Productive sewing weekend

I got so much done this weekend (my weekend is Friday and Saturday, so it's wrapping up now).

For the baby's room, I finished the quilt and the diaper holder. Last weekend I made the dust ruffle, but I forgot to take a photo, and it's folded up neatly right now. My mom made most of the bumpers, but we need the crib-slat measurements to finish it. I also finished making two navy blue fitted crib sheets.

The quilt was part of the Vogue 7245 pattern I'm using for the nursery. It's a really simple quilt, so I was able to complete it in a day (not counting cutting).



This pattern in general sucks. The instructions are bad, and I'm glad I knew some quilting techniques. First, the binding it has you cut is incredibly thin, and the instructions don't explain how to sew it on. I can't even fathom how you could bind a quilt with such thin strips. I recut my own 2.5" binding out of leftover sheet material and sewed it on the proper way. I also took issue with the instructions on quilting, which have you quilt just a few lines a good 9 inches apart. Most batting won't hold up at that spacing, and the kind I had suggested quilting at 2-4 inches. I had to add in a lot more quilting lines, and it still was spaced a bit too far.

Here's the back:



I also finished the diaper holder, which was probably an unnecessary accessory, but what the heck. It was pretty quick to make, but I need a smaller hanger to insert in the top, so for now I had to try to hold it and photograph at the same time.



On the topic of the nursery, I received my dinosaur mobile, custom made by Buggalove on etsy.com
Once again, I had nowhere to hang it while photographing, so I'm holding it simultaneously.





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As for other sewing projects, I completed these place mats this weekend and the napkins last weekend, both for the Warehouse Fabrics Inc. blog.





I also finished this embroidered wristlet, which won't be on the blog for a while. I'm trying to come up with some posts on the side that I can use after the baby comes to get a little time off. This one will probably post in July sometime.



Also upcoming on that blog will be these crewel embroidery wall art pieces I made:





Finally, I think I forgot to share these pillows I made a few weeks ago. The fabric is really pretty in real life, but my camera makes it a bit too shiny looking.



Phew! That should catch us up!

A crewel name

I told myself I wouldn't write a title like that. But I just had to. One time only, and never another crewel pun, I promise. But I hate that crewel sounds like cruel. And nobody knows what crewel is anymore, so when you talk about it, they think you're saying cruel. So you try to say "crew-waaaal."



Anyway. Crewel. You know how I needed another hobby? Because I'm not busy enough?

Crewel is a form of embroidery, but you do it on linen and with thin wool yarn. It's not necessarily easy to find these yarns, because hardly anyone does crewel anymore. I think it's going to be making a comeback, now that people are trying to modernize it.

Take the book "The New Crewel" by Katherine Shaughnessy.

Or "Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts!: Woolly Embroidery" by ... well, I can't figure out who it's by. But it looks really cute.

I recently took a trip to Santa Fe and stopped in at The Needle's Eye, a small yarn shop, for some crewel wool.



I made a lavender-filled sachet from "The New Crewel."



The back is a sheer fabric my mom gave me. I think she may have bought it in Italy. The lavender is from Sunflower Market.



I messed up by putting a too-thick ribbon in one corner, which looked really sloppy. I also did a sloppy job of hand sewing the opening closed after filling it with lavender, but I conveniently cropped the pictures to minimize the ugliness. I am, though, happy with my first attempt at crewel work!