Last weekend was packed with lots of little one-hour projects.

They are becoming my favorite these days, when my "to do" list is long
and sometimes a project goes on for ages before completion. So to start
and finish in the time it takes me to brew and drink a cup of tea is sometimes ideal.

Small
projects – I find – are also great motivation to walk away from whatever
screen is distracting me (or you, perhaps) from real life and get busy with some
creating.

That's what I did anyway.

I decided to sew as many of Lupine's new summer clothes as I can this year. And I wasn't
feeling up to the fancy-pants-too-complicated-to-be-satisfying boutique
clothing patterns I had chosen for her new dress and pants.

Digging through my small pattern stash for a plan-B I
found a vintage 80's pattern for a simple little girl's shirt. An hour
later Lupine had a new top, ready for summer.

The
yellowed sewing pattern envelope was dated "1981" and had an original sale
price of $0.87. I'm sure I paid more than that at the thrift store where
I found it when Lupine was a baby.

In all
likely hood I was drawn to it because my grandma sewed similar shirts
for me in the 70's and 80's (through I suspect with a bit more polyester
in the mix). But the pattern was so cute that even if it was five sizes
too big at the time I snatched it up, only to forget about it until
this weekend.

As for the fabric, I have a hoarding confession. When Heather Ross's
gnome fabric went out of print years back I found some on-line and
bought all they had (a gluttonous 2 1/2 yards). I've been stingy with it
until now, using just a bit here and a bit there until I realized that my children are rapidly outgrowing gnome prints.

"Sew! Sew like the wind with that gnome print!" I said to no one in particular.

The sleeves
are as vintage as the pattern (probably older), salvaged from a friends'
scrap bag. I think in a past life they were a dress or a skir as it was
already sewn at the edges and hemmed. 

Sweet and quick! My kind of sewing. Full disclosure – the sleeves are about two inches too short. I guess I waited a year to long to rediscover that pattern. But she loves it anyway. When I make the next I'll adjust the pattern for her long little self.

What is your favorite quick-and-easy project?

I'm not sure what came over us this weekend.

We were sewing, embroidering, knitting, woodworking, and otherwise making non-stop from Friday morning on. Most of us are still at it this morning.

(As I type this I can hear Lupine downstairs shouting, "MAAAAAAAMAAAA! Where is the blue fabric? I need to embroider!" )

See? We need to. We can't help ourselves.

My most satisfying project was an outfit for Lupine's new-old doll.

In truth I don't really like
making doll clothes. Sometimes I actually hate it.

They're too… putzy.
(I figure in the same amount of time I could make an outfit for a
living and breathing member of my family. And that's a way more
practical investment of my crafting time.) So most of our doll clothes are circa 1975, sewn by my grandma on this very machine.

But this time was different.

It was sweet and fun and done together. Yes, it was putzy, but so worth the time. Lupine ironed, I cut and sewed, and we worked side-by-side for a couple of hours on this dress and apron.

In the end it was the best part of my weekend. I love crafting with this girl. And I'm also rather of smitten by this doll (if you must know).

And today? I have a little chicken to finish embroidering downstairs. And a baby sweater for a friend to cast off. And Lupine is now sitting on the floor in my office, singing about roosters and waiting for me to get down that fabric she's waiting for.

Beacuse, well, we just need to make stuff.

We spent much of last weekend in the basement, sifting through the detritus of the past six years of our life.

Before this house, we had this odd habit of moving to a new place every three years. (I can't explain it.) Pete and I have lived together since 1995 and like clockwork, every three years we moved.

But we've been here since before Lupine was born. And despite my best efforts at simplicity, there are pockets of chaos we've never quite dug to the bottom of. 

So this weekend we had at it.

We dumped out boxes of junk that we've had stashed in the back of closets. We said goodbye to games, books, toys, clothes, shoes, coats, and treasures. We simplified. In a big way. In a big heaping pickup truck full sort of way.

And then we paused.

We all caught our breath, and the four of us scattered to different quiet corners of our home.

Pete headed out to the garage and got to work on a hand-hewn hunting bow he's making.

Sage went to the work table and completed a model airplane that he began earlier this year.

Lupine sat beside me in the sewing room cutting and stitching gifts for her friends.

And I started a quilt.

A quilt for Sage.

After all of that letting go each of us gravitated to the work of
creating. I think there is safety in the making when you've just let go
of so much.

Ironically, before I began the quilt (and after all of that purging) I found myself on-line, shopping.

For fabric.

My fabric stash is not huge and I wanted this quilt to be just right. So I decided to buy yards of white cotton and dye them the loveliest shades of green, brown, grey, and eggplant (for Sage). Then I thought I'd eventually make one for Lupine using the grey as well, but with blue, lavender, and sage green.

I had this vision in my head as I filled an on-line cart with supplies for my projects. I was stoked.

And then I saw the total ($356 before shipping and without batting). I choked, shook my head, and woke up (so to speak). I realized that – of course – I had all that I needed. I'm glad I came to before I brought more stuff into our world.

I think we sometimes paint a picture of perfection that is not only unnecessary but also feeds our desire for more, better, newer. Because – in the spirit of the generations before us – if we just look around and take stock of what we have, we probably have what we were going to buy already. It might not be perfect, but it will serve us. Often better than buying new simply for the economy and ethics of using what we've got.

And quilting of course was created to use of those odd small bits of fabric. The concept of buying new (perfect! matching!) fabric to quilt with is a modern one. So I decided to quilt like my great-grandmother did. With what I had.

I'm using the method outlined in this book and not being fussy with measuring anything. (I'm a wonky girl.) It's off to a solid start and Sage is beside himself about it.

The desire for more or new or better is what gets us buried under these mountains of things anyway. And here I was, recreating that story once more. 

Lesson learned.

P.S. At the risk of growing even wordier, there is one special fabric I'm using for the quilt. See that brown and green and golden fabric on the bottom? Yeah. That's Sage's baby sling. (Seen in the last photo here.) I choked up a little when I included the first piece. Oh, my. We had a good run of years together in that sling. <3

I have been neglecting my sewing machine lately.

It lives in my basement these days, so it's not the most inspiring place to visit when the leaves are turning and there's something warm simmering away in the kitchen.

Also I dug into a project that is a bit more than I can handle. (Okay, it's not. I'm just ignoring the shear scope of the task.) I decided to sew new box cushions for our camper. Our camper which – when we move to the country – will serve as an adorable little guest house. But only if I sew the darn cushions. So for now the cushions and loads of laminated cotton are strewn about my sewing room.

(Did you hear that? I said something about moving to the country. The dream is alive, dear friends!) Edited to say: don't get too excited. Nothing concrete, just dreaming and working and manifesting in that direction. I'll surely keep you posted…

So in the midst of all of my people falling to the flu of one sort or another for the whole of this week, I carved out time to throw together a new purse for myself while Sage and Lupine were reading and Pete was sleeping off this bug.

I love this pattern.

It takes longer to cut out than it does to sew, and it doesn't take long to cut out. Seven pieces plus a zipper if you wish. Fabric-wise it takes a single fat quarter plus less for the lining.

Just like the last ones I made (oh! here's another one!), I assemble the whole thing like my zip bag tutorial. Ideally I would have added topstitching on the zipper like I did last time, but I was hustling and forgot. I did add a bit of iron-on interfacing to the handle this time because after a year of daily use the yellow one got pretty gnarly.

As for inspiring other girlie sewing, I am contemplating this book. Hoping it has some solid boy patterns in it too.

Have any of you sewed from this? Intrigued by the mad ruffles and such.

Love,

Rachel

I have this strange/terrible/wonderful habit of taking on new sewing projects when I should be packing for a trip.

As in during that crazy night-before-leaving phase when your undivided attention is needed to pack the bathroom bag and inventorying the food and prepare the car snacks.

I'm not sure when it started (and it might just be a highly productive stalling technique) but it's almost guaranteed that if we're about to leave I've abandoned my chores and have slipped into the basement for some sewing.

The latest stitching began as the kids and I packed for a week away. We're leaving tomorrow, but Lupine discovered that she's lacking shorts.

She was all skirts and dresses last summer so I wasn't concerned by her having only one pair of shorts, but she's a little less fru-fru these days and a bit more rough-and-tumble.

That girl needed shorts.

So while their auntie took them to the library for books for the drive I dashed downstairs and threw these together with fabric from my stash and a pattern I drew up for Sage a few years back.

So easy, and so adorable. The pleated snail and mushroom pockets push them over the edge. Oh, I'm loving this little-less-girlie stage. I can use snail fabric!

She loves them, I love them, and now I need to pack.

Have a great few days, sweet friends. Stay cool out there.

Love,

Rachel

My sewing machine got a little dusty this winter. After I moved my sewing room to the basement last fall  I couldn't bare the underground temps for long. I gave up on sewing for the better part of the season. Knitting filled the void and I hardly missed my other hobby.

But now it's hot. That wool yarn is feeling heavy on my lap. And that cold basement is downright lovely.

We had a wedding to attend this weekend. I made four large napkins as a gift. The couple has more modern taste, so I tried my darnedest to make patchwork look mod. (Is that possible? I don't know. I hope I pulled it off.)

These were a little hard to give away. I fell in love with them somewhere along the way. Maybe the colors. Maybe the new fabric. (New fabric! I never buy new fabric.) Maybe the near-modness of them.

I made two coordinating pairs, one with a patchwork strip on a simple grey, and one with large blocks of black, grey, and orange.

At the last minute I added a gift tag, in an attempt at humor. It reads, "I made these. So you're stuck with them."

Unless of course they want to give them back. Because I'd be okay with that too.

Speaking of weddings (and therefore proposals), have you seen this yet?

Oh, my.

I've watched it three times and cried every time. Best proposal ever. This could turn an earthworm into into a hopeless romantic. I mean really. The world is a better place for this being on YouTube. That's my two cents anyway.

Love,
Rachel 

Lupine turns five in just a few days. Which means she wants a party, with three of her closest girl-friends ("Just the friends who like to dress up really, really fancy, like me." It's a very short list.) I took a bold step this year, penning on the three party invitations: "Lupine requests a small friend-made gift or simple craft supplies (glitter, ribbon, etc.)." What will the parents think? I was a little nervous but felt it was a good way to approach her birthday celebration in a way that would meet everyone's desires.

The point of a gift is to bring joy, but a year later if the gift is relegated to the back of the closet, the local thrift-store, or the landfill, why bother? So I found my courage and asked for something specific. And it was well received, by parents from all walks of life. No one raised an eyebrow, at least not openly. And Lupine will get gifts she treasures, that are open-ended, and nourish her creativity. I think it's a win-win.

This weekend we attended the birthday of another five-year-old friend. As Sage, Lupine and I discussed what to make, buy, or gift from our own collections Lupine said, "But mama, does he really need any toys?" She was right. He didn't. So Sage decided to share a plant start from his favorite houseplant (filling a pot with soil, cutting a branch, dipping it in rooting hormone, and planting the branch) and Lupine and I made him a special placemat and napkin. Because it is special, but useful. It doesn't feel like just more stuff.

Do you need to give kids flashy toys from a big box store? I don't think so. This little guy's eyes lit up when he saw the gnome fabric (Gnomes!) and he used if for his birthday dinner. I suspect it will get plenty of use without becoming one-more-thing to pick up off the playroom floor. It was a quick and affordable gift (simple patchwork from fabric from my stash), and I would love one for each of my kids too. But I think I'll wait. I'll save it for a gift some day down the road.