All sorts of stuff

Hi there. There are several dead horses I'm beating. One is Vogue 8634. It started as a medium, then a small, and now the shoulder seam part is extra-small. I'm not extra-small in anything but apparently in the shoulder seams of Vogue 8634 I am. I have to rip out and redo all my twin needle stitching on it, as making it extra small brings the sleeves up and I could really use that inch I took off. Then I think it'll be done. The other dead horse is I accidentally broke my $200 dining room lamp and am trying to fix it. I am glad my Ikea dining room table can hold my weight.  Meanwhile I hurt my foot at a work meeting and just want it to get better soon.  Gratitude is the best healer, and I'm grateful my back and knee pain has decreased a lot this year, while my mobility has increased.  My goal is for 2011 to be my healthiest year ever!

Let's look at fun stuff, shall we? Since 11/14/10, I've made 600 Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies with walnuts, from scratch. I've probably eaten 100 of them. Last year I wrote about making the custom labels.


I love gift wrapping, especially when I don't have to do a lot of it. Here are some of my favorites so far:





Here's a "wreath" cupcake from House of Cupcakes:


Here's Princeton's Palmer Square, all lit up for Christmas:


The super-quaint Princeton Post Office is in the background:


My orchids at work, and the moon, before leaving work tonight:




And a closeup of what they looked like this morning:


Can anyone ID the bird in this photo? There are actually two birds; probably a hawk? and its pray:




Hope everyone's having a great holiday season.
Good night!

Grandmom Craft: holiday edition

Ok, the Santa Bag is really, really fun to carry around.  It gets comments everywhere.  Some don't see the pompom tassel immediately and then squeal again when they see it.  I've even had a grown man tell me "I like your bag"!  Like Gwen said happened to her daughter, a coworker told me she wants to steal it!

I don't know if I will sew this weekend or not (today was a "chore" day of the non-standard variety (try to fix a lamp--I will know tmw morning if I was successful/fill car tires/change furnace filters/repot a plant/remove a different planter stuck to my kitchen floor) plus some regular chores. Tomorrow is cookie making in the morning, then off to visit some friends for a very long lunch, and then watching the season finale of The Amazing Race at night (Brook and Claire or Nat and Kat for what I hope will be the history making win (first female team to win TAR).

I am also fighting off a cold with all my might.  I'm trying to keep it from developing!

So, in lieu of my crafting/sewing here's some Grandmom craft, holiday style.
First up is a snowman game that I don't think I've ever successfully completed. I have it out on my desk year round. Here the "buttons" are filled in, but eyes are not:


One eyed snowman:


I'm not sure what she used as the base of this game, but it says "made in the USA". The lid and base are taped together with red electrical tape. She used red felt for the background.  For the snowman, she cut white felt and then used a marker to color in the snowman's hat.  She also used green yarn for the scarf.

I think she made this but now I'm not sure. How would she have done that decorative edge stitching? Hrm.  I think it's a decorative bottle bag.


I've shown this before, but it's perfect for the season. It's a shadowbox of Christmas pins that she made. After all these years, I still LOVE the skate pin, where the blades are made from paper clips.  She hand stitched the skates together, but used glue for the sequins.  Securing the sequin by stitching it on with a bead would have been more effective.   I love the snowman pin too which is lightly stuffed and glued on the edges.


And then, of course, there are the Santa bow ties (the left are garters she made for my parents wedding as favors).

She was a Boy Scout troop leader and I think a lot of her crafts were for the troop.  When I was little she gave me her crafting supplies and I'd play with them for hours:  wooden beads in the gold and blue Boy Scout colors, a box of 1000 Popsicle sticks, tiny carpet samples (mostly red but the turquoise samples were my favorite), blue tassels, round pieces of flat cork,  a tube containing little round wooden doll heads, and lots of sequins, glitter, and beads.  She died more than 20 years ago but I think part of her still lives on through me and my crafting and sewing.  I think she would have been a fan of the Santa Bag too.

Good night!

Santa Bag, Express Lite Version

Ok, so a few weeks ago, when I made my Mondo shirt, Gwen commented that she made one like it a few months ago, so I started going back through her blog to find it. And that's when I stumbled upon her amazing Santa bag!

I knew I had to make it when I saw it. But I also knew I wasn't willing to devote the time and detail to her bag. Her bag is quilted (by her!), has a key ring, a monogram, real candy cane striped handles, two pompoms, a zipper, and purse feet.

Hence, here's my version of Gwen's Santa Bag, which I'm calling the Holiday Express Lite version. The pattern is Simplicity 8331, a modified version of view D. It's made from red canvas on the outside, a holly cotton that's totally not true to grain on the inside (and one of the oldest pieces of my stash, at least 13 years old, but possibly 17 years old, probably from the Rag Shop), with a red canvas pocket on the inside and red canvas handles.


The pompom is made from a scrap of the white Santa trim, I folded opposite corners together and sewed, and then sewed on a remnant of white cord from my New Look bathrobe (though apparently I haven't taken a photo of my bathrobe with the cording). (And I always wondered what I'd ever do with just a few inches of leftover cording! A-ha!)




If I ever make this again, my note to myself is to sew the Santa trim 3/8 from the edge of the fabric, which is the seam allowance for sewing the lining to the bag. I had to rip it out and redo it.

The bag has no structure, though, so it is rather droopy. The Simplicity instructions say to use plastic needlepoint canvas in the bottom of the bag, but I haven't done that.


I have made this before, out of the scissors fabric from Stitch lab. It is actually my purse that I have used almost every day since I finished it in late April.

My friend Debbie wanted to know how to make the "butt" of the bag, where the corners are. She saw this bag in person in May.
Here are some action shots.
Here is the pattern. In the bottom corner are three very important dots, a stitch line and a fold line.


I transfer the markings to the fabric. In this shot I had already marked and sewn the fabric. There is a diagonal clip at the first dot from the edge of the fabric to the dot. I've been using tailor's chalk ever since Antoinette's undies tutorial. Love that tailor's chalk (and that tutorial!).


Here's how it looks from above. Fold on the fold line (which is on the left and right edge of the fabric in this shot), stitch on the seam line (marked as S in this shot). You're matching the top dot to the bottom dot.


It's very important to make sure the seam of the side of the bag and seam of the bottom of the bag actually match up before sewing along the seam line. I hadn't done that and the seams didn't match. So I ripped out the seam (you can see thread remnants on the right side of the photo). You can also see how important the clipped seam is!

I didn't capture it, but I then cut the excess off at this point.

When it's turned inside out, the corner now has a "butt".

I should have pressed it but I knew I had more work to do. This is another moment where I think it looks better in real life.



Thanks, Gwen, for posting your bag, it truly inspired me!