New Alexander Henry fabric

Hooray for more new fabric! This shipment is from Alexander Henry fabrics and they are delicious.

Birdsong and Canyon Flutter
(I'm making curtains for my daughter's room out of the Canyon Flutter fabric)

And what's Fall without a few new sugar skull fabrics...

Calaveras De Color (with glitter) and Azucar

Last but not least...

Treetop
One can never have too many bird fabrics =)

All of the above fabrics are available at Phat Fabric.

Cheers,

Jamie

Daydreaming at work

At Phat Fabric, we... haaave....

ooh...

aaaw...

Oh yeah. What was I saying? Fabric. That's right. I get so side tracked with my litter of flowers. They just grow up so quickly. *sniff* It seems like yesterday, when I took this picture of my runt as a baby...

and now she has blossomed into a full fledged sunflower. Actually, it was Monday when I took the pic. See! Oh how I wish sunflowers had a longer life span. *sniff* sniff* Alright. Alright. I'll move on =)

Yes, Phat Fabric has added 2 new Chelsea Echino fabrics. Both are the Leaf print, but in black and mint green. Also, I have had quite a few inquiries on when I will be re-stocking the Bird to Hang (natural), Leaf (gray), and the Bird and Berry, which I am happy to say are now in stock.

Lastly, over at Everyday Learning an online craft magazine, Rachel wrote a piece on finger knitting which she interviewed me about the topic (link). In the article, she links to several YouTube videos, which can be very helpful when learning to finger knit.

Hmm! It appears someone else likes my sunflowers. Hopefully he is a friend and not a foe.

Happy Friday!

Jamie

Rise and shine

This past Sunday morning, as I was doing the breakfast dishes, I looked out my window and saw a dash of yellow. "My sunflower has bloomed" I yelled. Within 3 minutes I grabbed my camera, changed out lenses for my zoom lens (because it was the really tall sunflower that had bloomed) and ran outside to catch the beginings of her bloom. While in the process of changing lenses I also yelled for the kids to get their shoes on and meet me outside. I'm not really a "yeller," this was good yelling =) The kids were just as excited as I was to see our new flower.

(They take direction well)

As you can see, not only is the sunflower (that bloomed) really tall, but it also bloomed in the direction of my neighbors backyard =( This presented quite a challenge for taking pics. I had to squish myself between the fence and sunflower in order to get a peak. If I could have had it my way, I would have shot the flower looking directly at the face and with my 50mm lens rather than my zoom. However, oddly enough, in the end I really like the angle of the pics. I may have sharpened a few, but for the most part they are straight out of the camera. Had it been easier for me to take the pictures, I may not have been as creative with the angles.
After reflecting on the awkwardness of this shoot, a thought came to me. Sometimes when we are forced to approach a situation from a different and uncomfortable angle it draws out our creativity, which in turn helps it turn out to be better than we had hoped for.

Here is the second tallest of the three. She still hasn't opened her eyes, but boy is she beautiful even as she sleeps.

Jamie

Hello Pin with template and instructions

My kids' 1st day of school already came and went about 2 weeks ago. It came in like a lion and out like... well... er... uh... it just left. For the first day of school I made my daughter a Hello pin. To be fair, I did offer to make my son (2nd grade) one and surprisingly he refused. Maybe a Transformer felt pin would work... maybe not =) For this pin, I used Illustrator to make the shapes of the girl along with 3 different background options (for future pins). If you too would like to make a Hello pin for your little sugar boog, below are the instructions along with the PDF template. Simply click on the Brooch template link to download the PDF file.


Materials
~ Felt scraps (wool felt works best)
~ Embroidery floss
~ Needle and thread for hand stitching
~ Embellishments such as beads
~ Pin back~ Brooch Template

Instructions

1) Cut out all of your pieces according to the instructions on the template. Use felt for all of the pieces except for the dress. You can use scrap fabric for the dress. (I used the 2nd pin option; however, I cut the circle with pinking shears instead of cutting the scallops)

2) Place the dress onto the right side of the body piece. You will see that the dress is bigger than the body. Fold the raw edges of the dress around the body so that the raw edges are on the wrong side of the body. Hand stitch the dress to the right side of the body. Stitch along the outline of the body making sure to stitch the raw edge of the dress to the wrong side of the body.

3) Embellish the dress. I embroidered a white collar along the neck line. Other options could be a scarf, flowers, or pockets.

4) Place the hair piece on the head. The hair piece should be slightly larger than the head. Stitch the hair piece to the head.

5) Stitch the hair buns to the head. Place them behind the head so that they are peeking out from behind the neck.

6) Stitch the arms to the dress/body.

7) Make her eyes by embroidering a french knot at each eye position.

8) Stitch her mouth and nose (optional). I didn't think my girl needed a nose.

9) For her cheeks I used a toothpick and scooped out a little bit of my Bobby Brown blush and applied it to her cheeks. Hey it works!

10) Hand stitch your girl to the foreground. I simply hand stitched around the outline of her shape.

11) Stitch the pin back to the background, then stitch the foreground to the background. I used a blanket stitch.

12) Embellish some more if you so desire. I added beads and the word Hello.

13) Join the Pretty Ditty flickr group and share your pin.

Happy creating!

Jamie

Sunflowers, The Drowning Men, and a Phat Fabric sale

It's OK girl. You can come out. I won't let that big, mean, burly man come near you with that evil weed whacker ever again.

I'm filled with anticipation as I see the beginnings of the blossoms starting to form on my sunflowers. This one is the runt of the liter. The other 2 are too tall for me to photograph the buds. I would estimate them to be about 8 feet tall!!! Is that normal? Hopefully, when they bloom the weight of the blossoms will force them to drop so that I can admire the happy flowers.




Randoms
***
1) My brothers band The Drowning Men just released their first full length album Beheading of the Song Bird, which is available on iTunes. When my brother told me the title I gasped. He then went on to say it was a metaphor for what he perceives is going on with the commercially produced music today and basically the death of it. Pfff. I totally knew that!
They are also going on tour to places like Portland, San Fransisco, and Seattle, so if you're interested check out their my space page for where they'll be playing.

2) Here's a link to an interview of my brother written by The San Diego City Beat.

3) I've added a search box (upper right side bar) to my blog. My labels are not exactly... exact, so now you can type in a specific word in the search box and Google will pull up all related posts from my blog.

3) Lastly, Phat Fabric is having a sale on all Echino sewing patterns, Threaded Pear Studio quilt patterns, and select Alexander Henry fabric. Here is the link.

Cheers,

Jamie

Piggy back conversations

Our bedtime ritual begins with a piggy back ride to one of the kids rooms where I then read them a story for bedtime. Currently, we are reading Tumtum and Nutmeg: Adventures beyond Nutmouse Hall. My kids absolutely love this book! They get so dissapointed when we finish a chapter and have to wait until the next night to see what happens next.
When I give the pre-story piggy back ride to the room, my kids usually request me to be some sort of character or animal. In the past I have been a Transformer (Optimus Prime), robot walker, dolphin, and a flying fire breathing dragon (my personal favorite).
The following was last nights bedtime conversation.

Me: OK it's piggy back time! What do you want me to be? (speaking to my daughter)
B-girl: Ummm, nuffing.
Me: Nothing?
B-girl: Ya. I just want you to be mom.
Me: That's sweet.
Dropping her off on her bed and walking towards the door.
B-girl: I think you're special... even when you're not special.
Pause. Reverse.
Me: Not special? What do mean?
B-girl: You know. Like when you have messy hair and stuff like that.
Me: Gee thanks! I feel... special now =)

Motherhood can be quite humbling and sweet at the same time.

Jamie

New dresses of the Honey Girl sort

The last two dresses are the modified version of the Honey Girl dress pattern (link to how to modify the dress pattern) and the first one is the original pattern. Just in case you're wondering... no, I'm not sleep walking in the first pic =)

The above dresses, along with the Girly and Bitter dress, will be available in my shop this afternoon.

Cheers,
Jamie

The Honey Girl Dress... modified!

Did you know you can make this dress with the Honey Girl Dress pattern (link) by simply changing where you shirr?

It's the exact same bodice and skirt pattern, but with less shirring and no ruffle. Criz-naizy man!

Here's how you do it...

1) Cut out the Skirt and Bodice pieces as you would for the regular Honey Girl Dress.
2) Follow instructions for Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, and Step 4.
3) For Step 5, mark the shirring lines on the Front Bodice as follows: First shirring line is 1" above the waistline casing and the second shirring line will be 1" above the first shirring line.
4) For the Back Bodice, you can shirr as directed in the instructions or you can do what I did for the dress which was shirr a row every 2".

The 2" spacing between the shirring allows the unique fabric design (Girly and Bitter) to be visible with the shirring.

5) Continue on to Step 6 and follow through with the remaining pattern instructions, omitting the instructions for adding a ruffle (unless you want a ruffle).

That's it!
Simple and fast - a great combination.

This dress, along with at least 2 more dresses, will be up in my shop next week.

Jamie

Upcycled/altered nightie looking shirt

Yes, more reconstructed clothing! This time it's partnered up with one of my favorite sewing techniques... shirring! The blousy shirt... (maybe nightie?) was another hand-me-down from my sister. She recommended me to wear it with a belt, but when I tried the belt on with the shirt it looked really frumpy dumpy on me. However, I loved the fabric's weight and it's sweet little flowers, so I decided to doctor it up with some elastic thread.

What I did...
1) I cut off about 7" of length from the bottom of the shirt. I saved the fabric for another little project I'm working on.

2) I finished the raw edge by stitching a rolled hem stitch along the bottom of the shirt.

3) Next, I shirred the bottom of the shirt (3 rows at about 1" apart). The fabric is extremely light weight and consequently shirred up a little too tight. The next time I work with such light weight fabric, I will wind the bobbin with a little bit of tension as opposed to no tension. The tension will keep it from shirring up too tightly.

4) Lastly, I shirred the ends of the blousy sleeves (1 row of shirring).

It took me about 1/2 hour to complete.
I have so many blousy tops that could use a good shirring. My shirts should be afraid... very afraid.

Jamie

The death of a sunflower

For my Birthday this past June we (the family and I), planted a garden. We have a small backyard, so consequently it's a small garden, but a garden none the less. I have done some light gardening before, but never vegetables, and never from seeds.

Because this was a fairly new venture for me, I decided to casually obey the recommended distance for planting and pretty much just threw down a whole bunch of seeds and hoped for the best. I did make sure to keep them in their rows. To me, it was like going to Vegas and playing the slot machines... "Come on Sunflowers." And you know what? I did win Sunflowers...

Tomatoes (I think)...

Strawberries...

and Pumpkins...

If I mislabeled any of those pics, just play along with me. I'm fragile =)

Right now the pumpkin and tomatoes are going at it. I definitely planted them way too close together. They're all twisted up and I keep separating them, but by the next morning they're at it again. My money is on the pumpkin.

I've been giving my little garden quite a lot of attention; I water it, pull weeds, and take pics of it growing up. It makes me very happy! But then, something awful happened.
Last Saturday, my husband was taking care of his baby, the lawn. At the time, he was edging the grass when all of a sudden he turned the edger off and yelled "I'm sorry Jamie." I turned to look outside, and to my horror, lying at my husbands feet was my second tallest sunflower. Behind her stood my husband with the whacker (they should require some type of official training for those things). I threw the sock that I was folding down on the floor and said "what happened?" Apparently, he "accidentally" beheaded my sunflower by edging too close. Accident? I suspect jealousy over all the attention my garden has been getting.


Jamie

I'm now a techie

About a week ago...
I upgraded my cell phone for one of them new Apple phones. Before I upgraded, I rarely ever used my cell phone. The phone was really old and would take about 3 minutes to warm up and 2 minutes to connect to a phone number I would dial. It didn't take pictures, and on occasion would get so hot I couldn't put it next to my ear. Plus, I'm really not a phone person; and who would be with a phone like that? Anyways, it was my emergency phone... because it only make sense to have a phone like that for emergency situations.

As you can imagine, I was very excited to get one of these high tech phones, mainly because I would have Internet/email access. This is actually the real reason for the upgrade. When it came time to make the purchase, we (my husband and I) did so and then the sales guy asked "I need your old phone so I can transfer your contacts." "Contacts" I replied? My husband said "Oh she doesn't have any contacts." The man was in shock. Seeing his response my husband said "She's not really a techie." Let me break here from the story and explain why I didn't have any contacts. 1) I memorize people's phone numbers. 2) I don't think my phone even had that feature. And 3).... OK! I'm not a techie!

Initially, the sales guy didn't believe me. He made me repeat "I really don't have any contacts." I then went on to tell him that not only do I not have contacts, but I had never text messaged before; I've never taken a picture with a cell phone; AND I'm not on Facebook. He looked at me like "Who are you and what planet are you from?"

A week later...
I now text message all the time.
I've taken plenty of pics with my new phone.

And, I have contacts.

I'm still not on Facebook =)

Jamie

Gray Gap dress makeover

I have had this basic gray dress FOREVER! Like pre-kids forever. It's always been such a good dress to me, and to be quite honest, it didn't really need a makeover. I was bored, and the dress fell victim to my boredom. A couple days ago I was browsing though Some Girls Wonder and came upon this Paul and Joe dress. I thought of how similar it was to my gray dress in regards to the basic design. Immediately, I went to my trim stash and had just enough black lace to add to the sleeves. So with a couple of stitches, I gave my basic gray dress eyelashes... so to speak =)

(I dried my bra in the dryer, resulting in the fabric shrinking. This is why there is a bra line. Let this be a lesson!)

I top stitched two rows of black lace to each sleeve area of the dress. The second row is set in 1/2" from the first row. If I had more of the dress material, I would have made fabric ruffle sleeves with a little lace stitched to the ends, similar to the Paul and Joe dress. I did contemplate shortening the dress and using the excess fabric for ruffle sleeves, but the dress would have been way to mini for me. Plus, I didn't want a big project. Nor did I want to make a trip to the local fabric store for similar fabric. I just wanted to work with what I had in my stash. In the end, I think it turned out just fine.

As for the embellishments, I cut a long piece of black velvet ribbon and looped it through the already existing belt loops (I cut off the gray ties that the dress already had sewn in). The pin is from The Black Apple (Emily Martin) who ironically writes the Some Girls Wonder blog..
I... I... I love you Emily.
Seriously, the pin is even better than I had hoped for. It's funny because I've never really been a pin/brooch person and now I totally adore them. Hooray for the little things in life that make us feel good =)

Jamie