Knitting Sandwich

Quilted Thanksgiving

I am playing catch up too. 

Thanksgiving was inspired by Sabrina's sewing adventure.

Everyone got placements in their favorite color.

-Lindsey

crafty catchup

good grief!  time waits for no man indeed! how is it that it is already november 20th!  sheesh..  i'm going to run a quick crafty catch up post to cover most of the projects that have been happening around here...

back in september lily's bff had her 10th birthday party - it was a whole family party, with costumes.  the theme was greek gods and goddesses, it was super fun, and i was pretty pleased we managed to pull off four finished costumes in a short time with a new baby around.  wanna know my secret?

the hot glue gun!!  true story!  the only thing i actually sewed was lily's dress, and that was just a basic sheath out of a sheet:

 here she is, nike goddess of victory!  she did all her own accesories, except we did purchase the wings!  

i hot glued the heck outta thora's costume:

she was persephone, and so needed a tempting pomegranate  on her shirt and a springtime themed laurel wreath (the pink tutu was conveniently given to us as a baby gift)

i went as medusa, and just hot glued a bunch of rubber snakes to a bunch of hair clips.  luckily i already own a pile of black clothes!

 brian was on his own, but i think he did a fantastic job of creating his bacchus costume (bacchus is roman... but i'm forgetting the greek equivalent right now... dionysus?).  here's a shot of the whole family:

 it was a super fun night!  i love that we have friends who throw funny costume parties!

now on to october... 

with halloween fast approaching i was working to crochet a mermaid tail skirt for my sister.  she had seen that link of the mermaid tail blanket and requested a skirt for her airel costume.  i used the crocodile stitch skirt pattern (rav link) with the mermaid tail fin pattern (rav link) attached at the end.

 i had also volunteered to make some door prizes again for this year's earth conference - a set of napkins and a crochet market bag.  i can't get out the sewing machine without lily wanting to sew as well!  her class has just started learning recorders in music class and she decided to make a bag for her recorder!

 she was super stoked that i let her use the rotary cutter!   here's her fabulous finished bag:

 i got my napkins done too:

and also the promised market bag (although i had originally planned to make two... no one seemed to mind that there was only one).

 i've made this bag a couple times before, it's the five-hour market bag (rav link) and i always enjoy making it!  the mesh section seems like "magic" when i'm working it up!

one more project to share, it's a lily project that involves the hot glue again, and i pretty much saved the best for last.  

backstory: our good friend and neighbor evan and lily were talking one day about how lily loves to dress up in matching clothes with thora but since evan is single and doesn't even have a dog he doesn't have anyone to dress matching with... so lily came home and made him a dog out of a milk jug complete with minnesota twins sweater, so he could have a matching buddy!  that girl cracks me up!  

okay, that pretty much catches me up!  but i'm not caught up with y'all!  as you've probably noticed i'm waaaaaay behind in my blog reading.  so far behind that i feel i will never catch up.  my new plan is to just mark everything as read and start over, i'm going to put bloglovin' on my phone, as i seem to be able to use my small phone easier that the big computer when nursing thora.

but then i've missed out on 3+ months of posts, which i feel bad about... so i am apologizing and hoping that no one is too offended!  

-melissa

ps - those photos of thora are two months old.  need a more recent one?  here she and lily are yesterday morning.  that's about as current as it gets!  onwards and upwards! 

 

2014 Unblogged

Happy New Year!!

I was looking at last years pictures on my phone and found a lot of blogable photos.  So in the spirit of closing out 2014 here is some stuff I could/should? have blogged. 

The birth of a new quilt

 

The birth of a sewing room

 

A growing pile of blankie

 

The most fun craft project inspired by a children's book.  (I might actually get around to writing a review of this book with the project, the book is THAT good!)

Finding inspiration a MFAH

More inspiration at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair

And even MORE inspiration at the International Quilt Festival

All that inspiration led to a new super hero: RAINBOW GIRL

Here's hoping for an inspired 2015!

-Lindsey

Happy (belated) Halloween!

Sabrina is really into mermaids so of course that is what she chose to be for Halloween. 

She picked out the fabric and sketched the design.  

We finished the sewing right before trunk or treat.  It is a fun even at our church with games and even a caricature artist.  

I hope everyone had a great halloween!

-Lindsey

 

Quilt roundup

I've been quietly quilting up a storm because friends and family are having babies.  Here are a few finished projects.  

For a friend's son:

 

 

 

For another friend's grandson (we had a family silly photo shoot) 

 

 

And one for my cousin's daughter

That baby really inspired the creativity.  I made her a sweater:

And bibs and onzies too.

 

Nothing like babies to get the crafts going.

-Lindsey

More quilts

I am all about the quilts lately.  My friends are having twins so I got to make TWO quilts. 

Here is the boy's

 

And here is the girl's quilt

 

(My lovely assistant was such a good helper during this photo shoot)

My pinterest quilt board is growing with fun ideas that I'm eager to play with. 

Bring on the babies!

-Lindsey

A Birthday Quilt

My niece turned two last month.  I love the explosion of learning and understanding that occurs between 2 and 3!  Her vocabulary is already huge, but I thought an eye spy quilt might be a fun way to expand it even further. 

Here are some of my favorite fabrics (and words)

Tentacles (Thank you Melissa, I love this fabric!)

Double decker bus (I loved to add this for her english daddy)

There were so many wonderful fabrics to incorporate, the quilt got a little big. 

Zoe loves it and has already made a game with the back.  Here she is swimming in the ocean.

-Lindsey

 

and three years later... apron!

three years ago in october melinda came to visit me.  we started a joint sewing project that weekend, and she left it with me to finish.  *ahem*  you can just guess how well that went...

fast forward to november 2013 when i was in dc visiting melinda... she had me bring the project and *she* finished it for me.  because she is awesome.

so without further ado, i present to you the mel-mel apron:

 all of the fabrics were from melinda's stash with the exception of the blue fabric which i inherited when my grandma passed away.  i love this fabric so much and i'm so happy that it is a part of this project and i will get to see it every day in my kitchen!

 thank you so so much dear melinda for all your work at making this apron a reality. i love it!

 -melissa

happy halloween!

lily's gandalf the grey costume was finished up just in time for halloween!  

just a quick pattern run down: the beard is from jordanna's beard by jessica bechard (rav link), the hat is from spiral wizard felted hat by valerie calley (ravlink), and the cloak is from a simplicity pattern... whose name i shall not utter here...

sewing the cloak was a huge step outside my comfort zone, and i'd be lying if i said i enjoyed any pary of the process.  but you know, lily looks so darned cute that i'm glad that i made myslef follow through and forced myself to do it.  

hope you all had a happy halloween!
-melissa 

some helpers are more helpful than others

a couple weekends ago my parents came to visit and i enlisted my mom to help me cut out the pieces for lily's halloween costume.

she was indeed very helpful, giving me the encouragement i needed to get started as well as helping with the actual pinning and cutting.

today i began the sewing process and found that i had another helper...

while she's adorable, she's not really helpful.  not helpful at all actually... but at least she matches the fabric.  i would have been hard pressed if lily had wanted to be gandalf the white!

"what?!?!  you don't want my help?!?!  merp."

-melissa