Argyle, head to toe

It's finished! Here's the refashion I hinted about the other day...



It was time for yet another pair of longies. So a while ago, I'd pulled out a pile of felted sweaters whose arms seemed about the right width and length for Lucy right now. Among them was this one. Naturally, I forgot to take a "before" shot, but you can picture it: a grey, pink, and white argyle sweater; 1990s style, with big shoulder pads. Ick. But when I spotted it at the thrift store, I knew it had potential for a baby.

So I chopped off the legs and did the usual thing. When I was finished, I was left with the body of the sweater, and the pattern was too cute to chop up into shorties. I wondered if I could make a dress.

And I did!

I took a favorite knit dress of Lucy's and laid it on the sweater to see if it might work. I'd originally thought "jumper," but realized there was enough fabric for a short-sleeved dress. I also decided to turn the sweater upside down so I could use some of the waistband as a finished neckline. As I positioned my model dress on top of the sweater, I realized the waistband could make a turtleneck. How cozy!

I wasn't sure if it would be too tight going over her head, so I left one side of the turtle open, and used a scrap to make a flap for a buttonhole. I decided to finish the other edges (sleeves, hem) with embroidery floss, using a blanket stitch, because I am still not satisfied with my results when I finish felted wool on my machine. I added a little pocket to break up the big expanse of grey on the lower part of the dress.

The resulting dress has a strangely grown-up style, but with its matching longies is so comfy and cozy like pjs, it's perfect for a baby. Good for a baby's work...like dusting under the couch:



(I tried and tried to get a shot of the turtleneck with its cute pink button, but my model is very active!)

Fresh corners of my own

I read Soulemama's "Fresh corners" post earlier this week and desperately wanted some fresh corners of my own. So today, we tackled the kitchen. While Andi caulked and scrubbed, I emptied, scrubbed, weeded out, and reorganized shelves. It's amazing what a re-organized cupboard can do for your mood. So far...

I started small and manageable: the little tea cabinet. It was so stuffed, we couldn't shut the door properly! Now it all fits (barely):



(I've got to polish off some of that boxed stuff, because I want to fill this cabinet with my own grown and foraged herbs.)

That was satisfying, so I felt able to tackle a bigger mess: the cookbooks in my island. They'd outgrown their space. I gave each book a critical perusal, and was able to weed some out. Nice fresh shelves:



(There are toys interspersed because if I put toys in there, the babies and toddlers are less likely to pull out my cookbooks. The basket contains the heap of bibs.)

Time for something more fun. I did these shelves, refolding my vintage aprons and dish cloths and re-arranging a few tchotchkes:



With all that accomplished, I felt able to tackle the biggest task of all: the dish shelves. These were a wreck. The dust! The spider webs! (The stuff way up high is rarely used, or, apparently, cleaned.) Some of the shelves were crammed too tight. Some of the stuff we use daily was on the top shelf, where (short) Andi could never put it away. Some stuff had no place. Now, it's SO much better. (Of course, I still envy lovely cohesive things like Martha Stewart's all-white dishes, but this is more real-life us; things given to us or bought over the years, old and new, all mixed together.)

In the works...

Ooh...I finally got to a project that's been waiting (in the heap by the sewing machine) for too long. And it's coming out so, so cute! Not quite ready to show, but here's a peek. Crossing my fingers for lots of sewing time this weekend...

New inspiration on my bookshelf

For years, Andi and I have blocked out Thursdays on our calendars as "date night." It usually just means going downtown for dinner and maybe a bit of browsing, but it means we have time for just us. Now that Lucy's here, our date nights have become "family date nights." Tonight, we did our old favorites: dinner out, and a browse in a favorite bookstore to check out what's new.

Usually, we just look, add books to our wish lists, and dream. But tonight, while I was drooling over the new craft books and started showing Andi the ones I coveted, she said "buy it" at the first one. Yay! I got this one:


Shop Indie Bookstores

And did I mention that she picked out some crafty books for me for Christmas, too? She got me:


Shop Indie Bookstores

and


Shop Indie Bookstores

Good choices!

What'll I make first?

A few last gifts

Ok, I finally gave our last Christmas gifts tonight (yeah, a bit late). So now I can feel free to show them.

More "discards" inspired by Denyse Schmidts's Quilts:



This set of them included a lot of vintage fabrics, and I found that I really liked the contrast of the modern style with those sweet vintage patterns.

One last 10-minute headband:



And, best of all, the pencil pouch that worked! (Bless you, Noodlehead.)





This last was a gift for a four-year-old. I used his own handwriting as the pattern for the embroidery, and included a pencil and a pen and a sketch book (of course, his mom is the one who really loves it, with that precious handwriting).

edited to add: I can't take credit for the pencil-pouch idea; that was from my brilliant friend Julie, who gave embroidered pencil pouches to her friends' children, using her daughter's handwriting and drawing. Shamelessly stolen!

Who's the weirdo with the dishes in her purse?

Here's another one of the gifts I made for Christmas (well, made and bought).



This was a gift for a friend who's been inspired to make some green changes in her life: a zipper pouch filled with stainless steel straws and bamboo sporks, to help her family avoid plastic while eating out.

When I was in college, I carried my mug with me everywhere, clipped to my backpack (then, a new idea). I'm embarrassed to admit that for a while, I stopped doing that, and went back to buying disposable cups with my drinks. But at some point, I wised back up and started using a mug again for my coffee and a Kleen Kanteen for water. Then a while back, I was reading "No Impact Man" and he inspired me to start carrying a "weirdo cloth" in my purse (a bandana that replaced disposable napkins). Soon after that, I found bamboo sporks in a local store, and my purse became a definite weirdo zone, but my disposables consumption went way down (and by the way, those sporks are the perfect tool for feeding a baby off your restaurant plate).

This friend loves straws, so she inspired me to seek out non-disposable straws. I loved the glass ones I found, but went with stainless for a lighter load (my purse is getting pretty crowded, now! Oh, yeah--I bought straws for us while I was at it).

I thought I could wing making the pouch, but was thwarted by the zipper once again (I don't think I really have a zipper foot for my machine, and I didn't know where to put the zipper pull while I sewed, so it's a kind of a mess). Don't you know, the next day my Google reader fed me the perfect tutorial (thank you Noodlehead!), so now I know how to make a decent pouch, and I'll have to make her a new one asap.

Watercolor painting--10 month style

Ooh...this stuff feels so good on my hands!



Look, Mommy got another brush ready for me. Time to trade.



Hey, Mommy's dipping the brushes into that stuff over there. Maybe I'll try it!