confession sunday (on a saturday): a prayer

December 15, 2012December 16, 201234 Comments

i’m beyond devastated at the news out of newtown, CT. my heart hurts so badly i almost can’t stand it, and i’ve spent a good part of the last two days crying. i fell asleep snuggled close to Em last night, letting myself feel safe and calm in her bed. the Clackamas mall shooting hit very close to home, physically, and this now has hit very close to home for me emotionally. i can’t help but imagine Em there – my sweet little gal that loves school so much, and has such a pure heart. i can’t even comprehend the devastation of those families.

i also have a good amount of anger, both at the shooter(s) and at the fact that this keeps happening in America. i don’t like being so angry. i don’t think it’s helpful or productive, though i know it’s part of the grieving process. and in times of grief and crisis, i often turn to prayer. i don’t talk about my faith on my blog much – it’s a sewing blog, it exists to share the pretty and creative parts of my life. i don’t talk about my faith much in real life either, frankly. but today i wanted to share this prayer, which is a song i know from childhood. it’s based on the prayer of st. francis and it speaks to my heart. no matter your faith (or lack thereof), i hope you can interpret these words in a way that bring you peace and help you move forward as they’re currently helping me.

Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.

Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness only light,
And where there’s sadness ever joy.

Oh Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console.
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
In giving of ourselves that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.

i will resume regular blogging sometime this week as i feel up to it. we are postponing our film petit post by a few days, and it will be a fun one. happy, positive, lovely things are all around us, it’s the holiday season, and life goes on. but i couldn’t let this horrific event pass without you knowing it has hurt my heart so deeply and that what follows on this blog will be posted in an attempt to raise spirits, share joy, bring smiles, and give peace. as always.

take care.

pink and purple colorblock dress

December 13, 2012December 13, 20121 Comment

i’m working hard behind the scenes to get our next film petit project ready for next week (it’s gonna be a good one!), which leaves very little time to blog. today i’m reposting a dress Em designed herself as part of me sew crazy’s genius series, K.I.D.S.! you can see all of the posts from the series right here.

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hi me sew crazy readers! i’m so excited to be here today!!

my 4.5 year old daughter Em and i are sort of a design team, to tell you the truth. from crazy-looking softies to halloween costumes to fabric selection to entire outfits based on her favorite things, Em has played a pretty major role in my design process for a while now. i sew with her likes in mind because it helps ensure my projects will get worn, though i try to expand her horizons too (i got her to wear blue by including butterflies and twirl and ruffles on her coraline dress). we’re at a point where she probably has more confidence in my sewing than i do, proclaiming “mommy can fix it” to the most horrendous of rips! nice little confidence booster there.

at a pretty early age (like before she turned 2) she decided her favorite color was pink. she has since added a couple others, and if you ask her now she’ll tell you her favorite colors are “pink and purple and red.” she’s a much girlier girl than i am – it cracks me up. so when i drew a simple outline of a girl and asked her to draw something for me to sew, i wasn’t surprised one bit that she reached straight for those colored pencils and drew a pink and purple colorblocked dress (with heart headpiece).

i wanted to make the dress very comfy for her and it seems like she picks her jersey knit dresses to wear quite a bit, so i hit the old navy sale rack (my favorite knit fabric source) for two adult shirts and repurposed them, adding color block purple panels to the signature dress to create this little dress from her design!

she added a few hearts above her head, telling me she would like a heart headband too. via instagram, the lovely delia reminded me of katie did’s felt heart headbands (side note: if you’ve never seen katie’s site, you should really go, be inspired, then mourn the blogging community’s loss of an amazing talent because of one stupid jerk. katie remains one of my biggest inspirations and i’m so sad she isn’t blogging anymore, though she does have a pretty great little business going now!).

my hearts are felt too, machine-stitched onto some fold over elastic.

i added puff sleeves (tutorial here from Rae) and kept the existing collar so the buttons would remain functional.

Em loves it. she chose to wear it to her grandma’s birthday dinner and was so very proud that she designed it herself! she seemed especially excited about the buttons. she loves to button buttons.

it was so fun putting big smiles on her face with a dress she designed!

thanks so much for having us, Jessica! such a fantastic idea for a series and a fun one for Em and i both!

granny square christmas pillow

December 10, 2012December 10, 20129 Comments

continuing on my current quilting kick, i made a pillow for my husband’s company holiday party. they do a Christmas decor gift exchange/yankee swap type thing every year, and this year i decided to add to my quilt block repertoire and make a pillow!

granny squares are the hot new-old quilt block, did you know? first Jessica made one for me as a pillow for my birthday (which i posted here), then Jess posted her progress on her middle daughter’s new big girl quilt and linked to a great tutorial on how to make them. that did it, it became a “must make.” i figured a pillow would be great practice and the fabric would be fun to figure out. i cut my squares at 3.5″ each and i added a 3″ sashing around the edge to frame the pillow (3.5″ sashing would’ve been better though – bit of a squeeze). the pillow is around 18″ x 18″ finished.

i didn’t pay as close of attention to the tutorial as i should’ve and did a little extra piecing, and i also cut myself with my freshly changed rotary cutter blade during the process, but it still came together in just a few hours and was a fun design to make.

i did sort of a mix of traditional and more modern prints in Christmasy colors of red and green, with lots of polka dots. the inner square is from a fat quarter of lizzy house leaves and berries in cocoa that i got at bolt a while back (here’s some on etsy!), surrounded by pearl bracelet also from hello pilgrim and two different versions of moda essential dots (i first used the red ones on the amelie dress, and the cream ones i think i got on clearance at fabric depot).

it’s always hard to show quilting on light fabric. i outlined the squares on the outside edge of each, then ran a second line of stitching echoing the outline around the outside of the block. it created some cool diamond and triangle shapes.

the back is just an envelope closure with a button to make sure it stays put.

it’s a bit risky to bring a handmade to an anonymous gift swap; there was stealing allowed and part of me was hoping it’d get stolen a couple times to show the time spent (and blood spilled) was worth it!*

my husband works at a family business though, and my sister in law hid the pillow under the table to prevent it getting stolen! i figure that’s just as good, right? she wanted it to come home with her, and she made sure that happened. so i know it went to a loving home. 😉

just when it ‘s time to take photos of inanimate objects (which should be a snap), the 2 year old can’t resist playing with the ornaments and photobombing my photoshoot. silly boy.

what are you making this holiday season? anyone giving any quilted pillows? they’re a fun way to practice your quilting without a huge time commitment! just one block, some quilting, and you’re done. totally fun (unless you slice your fingers – be sure to roll the cutter AWAY from you! AWAY NOT TOWARDS!! sewing is dangerous!).

be safe out there, you guys.

*I promise I did not bleed on the pillow!

doily clutch winner + super mario skirt

December 8, 2012December 8, 201211 Comments

the winner of the doily clutch is melanie, who said:

My favorite holiday song is o Holy Night … I LOVE the doily clutch!!!

congratulations melanie! i emailed you. 🙂 if you didn’t win, remember there’s a tutorial for you to make your own!

for those who asked, my favorites of the more traditional Christmas songs are O Holy Night and Carol of the Bells (popular picks in the comments!). i’m also a big fan of the sufjan stevens christmas albums. but the Christmas song that makes me laugh in spite of myself is chiron beta prime by jonathan coulton. have you heard it? it’s amazing.

switching gears a bit, i’ve been meaning to blog this for a while and never got around to it! remember back when Kat from Sew Chibi made that awesome twilight sparkle skirt for Em (which she wore today!)? well when someone gives me a gift like that, i must reciprocate. it’s just how i am. if you’ve given me a handmade gift and i haven’t sent something in return, you should know that it’s probably on my to do list!

anyway, i never got finished photos of the skirt i made in return because i finished so close to playdate time. this is the best i got, just snapped with my phone:

luckily Kat got brighter photos for her blog post, which you can read right here! she made an awesome shirt to complement it, so go check it out. two words: CHOMP CHOMP.

my skirt was made using You & Mie’s awesome tutorial for a reversible circle skirt. on one side, i did a super mario bros. scene like I did for O’s shirt a while back. it would’ve been fun to keep appliquéing a huge mario scene all around the skirt, but I ran out of time so I just did the front. It has a few more things than his shirt did, though, like the flagpole at the end of the level!

on the reverse side, cherries! cherries factor in to Super Mario 2 more than the original, but i thought they’d be fun. the fabric is from joann (and you can see a hint of the awesome shirt Kat made)!

the bottom edge is seersucker. it was funny, i was a little nervous to give something I sewed to Kat, who has such a fun, colorful, over-the-top style i thought it might be too “quiet” for her, but she seemed pretty darn excited about it (their family is all a bunch of video game nerds) and i realized there was probably no one better to give a super mario bros. skirt to! haha.

what reminded me to post this is Kat just so happens to be a finalist in the voting to add the final contestant(s) to the next season of Project Run & Play! you can check out her recap of recently sewn items to see what i mean about her creativity, and vote for your favorite at Project Run & Play! voting closes sunday evening. wouldn’t she be fun to watch?!

i can’t believe it’s been almost a year since i competed in PR&P…i was in season 3 and they’re about to start season 6! my how the time flies.

we also celebrated O’s second birthday this morning! can’t believe that either, it feels like i just had him! i must be getting old or something.

have a great weekend!

commuter cowl review and giveaway!

December 4, 2012January 7, 201343 Comments

i’m the next stop in A Very Go To Christmas blog tour! Andrea is building a pretty great shop over there at Go To Patterns, and it keeps getting better the more designers she brings on! you should definitely go check it out, and check back often because i think the first time i ever looked she had, like, 3 patterns in there and she’s now up to nearly 70! lots of basics, lots of fun stuff, lots of options.

the pattern from the shop that i chose to review is the commuter cowl, designed by shannon of luvinthemommyhood! i remember loving this pattern when it first came out but never pulled the trigger and got it. i was excited to sew it now, especially after making her sweetheart dress and having such a good time with it.

every time i saw this cowl pop up, i tried to figure out how it was made. it SEEMED super simple, but i still had no idea what was going on with the split and the twist and for the life of me couldn’t figure out how to make it myself. a pattern was needed.

even with the pattern, for some reason my brain was having trouble grasping a few basic concepts. do you have certain techniques like that, things that just trip you up no matter how well-explained they are? for me it seems to be tubes. i always sew the wrong thing closed, think something will turn right side out that won’t, all sorts of craziness. i kept having to tell myself to just follow what the pattern said and not think i knew better…especially with finishing the scarf off…and it all worked out great! i want to make another now that it finally clicked (which i should because i really love the final product and this one is destined for Christmasgiftland).

the pattern lists instructions for varying sizes of cowl depending on the fullness you want and the type of fabric you’re using. i made the 1/2 yard option with this amazing Nani Iro flannel (WITH SPARKLY POLKA DOTS) that i picked up at bolt during their sale, but it’s gone now. miss matatabi has a nice Nani Iro selection though, including flannel!

here’s the thing, too. shannon is a pacific northwesterner. even though she’s in canada and i’m in the US, we share a climate. a gal from a chilly and rainy place understands that scarves are very important to have in a wardrobe. i live in trench/rain/warm coats all fall/winter/spring, and the only chance i really have to add some personality to my outerwear is through my scarf collection. they’re cozy, too. it’s amazing how much warmer you can be when your neck is covered. frankly, i even wear them all day at the office – i can never have too many!

i think gals in warmer climates could rock a commuter cowl in voile or gauze, though, and it’d have a totally different (but gorgeous) look!

head over to the Go To Patterns shop to pick up your commuter cowl pattern NOW! it’s only $4 and you can definitely get your money’s worth if you give one of these as a gift! then go ahead and make one (or more) for yourself. you know, the old “one for them, two for me” type situaish.

oh, and thanks to my good friend erin for taking these photos! apparently i’m a bit more relaxed with a lady photographer?

AND NOW…another giveaway! two days in a row, that’s right!

Enter to win a shopping spree at GoToPatterns.com and Sew Fine Fabric!

giveaway now closed

Check out the talented blog tour:

Handmade Therapy Nov. 29th

a pretty cool life. Nov. 29th

Sew Much Ado Nov. 30th

Simple Simon and Co Dec. 1st

One Little Minute Dec. 1st

The Cottage Home Dec. 2nd

Sew country chick Dec. 2nd

Nap Time Crafters Dec. 3rd

A Little Gray Dec. 3rd

skirt as top Dec. 4th

you & mie Dec. 5th

Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy! Dec. 5th

Me Sew crazy Dec. 6th

see kate sew Dec. 6th

Delia Creates Dec. 7th

i was provided with the commuter cowl pattern at no cost for this review, and i am also an affiliate of Go To Patterns. my opinions, as always, are my own.