I started these felt balls waaaay back before Christmas for the Bean. I thought a color scheme of primary colored balls with their secondary counterparts wrapping around them sounded like a good idea.

They’re actually still not completely done. You can’t really tell from the picture (or, hey, maybe you can!) but the stripe part isn’t secured very well. It’s just needle felted on and while I intended to wet felt them again to get that stripe more flush with the ball itself, eh….. it hasn’t happened yet! Maybe they’ll finish felting through use. Who knows.

I can’t remember when I even got them to this point. May? June? Something like that! The colors aren’t entirely ideal either, but it’s what I had on hand. The yellow is alpaca r0ving and can I just say it’s rather a pain to felt? Probably would have been better to save for spinning. Oh well!

The Bean likes them well enough, but then he loves pretty much all balls. I think felt balls are a fantastic gift for 1 year olds though (and younger or older, for that matter). Good fun :)

This past year was the Boo’s first year in preschool. We were exceedingly lucky to land, completely by accident, at the school we did. We loved it, the Boo (most days) loved it, and his teachers were exceptional.

Combine that with my own inclination to make handmade gifts whenever possible (we did felted soaps for Christmas) and I was a bit stuck on what to make for end of year gifts. I truly wanted to thank his remarkable teachers for such a great year.

And then I remembered the embroidery ideas from The Creative Family. Although I didn’t go about it the same way, I love the idea of embroidering a child’s drawings. Since the Boo has become such a prolific artist this year, thanks in no small part to his school and teachers, I thought it would be cool to do something like that. But what can you put embroidery on? Pilllows would be odd.

And then I saw this adorable apple fabric and it all fell in place. Tote bags! With embroidery! Too cute and hopefully a useful gift for teachers, right? So here they are:

I have to admit I’m smitten with these. Love, love, love.   Thank goodness there is fabric left over because I want one! A little birdie told me my nieces would like two as well :)

I knew they would be fairly easy to make because, come on, they’re tote bags. However turns out all the patterns I have call for home decor weight fabric. Oops. I have quilting weight. So I had to research how to buff up lightweight fabrics. I had to order linen for the embroidery (well I suppose I didn’t have to, but I wanted to) which I also used for the handles.

I based this bag loosely on the bag in Lotta Jansdotter’s Simple Sewing book, but then turned to Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts for lining help. The dimensions were similar between the bags. (Er, I think. It’s been a rough week.)

I ended up interfacing the bag with plain old flannel. I believe I picked up that trick from Amy Karol but I’m not entirely sure. I thought about iron-on but I’m never convinced of the durability of that stuff. They have a wonderful heft and I’m not at all worried about the fabric ripping any time soon.

I actually have pictures of the inside fabric (polka dots and one Amy Butler print) and closeups of the finished embroidery but I haven’t uploaded them off my phone yet! I figured I should post while I had the time instead of waiting even longer.

At any rate, I do have a very early picture (uploaded to facebook!) when I just started doing the embroidery. This is actually my first ever embroidery so I’m very proud! I spent some time reading my embroidery books too. The bee is done here and the snail/slug picture is in progress. The other picture on the finished bags is a butterfly. Boo is very proud of these because they were drawn without stencils.

Also? I got to use my grandmother’s hoops. Yay for that too.

I rediscovered how much I enjoy sewing with these but how much I dislike sewing on a deadline. I also dislike the prep work. Washing fabric, drying fabric, ironing fabric, cutting fabric (which I’m very bad at), pinning fabric, finally getting to sew fabric but then stopping to press it again! Argh. I ended up only pressing down the seams along the top because I couldn’t figure out HOW to press the seams on the inside without putting creases in the bags. Boggle.

Hmm what else. I wanted to sew and then top-stitch the tops but I couldn’t figure out where to put the handles, so I ended up just top-stitching. Hope they hold up!

In any case. I loved this project and I think Boo’s teachers were genuinely touched. I do have to say these might have been more work than one would normally put into teachers gifts, although they certainly didn’t cost more. We would have spent more on gift certificates, which seems to be the default gift these days. Now whether or not the teachers would have preferred gift certificates is another question! Perhaps. But I do hope they liked them and that they’ll remember the Boo at least a little.  They made an indelible impact on his young life and I am forever grateful for their compassion, patience, and understanding as we navigated this very new stage of life for the Boo. I will miss them very much as we’re going to a different school next year.

Anna, Anne and Laura, you all are the best!

Boo wanted to make a Pointy Kitty for Baby’s birthday. We got as far as picking out fabric, cutting out the pieces and sewing the head before the birthday came and went and the kitty sat on the back burner.

I did, eventually, get it finished! Here it is:

With big bro’s kitty too, of course. I apologize for the crappy photos. Kitty was too busy being played with to have a proper photo shoot. That and for some reason everything is overexposed. Oh well.

This is probably my, what, sixth kitty? You’d think the pattern would get easier, but really, it doesn’t. I just know which parts take the longest now. I still suck at sewing on the head and I still haven’t figured out how to make the butt not quite so long.

Boo insisted Baby’s kitty have a heart just like his. I wasn’t going to do that because the reason Boo’s kitty has a heart was because it was a valentine’s pressie. But if the lad wants a heart, he gets a heart! Isn’t that sweet?

(Finally kitty gets some peace!)

One thing I dislike about this kitty is that I keep forgetting that white background fabric doesn’t generally work as the eye shapes don’t show up as well. Dark fabrics are better. Maybe next time I’ll remember! At least the polka dots are cute!

This last picture cracks me up. Kitty on the prowl! This is what most of the pictures look like. At least the kids were having fun :)

Occasionally I am told that whatever I’ve made is wonderful and “you could sell this!” Or I am asked why I don’t have an Etsy shop. This always makes me chortle.

The answer to why I don’t have an Etsy shop is because I don’t want one. I have had past experience with my own “company” and it wasn’t a good experience, to say the least.

I certainly would love to have an Etsy shop. What more thrilling way to earn a living than for someone to get excited about, buy, and cherish your handcrafts?  What better way to spend your time than making things? Sometimes I do wonder if Etsy had been around when I was starting, if things would have worked out differently for me. (But probably not.)

From my perspective, there are two problems with making and selling things:

1. You may end up not having enough time for your own projects, say, Christmas presents for your family.
2.  The paperwork is a bitch.

Before I had the Boo, it seems I had nothing but time. I made a lot of scarves as gifts and people kept telling me they were fantastic and I should sell them. I was also so taken with yarn combinations that I kept buying yarn and making scarves with no intended recipient.

So I decided to sell them. After I had the baby, though, my time was no longer my own and I had no time to make anything. Any time I did have went to business things instead of my own things. I now know I would much rather have made things for my baby than for sale. Or, you know, for me!

The paperwork is what really got me in the end though. I got some (very bad) advice that my company should be an LLC (as opposed to just reporting extra income on your schedule C or whatever). Turns out that meant I ended up paying a lot more in taxes and fees than I even made.

It was also a nightmare to close down. Apparently accountants that know what they are doing are a rare breed, because we tried to close it down properly when we moved, only to have the whole thing drag out for another few years because it was, in fact, not done properly. I was paying taxes for a company that wasn’t functioning, to a state we didn’t live in, for something that was essentially a hobby for me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

So that is why I don’t have an Etsy shop.

I’d rather make stuff for myself, my family and friends, and the idea of dealing with paying taxes currently gives me the heebie jeebies.

Of course there is also another side effect of selling items, which is that you can actually get bored of what you’re making. Equally, you don’t want to stop making it if it sells. So in some ways your creativity can actually get stunted, which is ironic. Nevermind the huge cost to being an artist in that while retail establishments can pay wholesale for their goods, artists pay retail and then whatever their time, effort and creativity are deemed worthy, which I can guarantee you is more than the price tag reflects.

I’m writing about this now because my hubby actually said the other day that he wouldn’t be surprised if I wanted to open an Etsy shop some day. I must have looked at him like he had horns sprouting from his head. And then…. I started to think. Well…….. maybe someday. When the kids are bigger and I have more time and I’m not already sucked into a soulless job somewhere. And if I can find a more niche market than my previous efforts. Maybe.

But no time soon. That’s for sure.

I finished the socks I’ve been carrying around with me for 13 months. I know. 13 months. Good grief.

I have a good excuse though! I started these in the hospital before the baby was born. (Literally, the day he was born — thusly why I know how long they took!) And haven’t had a lot of time to knit since!

These socks started out as a few different patterns. The yarn is Numma Numma that I picked up as souvenir yarn in Atlanta, Georgia. I love the colors — mostly browns but also some olive greens and greys thrown in. I thought they would be subtle enough for a patterned sock, but everything I tried just drowned in the riot of color changes. So, a plain sock it was!

Once upon a time I got really annoyed at posts that said they used a “basic sock pattern” because I didn’t know what that was and I couldn’t find anything that was basic enough. Now, however, I know, so I’m going to say it: I used a basic sock pattern and threw in a baby cable on the sides. There. (Fortunately if you don’t know what that is there are gobs of basic patterns on the web now, so I don’t feel bad!)

This is the first time I’ve done ribbing all the way down. I like it. Feels nice and snug. Although they do gap wierdly at the back of the heel. My feet do get narrower there so it’s either that or the heel doesn’t go high enough maybe? Doesn’t really matter — they fit fine :)

In other news, I made some really late cards:

This was experimenting with some new stamps (that I got for $1! For the whole set!) that are clear and you put them on a hard clear block. You can see through them and are much smaller for storage. I was suspicious they would be too indistinct, and they are not as good as hard rubber, but generally they were fine. I like them.

And finally, I did a felted soap class at the Boo’s preschool! These were my samples with the Boo’s contribution on the left. It was an awesome class. The pre-K kids did marginally better than the preschoolers, but mostly everyone did great. I think they had fun. I know I did! And even the teachers enjoyed it, I think. A bit more expensive than their normal art projects, but it was for mother’s day, so I guess that was special :) I loved watching the kids pick out their colors.

Okay, one more photo, because I can’t help it. It’s too stinkin’ cute. These are the boys welcoming home Daddy. Wait, they’re in pajamas. Maybe saying goodbye when Daddy goes to work? Sad that I don’t know, eh? Ah well. Either way, it’s cute. We love our PJs in this house!

I tried to take pictures of the baby quilt this morning. Turns out it was too bright. Bah! (Imagine that, complaining about the sun!!) It will be ages before I find time to try again, though, so this is all I got.

Here’s the front (amazingly I also didn’t take a picture of the entire front. Doh #2):

Here’s the zig zag quilt from the Purl Bee that originally inspired mine. I knew I wanted to make the new baby a quilt, but I was having a hard time finding inspiration. I saw this one, and instantly knew that was it!

Since this was my first quilt, I didn’t want to mess with it too much, but I also knew that 1) there was too much white in that quilt for my babies, who are notoriously messy and like to poop in places other than accepted receptacles, and 2) I wanted to include some black and white fabrics in there. Now that I’m thinking about it, I cannot for the life of me recall what I did! I think I made the triangles smaller, got rid of the extra white and added in the B&W rows, then added black around to make it the right size. Or something like that!

Here’s the back:

The back pissed me off enormously because I cut it wrong in a fit of sleep deprivation (I’m assuming it’s that and not stupidity, but I suppose you never know) but I definitely like the pieced back better, so hurray for occasional mistakes! And now I have some extra number fabric to play with :)

Speaking of fabric, shopping for fabrics was fun! I discovered “charm packs” which were beyond awesome for triangles. Cut them in half and voila! Two triangles. Clever, no? :) And inexpensive!

Some of these fabrics are actually from the stash. Some are fabrics purchased for the Boo to play with back when he was a babe. So there are quite a few sentimental touches in this quilt.

If I made any mistakes regarding fabric, I have a mix of off-white and white-white and I’m not sure I’m happy about that. It bugs me a bit. Next time I’ll try to keep it to one or the other.

It’s hard to tell from a distance, but the majority of these triangles are BAD. Bad, bad, bad. Most of the corners look like these. Cutting is obviously not my strong suit.

The binding was much more enjoyable than I was expecting. HUGE thanks to Liane for actually sewing me a sample! I was stuck on the binding for a long time.

At first I could not for the life of me wrap my head around what I was supposed to be doing. So the sample (half completed, the rest for me to practice on) was awesome. Then I tried to follow the advice given here at Crazy Mom Quilts, but clearly I measured wrong (again, not a shock) because no less than TWO of my corners (and hello, there are only four!) have a color change, which means the fabric was twice as thick to sew through. Joy. So two corners look like this.

Oh.. and I also didn’t clip the seams for the binding at all, so it’s ridiculously thick in places. I sat down at my sewing machine with the iron all warmed up and charged through making the binding and sewing it on, all the while thinking I had read about bindings so often that surely I knew what I was doing by now. But no. Not so much.

Oh well. Doesn’t harm the functionality, right? :)

The actual quilting part was…. interesting. I tried to use coordinating colors for the sewing, i.e. blue on blue sections, orange on orange sections, white on white sections, and black on black sections. I used white for the bobbin thread in all cases but the black. This turned out to be a bad idea. The back looks goofy. You can’t tell from a distance but the black thread just looks wierd on the back. Of course it looks fine on the front. I think I was afraid the white would pull through (and it did on some of the others but you can’t really tell).  Next quilt I’m doing one color for bobbin and top thread and I’m going to quilt it continuously and there won’t be any of these fifty bajillion threads to tie off afterwards! Sheesh.

I also didn’t “stitch in the ditch” as recommended in the original pattern. I talked to the only quilting diva I know (that would be Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio) and asked if that was such a good idea. Seems to me that if you press your seams open (which seems logical, else you’d end up with triple thickness fabric on whatever side you pressed the seam) then when you stitched along that seam you’d mostly be sewing down thread and not fabric. Doesn’t sound sturdy to me. Kathy confirmed that it was probably a better idea to stitch along the fabric. Thus I stitched down both sides of the seams. In coordinating colors. Ha. Why yes, I live for making my life difficult!

I do like the result, though I wonder if the whole thing should be quilting in lots of little lines. Oh well.

I do love the whole shebang; errors and all. I love the layout, I love the fabrics, I love the black part (does that count as sashing?), I especially love the pieced binding. Love, love, love!

I haven’t measured it yet, come to think of it, but for a reference shot, here’s the four year old holding it up with arms outstretched:

See? Sunny day! Still.. love the sun. And the quilt!

A few days ago I finished the baby quilt! SO EXCITED! It only took a year and half! Ha.

I haven’t taken proper photos yet, but I did manage to take this one:

Quilt in use. So sweet, yes?

I am really proud of myself. I know it took ages and I know it has some pretty major flaws, but I really don’t care. I’d never made a quilt before and I love it. It’s exactly how I envisioned it (well, from a distance anyway). It was incredibly frustrating to make, and that’s really what I’m most proud of. I suffered but kept right on going. Honestly I don’t always do that, so yay me!

I also wasn’t sure I was going to ever make another quilt again, but I’m already plotting my next one, for the Boo. Collecting fabric has begun! However, this time? No triangles. Nosireebob. Also? I’m aiming for this one to take under a year ;)

I have some very special people I’d like to thank for their help on this here quilt. Liane for making and sending me an actual sample of how to do a quilt binding, and both Liane and Megan for support, ideas, and commisserating with me over the course of making this sucker. Kathy was also indispensable, from the very beginning, for tutorials, emails, and even personal help early on in the pencil roll class I took. Thank you thank you thank you!

I sound like I’m writing a forward to a book!

Ah well.. It’s my book, my life, so there you go. Baby quilt! Love it.

I was talking to Liane briefly on Facebook the other day, and she had just asked the question: “What are you going to do after you finish the quilt?” when her baby woke up, as babies do.I thought it would make a good blog post, more to organize myself than anything else, so Liane, here’s your answer!Sewing:

• Pointy Kitty for the Bean. Late birthday present, but oh well. He doesn’t care. 
• Puzzle Ball, also for the Bean, also as a birthday present. I really want to make him one and I better do it before he outgrows it!
• Mailbag (Pink Chalk Fabrics pattern) as an early Christmas gift. I have a really cool idea for this but sometimes the intended gift recipient checks my blog so I can’t post about it until after Christmas. Torture!!!
• Notetaker (another PCF pattern) for me, and if it goes well, more as gifts. I am constantly losing my notebooks where I make lists so I’m hoping it I make one with pretty fabric I’ll be able to find it easier. Who knows if that will work but it’s a good excuse, yes?
• Flannel PJs for the boys out of this adorable spaceman flannel fabric I have. Possibly more trousers for the baby too out of old t-shirts and other random materials.
• Sewing machine cover, because it is tired of having fabric draped over it.
• Quilt for the Boo. Can’t decide if this should be twin sized or lap sized, but it will be simple, that I can promise you.
• Doll quilts. I have two doll quilts in mind, mostly because I want to practice quilting and I love charm packs! One will be a disappearing nine block, not sure about the other one.
• Pin cushion from LMQPG (Apparently I cannot type “pin” without typing “pink”)
• Backpack for the Boo out of this cool Kokka train fabric I got except I didn’t realize it was upholstery weight so I couldn’t use it for its intended purpose. Oops! Should make a great bag though. I intend to make it big enough to carry paper and books.
• I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I can think of at the moment…

Knitting:

• Finish my socks that have officially taken longer than a year. Geez!
• Wool shorties and/or longies for the baby.
• Finish my kimono cardigan from last year!
• Sweater for the Boo.
• Another sweater for the Bean.
• More small socks for the holiday advent calendar.
• A whole list of possible Christmas gifts including more mittens and socks for the fam.
• Gosh.. I’m shocked the sewing list is longer. Obviously I’m forgetting something.

Other Crafts:

• Make lots of cards. Sympathy cards, birthday cards, holiday cards, etc. I have exhausted my stockpile and need more!
• Make stitch markers out of old earrings I never wear.
• Puppets and puppet theatre — haven’t decided whether this will be sewing, knitting, paper, or combination thereof!

Well, that should keep me busy, no? And that’s not even all. I’m cursed. 

Sewing the binding on to the baby quilt. Agonizingly slow. Good grief. I don’t even know if I’m doing it right!

And the baby is no longer really a baby! He’s one year old now. Sniff sniff!

Guess that “baby” quilt will mostly be an heirloom, eh? Ha! As if. Oh well, at least it’s spring. 

I’ve had a brief flurry of activity the past couple days. After finishing those mittens, I made a Pointy Kitty for a special little friend’s birthday (but I forgot to take a picture, doh!) and then tonight I finally got around to making a draft dodger for our drafty basement door. I used scrap monkey fabric. Yay for scraps!

(Previous kitties here and here and here. Incidently, I’ve decided I like the Kitty in darker fabrics. Incidently #2, I should probably buy something from Hillary Lang some day seeing as I keep making this one free pattern!)

Next sewing project? Fixing the two pocket diapers I forgot I even had and just rediscovered — the elastic is worn out. I could really use them so going to do that pronto. I swear!