Neo Gets a Jacket

Of course, most jackets only go down to the waist, but I figure that dogs' butts get cold too.  Amazingly, they don't pee or poop on the fabric because they lift their legs and tails when they do their business, which moves the fabric out of the way. 

I managed to put Neo's jacket together in a couple of hours.  I took his measurements and did some calculations, but I miscalculated how much fabric I'd need for the hem, so this jacket is a bit big.  I had to add more Velcro to the straps to wrap them tighter.  Oh well, at least he's got room to grow into it.  When I made a jacket for Stewie when he was around Neo's age, he immediately grew out of it and I had to make another one.

I picked out a couple of fabrics and laid them on the floor.  I asked Neo which one he liked, and he stood on this fabric.  I didn't even realize it, but both Neo and Stewie's jackets have butterflies on them.  I think they are both Hoffman fabrics.  I've been saving them for quilting, but I came to the realization one day that even if I lived to be 100, there wouldn't be enough days left in my life for me to make quilts out of all of the fabrics in my stash, so I may as well use them for other projects as they arise.

My Latest Sewing Project

I belong to some quilting groups online, and I'm always inspired by what I see.  I want to start working on a quilt, but I have to first finish my current project because it is taking up every square inch of my work space in my sewing room.  I have a certain style of tops I like to wear.  I love flowing tunic tops that drop down below crotch level.  Very few people make jeans nowadays with a high enough waist to cover up underpants, so I try to cover my underpants with long tops.  I also like to cover my butt while I'm at it.

Very few places carry tunic tops anymore, or if they do, they are way too short or way too tight to be called tunic tops.  I don't need stretchy fabric clinging to my middle-aged tummy pouch.  So, I decided one day to just start sewing my own tops since I knew what I wanted.  The problem is that whenever I try to make garments from scratch, the dimensions are way off and the final result is unwearable.  You almost need an engineering degree to design clothing patterns.  I hate having to cut up clothing projects I spent months or years working on only to have no choice but to use the scraps for something else.  Fabric isn't cheap.

So, I needed a professional pattern to work off.  Of course, there were no patterns that fit what I wanted to make, so I had to find something that was close, and then alter it to fit my criteria.  I stupidly thought it was as simple as making the skirt part of the top longer and wider, but then found out that meant I also had to lengthen the lining.  Ugh.  I totally forgot to do that, so I had to tack on little squares of fabric, which looks awful.  I didn't know if I'd have enough fabric to make new lining from scratch and I wasn't willing to order more because I could see that this project was going to wind up being another failure no matter what I did.  I was now in damage control mode.

The pattern I bought had several errors in the instructions and I was struggling to understand what they really meant to write.  I'd read the instructions over and over and stared at the diagrams, but I couldn't make heads or tails of any of it.  I finally decided to just use common sense.

I started making good progress today when I realized that this was too easy.  Something had to be wrong.  Something was always wrong when it came to sewing.  I looked closer at my work and saw that the bobbin thread had run out four pin removals ago.  Argh!  I had to re-pin the seam and re-thread the machine after fixing the bobbin issue.

I went back to work and finished that step.  The next step of the instructions made no sense to me.  I did what they showed in the picture, and then realized that I was supposed to serge the raw edge of the lining before tacking it down.  I didn't want to rip out the seams of the tacking because I had already had to rip out the seams of one shoulder to get it to line up, so I just serged around the tacking.

I was feeling proud of myself for pushing on despite the setbacks, when I stood up and looked down to see that I had accidentally stepped on the tie to the top and ripped it off the garment.  One step forward -- two steps back. 

"Oh well, I can sew it back on really quick," I told myself.

Nope!  Somehow in that one inch of fabric I needed to sew, the thread got bunched up under the foot and my garment got jammed in the machine.  When it rains -- it pours.  I know when to quit.  Time for some oatmeal cookies.

Sunflower Pillow

I completed a pillow made with Dimensions Dramatic Sunflower Needlepoint Kit, which contained presorted wool yarn, full color print on 12 mesh canvas, and instructions.  The design is by Lisa Audit and the finished canvas is 14x14 inches.

I enjoyed the needlepointing.  There were a couple of colors on the canvas that were difficult to tell apart, but the pattern is logical enough to figure it out. I chose this fabric for the backing because it mimicked the colors and shapes of the design on the front:

I had some difficulty re-shaping the canvas after I finished the needlepoint.  Because they recommend the continental stitch, the square canvas ended up more like a parallelogram.  I sprayed it with water and tried to stretch it back into a square on a bulletin board using pins, but after several attempts at that process without making much progress, I gave up.  I think in the future I will always do the basketweave stitch, even if the continental stitch is recommended.

Sewing it together was a fiasco, as always.  At first, everything was going suspiciously smoothly.  It was looking like I might get it done in one sitting and have time to do barn chores and make dinner.  Just when I began feeling elated over my good fortune, I turned the pillow over and saw that the backing fabric got bunched up and sewed down that way.  Out came the seam ripper.  I must have removed some pins prematurely.

Once I re-sewed the fabric down flat with the help of more pins, all I needed to do was double stitch another row around the perimeter of the pillow.  I could do that in one minute.  However, the thread broke.  Cut to re-threading the machine.  Then the needle broke.

I insisted upon being undaunted by all these challenges and worked as fast as I could to fix them.  I was determined to get that pillow done since I was so close.  However, the screw I needed to loosen to change the needle would not budge.  I had to locate some oil, oil it, and then hunt around in my husband's toolbox for some needle-nose pliers.  Once the needle was finally changed, I was on my way, whizzing along the border until the bobbin thread ran out.

Hands in air, I gave up.  I was running out of time to take care of my other responsibilities.  This morning, I put more thread on the bobbin and finished sewing the last row of stitches.  Then I turned it inside out and stuffed the pillow form inside.  Still a parallelogram.  Oh well.

I think the biggest insult in this entire project was when I suddenly remembered while sewing the last side of the pillow together that I forgot, once again, to include piping, lace or ruffles in the border.  This forgetfulness is getting to be a habit with me.  I think black lace would have looked nice, but there's no way I'm going to rip all those stitches out now.

My Amish Quilt

My husband and I recently traveled to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for our son's wedding, and while in Amish country, we perused a couple of quilt shops.  My husband wanted to purchase a quilt for a full bed in our back bedroom.  He was drawn to a beautiful cream and white applique quilt, but I had to remind him of our dog.  Then we debated over a fantastic Tumbling Blocks quilt.  After much deliberation, we agreed on purchasing this one:

This is a Curvy Log Cabin by Rachel Lantz.  We purchased it from Village Quilts at Kitchen Kettle Village in the small town of Intercourse, PA.  Yes, it was very expensive, but handmade, heirloom quality quilts often increase in value with age, so we're considering it an investment.

I normally prefer bright colors.  My husband and I have learned that we each see colors differently.  What I see as yellow, he sees as white.  What I see as orange, he sees as red.  The two colors that have the strongest saturation for me are teal and purple, so I love those two colors together.  I gravitate toward them.  We had seen a purple and teal quilt in another shop, but it was king sized and appeared to be mostly machine sewn.  Most of the quilts available at the second shop we visited had subtle, more neutral color schemes, but this one caught my eye because of its use of batik fabrics.  There were small sections of teal and purple that jumped out at me.

When I first started quilting nearly 30 years ago, I loved the batik fabrics, but could not afford to buy them.  When I first saw this Curvy Log Cabin quilt, it was hanging on a rack.  Linda Wenzler spread it out for us on a bed and it really popped.  I couldn't take my eyes off it.  Every time I look at it, I see something else I hadn't seen before.  Even the white portion has different fabrics of varying whites and off-whites, some solids, some patterns, adding to the dimension.  Just the complexity of the design is awe-inspiring.

I learned so much from Linda.  Her shop sells one-of-a-kind quilts.  Nothing is mass produced.  They may carry quilts of the same pattern, but there is always some variation.  The artists sometimes have small groups of quilters help them piece and quilt the bedspreads together, but the quilts are mostly hand-sewn.  You can view their quilts online.  I had mine shipped to me to avoid finding room for it in our suitcase.  It arrived in a special case with care instructions.

We took a quick spin around the countryside on our way to the airport and came upon many horse drawn carriages, as well as men and horses plowing fields.

The wedding was beautiful.  Now that we are home, I've been getting my ducks in a row to prepare for my total hip replacement surgery.  My daughter is here helping keep things running smoothly around the ranch while I'm off my anti-inflammatory medication in the week before the surgery.  The surgeon promises that I will feel much better soon.  He said that the damage from my arthritis is severe.  While that's not a good thing, it was nice to hear a doctor finally acknowledge all the pain I've been in these past few years.

It's been hard having people ask me to do simple things, and me having to stave off panic attacks knowing how painful doing that one task is going to be for me.  I've actually spent the past couple of years of my life trying to keep people at arm's length so that they won't ask me to do anything outside of my normal routine.  Every little thing has been a big deal for me.  It will be nice to get back to some normalcy and not have to think twice about every action I take.

Two More Finished Needlepoint Pillows

I know what you're thinking:  How many pillows does one person need? 

Well, I don't need them, although they do come in handy propping up my laptop in my lap.  I just enjoy needlepoint.  It's a fairly mindless, easy craft one can do with her hands while focusing her attention elsewhere.  When I finish a canvas, I don't want to litter my walls with hangings, so I make pillows out of them and pile them in the corner of my craft room.  If I ever need to give someone a last minute gift, I can grab one, wrap it up really quick, and claim that I slaved over it for months just for that person. 

Here are my most recent projects...

The 14x14 one on the left is Dimensions Bouquet on Black, designed by Lisa Audit.  This one came with plenty of thread.  It was a bit of a struggle for me to differentiate between subtle tones in the threads, so I needed a lot of light while needlepointing it, but it's the fine details that make it look so realistic.

The 12x12 one on the right is Design Works Blue Floral.  The kit was a birthday gift from my daughter.  This one had acrylic yarn while the other project had thread.  Halfway through needlepointing the design, I realized I had been using the ice blue yarn instead of the light teal in too many places, and as a result, I ran out of the ice blue yarn.  Luckily, I just happened to have a skein of that exact same yarn color that I had been using for knitting projects, so I borrowed from that.  Just for the heck of it, I went over one section with the light teal after finishing with the ice blue to see what it would look like.  My plan was to cover the ice blue with the light teal and make those sections standing with extra thickness.  However, I liked the ice blue better than the teal, so my pillow is a cooler color than was intended with the kit.

It took a long time to get the pillows constructed because I had to order some trim and wait for it to come in.  I ordered a whole bolt of white cord with lip, and an assortment of laces in black, white, and pastel colors.  The whole time I was sewing the Blue Floral pillow together, I kept thinking, "This is too easy.  This is going too quick.  Something's wrong."

When I turned it outside in, I realized that I forgot to include the trim I'd been waiting for all those weeks!  See what I mean about my memory being bad?  I had them sitting right in front of me on the table and I still forgot to include them.  Then, just to add insult to injury, I discovered that I had no 12x12 pillow inserts!  After what happened with the trim, there was no way I was going to order 12x12 pillow inserts and wait for them to arrive, so I dug through my supplies and found some stuffing.  It worked just fine.

I chose off-white or vanilla lace for the big pillow, because there were a lot of shades of cream in the needlepoint.  These are the backing fabrics I chose for each out of my stash...

I don't buy fabric anymore because I went through a phase when I was ordering fabric at online sales much too often when I first started quilting.  Although I'm glad now that I did, because back then I could buy fabric for $3 to $8 a yard, and now it is much more expensive.  

Originally, I just bought purple and green fabrics for a king sized bed quilt I was making at the time, and I kept running out.  It was frustrating to get into a flow, only to have to stop work because of a lack of supplies.  So, I overcompensated by constantly buying fabrics to build up a stash until I needed to dedicate two floor-to-ceiling shelves to hold it all.  I've promised myself I won't buy anymore fabric until I've used what I already have.  

But I do accept gifts of fabric.  My sister-in-law sent me a beautifully coordinated set of fabrics by Robert Kaufman and Gustav Klimt for Christmas this year, and I can't wait to start tackling that quilt project.  We are definitely using quilts I've made in the past right now, because this has been the coldest winter I've experienced since living in Arizona.  Throwing a quilt over my bare feet sure beats struggling to put on socks with my arthritis.  

For those who are interested in what's going on in my life beyond crafts projects, my right hip has officially disintegrated.  The ball and socket are all jagged and I have several torn muscles.  I postponed hip replacement surgery until my son gets married, because I don't want there to be any complications that would prevent me from attending his wedding.  The wedding is in March, I should get my hip replaced in April and be done with physical therapy by June.  We'll see where it goes from there.  I'm anxiously waiting to see if I can ride horses again.