Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween!

Family costumes!  I was thinking of making Ginny a fun ghost costume (she makes a pretty cute ghost noise) and the idea of the three of us dressing as the hitchhiking ghosts from the Haunted Mansion popped into my head.  I looked up some pictures online to refresh my memory and that sealed the deal. There's a tiny little one with a beard!  If you're not sure what I'm talking about look here or here or at this especially fun one here.


Ginny is holding the beard.  She happily wore it for extended periods earlier in the evening.


This is what happened when we tried to get her to wear it for the photo.


Oh well.  We're going trick-or-treating tonight so I'll try to get a photo of her in the beard.  Luckily she had no problem with the ball and chain.


I made Harv's coat, dicky and bow-tie, my cloak and vest and Ginny's gown and wig/beard.  Harv's vest and knickers were leftover from his Great Pandsby costume several years ago.  I dyed or tea stained all of the lighter clothes and I aged the dark ones with sand paper and watered down white acrylic paint


I hope you all have a great day with just the right amount of spooks, sugar and fun!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Happy Anniversary!

The LA Modern Quilt Guild just celebrated it's third anniversary!  I am proud to say that I have been a member since the very first meeting.  

The Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild

And here we all are, three years later!


So big we had to take a panoramic shot!  iOS5 to the rescue!

Every year we do an anniversary scrap swap, where participants bring in a ziploc bag of scraps, take home someone else's scraps and make their partner something out of them, only adding one additional fabric.  Sadly, I wasn't able to make it to the meeting where we swapped baggies so I couldn't participate but...I never shared what I made for last year's anniversary!



I made this quilt for Nicole Ramirez last year.  The stripes are all made from her scraps and I added the gray background fabric.  I used the same fabric for the back, trying to play by the rules and intended to use it for the binding too.  But by the time I finished the whole thing I thought, "F*** the rules", I'd put so much time in, I didn't want to put on some stinky old gray binding.  So I cheated and added the polka dots.  I didn't get in trouble.


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Cats, babies and quilts, amiright?

That's a line from my quilt themed stand-up routine.  It's a riot.


This quilt was made for some friends' baby girl.  Different sized squares within squares.  I had the finished block sizes worked out and piles of fabric strips of various widths, then just went to town.  I laid the blocks out on my design wall as a completed them so I could avoid similar colors touching.  All of the fabrics are solids except for a small white on salmon polka dot and (I think) a simple little white and yellow geometric print.



An embroidered label!  You don't see those from me too often, do you?  I did my usual tracing the computer screen but this time stitched over it.  The larger letters have three strands of embroidery floss and the smaller letters have two.  The bunnies on the back are flannel which made an especially snuggly quilt.


Saturday, October 20, 2012

Babe in the City

Hoo boy!  Where have I been?!  It drives me nuts when bloggers are constantly apologizing for not posting but it seems a little nuts to take an eight month break and not acknowledge it.  Eight months indeed.  But I'm here now, and I have things to show you!  I may not have been blogging but I have been sewing, so I've got quite a back catalog to share.  What's the statute of limitations on these things?  Is that a thing?  Is it tacky to share baby quilts that were given to babies who are now two and a half?  I'm going to say no.

Today, however, I'm going to share something much more recent.  The most recent something, in fact.  Ginny and I just returned from a trip to the East coast to visit friends and family and attend a wedding in New York City.  Having grown up in New England but living in LA for the last seven years, fall is the worst time of year for me.  It makes me so sad to read all about crisp weather, changing leaves and snuggly fall clothes while we're still having 116 degree days (not an exaggeration).  Visiting places with cooler weather is a prime opportunity to bundle up in our fall fashions that should not be squandered.

Of course, three days before leaving I decided Gin needed, not just an appropriately autumnal dress for the wedding but also the perfect cozy fall coat.

For the dress, I decided on the Junebug dress tutorial from Craftiness is not Optional.  It's a good simple tutorial with printable pattern pieces for size 2T and instructions for making other sizes based on clothes you have.

Instead of making a casing for the elastic in the sleeve I simply folded the sleeve edge over twice and pressed then sewed the stretched out elastic to the wrong side with a zig zag stitch.  This way makes a little ruffle at the edge and I think looks a little less homemade.  I also added a lining to the skirt as well as pleating the skirt instead of gathering it.


The coat I made her is Simplicity 2534.  I used a thick gray corduroy with some black pre made binding and lined it in aqua. The pattern's smallest size is 3T which seemed like it would be a little big so I sized down all of the pieces before I traced and cut them.  I just eyeballed the difference between the other sizes and drew new lines at a similar distance from the 3T lines.  It worked great!


This was a good little pattern.  It's a really nicely finished coat and came together easily.  I ambitiously bought some wool to make a second coat for her at the same time but wisely held off before the trip.  But seeing as we are just starting to get some lower temperatures here (i.e. low 70's, blarf) she'll be needing a back-up coat soon enough!