Sewing

So, how’s your weekend going? More importantly, how’s your summer going? Can you believe it’s almost July? I feel like it should still be May, at least.

It’s pretty lazy-going here in ThimbleannaLand this summer. I actually dragged out my embroidery machine last week and played with my endless hoop. The endless hoop allows you to embroider long, repeating designs for things like borders and edgings. I bought the hoop 4 or 5 years ago and have never used it — I think I was scared of it. Which, as usual, turned out to be completely unfounded. It’s easy as pie to use.

I was really fun to play with the hoop and watch the machine embroider. I decided to make a summer top and I embroidered a scallop for the edge a neck ruffle and the hem of the sleeves. The pattern is Simplicity 2651. Here’s a close-up of the neck detail.

And here’s the classic bathroom mirror shot of the shirt. The jury’s still out on this top. I feel like I’m wearing one of my grandma’s house coats, cut off at the hips. It’s really comfortable and will be cool for hot summer days, so, if nothing else, I can wear it around the house.

Now, I’m off to go visit BigDaddy and MeMum. Hope you have a good weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

{Snap.} {Fizz.} {Ahhhh.}  Time to sew.  Finally!  Saturday’s weather was gorgeous and I sat out on the back patio with my diet pepsi, animal crackers, and Mama Bunny and sewed down a binding.  It was soooo nice.

Last week, when we were on our way to move TheSecondChild, we stopped in and spent the night with TheFirstChild and SweetiePie.  (I know you’re wondering what this has to do with sewing, but hang in there.)  They live in a cool little big city apartment and they have everything at their fingertips.  The grocery store is a few blocks away and SweetiePie happened to mention that her first shopping trip involved the difficulty of hauling potatoes, milk and a bunch of other stuff home in her arms.  So, we popped into the hardware store across the parking lot from the grocery store and picked up a shopping cart on wheels for her.

But that poor cart was looking a little naked, so we decided to make a liner for it.  SweetiePie pulled out her stash (Yes! she has a stash — I’m so proud!) and found some zebra and pink fabrics, but her little sewing machine was on the fritz, so I decided we could whip that baby out with hand stitches.  I felt a little like Cinderella’s wicked step-mother, making SweetiePie work on that seam.

Yeah … that lasted about 15 minutes.  My eyes are bigger than my stomach.  We decided we’d rather have time to go to dinner with the boys, so I brought it home to sew on my machine.  Which meant I could add a monogram and play a little with it.

I had to bite my lips and sit on my hands to keep from frou-frouing it up.  I really wanted to add some ric-rac.  But SweetiePie doesn’t like ric rac.  (We’re working on that, aren’t we, SweetiPie.)  Well, then, how ’bout a scalloped border under that monogram???  Nope.  So, I settled for a quick stippling job on the pink part to give it a little more body.

I’m pretty happy with the way this turned out.  It looks just like SweetiePie.  And it was all from stash fabric (no peeking at the back side of the pink fabric — it doesn’t match).  The ribbons on the side were even rehearsal dinner favor leftovers from their wedding.

I wish I needed a cute shopping cart. Mine would be all girly. I’d probably have to make it have the elements of this gorgeous pillowcase — bright colors and crochet and maybe those scallops I wanted — wouldn’t that be cute???

XOXO,
Anna

Thanks for all your great comments and birthday wishes for MyDadLovesMeBestSister! I saw the 50 or Bust idea almost 10 years ago and I’ve been patiently waiting for the big day. About 2 years ago, I started collecting the bras from friends. MyDadLovesMeBestSister is a great sport and she called me that morning, laughing and saying “I hate you” at the same time. It was a lot of fun, but I think if I were to do it again, I’d skip all the streamers — they distract from the bras hanging there, and the casual passer-by can easily miss them. And what a tragedy that would be, no?

In the meantime, I gave my sister a few more serious birthday gifts, a few of which I made. I wanted to make her a sisters pendant and I had a specific picture in mind, so I went to MeMum’s to look through the family pictures.

While I was there, I stumbled upon the picture of the two of us with a banana seat bike, which worked out perfectly for the reversible apron that I made her.  I have no idea who’s bike is in that picture — we had cute little pink banana seat bikes with big flowers on the seats.  But that’s ok, at least we have a picture of us with a banana seat bike.  (SweetiePie is here this weekend and she graciously agreed to model the apron.  She was also the “stylist” for these pictures.  Thank You SweetiePie!)

I’ve loved this Heather Ross banana seat bike fabric since I first saw it. I used the banana seat bike fabric on one side of the apron and then I searched for a darker fabric, but with the same pink/orange/brown of the banana seat fabric for the back.

I chose the dark brown contrasting fabric to coordinate with the black button that I’ve been saving for a special occasion.  It’s just a bit rude, so I didn’t want to ruin the effect of the sweet innocent bicycles, which is why I wanted the apron to be reversible.

When MyDadLovesMeBestSister is feeling all sweet and cute, she can wear the banana bike side out.  When she’s feeling a bit sassy and rude, she can wear the SkinnyB*@ch side out.  I also made two coordinating hand towels out of huckcloth.  No rude buttons here.

So, that was the birthday from my part.  Just so you know that I’m not 100% mean to my sister.  ;-)

In unrelated news, today at work, our health department sent us all a serious e-mail describing the facts and myths related to swine flu. Five minutes later someone sent an e-mail saying they’ve discovered the source of the flu. I thought you might be interested:

I hope you all have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna