"Go to Sleep Baby" baby doll

I've had this idea for a baby doll for Tess, the baby, for awhile. I put her up for a nap and she spends about 20 minutes talking to a stuffed bunny in her crib. Either the bunny or her blanket, but I think it's the bunny. I have no idea where the bunny came from. My best guess is a garage sale this summer. You should hear her, she goes on and on talking to this bunny. It's quite a friendship Tess and this bunny have going. But, if she is going to have a lasting relationship with a toy, I'd rather it be with something that I've made for her. I know it's silly, but whatever. I've had this doll design in my sketch book for about a month decided today to give it a go. I tried to go fast and not get caught up in to many details.
I considered giving her a little heart to hold, but then I thought she might pull it off, stuff it in her mouth and suffocate. So I didn't add the heart.
Quick project like this are always fun because I have so many helpers around.
I hope this sleeping baby reminds Tess what she's supposed to be doing when I put her in her crib.

All I've got is time.

With my new found enthusiasm for Maria's quilt I have decided to add a lot of applique all around the border. I'm also thinking of trying to hand quilt this one. If it is too slow I can always put it under the machine later, but I really like the look of hand quilting. I saw the Thimblelady on Simply Quilts once, so I'm going to try her technique for hand quilting. I even ordered one of her rubber thimbles. Has anyone ever tried this? So this will be a longer project, but that is OK. I have a few projects in the works right now, so I can switch around if I get bored. I also have plenty of laundry to fold if I run out of things to do. Really, the laundry is ridiculous!

quality verses quantity

Comments? Not so many. Quantity of comments are low here on the blog. Nonetheless, what really matters is quality right? Lucky for me that's what I got. "Jan in Nagasaki" came in with a late comment to this post which put me on a whole new path with my quilt. I really was stuck and down about how this quilt was coming along. Jan said red. This did not fit in with my original idea and I would never have thought of red. I took about a week to think about red. I started to like it more and more. Soon I was running to the store to get the red for sashing and borders. It's gonna look so cool! It looks so cool! So that's really all it takes sometimes, a few good quality comments. Thanks.
January light also falls into the quality category. It pours into the house in the middle of the day at the most beautiful angle. No leaves on the trees to filter it. Snow on the ground outside makes it bounce around like it does when you're by the ocean. So pretty. Here's Tess playing on the floor in a shaft of light. I was talking on the phone with my mom at the time trying to tell her how pretty it looked. So soon Tess will be up and moving around, but for now she still stays where she's at.

Old ideas coming to life

With so much free time on my hands these days (ha ha!), I thought I'd take on some elaborate projects for 2008. One thought I've always had since starting to quilt is that anything can be made out of a log cabin square. I've started this new small quilt to put this idea into action. I'm just using left over linen from other projects and I really like how it is coming out. It's a very fussy idea and will take a lot of time to complete, but whatever, no rush.
Another idea that I've had for a long time is that it would be really cool to upholster a chair with a quilt. I popped into the local furniture consignment shop last week and found this chair, so I got it. I'm gonna give this idea at try. Jim asked if I know how to upholster furniture. Great question. Do you really need to know how to do something before you do something? Can't I just learn this off the internets? The other thing about this chair is that it will need about 6 yards of fabric. That's a whole lotta quilting. Lots of ideas on how this can be done. I will think on it more while I work on the log cabin quilt.

Painting is NOT flying away

Maria is a little creative machine. She's constantly making, drawing, building, doing something. Shortly before Christmas she was asking if she could do some painting and I was saying "No". Which is pretty much what I've said to this request for a very long time. So messy. I tell her to do painting at school. She said they don't have much painting there. She thinks for a minute and says, "Mama is painting flying away from me?" OK, that's horrible. No, painting should not fly away from anybody, and it really should not fly away from Maria. So, we were very lucky on Christmas morning to open these beautiful paint sets with large canvases sent from my brother. I sat with each of the kids and worked on these for a long time.
Patrick and Maria each spent about 2 1/2 hours on their painting. I helped with mixing the colors, but they did all the painting. Betsy kinda did hers on the fly. Hers was really looking great. See the girl, the apple, the tree? Great composition and movement. Great capture of her drawing style right now. This photo was taken just moments before it "rained". I turned my back to freshen up the water and it "rained" blue spots all over the whole painting. She did it so fast. I wanted to get mad or something, but what was there to get mad about? She loved it. I forgot how narrative kids are with their art at this age. It is never just a painting of a thing, but of events.

New Years Eve Quilt

I finished this quilt late last night, just minutes before midnight. This was my gift for Jim for Christmas. He took a few days off before Christmas, so I was not able to finish in time without him seeing it. I had shown him many of the parts of this quilt, but I don't think he knew that it was going to be put together as a quilt for him.
I used many left over pieces from this quilt. I found the blue linen on clearance at Joann's, and I think it makes the other fabric seen more masculine. About as masculine as lot of floral prints can be at least. In any case, it is a beautiful blue linen with a lot of depth and shine to it, and it is so soft. I went with a design sort of similar to the Stacked Coins quilt in Last Minute Patchwork. Everything went pretty smoothly on this quilt. I tried not to get too fussy or over-think things.

Happy New Year to anyone who has taken the time to stop by and read my blog. It has been fun to share the things that I make and the events of my life here. I've also loved seeing all of the wonderful creations so many other people make and share. It is hard to find people in my real life who share these interests, so starting a blog has been fun. The past few years have been full of many changes for us with moving back to Chicago and having a new baby. It is hard to imagine how our life might change over the next year, but of course it will.

(I was looking for an arty photo image to put here, but I couldn't find one, so I'm going with "kids in the city". This should be resolution #1, take more arty photos.)

Christmas Angel

Phew! Christmas is done! What a fun, exciting holiday, but I have to say the day after was the most enjoyably relaxing for me. Waking up and thinking that there was nothing that I "had" to do was a pretty good feeling. With all these kids, the holidays start about 3 weeks before Halloween and don't stop until now. I love it, don't get me wrong. There were so many things I wanted to do, but just didn't get to. Maybe next year, or some other year. You don't have to do every holiday "tradition" every year, some traditions will have to be rotated.
I didn't make a lot of Christmas presents this year, but I knocked myself out on the few that I did make. For my parents I made this angel. Dolls are so much fun. When I started getting close to finishing her I realized that I would have to put her in the mail and send her away. How sad! She might get cold, or worse, lost! So I prolonged my stay with her for as long as possible by making her a little doll quilt to keep her warm. All the material I used for her I had on hand from other projects.

I used white linen for her dress that was left over from a dress I made for the girls this last summer. I did a quick little embroidery around the hem with a herringbone stitch and some french knots. It looked so pretty that I wanted to keep doing more embroidery on the dress, but sometimes less is more. The buttons are actually beads sewn down to conceal snaps.


I considered some different face ideas, but I decided to go with an embroidered face like I used on these dolls. Those dolls have become such familiar part of our everyday life, that I thought it would be nice for my mom and dad to have a doll so similar. The hair is done with yarn sewn down to the head. I must say, I think I do a really good job with hair. I don't know how other people do it, so I've figured out a way on my own and it looks great. If anyone is interested I could do a step by step explanation sometime. Let me know.


The wings were made from silk left over from a Halloween costume. I have made wings so many times, but I always spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do them. For these, I wanted them to have a feathery look, but real feathers weren't right. I used some funky, furry, feathery-like yarn and crocheted a long strip. I made a sandwich that went silk-feather strip-silk-batting. I sewed them together, leaving a small opening, and then turned batting to the inside. Again, less is more, and I decided to not try and quilt feather patterns on the wings.

The quilt is made from more of the white linen and some vintage fabric that might be feedsack, but I'm not sure. I embroidered a small heart in each white square to quilt it. It looks super cute all together with the doll. Sort of Christmasy, but hopefully not so much that she can't be enjoyed at other times of the year.

I worked on another Christmas gift all month, but it is still not done. A quilt for Jim. It still needs to be quilted. I need to go in and clean up the living room with all it's wrapping paper, boxes and presents everywhere and turn the room back into my sewing room.

I'm an idiot

My only excuse is that I've been really, really tired. That is still totally lame and this is something that will keep coming back and bothering me. I left Maria's name off of our Christmas cards. How stupid is that? Very! And embarrassing too. As if Maria could ever be forgotten. I was so impressed with myself for even getting the cards done. Thinking I had everything under control. I suppose it comes as little surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I have very poor proofreading skills. But really now it's like I've just sent out this card to everyone I know making it perfectly clear that I'm an idiot. So I'm hiding the cards from Maria because I can't bear to think of how she might feel if she sees one without her name on it. It could make a five-year-old girl feel pretty bad I think. If anyone would like to share an embarrassing story, I would love the company.

I've got some really great crafty things to put up soon, but they're not ready yet. I'm also thinking of doing a little recap of the year from a family perspective sometime after Christmas. I think this blog, over time, will make a nice record of some of the things that go on in our lives. I really want to do a better job of keeping up to date with the posts. As I look back over them I see some holes that I would like to fill in. So I think a recap might be nice. Stay tuned.

It's not always easy.

I've been struggling with my crafting lately. Probably why I haven't been inspired to post much. First it was this quilt I'm working on for Maria. I need to learn that if I am not going to follow patterns, then I need to deal when I'm not happy with the outcome. So far the pattern, or lack of, is looking bad. We have 16 windows in our house that look like this. They are beautiful old wavy glass windows and I love the "on point" diamond. So unique. I thought it would be great to make a quilt that kinda reflects that design. I like that it would add a layer of meaning to the pattern choice. All I see when I look at it, though, are Y seams that would be hard to sew on my sewing machine. Then I thought I could break up that middle diamond into 4 triangles sewn to the corner of 4 squares. I think the general idea is maybe ok, but the fabrics don't pull it off. Solids would work much better, maybe. So, I'm a little stuck and am trying to sew my way out.

I needed a quick project. I decided my big headed baby girl needed a new hat because it is getting cold. I wanted to knit. Could I crochet a hat very quickly? Yes, but I wanted a knit hat. Could I find free patterns online for knit hats? Yes, but I wanted to create my own idea. So I stormed ahead without a clue what I was doing. I pulled out many attempts for many reasons. Here is one try where I thought that this shape would make a bonnet if I sewed those seams together. Well it didn't.
Finally I got my head around how to do the back. Decreases. Duh! It still didn't fit because her head is so big, so I add more around the bottom and made the I-cord for a tie under her chin.
Finally it fits!
I know it may sound like I'm complaining as I work through my thought process. I usually don't tackle my projects because they are easy. I want and enjoy the challenge of trying to do things my own way.

Tess is not feeling well right now and we are not getting any sleep. I feel so tired all the time. It makes it hard to stay focused on what I need to be doing to get ready for Christmas. I feel all guilty that so many people are making so many of their gifts. I just can't do it. I can't even think of gifts I want to buy. My brain is mush.

She'll thank us when she's older.

Fall Quilt

Wa-hoo! I've been working and not working on this quilt since the end of summer. I came across the Martha Negley fabrics at Reprodepot and I loved them. They looked like the colors of the end of summer. They looked like fall, but not in the regular fall colors. I loved the oak leaves with the blue background. It reminded me so much of looking up through the scrub oaks in Cape Cod. Most of the fabric is Martha Negley, but there is also some Joel Dewberry fabric, a little Fresh Cut fabric from my last quilt, and maybe a few others. The solid color is a natural colored linen/cotton blend.

It's a wonky flying geese design. I was inspired by this quilt that I saw on Flickr from a quilt show in Japan I think. I mean that quilt is crazy beautiful. Way beyond. I've always liked flying geese and so I thought I'd give it a go in my own way. I drew the designs on foundation paper and pieced the quilt that way. I don't know if this is any faster or what, but it worked for me and it is what I'm comfortable with. I became very familiar with foundation paper when I did this quilt so I often come back to this technique when I want to try something new. I had made a pieced border to go all around it, but I didn't like the way it looked. I almost put it on because it was always in my plan, and I felt like I was wimping out by not using it. It really didn't work though. Made it look too hippy and that is not what I was going for. I still have the border and have a whole new quilt idea for it which I think is going to be cool.

Speaking of wimping out, the quilting. I really just wanted the quilt done. The weather is getting cold and I want a blanket to put over me at night on the couch. Simple machine outline inside the triangles and inside the long blank panels. I don't know if this minimal quilting will come back to haunt me later on down the road. I hope it all stays together. The way I figured was that if quilts can stay together with ties, then mine should be fine. I also thought I could finish it now and then add more quilting later if I wanted. Again, I don't know if this is a good idea or not.

I'm really tired right now. Tess is not sleeping too great at night and so I don't feel like proofreading this post at all.

Don't throw away the PB catalog that is coming in your mail today.

I saw this wonderful idea for a dollhouse here the other day, and I couldn't wait to try it with my girls. We do a lot of magazine cutting and glue sticking, so I knew this would be a fun and do-able project for us. I was so tempted to go way over the crafty top with this idea, but the beauty of the project is in it's ease. We made two small houses, one for each girl. We cut 4 strips of cardboard about 18"x 11". Then we cut a slit from the center of the long edge to the middle of each board and then slid them together like a cross. I gave each girl some catalogs and let them start cutting for about a half hour. We had the best luck with the Pottery Barn and PB Kids catalogs for images. Then we started gluing. If you have ever wanted to decorate a home like Pottery Barn, this is a strangely satisfying without the price tag. This was a "do together" activity with my four-year-old. It would have been a nice "do alone" for my five-year-old, if I weren't so over-bearing and wanting to "help". I should have just made one for myself. Very fun! Thank you Elsie Marley.

And now for some thoughts on the baby. She's rolling. She has been able to do it for awhile now, but it is much more frequent now. I pretty much find her on her belly every time I lay her on the floor. When I watch her do it, though, it is hard to tell if she wants to roll over. It kinda seems like her muscles start contracting and arms flailing and the next thing she knows, she's on her belly. And then she usually starts crying, but not always. See :)

Halloween is fun.

Here's my enthusiastic Halloween fans. What a fun holiday for the kids. It was just all fun, games, parades, candy, parties and more all day long. All four of the kids held up great and had a great time. Jim is the one in the big red "star trooper" outfit. We didn't really know what to call him, but it was a lot fun for the kids and adults alike. Yesterday Tess went with the flow for all the festivities, but she is not dealing well today. I need to go tend to her. The glass in the house might shatter if she cries any louder.

This is just a short cliip of the flower fairies in action. It was very hard to keep up with them.

Craft Blog Gal

I made a new doll today. A friends daughter is turning four in a couple of weeks and I've been wanting to make a doll. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I looked here and here and here for some inspiration. There are so many things that I like about the dolls that these women make.
Hillary of Wee Wonderfuls always manages the best facial expressions. I think my doll is looking a little sleepy, not exactly what I was going for. Lori Marie of Pretty Little Things has such a way with unexpected details. I gave my girl some ruffle bloomers and flowers in her hair.
The striped legs totally remind me of the many girls of Emily of Black Apple. So what I have on my hands here is a craft-blog-fusion of a doll.

Geranium Fairy

Another day, another costume knocked out, hence, another post. This is my interpretation of this illustration of a Geranium Flower Fairy by Mary Cicely Barker. I used the Simplicity 3588 for the basic style of the dress. Obviously this was just a starting point because I added a lot to it. For the skirt I cut out to the pattern some shiny tulle-like fabric and the layered five large quilted petals over it. In the drawing she had little buds going around the waistline. I made about ten of these and stuffed little bells inside. I thought I would be able to find an easy way to do these buds, but they ended up being kinda tricky and involved a bit of hand sewing. By the time I was done with the buds and the petal details I really wanted to wrap this costume up. I almost didn't do the collar or the leaves on the shoulders. I took a break from it and did a little work on a quilt I have going. When I came back to the dress over the weekend, my enthusiasm for it was renewed. I'm really happy with the way the collar and sleeves look. I think they make it more "costumey". Like she really could be some little fairy walking out of the woods.

Again the wings were a concern for me on this costume. In the drawing, the wings are kinda greenish/pinkish/brown. I didn't know how I would capture that look easily with fabric. It was such a stroke of luck that I was browsing (very generous word) the silk dupioni at Joann's and they had this green/pink combo. I don't know what you call it when two colors are cross-woven like that, giving it a different color depending on how the light hits it. Best yet, it was on sale for 3.99 a yard. Perfect.

Really the best is that this is for such a special little girl. Maria is my biggest fan. She really loves the things I make and I think feels proud when she is wearing them. She is at my side for every stitch and decision I make. She loves to create and is always working in tandem with me on some project or another everyday. She is so fairy-like in her ways. She is not easy. She is far too interested in everything to be easy. She wants to know and do and talk about everything all day long. She is my shadow, but she is not like me. Or I don't think I was like her as a child. Because of that, she is so surprising to me. I love her to bits. I have a quilt that I will be starting soon and it is going to be for her. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. That's all I have for now.

One down...three to go...

I'm trying to stay focused here and get these Halloween outfits done. Strawberry Flower Fairy is done. For this costume I used Simplicity 3854. This is an infant pattern for a bubble outfit. Betsy is pretty small so I gambled that she would fit an 18 month size. I think I might have used a different bodice from something else, but I don't remember now. Anyway, it is made from some red corduroy that I had left over from some back-to-school dresses. The seeds are this soft velvet that I sewed down with a green/yellow variegated thread.

After some trail and error I figured out how to make a collar that kinda looks like little leaves. I learned that a collar is not a straight piece of fabric wrapped around the neck. Instead, it needs to be cut out round, as if you are looking down from above. I know this may be "duh" to anyone who knows how to sew or has taken some classes, but I get kinda excited when I figure out how to do something new. The wings are quilted with two layers of batting for some stability and then buttoned onto the back. The wings took me some time decide how I wanted to do them. There are a lot of wing ideas out there involving heavy gauge wire, pantyhose and glitter glue. I was just a little nervous about moving out of my crafting comfort zone for some reason. In the end I like the consistency that the quilted wings have with the rest of the costume. I know that the work I'm putting into these is way over the top, and that the girls would be perfectly happy with many other costume options available in stores or even homemade. Nonetheless, I just like doing it. It makes me happy to cut fabric and see how it looks when I sew it back together. I like adding details like homemade bias tape to the inside waistline. Nobody will see that. But I like it. I like picking it up and thinking that it would look as pretty worn inside out as it does right side out.

The Geranium Fairy costume is very close to being done, but I have no photos yet. Patrick opted for a store bought skeleton despite my urging that I could do a really cool reverse applique homemade version for him. Actually, it is great that he didn't listen to me. I never would have gotten it done. And for the baby? I could not even care a speck if she is wearing a costume.

Let's talk October

Thinking of October brings to mind cool days and Halloween costumes. I've been working on costumes for about a week now and I'm very pleased with how things are going. Not done yet. Not by a long shot. I love doing costumes because It is an opportunity to try new things, venture away from patterns and instructions without too much worry about how well the finished project is executed. It's a kids costume, who cares if it goes a little wonky here or there. I know some people might contend that this is a holiday for the children, and that they should be allowed to create the costumes themselves. Yeah, well what fun is that for me? Just kidding. I'm sure we will get to that some day. The first year I made costumes for the girls was 2005. Quilted butterfly wings. Made with a black shimmery velvet and silky dots machine sewn on. They came out real cute. I've always wanted to find a way to hang these in their room, like over their beds or something.

Last year I did these. The dress was good in that it was one of the first times I have sewn clothing from a pattern. I also learned that I don't enjoy working with a lot of synthetic materials.

This year the girls and I were talking about costumes like princess, ballerina, fairies and such. I was trying to talk them into flowers, but they weren't biting. Then I started saying how about Flower Fairies. They became a little more interested and asked what these might look like. I had no idea. Only minutes later I sit down at my computer to surf some of my favorite craft blogs and hop onto Wee Wonderfuls. She had just put up this post of a flower fairy by Cicely Mary Barker. What a great inspiration she always is. I ordered a this book and now I'm working from some of the illustrations to design the Halloween costumes. Betsy is going to be Strawberry Fairy and Maria is going to be Geranium Fairy. Here is a sneak peek.

And a final thought about October. If it is supposed to be a month of cooler temperatures, why were we doing this today?

flower fabric

Betsy came home from preschool with a great project the other day. She had smashed flowers onto a small piece of fabric. The colors in the leaves and flowers left great designs on the fabric. Maria and I were very eager to try this craft for ourselves. The supplies were simple and readily available. Scraps of white fabric, flowers and leaves gathered from the yard and vases, and an assortment of hammers.

Cut a scrap of fabric and spread out on a hard surface like a pick nick table or cutting board. Lay flowers and leaves on fabric in a single layer.Cover leaves and flowers with another piece of fabric and start hitting with hammer. This is the spot where careful attention needs to be paid. If you have safety glasses for your kids, it would probably be a good idea to use them. In any case, you don't need to hit the flowers hard, just a lot. (I swear Betsy was having more fun than it looks like in this picture. She is just very tired when she gets home from school.) The juices come out and stain the fabric both above and below the flowers. Some flowers work better than other, I guess it just takes some trial and error. But really, even the errors look pretty cool. This was a great use for the last straggling flowers around the yard, but the cut flowers from the store also were great because they were real juicy.Once we were done pounding, we carefully pulled off all the flower pulp and let them dry in the sun. I'm not so sure how colorfast this is, but I guess probably about as much as a grass stain. I think it would wear off if put through the wash a couple of times. I ironed them with a hot dry iron thinking that might set the colors a bit. I want to make these into a quilted table runner. I think that would be pretty and special for the girls.

I'm working on some pretty major Halloween costumes. I will certainly be able to share some pictures soon.

O.K that's all for crafty. Now for cutie.

Sidetracked Again

I am crafting. Getting good photos of my work, though, has not been happening. Here's what I've got so far. In the foreground, piles of wonky flying geese for a throw quilt. This is moving along nicely, if a little slow, but I think it is going to be really pretty. I love all the fabric that I'm working with. In the background, hanging over the chair, is an attempt at a color wheel quilt. I saw this quilt and became completely sidetracked. I thought it was brilliant and that I, in all of my brilliance, knew exactly how to do it. I ordered the book, of course, but got started cutting and sewing right away. Well, let me say that people who design quilts and write books about it for a living totally know what they are doing. They are brilliant, not I.

Wow. I'm sitting here writing this post with the TV on. NBC interrupts the Today show with their "Breaking News" music. It totally freaked me out. I almost started to cry before they even said what the "Breaking News" was. Well, it is only the President (sob worthy as he his), but I think I will forever associate that music with terrible disaster since 9-11. Other than being on RT. 3 in NJ to see the dust and smoke engulf lower Manhattan, I have no personal connection to the tragedy of that day. Kinda strange that it had that effect on me.

Anyway, back to the color wheel quilt. I ended up with a color oval. It is lumpy and doesn't line up in the middle or the outside at all. I like it anyway, but I can't wait to get the book so I can make a good one. So, that's what I've been doing. I've also been trying to not start a knitting project, but I would really like to have something to do at night when I feel like relaxing on the couch. We'll see what happens.

What you can do if you're three months old

You're in the club. You've gotta love a four-year-old who can entertain an infant for a solid hour with "clubhouse". Yes , that is the "cutieful quilt". After all the work I put into it, I swore it was going to be hung on the wall and only admired from afar. Well, now it's a clubhouse.

You can suck your thumb and look really cute doing it, if you are 3 months old. I hope this video option works well, it could be a very cool feature.