Simplicity 1810: A Hospital Gown in Disguise

I actually made this dress a couple of months ago in a fit of winter hatred. I found the chevron-y, arrow-y printed fabric at Joann's near the new nautical fabric, which I have to visit every time I'm at Joann's, even if I don't buy any. I think this fabric was from the Lisette line? It feels like a quilting cotton, but it was in the apparel section, so... I made it into a dress. Seems to work just fine.

The pattern is Simplicity 1810. I do not remember buying it, so I'm sure it was a pattern-sale purchase, where I go in with a plan and the best intentions, and leave with a bunch of a) random, b) baby, or c) similar patterns to what I already own. I do like this pattern. Or at least, I like the idea of this pattern. In practice it's sort of sack-like. The built-in ties are supposed to do all of the waist shaping, which they do to a certain extent, but. It's tricksy to get the dress to lay properly under the ties, and it's still a bit sack-ish. I made a Small even though my measurements suggested Medium, and I think I could even have gone down to an XS. Why, oh why, is there so much positive ease in patterns from the Big 4? No one looks good swimming in their dress.

(See? So much extra fabric above the ties on the sides.)

Not sure that the pattern-fabric combo is my best work. It truly does look like a hospital gown without the ties... and even a little bit with the ties. Maybe it's the color?

As per my usual, I cut the dress too short. Luckily I found this Kona quilting cotton in a color that went really well. The fabrics were about the same weight/drape, so I added a strip of the Kona to the bottom. Ta da, not too short. Also, the pattern has facings, which make me cringe no matter what. The facings had to go. First I bound the edges in bias tape instead of using the facings, but that totally didn't work, so I ripped them out and drafted a full lining for this thing. Then I sewed the lining to the neckline and armholes and realized that I could not turn the dress inside out anymore. Fail. So in the end I just hand stitched the lining to the armholes.

Overall: I'll wear it this summer, but it's not my best work, and it's not too terribly flattering. But it's easy to wear, fairly comfy, and long enough! Score one for that.

The necessity of handmade gifts.

I have some sort of psychological problem that does not allow me to buy gifts, ever. Under no circumstances may I buy a gift. Even if I'm under a huge time crunch, or have eleventy-million other things to do, nope! Cannot buy anything. Must make something.

Case in point. Wedding gift. Two oven mitts and two hot pads.

I actually really enjoyed making these. I order a lot of fabric on Etsy, and it often comes with a little pack of a few 2" by 3" or 3" by 3" squares of different fabric. I just kept tossing them in my scrap bin, not knowing what to do with such little pieces of fabric. Fortuitously, I pulled out my scrap bin (which really, was getting out of hand, and something needed to happen with it) to make this set.

The bride is an ocean lover, and an ecologist, so I was thinking blue and green would be the way to go, and I knew I had a lot of blue and green scraps. In my search I found a bunch of these little squares that totally worked with my color scheme, so I included them in the patchwork. I love it. The little pieces of unique fabric are so cool. And they add a great variety to the oven mitts. I especially love the blue glitter crown fabric. I might have to buy some yardage of that. Which when you think about it, is surely why the Etsy sellers include little pieces with your order... Hmm. They got me.

Girly-Girl.

Yet another baby shower gift. I was looking through my pregnant friend's baby registry, and noticed she'd registered for a ton of jungle-themed baby stuff. Super cute. So I bought 2 yards of this fabric:

(Jungle Bungle by Moda)

My thinking was that this would be the back, and an amazing ombre quilt from the book We Love Color would be the front. (If you go to that Amazon link and click "look inside book", it's the first quilt shown.) So I ordered like 12 different fat quarters of Kona Solids in pinks and purples, and when I got all the fabric and piled it up, I realized that there is no pink OR purple in the jungle fabric, and that they in fact looked awful together. Luckily, I had a couple of yards of a pretty dahlia-printed quilter's flannel that totally went with the pinks and purples. So I forged ahead. By that, I mean I procrastinated until literally the morning before the shower, and I made the whole thing in one day. Like 9 am to 2 pm. It was a quilting marathon. 

I love it. I want to make a big one for me. I think it turned out perfectly. Except, um, the quilting. Clearly, straight lines are not my forte. 

I bound it in the same fabric as the backing, something I'd never done before. I really love the way it looks. I also figured that I didn't have time to hand-sew the binding down, like I usually do, so I used some Steam-a-Seam (like double stick tape, but for fabric) to stick the binding to the backside, then machine-stitched it down. It's certainly not perfect, but it saved a ton of time and my hands. I'm getting old and it's getting harder to hand-sew. Boo. I'm not even that old.

Gratuitous close-up.

So now the question is what to do with that adorable jungle fabric? And when am I gonna have time to make one for me?

I love foxes.

Recently, I've had a moderate obsession with foxes. I enjoy forest creatures in general, but there's just something about foxes that is extra good. I even knitted this fox stole, which I'm unsure I'll be brave enough to actually wear in public, but that's another post entirely. So when I saw the Ed Emberley "Happy Drawing" forest friends fabric on Etsy a while back, I knew that I had to own some of it. Then we got invited to a baby shower, so now there is a forest friends baby quilt. 

I did wonky log cabin squares (which I wish were either wonkier or more perfect, because they are just wonky enough to look unintentional. oops.) with the forest fabric, that orange squiggly fabric that is also from the Happy Drawing line, and some Kona solids- light gray, charcoal, bright green, dark green, and a macaroni and cheese color. I think this is the most piecing I've done for a quilt so far- getting all those squares to fit together in a manner I found pleasing required SO MANY little white rectangles and squares. After making this quilt, I understand the need for a design wall. I had the blocks taped to my closet doors as I was arranging, which is just not a good solution, because then I couldn't open the closet.

I did a nature-inspired quilting pattern that is something I frequently doodle when I'm in meetings and such. Unfortunately, it got totally obscured when I washed the quilt. That made me upset, because it took FOREVER, and I was working on it literally up to the minute we left for the shower. It's sort of visible on the back:

But sort of not really.

It was a good lesson to learn. Won't do such a complicated quilting pattern on this type of quilt again. As my mom says, my 478th quilt is just practice for my 479th. Although with me it's more like my 6th is just practice for my 7th. I started making some more of the log cabin blocks to make another of these quilts (to be put in my Etsy store), and I think I will do something way simpler with the quilting, like concentric squares, or even straight lines. Overall, I like.

Possibly the most cheerful socks ever

Aren't they springy?

I definitely knitted these when I was supposed to be knitting other things, but they make me happy, so I don't care. Plus, they were super quick. I think I made each sock in two sittings. That's the great thing about self-striping yarn; it does all the work, and you just zoom around in stockinette. Especially if you have Addi Lace Turbos, like I do. It changed my sock knitting world, people, getting those needles. I loves them.

They are made from about 1.5 skeins of Knit Picks Felici in "Peachy". Just a simple cuff-down sock with short-row heels and a really shallow toe, because I have, as my husband likes to say, troll toes that kind of just go straight across. I had a moderately hard time making sure the stripes matched, because when I was looking for another orange section, the second skein was mostly yarn barf. I hate that. 

I got to wear them once. Now it's too warm for socks, especially wool ones. A little frustrating for now, but I bet when fall comes around, I will be stoked. A drawer full of hand-knit socks? Yes please.