Crafting Parade

The heat wave has passed, the cooling rain has come and gone, we're back to a more normal Vancouver summer. I'm taking this week off work to relax and get ready for the new school year. It's nice to putter around the house... Remember my post about the flood? - well, I'm finally having that day where I can do things here, no floods, no other catastrophes...

So far anyways, it's only Tuesday after all, still many days in the week for things to happen...

I submitted my chapter this morning, so I am having a well-deserved "home day" before I tackle the next chapters. It's always nice to send everything off, a sense of accomplishment and excitement - will the reviewers like it? How will it all come together?

I've finally taken some pictures of the sewing and knitting I've been doing. So, here is my crafting parade:

drum roll, fanfare

My first quilt:

A small doll-size quilt. It was really fun to make and a prelude to a bigger quilt that I will make this fall - well, actually two quilts: one for Anouk and one for Liam. I guess making a quilt is the natural progression of my love affair with my sewing machine. It is so much fun to think about colour combinations and geometrical designs for the quilt cover. And after making those nesting blocks, I have lost my fear of piecing things together and blind-stitching.

This is the best and easiest sun dress in the world. It literally took me about 20 minutes to make. Elastic thread in the bobbin, sew a few rows, iron to shrink the elastic, sew together edges, add straps and voila:

This summer / fall dress was made using an Oliver & S pattern. I love these patterns, they are really easy to use and I have learned to trust them and follow them even if I don't really understand what I'm doing (being a beginner at this and all...). It all comes together.

The fabric for the bodice is from a pair of pants my sister bought when she was here. Unfortunately they pretty much fell apart before her stay here was over. We were ready to stage a sit-in at the fancy boutique to protest their unwillingness to exchange the pants. They actually had the nerve to say that my sister's bum was to big for their pants!!! Geehz, I'm definitely not parading my bum into that store anymore... In the end we were all angry, the pants didn't get exchanged, and after a period of exile in a corner, the pants landed in my sewing stash.

I think this was the best way to deal with the contentious pants. An adorable little dress for Anouk.