2013 Crafting Album

I've been really bad about documenting any of my crafting for the last year. I'm trying to get better about it again because I've found it useful to be able to look back sometimes. Hopefully, things are settling into a rhythm where I can update again more frequently. I've got about 4 or 5 posts in my head that I want to do. We'll see. Anyway, here's the highlights of 2013.

January

Bamboo newborn sweater and booties for a friend's baby shower. Both patterns (Ruby Slippers and Matinee Jacket - my favorite girl sweater pattern) are in Vintage Knits for Modern Babies by Hadley Fierlinger.

February

 Stone carving class at the February Regional Waldorf Teacher's Conference at Shining Mountain School in Boulder. (It's an owl.)

March

 A baby quilt for Clarity, my first experience with crazy quilt foundation piecing on muslin and with free motion machine quilting

 During the worrying about Clarity time I knit this headband, a knit hat, and two pairs of booties. (Which she eventually wore a couple months later)

  

 

 Baby sweater and stuffed alligator (upcycled from an old sweater) for our newest nephew, born in April.

Hopefully, I'll get the sweater pattern posted at some point.

April

April was the month with no projects that needed to be made so I just used up leftovers.

 Modern Baby Bonnet from the Vintage Knits book (leftovers from the baby sweater)

Vintage Pixie Hat and Matinee Jacket (sized up to a 2/3T) from, you guessed it, Vintage Knits for Modern Babies. (sport weight Lamb's Pride Superwash left from Quentin's sweater)

May through August - busy having baby

September

Quick knit on the drive up to Mitchell, NE and back one day with Mom and the girls to go to the Brown Sheep Fiber Festival. It has turned out to be Willow's favorite hat and I've made several more to sell with leftover bulky yarns.

October

I quickly made a whole bunch of things in October for the annual boutique (1st weekend of November) because Mom had been worried that she didn't have enough stuff made. Apparently, she had spent the last four months watching her dear granddaughters as a help to their mother. :)

 The ubiquitous Matinee Jacket

Upcycling wool sweaters to make dragons!

November

First foray into doll making. Mom started commissioning me to make these little bunting babies for the extra large quiet books she makes.

.December

Clarity's stocking

Willow's 18" dressing doll, Josie

Willow slippers (upcycled sweater and pre-made sheepskin/suede soles)

Dad's handmade journal

Hat and cuddle doll for cousin Emmett (Wil had to model the hat.)

Cloth storage bins for Andy and Aimee (with some canned goods)

Knit shawl for Aunt Debbie (Q made the shawl pin and I'll post the pattern soon)

Reversible Scrappy Baby Pants

I love the Quick Change Pants that Soulemama is always making for her little folk and I have a whole bunch of fabric strips that are scraps from a project my mother makes. After some practice, I've come up with a reversible baby pants pattern that I like and works over her fat cloth diapered rear end.


The only change I'm going to make is adding an inch to the top and taking an inch off the bottom so rather than sewing on a separate waistband I'll sew on separate cuffs to hold the two pairs together. More to follow in the near future, hopefully.

Color Wheel Quilt, Part V

Mom left this morning. :( We'll sure miss her. While she was here, she set the quilt up in her room and she worked on it more than I imagined she would. She worked so much that she finished it! I still need to finish the binding but all the quilting is done and it turned out just as beautifully as I hoped. I'm sure Willow will love it when she gets old enough to move to her big girl bed.

Mom took this picture and I just had to share it here...

Thankfully, the diaper service has started now and we were gifted a few weeks of respite before this scene starts again. :)

Color Wheel Quilt, Part IV

After the shower, the hostess kept the quilt set up for the next craft night and craft day and we even got a roll done. After we took it home, Mom wanted to be able to work on it so we got it set up in the guest room for her.

She says that it's perfect there since she only needs half of the bed anyway, the cats can't get to it, and she can quilt into the night without disturbing us.

Making Homemade Baby Wipes and Nursing Pads

Based on the size of the box Mom brought, I tore 7" wide strips of flannel from the full size fitted sheet I'd bought on clearance and stacked them all together.

Using the rotary cutter, I cut 8" long pieces from the strips.

Each rectangle got a serged edge. I ended up with 61 wipes.

I used 1 pint of water and 2 t. of Baby Wipe Juice to dampen 3 dozen of the wipes in the big box.

Mom layered two layers of flannel and one layer of fleece together. She traced around a CD and cut the circles out of all three layers. She then used the serger around the edge to hold them all together. I was appreciative for this post from Passionate Homemaking in telling how to make them.

In honor of baby's birthday tomorrow I've got a post lined up of the (finally) finished nursery and we can hopefully get a picture up of the baby itself on Thursday!

How to Make a Wet Bag

I got oiled canvas at Joann's because they don't carry oilcloth so I knew I wanted to have the right side of the fabric facing both the inside and outside since the wrong side is cloth-like and not able to be cleaned by just wiping it down - an important feature in a wet bag. Here's my tutorial so I won't have to reinvent it if I want to make another one in the future.

I started with what was essentially a "fat quarter", trimmed off the selvedge and squared up the sides.

Next, I turned each of the short sides under about 3/8" and stitched them down. I also folded the piece in half, right sides together, and stitched down one long side.

Throughout the project I avoided using pins since the oiled canvas is pretty good at staying where it's put and pin holes in a waterproof object seem like a bad idea.

We had some parts that I salvaged but they were just 1" black webbing with a plastic side release buckle. I threaded a short length of webbing onto the receiving end and sewed it together as close as I could get to the buckle - straight stitched back and forth and then gone over two times with zigzag - probably overkill but it looks nice that way. (The light stuff visible above the seam is just a damaged section from where I had to do some ripping in the salvage process.)

After trimming the tail to about 3/8", I held it near a flame to melt the raw edges and finish them. This is always an important step when dealing with webbing because it ravels terribly.

The other side of the buckle was threaded with webbing, one end finished so it wouldn't pull through. The other end just got melted since it was the one that would be included in a seam. To determine the length of that webbing, I buckled the buckle (after the clasp had been sewn into the center seam), pulled the webbing through the buckle so it had no tail and cut off the raw edge even with the raw edge of the fabric.

Sewing lines were drawn at 9" from the edge that was already sewn and at 3/8" from the other raw edge. Marks were placed on each line 2" and 3" from the top. This is where the webbing got inserted. (I would maybe change these dimensions to 3" and 4" so more foldovers are possible, which might create a better seal; I don't know if that would be necessary and I didn't want to sacrifice bag space for that chance.)

The seams were sewn inserting the webbing ends so both buckle parts were contained in the left half and could buckle without twisting the webbing.

The left half (outside layer) was then turned right side out around the right half (lining) and the tops were stitched together from the outside, going over the original stitching line.

Any slack in getting the two layers to line up was gathered into the place where the seams met. (Only place I used a pin!)

And here's the finished bag...

Fold the top over a couple of times, buckle and cinch tight and it should keep moisture in pretty effectively. Q suggested stealing the closing mechanism from rafting dry bags and I think it's a pretty elegant solution.

And it folds up quite small and buckles tight for efficient diaper bag storage.

We'll only know how well it works after it starts getting used.