Surtex Prep!

Here at the studio, I'm in full-out Surtex prep mode!  Yes, it's only March, and Surtex is in May, but I hate leaving things to the last minute.  I tend to avoid last-minute frenzies and prefer instead to work at a steady pace...

So that's where I've been... in Surtex preparation!  (Ahem... getting ahead of myself, eh?) Ah yes, I should explain. 

What is Surtex?  It's a tradeshow for licensing illustration and artwork.  

What do I mean by licensing? That's when you rent your work out to different industries that need visuals for their products.  And, that's my aim along with meeting art directors interested in collaborating with me and asking me to illustrate people or flora and fauna for them!

My top three areas of focus are...

1) Surface design for apparel / home decor / gifts

2) Illustrations for children's literature

3) And greeting cards and stationery

I'm getting so excited!  I just sent my files to be printed as fabric swatches and I cannot wait to SEW with my own designs!!  I made my first prototype for what I'll be wearing during Surtex today, and I might very well be bubbling over with excitement!  (bubble bubble bubble)

Oh, are you going to be at Surtex too?  Let me know!  I'll be exhibiting as part of my art collective, Finch & Foxglove at Booth #543!

Toddler Streaky Legs & Moneta

That felt really weird typing the title to this blog post, but yes, admittedly my son is now a toddler and most definitely not a squishy baby anymore!  I finally finished one of his "Streaky Legs" poofy pants this weekend!

The Facts
⁃ Fabric: <1m single jersey, <0.3m ribbing for cuffs
⁃ Pattern: Ottobre "Streaky Legs" pattern

⁃ Year: 2014?
⁃ Notions: waistband elastic
⁃ Time to complete: 1 day for tracing and cutting, an hour for sewing
⁃ First worn: May 16, 2015
⁃ Wear again?  He has no choice! hahah!
⁃ Mods? Nope, they fit great on him.

and I finished Moneta from Colette Patterns for me!

The Facts
⁃ Fabric: 3m soft interlock, maybe french terry in turquoise
⁃ Pattern: Colette Pattern 1028 Moneta

⁃ Year: 2014
⁃ Notions: Framilon clear elastic
⁃ Time to complete: 1 day for tracing and cutting, 1 day for sewing
⁃ First worn: May 17, 2015
⁃ Wear again?  YES!
⁃ Mods? Yes, I would like to make the shoulders wider so it doesn't fall off my shoulders... or expose my bra straps to everyone.

Just in time!

Pattern: "Indian Elephant" from Ottobre 06/2014

Yikes!  This baby really is growing fast!  I finished the all-in-one pattern "Indian Elephant" from Ottobre 06/2014 just in time for the little dude to wear it.  It only took me two weeks to make it, but now I know that may be too slow!  Whoah!


This baby is making me a much faster sewist.  Even a week can be too slow in the world of baby growth.  I'm going to have to plan projects for the far future to keep up!  The pattern "Indian Elephant" is pretty straightforward.  It's actually a lot easier than the onesie pattern "Warmly Wrapped" that I finished last week.



The toughest part is applying the binding and, once again, the snaps!!  What in the world is up with these ring snaps and why don't they install correctly!?  This is with the special pliers, too.  The prongs often don't align with the center of the snap and then stick out... possibly with the end result of scratching baby. Not nice.

If he's in hefty stuff-in cloth diapers like today, the crotch gusset is a bit revealing shall we say, but if he's in a trimmer model diaper, it'll fit just fine.  I may still add two more snaps.  Maybe.

Pattern: Indian Elephant, Ottobre 06/2014
Fabric: organic cotton jersey from Lillestoff in print "Pirates" by BORA
Notions: fine ribbing in red, a bunch of snaps, stretchy interfacing G785 from Vlieseline/Vilene, and Vliesofix (two-sided fusible interfacing)
Special Tools: twin needle, snap pliers, walking foot, stretch needle

FO's: Baby Stuffs

Baby stuff is so satisfyingly quick to make!!  I guess there's extra motivation when you've only got a few more weeks left in a pregnancy to "finish" everything on your to-do list.  In my case, I've had to put the Zig-Zag Quilt on hold because my free-motion quilting foot is on back order.  If I don't get it by this week, I'll just do simple zig-zag echo quilting and call it a day.

In the meantime, here are a few of the things I've been knitting and sewing...

Baby Booties

These are one of the quickest and most satisfying knitted items you can make, and these are made with all the mini leftover skeins I wind after a project so they're a bit of a motley crew.  These booties used sock and sport weight yarns and this pattern is called Christine's Stay-On Baby Booties.

Baby Items & Accessories

I photographed my latest sewing and knitting exploits together.  These include knitted and sewn hats, leggings, sleep sacks, etc.

From the top...

A) Hipster Cred Hat - made with SMC soft merino yarn in 2 colors - pattern from Dilettant Knits
B) Baby Bedtime Bag - made from a recycled t-shirt - pattern from Running with Scissors
C) Tie-Top Baby Hats - made with knit scraps - pattern from Tie Dye Diva via Sew Mama Sew
D) Baby Leggings - made from knit fabric and scraps for waistband - free pattern that came with Baby Bedtime Bag from Running with Scissors
E) Reversible Baby Bonnet - fabric scraps featuring prints from Tula Pink's Prince Charming - pattern from the book "Hat Shop: 25 Projects to Sew..."

And, I'm hoping that everything goes well in the next few weeks!  I'd love to get the quilt finished before baby comes.  Yep, I think I'm going to forgo FMQ plans and get straight to it.

WIP: Zig-Zag Quilt

At first, I had looked at the Rainbow Stash-Busting quilt from A Quilt Story from the book Modern Quilts from the Blogging Universe, inspired, I jumped into my stash and came up with handfuls of lovely fabric.  I used many of my Tula Pink "Prince Charming" fat quarters and finally used up lots of my rainbow color scraps.  But I cut too many HSTs (half-square triangles) with white and then decided to rearrange them into zig-zags (chevrons).  And, I think it'll work!

 

I have no idea what the final size will be, but with all the HSTs already cut, I may have enough to do two baby quilts, so I'm having fun!  The first little quilt  is going to focus on blues and greens (above pic), and hopefully I can finish it before baby arrives.  I'm running out of time!

Full Disclosure, Life WIP

My latest stash acquisitions are actually a gift from one of my friends.  She thought of me and brought me fabric from Japan!  And you're probably wondering why she's given me a bunch of baby-boy themed fabric... Well...

Time for a confession.  It's been a bit quiet around here on the blog, but in real life, it's been a lot more chaotic.  See, I've been holding something back from you all.  If you know me in person, then you can see what's going on, but I didn't want my life's issues to spill over into the blog.  I try to keep the blog focused on my work: knitting, illustrating, sewing, quilting, etc.  But, I'm about to shift gears, and I wanted you to know ahead of time.  As I look around the blogosphere, I've noticed that I'm at that age... that age where bloggers  who are in my age group are starting families.  What I'm trying to say is that I'm pregnant.  I'm very pregnant.

And, that's why I haven't really been sewing for myself.  It's been crazy.  This will be our first child, and we are over the moon to be almost at the third trimester.  As a nice science project-type thing, I started taking my measurements on a weekly basis starting from the early weeks of pregnancy... Let's just say we (baby + me) are growing at a quite rapid pace.  So quickly that if I started a dress today and it took me a week to finish, I may not fit into it.  We're talking about an inch (2.5cm) to two inches of bust difference in just a week some weeks.  So, I'm taking a break from sewing for myself.

Instead, I've been illustrating and finishing up loose ends.  I'm done with the blankets for the twins and will have photos to share soon.  I also would love to get some baby sewing done!  I hope I get time to do it.  I was hospitalized for a whole week last week fighting a serious infection, and I'm truly hoping that everything goes smoothly from here on out.  The baby is okay, but that was quite a scare.  So, I'm going to try and check in as often as possible with the latest projects, but just know I'm not as nimble as I was, and life... well, life has a way of letting you know when to slow down.  Point taken!

xoxo

Show and Tell: New Stash

I finally got around to photographing some of the lovely new fabric I added to my stash last year...

My favorite is this Charles Rennie Mackintosh-inspired print from Liberty's Lifestyle Stile collection.  I luuurv it so much.  It tickles the sewist, quilter, and illustrator in me!  To read more about the collection see here.

This particular print is called "Mackintosh Red"

The second fabric I'm sharing is this lovely lightweight cotton lawn from Alexander Henry in a print called "Lydia".  It's a small chunk, only a half yard or thereabouts, so I'm not sure what to do with it yet.  Any ideas?

Craftsy BOM 2012 - Blue Quilt Done!

Finished binding this rather large quilt yesterday evening, and took some photos of the finished blue quilt on the ironing board.  Maybe I can get someone to hold it up over their heads so I can take a photo of the full quilt front and back.  In the meantime, here's my too-excited-to-wait photos...

The quilt is bound using DIY binding made from backing fabric scraps.  Since the blocks were medallion-style quilted, then sewn together, this made for a LOT of scraps.

I'm really pleased with how the blocks came together. Doing the free-motion quilting in smaller chunks really let me explore different motifs and techniques.  For new FMQ-ers like me, I found Leah Day's motifs, tips, and tricks to be invaluable.  Her main website is free, and her first Craftsy course focuses specifically on this quilt as well as generally handy techniques for free-motion quilting on a regular home sewing machine.  Those Machinger's gloves that she recommends are not a gimmick.  If you have perpetually dry hands like I do in winter, those gloves saved me a lot of muscle aches. They helped me grip the quilt-sandwich open-handed - letting the machine do it's job without fighting the weight of the fabric.  I'm now using the gloves for all kinds of sewing, not just quilting.

I bought this binding foot off of e-bay to sew on the binding, but I couldn't figure out how to turn corners with it.  So, it's great for straight binding, or continuous binding, but not so much for corners.  Maybe there's some kind of trick I don't know. (?)

 I don't like it when my blankets have a lip or any edge that can snag a toenail.  So, I ended up doing a second pass on the binding with a zig-zag stitch.

Next up... finish the twins knitted blankets and a whole host of  holiday projects!  I think I'm going to wear this quilt over my shoulders while I work on the knitting machine.  It's cold today!

Happy crafting, everyone!

Upcoming Knits Winter: Top Secret Sneak Peek!

I've been busy lately!  The knitting wave has rolled over me, and it's still washing it's yarny goodness at my shores.  But, while I'm working on these knitted lovelies that are meant for publication, I'm not allowed to share the project in progress.  So, I've settled on giving you all a sneak peek of what I'm working on...

That's all I can show for now, but at least you can see the lovely textures and colors I'm working with this season.  As soon as these two projects are published, I'll be posting right here!

Also, this week I'll be heading over to Denmark to visit during a wool festival... this one.  I'm really excited!  I'll let you all know how it goes.

Double Wedding Ring Quilt, Autumn Colors

Today, I'm showing a double wedding ring quilt I made for a friend who was married earlier in August.  I was stumped as to what to make for this sewing buddy and when the double wedding ring quilt challenge came along I thought it was kismet.  I rolled with it.

the pieced top, not yet quilted

She tends to like colors found in fall leaves: coppers, golds, and rich, warm reds, so I dug into my stash and came up with silk fabric I had been holding onto until a special project came along.  I have to admit I was daunted by the curved piecing and the multiple seams.  And the plaid silk, while being lovely to touch, feels like paper to sew, and it shows every mistake you make.  I tried to match the plaid too!  That was a fun challenge since I was using leftover fabric, but I think it worked reasonably well considering!

I am not actually sure how I completed the piecing for this quilt, but somehow I did it.  I should read up on how others have completed the task so I can get a bit better at it for next time.  ((This is really the year of the wedding in my world!! Six weddings?!  And I'm just counting the ones I'm attending.))

I was really proud of  how nice the binding came out!  Hurray! For successful research and applying skills learned from YouTube!

Pattern (free!): Double Wedding Ring From the Girlfriends collection by Jennifer Paganelli of Sis Boom for FreeSpirit
Fabric: silks from stash, quilting cotton from stash, orange bias binding from Stoff & Co.

WIP Blue Quilt and Google Reader Reminder

Just in case you're still using Google Reader to subscribe to my blog, today is the final day it will exist.  If you'd like to continue to read my blog, you can follow me on my facebook page here, check out alternative RSS feeds, or you can easily follow using Bloglovin' and this button below:



In other news, I'm FMQ'ing like a fiend!  It's really addictive.  And last year, I snagged a box full of thread from a quilt designer who was clearing out her stores and getting into knitting.  So, what a treat to use all the threads I bought from her!  I love the look of the variegated threads on solid fabric.  With each block I feel like I'm getting better at controlling/coordinating the motion between my hand and the foot pedal.  It's a bit like driving manual (stick shift / standard).

Details from the latest blocks...

Finally Free-Motion

FMQ= free-motion quilt(ing)

After walking around the blue quilt blocks, starching, prepping, observing... procrastinating... avoiding...

front of block 1

back of block 1

I took the plunge.  I finally said, "Adri, get it together and just free-motion quilt.  Just do it!"  So, I revved up my FMQ mojo by watching Leah Day on her Craftsy class and her blog videos.  I finally bent back the pin of my FMQ foot, wrapped it with a rubber band, and then, I did it.  I free-motion quilted.  The mods to the quilting foot work well by the way.  I had tested it before - I've been practicing on a quilt sandwich for a while - and working with the modifications afterward make a difference.  It's worth giving it a try if you have a generic foot at home like mine.

front of block 2

back of block 2

 And, I think my first two quilt blocks are a really good effort!  Whadya think?  I feel like I have more control when my hands are further apart, so I'm going to try and rig up a stand or something to keep the blocks at the same height as the sewing machine.

The sensation of FMQing is a lot like drawing or doodling, but with a whole new kind of stylus!

WIP: Blue Quilt Progress

Just a quick note on the blue quilt.  I finished attaching the blue borders to all 20 squares... next up is the free motion quilting!

MMM 2013, Week 2

This week has been really interesting.  Firstly, thank you to all the visitors to the blog that commented on the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway!  Wow!  I've never had so many people comment on anything.  Ever.

I've had to take most of my own photos this week, which is usually fine because I set up the tripod and all that.  Take my time, check lighting, and adjust locations.  But, with these daily shots, I was trying to do them quickly because I'm working on quite a number of different projects which meant no time for the tripod and the lollygagging. Sadly, I can't show most of these WIP's that have taken over my life because they're not yet published.  But, when they are live and ready to show... one is an illustration project, two are logos, and two of them are knitting projects... you'll be the first (or second) to know.

My own personal knitting has taken a back seat because my arms/hands/elbows are somewhat injured due to repeat motion injury stress. So, I've been using the knitting machine - more on that later.

Here are this weeks DIY outfits for Me-Made-May, 2013.

May 6
(May 5 is a typo!) I wore this upcycled green top that used to have these ridiculously huge leg-o-mutton sleeves that looked a bit like loose flesh to my untrained eye.  I chopped them off and tailored them to short-ish sleeves that are more acceptable to me.  The shawl/scarflette is the Amaranth Shawl that I designed this past fall.

May 7 
This challenge had me digging!  I woke up late and remembered the brown jeans I made for a Sew Weekly challenge last year.  They fit much better now!  My DH took this photo and didn't warn me at all that my top was so wrinkled.  Oh well.  It straightened itself whilst cycling to work.

May 8 

The sun was shining, but I bruised my knees this past weekend with the bike pedals so I didn't want to go bare-legged.  Out came the Go-Go Triangles dress from last year's SewWeekly challenges and the grey leggings.

In knitting machine news, I've nearly completed my first garment.  I'm just trying to figure out how to cast-off in the center of a piece. It's something I take totally for granted in hand-knitting, but it's taken me 3 tries so far to get it right on the machine. 

May 9

We'll see what today brings, but whatever comes my way, I'm wearing the red JJ Blouse I made last year in February.  I'm wearing a hand-knit loop and headband, too!  Have a great day, folks!