baby girl frills

I've been dreaming of putting flowers and bows and sparkly accessories on my baby girl since the first moment I found out about her!

A few weeks ago, I picked up some fold-over elastic at Jo-Ann Fabrics and tucked it into my sewing box. It really has taken this long for me to make it to the actual crafting stage. Life with a toddler, friends! It's beautiful, messy, full, crazy, hard, wonderful, and too busy most days for crafting.

But, today, I did a little bit.

Behold, the polka dot and floral cuteness:

Also, ignore the poor quality phone photo. This is life, currently - can't always pick up my nice camera!

What do you think? I can't wait to put it on my sweet baby girl!

short sleeves for spring

My mother-in-law loves to dote on her grandson. This makes me a happy momma, indeed!

Last week, we stopped in at a local children's resale shop, and she picked up a haul of great deals for Joshua to enjoy this spring and summer! A couple pairs of shorts, a Fisher Price bubble mower, and their everyday 10 onesies for $10 deal.

Four of the onesies happened to be long sleeved, and that's not so suitable for spring, right? But I had an idea...

...and I made them into short sleeved onesies!

You may remember that I wrote a silly little lament for my sewing machine. The machine is still out of commission, but a good friend of mine let me borrow her (new in the box!) machine for my little project. So generous! It was a dream to sew on such an easy-to-use, smooth machine. Everything went so perfectly. Thank you, Dena!

I cut off the sleeve at the length I wanted the finished sleeve to be. I used an existing short sleeved shirt of Joshua's to be sure it was a good length.

Then, I cut off the original shirt sleeve cuffs, turned them inside out, and fitted them over the newly-shortened sleeve so that the raw edges lined up.

Lastly, I stretched the fabric out and sewed straight-line stitches to reattach the "new" sleeve cuffs. Turned them back to the right side, trimmed threads, and there we go!

Cute? I think so! I'm pleased and happy to have some "new" play clothes for my little boy! Thanks, "Grandma!"

Basic Baby Hat

I've been knitting like crazy here, and I love it!

The most recently finished project is a really basic baby hat.

I used a self-striping sock yarn, and I like how it turned out. Would you like to knit your own?

Basic Baby Hat

Materials:
Less than 1 skein sock yarn or other lightweight baby yarn. I used Lion Brand's Magic Stripes yarn.
US size 4 straight needles or dpns

Gauge:
6 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch

Notes:
This pattern is knit flat, but could easily be adjusted for knitting in the round. To knit in the round, CO 72 instead of 74sts, join for knitting in the round, and then k1p1 around for 8 rounds. Follow pattern as written.

Pattern:
CO 74 stitches using the long tail cast-on method, and leaving at least an 8" tail.
Row 1: K2, (p1, k1)repeat across to establish 1x1 ribbing pattern
Rows 2-8: knit in pattern
Row 9 and following: knit in stockinette stitch until piece measures 4" from the cast on edge.

Decreasing:
Row 1: (k8, k2tog)repeat across
Row 2 and all even rows: knit even in stockinette
Row 3: (k7, k2tog) repeat across
Row 5: (k6, k2tog) repeat across
Row 7: (k5, k2tog) repeat across
Row 9: (k4, k2tog) repeat across
Row 11:(k3, k2tog) repeat across
Row 13:(k2, k2tog) repeat across
Row 15:(k1, k2tog) repeat across
Row 17: k2tog across

Finishing:
Draw a 6" tail of yarn through remaining stitches and pull tightly, fastening off.
Seam the sides, from the ribbing to the top, using the 8" tail from the cast-on and mattress stitch to create an invisible seam. What's mattress stitch? Find out here.

 

Let me know what you think! Link back to my blog if you try it, please! 

before Baby bucket list

(just a few) Goals:

Make a taggie blanket, nursing cover, and an infant-size vest/hat/bootie set for our little guy
Make (unnamed projects: 6 knitted projects down, 2 of 4 sewn to go) for my sisters-in-law; their little babies are boys, too!
Go visit Niagara Falls - next weekend!
Knit something for charity - done
Decide on and make Christmas presents for the family (many done, 6 or so to go)
Make sugar cookies to freeze for Christmas - done
Enjoy more uninterrupted dinner-and-a-movie nights with the hubby
Prepare and freeze some meals to have after Baby is born
Get up-to-date on my scrapbooking, because I'll likely not have much energy to do it when he's born - caught up to this past April...
Learn how to use my nice camera in manual mode so that I can get great pictures of Baby in any lighting
...and so much more!

Scandinavian snowflake hat

I made a hat! More knitting for our baby boy, of course.

I'm working my way through my yarn stash, trying very hard not to purchase anything new. As long as I keep my little feet out of craft stores and my mouse away from the Lion Brand website and Ravelry, we'll be good.

There was almost a full skein of navy blue acrylic yarn. I seem to remember purchasing it on a music ministry team trip in college, but I can't remember what the brand was...I only know we were at Wal-Mart. Funny. The light blue yarn is what was left of a Patons acrylic tweed skein that I bought to make infant hats for the little twin boys I watched when we lived in Ithaca. Together, the two colors look great! At least, I think so!

 

The hat is a toddler size, and will be just right for next winter, I hope. I borrowed the snowflake chart from this pattern, and I think I may retroactively add earflaps to my improvised hat pattern so that it looks a bit like this one. The tassel on the top was fun to knit, and an easy way to finish the project. The hat is thick and cozy - just right for our snowy winters. What do you think of it?

knitting for baby

It's so fun to have a reason to knit, long before Christmas presents are calling for completion. It has also been wonderful to have some cooler weather in the evenings - makes holding yarn and needles a wonderful thing!

About a week and a half ago, I cast on for this vest, using some gray Lion Brand Cotton Ease yarn that I had purchased on sale somewhere a long while ago. One skein was missing a paper label, but I don't generally see that as a big deal when I'm paying, oh, $1.50 per skein. Especially since the full price on Lion Brand's website is listed at $7.69 per skein. Yeah. Not a bad deal.

So, I forged ahead and cast on. I love knitting with cables, and was so pleased at how the back of the sweater turned out.

Here's the back of the sweater, before ribbing was added to the sleeves.

I chose to knit the 12 month size so that Baby can wear it next autumn all the way through the spring. I'm thinking it might make a really cute Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter outfit, depending on how fast the little guy grows. I also decided to leave out the buttons at the shoulder, because the v-neck looks big enough to stretch over a baby head without too much trouble.

The vest is made in two pieces - front and back - and then is sewn together before the ribbing around the arm holes and v-neck is added. I ran out of my first skein of yarn halfway up the v-neck on the left side, and joined the new skein. I knit the other side of the v-neck, seamed the shoulders and sides, and only then did I realize...

...these two skeins of gray cotton are two different dye lots.

Translation: the color is not an exact match. It's subtle, but I can see it, and it's frustrating. However, there is no way that I'm ripping out that much of a sweater; I'd have to undo the perfectly seamed sides (thankyouverymuch) and knit the entire front again. Not happening. Not until the next time I make this sweater.

In typical Linnea style, I just continued with the pattern, adding the ribbing at the arm holes. Cute.

Then I picked up stitches for the neck line, knit the five rows of ribbing as prescribed and had a second frustrating realization: there are no instructions for a decrease at the v-neck to make the ribbing lie flat.

This time, I did rip out stitches - but just three rows. I did some decreasing at the point of the "v" - as neatly as I could - and tried to make it work. I think it was somewhat successful.

See? Somewhat successful, almost-flat v-neck trim.

Most of my disappointment at this point is because I had hoped that this little project would be an exquisite heirloom, destined to be passed down from our Baby to his baby to the next baby... as long as it would last. It's really cute, but not perfect. Not a complete failure, but still sad.

I do like it, though. And I'll try again...but not for a while! Now, it's on to other little projects.

sewing for Baby

You already know that I like to reuse and repurpose fabric - often a thrifted vintage sheet or pillow case, and sometimes, cast-off clothing.

This weekend, I pulled out a much-loved and much-worn (and too small in the neck) short-sleeved dress shirt that belonged to the resident daddy-to-be, and turned it into a play suit for our little boy!
First, I traced a 6-month sized outfit from our slowly growing stash of clothing for the little guy:

Isn't this a cute little outfit? It will be perfect for Memorial Day!

 I then measured sides, arm holes, and leg openings and used a ruler to square up my lines. I traced a coaster to get the right curve for the neck, since the neckline on the red outfit was different than what I was wanting for this one, and then measured a 1/2" seam allowance around the entire pattern. I folded the pattern in half so that I could cut it out on the fold instead of taking a chance and having mismatched sides.

Then, I cut the dress shirt open at the seams, across the back yoke, and around the collar. I cut off the sleeves and set them aside for a future little project. I ironed the easy-care no-iron fabric, which just made life a little easier. I first cut from what was once the back of the shirt, moving the pattern to one side so that I could save as much fabric as possible. The great thing I discovered about this woven dress shirt fabric is that it's the same on the right side and the wrong side. Sweet. I then used the opened up back piece, centering it on the front button placket, pinned, and cut out the front piece.

First, I determined how many buttons I wanted to actually be able to use. Three seemed sufficient, so I sewed over the existing seams to close the button placket at the bottom.

It almost looks like a zipper fly.  I then finished the leg openings with an easy rolled hem (sew 1/4" from the edge, press toward the wrong side, fold up and press again toward the wrong side, and then sew 1/4" seam to finish).

There's the little "fly" for the little guy's outfit!

Next, I sewed the front and back pieces together - just up the sides and across the shoulders, avoiding arm and leg holes - with the wrong sides together, using a scant 1/4" seam. I then turned the outfit inside out and carefully pressed the seams.

Working on the wrong side of the fabric, I sewed the same sides and shoulders again, just a little bit bigger than 1/4" from the finished seam. This enclosed the raw edges of the fabric so that nothing will be itchy on Baby's soft skin. Then I pressed the seams toward the front side and sewed them down, again just a scant 1/4" from the finished edge. This is called a French seam, by the way. You'll see this kind of seam in really nice dress shirts - check the side seams! Here is a good tutorial, if you'd like to try this kind of seam on your next project.

Here's the inside of the French seam. Click on the picture to see it better!

Next, I had to re-trim the armhole openings because of my zeal in seaming the sides. Alas.

Then, I used this tutorial to make bias tape out of the remaining shirt pieces. I then trimmed the neck, armholes, and crotch opening with my snazzy matching bias tape.

 

Sigh. Then I had to wait, because I didn't yet have snaps. But yesterday, I picked some up! Hubby was impressed with my use of a hammer as I fastened the little snaps to the outfit. I love that he's proud of what I do.

And now it's done!!

What do you think? Little guy wearing Daddy's clothes - I love it!


I'm linking up at Sew Much Ado's "We Did It! Wednesday." Go check out what other people have made, too!

card making craftiness

The month of June is front-loaded with anniversaries, followed quickly by Father's Day. That means a lot of card making!

Here are some of the results:

These two anniversary cards turned out pretty cute!

This poppy-inspired one was fun to make - I first tore red music-printed scrapbook paper into four petals, ripping so that some white showed along the edges. Then, I cut a circle of dark purple-gray metallic paper into a circle, and cut fringe all along the edges. I put it all together with a black brad in the middle. Ta da!

This one is for my good friend, Sarah, and her husband, Stephen. See the little glittery "s" sticker I used for each of the birdie wings? I drew a bird silhouette on the back of a piece of (bunny print!) origami paper, and then cut two at a time (right sides of the paper together to make the birds face each other). I must have been in a fringe-y mood that evening, because I decided that they needed to sit in a bed of green grass.

And now, the Father's Day cards!

These two cards were time intensive! I made two of the tree cards - one for my dad, and one for Hubby's dad. We were planning to see Hubby's grandfather that weekend, too, so he got an extra-special card, as well.

For the tree card, I drew a leaf shape on the back of a piece of card stock, then traced it six times on a scrap of textured green card stock. I saved some time by cutting out of three types of paper at once - that's a lot of leaves!

I then free-handed a tree trunk, fashioned from brown textured card stock. Cut two! The next part - gluing all the little pieces in place - took some time.

The argyle Grandpa card was the most time-intensive card I've ever made, I think! I first had to look up the proportions of a rhombus. Geometry was a long time ago! For those of you who are like me and maybe don't remember, a rhombus, or diamond shape, can be created by four right triangles. I used four 3-4-5 triangles (Pythagorean). Do you remember this formula? a² + b² = c²

It means that you can figure out the length of each side of the triangle, because the smallest side, multiplied by itself; plus the next largest side, multiplied by itself; equals the longest side, multiplied by itself: 3²+4²=5² (ahem, 9+16=25). This is derived from the Pythagorean theorem, fellow math friends.

I kept it simple, and decided to follow the formula rather literally. So, each one of my triangles was 3/4" on one side, 4/4" (1 inch) on the next, and 5/4" (1.25") on the longest side. Bear with me as I sketch a drawing in Paint to explain.

 

There we go. You can see now, I hope, that a rhombus is made up of four right triangles. I showed the dimensions of mine in this picture (3/4", 4/4", and 5/4"). If you do what I did, you'll end up with a diamond shape that's 2" high, 1.5" across, and 1.25" on each diagonal side. Cool, right?

I traced my rhombus template onto four colors of card stock (these colors remind me of golf clothes - buttery yellow-cream chinos, orange polo shirt, brown saddle shoes, and blue caps), and cut away! I like the way the design turned out. To make the gold dots on top of the diamonds, I measured the center of each long side, putting a pencil dot at the 3/4" mark. I then used my trusty ruler to keep the dots 1/4" apart, and dotted away!

Do you like it? Would you try it? In a box, with a fox? (Seuss reference, friends.)

a little love

Early last month, I began preparing for The Valentine's Day Card-Making Girls'-Night-In.

It didn't work last year - no one could be there, and admittedly, I started a little too late to find a free night in most ladies' schedules. But this year, it was successful. And so fun!

First, there were cupcakes. They were confetti cupcakes covered in homemade chocolate icing. Linnea tasted and saw that it was good, but then decided that they most certainly needed handmade heart-shaped picks to be complete. True?

True, indeed.


And then there was the trip to the dollar store for conversation heart candies, which found their way onto these sugar cookies:

Here is the point at which I am most grateful for the Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix packages. They're so easy. The cookies don't require refrigeration before they can be rolled out, either = genius.

I had fun choosing the candies for each heart to say something creative, as you might imagine.

Here are two of the ladies that joined me for card-making and consumption of copious amounts of chocolate - note the counter full of goodies.

We enjoyed chocolate milk (thanks, Sally!), chocolate coconut cupcakes (delicious, Jamie!), amazing cream cheese sandwich cookies and jelly-filled heart shaped cookies (many thanks to Jennifer), in addition to the two treats I showed you above.


We also had time between bites to create Valentine's Day cards. This was guise under which we got together, and it was quite an effective ruse for the eating of chocolate and the neglecting of homework and the hours of conversation.

See? Productive. And cute! Look at Jennifer's card for her hubby:

And Jamie's for her husband:

Sally left before we could get a group picture. It was, admittedly, rather late at night by this point.

Still silly and sugary sweet.

Here are the cards that I made for my sister, sisters-in-law, MIL, and my mom:

I love how they turned out! Sally brought some really beautiful paper that she made, and I loved adding that to my cards. I did some hand sewing to add an extra special detail to the lace, too.

crafted Christmas

Being a grad student means I have a lot less time to do crafts. I miss that!

However, holidays require decorating. They just do. So I bow to the pressure (read: neglect the vacuuming and dishes) and create. Cards, garland, card hanging garland, table decorations, more cards, decorating cookies, knitting, making other things. Here are some of the projects that have consumed my spare moments.

I am particularly proud of these two cards! I made a bunch more, but I love how these turned out.

Two of my favorite cards

This one I am very proud of - I drew and cut out those letters and shapes!

This evergreen swag was made by my mom and left "blank" for me to personalize with ribbon. etc. I'm not there yet, but I have some ideas!

I made my card-hanging garland this year out of three strands of cotton crochet string. I "chained" it as long as I wanted, using my fingers instead of a crochet hook to get that loose, open look. The cards are just taped onto the string. I hung the garland with tiny picture nails so that it could support all the cards!

This is my sparkly pine cone centerpiece, which currently has a lovely life on my breakfast bar.
Never mind all the flash reflections in the ornaments!

This garland is made of felt circles (ridiculously hard to cut, by the way) and red cotton string. I like how light and airy it looks! The kitties are pretty sure it's a fabulous toy made especially for them. Frustrated about that. This, by the way, is the same reason we don't have the tree up this year.

I made bird seed ornaments, following this tutorial. These are for my father-in-law, gifted with an Audubon Society bird identification book! I hope he'll love them.

Anyway...soon, there will be Christmas cut-out cookies (as requested by my husband), and present wrapping, and more knitting and...

...this girl must first finish her final exams.

lament for a sewing machine c. 1980-2011

heavy steel, delicate thread
well-oiled parts, clean and sharp
just enough give and take

quiet years, dusty case
easily replaced, old and dull
almost forgotten

opened box, new notions
new-found friend, light and use
a chance to assist and create

one, two, three, more
inspired projects, peace and delight
a passion and pastime

halted work, crunched grip
knotted thread, tight and pulled
too much to take

patient hands, labored, slow
restored function, not quite right
back in the box



--------------

All that to say, I'm really frustrated that my sewing machine is not working properly. I can't do any projects until it's fixed or until I have a new one. Just in time for school to start, right? I guess that can't distract me anymore. Studies, here I come. Sad face.

Update 9/25/11: The sewing machine has made its way to the shop. Hoping that it doesn't cost a whole lot, and that it works again soon! In the meantime, I have my MIL's old workhorse of a sewing machine in case I want to sew...correction, if I have time to sew!

knit teddy bear

Sometime last fall, my mom had come across a large stash of yarn at an antique store, and she bought a lot of it - such a bargain! Most of the skeins were acrylic, but one was a lovely sport-weight wool blend in a perfectly almond-brown color that just begged to be a teddy bear.
I began my online search for free knitted bear patterns - not an easy task! Most bear patterns I found were for crocheting, which I don't terribly dislike, but I vastly prefer to knit. I did make a crocheted bear once. Once, because I'm pretty sure that it did not come out to scale, and because it took a lot of motivation to get me to crochet something! This blue crocheted bear (and the knitted one above) will belong to our "someday" babies.Finally, I came across a cute pattern which was originally printed in Simply Baby by Debbie Bliss. I found the pattern in PDF form, here. My teddy bear was pushed aside many a time to make room for other projects - baby booties, Christmas presents, presentations for school - but I finally finished it last night! It doesn't look much like the pattern picture, at all, but I still like it!
Since I was working with just one skein of yarn, and I wasn't sure at all of how the pattern would work out, I actually ended up scrapping the "snout" of the bear in favor of a sewn-on yarn nose. There wouldn't have been quite enough yarn for his ears, otherwise!