Sometimes the sewing that is most appreciated by the ones you love is also the least glamorous.

I reeeeeeeeeaaaaalllllllllyyyyy do not like doing mending, but I am trying to have a better attitude about it. I’m not talking about hemming your neighbors’ brothers pants for free just because they ask. (Hey, my time is valuable!) But is it really so awful to take 5 minutes to resew a button on? Or 15 to turn a kid’s ripped up jeans into summer shorts?

It’s so easy for me to forget that these little things are a big deal to my kids and my husband, and this is my public resolve to put these little “un-pin-worthy” projects a little higher up in my sewing priority list.

How about you?

… then I found this funky print stretch sateen at Jo-Ann’s. In a high school, I would have thought it was the ugliest print on earth, but I kinda love it now. Wouldn’t it make for an awesomely funky pair of slacks?

Serendipity at the fabric store gave me the coordinating “Easy Wash & Care” solid for the tops. McCall 5416 making yet another appearance for Gladys’ top and I found New Look 6504 (shortened to tunic length) was a passable “big girl” match  for Gianna.

Andy thinks the outfits “look a little goofy”. Silly husband. Trust me on this one. If they are “goofy”, they are “goofy in a fantastic way.”

At least, us girls think so and that is what matters.

Oh! One more thing! I made my first ever covered buttons. They really were surprisingly quick and easy to make. [Thanks, Dritz, for sending me some to try out! I give them two thumbs up!] Seriously, it was no more than a couple minutes to put them together and much faster than going to the store to hunt down matching buttons.

So there you have it – goofy cute outfits for my goofy cute girls.

Happy Summer!

More summer shorts fantastic-ness happening in the “Shorts on the Line” blog series at Imagine Gnats and Small + Friendly.

{this moment}

***

I’ve been trying to squeeze in sewing when I can, which is usually only 5 or 10 minutes at a time. Frustrating, but I’ll take what I can get.

It has been more than a month since Vinny’s baptism. The sweet smell of chrism has worn off his head, but the waters of baptism have left their indelible mark.

One of my “Heart Preparation” projects was to sew this fifth child of mine a baptism gown. I wanted it to be traditional, yet still “masculine” without going the mini tuxedo route. I kept the fabric simple – batiste and cotton from the Martha Pullen shop, and I used a pattern with pleats and pintucks instead of the more feminine gathers and ruffles. It was surprisingly difficult to find a pattern that had straight sleeves instead of puffed or gathered, but Simplicity 2457 did the trick. My great great grandmother was a lace maker and the French lace on this gown alludes to that part of our family history.

As it turns out, my final “nesting urge” was finishing this gown. I was stitching up the hem of it during the earliest part of my labor. He was born the next day.

Neat Trick Project Taught Me: Double needles make excellent pintucks. The tension from bobbin thread puckers up the fabric between the two lines of stitching.

Unfortunately, the pattern called for a deeper tuck than the needles made, and my bodice was wider than it should have been. I didn’t realize it until I was adding the skirt on. It would have been nice to have the final width of the bodice indicated on the pattern to avoid this problem.

I also made the a slip and bonnet from the pattern as well, but Vinny never really wore the bonnet.

Used just once, the gown will be tucked away for the next baby.  Another son, another nephew, a grandson? It will be exciting to see what God has in store for us.

We love you, Vincent. Welcome to the family.

I have been promising Gianna a quilt since I finished Duncan’s. I had promised myself (and her) that I would purchase the fabric after I had released the Mommy Poppins Bag pattern. It’s always nice to reward hard work with pretty fabric isn’t it?

Gianna has a sweet romantic heart and adores roses and pretty dainty things. She asked for her quilt to be a “rose quilt”. If I had been picking the pattern myself, I would have went with something bright and modern. (I had my eye on this pattern and these fabrics.) Instead, I hunted down a few “rose” fabric options that I would be happy working with and Gianna chose “Love & Liberty” by Robyn Pandolph for RJR Fabrics from among them.

I thought that such soft and lovely prints deserved a more classic looking pattern, maybe with a bit of shabby chic. Gianna and I settled on a Disappearing 9 Patch (D9P). The first quilt I made for Gianna (the first quilt I have ever made) was also a D9P, but I am hoping that this will have a much scrappier look to it because I am using 26 different prints.

The Quilt Math:
nine 6 inch squares per block – yields a 13 1/2 inch block – a twin size quilt needs 35 (5×7) blocks
requires a total of 315 squires – 12 or 13 squares per 26 prints

Question for Quilters:
How would you group these 315 squares into 9-patches to get the most random looking assortment possible? Please give me any tips in the comments!

My sewing machines are in the repair shop for a tune up this week and I am taking the opportunity to cut out and prep my projects.The shop said “maybe as long as two weeks”. eeo! I hope it isn’t that long! I would love to get started on this!

 See, Gianna? Mommy keeps her promises.You will have a quilt someday! Hopefully sooner rather than later.

It feels like a lifetime ago that Abby Glassenberg put out a request for pattern testers for her book “Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction*.” Soon after, I was stitching up this cutie-patoot elephant. I was thrilled to death with how he turned out, but I had to keep him a secret until the book release (which was this week)! Two-ish years of keeping quiet about a project? Do you realize how hard it was? It nearly killed me!

A couple weeks ago, Abby sent me a review copy of her finished book and there is a lot to love about it, but I will just stick to three reasons for now…

#1: My Kids Love It

My children have been enamored with Stuffed Animals since it showed up in my mailbox. This book has a habit of disappearing from my sewing table and showing up in my children’s beds. The pages are being ripped and torn from the constant thumbing.

The “Mommy, please sew this!” list has grown to record-breaking lengths. I might as well plan on sewing 4 of everything in the book.

#2: The projects are all flipping adorable. every one.

Ram Featurette from Stuffed Animals from Abby Glassenberg on Vimeo.

Seriously. A RAM! Gah! I die. As I flipped through this book, I kept muttering to myself “This is amazing! This one too! I love it!!!!!” I’m glad the kids are excited about the projects, because I want to sew them.

#3: Your head will explode with technical knowledge.

I don’t buy craft books just to parrot off some cute projects. I buy them to learn. The 52 lessons Abby included with the 16 projects teach the why behind the clever construction techniques so that they can be applied to your own designs. After reading through her lessons, I am more than a bit tempted to rewrite my Pajama Eater pattern to make the leg attachment even easier.

One more thing…

To give this book a fair review, I was going to complain about the lack of seam allowances on the pattern pieces. I am lazy and would rather not go through the trouble. But then I learned that you can download and print off the pattern pieces from the publisher’s site. AWESOME! Lazy Jodi is very happy to not have to trace off pattern pieces. It more than makes up for the lack of seam allowances.

Thank you for delighting me and my children with this lovely book, Abby!

Guess what? To celebrate the book release, Abby is giving away two softie-making kits and entry ends soon (Fri, 1pm EST). So make sure pop over to her blog and enter!

Disclaimer: I was given a review copy of this book. I was not compensated for this review. Some links in this post are affiliate links.

I have a lovely friend who is a lover of lovely things.  Last summer (was it really that long ago?), she expressed her desire for an adult version of the ruffly tops that her nieces wear. I recognized the silhouette as Butterick 5217, and told her that we could make it happen. How could I not oblige such a generous friend? A friend who has made me and my family countless dinners, taught me the wonders of feta and orzo, and who has blessed so many people with her fantastic writing.

Eeep. I shoulda ironed that, but it really was miraculous that I got it sewn. Ironing the wrinkle-loving linen too much was more than I could handle yesterday. That’s the excuse I’m going with.

With both of our busy schedules, it took until now for us to fit a muslin, find the right fabric (thanks for shopping for us, Jess!), and for me to finally sew it. Not that it was a difficult project by any means. It really is an easy sew. Some words of advice, the sizing runs big, and for intermediate sewists, I recommend this far more clever construction method for the yoke.

I also had a chance to try out my Narrow Rolled Hem foot(affiliate link). After browsing tutorial and quite a bit of practice, I made the most gorgeous narrow hem I have ever sewn. Boo ya!

• Narrow Rolled Hem – Video by Girl. Inspired.
• Mastering the Narrow Rolled Hem – by Threads Magazine
• Narrow Hem on  Burdastyle

Tomorrow, she will pick it up from me. Here’s hoping she likes it!

Spring Weather = plenty of Hand Stitching Time in the yard while the kids play.

So much time, in fact, that I have all 56 hexagons attached to the quilt (some are not sewn all the way on yet). It certainly went faster than expected.  I think it needs just three more hexagons on the left side to balance it out properly.

I tried out some new things while putting together my Hexy Kit and working on this project. I tried these because of the talented Katy’s recommendations and they worked so well, I wanted to pass it on.

1. Grey thread blends far better than white or ivory on this eclectically colored quilt.
2. Beeswax* – Running the thread through the beeswax does help it not tangle quite as badly. It’s not perfect, but it seems to do a little better.
3. Clover’s Black Gold needles* are the shiz. Seriously. Sharp, smooth, strong (I didn’t bend these while sewing like other needles). I am sold. (Although, I just realized I was using “Quilting needles” instead of “Applique” needles. hunh. They worked great though!)

Now that I have gotten to this point, I am wondering how I will finish off this quilt. I have two ideas.

1. Applique it to a solid blue background then finish it off like a regular quilt (quilting, binding).
2. Add solid blue hexagons (in various shades) around the edge of the quilt for a sort of border. Then, figure out how to keep the edge hexagon shaped.

 What say you? How would you finish this quilt?

[click here to see more posts about this quilt project]

* denotes affiliate links

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations Mary, Chelsea, and Adrian!

Your patterns were emailed to you. I hope you enjoy them! (Mary, your kit will be on it’s way soon)

This one was Handmade by Meg K. Meg is one of those ridiculously talented Jack-Of-All-Crafts that I forced into being my sewing buddy after I saw her lovely wares sold at a local festival. (My email introduction went something like. “You sew awesome! Me sew too. We be friends.” or something like that) 

Anywho, I was thrilled to have her test out my pattern because she has great taste in fabrics, and an eye for detail, and she did not disappoint.

Here’s what Meg had to say about the pattern:

 All in all, I LOVE this bag, and the pattern was a nice new challenge for me, but not so difficult that I got frustrated. For those of you who know me or have been following the blog for awhile, you’ll know that I’m somewhat pattern illiterate.In my opinion, though, this pattern reads more like a lot of online tutorials than a pattern you would find at the store, but with much more clarity than many tutorials. Best of both worlds. - Meg K.

Read more details of her project on her blog.

The Mommy Poppins Bag pattern is available here.

There is only ONE DAY LEFT to enter the Mommy Poppins Bag Pattern & Hardware Kit Giveaway and take advantage of subscriber coupon codes through this weekend only!
(Coupon codes should appear at the end of this blog post if viewed in a RSS reader or in your email. If you are a blog subscriber and are having trouble accessing them, send me an email. sewfearlessatgmaildotcom)