march update

today is the last day of march and i have not completed my list. in fairness i have started and at least gotten halfway, on all items except the etsy store. i've gone back and forth on it and i've decided that because i did not decide on doing the list until march 9th (thereby wasting 9 days of march) i will give myself to the end of this week. is this cheating? yeah, probably. i'm not torn up about it though. i'll post and begin april's list on sunday. and now that i know myself a little better, it will be a shorter list then march's. with nina's pillows being priority #1.

another skirt

this is the second skirt i've made from a pair of pants. green with inserts. made the same way as the pink but longer. we both like it a lot but she was not in the mood to pose for me. this is the best shot i could get.

THE skirt

pants to skirt adventure

my daughter grew too tall for these pants but they were still in very good condition. not to mention a pretty color. i started off by cutting them the skirt length that i desired (around knee) and then i split the inside leg seams. the front seam was split to the zipper and the back seam to about the bottom edge of the pockets. before starting this project i looked at many other web sites that had done the same thing. some of them split the outside leg seams as well but i thought that was over kill. make sure to split the seams very carefully avoiding ripping or pulling at the material. if you do it carefully the material will fold under on it's own making the edges much easier to sew. next, i let greenleaf dig into my stash of remnants and find a scrap that she and i could both live with. you could use the cut off legs to fill the gaps but we wanted to "pretty it up". i cut two inserts a size bigger than the triangles that i needed. the front insert i just pinned in place, making sure the pant hem was turned under. the back insert i pin tucked first and then played with to get it to lay just right before pinning it into place. i did this to give the back a sort of "princessy" feel. after pinning, i sewed the inserts into place being careful to use a long stitch, just in case i had to rip it out again. once everything is sewn to your satisfaction you can go back over it with a shorter or fancier stitch. with the inserts sewn in, all that was left was to hem. i pinned up the hem with greenleaf wearing the skirt. it looked even on her but when she took it off i saw that the back was longer than the front. i decided to take out some of the skirts from her closet and see what they looked like. i found that, when holding them up with the waist even, half of them were longer in the back and the rest were the same all the way around. after considering, i decided that i like it longer in the back. it makes sense. after all, the human butt sticks out a bit making the skirt rise up in the back AND having a little extra cloth in the back for when you sit down never hurt anyone. i hemmed once with a straight stitch and then went back
around with a fancy stitch a little higher up. that's all there is to it. it's really very simple and now that i know that, i'll be doing it a lot more.

March to do list

because my attention span is short ( i no sooner start a project then i see something else i want to start) i've decided that i need to have defined goals for each month. by the time april rolls around these projects will be complete.

1. hat for heather (in beautiful blue) in beautiful green.
2. blanket for baby ethandone
3. turn gl's pants into skirts (2) done
4. camille purse
5. rug on loom
6.gl's knitted tank top
7. etsy store
8. have decided on designs and bought material for nina's pillowsdone
9. repair purple

these are in no particular order.
i haven't decided what my punishment should be if they are not complete. something terrible.

the camille purse

my friend camille wanted to work on a project at the same time. we choose a "whimsical" clutch bag. i'm trying desperately not to procrastinate. this picture shows one almost complete side. the original pattern calls for a knitted butterfly decoration on the outside but i think i'm going to do a beaded tree instead. or a bird? i wonder what camille is going to do? hmmmm?

soren's quilted blanket

i should have had this finished months ago but i procrastinated. this was inspired by a quilt my friend K had in college. i coveted that quilt. this blanket is made from dan's old shirts, some old trousers of mine, and some misc. scraps.

new hat

at first i asked gl to model but then i realized, it's an adult hat so an adult should model it. it knitted up really quick and i was able to finish it on the train ride to chicago. i really like the color but i don't know about the style.

soren's winter hat and scarf

of course he didn't need them today in the spring like weather but i realized i hadn't taken a picture of them yet. my pretty babies.