Earring-O-Rama!

You know the old saying, wanting a very specific pair of trombone earrings is the mother of invention. In this case it is very true. Last year the Girlchild started playing trombone. They are a quirky crowd, the tromboners, are they not? I couldn't find the trombone earrings I wanted to get her. I did find some trombone charms. One thing lead to another, and I've been in full-on earring-making mode ever since.

Perhaps you have your own image of what being a handicrafter in Vermont looks like. A lot of times it is every bit as quaint as you imagine with the leaves and the maple syrup and the tweeting of birds. Making earrings is pretty straightforward, though, and I like to pull my kids' little table in front of the tv and watch some Bones.

I make a lot of earrings so I can watch a lot of Bones.

I'm also pretty obsessed with the Undisclosed podcast. 

I went through Serial last year when it came out and just discovered Undisclosed last week. I like to eat some Hot Fries, pop open a Diet Dr. Perky, and ask what is the deal with Jay?

I buy the charms from the handicrafters who make them on etsy. Then I put them on the earwires. The making of the earrings may not be the most exciting thing ever in the history of all things, but the earrings are totally the most exciting things ever in the history of all things. The best part? I sell them for $5 at The Flying Disc. Seriously. Five bucks! How can you resist that? There are about a million other designs. I'll post more on my Facebook. Click here to see them. Better yet, come to The Flying Disc and see them in person.

Crochet Hats and Leaves

I have a lot of love for my adopted home state. One of my favorite things about Vermont is that there are five very distinct seasons. Sure, winter accounts for about seven months and mud season sometimes lasts longer than spring, but it is nice to mark the passing of time with the traditions, sights, sounds, and flavors of each new season. And fall. Wow. What's not to love about fall?

The apples are ready, the corn mazes are mapped out, and hat season is here at last! Makes my wallet bulge with anticipation. heart bulge with appreciation.
The leaves have not disappointed this year. (Unlike my friends who always host the cider pressing party. Shame on Amanda for putting work and obligations above my cider drinking needs.) We did a quick drive around to peep some leaves the other day, and the girlchild shot the photos out of the car window.

Drive-by leaf peeping. This has been the first year that they have really joined in on my effusive praise of the trees. I am reminded of the year when a tiny girlchild patted me on the arm and said she was "all set with the trees." Tsk. How could one be all set with that beauty?

What really gets me about Vermont is that you don't have to go anywhere special to see this kind of beauty. We just rode around the back roads, which are actually the only roads, and happened upon all of these views.

Speaking of beauty, I got a big box o' yarn in the mail recently. Ordering yarn off the Internets is iffy. Hard to really know what to expect without even a quick fondle. I decided to try Brava from Knit Picks. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but I was very happy with the resulting hats.
I'd apologize for being so Braggy Lynn Jones about my hats, but I am already writing a blog about hat making so I think we are past the point of false modesty.

In honor of Chandler, could there be any more stripes?

Oooooooo....

Would it be too much if I said that they look even better in real life? Come see them at The Flying Disc in beautiful downtown Enosburg Falls and come soon so you can see those leaves!

Quilting with Flannel

It's been about a hundred years since I've blogged. I'm back, baby! Feel free to cancel your depression. I know you really want to hear the details of every single second of those hundred years of silence, but I'll just sum it up by saying I've been kicking ass, having fun, and being amazing. Let's move on.

We had the coldest winter in the history of my life last year. I recollect there being about three months of -30 degree days. And nights. Our house is old. Vermont old. That translates as being cold pretty much all the time. The thought of getting rid of a blanket seems ridiculously ridiculous. However, my little tiny girlchild is no longer a little tiny girlchild. At ten, she has out-matured her Littlest Pet Shop comforter. Do you know the Littlest Pet Shop? Giant-headed humanized animals made of plastic that may or may not talk. She was a big fan of the franchise just a few years ago. Once I had a dream that a particular pink Littlest Pet Shop cat spoke to me and said that the Littlest Pet Shop representation of cats was demeaning to cats. It felt accurate.

We came up with a plan. Like all good plans, it started at the craft store. We bought flannel [on sale] to piece together for the top and fleece [on sale] to use for the bottom with the LPS comforter as the toasty filling. And like all good plans, we sort of half-assed it with the planning. We randomly cut up the flannel and then placed them on the fleece like a puzzle. She started at the center and worked outwardly. 

Then the girlchild did the sewing. She's gotten pretty skilled at sewing and enjoys it as long as it is going well. Things went well with the piecing. 

It was when we put the top, middle, and bottom together and tried to sew it that things went awry. It was really thick and my sewing machine was less than $100.

After two broken needles and two purposefully ripped seams, we used all the near-curse words we knew.

Like all good plans, we realized our plan was crap and we replanned.
The back of the LPS comforter was cute, mature polka dots. We decided to use the pieced flannel as the top and the back of the LPS comforter as the back. The sewing went well again, and we used non-near-curse words. 

It turned out fantastic, and I have one very proud little girl who has a new favorite blanket.

Luckily it has been cool enough to stay under it all day. Yay for fall!

Sewing a Cat Coat for a Cat-Lover

My girlchild loves cats.
She reads about them. She writes about them. 

She watches documentaries about them. 

She plays with them.

She draws (lots of) pictures of them.
She made this one for her friend Isaiah, who loves Star Wars.

 And this one:

She dresses like them.

She dresses them.

She gives them props.

 She sings this song with no humorosity or mockery.

She's also very persuasive. We were at JoAnn's Fabric Store one day and she convinced me to buy some, what she calls, Snow Leopard Fur Fabric. I had a 50% off coupon, so I am pretty sure I saved more money by buying it than I would have if I hadn't bought it. Isn't that how coupons work?
I'd seen and fallen in love with this coat on the World Wide Web at some point.

It's really fantastic. It's made by littlegoodall and for sale on etsy. You should totally buy one for you kid. Unfortunately, it is out of my price range, a little too young-looking for my second grader, and not nearly warm enough for a Vermont winter. This past weekend I decided to improvise up a coat for her from the faux fur fabric. I traced out a pattern from a coat that she already had in my typical free-wheeling pattern making technique. I spent a lot of my weekend looking at this view.

And my family saw a lot of this view:

Since I hadn't been blogging, I didn't think to take pictures of the whole process.

I was inspired and informed by this tutorial.

And this one.

How to Make a Men's Fleece Hoodies.

And this is what I came up with:

That face!

Those ears!

That tail!

And warm. The faux Snow Leopard Fur is thick and warm. I lined that baby with some flannel that I had bought on sale last year and was too lazy to use saving for such an occasion. The hood is lined with a sweater that was salvaged from free pile at a yard sale upcycled. I also made flannel-lined pockets that are big enough to cram in a mittened hand. That's some Vermonty-thinking right there. 

I love this coat. 

I was able to make the coat for under $10, and the girlchild really loves it. 

She's told me about a 100 times. 

Crafter's Block

I've got writer's block of the crafty kind. Sort of. I can think up stuff to make; I just don't feel like doing it. I mostly feel like sitting on my couch eating snacks of the fatty kind while I watch Parks & Recreation.
I've started some stuff (mostly in an attempt to push my way through this block), and I've completed some special orders. Other than that, nothing for about a week and a half. This is, by far, the longest I've gone without making something in a very long time.
I'd like to pretend that I've had a lot of concerned blog-readers emailing me to question my lengthy hiatus, but no one has noticed. Pity party. Table of, sniff, one.
Only, I'm not really feeling bad about the break. I am curious to see what I'm going to make next.
I'm about to receive my annual Money for the Arts Grant (aka a tiny bit of our tax return), and I don't have any plans on how I'm going to spend it. A search of the history of my search history shows that I've been searching quilting feet for my sewing machine, sergers, enameling supplies, porcelain shipping pricing, and new glazes. When I go out to eat, I usually spend a long time trying to decide between two different entrees only to order a third unconsidered option when the waiter takes my order. This sometimes happens with my Money for the Arts Grant, too. The good thing about this strange habit is that we can all be surprised together when the package shows up.
Anyway, I hope you aren't blocked up and are making something cool.

Quilting for the First Time

Here's some stuff that happened recently.

I joined Pinterest. When I joined I was already magically following someone who pins really incredible quilts. Her name is Merche Grossomodo, and I don't know her in real life.

My friend Mandy (who I do know in real life) from Vintage Rag Inspired, who makes these really beautiful bags from some very authentic vintage fabric, gave me a big bag of fabric.

My laptop croaked.

After a week of record-breaking warm temperatures, it returned to a more typical Vermont spring. Big, wet snowflakes are now covering our grill and bikes.

One minute we were watching too many shows about the existence of Big Foot; and the next thing I knew, Officer, I was making a quilt. What?! To say that I'm not a perfectionist would be understating it a bit. I like to call it free-wheeling, and I am very free-wheeling in both crafting and baking. And life, in general, I suppose. On the craft spectrum, I lean more towards the Amy Sedaris side than the Martha Stewart side. Though, I love them both. This free-wheelingness if very helpful when learning new crafts. It helps me to just plow through the early stages of undeveloped skills without becoming too disappointed or discouraged. This is what the process looked like.

I spread out Little Dude's current blanket. The pink one with the flowers and flip flops. It is actually the girl's blanket, but like I said - free-wheeling. I picked out the fabrics that I liked from the stash I got from Mandy. Vintage, indeed! Then I started cutting strips that were similar in size. I knew I wanted stripes, and I knew I wanted my first quilting expedition to be completable in a reasonable amount of time. 

This is what I ended up with. I tried all printed fabrics to start, but it was way too busy for my taste. Adding in the solid blue stripes really worked well.

I added the striped material to the edge to even up the edges, make it a little wider, and give me a way to sew on the back. Basically, I made a giant inside-out bag with stuffing. When I right-side outed it, the stuffing was sewn in along the edges which kept it in place nicely.

I didn't have enough of any fabric to do the back solid. It feels a little in bad fashion to have pieced the back, too, but it kept me from having to actually purchase any parts of this quilt. I started sewing up the edges in a simple straight line pattern. 

I was trying to figure out how I was going to do the actual quilty sewy part of the center since I don't have a quilting sewing machine, a quilting stand, or even a quilting ring. When I accidentally ended up on this website with a straight line quilting tutorial. I really love the way they look! I didn't read the whole tutorial before I plunged in (remember when I told you my laptop broke?), and I didn't use the special foot on my sewing machine. I also started on the outside. I went around three sides in a "U" shape with the top of the quilt being the top of the U. I made my lines wider than the lovely ones on the tutorial. That was just me being lazy. Also, I started on the outside and worked my way inward. I should have done it the other way. My inner rows felt a little lumpier than the other ones.

It doesn't seem to affect the usability. Right after I finished sewing it, I spread it out on the ground to admire my handiwork. It turned into an impromptu photo op. I don't know what he's telling her, but I know it was funny!

I am already gathering ideas for my next quilt.