Le Freak Granny Chic!

The past few days I have been driving myself insane looking for a craft project to do that didn't involve buying new supplies. I picked out a knitting pattern, only to discover I didn't have the right needles. I went to finish a skirt that I have in progress to realize (like an idiot) that I bought hem tape instead of bias tape.

I had a serious case of itchy fingers with NOTHING to make.

Then I looked at my couch...and saw many sad, sad pillows. Suddenly, I had my A-HA moment!

Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake on meeeeeeeee!
(((Take on me!)))
Take me oooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnn!

Whoa, sorry. Wrong kind of "A-HA" moment. I digress...

I whipped up a new pillow cover with a vintage doily and some material from my stash. It was such a simple, satisfying sewing project.



The bottom pillow illustrates the heinous cover before (inherited from an old roommate...NOT my choice of colors!)



Much more me, don't you think?



I am happy!

What did you do this weekend?

:: sew small ::

Keeping with the idea of completing small projects, I whipped up two more pin cushions.

This mini pillow pin cushion is also going to my swap partner (I'm sending tomorrow, I swear). I figured I would double the requirements of the swap to make up for being, ahem, two weeks late.



The second is the Sweetheart Pin Cushion tutorial at work again. I loved how the first one turned out, so I decided to make one for myself!



There is just something so sweet and wonderful about pin cushions, isn't there? One can never have too many! I have a definite favorite in my collection...perhaps I will show you tomorrow!

:: starting small ::

Sometimes when crafty overload hits... you just need to start small.

This will be sent off for to a very patient swap partner. I followed the Sweetheart Pin Cushion Tutorial over at Happy Together to make this. The construction is very clever and fun to make. I think I'll whip up a few more as little gifts!

Finished Log Cabin

I love my new log cabin pillow!



I love it so much, that when I finished it last night, I took it to bed with me!



The back is a deep rusty orange corduroy, which is squishy and soft.



The pillow came out a little bigger than I had planned, but oh well. Sew and learn, right?

As cool as my pillow is, I don't think it has the transformational powers on my ugly couch that I wish that it had! Oh 70's hunting lodge couch...we have a love hate relationship.



What do you think? Okay for a first effort?

Happy Sunday!

Log Cabin

Conversation with my husband last night.

Me: I started sewing something new tonight.

Him: What did you make?

Me: I started a log cabin pillow for the living room.

Him: Are you trying to embrace the ugly couch? *laughs*

Me: Yes exactly, want to see?

Him Sure!

Me Will you go get it? I'm all cozy. (I was tucked into bed)

Him Okay, where is it?

Me In the built-in, on top of a pile of fabric.

He walks two rooms over, I hear...

Him: This doesn't look like a log cabin at all!?

He brings it in the room



Him: If you had told me find something in your craft closet that looks like a log cabin, this is the last thing I would've picked up!

Me: hysterical fits of laughter

Me: Honey, quilting patterns are named after certain things, like 'flock of geese' or 'log cabin.' It doesn't mean that the patterns look exactly like those things!!! Fits of laughter

Him: Well that's just silly and ridiculous - if I built a log cabin that looked like this, it would fall over.

Me: Laughing so hard I'm crying...



Oh, everyday is a new crafty lesson for the hub, HAHAHA!

*CHRISTMAS SPOILER ALERT :: MATT NO PEEKING!*

Wow, this month's Holiday Handmade Crusade crafting really got down to the wire on this one. This month's theme was "Make something for someone that you love" in order to put to use the Valentine's Day gushiness that pervades this month. Obviously I made something for Mr. G+N aka Matt.

The idea for this Christmas present stemmed from my intense love for a fat quarter of mustache fabric from Sew Bettie. SIDENOTE: *Shakes fist at the sky* Jennifer, I curse the day that you interviewed Cara for your podcast! I'm obsessed. I knew from the moment that I saw this fabric that I had to have it. Money being tight, as it always is, I also had to justify the purchase.

Immediately I began scanning my books for the perfect project to utilize this amazing print. I found it in the ever reliable, necessary for your craft library, Last Minute Fabric Gifts. It was something that he needs, that will be useful and that I'm sure that he'll love.

Voila! I present, Matt's new travel bag.



How perfect is the mustache fabric for a man's shaving kit?! I'm obsessed with the awesomeness.

Front



I love that the mustaches aligned on either side of the zipper so well.

Back



Interior



I lined it with a very thin wale corduroy that I had in my stash. The construction of this bag is quite ingenious and it can be made with a very small amount of fabric. To give you an idea of scale, when flattened the bag measures 10" long and 6" wide across the center. It's just large enough to stash shaving goods, a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss and maybe Matt's contact lens cases. This is such a perfect gift for him, because he's always stowing his toiletries in plastic baggies for lack of a better option.

Now I just have to resist giving this to him for his birthday in May, since he's leaving for a two month tour directly afterwards. No doubt, it would be a great gift then, but he'll just have to suffer plastic baggies until December! (Besides, I have something else in mind for his birthday already).

Do you think he'll like it?

Bits and Bobs of Random Goodness

Let's catch up, shall we...

:: Knitting ::

Knitting is definitely my gateway drug *cough* craft addiction which has opened my world to all of the crafty goodness that currently occupies my life...and the majority of my apartment! I have recently re-fallen in love with knitting because of the amazingly awesome, though slightly sinister time-killing, Ravelry. I'm a little obsessed...

I finished the Broadripple Socks,



And last night I started the Umbilical Cord Hat from the first SnB book at 11:00pm...and finished in a crazed knitting stupor roughly around 3:00am!



The hat is one of a few I'll be making for the upcoming baby showers in my life. I'm might do a little embroidery embellishment on them, we'll see.

:: Christmas Gifts ::

Speaking of baby gifts, I finished another teddy bear! Two down, one to go! This one is wonky and a little asymmetrical. I like him - Matt thinks he's ungiftable. I think Matt's silly! What do you think?



:: Shopping ::

I've made some fun Etsy purchases in the last few days. First off, I bought a golfer window decal for my dad for Father's Day. Secondly, and not to be missed, my sensational artist blog friend, Flossy-P, has made some of her works available in form of a super affordable post card! I was able to purchase two of my all time favorites, String Theory and the set Looking for Love/Sometime Soon. Very exciting, indeed.

:: Cooking ::

Still with me? I made the Asparagus and Morel Bread Pudding sans the morels from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Very tasty, and it made a TON! Oh my, has it been more than a week since I've sung the praises of this book?! If you haven't read it, please do. It will likely change your life, give the warm fuzzies, make you feel like you can change the fate of the planet by doing your little bit.

Made the Rhubarb Crisp from Slow Food by Alice Waters again. Came out scrumptious, again. **EDIT** I just popped over to my mum's blog and she's posted a delicious looking recipe for Rhubarb Bread. I'll have to give that one a go!

So that's what I've been up to - how about all of you? Having a productive week?

Until next time, cheers!

Bears for Babies

New England is so crazy! I sat down to write this post five minutes ago, tops, and it got dark and the rain came down so fast and hard I couldn't see across the street through it. Now it's sunny and balmy. So weird.

Anyways...just had to share that! I have many babies to make presents for, for the holidays this year. Two yet to be born, that means shower gifts will be forthcoming too, and my little nephew Mason. I thought it would be cute to give each of them a little hand made bear. The pattern is from Last Minute Fabric Gifts, though I adapted it slightly to my liking by giving the little dude eyes.



He's not quite as lumpy looking in person as he is in this photo, I'm quite pleased with how this came out. It's odd, but the colors I chose are EXACTLY the colors of my childhood bear Pookie - who I'll have to introduce to this blog someday - I didn't even realize it before I put it together! They'll be two more of these to follow, hopefully I can keep up the ass-kicking on my Christmas list ;)

CHRISTMAS SPOILER :: MOM DO NOT READ THIS POST

Let me tell you something about my mom.

My mom is a bag lady.

My mom is a bag lady and boy do I follow closely in her footsteps in that regard!

Rarely are we Duclos women seen carrying purses. God forbid! They are much too small to accommodate everything, except the kitchen sink, which we need to be carrying with us at all times, just in case. Of course there are specific bags for specific jobs...The magazine bag, in my mom's case, sometimes categorized into different bags, or sections of one bag by topic: craft magazines and cooking magazines. There's a small purse within one of these bags that holds the essentials, wallet, keys, checkbook and the like. Then there's the ever present project bag, or knitting bag. This is where my mum's Christmas gift will come in handy!

You see - all of these bags that follow my mother around, are always full to the brim. Scissors, needles, threads, crochet hooks all become buried in the rubble of crafty goodness. When I saw Mackville Road's Sewing Bag Tutorial I knew that it would be a perfect, useful, yet sweet gift for my mom for Christmas.

I chose one of mum's favorite color combinations for this, red on white, or natural in this case...



There's an awesome little felt needle booklet on the inside.



Pockets...



I did modify one step of the tutorial. I attached the cover section to the back pocket via machine before stitching up the sides of that pocket. I'm lazy and I didn't feel like hand sewing it. It was a little tricky to maneuver via machine, but I like how it came out!

I'm going to tuck some fun things inside, like new spools of basic black and white thread, needles, some pretty pins, some special buttons. I hope that she likes it! Thanks again to Diane of Mackville Road for posting the tutorial.