Pirate Costume Stall: Laundry!

I have been so out of the loop with sewing that I got into the long weekend, ready to make some progress with sewing, and realized that I hadn't yet washed my fabrics. Gah! I can't wash them together and I can't wash them completely alone, so they're waiting on my lazy butt getting around to doing laundry in general this weekend. Time to get to it so I have some weekend left to get some sewing done!

Pirate Costume: Fabrics!

I hit up a sale at Joann's last weekend to gather supplies for the pirate costume. My wonderful husband was happy to assist. We settled on a faux black suede for the vest portion of the shirt and a cotton crepe for the sleeves and collar.

We wanted a pretty wide red stripe for the pants, but couldn't find anything suitable at Joann's. I did some searching around this morning and found this awesome cotton fabric at DenverFabrics!

No more excuses, time to get started!

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Update: I got all of the pattern pieces cut out today! I had the scissors and pattern hanging around the kitchen table and cut on things between other things, while my son, G, was eating, playing, etc. I'm super excited about this because cutting out the pattern pieces tends to be my least favorite part of the whole sewing experience. Next weekend (a long one) I can get on with working with fabrics!

One Year Later...

So, my son was born on August 20th, and here I sit a year later, finally starting to think about sewing and blogging again. What a year it has been!

I have accomplished a little bit of sewing in the last year. I finally finished up the curtains and crib skirt around Christmas time, although I don't seem to have any pictures at the moment. I'll have to take some. I also made my son a blank slate of a Christmas stocking for him to embellish in future years (another McCall's 5549).

I also made myself two pairs of pajama pants, both using Simplicity 2317, which I love. The second pair was in a green plaid. It was my first experiment with plaid, and it didn't get close to lining up, but it was a good learning experience.

I've been attempting to whip up two pairs of pajama pants for my husband using Butterick 5572 (finally a pajama pants pattern with pockets!). After several false starts I now need to start over completely because the baby got ahold of and shredded the pattern pieces before I managed to cut any of the fabric.

I have a new goal of making my son a Halloween costume before Halloween. I'm using Simplicity 2561, the pants from view B, right, and the top from view D, bottom left. I've never tried a shirt before, so there are definitely some challenges here. I feel like Halloween costumes are a good time to make mistakes, though.

Also on my radar is a quilt for my son, who will be ready for a bed and blankets before we know it, and a baby quilt for the next son or daughter, due April 2.

This may all be a bit overly ambitious, especially for a pregnant woman with a burgeoning toddler. However, summer is winding down, meaning more time indoors, my son is close to weaning, and I like to have goals. I may not get all these things done in the time frame I would like, but I like to have something to work towards.

Crib Skirt Cut Out

I spent the better part of my on-my-feet hours today cutting out all of the pieces for the crib skirt. I had cut out the panels I needed for the curtains first since they were the biggest pieces. Next, I needed to cut out the pieces for the crib skirt, and then finally with the leftovers I could cut the tabs for the tab-top.

Since almost all of the pieces were perfect squares, I decided to use my rotary cutter and rulers. This seemed to work very well with the cotton-as-linen. However, when I got to the silk I really struggled. My cutting surface was not big enough for the long cuts that I needed to make. So I had to move the cutting pad under the silk mid-way through cutting a piece out. Trying to keep the silk and the pattern in one place while moving a rubbery surface underneath didn't end up working out so well. I also struggled with keeping the silk squared off. I'm not sure if it will be noticeable, but I found it very frustrating as I went.

So now I have all of the pieces cut out and ready to be thrown together. All I have left to cut are the tabs for the tops of the curtains and the two big panels of the curtain lining. Hopefully it will start coming together quickly now.

Still no baby. I'm now 9 days past my due date...

Baby's Room!

I am a few days over my due date with my first child, a baby boy. I have been planning to sew curtains and a crib skirt for the nursery since my husband and I decided to start a family. We decided on the theme for the nursery (woods/forest) back in March when we found out we were having a boy. Pretty soon thereafter, the plan for the linens in the baby's room started to form.

I am sewing a side-drape, tab-top, single-panel curtain in white faux-linen with a green silk border. The crib skirt will be done with matching fabrics with a similar width band at the bottom. I'm using McCall's 4855 as the pattern for the crib skirt. Below are samples of the fabric from Fabric Warehouse.

I didn't have everything in place to start working on the pieces until my third trimester, which I found terribly exhausting. It is only now, as things are winding down at work, and the baby is getting ready to make his entrance into the world, that I am finding time to try to put the pieces together.

I have never made curtains before, so the size of the fabrics has been a little intimidating. It's also my first time working with silk, also intimidating. So far, I have washed all of the fabrics, and pressed the fabrics for the curtains. I have a little more fabric to press, and then I can get going on putting things together!

I am a little disappointed with how the silk came out of the wash. I read online that dupioni should be washable on the lowest setting and can even be dried on low in the drier. So I tried these steps, and ended up with a ton of little creases. I knew that I would need to be able to wash the completed pieces, as they will be in a child's room for many years. So I'm glad I started out with washing the items, but I mourn the luxurious even drape of the silk when it first arrived.

Belated: Quilt Top Pieced

Back in March, I finished piecing the Colorado Quilt. Here is a picture of the finished quilt top laid out on my bed in my terribly messy room.

I lost my enthusiasm for the project partly because I am terribly unsure how I am going to go about quilting it. The pattern calls for an awesome squared spiral, but I don't think my machine will manage turning the corners with all of bulk of the entire length of the quilt. Part of me wants to get it professionally quilted. Part of me wants to do some other quilting solution, such as vertical lines across the entire quilt.

I was also a little overhwelmed by all of the colors when laid out on a bed. At this point, I don't plan the quilt to go on my bed. I have (as you can see) a very dark red wall behind the bed, which works very nicely with the cream-colored and red-accented quilt that I currently use on the bed. But with the bright greens, purples, and soft pinks it didn't work so well. So it will likely go in the guest room, for which I don't have any furniture at the moment, further de-motivating me.

Quilt Progress

Last week, I finished up the 18 pink blocks with the new fabric. This weekend I was able to place all of the blocks on the quilt wall and started on piecing those together. It's going very well and quite quickly so far. It's an exciting point to be at!