Some background and finished projects...

Thanks to the inspiration of Jessi, I've started a little blog of my sewing projects. Like her, I felt like my family blog wasn't the place to keep track of all this stuff, and I wanted a place I could put just my sewing projects so that in five or ten years I can (I hope) look back and say, "Wow, I was really bad at sewing back then!"


On the left is the first apron I made. It was for my nephew James, and I "embroidered" his name at the top. He really loves airplanes, so I used some Air Force fabric for the ties and pocket. I also made pockets for the ties to slide through so that it would be completely adjustable, even the neck strap. I probably won't do that again because 1. it was a huge pain in the butt, and 2. it didn't look as good as I would have liked when it was done.

I've made three other aprons, two of which I have photos of (above). The one without a person in it is for my neice Annika. When I finished it, I had quite a bit of fabric left over. I knew I also wanted to make an apron for my mom, and her favorite color is blue, so I used some of the remaining fabric for her apron instead of buying something else.

My mom's name is Linda, and when I cut out the "L" for her apron, Bill said sarcastically, "Who gets the LaVerne L?" I shot him a look, told him mom my would get that "L," and he replied, "She's gonna love that." And she did.

With these aprons, I used D-rings to make the necks adjustable. Much easier than running the straps through long pockets!

I also made purses for Christmas gifts. Unfortunately, I only took pictures of one. Grrr! I'll get photos of the one I made for my grandmother and the one I gave my sister-in-law sometime to post. Here's the one I made for my mom, though.

I quilted it on the sewing machine, which was a lengthy process, but it was worth it because I got exactly to combination of fabrics I was looking for (you can buy pre-quilted fabric, but it's really expensive, and you're stuck with whatever fabric combination is already chosen). The quilting was made easier by the fact that my sewing machine has a quilting tool, which is basically a little rod that you line up with your last stitch to make sure all the lines are exactly the same distance apart--wonderful tool!

My only regret on this project was the lack of pockets in the purse. Because I quilted it, I didn't have a separate lining, so I couldn't sew pockets in without the seams showing on the other side of the purse. I thought about doing pockets on the inside and outside of exactly the same size, but it was going to be such a PITA that I decided against it.

You can sort of see the quilting in the bottom picture. Lots of time, but truly worth the effort.

Moving beyond Christmas...

Christa, Becca, and I recently collaborated on a pajama-making project for Theo's third birthday present. It was the first time since I was a kid that I've used a pattern. Luckily, my mom was here that night to help us out! As you can see, the pajamas turned out great, and we even had enough fabric left over to make a blanket for the birthday boy.

The toughest thing about this project was making sense of the directions. On a couple of occasions, we had to read, reread, and reread the directions. Again, my mom was a big help (she made her own wedding dress, so she's fairly skilled).

The blanket was just a double layer of the fabric sewn together, turned right-side out, and stitched up. We also added little embellishments to keep the two layers from separating.

Finally, here are some curtains I've done recently. The pretty one in my dining room are from clearance fabric that I got for $3/yard. Pretty sweet deal. I got all the fabric I needed for these curtains, and I'm planning to do cornice boxes for the living room as soon as Bill gets the boxes built for me. I should also have enough fabric left over to recover the cushions on the dining room chairs, but I'm going to hold off on that project until I get a new dining room set (one that isn't really a hand-me-down kitchen set). I'll have that fabric for quite a while...

The curtains are lined, which was more difficult than I really anticipated. It was another completely worthwhile big effort, though, as the curtains are a fantastic insulator!

These, my friends, are garage curtains for our huge garage windows. There's another one on the other side of the storage rack, but it's just as hideous as this one.

The reason these are so ugly is that I wanted a fabric that was black on one side to keep everyone on the street from being able to peer directly into our garage. I also wanted something cheap. I didn't want to put much money into garage curtains, for goodness sake.

This fabric was--I kid you not--50 cents a yard. I bought all they had left, for a grand total of $2.88. And after doing two fairly large curtains, I still have fabric left over. And I have no idea whatsoever what I will do with such awful fabric.

On a side note, there was almost no skill involved in the construction of these curtains. The sides and bottoms are not finished. I just stitched a rod pocket at the top. That's it.

The beauty of the fabric, though, is that is is solid black on the other side, so here's what the garage now looks like from the street:

And that's it for now. Next projects:

• Cutting up and rehemming a bunch of old towels for dish towels and various rags. I'm trying to go a little greener by not buying paper towels, but that requires a lot of regular towels.


• Cornice boxes for the living room.


• Pajamas for Emma.


• Pajama bottoms for Georgia.


• A house scarf for Emma.

Tune in later for more!