Cinderella!

I didn't like the Simplicity Cinderella pattern, so I modified the "generic princess" view of Butterick 4320 for this pattern instead. I used a very nice rayon crepe to line the bodice and an old silk-poly blend sari for the main dress, and poly organza for the puffs. 

Modifications: in the bodice, just buttons instead of zipper and for the sleeve puffs (instead of a full puffed sleeve where you can see the elastic through the organza), I sewed the sleeve seam, then gathered both "top" and "bottom" together and set them into the sleeve opening (to the bodice fabric), hand-stitching the lining down on top to cover the exposed edges. (If I make this again, I'll just free-hand more movie-accurate puffs. The ladies at Disney World have just regular puffs in white satin, I think, but I like the movie's version!)

For the skirt, as I was using a bordered fabric, I ignored the pattern pieces and instead gathered the fabric (folded double with a tulle petticoat in-between) and sewed it onto the bodice, again hand-sewing the lining over it. (Dress form very useful for that exercise, as I wanted to keep the point at the bodice front, so sewing straight wasn't an option!) (If I make this again, I'll just use the pattern pieces - the fabric was the only reason I didn't, and it sure would have been easier.)

For the pannier-things, I cut a large organza circle (30" or so), folded it in half, and gathered the edges (two layers together), then pinned and attached as I attached the skirt. 

I'm very pleased with this, as it looks more like the "real" Cinderella than the official patterns! Kidlet liked it too.
(Dress form, which kidlet has named Leonard, is a bit thicker in the waist than she is. But you can see the buttons.)

Frowny hot party-weary toddler approved!

Finished!

Well, except for tearing out the Bs in the corner, as the boy this was originally for is now big and our cousin just found out she's having a boy!  But in general quilted and bound. Used thread to match the top, so the back looks fun.  Real non cellphone camera photos coming once I get them off the camera!

Completed Stars

I never typed this up (or got the photos off of my actual, lovely, non-telephone camera) - I finished the Stars quilt!  Not quite in time for Christmas - I pulled out the pins and trimmed the batting on the way to my parents' house for Christmas morning, and put it in the box with the binding half-attached - but I did finally finish it.

The stars were each echo quilted, and then I stitched in the ditch around all the squares.

Backed with an entertaining Victorian-style flag print from the holidays section at JoAnn's.

I think my mother likes it - and she's put it on the baby whenever she's been napping over there.

Aristocats!

I can do many things, but they all fit in one general idea, in keeping with my engineer-brain: they're all structured.  Knitting, crochet, sewing from a pattern, cross-stitch, needlepoint? You know exactly where to put your needle or hook.  (I can make up the pattern myself, but then I work from it.)  Cooking from a recipe or especially baking?  You know exactly what to do, and there's sometimes spectacular failure (in baking) if you try to make it up.  Linguistically, I go towards Sanskrit, Latin, German - nice extremely-structured languages, not like French or Hindi.

That's not the case for everyone in my family.  My grandfather was a well-regarded watercolor painter; my mother and aunt can draw; and my sister's taken up a new craft, which benefits the baby greatly:

 

embroidery!  This is one of her onesies (a Gerber trademark, did you know?).  She also has a Houston Texans jersey onesie and a sweet one with a little dove on it.

 

Isn't her work impressive?

The baby also has a nice assortment of socks, with flowers, butterflies, and even elephants on them.

If I can't do embroidery (I can't keep it even, because I'm not told exactly where to put the needle), at least there's someone in the family who can!

Time to Return

Well hello there! 

I was gone for quite a while.  Many things have happened... Since a year ago March, my little cat, my companion for 18 years, finally passed away.  Then - as I mentioned here, in my post on hospice quilts - I spent some time at Houston Hospice, as we said goodbye to my grandfather.  I may write more on both of those topics at some point...

On a much more positive note - and the main reason I took time away from blogging - we had a baby!

She's a nice baby - Monkey Baby, we call her. (Hat available in my Etsy shop.)

She's much nicer out than in... pregnancy did not agree with me at all.  (Benefit to that - if you're sick the entire nine months, you don't have any baby weight to lose!)

I spend a lot of time just watching her make silly faces. 

The first month she was here was just spent getting to know her, so I didn't get to too much crafty work.  She's a good sleeper, though, so over the past three months I've had opportunity to make her lots of clothes - and make several more Monkey Baby hats for the shop (but not photograph them, so it's still just the generic listing) - which I hope to show you all soon!

Cross-stitch Ganesha/Puliyar - and lessons learned

The husband's parents moved to Texas from India in the 1960s-1970s.  They are Hindu, and in fact were instrumental in founding the main Hindu temple in Pearland (south of Houston).  When we were living in El Paso, I had a lot more spare time, and so I decided to make something for them.  

Through the magic of the internet, I found a clip-art Ganesha (known to his family - South Indians - as Puliyar) and converted it to a cross-stitch pattern through some free-trial program.  It was a lovely pattern, very clear, with specific DMC/Anchor threads listed, and so I set to work.

Lessons I learned:

1) it's self-torture to work on black cloth, as you can't see the holes.

2) if a pattern calls for 42 inches of floss, and you're using 2 strands together, you really only need 14 inches of six-strand floss.  Yes, I bought enough floss for three projects.

3) there's a reason pattern designers get paid for their work, and it's not just putting clip art through pattern-creating programs.  My pattern had 21 colors, and one showed up for just 2 stitches, and a few others would have one stitch every four inches or so.  It's all gradations of blue/green/gray, so a human rather than a computer creating it would have made it much more stitching-friendly.  (I did take over the 2-stitch color with another color.)

4) a large project on black cloth with 21 colors unintelligently designed will take longer than the 4 months until Christmas I promised myself.  In fact, it will take around 2 years (conveniently, until the mother-in-law's 60th birthday party... which, to be a more effective surprise party, was thrown at a time of year nowhere near her birthday).

But they loved it, and the husband's dear grandmother takes such pride in showing it off to her friends, and they've installed it in a prominent position in their home, so I feel it was all worth it.

 

(sorry for the bad photo, it's reflective and this was taken during a party - that's me in pink in the reflection.)

Not worth it enough to do it again, though, even if I do have enough thread to make three.

Wallpaper

So, in my grandparents' kitchen, out in the country, this wallpaper was in the kitchen back in 1977. They replaced the rest, but not in the utility closet.

The best part? It's held together with electrical tape.

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Grandparents' Quilt

I finally finished my grandparents' quilt!  It's my first quilt - my first real one, not a tiny baby quilt, and definitely my first with hand-quilting.  I hand-quilted around the designs in the center panel and around the Ohio Star blocks.  The rest - largely due to time constraints - was done by machine.  Lesson learned: can't machine-quilt with hand quilting thread, at least not on a 30-year-old Kenmore.  But it looks good, and, more importantly, my grandparents love it.  (My grandmother's crazy for "redbirds".)

Up next: an applique quilt the in-laws gave me to make (just a foot square, but applique is totally new to me), a star quilt for my mother for July 4, and a civil-war-style to-be-designed quilt for me!

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Back and Berries!

I know, I've been gone a very long time!  I oversaw a massive move at work and was so exhausted every night that I didn't make anything at all for four months... going a bit crazy by then... and I've only just now begun picking things back up.  Made two inkle belts for the boss and a coworker, since part of the move involved a spreadsheet, the use of which threw out my wrist, leaving me with only weaving or stitching as craft opportunities.

We spent this past weekend at my grandparents' place in the country.

Picking dewberries.

They tend to make your hands red. (That's Himself's hand over by mine.) They have nasty prickly thorns -- my right arm still looks like I've got measles, with little red welts all over it -- but they're worth it.

They lead to great preserves.

Recipe:
1 cup sugar
1 cup berries
put them in a pot over medium heat and stir until it starts to look like syrup
put them in a jar and process as normal.

No pectin, no added water, no anything else.  Just goodness!

(Other options: jelly, jam, cobbler, pie, or straight up and fresh off the bush.)

Back from Christmas

and well recovered!  Hawaii was excellent, and gave me time to make things I wouldn't have had opportunity to otherwise.  For what must be a record, I actually finished everything I was making for people, and made a few extra things in the bargain (the tea wallets proved such a big hit, several unintended people got them as well).  Himself will have to wait until his birthday in February for his sweater, but, as he doesn't remember he's getting one, it's all well and good. 

The best gift story of Christmas:

the Tuesday before, my grandfather said that what he'd like for Christmas was, "a white scarf, not too long, like we used to wear in the Army."  He was Army Air Corps, stationed in Okinawa at and after the end of the war.  (With good timing, he graduated from West Point in June of 1945.)  He's not overly easy to get things for, and the photo book I'd had made for him didn't turn out at all, so I figured it was worth a try.  Drove all around town that night and the Wednesday, finding out that not only did no store have a white scarf, but no store had a man's scarf at all -- everyone was sold out.  "Like we used to wear in the Army" stuck in my head, so I called around to some army surplus places in town, and all they had was Army Green.  Everyone I'd mentioned the request to, though, instantly said, "have you tried Col. Bubbies?"  I called them up, they said they had a few, and that if I came down early enough on Christmas Eve morning, they'd still be open.  So, a pleasant drive down to Galveston (with the King's College guys singing to me on the radio - very nice) later, and I had what was actually a white scarf like he used to wear in the Army -- actually an Army Air Corps scarf!  (A bit yellowed around the edges, but still good.) $5 later, and I was set. 

I gave it to him with an explanation on Christmas, and he seemed somewhat tickled, but not overly excited -- a bit tired, I'm sure.  The next day, though, I found out that he'd mentioned the request to someone else, and that the someone else had gone out and gotten some snazzy silk or cashmere scarf from Nordstrom's or something... and that mine was preferred, because it was literally exactly what he'd wanted.  He put it on, and I saw him smile the best smile I've seen from him in probably three years.  Definitely the best gift of Christmas.