Arm candy

I started running when spring-like weather showed up, and I cannot, it turns out, run without my phone. I'm doing one of those couch-to-5k running programs, and I can run the app in the background while I listen to podcasts or music. The app's voice will pop in to say "run now" or "walk now" and I have to do very little thinking. It's a method that works very well for me as I exercise best when I'm not very aware that I'm doing it. Maybe you're like that, too?

So you can buy arm holders for your phone but they're not very pretty looking. I decided to make my own, following this tutorial from One Shabby Chick, modified to the size of my own phone. I used some Echino scraps for the outside and some Heaven and Helsinki for the inside, and purple elastic because -- because in a world with purple elastic, why would you use white or black? I mean, really.

If I'm going to be an exerciser, I should do so with style, yes?

Wipe your hands

This isn't really my project to share but for the present, I'm the only one in this family who blogs:

When we decided to celebrate Passover a little differently this year, my seven-year-old decided to make us cloth napkins for the occasion.

They're very simple, just straight-line stitched, and made from five different purples in my fabric stash and backed in the same solid.

They're 16x16" and made a lovely addition to our holiday table.

She tells me she'll make more until I have a set of 12. I can't wait.

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This is just so I can claim my blog on Bloglovin: Follow my blog with Bloglovin. It's the thing to do, I guess.

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Rainbow Boulevard

In the town where I grew up, a street runs through a grittier neighborhood that's aspirationally named Rainbow Boulevard. I've always liked that name, both the idealism and the potential to follow the rainbow where ever it may lead.

This curves class assignment was called Rainbow Road, but I enlarged its dimensions, so mine is a Rainbow Boulevard.

We recently got this armoire off of Craigslist. It's really sturdy and it's from the exact same furniture line as all the bookshelves we have in this room but the top is all scratched up by the previous owner's cat. Rainbow Boulevard was destined to be an armoire topper.

This began with lots and lots of 5" strips, pieced slowly (ever so slowly) into longer sections.

After they were in 40"+ strips, I overlapped them and cut curves, and pieced them together into one cloth. I don't have a large cutting mat so I marked out edges with a builder's level and a marker on the hallway floor.

The border and binding are the same fabric, purchased specifically for that pop of neon that would be seen at the cabinet's edge.

So here it is, in all its glory: Rainbow Boulevard!

Details: lightly quilted in lime green zig zags, assorted colors from Kona Solids and Cotton Couture charm packs, Wildwood by Erin McMorris for binding and backing. 24x40 inches.







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Pouches

I have three little recent makes to show you today!

First is the See Kate Sew envelope clutch, which I made out of some home dec fabric for the exterior and that bright Firefly pattern I love for the interior. It's just the perfect size to hold my iPad or a notebook and pen.

Second is the triple zip pouch, a free pattern and tutorial from Debbie at A Quilter's Table. This has become my contain-the-kids'-necessities-for-being-out-in-public pouch.

It perfectly holds a small notepad and gel pens, three matchbox cars, and Curious George bandaids. All the essentials! The interior of my purse is a much happier place now.

The exterior fabric is some canvas of unknown origins and the inside is some wild vintage polyester of equally unknown origins.

And finally we have a modified wide-mouth pouch from the free tutorial from Anna at Noodlehead. The smallest size wide-mouth called for a 10" zipper and I only had a 7" on hand so it's a mini-wide. That's totally legit.

Penguin-face zipper pull.

 Opened wide, just as promised. My cosmetics live in there now.

This one has the Nursery Versery cheater print on the inside and these fab penguins from Nancy Wolff for Kokka.

Moral of this show-and-tell: I love small containers and free online tutorials.

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The Dr. is in

Tomorrow is Dr. Seuss Day at E's school. Last year in kindergarten she didn't want to dress up but this year, I said we could make something. Suddenly Dr. Seuss Day became much more interesting.

I used a fine-wale pale blue corduroy and a Cat in the Hat fabric panel. I trimmed out the Cat from his background, applied him to the corduroy with a fusible backing, and edge-stitched him. Details that were too hard to trim, like his whiskers, I left out, and then I replicated them with a satin stitch.

I trimmed the skirt in red bias tape, and then top-stitched the pom-pom trim. There was no real reason but Dr. Seuss would approve of fuzzy red pom-poms, don't you think? And here in profile you can see that we affixed the Cat's bow tie out of red ribbon for a dimensional look. Here the girl is dancing with her three-year-old brother.

I may have affixed the Cat's tail to the back side of the skirt. It seemed like the the right thing to do, you know?












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The hundredth day

My daughter's school makes a big annual celebration of the 100th day of classes. We never did this when I was a kid but I think it's commonplace now. As per almost any event that happens in the classroom, a call went out for volunteers to cover different tasks. One of the tasks was to create a banner for the hallway. The original idea was for someone to color something pretty on paper. But then all these things happened at once:

-my daughter started reading that email over my shoulder
-I said something out loud to her about how it's hard for me to volunteer in the classroom (because I work full-time) but I could take on a volunteer project like that that doesn't need to be completed during class time
-she decided we would sew a banner

And, of course, I found myself responding to the email request with just such an offer.

In only a few months, the school won't just be my daughter's, it will be my daughters'. And not much longer after that, all three kids will attend. A sewn banner can be used for years and years, and the idea thrilled the teacher who was coordinating all of the efforts.

And my enthusiastic girl? She helped at every turn. She printed the words and cut the letters out for templates and traced them onto fabric and fusible backing and cut them out twice again. She measured and ironed and stitched.

Then she delivered the banner to school with unmistakable pride.

It's double-sided, reflecting the culture of her bilingual school. It's in school colors and we added the school logo to the circle of the exclamation point on each side. It's imperfectly spaced and the letters aren't perfectly smooth-edged and it's perfect that way, because it was mostly her work, the endeavor of a first-grader with a ton of school spirit, and it was so well received.

And I can feel good about my volunteerism quotient for a bit.

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Clamshell curves

 I completed my next assignment from Curves class, a clamshell pillow:

This was a fun assignment. Sewing the curves wasn't that difficult, although cutting out the clamshell pieces took me forever.

The clamshells come from an assortment of Kate Spain prints, and I used this great Tina Givens print for the back:

And I installed my first invisible zipper at the bottom! I'd show you, but then it wouldn't be invisible, right?

And here's Clamshell with his VW friend:

There is at least one more pillow assignment in this class. Slowly but surely, I'm going to recover every pillow on our couches.


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