Sweater for Missy

Missy is a fairly grouchy dog and does not like to be brushed, so we keep her hair cut pretty short.  Sometimes she's awfully shivery in the days after a haircut, and since it's winter anyway, Mike asked me to make her a sweater.  I had no idea whether she'd even wear it, so I didn't want to put too much time into a crocheted one.  And given the way she's especially grouchy about her head, it couldn't be a pullover.

With that in mind, I trawled the internet for dog sweater tutorials, and found this tutorial/pattern on Mimi and Tara.  I didn't need a hood or a santa costume, but it had the requisite front closure, so using the pattern pieces as a base, I whipped up this little fleece number for Missy.

Overall it fit remarkably well for a first try.  There are a couple of areas that I'd like to change next time, yes, some tailoring for dogs, but it went pretty well.  She didn't like it at first, but she seems to like it fine now.  Unfortunately, about three days after I made it, Mike accidentally put it inside a box containing a jacket he'd sold online and shipped it off across the country.  Luckily the kind recipient sent it back to us, but for several days we could not figure out what happened to it.

I was always one of those people who couldn't understand why dogs needed clothes, but she does seem to get chilly in the winter, and she does look pretty cute.  :)

Have you ever sewed clothes for your pets?

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

Welcome to all of you who are coming through from the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day post.  I love being able to participate, especially when I remember ahead of time.  Feel free to scroll down to the bottom to see the details of the giveaway!

I'm mostly an art quilter, with a love of crafts and bag making thrown in.  I try to blog as often as I can about my works in progress, and I'd love it if you'd stop in again!  My work in the last couple of years has been broadly divided into two groups.  The first is an ongoing series of quilts inspired by the style of illuminated manuscripts and calligraphy, and depicting parts of the Episcopal liturgy.

In Nomine Patris

Gloria Patri

Peace be With You

The other "category"  is really just a catch all for everything else.  I'm a scientist in my other life, so some of my quilts are based on my research or other scientific themes and some are just whatever I felt like making at the time.

The Dogs

Winter In Lincoln County #1: The Orchard

Ring Around the Mole

And now for the giveaway!

This year I'm giving away two packages.  Each of them contain a handmade ornament, half a yard of Lotta Jansdotter fabric (from the Bella line), a quilt-in-a-cup kit, and a book.

The books are Pat Nickels and Sue Holly's Stitched Raw Edge Applique and Joan Ford's Cut the Scraps: 7 Steps to Quilting your Way Through Your Stash.

The quilt-in-a-cup kits are a super fun project for making your own quilted travel mug.  They contain all you need to make the project except scrap fabric (so you can use whatever fabric your want).

Finally, the ornaments are perfect for your Christmas tree if you're a tree household, and can also be pinned to a bulletin board or wall for a bit of winter cheer if you aren't!  I made them while playing around with my embroidery machine, something I don't do often enough.

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite holiday activity is!  Make sure you're not a no-reply blogger or I won't be able to contact you if you win.

Good luck to all, and I'll randomly select 2 winners on the afternoon of December 16th.

Thanks again for visiting and to Sew Mama Sew for hosting!

UPDATE:  Please please please check to see if you are a no-reply blogger.  If you are, I'll have no way to contact you if you win, and two of the first three very kind people who commented are no-reply.  If you aren't sure, check out this post.  If you'd like to stay a no-reply blogger, please put your e-mail in the text of the comment.  Thanks!!  I'd hate for someone to win who I couldn't get in touch with!

Mouse Pincushions

I always say my patronus would be a mouse, and so recently in need of a new pincushion, I decided to make it in the shape of a mouse.  I didn't have a pattern, and though I love this and this and this, I wanted something simpler.  Having made tetradhedral pincushions before, I decided to make something more like this.   I got a bunch of crushed walnut shells from Amazon pet supply to fill it, and decided while I was at it to make one for my mom too.

My favorite part is the tails!  Normal mice don't actually have tails that curl around quite like this, but I couldn't resist.  I just knotted embroidery floss like we used to for friendship bracelets, but did it around florists wire so it holds a shape.

Hooray for fun little projects!

Melissa's Quilt

Mike's daughter Melissa and son-in-law Kyle use this quilt on their bed, and unfortunately one of their dogs ate it.  They brought it to me to try to fix, always a fun task.  I think Kyle's grandmother made it for them; sometime in the seventies I'd guess.  It's made entirely out of polyester double knits and not assembled with particular precision, but has fabulous bright colors.  The back is some sort of cotton poly blend.  Anyway, they didn't want me to just cut off the bad rows and re-bind because it wouldn't have been big enough for their bed. Since I don't have any fabric remotely like this I could have used to patch it, I decided to just remove the binding from the very bottom row, then remove the row itself.  That way I could use the intact squares from the bottom row to fill in the areas in the next two rows where the dog chewed it up.  Several of the individual squares outside the obviously messed up area were also chewed so I wound up patching or replacing several of them.   I removed the ties, backing and batting from under the whole three rows that had been messed up, replaced them, retied the squares, and then rebound.  I think it turned out ok!  The yarn wasn't quite exactly the same shade of bright pink, but it's as close as I could get and I think once Melissa washes it a couple of times it'll soften out.   Hopefully her dog won't eat it again.

Embroidered Necklace

Do any of you read MrXStitch?  It's a contemporary embroidery blog that features all kinds of fabulous contemporary stitching.  A few weeks ago they featured an embroiderer from Chile named Sara, and I just absolutely fell in love with her work.  She sells through an Etsy shop called Casatienda de Amelia B.  She agreed to make me one of her mini-rosita necklaces in a custom colorway, and I just got it yesterday.  I love it and wanted to share it, especially since she was wonderful and prompt to work with.  I love the sparkle that comes from the little bits of metallic thread and sequins.  If anyone is looking for some great embroidered jewelry, definitely check out her shop.

Mat for the Game Table

My grandfather gave me his lovely cherry wood game cabinet a couple of years ago (for storing not playing games).  It's the size of a large end table but in my previous living room's organization it didn't fit, so it'd been hidden away in our bedroom.  Recently though, I reorganized the furniture in our living room in an effort to have a lamp (a harder task than I might have imagined) and the cherry wood table is now out for all to enjoy.  When I got out my Christmas decorations I found a ~15" square miniquilt I made a few years back and just set it out on the game table.  I liked the way it looked so much that after I put away the Christmas decorations I decided to make something new for that space.  It was a fun little project and I got to use some of one of my favorite prints.

I fussy cut these 30 degree diamonds and tried them both ways.

I decided on that first arrangement because I knew I wanted to add some skinny blue sashing around each point so I thought the blue flowers should be near the middle.

Add some white background, fun quilting, and ta-da!  It makes me feel like spring is coming.

I'm linking up with the lovely ladies over at Quilt Story.

New Pouf

A couple years ago my mom and I each made a gum drop pouf from Amy Butler's great pattern.  Mine is still a mainstay in my sewing room- I use it as a foot stool when I'm allowed, but more often than not one of my three dogs claims it- they go so far as to push my feet off if they feel I'm intruding on their space.  As a result, it's gotten a little smushed but is nonetheless still well-loved.

Missy claimed the pouf in this picture, but don't be fooled, the other two will snag it if they can.

My mom gave the one she made to my sister, who has since had to throw it out because her cat peed on it numerous times, and my mom has long wanted a new one.  I've been saving "stuffing" (i.e. teeny tiny scraps too small for anything else) ever since and finally had enough to make another one for my mom.

We made the original ones out of quilting cotton, but I've often thought since then that they might be better out of some home dec fabric.  I decided to use fabric I already had on hand, especially since I found (from who know where) this fun teal cordouroy and another complementary print.  I wish I'd had enough to alternate pieces, but alas there was only enough of the print for two segments.  I did include the piping (as in my earlier version) which I think is a nice complement.

It takes a surprising amount of stuffing to fill one of these to a nice sturdiness, and of course the use of the scraps makes it a little lumpy, but my previous ones are filled with a mix of scraps and poly-fill and it has evened out over time.

Missy likes it in any case, so hopefully my mom will too!

Cooler Jug for Mike

I'm here today to share a project that wasn't an utter failure but came pretty close.  Mike wanted a lined coozy-cooler-case for his half gallon water jug so he could mount it on the bike for his long road trips.  We decided to make it out of neoprene with a lining of that stuff that car sunscreens are made out of.  

The problems began and ended with the choice of materials.  I started with the lining, and noticed first, that it was too stiff to force under the sewing machine and that the wrinkles from the folding sunscreen made pretty permanent fold lines.  I wound up using a combination of glue and large hand stitches, all put in with a curved upholstery needle.

The neoprene was way worse however.  We couldn't find any locally, so Mike ordered some we found on Amazon.  Unfortunately it wasn't quite what I was expecting.  It was flimsy and wasn't fabric lined on either side.  It's one of the reasons I hate buying specialty fabric online- you never know quite what you're going to get.  It was crazy expensive too!  Anyhow, I couldn't sew with it at all without covering both sides of every seam with tissue paper, which made a huge mess when I ripped it off.  I discovered the serger worked fairly well to sew the seams (it was pretty thin stuff), but the fabric had absolutely no strength!  It tore like paper as soon as you'd sewn it down.  He wanted a little strap on the bottom to loop over the back bike footpeg, and one on the side through which he could insert a bungee cord, and both tore off in an instant the second he tried to put them on the bike.  What horrible horrible material.  Anyway, the cylindrical case itself was ok, but it's terribly ugly. All the seams are wretched and I'm never working with that stuff again.  I'm sort of ashamed to have him go off in public with something like this, but he's leaving Tuesday and it's too late to make something else.  I told him if he didn't care about the "insulating" factor, I'd make him something much nicer out of canvas or something truly sturdy.  I say "insulating" in quotes because I don't actually think the thing will provide a whole lot of extra insulation over what would be achieved just with the cooler jug itself, but who knows.

I almost didn't post this project, but I figured I might as well!  Not everything goes as planned, but it could have been worse!

Ring Bearer Pillows

Just a heads up for anyone who hasn't seen it already, it's voting time in the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  You should definitely head over and check it out!

My dog quilt is in the Art category, and Ring Around the Mole is in the Home Machine Quilted category.

Today I just wanted to share a little crafty project from a few months ago; my friend Linda from work was getting married and asked if I could help her make some ring pillows.  She found two she liked, I think they're from Martha Stewart's site, and one afternoon we whipped them up.  

Her fantastic wedding photographer Jaime Tardiff from Aptera Studios sent me these pictures to post.  It's so cool to have professional photos!

Congrats to Linda and John!

Minky Blankets

I know more  minky blankets are not particularly exciting, but in the interest of documenting my projects I thought I'd do a quickie post about some I made last year and never got around to sharing.  One for a brand new baby (I adore that bug print from one of Jane Sassaman's old lines), and one for a terminally ill friend who has since passed away.

WIP Wednesday: Mice and Other Mammals

So many things have happened lately, both on the life front and on the sewing front, that blogging has had to take a bit of a backseat.   In addition, many of the things I've been working on aren't to a stage that involves good pictures.

Weekend before last I was lucky enough to get to make a quick trip to St. Louis to see Quilt National and meet up with my quilty electron microscopist friend Barb who lives there.  We had a lovely lunch and really enjoyed seeing the show.  Only about 10% of quilts entered get in, but my goal is to throw my hat (er quilt) in the ring for the next time which will be 2015, so ideas for that project are percolating in my brain.

Also fun, last night I got the catalog for the SAQA Text Messages show in the mail.  It was so exciting to see my quilt there in the book in living color.  The show is opening at IQF in Houston, and I can't wait to see it in person.  Based on the catalog, there are some really fabulous quilts in it.

In not quite so exciting news- we're currently struggling with a mouse invasion in our house.  I work with mice in my day job so they don't bother or frighten me, but it's really startling to see one scurry across the bathroom floor out of the corner of your eye as you brush your teeth, and I do not want them eating through my walls or wiring.  I'd tried to catch it for a while with no success, and when I realized it wasn't a lone mouse (is it ever?) I went ahead and got some traps.  As of this morning we've caught 8 (most in the garage); hopefully there aren't too many more.

On the sewing front, after a couple of weeks I've finished sewing my Halloween costume for this year.  My mom and I are going to a Halloween party at IQF, so we decided to dress up together.  She doesn't usually dress up, but found a Grumpy dwarf costume in the closet she made 25 years ago (ouch!) to trick or treat with us.  My sister and I, in turns, wore a much beloved Snow White costume (you can see my sister wearing it here), and my mom suggested I go as Snow White again this year.  I'll share pictures of us both dressed up when I have them.

Now for the good stuff- I've finally started to get to work on my next two art quilts.  The first is what I'm mentally calling my mammal mandala.  It features at least one mammal from each of the orders represented in Oklahoma.  So far I'm just in the design phase, but here's what I have so far.  It's going to be about 60" square made with a variety of construction techniques.  As usual I'm going with the "figure out what you want to make first and then come up with a way to actually make it" approach.  Incidentally the colors in the design have no relationship to the colors I'll use in the quilt, they were just what I happened to select when making my vectors in illustrator.

The second quilt I'm working on is based on an electron micrograph of some photoreceptors taken for our lab by the aforementioned Barb, and is a slightly smaller project.  I'll share more about it next week.

So what are you designing lately?  Any Halloween costume sewing going on? Can you tell what the mammals are?

Church Altar Cloths

Back before Easter (ouch!) a kind lady named Gerry at our church asked me if I'd be willing to make some table runners for each of the church seasons for the conference table in our church office.  She also wanted an altar cloth for one of the chapels.  I agreed, but it wasn't until August that we actually got together to do the project.  She picked out and paid for the fabric and I stitched them up!  I decided to go ahead and use my embroidery machine to put some embroideries on them to add a little interest.  I'm always surprised by how long even a fairly simple seeming stitch-out takes.  These took about 45 minutes each, so with thirteen of them to do (two each on the table runners and one on the altar cloth) it was a lot of time babysitting the embroidery machine! The fabric was all really slippery, but I think they turned out nicely.

This first one is on my design wall folded in half.  They were pretty long, about 84" I think.

And here's Gerry in the church office with the one for ordinary time.

There are two more, a red one and a purple one, but I didn't get very good pictures of them.  And these next pictures are of the altar cloth.  It's a bit wider and shorter and since it has a definite front, I used a different cross embroidery.