72. Christmas

Once I've recovered from Christmas, I will post some photos of the things I wrought this Christmas season: 3 afghans, a table runner, placemats, a circular quilt, minky dot pants, doll clothes, fleece blanket, 2 magnet boards, an embroidered picture of the book cover for 21 Balloons. But for now, I am simply reflecting on the insanity of doing all of this in December.

I had a stressful autumn, and I kept putting off Christmas until later. I made little bargains in my head: I don't have to make Advent banners this year, so I'll have more time...Fiona's older and can help on some of the tasks...and other total BS that we tell ourselves to keep us from screaming every moment of the day.

Thanksgiving came with an inflamed masseter jaw muscle and no ambition to do anything. December began. December ticked away. I had doll clothes done, and two afghans ready to seam, but really? Nothing. And then it was December 16.

I made a nice little list. I am never happier than when I'm making a nice little list. I had it all worked out. I would get it done. Of course, this didn't account for visits from friends or sisters (both of whom I very much wanted to sit and chat with, and did so, knowing I would pay for it later). It didn't account for showering or cooking meals or running to the pharmacy at the last moment or any of those things. It was solid sewing from start to finish. And a little spray painting.

But I got it done, all but one of the afghans, and that I finished at my leisure on the 26th and handed to the recipient (Jake's brother Sam and his wife Michelle).

I knew I had lost my mind when I had the prep work done for a set of placemats for my mother-in-law, and I looked at it and thought, "this should be a quilt. A round quilt." And I went for it. Wha?

So this year, for Christmas 2012, it is getting underway in February. Because it really only took me a few hours to make that round quilt. And it's insane that I waited until the morning of the 24th to start it. Insane. I could spend a week in February and get 4 quilts done and feel better about myself and about life and my jaw muscles and all that. Wouldn't it be nice to sit still the last week before Christmas?

I get better at Christmas every year. I adjust and learn how to make things better for myself and folks around me (Jake, kids, our families, friends). This one, however, came at great expense to my sleep schedule and mental stability. And that's just crazy. Like the whole semester has been.

But things are looking up in many directions, finally, and I have to start this in February. No more denial, no more superhuman feats of sewing.

2010 was the year of the quilt. 2011 was more generalized. I do better when I have a focus. 2012 will be the year of the traditional quilt. I need to go back to the basics of quilting. I need to go to Luckenbach, Texas. If you understand that, good for you.

71. Zip

I did two things for the first time yesterday. I used a zipper foot on my sewing machine. I replaced the zipper in a sleeping bag. So I suppose it's only really one thing, in two parts. But I spent a long time sewing yesterday.

Mike's aunt's mother-in-law has a robe, an old terrycloth robe, very simple construction, and it is her favorite. No other robes equal this one. They either don't lie flat enough along the neck, or the pockets aren't square pockets. So I was handed a robe and minky dot fabric and asked to make another just like the first. And I did. I hate tissue paper patterns, so I laid out the fabric and the robe folded to specific pieces in order to get the diagonals correct. I made 4 pairs of pajama pants this way already for Christmas, and I don't think I'll use a tissue paper pattern again. Bleah.

So anyway, I made the robe while Jake's uncle Johnny sat in the living room dropping not so subtle reminders of his political bent. I was glad for the task.

I finished it quickly--about two hours including a short break for dinner. I had brought one other project to accomplish this break. The sleeping bag zipper. Fiona and Daisy each have sleeping bags that I found at a resale shop on separate occasions. They are flowered and vintagey looking on the outside and lined with a thin flannel. Fiona's is blue and pink; Daisy's is red and green. I love them. They look like something my grade school friend Nicole would have had at her house for sleepovers. They are not cold weather sleeping bags, but they are cute and lovely. I had one, not with the flowers, but in a wine-red-brown, that was very much like these. And so I like them. I've always been a bit wabi-sabi about things. Things that are old and a bit shabby but still functional? Keep them and love them.

But this blue and pink sleeping bag's zipper was in bad shape. First, it stopped threading well and so I made a stopper with a zigzag stitch. Then the zipper, an old metal one on a stiff fabric tape, began to disintegrate. The teeth fell off in chunks (like my worst dental nightmare). Fiona brought it to me and asked what we could do.

I worked in a fabric store and I knew sleeping bag zippers existed, but I'd never replaced a zipper. I sat down next to Jake's brother Kevin and his wife Liz, playing scrabble on my mother-in-law's new Nook tablet. The couch is such that you kind of sink towards the middle. Anyway, I clung to the side of the couch, half-watched Thor that was playing on the TV, and ripped out the old zipper.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I have this old zipper foot in my sewing box. I think it is probably from my grandmother. I gave it a try. I broke three needles in the process but the third one stayed intact and it worked. It did. I got the zipper sewed on and then rebound it with the original matching bias binding. The zipper is black, where the original was white and metal, but it works. It zips so nicely.

So now all the projects are completed and it's time to think about next year. Because as God is my witness, I swear on the grave of my scary great-great-great grandmother Jenny, may she haunt me persistently if I fail to fulfill my promise, that I will start Christmas sewing in February this year.

62. Dice Bag

Jake lost his dice bag.

What?

From high school, and college. Dice bag. As in "I play roleplaying games that require dice of multiple shapes and sides".

I blame the girls. They've started playing a cute little game called Fuzzy Heroes and the dice bag disappeared.

It is our 15th wedding anniversary. The theme is "crystal" and I decided dice fit the bill. I picked up a variety of dice online and then made a bag for him.

The first bag was drawstring, lined, made of the same fabric as the ottoman cover I made earlier this year. I liked it. It was cute. But it didn't pull all the way shut. Fail.

So I went into my stash and found a doubleknit skirt that my sister gave me for the fabric (I made her a doubleknit quilt last Christmas). I cut it, salvaged the zipper, and made a sort of pencil case-ish bag that zips shut. It's red and white striped. Pretty ugly because the lines are nothing like straight. It is, in fact, entirely made of skew lines. But the dice go in and it's small enough to stash in a drawer where it will belong: the checks, 9 volt battery, and dice drawer. Of course.

59. Guest Room

My mother-in-law is coming tonight. She's staying, which she usually doesn't do, mostly (I think) due to our cats. But I need to leave the house at 7 tomorrow for canoe training and water rescue certification, so it makes sense for her to come tonight and just start the day in the morning. This meant I actually had to clean the guest room, which is my Dorian Gray Memorial Room, frankly. It falls apart so the rest of the house can appear clean. These days it has been covered in my dining room--all the stuff from the walls, the cabinet, and so on. Plus it is also my sewing/craft room and therefore creeps towards chaos at every moment.

To top that all, the cats love this room. They love sleeping on the bed and leaving giant mats of fur. The older two are fond of barfing on the rug. So I had to dig the place out, change the sheets and blankets, and vacuum the heck out of it.

But now it is done. Still cluttered and definitely my sewing area, but the bed is clean and made, the two dressers (Leo's and a blanket chest) are tidy, the table with my sewing is explainable instead of shameful.

Time for the rest of the house to promptly fall apart.

52. Mended Porch Pillow

It got chewed up in the dryer. And normally I would have simply tossed it--we have a whole crate of chair cushions and pillows and so forth for the backyard. But I looked at it again and though, "I could fix this in 15 minutes."

And I did.

48. Ottoman slipcover

So Leo drew on the library ottoman in sharpie marker. Dang it. Plus the thing was a bit on the dingy side--things spill, I clean them up, but it's never really the same as before. The couch itself is still in good shape, but not the ottoman. On the surface, I mean--the furniture itself is solid as a rock. The ottoman opens up for cedar-lined storage and the couch opens up to a twin sized hide-a-bed. I love this thing.

So this year, you know, I'm trying to get my life in better order all over the place. So I took one of those faux Mexican woven blankets (it's made to look hand-done but it's not) and I cut it and sewed it together with French seams, by hand, and attached an elastic band at the bottom. Slipped it right over the top. Washable if need be, free project made of things lying around the guest room/craft room, and completely serviceable without changing the aesthetic in the room. Well, a bit, considering it's rainbow colored, but the couch was denim to begin with. Still a comfortable unfussy place.

Sorry about the smudge on the lens. Didn't notice it until after I'd taken the pictures and I liked the one with the cat enough I was too lazy (sigh, the ottoman in question is right behind me) to go back and take them again with a clean lens. I blame Billy. Of course.

47. Baby Bibs

My cousin is expecting boy/girl twins this summer. So I made her a few relatively androgynous bibs. They are made from old jeans on one side and quilting cotton on the other. I did a little appliqued bit on the front of each one as well. I simply traced a bib I owned, and used sew-in snaps at the top. I considered velcro, but for an item that will be washed quite a bit, I didn't want it to wear out so fast. And sew-in snaps are a weak connector. If the bib had to come off in a hurry (like if the baby, wearing it, got caught on something while crawling around), it would. As cute as buttons or strings are, I hesitate to use them on baby items. Little snaps will do just fine.The only thing I'll change next time is to sew on the snaps before sewing the two layers together, thus hiding the stitches.

I'm thinking this might be my contribution to the church fall festival craft booth.

43. Mending

When it comes to chores that have to do with clothing, I'm pretty much opposed. I can wash dishes by hand and even scrub the kitchen floor on my hands and knees--really--but I hate laundry. I hate:

1. Laundry
2. Ironing
3. Folding/Hanging
4. Seasonal change of clothing
5. Mending

My mending, currently, sits on Leo's dresser in the guest room. Every so often I find a hand needle and a couple spools of thread (white, black, gray or light blue) and tackle it. Currently I have only 1 shirt of Mike's to fasten a button to. It's a small enough pile to ignore for now.

Like most all of my clothing chores, they are made tolerable with Netflix and Hulu. I watch Law and Order or Sherlock or 30 Rock or whatever. Really. For a short while I watched season 1 of Hoarders, which is enough to make you do all your mending and ironing and throw all your junk away. Far away. Fill the 10 yard dumpster and have it hauled kind of throw away. But I digress. I do not envy women from 30 or 60 or 100 years ago without Netflix or cable TV or whatever your equivalent is. And I especially agree with the pope when he said that the washing machine was the biggest advancement in the status of women in the past 100 years. People mocked him but deep down we knew.

32. Parasol Ladies and Sunbonnet Sues

These two quilts (the Sunbonnet little girl Sues and the older Parasol Ladies) went to my two nieces on Mike's side.

Many of the background fabrics are retired from church (incidental tablecloths, for instance) or from resale shops. They are linen and cotton with a patina of age that makes the whole quilt seem older than it is. I tried to stick to older looking fabrics for the dresses and bonnets and parasols as well, with fair success.

I worked on these dang things off and on all last year. I was so done with them by the time I assembled them in November. Done. But they are lovely and I'm glad I made them (my brother's daughter also has a parasol lady, as does Sophia, and Maeve has a sunbonnet).

23. Tools

21. Old Thread

I use old thread when it's not going to show--mostly to piece blocks together. I don't use just any old thread, however. When I pick it up at an antique/junk shop or at Leftovers (which is/was a recycling store that sold by the grocery bag--great for cheap teaching supplies and I got all my metal knitting needles from there), I test the thread first to see if it's worthwhile.

If it snaps in my hand, for instance, under little stress, then it's no good. If it smells like mildew or musty in any way, I don't bring it home. One time I found a bunch of spools that all had tiny puncture wounds, and I figured out it was cat bite marks. The saliva, I am guessing, rotted that thread completely.

But if it's strong and on a wooden spool, it almost always comes home with me. Even if it's too thick to use in a sewing machine I know I'll put it to some use. And sometimes? If it's a wooden spool and has a nice label, I might still bring it home because I'm kind of silly that way. But not with cat bite marks. Bleah.

15. Spools

These are the spools of thread I went through to make the Christmas quilts. Some of them, of course, were partially used before Christmas quilting began. But some of these belie their original heft--that cardboard tube, for instance, was three times that size in diameter, top to bottom, filled with machine quilting thread.

Some of it was "vintage" thread, picked up mostly at Leftovers back when they had a south city location (oh how I miss Leftovers; the drive to St. Charles is too much for a bag of junk). I picked them up mostly for the wooden spools they were wound on, but that Trusew Polyester was a thin lavender thread I used to put blocks together.

I'm sure this isn't all. I didn't think to start saving spools from this project until October, and at that point I had done some work already. But it's a good indicator, still.

14. Feet

I have three feet for my sewing machine. Here, the sewing machine is footless. Don't pay attention to the fuzz. It's time to clean the sewing machine. But you can see the basics there. The needle, the thread, and the open bobbin case for the lower thread.

This is the machine with its normal foot. When I got this machine, this was the foot that came with it. This foot is fine. You want to piece a bunch of little triangles together? Sure. Sew up a dress for Sophia to wear in a wedding? No problem. But you can't quilt with it. Nope.
For that, you need these. Either of these, but both is better, of course. The first one here is a walking foot. I also use this for very long sewing projects, like banners at church. A walking foot, well, walks. It has "teeth" that match up with the teeth (or sometimes I've heard it called "feed dogs" but I don't know why) on the bottom of the machine. The top piece of fabric gets moved along at the same speed as the bottom. This isn't an issue for small stretches of sewing, nor is it a problem when the things being sewn are thin. But if you combine long lengths of stitches with thick layers of batting and backing, you get a big puckering headache. That's not a pun. The whole thing will pucker and shift and look lousy. The walking foot solves this problem.Why not just use it all the time? I thought that, too. But it is loud and slower than the other basic foot. So I do use it more often than I might if I wasn't a quilter--and it is essential to do things like match up plaids and stripes--but I don't use it for everyday.

The last foot here is an embroidery foot. Like peanut butter goes with jelly, the embroidery foot is useless unless it comes with a plate to cover the feed dogs. More advanced machines have a lever to lower the feed dogs, but I was able to order this little plastic plate to go over them and there you go. Tricked it up just fine. The embroidery foot is for embroidery (duh) and free motion quilting. If you have a machine quilted quilt, all those curlicues and puzzle shapes and stars and waves come from embroidery feet (well, not really--but they could. Most likely they came from a programmable long-arm quilting machine, but I live in a house, not a warehouse, and I just can't go there yet, especially when this works "just fine for government use" (where does THAT idiom come from and why is it in MY head?).
I've had folks ask about quilting on a home machine, and that's how you do it. That's how I do it all, in fact. So much of life is just having the right equipment.