Sashiko Sneak Peek

After having done a bit of embroidery (and looking at waaaaaaaaay too many pretty things on flickr), I decided to try my hand at sashiko again.

I really think I love it.

I definitely love the way my first two projects are working out.  Sneak peeks only, because they're going to someone who sometimes reads the blog.  Sorry.  I'll post some pictures of the completed projects after Christmas. ;)

Live Laugh Bee - Catching Up

Aside from two blocks this week, I haven't actually done any sewing for Live Laugh Bee in a little bit.  All caught up, if you can believe it!  (Well, sort of.  More on that in a moment.)  I just never got around to posting pictures.

Here's what's been going on:

Kelly requested confetti blocks.  I LOVE the blue fabrics that she picked out.  Blue, black and teensy little bits of gold in some of the prints.  Very pretty.  And she's planning to quilt with sashiko stitching, which should be gorgeous.



My second block came out a tad small.  I ran out of white fabric and couldn't find any in the right weight to sub in.  She requested that we just send small blocks if that happened.



Then Sarah requested wonky log cabin blocks.  I think wonky log cabins are my all time favorite.  Super easy to put together, lots of fun to put together, and I always love the way they look. Sarah sent a TON of fun batiks to choose from, too.





Of course, as soon as I finished Sarah's blocks I realized that I had done them wrong.

*headdesk*

She wanted then wonky, but with traditional styling.  You'll note that I intermixed the blues and greens instead of putting blues together on one side and greens together on the other.  Gah.  Lucky for me, these will be simple enough to rip apart and put back together properly.  Also lucky that she sent so much fabric in case I need to add a little more.  She also said that we could add some of our own fabrics if we have any that tie in, and I know I have some blue and green batik.

Ursula's blocks, for October, have been so much fun.  She sent out the same fabrics that I have waiting to turn into my nephew's quilt.  She requested flying geese blocks for a little boy's quilt.  It was so much fun getting to play with these fabrics and seeing how they look with the various solid colors (which I still have to choose for my project) before I've cut into my fabric.





The other blocks turning up in the flickr group look great.  I can't wait to see how she puts them all together!

Sashiko, Done!

It's official - the sashiko towels are done!

Here's the set all together:



And a detail to show some of the stitch work:



I will admit that the stitch work did not improve as much as I had hoped between the beginning and the end of this project.  I suppose that's what comes of trying to do hand stitching in the car (while parked!), in bad lighting and with a squirmy toddler on your lap.  I DID notice a marked improvement in stitching speed, though and yay for that.

After I finished the towels last night, I caught up with the embroidery on my LITJ quilt blocks and it went SO much faster!  Seriously, when the swap started it was taking me as long to embroider the four letters of my name as it had to prep, cut and sew the blocks together.  Insane.

And today was mailing day!  YAY!  I didn't realize just how much I was worried about getting things into the mail until everything was sent off and I felt physically lighter. :)

All of the past-due LITJ blocks have gone out.  The next three are sewn, embroidered and waiting for their mailing days.  Two left to sew and I'm all done there.  I'll be sad to see the project end, but it'll be exciting watching as the quilt-building phase takes place!

I also sent out my fabric for the Sew, Mama, Sew fat quarter swap.  Pictures taken, but I'll wait a few days for the fabric to reach it's destination(s) before posting those.  And I got Sandi's block for the Quilt Block Swap into the mail.  Whew!

Next up?  Kelly's postholders for the Stitch in Dye swap, two more LITJ blocks for Carrie and Paula, and perhaps I'll dredge up some previously abandoned projects.  I've got some pretty linen kitchen towels that are close to being done, a little project for my grandmother and, if I can find my flannel stash, maybe I can finish Bug's quilt and make some wipes for Boo.  Hmm....

Woo AND Hoo!

The stars must have aligned last night, because even though Richard got home late, everyone was in a good mood and I got to sew!  I'm so excited that I actually - finally! - have some finished projects to share!

First, I was able to finish Boo's project.  A new mei tai!

Bug asked to put it on immediately, but it was too dark to get a decent picture.  And I'm way too impatient to wait for Richard and Bug to get home today to take one (and it's getting dreary again, so it'd probably be too dark, anyway) so here it is, modeled by my dressform and a tiny lion-baby.


The outer fabric is an Ikea cotton that I've been in love with for awhile.  The name of it escapes me.  It's an older one and I can't seem to find it on the website anymore, but they still carry it in the store closest to me.  The lining, inner lining and straps are a pepto-pink cotton that I've had in my stash for years.  I've looked at it a million times and wondered what in the heck I'd ever do with it...and between the mei tai and the quilt blocks I've been working on, now it's almost gone.  Amazing.

Then I wrapped up two more of the sashiko-inspired towels.  So now, three of the four are done.  I'm *thisclose* to having the fourth one finished, so I'll hang on to the pictures until I have the whole set complete.

I wanted to work on Amanda L's block for the LITJ block swap, and I needed to work on Sandy's block for the Quilt Block Swap and, when I looked at them both together I realized that I'd chosen to use the same fabric in both blocks.  So I did them both.

Here's Amanda L's block:



And here's Sandy's:  (I'm mailing today, but I hope she doesn't peek at the blog!)



I know I won't have a lot of time today, but I'm hoping to get the towel set done this week.  And maybe the potholders...  We'll see.  My mom is coming into town this weekend (YAY!) and I'd like to have some nifty stuff to show her.

Getting Things Done!

No pictures with this post, I'm afraid.  It's been pretty dark and dreary the last two days and I can't seem to find decent light for anything that we've been doing.  But I'm glad to say that things are happening around here again!  Even with Bug and I both being sick!

The sashiko-ish towel set is coming along quite nicely.  I've only got the one completely stitched up, but there are two more ready to go, and the embroidery on the fourth (and last) towel is almost done.  Depending on how the afternoon goes, I might actually get it finished today.

I still haven't gotten to sit down at the sewing machine long enough to finish Boo's project, which is a little frustrating.  It will - quite literally - take me about two minutes to finish.  But Bug has been all over the sewing machine and isn't so big on letting ME sewing anything right now.

And that's a nifty segue into announcing that Bug is now, officially, sewing.  He INSISTED that he be allowed to use the sewing machine a few days ago.  He picked out a fabric remnant, crawled up into my chair when I moved to the ironing board, popped the fabric under the needle and announced that he was making a purse.  He would not be deterred, so I showed him how to drop the presser foot and turn the knob on the side of the machine to move the needle.  That proved to be a bit of a trick, so we ended up putting the foot pedal on the table and he controlled it by pressing it with his hands.  (I DID tell him that he had to keep his fingers away from the needle while it was moving and he was supervised the whole time.  There's no need to call CPS or anything over this.)  He discovered the backstitch all by himself, though declared that it was "scary", and that put an end to the machine sewing for the day.

The following day, while I was working on the towels, he asked if he could sew with a needle.  I'd bought him one of those big plastic early-sewer kits, but he wasn't interested in it.  He loves the big plastic needle, but doesn't seem to think that it's really sewing.  So, even though it really kind of freaked me out, I loaded up the biggest embroidery needle I could find for him and poked lots of holes in my own fingers while I tried to sew and watch him at the same time.  He did a GREAT job.

I've managed to get quite a lot of swap stuffed prepped the last few days, too.  I'd fallen behind on embroidering my name on the LITJ blocks so I was behind in mailing those.  But I have some ready to go out today.  I've also prepped and packaged my fabric for the Sew, Mama, Sew fat quarter swap.  I'm not posting pictures of those yet though,  Don't want to ruin the surprise for my swap partners. :)

I've also been working on my projects for the potholder swap (the flickr group is really inspiring!) and the Quilt Block Swap.  No peeking on those yet, either. ;)

Pictures soon. Sooon.  Also, it looks like I'll have an exciting annoucement to make before too long.  Still working out the details though, so I'll leave it at that for now.

First Bit of Sashiko Done!

I wasn't planning to post about the sashiko inspired project again until I was completely finished with it, but I needed the distraction today...so, here we are.

The basic idea was to practice hand-stitching and it seemed like a better use of my (very limited) free time to make something useful at the same time.  We're a paper towel-free home, so we go through lots and lots of little cleaning rags.  The ones we have now are generally all of the terrycloth variety and getting pretty ratty looking.  I hate handing something stained or torn or otherwise ugly and asking Bug to wipe his face on it.  So I figured I'd make a set of little finger wiping / spill picker-upper cloths.

I chose a couple of fat-eighths that I wasn't in love with from my stash and dug out the embroidery thread and got to work.  I'm finding that, as I work on these, I really really start to like to the fabric.

Today, I had misplaced the almost-finished orange and yellow floral so I grabbed one of the other fabrics when Bug went down for his nap.  I don't really dislike this fabric so much but it hasn't been speaking to me either, so it was fair game.

The stitching on this one is very, very simple.  I just stitched over the vertical center lines of each vine and left the rest of the fabric alone.  I'd considered accenting the darker leaves somehow, but I kind of like the simplicity of the almost-straight lines.

When I'd finished with the vines, I folded the fabric in half, pressed it and stitched it closed.  I top-stitched the edges to give it a slightly crisper shape.  I've purposefully chosen not to square up the fabrics before I stitch them.  They were all cut (before I bought them, not by me) a little wonky, so they're not stitching up completely square.  For our purposes and because that seems to fit quite well into our wonky lives, I kind of like them that way.

(I skimmed a book titled That Dorky Homemade Look, by Lisa Boyer, the other day and these evoke that feeling in me.  I think I love them because of their imperfections.  And I think buying the book is in my not-too-distant future.)

So, here's the first of the sashiko-inspired cloths.

This first picture shows the color of the fabric the best.



And here's a detail, showing the pattern of the fabric and the stitching a little better.



More on these as I finish the others.  I'm planning on four.  I think.

(PS - Bug has given this one his seal of approval.  I handed it to him and asked him what he thought and he immediately wiped his face, then wadded it up and handed it back.  Success!)

Bug's Adventures and a Sashiko-Inspred Sneak Peek

Having a two year old is awesome.  Bug is not-quite-27-months old and is SUCH a personality.  He talks pretty much constantly and has a wicked sense of humor.  It's amazing to see so much of his own personality showing through now that he's voicing his thoughts so very clearly.  (People stop us quite often to ask how old he is because he's been speaking in sentences for awhile now.  It didn't occur to me that that might me odd at his age.)

One of Bug's favorite things to do right now is drive.  Or ask to drive.  Every time we leave the house, he smiles his charming little smile and asks in a hopeeful tone "I want to drive?"  He's not deterred at all by the answer always being some version of "I don't think so".  He always restates the desire when we fet home again.  "I want to drive a little bit."  On our way back into the house, it's generally easier to accomodate the request.  He'll hop into the front seat (keyless, lest anyone thing we're terrible parents), readjust theseat settings, turn the radio and a/c knobs for a little while, flash the lights, open the trunk, and generally have a grand old time.

Today, I stepped away to toss ourbags into the house while he was 'driving'.  I didn't shut the door very well when I stepped back to the car and two of the cats got out.  They're big chickens so this wasn't really a big deal, but it did cut Bug's driving time.  He hopped out to help  me shoo the cats back inside.  Pie, our old man, had been eating grass so we stopped to pick some more grass to take inside for the cats.  Bug very nicely handed a little bit of grass to each cat, then exclaimed "I eating grass!"  And he was.  Ew.

Being the good helper that he is, Bug ran to grab the broom when he was done chowing down on his greens, to clean up the scattered grass bits that the cats had left behind.  I was downloading the camera.  Silly mommy.  The grass wasn't quite enough of a mess for the sweeping to continue a pleasing amount of time...so Bug dumped the cat food bowl and swept that up, too.  I like to think that if I hadn't been distracted the cat foodwould haves stayed in the bowl, but probably not.  And at least he swept it up, right?

Now, to completely change gears...let's talk about sashiko!

I've seen sashiko before and always thought that it was beautiful.  I wasn't terribly inspired to acutally give it a whirl myself until I saw this pillow over at The Purl Bee.  (They have several nice tutorials.  Search for 'sashiko' and take your pick!)  The non-traditonal color choices grabbed me immediately.  I did some reading on the history of sashiko, looked at a bunch of tutorials and a boat-load of pictures (check out Flickr's Sashiko pool for some great photos) before deciding to try it out myself.

Going completely against type, I opted to work on my hand stitching before taking on a huge project.  Once upon a time, I could do really beautiful hand stitching.  But that's a use-it-or-lose it skill, and I haven't done much with it since getting pregnant with Bug.  I pulled out some fabric that I'm not overly fond of, some emboridery thread, and got to work.

Here's a little peek of the peice that I've been working on.


Obviously, the stitching needs some work.  But I'm absolutely thrilled with how it's coming together so far.  And I find it really interesting that while this particular bit of fabric didn't really do anything for me before, I'm kind of falling in love with it now that it's embellished. I'm excited to keep working on it and looking forward to seeing how the project comes together.