Giving it a go

I spent most of the week practice-knitting with my wool-cotton on Aunt Mary's size-6 teflon-coated knitting needles, and I am now totally spoiled for them.  Such lovely slipperiness!  But I was not particularly enthralled by the project and wanted badly to get on to my sweater.

I ran out to Minocqua on Tuesday to the Knitting Nook where a lovely woman helped me choose some chunky baby alpaca yarn (believe it or not, the cheapest of all the yarns we looked at) and worked up some gauge swatches that evening.  I had picked up Debbie Stoller's Stitch and Bitch on Sarah's recommendation and spent some time looking at it to figure out what tools I would need to buy and what techniques I would need to use to work the sweater, and I asked Mary some questions too.

D, K and I set out for home on Wednesday morning.  Around lunchtime we drove into Escanaba, MI, and found a little shop called the Yarn Barn where I bought my size 13 circular needles, double-pointed needles, stitch holders and other doodads, along with some quilting material, vintage fabric and eyelet curtains.  The lady there (who runs an antique shop side by side with the yarn store) had a magnificent rocking horse that was big enough for big five-year-old K to ride!  I'm glad she didn't notice it.  I tore myself away from the store and started casting on.  And I knit.

Forty minutes later I realized that little twist in the fabric wasn't going to "work itself out."  I ripped out, cast on, ripped out again.  Got really good at casting on.  I think it took me four or five tries before I got the stitches cast on and knit the first round without twisting them.  Then the alpaca fur started flying thick and fast. I guess I've knitted up about six inches worth of sweater by now, which seems like a lot to me.  The stitches aren't perfectly even, but there aren't any dropped ones, either.  I think it will be a nice first project.  (Okay, second.  The first was an orange garter stitch scarf in Homespun yarn that I like a lot but that sheds all over my black pea coat.)

I only hope the darn thing fits.  I measured myself, I checked the gauge, I checked it again, I bought yarn accordingly, I'm hoping for the best.

I've been looking at the sites you folks have recommended and there's so much to see!  Thank you for all of your helpful suggestions!  Now I have one other question for you:

Other than teflon needles (oh my heavens, they're wonderful!), what are your favorite tricks/techniques that help you knit a little faster?

Knitting!

So I'm learning how to knit.  I was looking for something to do on the plane trip out here to Rhinelander (we're visiting D's relatives) and the obvious answer was to finish one of the umpty-million crochet projects I have started but never finished.  But I have changed so much since I started those projects.

For one thing, they are all afghans.  I do not care if I never see another afghan as long as I live.  I have made enough of them.  I need to move on to more interesting and challenging projects.  I suppose I could take on more complicated afghan patterns, but none of them cry out, "Commit to me for the next three months of your life!"  I really just need something different to do.

For another thing, they are all made with acrylic yarn.  All of them.  And I am so not into man-made fibers these days.  Give me cotton, wool, alpaca, angora.  Something that feels soft, has a nice hand, a good drape.  If I'm going to be working with a material for a long time, if I'm going to wear it or sleep under it or give it away, I need to love to touch it.

So it's time to give away the old projects to someone who will enjoy finishing them, or who will unravel the yarn and put it to good use.  I'm taking up knitting!

I have in mind a particular project, the Berkshire Pullover from Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick.  It's a big sweater made simply from chunky wool in stockinette stitch, and I've read the directions through and think that if I take my time I can do it.  I'm working on a practice piece right now, a scarf made from two strands of Rowan's wool cotton, and it's slow going but I think it will turn out nicely.

If you knit, I'd love to know what your favorite knitting sites are.

Wish me luck!

Mishmash: Summer vacation edition

So I've been busy thrifting. The cashmere sweater supply in the area is nearly depleted, so I'm going after the vintage linens now. Look at these lovely sheets:

They made up into a fabulous duvet cover, tutorial found here:

And it's reversible! I couldn't get a good picture of the other side with my cheapie camera, but you can sort of see it under the photo of the wool messenger bag from Akiko Mano's Linen, Wool, Cotton that I made.
I'm not at all sure how I feel about this one. I made it out of an old (felted) wool blanket, and it was very hard to do. The wool was thick and awkward, and it fought with the needle and wouldn't fit under the presser foot very well when there were more than two layers, which there often were. The lining fabric that I chose was just -- well, wrong. It was a quilting weight cotton and was just entirely too light for the bag. I made up at least three different linings (good thing I bought extra material) and got frustrated and took it out on the bag and had to do some creative zig-zagging. I ended up using no lining altogether.

It was an interesting project, but the end result is just weird. I'm going to try it again with a lighter weight, more normal colored wool and see what happens.

Other projects I've been working on: another pair of pajama pants and a top, which I'm not going to show you because they're completely insane. I made them out of a pair of polyester/cotton sheets (note to self: do not do that again) and they are sweltering and ugly, with giant blue roses all over. I don't know what I was thinking. I also made a top from a lovely vintage pillowcase, which I'm not going to post a photo of because you can see the exact same thing on Betz White's blog. I felted some soft creamy wool to make patchwork-bound baby blankets with. And I've started to work on a grown-up version of the cashmere blanket -- look for it soon.

Summer Pajamas

Success!
Success at making summer pajamas!
Success at making them in a size to fit me!
Success at making the pants from a pattern!

The top comes from Betz White's Amazon Blog and is an adaptation of her amazing Shirred Pillowcase Summer Top. I made it a bit longer than she specified, about 21 inches after hemming to be exact, and I'm a little sorry I did. I thought it would give me extra room to move around but it actually just makes me feel a little like a flowered tank; I may hem it further yet. I made it from yardage rather than from a pillowcase because I had 7 3/4 yards of pretty lightweight cotton hanging around that I'd bought for $7 at the thrift store and crying "wear me," so I still felt good that I was rehoming something. I also left the rick-rack off because who needs all that frou-frou when you're trying to sleep?


The pants come from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing, which I've mentioned enough in here that you know how I love it. They're her "Pajama Pants for Everyone," and they certainly fit the bill. The adult sizes were clearly made to fit both men and women because they came up to my ribcage, which would have bothered D not a whit but which made me roll the waistband down several times before I was comfortable. Fortuntately after I had done that they were both comfy and presentable, and I was quite pleased with the results. I think when I am braver I will tweak the pattern a bit so that the waistband is lower and the legs are a hair less baggy in the crotch/inner thigh area -- but that's for another time. For now, I have jammies!

I had enough scraps to make a "Jane's Head Scarf" (another project from Weekend Sewing for myself and one for K, and K has expressed a desire to be "Pajama Buddies," so it's good that I had 7 3/4 yards of that thrift store material! I see more PJ sewing in the near future!

Retro Ruffle Tote Bag

I needed a big bag, and I'd had an idea cooking for some time about these curtains that I'd found in the Lumberton Goodwill. The sight of them had taken me back to my early childhood in the mid-1970's and I'd snatched them up. The other day I took them out of my "vintage" box and made up this fabulously large carryall.

What about the ruffle part? That comes in with the lining, which I made from a second pair of curtains, a nicely coordinating calico where I used the ruffled hem to fancy up the pockets a little bit. It's hard to see in the picture below, but the ruffles are there!

The fun part about making this bag was the ease and speed of the ready-made hems and finished edges in the curtains. I had it done, even with adding pockets and reinforcing the handles, in just about an hour and a half. (Hand-stitching the lining into place took some time, but I was sorry I did that and ended up top-stitching it by machine anyway for durability.)

I have two valances and some remnants of the doll-patterned fabric left, so if anyone can think of another use for it or wants a smaller tote bag made from it, let me know.

Something old, something new

K cuddles on the couch with the completed cashmere baby blanket:

It may be kind of tricky getting her to give this one away!

The blanket is far from perfect but it is done as neatly and carefully as I know how and it is made with much love, and I am going to try to keep those things in mind and hold my head high when I present it to the recipient's mother.

Things I learned while working on this project:

• If you take a picture of your layout to help you remember it when you're sewing your blocks together, refer to it when sewing your blocks together. Observant readers will see that my finished blanket does not quite look like the one in the previous post. Oops!
• When working with stretchy fabrics, be careful not to let them stretch out of shape as you sew. Lowering the tension and extending the stitch length can help, but going slowly and carefully is most important.
• It's okay to start over. My work got stretched beyond recognition and I ended up cutting cutting around the outer edges and re-sewing the top to the backing. I'm glad I did, because now the edges have a much cleaner finish.
  
• Using a walking foot seems like a good idea to feed multiple layers of stretchy fabric through the machine, but it is not; things just get too slippery. Use a regular foot and see above.
• Fusible web is nothing short of a miracle. If you have ever been afraid of applique, this stuff will get you over your fear in the 10-15 seconds it takes to fuse your first piece of fabric. I always told myself that I preferred not to embellish, that I liked my work plain, but let's be honest, who was I kidding?
  

I can't think of a project that I've enjoyed working on as much as this one. There will definitely be more to follow.

Note to myself

I've finally found the time to start working on the cashmere baby blanket. I love, love, love these colors and am pleased with this arrangement, so here's a picture to remind me of how I want the blanket to look, just in case things get turned around in production. Stay tuned for further stages (maybe) and a photo of the final project (definitely.)

(Below is another arrangement I played with for a while. In a way it's more balanced but I just don't find the look as pleasing as the one above. Feel free to weigh in -- I have lots more blankets like this one to make so I'm coveting advice -- but I think I'm going to start sewing the blanket as shown in the first picture.)

Soft and fluffy

Meet the newest additions to the cashmere collection!

These fluffy bunnies are courtesy of Betz White's tutorial, and they are even more fun and satisfying to make than the baby hats. I especially like the cables that give the white bunny a bit of extra character, and the zingy Amy Butler fabric on the pink bunny's ears. More bunnies will certainly follow, and I imagine there could be other critters made from cashmere as well. What would you like to see?

I'm thinking that this red hat with the big stretchy cuff will make a cozy Christmas present for some little one's melon come December. So unbelievably soft!
I have so many projects in the works -- including a quilt that must be finished immediately, the recipient has been waiting months for it -- but I want to get started on the luxe cashmere throws right away. My stash of pink, blue, purple and green sweaters is screaming to be made into a heavenly baby blanket. I really need to focus and get some work done on the old so I can move on to the new. Patience! Diligence! Onward and upward!

Menu-planning Monday

It's that time again! With K home from school and camp for the next 2 weeks, I'm thinking that I'd better add some structure to our days. At the very least, I want to plan what I'm cooking for dinner so the end of the day isn't a crazy scramble. Here's what I've got in mind for this week:



Monday: Ham, green beans, scalloped potatoes -- strawberry shortcake for dessert with strawberries picked by K herself!

Tuesday: Spaghetti, meatballs, jarred marinara sauce, applesauce

Wednesday: Hot dogs, macaroni & cheese, corn on the cob

Thursday: Chicken breasts with pesto, couscous, cooked carrots

Friday: Amy's Organic Pizza, Raw veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, snap peas), dip

Saturday: Garlic Pork Roast, mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes

Sunday: Pancakes, sausage, fruit salad

I took K and did the grocery shopping this afternoon so all the ingredients are on hand except the fresh fruit for Sunday -- I'm hoping for a Saturday trip to the farmer's market to take care of that.

I have mapped out a fair amount of the time this week for activities K and I can do together, but she has requested some special craft projects and I will need to do some rethinking. I hope to put an outline here later tonight or tomorrow of the creative work we'll be up to, and then with any luck we'll accomplish one or more things on our list!

Sitting pretty

Lately I've been needing to cover up my sewing machine when it's not in use because I have a naughty cat who eats thread. It's easy to toss the nearest remnant over the top, but that looks kind of sloppy and it tends to fall off. Here's my solution: a sewing-machine cover made from half of a pillowcase.

I had this pretty pillowcase sitting in my "thrifted" stash, waiting for just the right project. The pattern is pleasingly reminiscent of some sheets and towels my grandmother used when I was little, so I wanted to make sure that whatever I made with it would be highly visible and heavily used. The "sewing machine cozy" project was perfect!

This was so simple to make! I like the design a lot, so after I've ironed out a few kinks in the creative process, I'll post a tutorial for the "cozy" -- my first (albeit simple) original creation!

Cashmere!

What could be more perfect to warm a brand new baby head than a cashmere sweater, washed and dried until it's extra soft and fuzzy, sewn into a tiny tasseled hat?

The pattern comes from Sewing Green by Betz White, and I modified it a bit by hand-sewing the tassels on (way easier for me than the machine-sewing method she outlines), folding up a double cuff and hand-stitching it in place.

I was so lucky to find this fine-gauge sweater with the baby cables, providing enough material to make two sweet little hats. I've been thrifting avidly for the last few weeks, scavenging unbelievably cheap cashmere sweaters (the kind that go for $100+ in retail stores and catalogs) -- sometimes paying as little as $1 apiece. I have about 30 sweaters now, dismantled and ready to become luxurious cashmere throws -- another Sewing Green project. What a joy to work with, and what a joy to give!

Recess

Here's the quilt I made as an end-of-the-year gift for K's teacher. I love it!

It was simple to make using a charm pack from American Jane's "Recess" line by Moda -- with the squares pre-cut all I had to do was arrange them, sew the rows and columns together, baste, bind and tie -- it took maybe six hours to complete.

The bright colors and lively patterns remind me of my daughter and her Pre-Kindergarten classmates, and the backing with its line drawings and primer words seems appropriate. I have in mind that Mrs. H will use the quilt as a spare "rest time" blanket, but maybe she will find a more creative use. I hope she likes it!

(Isn't the red-white-and-blue binding print sweet? I bought enough to make a skirt or maybe a sundress for K with it.)

Spring cleaned!

Photos from my newly spring-cleaned sewing room! (Still, alas, the dining room.)

I did a major overhaul of my fabric stash and kept only the fabrics I loved or thought would be really useful. "I might use it someday" is no excuse for hoarding items that could be used right now by somebody else. Now I can see what I have and I'm not bothered by the nagging thought that I should be working 24/7 to use up my stash, and using boring or ugly fabric to boot. See how nice it looks in my cabinet?

Then I went in and organized my ribbons, rick rack, pins, needles, elastic, thread, bobbins and other notions. It's easy to find what I need now, and it's easy to clean up, too, because everything has a place to go. I also un-teetered the piles of books that surrounded my sewing table, and organized them roughly according to category. I can't wait to get them upstairs to the new studio where there are real bookcases!

So what to do with the boxes and bags and tubs and baskets of fabric left over? I sent seven (yes, 7) boxes, mostly flannel but some terrycloth and an amount of quilt batting, to TLC for Angels -- they make blankets and clothing for "needy babies" and were happy to accept my donation. I have another seven bags of quilting cotton to give to my church's Prayer Quilting group. But there were still boxes and bags and tubs and baskets full of fabric -- fat quarters (kind of small for the prayer quilters), holiday and novelty prints, home decor weights -- plus a gazillion skeins of yarn and several more boxes of crafting odds and ends. What to do, what to do?

Obviously, this was the perfect time for D's parents' church to hold their annual flea market! We sold all of the fabric and nearly all the yarn, a few of the doodads and even a few handmade-by-me items: 3 small tied quilts, 2 patchwork-covered Moleskine notebooks, and a number of rice-and-lavender heat therapy bags. (We also sold: some clothes, a tv, vcr, dvd player and stand, and presumably some other things since our total intake was over $90, which is pretty darn good for a yard sale. We're still debating over what else we might have sold; it's kind of a mystery.)

And now -- onward and upward! Look for posts about my current projects, some new furniture, painting, thrifting, and more...

Making a change

I've been looking around my house lately and realizing that it has a bad case of the matchy-matchies. Take the master bathroom, for instance. The level of pink-and-green-ness in there is truly nauseating. I think I caused that to happen, over time, because of a needlepoint picture my great-aunt gave me that I hung in there, but really, there's such a thing as overkill. I'm going to need to do something about it.

Recently we replaced the cat-scratched slipcovers in our tv-room with inexpensive white ones from IKEA. I was a little apprehensive about doing this but decided to push ahead with the assurance that we could wash, and even bleach, them whenever we needed to. And we have. We've put in a multi-colored checked carpet and have covered the arms and backs of the chairs with the various afghans, quilts and throws I've made over the years, and I like the way it looks and feels. I'm thinking I'd like to do more of this.

I've already purchased inexpensive white slipcovers for the dining room chairs, but I'm holding off using them until we start using the dining room as a dining room again. I think I'd like to make/buy/otherwise acquire white slipcovers for the living room as well -- I'm really loving white these days, and since the furniture is still perfectly good (except where the cats have dug in) there's no reason to replace it -- though a part of me wants to ditch it all and go with secondhand. I want to decorate with color and texture and freedom and things I love, and not worry about whether anything "goes."

I'm collecting vintage fabrics and am hoping to replace some of my bedroom and bathroom linens with handmade items -- in particular, I want to make a duvet cover out of pillowcases and a shower curtain from a 70's bedsheet (which means I will need to learn how to make buttonholes -- a new skill!) I think I will also make some new napkins and dish towels, and think about what to do for a tablecloth or place mats. And then there is the question of what to do with all of my old matchy-match things -- the sheets and blankets and towels and such -- how can I repurpose them? So much to think about!

What changes would you like to make in your home?

Ride 'em Cowgirl!

I'm filing this one under Live and Learn.

K's Spring Concert was last night and she needed an Outfit.

The Rules were: The top had to be white. The bottom had to be Dark Blue or Black (and could have red accents) but Not Jeans. (K also wanted something she could wear for the Fourth of July.) The Kindergarten and Pre-K were to wear Cowboy Hats if they could obtain such.

I looked first at K's wardrobe and found a pair of dark blue stretch pants and an old white t-shirt. No good. I looked at Target and found a soft white smocked blouse. Good. A short black skort. No good. Tight black lacy leggings. No good. K does have a cowboy hat with red trim. Good.

I checked my fabric stash. Many Fourth-of-July novelty prints but nothing suitable. Feeling fairly certain that the local fabric stores would turn up with nothing, I took a ride out to Jo Ann Fabrics. Looked at linen, denim, silk charmeuse, flannel, homespun, gingham, calico, muslin, organic cotton -- back to the linen, which was soft and in a lovely blue, bought 3/4 of a yard of it along with some bandanna print ribbon, an actual bandanna and some black non-roll elastic, and headed home.

I washed, dried and ironed the linen. Started the Lazy Days skirt pattern and worked slowly and carefully. Noticed that the linen was not 45" wide as called for in the pattern, but 60" wide, but didn't worry about it too much -- figured that the skirt would just be fuller. Oh, how wrong I was! When I threaded the elastic through the waistband, I saw that the extra fabric caused there to be less gathering, not more. So I cut the elastic smaller and sewed it back together. And in my haste I cut it too small. So I cut the elastic apart. And in my haste to remove it, I pulled the elastic all the way into the waistband, rendering it extremely difficult to retrieve.

At this point I began to have serious doubts about whether a 5-year-old would even consider a linen skirt to be acceptable Fouth-of-July or Cowgirl attire. I rooted through my stash again and and found some blue starry quilting cotton, not really of clothing quality by my standards but it would do for a cowgirl costume. I began working on the Lazy Days skirt again, slowly and carefully. All the way to edge-stitching the bandanna ribbon to the hem of the skirt.

Satisfied, I began to iron the finished product. And the ribbon began to fray and pull away from the skirt! Oh no! Nasty cheap craft store ribbon! I couldn't cut the ribbon hem off of the skirt and try again with different trim, because the skirt was already as short as I was willing to make it. I looked through my notions bin (a total disaster area!) for some narrow red trim to sew over the edges of the cheap ribbon. I found some rick-rack and some grosgrain ribbon that would work. Not stopping to think, I pinned the rick-rack on, ran it through the machine, and did the same with the grosgrain. The end result was both sloppy and silly-looking. The trims didn't quite match in color, and why hadn't I thought to use the grosgrain twice, which would have given a more polished look? I was really disappointed. But time was running out. It would have to do.

Unless -- I took my loop turner and pushed it through the waistband of the linen skirt, hoping to catch the elastic with its hook. Instead I poked a hole through the fabric. Done! I ironed the starry skirt and hung it up on a hook to wait for K.

The verdict? "It's weird, Mama."

Could be worse!

Making things to wear

I could not be more excited! I have made two things for K to wear on our trip this weekend to E's graduation from college! First is a smocked sundress from Weekend Sewing, which I made at the largest possible size to accommodate my big girl, but which I may have made too short -- we'll see when she gets home from school -- I was too keyed up not to post these pictures now!

Next is the Lazy Days skirt from oliver + s, which Soulemama pointed to in a post earlier this week. I used the Amy Butler fabric that I bought at the fabric store downtown (it's so great to be able to buy locally!) and some ribbon that I picked up there yesterday when I got the bug to try the pattern. I love it so much, especially the ribbon hem binding, that I'm thinking of making a matching one for myself if only K will agree to it!

So tomorrow we're off to Indiana for the weekend, and I need to be thinking about crafting I can be doing in the car, and things to keep the little one busy. Here's hoping the sun comes out and everyone has a good time!

Catching up

It's been a crazy couple of weeks -- I'm thinking I need to modify my weekly plan to include some flex days where I can concentrate on housework and errands and bill-paying and not so much on creative work, important as that is.  There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day.  But despite all the time I've had to spend catching up on those things I've managed to give a fair amount of time to creating; it just hasn't always been what I've wanted it to be.

I put in a few hours making birthday gifts for K's friends.  First was an unsatisfying hoodie towel for a 6 year old boy.  There just wasn't any flannel in the fabric store that I liked, and it didn't come out looking right.  Then came an unimpressive art-to-go bag for a 5-year-old girl.  The straps came out uneven and I decided it was not a good enough gift, so I kept it for my own use and made her a very nice felt pencil roll and included some watercolor pencils and a brush -- I think she'll like them, I must remember to send them to school with K today as she missed the party last week.

Also, for the last week I've been working on my Secret Quilt Project, which can now be Not So Secret since I've decided that it won't be a gift for anybody because it is clearly a Practice Quilt so I will be keeping it for home use.  I am using the "Go-to Quilt" pattern from the Katie Did blog, with chartreuse and pool blue as my solid colors and a medium-scale floral with those colors and a darker teal for my print, and dark grey thread.  It's attractive to me but I'm not sure it would be to anyone else, and the stitching lines are kind of sketchy and look more like bolts of lightning than straight lines in places and rainbow arcs in other places.  I think that perhaps attempting a queen-sized version of this quilt for my first try was a mistake.

I have also been collecting materials for other projects.  Yesterday I went to Village Thrift in Pennsauken, a wonderful source of vintage materials that I can't remember if I've mentioned before, and collected a pretty 1970's pillowcase and a (slightly itchy) rose-pink wool blanket.  The pillowcase goes with a small collection I'm growing that I hope will become a patchwork duvet cover for my bed; the blanket will become, among other things, a throw for the tv room, a hot water bottle cover, and possibly a pair of slippers. 

In the works:  dawni's quilt, a miniature schoolhouse quilt for K's teacher, baby gifts, some small things with the linens from Philip's, a couple of drawstring bags to hold tights and slips and other unmentionables, hoodie towels for K to take to day camp and if K has her way, boots and umbrella for a 3-inch-tall kitty -- keep dreaming, kid!

Over my head

A quick review of the calendar reveals way too many events and projects for the month ahead. I'm thinking of purchasing (I almost said "making," but that would be one more project!) one of those desk-sized calendars with the giant squares that would let me map out my time right there in front of my nose. I've been using Google Calendar, but my success with that is limited as I forget to look at it and tend to ignore the annoying reminders I tell it to send me.

Focusing on today, I need to:

1. Get the grocery shopping done
2. Tidy the house and clean the most disgusting parts of it
3. Organize my sewing area so I can start my secret project
4. Do the paperwork and pay the bills
5. Get errands done: dry cleaning, post office, day camp registration

I already have a jump start on #1, because it's









Monday -- Crock Pot Pizza Fondue, Italian Bread, Broccoli

Tuesday -- Chicken Piccatta (Trader Joe's sauce), Green Beans, Mashed Potatoes

Wednesday -- Hamburgers, French Fries, Apple and Banana Slices

Thursday -- Crock Pot Garlic Pork Roast, Roasted Potatoes, Carrots and Peppers

Friday -- Breaded Chicken Tenderloins, Crock Pot Sweet Potatoes with Applesauce, Corn

Saturday -- Clean Out Refrigerator Night

Sunday -- Ham Steak, Macaroni & Cheese, Baked Beans

Down by the riverside

Yesterday was by far the best, most beautiful day of the year. D and I took a walk downtown to check out the moving sale at Olde City Quilts -- they will be relocating just a few yards closer to the river, so I did not have to feel sad to see them go; instead I joyfully gathered quilting fabric remnants into my arms until I could hold no more, and headed out with a sack of fun and interesting additions to my stash that I otherwise would not have been able to afford.

We had lunch at Legends, a local gourmet pizza place that specializes in fancy pies named for celebrities. Neither of us was feeling adventurous, so we just had ordinary individual pita pizzas, but one day I'd like to go back and try the Don Ho -- pineapple, apple smoked bacon, mandarin orange (I could skip that part) and fontina cheese. Yum!

From there I decided to push my luck with D and beg to stop in the new (to me -- it's been there a year and a half, I found out when I asked the owner!) sewing/fabric store on the corner "for just a quick run-through." It's a good thing he had his Android phone with him to play with because I was in there for at least forty-five minutes, touching fabric and touching it again and pulling bolts out and juxtaposing them and squealing at the pretty notions and the sample projects. I was grateful to be the only one in the store, so I could fall all over myself without getting embarrassed.

The store is called Just Make It ... Sew and is truly an enchanting place for a textile-crafter to wander through ! The rooms are bright and airy with a wonderful selection of elegant and touchable fabrics gorgeously arranged, and the owner -- whose name I neglected to ask in my excitement -- gave me just the right amount of space. I clucked and fussed over her Amy Butler Midwest Modern prints, trying to match one or two with some lovely bright soft linens that were on sale. I did find two combinations that I liked, and bought fabric to make hooded towels, along with some thread for my big secret quilting project. I will definitely go back there to shop and I am excited that the store offers sewing lessons too!

(In celebration of the weather and the fabric and the end of Spring Break, we stopped at Umm's Ice Cream Parlor for the first time this season. Huzzah! is all that need be said about that, I think. We ate our ice cream as we walked home by the Delaware River. I ask you, could it possibly get better than that?)

When we got home I did some fulling of a couple of pieces of wool suiting I bought a while back that I thought I might turn into blankets. The final texture and amount of shrinkage surprised me. I need to keep practicing until this process becomes really familiar to me, at which point I'm sure something else will have come up which fascinates me more.

Here is the first hooded towel that I made. I under-bought the cotton fabric and had to make the whole thing smaller than I normally would have, but that's okay because this project is meant for a newborn-to-6-month-old and they have such little bitty heads that would get lost in a giant hoodie anyway. Since the baby is due in July I thought it would be nice to have a cooling towel/blanket, and this one fits the bill nicely -- both the linen and cotton layers are smooth and moisture wicking, and they both lack the nappiness of the flannel and terrycloth that I normally use, which keep a child warm but also retain moisture. This will be a quick-drying towel or a light-layer blanket.

What about Studio Saturday, you ask? Believe it or not, I accomplished my goals! I had a nasty bout with insomnia last night anyway, so around 4am I took apart the desk (don't ask what I had to do to find a flat head screwdriver. Why would you use all the flat head screwdrivers and then scatter them all over the house so no one else can find one when they need it? I'm asking you, D!) and moved it into K's room (she was with Grandma & Grandpa,) then put it back together and emptied my closet. D measured for shelves in the late afternoon. Mission accomplished! Woot!

A full plate

What a fun day we had yesterday!  The sun finally came out and we took a friend to lunch, then bought tulips at Trader Joe's and met a new 5-year-old friend who lives two doors down and has a lovely family and a fun swing set to boot.  I think this could be the beginning of Something Good.

While all that was going on I was busy not planning my week, so now it is Free Play Friday and I have yet to Think It Through.  I'm afraid that, this week, I have extremely high hopes and dreams and may find it difficult to stay realistic, but I will give it a shot:

Free Play Friday is a catch-up day and will probably see very little crafting -- I need to pull the house together as best I can for the busy week to come.

Studio Saturday means getting my old desk moved into K's room once and for all!  Then D and I will empty the closet and do proper measuring for custom shelves, which we will purchase at a later date -- maybe in a week or two.  Not sure if we should install them before or after painting.  Suggestions?  (Will also be purchasing fabric for a large new project -- what fun!  I'm being deliberately cryptic about the nature of the project, except that it's a full-sized quilt, because it is a gift.)

Stick-with-it Sunday will have to be forfeited this week, as my sister and nephew will be visiting and family comes first.  Any available time will be spent making the current sewing room as functional as possible for making a full-sized quilt.

Mix-it-up Monday will of course include a menu plan for the week -- the wheels are starting to turn about that, and I hope to include at least one meal that K can help prepare now that I've bought an electric skillet to help make things easier for her.  Will continue to prepare the sewing room for the new quilt -- I want this project to run like clockwork!

Try-it-out Tuesday is the day the beginners' knitting group meets at the county library headquarters, so I hope to attend that.  Otherwise the day will be completely given over to the full-sized quilt -- sewing the panels together and beginning to pin the sandwich.

Works-in-progress Wednesday looks like it will be an exercise in will power -- I may need to set a timer so that I'll be working half time on the new project and half time on older ones, just to keep myself on task.  I want to go through my Crochet-WIP basket to see whether there is some yarn I can give away to buy myself some space; I may have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating that I just don't enjoy working with yarn the way I once did.

I'll include Think-it-through Thursday because it's a no-brainer:  I'm just going to work on my full-sized quilt until I'm done.  The project instructions say to give it about 10 hours, so I'm figuring on about 24 of my own working hours to get it done properly.  I think I have enough time to get it done -- I'll keep you posted!


What's on your plate for the weekend to come?  Got any plans spilling over into next week?