Saturday I tested out the pillowcase pattern we wrote up for our beginning sewing class. Sharon, who is heading up our sewing classes, is something of a genius and taught me all kinds of smart things for these babies, like french seams. I had been making my pillowcases with raw seams because I didn’t care that much if the raw edges showed on the inside. But the French seams are so easy that even I, miss lazy sewer, is willing to do them. The pattern will be up as a free download on Tangle’s site soon.

(ps, Honor is sitting next to me doing his homework as I write this and he just asked me how to spell ‘christmas miracle’.)

Here are a few things I’ve been working on lately.

Flannel baby blankets. I made two sets of these for my sisters twins and one for my friend Sarah. Simple instructions are on the Tangle blog.

Here is Silas sleeping with his.

Baby sweater. I made this one for my friend Amy’s new baby, Charlie. Tangle recently got in a new yarn, Hap’i from Mirasol. I love this yarn! The colors are so bright and cheerful and all of them coordinate in such fun ways. It’s 100% thick/thin cotton and the gauge was perfect for the Knitting Pure and Simple baby pullover pattern (#214). Whenever I make this pattern, I always lengthen the body and sleeves because the patterns are written wide. I figure if I lengthen it, the baby can get more wear out of it.

And a set of pillowcases. I made these for my friend Danielle. The fabric is Amy Butler’s Love and I’m so excited that pillowcases will be the project for Tangle’s brand new sewing classes! (I am SO excited! We’ve hired some amazing sewing teachers to teach all the fun and modern patterns the local fabric stores don’t seem to be interested in.)

Last weekend Jim and I ran out to Doug Jones’ sawmill and picked out a piece of wood for my weekend project. I’d been hearing about Doug Jones for some time now and was really interested to meet him. He was exactly what I’d pictured him to be with neat white hair and teeth, flannel shirt and jeans. He spoke slowly with a deliberate drawl, in a smokey, gravely voice, warn from years of smoking. It was like meeting a cowboy from way back when.

So I spent Saturday and Sunday, sanding and polishing and my old piece of wood turned into my new bench. The legs were salvaged from an old coffee table I found at the Salvation Army.

Instructions: Readymade mag Feb/Mar 2010
Wood beam: $10
Legs: $2
Paste wax: $7

Sunday, I took a break from sanding and helped Jim set up the kids new trampoline. Eden has been relentlessly begging for a trampoline. Jim was adamantly against it, but she finally wore him down and he agreed to pay for half if she could save up the other half. I think he didn’t think she could do it, but in less time than you’d think she had amassed $150 and we had to go to Sams to buy the giant, bouncing monstrosity. Our backyard isn’t that big and since we already have the swingset, it’s being overtaken by kid stuff. (We start out parenthood so idealistically, thinking that our kids aren’t going to mess up our design style, and then one day, we wake up and our lives are filled with brightly colored plastic crap that makes casino-like noises… such is the life…)

I think I will always remember the moment that the trampoline was finished and we all climbed in for the first time, hysterically giggling and bouncing to our hearts content.

So today the UPS guy brought me something extra special; a box full of copies of Pure Knits. We’ve waited forever for this book to come out! But it’s finally here and I can now, officially say that I’m published.

My two patterns, a boy’s raglan sweater and a girls raglan dress with puffed sleeves are right around the middle of the book. Here’s a peek at what they look like.

(I apologize in advance for the low-quality, cell phone photos.)

Today I finished sewing the Birdie Sling. This is an Amy Butler pattern and I used Amy Butler fabric from Tangle. This was my first, ever sewing project that used an actual pattern, so I’m super proud of myself for figuring this one out. I’ve discovered how much I love and rely on my 1/4″ sewing foot so I’m going to see if there is any chance I can order a 1/2″ and 3/8″ foot too. Someday maybe my lines will be straight!

Sunday I ditched church and instead sewed Eden this little smocked dress. The recipe is in the new book, Weekend Sewing. It is such an amazing book, I want to sew at least half of what’s in there! I was amazed at how easy smocking is. All you do is use elastic thread in the bobbin (this should be hand wound without stretching) and regular thread on top and sew lines across the fabric. After the fabric is sprayed generously with water the smocking sucks right up. 3/4 yard of fabric and about an hour = I foresee several of these in Eden’s summer wardrobe. I might even try making one for myself!

Last weekend I finished reupholstering my garage sale treasures. Here they are in their new home @ Tangle.

This week Amy and I scored some sewing supplies and a vintage-y punch bowl for me, back issues of Everyday Food and a new baby toy for Amy. We also have some old windows that we have to bust out of casings. These will be used for decoration we think.

I have a feeling that our husbands are going to grow to hate our garage saleing days…

Friday I went yard sale-ing with my friend Amy. I scored a few great finds: some pom glasses for ten cents each, some little cute glass juice glasses for the kids and this chair and bench that I’m going to redo for Tangle.

I’m going to use some of Amy Butler’s Midwest Modern fabric to recover the cushions because the Belle and Lotus lines are discontinued. (I nearly cried when I found this out. But I suppose that’s just life… on to Bigger and Better.)

Links for later:

sewing on a quilt binding tute

Baby doll quilt – this is the “pattern” I’m using for my quilt.

reusable snack bag tute

Also, very random, here are the photo booth pictures from our brunch at Bubby’s in Brooklyn.

There is a super cute little shoe boutique on the next block over from Tangle and the lady who owns it is also super cute. She had her first child, a little girl, a couple weeks ago and Christina and I wanted to knit something for her. This is what we came up with. The bootie pattern is one of Christina’s that will be available at Tangle soon and the sweater is from One Skein. We used Berroco Pure Merino which is a washable, super soft merino. The sweater and booties just took two balls. I’m hoping we’ll get to see pictures of the little cutie wearing it!

I’ve started and stopped on this sweater for the last month, but got the majority of the knitting done on it in the last week or so. (Can we say every season of the West Wing on DVD?) I started knitting it on size 9 needles and ended up on 11’s for the body and 10.5’s for the ribbing. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I just wish that Rowan wouldn’t have discontinued the yarn.

Stats:
Yarn: Rowan Soft Tweed
Pattern: My own, although it’s based on one by Stefanie Japel