What I Made This Week

Thanks to Reading is My Superpower for this darling reversible pinafore pattern, and apologies for the crappy camera phone pictures. Clearly my next project will have to be a pair of matching bloomers from Amy Butler's Little Stitches.

Otherwise: I just keep knitting around and around on a fine gauge sock. One origami box folded to hold rubber bands in the kitchen. And I've finally found the perfect pattern for the lovely handpainted alpaca yarn I received for Christmas (but it's a secret, for now).

My son has discovered beads, and was so focused on threading them onto a piece of plastic string (the stuff we called gimp back in the 70s - I suspect that's probably not PC any more) that he ignored the ringing doorbell completely. I'm going to have to get more beads.

Modern Quilting

The Modern Quilt Guild has a post today about how every generation calls itself modern, meaning a divergence from past style(s)...and yet a photo then-and-now shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Or at least that's true in quilting. My friend's vintage-photography-mashup website, Sepiatown, launched today, and it shows that the more things change in architecture, they more they just plain change.

quilt begun by Vania and finished by me in 2008. You should know this: if you ever give me crafting materials, it's likely that you will receive something made from them in return. I know this is not your intention. The cyclical nature of giving and receiving just appeals to me.

Another Finished Project

Stuff I've Made This Week

One messenger bag (still needs a buckle), from The New Handmade

Two baby hats

Four pinwheel bobby pins

And sadly, one square for a memorial quilt

Crafty Bloggers Celebrate "Boy Month"

It's BOY month on Dana Made It and Made by Rae - two crafty bloggers who rightly agree that boys have been underserved in the crafty blogosphere. So this month they're focusing on Boy tutorials, Boy clothing ideas, Boy crafts, Boy bags and all things crafty + Boy. I, for one, will be following along intently. Because those pinwheel pins are cute, but I'll toss my sewing machine out the window before I try to convince my boy to wear them.

Today Rae shows how to make a men's shirt into a boy's shirt. I already have the pattern pieces cut from Heather Ross's Kai Shirt from Weekend Sewing, so this goes right into the sewing queue.

What's Crafty This Week?

Do sewing machines have an overdrive setting? Mine needs one. In the past week I've sewn a sun hat, a baby kimono, five coffee cozies, and a pair of linen pants for the bug upcycled from a pair of his father's cast-offs. A toddler camp shirt is in the planning stages, as is a skirt for myself, thanks to my recent gift of Heather Ross's new book, Weekend Sewing.

Thanks to the kind folks at Whip Up (and the Random Number Generator), I'm now the proud owner of Betz White's new book, Sewing Green.

How crafty is it around here? Let's set the Craft-o-Meter to 7 this week.

Wait for It

"The bug" stuck. The bug is now two and ready for the debate team.

While raising my infant son, I got crafty. I've been knitting for some time, but during the past two years I've dusted off the sewing machine, plugged in the hot melt glue gun, and otherwise channeled my inner Martha Stewart. This week I bought a needle felting kit and created an apple, most of a little elf, and a bird on a nest. I'm pleased to report that I stuck myself only twice, which I owe entirely to my fear of sharp pointy objects.