some business-casual business

Who even knows how much free time I'll have in the next few weeks or months? So I might as well stockpile some gifts while I have time, right? Today I finally had a chance to put together a necktie onesie. These little cuties are rather popular in the online sewing world, and when first I laid eyes on the idea I knew it would become a part of my gift-giving repertoire.

As with my other onesie creations I simply used fusible webbing to iron the necktie to the shirt and then used a zig-zag stitch to secure it. Simple. Quasi-hipster. Quasi-business-casual. Adorable!

I couldn't possibly give a onesie with out the requisite cloth shoes.

And finally, a pair of cloth shoes for our baby too!

Phew! It's been a sewing marathon around here and I think both me and sewing machine need a rest. I'm off to make myself some pb&j which I crave constantly these days. Pregnancy is weird.

NOT a quilt

My friend Alyson has a purse that makes me jealous. It's a nice big homemade tote bag that a Colorado friend gave her in exchange for babysitting services. And it's adorable. She generously allowed me to turn it inside out, check out seams, and discover its construction.

It turns out that making a tote bag is a quick and simple project. In the time it took Luke to watch a BBC wildlife special I had whipped up my very own sweet tote bag/purse complete with a pocket! I used a combination of a free Denyse Schmidt pattern I found online and a tote pattern from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing. Oh and I traced the applique design from a pillow pattern in Applique Your Way. (I promise I'm not name dropping, I'm just trying to give credit where it is due).

A Timbered Choir

"A Timbered Choir" was a work of brainstorming collaboration with my friend, Becca (of "My Little Matroyna" fame). We adapted a pattern for a crib bumper from a baby-quilt book. We were agreed that the mix of embroidery and applique was simple, cute, and a resourceful way to use smaller scraps of some really nice fabrics I have just waiting for such a time as this.



There are 8 woodland creature blocks featuring Denyse Schmidt's "Hope Valley" greens. Most of the animals were straight from the crib bumper pattern, and I added some evergreen trees, a sun, a flying bird, and a bear to complete the set.




I machine quilted across the vertical stripes, and made a faux binding with 2 1/2 inch leaf print. The back of the quilt was finished with a muted green fabric where I embroidered a leaf and an acorn to resonate with the woodland theme on the front.

"A Timbered Choir" is named for the poem by one of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry. In this case the correlation between the quilt and the poem end there, since this sweet and light-hearted design stands in contrast to a stark and admonishing work by Berry. But the world needs a bit of both of these realities, so I'll let this inherent contradiction rest as it is.