18 April, 2011

April Stitchery

I really did sew this month.  I finished two projects, although I have pictures of only one of them right now.

For Christmas gifts, I made several of these journal covers . They were fun and easy, and I loved working out the color combinations and scraps to use for each one.  I vowed to make myself one, as well, but of course that didn't get done during the Christmas season.  Nor directly after that, either.

But I did finally get around to it.  Here's mine:

I made a few modifications to the original design, and I also took a shortcut.  I didn't have the time to make the patchwork fabric strip, so I simply found an interesting print scrap and used that instead.

As for modifications, I wanted an inside pocket to hold my planner, as well as a little pocket to hold a pen.  I can also tuck my Kobo e-reader in behind the planner:

To add more decorative detail, I tried out some of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine:

I'm very pleased with the finished product and carry it everywhere. :)
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Posted by Sherry at Monday, April 18, 2011 0 comments
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03 April, 2011

March Wrap-up

Forget the whole "in-like-a-lion, out-like-a-lamb" business--this year March dashed by like a furtive, racing bunny.  Suddenly I find myself in the dreaded month of April; the end of my maternity leave is looming, and I'm faced with the nasty prospect of missing my little girl all day when I return to work in two weeks.  Not exactly the kind of thing to motivate a lot of ditching OR stitching, but I've been trying to keep at work on both, nonetheless.

I have to confess, after a great start in March, my ditching slowed down for a bit, partly because I had gotten ahead.  However, I do have some things to add to the list: a book, a shelf we were never going to use, some magazines, and countless papers.  In the coming months, we're really going to focus on sorting out our basement; I'm hoping most of what's left down there is to be gotten rid of!

On the creative side of things, I was involved in the poster creation Sherry mentioned, got some more work done on the murals (hoping to finish them and get the room back in order soon!), and made a little dress and kerchief for baby C.  The pattern is New Look 6578, and I was very pleased with how it went together.  It was easy to work with and made up nicely, although I think it would be good if the pattern included differently-sized appliques for the different sizes of dress--these are maybe a little large on size 1! 
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Posted by Krista at Sunday, April 03, 2011 1 comments

Create -- March

I actually did a number of creative things in March, although they were all outside the more literal "stitch" interpretation.  I did continue to work on my sock-knitting, but it's a slow process and I'm not finding much time to sit and work on it.

During March Break we did our usual "imaginary vacation" day, when we pretend to visit some exotic locale or country.  This year we went to Hollywood for the day, which of course was very glamorous and included rather posh food, a movie premiere, and a fashion show.

On the creative side, I thought it would be fun to make movie posters for imaginary movies.  I printed out a lot of good movie title words, from which we each picked at random or put together something we liked.  We also had a huge pile of pictures which I cut from magazines, and made poster collages to suit our titles by gluing the titles and images on half-sheets of bristol board.  With markers everyone could add taglines, actors, etc.  It was huge fun!

You can see all the posters by following this link: http://on.fb.me/gfWOio
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Posted by Sherry at Sunday, April 03, 2011 0 comments
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Catalogue Ditch Blitz

In March I ditched more catalogues and old magazines than I could bring myself to count.  However, they were heavy enough that I had to separate them into two recycling bags--one bag was stretching and tearing under the weight.

This is a ditching project that should really be undertaken twice a year, and doesn't take all that long--but makes a big difference in the piles of catalogues stashed wherever you keep such things.  Culling them from time to time also makes it much easier to find appropriate ones when you need them.

I feel lighter!
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Posted by Sherry at Sunday, April 03, 2011 0 comments
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07 March, 2011

Ditch & Stich Report: Late February, Early March

Sometimes I am amazed by my own ability to create caches of ditchable things--stashes and piles that I get used to and stop even really seeing, until one day I think, "Wait now, what IS that stuff?  Why did I save THAT?"  This is the danger of hanging on to things that you never or almost never use; over time, they just become part of the landscape of your house, only really noticed when they become annoying for some reason (in my case, my sock drawer would no longer close easily, my new cookbook wouldn't fit in the cookbook cupboard, and a pile of old sweaters fell off the closet shelf....).  In the last few weeks, I've gotten much more ruthless about these semi-forgotten clusters of stuff, and have been systematically sorting through them, resulting in the ditching of...

- 4 cookbooks
- 15 old Fitness magazines
- 13.5 pairs of socks (I cannot really explain this...)
- 5 sweaters

Phew!  That list will almost take me through the rest of the month! 

On the more creative side of things, I finally managed to put together a toy bunny that I had been wanting to make for baby C.  I cut the pieces out about a month ago, but they'd been sitting on an end table ever since, waiting for me to find time in my Mommy-day to sew them up and stuff them!  I at last got a chance to work on the project last week, and managed to finish it in a few hours!  I think he turned out pretty well, and he's received lots of smiles from baby.  The pattern is Funky Friends Factory's Baby-Safe Bunny Rabbit Pattern, available at the wonderful YouCanMakeThis.com.  The pattern was instructive and easy to follow, and I would definitely try other projects from the same seller.

I also spent some time sorting through the fabric in my art/sewing room, figuring out what was needed to complete certain projects, and making a rough plan to get some things finished and so create some more order and productivity in that realm of the house.  Next projects: finishing a dress for myself and making this Nap Mat from Prudent Baby.
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Posted by Krista at Monday, March 07, 2011 0 comments

06 March, 2011

Ditch Report: Cookbook Blitz


How and why do we accumulate so many cookbooks over time?  It's like we're afraid that one perfect recipe exists somewhere, and unless we're absolutely sure that it's not in this book or that magazine, we can't let it go.

Well, I'm trying.  Over the past week I've ditched from the cookbook cupboard twenty cookbooks, magazines, and recipe flyers.  I saved a few items by tearing out the pages, which I'll either plug into a recipe program on the kitchen computer, or add to an existing recipe binder.

I still have a huge stack of magazines to go through...or I may only make it through part of the stack and then just throw out the rest.  We'll have to see.  If I can just convince myself that the perfect recipe is NOT lurking in the pile somewhere...
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Posted by Sherry at Sunday, March 06, 2011 0 comments
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20 February, 2011

Mid-February Mural-ing

This month I've been working on cleaning out a lot of the clutter that has taken up residence in the midst of things that are actually useful--specifically, old products that have been hanging around in my bathroom and a bedroom drawer.  In a frenzy of ditching, I got rid of some old moisturizer, a mostly-empty container of Tummy Butter from my pregnancy (excellent stuff, but gone a little dry to be keeping around), and thirteen other assorted toiletry and cosmetic items--and that's just scratching the surface!  If I keep this focus up for another week or two, I'll have a much tidier bathroom and bedroom.  (Sherry and I have chatted and decided that we can "get ahead" on items, as long as we maintain an average of one item per day--which worked well for me this week, as I was away for a few days to visit and to get paint for...

MURALS!

I've been wanting to do some work in the nursery for a while; decorating it kind of got rolled in with decorating the rest of the house, since we were moving in just about a month before the baby was due, so I never really felt like it got finished to a point that satisfied me.  We're planning to move the crib in there soon (I think I can finally stand to let it go out of our room *sigh*), so I would like to have the room looking nice and inviting.  I decided I'd like to paint some jungle animals on the walls to match our crib set and curtains, and so this weekend Sherry, her son and daughter, and our niece came down to work on the project with me.   With the help of an overhead projector borrowed from my husband's school, we managed to get all the animals drawn on the walls pretty quickly and got started on the painting.  We'll need another weekend to finish things up, but so far they look great! 

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Posted by Krista at Sunday, February 20, 2011 0 comments