A "room" of my own

We don't usually make resolutions around here, but this year we have a big one--organization. We had so much going on when we moved in two years ago that we didn't spend much time thinking about how to organize our stuff, we just shoved it wherever it would fit. In 2011, we plan to rectify the situation and we got a jump start on new year's eve. As we were cleaning out our coat closet for the third time in as many months, the boy had a brilliant idea. We rarely use our front door so we end up leaving coats, hats and gloves by the back door. The coat closet has become more of a dumping ground, so the boy suggested we convert it into a craft space for me. Yippee!!

I can't believe I'm sharing this with you, but this is our scary, embarrassing closet before we cleaned it out. You may notice my sewing machine and some half finished craft projects on the floor. It used to be a bit of an ordeal to pull the machine out each time I needed to use it (I would sew on the bean's little child sized table).



We removed the hanging rod and added some supports for a desktop.



It took a bit of work to get the angles on the desktop right. We hadn't figured into our measurements the fact that none of the walls are square.



We built a second shelf above the desktop and added some paint. After that, it just took a trip to ikea for storage solutions and I now have a craft "room!"



I have all my fabric stacked on the top shelf next to a box containing patterns and large tools. Pins, scissors and other small tools hang on the wall in front of me as I sit, my straight knitting needles are stored in a tall vase to the left along with a wall mounted spool rack that holds thread.



In my convenient new space, I whipped up some circular needle storage to hang on the wall to the right (love this).



I have a garbage can on the floor which, rather than being used for garbage, holds balls of yarn just waiting to be knit together (there's a larger bin in another closet--my, I have lots of yarn). The sewing machine still sits on the floor, but we drilled a little hole at the back of the desk that the cord fits through. I have an extension cord tucked in next to it so sewing is just a matter of plugging in to the nearby outlet and moving the machine to the desk.

Oh happy day! I love being able to see all my tools and fabric and knitting projects. I'm no longer starting things and forgetting about them because they've been tucked away here or there. The boy is so happy that there are no longer in-progress knitting projects on every available surface--now everything has a home! What a great start to 2011.

Skirting the issue

I had one more christmas craft due before the big day and I was able to sneak this one in right under the wire.

Our first christmas living together, the boy and I acquired a big bunch of new christmas decorations. The following year, I was just coming out of my first trimester of pregnancy and was not feeling up to digging all the decorations out of storage, so we didn't decorate that year and that's why, when we unpacked our decorations last year, it was like we were seeing everything for the first time. We didn't unpack a tree skirt and were sort of surprised since we vaguely remembered owning one, but neither of us could really picture what it looked like and we certainly couldn't find it.

Last year, we did without a skirt, but this year I decided to rectify the situation. I loved this skirt the moment I saw it (I'm a sucker for polka dots), but wasn't feeling the $60 price tag.



I figured I could whip up something similar, so I started out with a couple yards of white muslin and used the string-tied-to-two-pens technique to make two perfect-ish circles roughly 4 ft in diameter. I then cut slits through one side and made smaller circles in the center for the tree opening. I sewed those two circles together, leaving an opening for turning and turned the whole business right side out.


I then stitched one round of red ric rac at the outer edge of the skirt.

The polka dot part was the most time consuming. I found three household items of varying size to serve as my templates and traced and cut many, many circles from wool felt.


I pinned a piece of scrap muslin over the hole to make finding the center easier and, using the string-and-pen technique, I marked three concentric circles on the skirt using a disappearing fabric marker. I then spent hours agonizing over the correct "random" dot placement.


Finally, I sewed all the little dots down with coordinating thread. I'm sure fabric glue would have also worked, but we're a little suspicious of glues around here and I thought the stitching would wear a little better.

The last step was to stitch more ric rac round and round the circles and throw that baby under the tree!
The only regret I have (that I plan to rectify before packing it away until next year) is that I didn't add fabric ties to hold it closed. It works fine as is, but the ties will definitely make it more bean-proof.


The bean says merry christmas to those celebrating tomorrow!

Where, oh where has December gone?

December somehow got away from me this year. I took on some extra work this month and that, along with household chores and chasing after the bean, has kept me away from my usual christmas preparations. Finally, this last weekend, I found the time (in between holiday parties) to bake batches and batches of christmas cookies while listening to carols and finishing up some last minute crafts. NOW it feels like christmas is coming!



Do you remember this stocking that I started for the bean last year? I stitched like crazy on it all of last December, but I knew there was no chance of getting it done in time. You might think it has been finished for months, given the fact that I had all year to work on it, but I needed to give the thing a little rest at the beginning of last year and only worked on it here and there for several months. This fall, I kicked it into high gear and finally finished up all the stitching.



Last weekend I found the time to do the finish work (ugh, the finishing seems to take longer that the actual stitching). I'm very happy with how my first attempt at embroidery turned out. We hung it up alongside my handmade stocking from my childhood and a place holder stocking for the boy. It took a full year to complete the bean's stocking, so perhaps in two years I'll complete the other two kits I have hiding in my sewing table for us?

More birthday craftiness

Almost two months later, I'm finally finishing up the last of the birthday posts. Today, I have two more handmade gifts to show you. First up is the growth chart.



I'm really cracking myself up with my photoshopping. Of course our bean has a real name that we do use that I stenciled on the chart, but since we don't publish her name here, I had to get creative.

I made the chart out of a strip of linen fabric that I embroidered with brown and green thread. The green doesn't show up in the photograph at all, but there is a repeat of the brown pattern at the top of the chart. I then added a little interfacing to stiffen up the fabric and sewed on the patterned backing. I had never made anything with the backing folded to the front like this, so it took a bit of practice and planning to make the corners neat, but it wasn't difficult at all. Finally, I used fabric pens to mark the distances and color in her name. I was too cheap to buy a whole alphabet's worth of stencils when I only needed a couple letters, so I printed out the bean's name in a large block font on a piece of heavy cardstock and cut the letters out with a utility blade. Time consuming and tedious, yes, but it got the job done.

When it came to hanging the thing on the wall, I was stuck. The boy and I both agreed that we liked the clean look of just the rectangle without any long hanging ties showing, but since we're talking about fabric, most of the hanging options we considered would end up with some sagging somewhere. We almost just drove nails right through the whole thing to attach it to the wall, but thank goodness we decided against that. I ended up making a fabric casing for a wooden dowel that I was able to attach to the back of the chart fairly invisibly. We then nailed a picture hanger right into the dowel and hung it that way. The very tip-top of the chart rolls down ever so slightly, but its barely noticeable and that's close enough to perfect for me!



As it turns out, its difficult to photograph a 5ft long strip of fabric, or perhaps we need a different camera lens, or both. In any case, you're stuck with this arty angle in order to see the detail of the embroidery.

The final handmade present, is this sweater that I posted about a really long time ago. I finally got around to finishing it in time for her birthday. Well, its almost finished. Its in need of two more buttons since I miscalculated the number I thought I'd use. Yes, I understand this displays an inability to count to ten correctly. I haven't been quite as sharp as I used to be since the bean came along--I think it maybe has something to do with not sleeping through the night in over a year.



This sweater is the presto chango sweater (ravelry link). The front panel is completely removable so that it can be swapped out for a different pattern or larger size, how cute is that? A wool sweater may seem like a strange gift for a late June birthday, but I knit this in a 2T because I'm realistic about the amount of spare time I have I wanted it to be big enough to fit for winter. See, those two missing buttons aren't much of a problem--she won't need a sweater for a few more months and she probably won't be big enough to fit into this for another year. All part of my plan, I swear!



The bean says thanks for stopping by and looking at her presents!

Hey Good Lookin'!

In addition to preparing for the bean's upcoming birthday party, we've been busy working on three homemade gifts.

The boy deserves all the credit (or blame, depending on how you look at it) for being the brains behind this first project. Inspired by all the cute play kitchens on sites like ikeahacker, the boy decided we could handle putting one together too. We gave ourselves plenty of time for planning and building--we actually started on this way back in January. We started with Ikea's trofast storage system. We like this particular piece because its made from solid pine and we love not bringing more particleboard (and offgassed nasties from the glue) into our house.



Aww, look at how little the bean was!

After the frame was together, it just took a trip to Home Depot to get a sheet of plywood that we had cut to create our doors and back piece. At this point, the project lagged for a while, since it was hard to get up the energy (and find the time) to prime and paint all that wood, but thanks to the bean's new nap situation, we finally picked up the pace the last couple months.

Once again, the boy had a stroke of genius and suggested we leave the center third of the base cabinet unpainted to act as a cutting board. Too cute!

The base cabinet and doors were easy enough, but we wanted the back "wall" to have stripes, and taping off stripes is my job around here. It hurts my eyes a little bit to look at the tape in this picture, but the stripes are evenly spaced (more or less).

Finally (finally!) it was time to put everything together, although it didn't go as smoothly as our pictures make it seem. First of all, you may know that Ikea (like the rest of the world) uses metric measurements. Home Depot, on the other hand not so much, so we got a funny look when we asked for cuts down to the 1/8 of an inch and the helpful orange aproned man asked if he could round up. I figured we needed to sand down the plywood anyway, so what could it hurt? Well, as it turns out, that was a mistake. The boy sanded everything down before we painted it (since sanding is the boy's job around here), then sanded some more when it appeared that the doors were too big and finally sanded a third time for good measure until finally, everything fit the way it was supposed to.

In the interest of safety, the boy rounded off the corners on the three doors (oven, "drawer" under the oven, and fridge). We're also pretty sure that the back wall is never coming off. That sucker is held in with over 30 screws. There's still a sink, faucet, window, and place to hang utensils still to do, so stay tuned for the big reveal in a couple weeks when we'll (hopefully) have some pictures that weren't taken in our dingy basement.