Friday, December 25, 2009

sewing mithril is tricky

Years ago, my friend Kim would pass her hand-me-downs my way; she would give me the best stuff. In one lovely sack full of second hand clothes, I found a beautiful silver sweater . . . and I have had it stored in my closet for five years, trying to find just the right way to use it. last month I decided that that time would never come. mostly, because I realized that Josu's dragon hat needed on arch nemesis of sorts.

and so I chopped off the sleeves of the beautiful silver sweater and after some creative, stitching, this chain mail armor beauty was born:



I will call it mithril;
and today, I will wrap it up with a note from Frodo, asking him to take good care of it - - reminding him that it was mined in Moria by the dwarves of old.
I think this will please my hobbit crazed son very much.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

a dragon for Josu

My Josu loves, loves, loves dragons. every time we go down to our local coffee shop
it's pretty much a given that Malachai will bring along a book to be read aloud to,
and that Josu will bring paper and some sort of drawing medium;
and it goes like this this:
1. he begs me to draw a castle with him
2. he insists that there be a dragon in the dungeon
. . . and maybe one flying
. . . . . . and then probably another one - - claws up and fire spewing out its terrible jaws
so, behold (above) Malachai modeling Josu's handmade Christmas gift (handmade is so in this year . . . . )

I followed the basic instructions for this hat,
using a couple of t-shirts that had run their course in my closet.
I added a row of dragon spikes and a nice pointy tail.
it's all a bit off
but I'm hoping Josu will be so busy breathing fire that he won't notice.

p.s. I've sworn off sewing jersey knit forever

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

My Favorite Sling



I thought I'd share a picture of the sling I made for Landis. I love, love, love it! I found instructions here, and the cutest fabric at Joann's (which is so close to my house I can walk there, how cool is that). It was so easy. It took me a week because I had a newborn, and I sewed on it for 5 minutes at a time, but if I had 2 hours I could definitely do it in that amount of time. Jan Andrea suggests not using calicos, but the fabric she recommends offers no cute prints. So I chose a calico, and then doubled it and added a contrasting fabric, which she offered instructions for. You have to order sling rings here, but they're super cheap. So Landis loves being all snuggled up with mommy, and it's much better than carrying that heavy baby carrier around.




Tuesday, December 1, 2009

in light blue linen:

these pockets nearly did me in
they're not so tricky . . . once you figure the bad boys out . . .
(it was a two week process for me)
this was helpful for me, and this (which is in Spanish, but the pictures were some of the clearest I found)
I traced this pattern from Catherine's Japanese pattern book (remember that weekend, Cat?!)
almost two years ago. the original pattern is long sleeved, and shorter - - but I thought it would be nice as a summer dress so that I wouldn't have to worry about pairing it with a bottom piece; so I extended the hemline and capped the sleeves.

and if anyone happens on a pair of these at your local Goodwill, please snatch them up for me? they and the dress are meant to be together.

Also,I couldn't read the Japanese on the pattern . . . but whatever size this is, it fits Josu perfectly (we called it a shirt).