sorry, I know bleach is not the most environmentally friendly thing but neither is buying all new towels, and using a bit of bleach now and then seems way better than resorting to something like those horrifying new Kleenex hand towels, the existence of which makes me wonder how it is that some people have a) money to burn, b) no concern for the amount of resources they are using and waste they are producing, and c) never apparently heard of their washing machine, which is generally an excellent tool for keeping hand towels clean.  Anyway....sorry for the rant.

Back to my bleached towels.  I ironed scraps of coordinating fabric from my bathroom curtain project (same bathroom) to make long, turned-under strips, then sewed them over the decorative strip on the towel.  The ironing and sewing took only minutes but the towels now seem to make my bathroom look really pulled-together. The towels themselves don't match each other but since I only use one at a time it doesn't matter. I'll definitely do this for my other bathroom too once I get around to painting it.

Yesterday's other project was not nearly as satisfying.  I started painting the living room ceiling and it's falling apart!  Eek!  The textured finish on the ceiling is crumbling down on my head as I try to roll on paint. I would just scrape down the whole textured layer, but it seems to be stuck on quite tight in other parts of the room, and my bad elbow doesn't really like doing lots of work like that over my head. My current plan is use glue and wallboard compound to try to rebuild some of the textured ceiling in this part of the room, but I know I can't get the swirly pattern to match the rest of the room, and again about the bum elbow. Oy. The wallpaper was at least a known problem--this one was an unpleasant surprise.

A gift for the classroom

It is a tradition in Dorothy's school to buy a book for a child's classroom on his or her birthday. The book is brought in all wrapped up and the birthday child gets to unwrap it, then the whole class listens while one of the parents of the birthday child reads the book to the class.  I thought it would be fun to make a book for Dorothy's class on the subject of their class pet, a guinea pig.  I took photographs of the animal while he was staying with us last fall (each family gets the "privilege" of weekend sitting for the pet a couple times during the year) and used Wikipedia to fill in some bits about the animal that were not obvious to me. I had almost finished the book the week after our guinea-pig-sitting several months ago. Then we sold the house and my efforts at childrens' literature and most everything else went all to h$%!, so by the time I remembered again that we were expected to gift a book to Dorothy's class on her birthday it was already last week. I considered ditching the effort and just buying some book but decided I'd gone that far, I may as well finish it.  Typing up the last couple pages didn't take long but unfortunately shipping the thing from Blurb.com (on the West coast) to Kentucky did, and I was too cheap to spring for quicker shipping. I still went in to read to Dorothy's class on her birthday, but I just read a book she'd selected from her own collection.  Now that the gift book is here I'll take it in tomorrow all wrapped up to read and Dorothy will get to play the birthday girl one last time. I ordered a copy of the book for Dorothy too and she seems to like it.

 

I really wanted to work on throw pillows for the living room today but it just didn't happen. The baby is fussy over teeth or a cough or something and he is refusing to sleep unless I'm holding him, which means a) he's not getting enough sleep, and b) the rest of the time he's a Grumpus McGurkus, which is our household name for someone who is in a very foul mood (inspired by a favorite book of Dorothy's). I did catch just a few minutes at the machine, however, and made a padded sleeve for my little camera. I know you're thinking, "doesn't she have a big camera? I'm pretty sure I've seen her at soccer practice, one of those moms who thinks she's the press corps?"  Yes, I do, but jokes have been deservedly made about how much I like to photograph my children and my big camera isn't something I can just toss in my purse and always have on hand.  Thus I still have and use my little camera and I recently had to replace it, possibly because the inside of my purse is not a very safe place to be even if you are the small unfussy camera. I used scraps from Dorothy's birthday dress to make a very simple little Velcro pouch. I lined it with polyester quilt batting to make it nice and soft, and hopefully the polyester will repel rather than soak in liquids in the event of a spill.  (Liquid spilled inside my purse?  Well, have you ever dined out with my children?)

The living room

More house progress!  Removing the living room wallpaper was a serious pain in the ass. My mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, daughter and husband all worked with me (and in the case of my mother, much more than me) to get the wallpaper off this wall.  There was a thin liner underneath the regular wallpaper that had to be steamed and scraped away shreds at a time.  Ouch.  But now it's off!  Mom and I primed the newly-bare walls, which had never been painted in their 71 years, then painted them a perky green called spring cactus. I made the curtains from fabric I found online and posted about previously, from Heather Bailey's Pop Garden collection. This is a room we needed some furniture for when we moved into this house.  I fell in love with the Eames-inspired tulip chair from an online discount store, and we bought the light fixture and white sofa (below) from IKEA. This room is meant to house my collection of hobnail milk glass, and the bumpy white lamp and chair are really just accessories to my beloved dishes.  I have a less-is-more attitude toward some things, but dishes are just not one of them. I love dishes.  I have way too many.  But hey, better dishes than drugs and booze, right?

After I hung the new curtains this weekend  Dorothy came into the room.  She immediately noticed the curtains and rushed over to the windows to admire.  "Wow!  These new curtains are so pretty!  They are going to look beautiful at my birthday party."  My husband came home an hour or so later and his reaction was not as satisfying.  I had to drag him into the room to see the curtains, which I doubt he'd have noticed on his own.  He glanced and said, "oh, those look nice."  He might have said the same thing if I'd hung paper bags in the window.  If I hadn't prompted him he might never have noticed they were there. This is why I'm so grateful to have a daughter.  :)

My over-the-sofa art is going to be supplied by my children.  I purchased artists canvases at a craft store and covered them with more of the Pop Garden fabric using a staple gun. I have a can of low-tack spray adhesive that I'm going to use to adhere a rotating collection of the kids' art to the screens.  This felt like a formal but fun way to honor their artwork. I have admired framed child art in other people's homes, but I'm thinking this will be easier to peel off or stick up art as their talents and interests change.

Now all I have to do to finish this room is patch and paint the ceiling, paint all the trim, mop off the bits of wallpaper that seem to have stuck to the floor, buy a coffee table, sew throw-pillows, buy a coordinating shade for the milk glass lamp (not shown), sew a Pop Garden scarf for the piano, find or make an entry-way rug, paint or replace the plant stand that doesn't seem to match, and find the rest of my milk glass in a box downstairs.  It's a good thing my baby sleeps through the night and I have nothing else to do all day, right?  Oh wait...

And today is my daughter's actual birthday.  She gets to bring a treat to school to share with her classmates, so we made cupcakes with lavender icing at her request. I love this recipe for vanilla cupcakes and have made it several times, even though the method of adding the butter to the batter seems rather unorthodox. The cupcakes don't turn golden-brown until they are over baked--you have to do the toothpick test to get them out in time--but they come out really moist and they hold their shape nicely so you can eat them without having most of your cupcake dissolve into crumbs all over your lap.  According to Dorothy's birthday wish the cupcakes needed to have her classmates names on them, so we did that too.  I printed the names onto a sheet of card stock and we just cut, glued and folded the little tags onto toothpicks. Hopefully the birthday girl will feel like she got all her birthday wishes granted today. She woke up pretty excited!