The reverse applique swing skirt from Alabama Stitch Book by Natalie Chanin has been on my to do list for so long now, so long that she has written and published a new book in the mean time. I thought I might be able to make this skirt in time for easter, but it is far from finished. I’m not quite sure if it will work anyway. I went to Joann’s to get the cotton jersey called for and of course they don’t carry cotton jersey.  Poopy Joann’s, almost without fail they will be out of or not stock exactly what I what I go there for.   So instead of cotton jersey I got two different fabrics: the blue is a knit interlock and the purple is a rayon jersey. I don’t know if the blue is stretchy enough. I thought maybe the super stretch rayon jersey would make up for it, but then the fabric paint I got at poopy Michaels is hard and scratchy and it might keep the fabric from stretching even more.  Michaels used to carry the nice jacard fabric paint, but they stopped and switched to the cheapy kind. I need to plan ahead so I won’t have to go to these damn stores.

So we’ll see if it works. I might have to make it all again, but it’s actually been kind of fun so far. And I love me some freezer paper stencils. Printing this pattern over and over really makes me want to print my own fabric (for what, meg? more projects, really you need more projects?).  It wouldn’t actually be that hard now that I’ve discovered the lazy man’s way to use stencils.

and now for the lazy man’s freezer paper tip:

When I was making this skirt I didn’t want to cut 20 or 30 leaf stencils, so I cut 3 and used them over and over again.  I couldn’t wait for the stencils to dry between uses (time is precious! the baby is napping!) so I put another piece of freezer paper over the stencil, plasticy side down, and ironed over both. Then I gently peeled the top freezer paper off and voila! the stencil was ready to use again. The paint was still wet on the stencil, but as long as there are not glops of it, it won’t come of or bleed onto your fabric. The stencil might come loose a little in places when you peel off the top sheet, but this is the lazy man’s way after all, if you want perfect, well then do it your way miss perfect.

I really wanted to make the sock bunny that Heidi (from My Paper Crane) created, but I didn’t have any of those fantastic red and brown monkey socks. What I do have is baby socks: tons of cute, mismatched, totally useless, never stay on baby socks. Now that my littlest is very much not an infant and too soon will be a toddler it seems kind of silly to keep all those teeny tiny socks. So I made a bunny out of them. And a tutorial too.

This is indeed a quick little bunny. After I figured out the pattern, start to finish each bunny took me just 15 minutes.  So if you are anything like me and never get around to the easter baskets until the night before, you can whip up this little softie and still have time to run to the drugstore to score the last bag of jelly beans.

The quick little bunny tutorial

Materials:

• baby sock
• a handful of stuffing
• heavy duty thread
• scissors

Make that bunny:

Before you start sewing take second to look at the sock you have. Most of the foot part will be the body and the heel area will be the head. Yours might be a little different, depending on your sock. If you look at the picture below you can almost see the bunny already.

the body:

Take some stuffing and stuff the foot part of the sock–not too tight! this is just a little, squishy baby bunny. Where the foot part ends and the heal begins sew a running stitch around the sock and pull to gather it. I like to wrap my thread around where I’ve stitched a few times just so it’s secure. Knot your thread and snip.

the tail:

On the top of the bunny’s back,  sew a circle about an inch in diameter with a simple running stitch. Then pull to gather. You may have to mush the stuffing around so you can pull it tight  to make a tail shape. When you have a little bunny tail, wrap your thread around a few times and knot off (do people say “knot off?” does it sound too much like I’m yelling at you to go “knot off!”).

the head:

To make the head, put a little stuffing inside the sock and sew a running stitch around the top of the heel. Before you pull it taut make sure all the stuffing is pushed down under your stitches. Then wrap the thread around and knot off!

the ears:

Cut a big V shape out of the top of the sock. Now trim the top part of each ear to a point.  Then fold the two sides of the bottom part of one ear in to meet and sew together. This is a little easier to understand when you look at a picture:

When you sew that seam down the middle of the ear, it’s good to catch some of the back of the ear with your stitches, so the ears are a little thinner.

The attitude:

Okay, that is a dorky title, but this is the fun part. Now you can play around with the ears and the head, moving them to where you want and putting a stitch here and a stitch there so they will stay.

You don’t have to give your bunny an attitude, but you should stitch the back of the head to the body a little, so it looks more bunny like and less like a cinched up sock. There! you did it! Now go dig around in the sock drawer and see what else you can make into a bunny.

I am, admittedly, one to judge a book by it’s cover.  I mean if it’s crap inside, I’m not reading it, but I’m still happy to look it at (luckily I have discovered the inter library loan system and now am not broke with a house full of poorly written, pretty books). This is the picture of a cover of the book called Book Quilts 1700-2010. Kathreen wrote about it on whipup and I’ve been itching to get my hands on it ever since (it hasn’t been released quite yet). I mean just look at that quilt on the cover!

Magda at bohemian girl made some monotype butterflies with her son, painting a design on one side then folding it in half to print on the other. We followed suit with some butterflies of our own a few weeks ago, but now that spring has stalled a bit we may need to make them again.  The mask she made in the same manner for carnival and I just can get over how eerie and beautiful it is. (Magda also has quite a nice etsy shop, if you didn’t know)

I loved the double wedding ring design the first time I saw it, but always thought it was a little too old fashioned for me to make for my home. Denyse Schmidt, of course, made a super fantastic modern version called the single girl quilt, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been a single girl. So when Molly posted this photo of her friend’s quilt I was in love all over again. They took this very traditional quilt pattern and made it super modern. It might even be a little too modern, but a few prints thrown in the mix could even it out for me. Go check out the post, because Molly has some nice thoughts on this modern/traditional juxtaposition in design.

And one little awesome baby coat rounds out this week’s things on the internet that are awesome.  It’s a poncho! It’s a jacket! It’s two! two! two mints in one! It’s the crabby baby jacket, designed and skillfully executed by Lisa from Mama Uses Needles. I’ve always said that baby clothes should have no arms and finally someone heard me. This poncho pops over the little one’s head and then you just zip it up the sides. genius! and cute to boot.

hey everyone, I wanted to post today, but my computer is having some issues. Sorry! too bad mr. muscles up there can’t fix it. I’ll try to be back tomorrow with some awesome things on the internet.

It seems that all anthropology and jcrew are doing these days is slapping things on t-shirts and calling it couture, then charging 60 bucks for it (see here and here if you don’t know what I’m taking about). I mean come on people, we can make this stuff.  Look!  I just turned into my mother before your very eyes! Shopping with her was awful (sorry mom) because no matter what I picked out she would say, “oh, you could make that.” Not necessarily me, I was 12 years old, but “one” could make it.  No “one” ever did, of course. Until 20 years later.

So anyway, a while back a friend invited me over to slap some things on t-shirts and call it couture. I came up with this braided number.  I think it actually was inspired by an anthropology shirt, but I can’t remember which one. I bought two 5 dollar shirts from Target and washed them both, one shrunk up really weird (only on one side–that’s what 5 bucks will get you) so I cut that one up. I started at the bottom and cut spiraling up to the armpits. The strip was super long and was about an inch wide. Then I cut it into three equal pieces and braided it.

Then I pinned it on, starting from the bottom and going up around the neckline, then back down the front and then I hand sewed that sucker on. I was watching a movie while I did it, so it’s a little uneven, but you can’t really tell when I wear it. I’ve got more anthrocopies (awesome word coined by the angry chicken!) planned, but that baby up there? he is just all over the place these days. So maybe you look to these people for inspiration while I go chase him down:

• Amy’s anthrocopy
• Dorothy’s winter to spring dress
• And there are just a ton of t-shirt refashion idea on Made By Lex (her blog used to be titled “My Mama Made It”)

This year I am determined to cut into the ridiculous amount of fabric I have amassed in my basement. It’s not there just to look at, right? It’s there so I can make the clothes and quilts and toys that my family needs instead of buying all that crap. So this is probably going to be the first of many matching family ensembles.

I don’t know how all those bloggers out there take beautiful pictures of their kids while showing off the beautiful clothes they have on at the same time. This is the best photo I got and it was the last of about a hundred, and really it’s not that great. But you get the drift: one long sleeve shirt, one short sleeve, and one pair of leggings.

all made out of this geek chic fabric I found at the thrift store a loooong while back. It is so perfectly seventies: the stripes are brown and this sort of rainbow confetti, meshy stuff (my daughter calls them her sprinkles pants). It’s a knit that has sat on the shelves waiting for me to learn how to use my serger. And guess what? I learned how to use my serger! A gracious friend taught me how while we made the 90 minute shirt together.

She made the long sleeve version and I made the short sleeve, but hers was so cute I ran home and made the long sleeve one. Of course I didn’t read the directions, screwed it up and the sleeves are too long, but that drooly baby really couldn’t care less.

Now my daughter wants to know where daddy and mama’s matching shirts are. Sound of music here we come!

Yesterday morning was rainy and crummy. My daughter wanted to do a project, “I’ll go in my room and when you think of a project for me say ding-a-ling-a-ling.” so I came up with this (rain on a rainy day: my creativity knows no bounds). I cut out a raindrop shape for her to trace and my son was in charge of the tape. She wanted to make a rainbow, because where there is rain there are rainbows, and my son made a sort of deconstructed rainbow (up there on the right). He also wanted to know where the umbrella was, so we made one of those too.  Now that it’s sunny, my daughter wants to know when we are going to make the sun.

That there is some 100 percent of the finest acrylic crocheted up into one spiffy pillow. It’s scratchy as hell, but it’s this fantastic neony pink so it came home with me. I love the old lady thrift store. I also went to the dig and save the other day, but the light these days is crap so I’ll show you some other time. I get sort of paralyzed by the craziness of the dig and save, so never feel like I’m really taking advantage of it’s awesomeness. People have hooks and plastic gloves and determination to Get Shit! for $1/lb, so I mostly just get out of their way.

This is a crazy easy project. Just iron down some freezer paper on a shirt and slap some yellow paint on it. It’s a super springy shirt that I copied straight out of this japanese craft book. I don’t own the book, but it looks like it has some awesome patterns in it. As with most japanese craft books the shapes are so simple and the fabric choices so spot on you want to make everything in it, but then dammit it’s just not as easy to follow directions in japanese as they say it is–even if there are lots of pictures. I’m working on a japanese pattern right now and it’s slow going. It’s yellow too actually. We need some yellow here in the grey midwest, but if this 50 degree weather will stay I won’t complain about the grey.

and here he is showing off his matching yellow star undies.

I finished the hexagon bathmat that I started a while back. Thanks in part to Alice from futuregirl. She saw the photo I put up of it and emailed to say I might be following the chart incorrectly–I wasn’t joining the hexagons as I went a long and there was a little dot in the chart that said I should be. Not only did she explain how to connect the hexagons (or whatever motif) as you go, but she downloaded the pattern I was working with so she could better explain it to me. Thank you Alice! And thank you to everyone for reading and supporting me and all the crafty bloggers out there. Even if we are only making silly bathmats, I think all this creativity is doing the world some good. And speaking of helping, if there is anyone out there who knows of a good “how to read this freakin complicated japanese crochet pattern” website could you shoot it my way? because my next project isn’t going so well.

Oh, one more thing about the bathmat. It might look a little off because it should have another row of 6 hexagons. I ran out of white yarn and just could not be bothered to go get more. Also these yarn leftover are killing me. I found a few scrapy (is there a yarn equivilant for scraps?) projects but it’s not as easy as using up leftover fabric. I now understand the allure of pompom making.