hexagon obsession

It occurred to me the other day that my ongoing obsession with hexagons may not be as random as I had thought. These are the sights I pass every day on my way to S's preschool and to the studio.

easter dresses

This is the dress that always comes to my mind when I think of Easter dresses. My mom made it for me when I was 2, I think. It had a matching cape, and my parents have photos of me hunting Easter eggs while wearing it.


The fabric is a cotton poplin with flocked dots on it. I always thought this was Swiss dot until I requested Swiss dot at B&J a while ago and discovered that Swiss dot is actually a semi-sheer and very light-weight fabric (like voile). So I don't know what you would call this fabric, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. And that's a shame.

My sister brought this dress into the city last weekend when she came for a quick visit, and seeing this dress made me so happy! I didn't know it was still around. It's a miracle it survived five girls and still looks this good.

Obviously it's a bit too small for four-year-old S, so a new Easter dress was in order. This one gets to rest and will just be admired by me for a while instead of being worn.

So here's what S will be wearing for Easter: a Birthday Party Dress in silk dupioni. You can read more about it (and the inspiration behind it) at the Oliver + S blog, if you're interested.

the way home

Tsia and I were at the studio last Saturday afternoon doing a little painting and finishing a project or two, and on the way back home she wanted the camera (and not the little one--my big black Nikon which is a big as her head). So here is our little documentary of the trip home. Her photos, my annotations:

We walk past a high school on our way to the subway, which is funny to me because on Saturday mornings we can watch the football or baseball team practice. This must be the only place in New York to see such a thing, so it makes me feel like I'm back in the midwest.


There are no garbage cans near the high school. Which reminds me that I want to call the city about that. I love that a call to 311 gets us city services of all sorts!



Almost to the subway.

It looks like we're on a really steep incline here. We're not, but I think the angle is rather amusing as a result.

The train conductor held the trains for us, and then a nice man gave us his seat. I love Brooklyn!

Busy train. Saturday evening and everyone is going into the city. Tsia got some very amused looks with her SLR camera in hand.

On the walk home. What is that unusal coat up ahead?

Those are buttons! At first I thought maybe she was one of the pearly kings and queens, but they aren't pearl buttons.

Tsia was excited because we saw two cone-headed dogs on our way home. This event led to much commentary by the photographer.

Nearly there.

Here's our building.

When we want to tease Todd, we call him from our video intercom. This is good for lots of amusing tricks, like when Bear rings the intercom by himself.

Which floor?

And here we are. Hurray! Dinner is almost ready!

easter basket sewing

I've had the pleasure of spending a little more free time making things again lately. I've missed sewing for fun, when I'm so busy doing all the other activities involved with running Oliver + S.

This is a linen basket from the Zakka Sewing book. It makes up really quickly and easily. The size is great: a little smaller than 4" square. It could easily be enlarged for other purposes, but I'm planning to make more of them in this size to hold random sewing bits near my sewing machines at home and at the studio. (More images of project from the book here, and I blogged about the book a while ago here.)

I decided to repurpose this project to make an Easter basket for Tsia. Add an embroidered face, button eyes, and two sticky-up ears, and voila:


Just the right size for a few little springtime treats for S, who already noticed it and sneakily informed me she wanted, "Santa (Santa?) to bring me a little bag. One with ears." So subtle, she is.

I guess the surprise with this Easter basket will have to be the contents therein--about which she's already asking.... (That little heart tin is a smelly soap from Oilily. Yum.)

If you'd like to make your own Easter basket based on the pattern from the book, here is a download of the face and the ears that I used to make mine. You'll need some stiff interfacing for the ears, which get sewn into the top edge of the bag. Use the notches on the base of the ear pattern as a guide to help you fold approximately one third of the outside edge of the ear toward the center before you stitch it into place. The fold helps the ears to stand up and gives them a little dimension. Hippity hop!

even better than wallpaper

Remember that groovy wallpaper? Well, this is even better.

Mo Willems, the well-known illustrator of many beloved children's books (we adore Knuffle Bunny), painted his dining room with chalkboard paint. Granted, chalkboard walls are best when your dad is as talented with a stick of chalk as Mo, but nonetheless...

sweet

One of Tsia's friends gave her this adorable matching game for her birthday.

The illustrations are done by Melissa Sweet, who also has a number of books to her credit. As much as I like our original matching game, I adore these cards because they're really thick and chunky. It makes them fun to handle. And the illustrations are so charming: the bear on a bicycle is my favorite.

The cards also feature a group of characters who re-appear in a variety of situations, so in addition to playing matching we use the cards to make up stories about the characters in the illustrations. I've been working with Tsia to develop some story-telling skills, which has also resulted in some very amusing handmade books I'll show you sometime. I write down the story that she tells, and then she illustrates it. But these cards have been great for quick little tales on the fly, just to help her learn a bit about narrative.

weekend sewing with Heather Ross

Heather Ross and I were talking about her book the other day. Have you seen it yet? I adore it. When I saw the galleys last spring at Quilt Market, where I finally met her, I nearly flipped. The photos, the designs, the sewing room ideas, even the Basics information in the back of the book. It's all great. (And of course anything that Brooke--who designed the book--touches looks amazing, so it's got that going for it, too. I'm not biased or anything--Brooke does all the visuals for Oliver + S)

Heather's book includes patterns and instructions for all sorts of projects like bags and slippers to lots of apparel for women and children. It's a lot like Joelle Hoverson's Last-Minute Knitted Gifts in the sense that I want to make every single project in the book. Every single one. But especially the Summer Blouse. Or maybe the Kimono Dress. Or the Guest-Room Slippers. Oh, well. Eventually I'll have to select one to get started. It's going to be a tough choice.

So anyway, Heather and I were discussing the pattern for Lucy's Kimono from the Kids section of her book. Turns out that we must have been twins for a day, long before we met. Lucy's Kimono and the Oliver + S Bedtime Story Pajamas are so similar, unbeknownst to either of us until both patterns were finished and printed. Even the way we construct the the kimonos is similar. The biggest difference between the two patterns is the sizes we developed. Lucy's Kimono is sized newborn to three months, while the Bedtime Story pattern is 6 months through size 8, which is pretty awesome since they don't overlap each other at all. Cool, yes? You'd think we planned it. We can't claim that level of foresight, however, especially since we only met after the book and pattern were both finished.


Well, that settled it. We needed to sew this little shirt as a project together to celebrate the similarities between the two kimonos. And just for an excuse to hang out, of course.


You might know Heather best for her fabric designs. Her newest fabric line is printed on that amazing double gauze everyone has been raving about. It's a dream to sew with. And since the first yards had just arrived, that's what we decided to use for our version of Lucy's Kimono. But we wanted to try something slightly different than the instructions in the book. We wanted to make a quilted kimono jacket, vaguely reminiscent of traditional Asian baby gear (or our concept of it, anyway).



So back to the double gauze, which has the perfect drape for a little quilted jacket. If we were going to finish our quilted jacket in short order, we needed extra help.

Enter Heather's friend Claudia, who has one of those amazing stitch-regulated Bernina machines that have taken the quilting world into a new realm of fantastic-ness. Add some gourmet Indian take-out, a little wine, and a late night. What do you have? Well, you'll just have to wait to see, because first I want to tell you about the process.

We had so much fun with this. Selecting the fabrics (it wasn't easy, with all those great colorways and prints to choose from), deciding on a quilting pattern for our fabric layers (free-style figure 8's is probably the best way to describe it, fueled in part by the wine, I'm sure--you're a steady stitcher, Claudia), and the sweetest little hand-stitched buttons from Heather's stash.



We traced the pattern pieces onto blank paper following the instructions in Heather's book, and then we cut out the layers, leaving extra fabric around the edges to allow for shrinkage during the quilting process.


While Heather and I pondered trim colors and buttons, Claudia got busy with the free-motion quilting.


Once all the fabric was quilted, we cut out the pattern pieces. To construct the jacket, we (or actually, Heather and Claudia) followed the instructions in Heather's book but bound the outside edges of the jacket instead of hemming them. We chose a Kaffe Fassett shot cotton for the binding and added three button loops for the closure.

And the result?

Don't you love it? It's all Heather: her pattern, her fabrics, her quilted layers inspiration. And all three of us having fun with it.

If you've visited Heather's blog recently, you've seen other apparel made using variations of the patterns in her book. And with all the different patterns that are included, you could honestly make an entire summer wardrobe from the book. (Don't miss the design challenge, or at least look at the other entries for some inspiration for your own sewing projects.)

The book is one to keep handy. I suspect you'll use it frequently as a source of inspiration, specific information about sewing, and of course for the patterns and projects themselves. I adore the little details throughout the book and the beautiful photography. Like those cute little strawberry pincushions that showed up on the cupcakes at her book party. (see photos from the party and from making the kimono here. You can also see images from the book at the Melanie Falick blog.)

When you buy the book, be sure to get yourself some supplies for tracing the patterns, too. You'll need them, because you'll want to make all the projects in the book.

over at Oliver + S

I nearly failed to mention that the spring patterns are in! I'm over at the Oliver + S blog all week showing some of the samples we've made from the patterns and talking about the details a bit.

I'll be back on Thursday with a little surprise for you, too.

rainy day

Goofing around with the camera on my way across town this morning. One of the best things about living in a city is the fact that it's not necessary to have a car. I like to watch the people and sights and let someone else watch the road.

proud parents

Time for an egg update.

The children are (or were) the proud parents of eleven adorable chicks!





At one point this week, they built a city of blocks for the chicks, who ran around the room. Everyone had fun.


Yesterday it was time for all the peeps to return home. I found these little yellow Easter chicks in a local gift shop, so after the real chicks left, each child got his or her own little chick (tucked into a plastic Easter egg) to keep and care for. It's all good.

Here's info on our farm, if you're interested in learning more. I love the Charlotte's Web project.

more cards

Do you remember our annual cupcake-themed birthday cards? Last year I decided it would be better to wait until after the fact to show them (so as not to ruin the surprise), so these are our cards from 2008. They're simple images I created in Illustrator and was then able to recolor and print out for each family member.


Ideally, everyone would have gotten a unique cupcake image despite their having been created in digitally.In real life, that wasn't entirely accurate due to time constraints and the weird pinks and reds that result from our printer's limitations. But I did make several versions of the cupcakes so that people received several variations of the cards.


Sadly, I haven't had a chance to create our 2009 card yet. And many family birthdays occured in February, so I've really fallen off the card-making wagon this year. But I haven't given up all hope yet. I know what I want to do and have all the supplies on hand. Soon, soon.

handmade cards

We needed to make a bunch of thank you cards today, and Tsia has become so independent in her art-making that I knew any collaborative effort had to be quick and dirty or it would never happen. I cut out basic shapes from fabric scraps, slapped some glue on the back of them, and handed them to her to assemble (with a little help). Quick indeed. Here are the six we completed in short order.


And this is a card my Mom recently sent. I had to look at it several times before it occurred to me that she had made it. And I think it's made from other recycled cards, right Mom? Some of it appears to be hand-stitched to cardstock, which she then stitched to the front of the card and hand-tied the thread ends at the inside to keep it neat. My clever Mom. She's got me looking at fabric and paper bits with a new eye again.


It's been a while since I did any card-making, and I love stitching on paper. I would have had at those butterflies with the sewing machine were it not for the short attention span of my crafting partner. I think it's actually becoming more difficult to collaborate on these projects as she grows older and becomes more independent. But she did tell me that she wants to start using a sewing machine, which has me fantasizing about all sorts of projects we can make together. Something tells me I'd better slow my imagination a bit for this, however.