As fantastic as our Easter holiday was this year, our Easter photos didn’t turn out as fabulously as I had hoped. This was the best of the bunch, after the maximum editing I could muster:

You’ll notice that I went all 1970s on my children this year: everyone has matching outfits. Hee-haw. All of these print are from the Hello, Luscious collection from Basic Grey, and I had this insane idea that it would be awesome if we all were matchy-matchy, and then took photos together, and wouldn’t that be cute, right? But aside from the fact that it was SO pretty and sunny out that every photo totally blown out with sunlight, most of them are some variation of this:

Which is to say: the children being tolerant, and Mommy being ridiculous. In poor lighting. Le sigh.

What I thought would happen was that I’d take a photo of my husband with all the kids, then I’d trade places with him and get a photo of me with all the kids, then I’d just photoshop myself in and voila! A family portrait! But as you can see, there wasn’t a single photo of me that would be even remotely acceptable. Of course, I’ve taken exactly five photos since the ninth grade in which I have my mouth shut, so it’s not exactly a surprise…

The up-side is that their outfits all turned out super cute. Our boy wore a button-up shirt with short sleeves and his Perfect Pants in linen, (both from the Sewing Clothing for Kids e-course), and the girls wore their button-back dresses with super whirly skirts, both with a Peter Pan collar matching their brother’s shirt. So cute, for reals. Our eldest is wearing a sundress which may or may not be featured in my new book, and which is actually the same pattern as my dress in those ridiculous photos above, except mine is the strapless version. Because I’m a grown-up, and I can.

Fortunately for me, I have had multiple opportunities this Easter holiday to showcase my brother/sister outfit fetish, like the local massive egg hunt we attended with all four children. Check it out: a WHOLE OTHER OUTFIT for egg hunting, and they STILL MATCH. I am either sick or a genius. I may possibly be a sick genius; I can live with that.

This is a fabulous Laurie Wisbrun print that I adore (and that Holly at the shop convinced me I needed to buy yards and yards and yards of). Our five-year-old got a cute skirt, our boy got another shirt but this time with a cowboy/western thing going on, and the youngest got the same dress she wore on Easter, but with a squared neckline rather than a Peter Pan collar. Our eldest would have agreed to wear a headband of the same fabric, but it didn’t go with the shirt she wanted to wear. Teens.

Seriously, is there anything cuter than your kids all matching?  I know–if you grew up, like I did, during the ACTUAL 1970s, then you have some really wretched photos of you and your siblings in some seriously garish matching outfits.  And if you grew up in the South, you have seen some truly gag-inducing Sunday-best outfits for boys and girls, probably with matching smocked insets.  But these!  Are so cute!!  I’m not crazy, right??

Plus, they had the best time at the egg hunt.  It was divided up by ages, so our youngest went first, with our oldest as her escort.  Not that finding the eggs was all that tough:

They were pretty much right out in the open.  But those chubby hands, picking up those plastic eggs.  So sweet.

The other two waited as patiently as two small children can wait for rushing madness and free candy:

And then the real craziness started:

Afterward, there was some time on the playground, working off the sugar rush.

And a sweet time was had by all.

Happy Easter, everyone!

My sweet friend Mika liked my Kindle cover so much she asked for a tutorial.  Since I’ve always been a bit of a slacker in the gift-giving department, I wanted to make her something pretty, so it was with sincere and genuine pleasure that I put this together, mostly for her but also for you!  I have clutched my electronic reader in my hands and cried over it as I read, laughing and feeling with the characters, totally forgetting that this wasn’t print but was a screen with flashing LED behind it, all of which astonishes me, since I really love the book-ness of my books.  I honestly think having a soft fabric cover made a difference in the experience to me–and certainly made me more willing to toss it in my bag and take it with me to read on the go.

This was a fun project to think through and plan, and it really is super easy to construct.  It took me right around an hour and fifteen minutes to sew this one while taking photos and planning the tutorial, so I feel pretty confident that you could make it in about 45 minutes in real life, which makes it a great option for gift-giving.  (I’m already thinking about end-of-year teacher gifts, again because I am usually such a slacker that when someone puts out the hat I toss in a check even though what I’d really like is to make something personal and lovely.  Wouldn’t it be nice this year to take up a collection for a Kindle for your child’s teacher, and then sew a sassy cover?  Just an idea.)  Continue reading »

Hooray!!  It’s time to get ready for the Sewing for Your Home e-course!!  I am super excited about this class–not least of which because it has given me an excuse to sew a whole bundle of lovely things for my new home. This has been one of the most-requested topics from my students, and I have had SUCH a good time planning it all out for you!  The class includes piles of video, PDFs to download and reference later, lots and lots of photos and staging and styling ideas, plenty of linky deliciousness to inspire you as you sew for your home, and as much step-by-step guidance as I can squeeze into five weeks of instruction.

I’ll be sharing sneak previews of some of the projects that I’ll be teaching in this e-course over the next two weeks leading up to the start of class–including a duvet with ruffle embellishment, some really lovely table settings, and a bed skirt that I have had in my dreams for well over a year.  Get more information on the e-course here, and register soon!  I’m limiting enrollment on this class to make sure that all my students have the chance to get individual feedback and lots of loving hand-holding throughout the course–I don’t want you to miss out!

There is no feeling to compare to coming home to a place that is a unique reflection of who you are.  It fills you with a sense of contentment and satisfaction that is hard to beat.  We’ve had three homes in the past year, and it’s been tough to adjust to each one–but knowing that I could sit down at my sewing machine and make something that would put my stamp on that house, would make it home for me and my family, was a tremendous gift in the midst of a lot of change.  I’d love nothing more than for you to take those same skills and confidence away from this e-course and use them to create your own haven in your home.  Register here and I’ll look forward to having you in the class on April 23!

Chain piecing is a simple technique that makes quilting vastly more efficient:

source

Very simply, chain piecing involves sewing a seam, then rather than cutting the thread and beginning a new seam, tucking the next piece of fabric beneath the presser foot and continuing to stitch.  It’s faster–you don’t spend all that time cutting thread, lifting and lowering the presser foot–and it’s tidier, since all your pieces are still attached to one another when you’re done.  I also think it encourages you to think differently about your sewing when you chain stitch: I am forced to think through my whole project, in a good way, in order to determine the most efficient use of my time in order to get steps completed with good precision but without dragging out the project.

I use this same technique when I make clothing, and it’s such a giant time-saver.  I started doing it when I was manufacturing children’s clothing, because I’d be making multiples of a particular style all at one time, so it made sense to stitch a side seam, then grab another shirt or dress and stitch the same side seam, over and over until I was making five shirts at a time, like an assembly line.  I don’t manufacture like that anymore–now I only sew for my own children rather than someone else’s–but I have adapted the same idea to make the construction of a single garment more streamlined.  And it’s so simple that it hardly bears mentioning, except that I do it so frequently I figured it might be useful to discuss!  I seriously love learning all the little secrets that other folks use to make their sewing something to be admired, and am always struck by how most of us have one or two tricks that we don’t even think about anymore but that have the potential to totally change the way someone else makes a project–I am sort of hoping this will be like that to you.

Start with a project that has many similar seams–in this case, I’m working on the lined bodice of a sleeveless dress. That means I have one bodice front, two bodice backs, one lining front and two lining backs.  They all get stitched at the shoulder seam, so four identical seams.  Right?  So I sew the first shoulder seam, but rather than cutting it and taking it off the machine, I tuck the next shoulder seam underneath the presser foot:

Here you see the right side of the bodice front, which is down on the feed dogs, and the wrong side of the bodice backs, which are right sides together with the bodice front.  I’ve stitched the one at the upper edge of the image, and now I’m beginning to stitch the one at the lower edge of the image.

When you chain stitch by machine, your needle doesn’t recognize that open space between the seams–it sews right over it as though it isn’t even there.  The first seam is sewn as usual–that is, you place the back edge of the fabric so that it just covers the hole into which the needle will disappear–and then once that near edge of that seam has gone under the needle, raise your foot off the foot pedal, tuck the next seam to be sewn under the front edge of the presser foot, and begin to sew again, as if it were a whole new seam.  Which it is, except it’s still attached to the previous seam.

You can keep doing this on and on and on, depending on how many seams you have to sew.  Here, I’ve done both the shoulder seams on the bodice, and I’m sewing the first of the two lining shoulder seams.  I’ll do all four before taking them off the machine to clip the threads between each one:

See?  Simple! The whole technique can be applied to making LOTS of one garment, assembly-line style; to making many similar garments, like sewing Easter outfits for your four children where each piece uses the same color thread (not naming any names here…ahem); or piecing a quilt where you have sixty bajillion teensy squares to match up.  It uses less thread, less time, and once you get the hang of it, is vastly more accurate with less repetitive stress.  It’s a win for everyone!

The short version is: we’re still super stalled on the kitchen.  The butcher block bar has yet to be installed, and while I’ve pretty much chosen a backsplash, it’s crazy expensive and I can’t seem to pull the trigger.  I am pretty proud to say that I’ve installed one whole drawer handle–the other ten are here, but drilling those holes was harrowing–which represents serious progress.  Still no cabinet doors (stop laughing at me for thinking it was a good idea to paint and re-hang those by myself), but we’re getting by.  And honestly, Spring Break is making me feel way more motivated to get these things done.  Must be Spring Fever.

In order to avoid feeling like a complete failure, though, I thought I’d share the one room that’s closest to completion: the living room.  I acknowledge that it will be quite some time (if ever) before this entire house is really “done,” but this one room is inching along faster than the others, and it will make me feel better to hear your oooohs and aaaahs.  Might even make me buy more trim paint.  Ba-dump-bump.

Our house is a pretty standard 1960s ranch, so when you enter the front door, at the far end of this photo, you’re in a foyer with a formal living room on the left and the wall to a bedroom on the right.  Directly in front of the door, out of frame to the upper left of this photo, is the hallway to the bedrooms, with the den beyond that.  In this photo, the dining room is behind the viewer; I was standing in the doorway between the living room and dining room when I shot this.

For comparison, this is what we started with:

This was a snapshot taken at roughly the same time of day last October, when we did our walk-through.  You’ll notice the wallpaper in the entryway, which we clearly painted; the depressing dullness of the living room itself–the ONLY room in the entire house that didn’t have either wallpaper or bi-fold doors (or both); and the lack of a soffitt on the left-hand wall (which we had built specifically for the teak wall unit that lives there now).  Sincerely, even if this weren’t my house (and my sweat equity), I don’t know that I would recognize this as the same room.

The wall unit is very obviously the star of this show.  This wall is huge, and it needed something more serious than a sofa to set it off.  I grew up with this teak unit in my parents’ house, and have always adored it–it says home to me, with the smell of the cabinets and the memories of all our “nice” things stored there that only came out for holidays and special guests.  It’s a CADO unit, designed by Poul Cadovius in the 1970s; my folks got it when we lived in Europe with the Air Force when I was a baby.  It’s eight feet tall, but the ceiling in this room is nine, so we built the soffit to fit the unit.  With all sides of the soffit painted on all sides to match the walls, you hardly even notice that it’s there.  I’ll be honest: I freaking love this thing.

Each of the modules in the wall unit is designed for a different function, and when my parents bought it, you could pick and choose which ones you wanted.  I’ve always loved this drawer module, and the glass-front upper piece.  I love that there is a sliding-door section, in the far upper right of this photo, that’s sized to hold LPs.  Oh, 70s.

There’s also a desk with a drop-down leaf for writing and lots of little pigeon holes inside–perfect for kids to squirrel things away:

There are label-maker stickers still in there that read “outgoing mail” and “current bills.”  I’m not sure which of my folks did those; either of them is fully capable of having gotten a little excited with the label-maker–but I’m betting it was my dad.

Each module and shelf attaches with these angled wooden prongs on the back–in the case of the shelves, they’re on the brackets, but for everything else, they’re on the back of the module itself.  Line them up with the holes on either side of the poles, and you’re in business.  Oh, and best part, if you’re feeling Brady-Bunchy?  There are holes on the opposite side of each pole, too, so you can use the entire unit as a room divider, with modules on the back and front.  Hello!

We’ve outfitted our lovely teak behemoth with suitable accessories–but not too many, since both of us tend to err on the side of fewer tchotchkes rather than more.  This (FABULOUS) lamp was in the house before we bought it–we picked it up at the estate sale, and I adore it.  At first, I thought I’d paint it, but now I’m using this cobalt blue color as an accent in this room, and the lamp is spectacular.  Hi, there, Easter lily!

Art, from L to R: “Dreams Don’t Work Unless You Do” block print on wood, from Chicago artist (and super swell guy) Kevin Lucius; blown glass vase handmade by my grandmother; vintage map and acrylic overlay by Atlanta animal artist Yvonne Miller.

Bamboo that’s been growing and growing for somewhere close to ten years now.  The squirrel, who is destined to be Pinterest-painted gloss white, says “SOON.”

At one end of the CADO is a vintage chair I found on Craig’s List.  It was recovered by the seller, and while the color isn’t my first choice, I think it’s going to work in this room.  On the opposite side, though, is a similarly-colored chair whose slip cover is destined to go:

I think the rounded lines of this chair make it perfect for this room–which must by why my mother gave it to me when she brought the wall unit–but the slip cover has seen better days and the color is too close to the other chair, meaning it’s got to be re-done.  Lucky for me, I’m teaching Home Dec as my next e-course, so I’ve got some fabric on the warmer, ready to rock this bad boy as a class sample!

Opposite the CADO is the sofa, which came as a set with the orange chair (the one that’s NOT being slip covered).  The seller had re-upholstered this one, too, but honestly I do not like the fabric.  At all.  It doesn’t make me cry every time I see it, but I cannot live with it.  So I’m on the hunt for the perfect green-and-blue ikat print to recover and set the emotional tone for this room.  The end tables belonged to my grandmother, and match the Lane dovetail coffee table I got when she moved to senior living:

And there you have it!  Obviously, there’s a lot left to do, but on the whole, this room is pretty close to liveable.  Coming up:

• spray paint the two brass lamp bases chrome
• add window treatments–probably a textured white that runs floor to ceiling with a honeycomb header on rings
• slip cover the round chair
• remove the painter’s tape on the crown molding–oops!–and finish updating all the trim from cream (and lead–eeek!) to bright white
• ditto the baseboards
• find a rug, probably in blue (husband is resisting, but I really think we need a rug, don’t you?)
• hang our art on the walls, including the fabulous Puerto Rican king print my husband got when he visited San Juan

Plus a couple other fun projects, including getting a beta fish and making two terrariums…terrarii…:

I DO feel better.  Now I see why it’s taking so long.  Maybe next week I’ll share the master bedroom–the master bath might never be un-ugly enough to show you, but the bedroom is making striking progress.  Woot!