more converse booties

preparing for a baby shower i think i may be invited to, i started another pair of these baby chuck taylor high top booties.  although i'm a bit sick of making them, they're just too cute not to bring to a baby shower.  luckily we had knitting club at work last week so i could get myself started on these...

hopefully i'll finish them in time for the shower!  (or maybe i won't have to worry about it if i'm not actually invited... ha)

puzzled

we started a puzzle last night!  that fits the theme of "making things", right?  i'm trying to watch less tv these days and thought getting a puzzle might be a fun activity to do rather than catch up on real housewives.  (no, i don't usually watch real housewives.  if i did, i would know which geographic area the most current real housewives is on now.  but sometimes i like to pretend i watch it so i feel included in conversations about it.  so yes, i am aware that last comment was me pretending like i usually watch a terrible show, but am trying hard to stop...)

on our way home from carmel yesterday, we stopped at a toy story and bought the "best" puzzle available which happened to be the Renoir painting, On the Grand Canal, Venice.  "best" in quotes because there were a few cutsy cat puzzles that could also fall under the "best" category depending on your taste...

this puzzle is impossible.  not only are all the puzzle pieces basically the same color, the shapes are confusing!  it's not even entirely clear whether or not a piece is an edge piece or not.  damn those puzzle designers who were laughing their asses off at us as they designed this puzzle!  (wait a minute, Puzzle Designer?  is that a job??  that sounds amazing!  aw man, now i REALLY hate those people, not just for making this puzzle difficult, but for having a cooler job than me.  - although not very difficult to have a job cooler than person-who-works-in-the-finance-dept-of-an-insurance-company)

here's what we have so far after an hour and fifteen minutes of work.  please note that the top edge is not completed yet.  we're not even sure we've found all the edge pieces that make up that edge even though we've gone through all the pieces more than once...

i will be throwing a celebration party if we ever get finished with this...

dress for omi

here's the dress i sewed for omi in my sewing class! i'm really excited how it turned out. i learned how to sew a button hole! and make a pleat! very exciting.

so glad i found a reason to use the rest of that heather ross fabric too (the other of it i wasted on leah's pjs that had the messed up pants and i'm sure katie never put her in that top)

pants that work as pants!

i did it! i finally made a pair of pants from that darn kimono pjs pattern that actually will work as pants! i took a sewing class every night this week and wanted to start with the pants so i could have some help around so i wouldn't make the same mistake i made the last 2 times i made the pants. i explained to the teacher my problem and she kept claiming, "i know what you did wrong" and then proceded to ignore me and not explain the problem. thanks! great teacher!

so i cut out all the fabric and right as i was about to start sewing the trim on the pants, i realized my mistake - i was making the pants upside-down! missing the words "TOP" on the top of the pants pattern, i just assumed the "top" was the end of the cut-out fabric that looked like the top. although if you think about it, the legs will need more fabric than the top of the pants, so the pattern should look opposite, but as usual, i didn't think and i made a mistake. oh well. so glad i was able to finally figure it out. and it turned out the teacher didn't know what i had done wrong, since had she known i'm hoping she wouldn't have let me cut out my fabric upside-down. which i left as is as a memory of my mistake... and how much fun it is to learn how to sew!

here are the pants. i'm hoping to make the matching kimono top for these soon after i finish naomi's quilt. also, not sure who's getting these jams yet... maybe Cleo? or if Noley turns out to be a girl? lisa, Naomi can have them only as long as you promise she'll wear them! plus, i have something special i made her during the other days of class... i'll post photos of that soon!

quilt for about-to-be newborn baby veit

i'm taking a sewing class this week after work and had meant to show the photos of the pants i finished there last night. i'm also starting to work on this quilt, so took a few photos of the progress. when i got to work, i had only sent myself these photos. oh well! pants tomorrow! no one reads this anyway!

here are the photos from the beginnings of my next quilt. i think i might try a free motion design for this one. although have to look into whether or not that requires me buying a new foot for the sewing machine (that is not mine). this is the fabric i got all excited about last year when i first found it. i finally bought it, and am now using it to make a quilt for julian's little sister. more on this as it progresses...

carrie maternity

i had so much fun this weekend down in LA visiting carrie. i'm finally excited about taking photos again! just in time for all the new babies to be born. this weekend we did a maternity shoot since carrie is 8 months pregnant. we looked through maternity photos online and picked a few we wanted to try. carrie was up for anything! we had grand plans of visiting the beach or other locations, but ended up just getting all the ones we wanted at home (and couldn't get the sunset ones we wanted because of the june gloom). can't wait to meet baby GIRL nolen who should be here in just a few weeks!!

my first quilt! for noley

since the sex of baby nolen is unknown, i couldn't knit up a cute little dress for this baby... and to be honest, i don't think any of the dresses i've knit have actually been worn too much. so i decided to make something that might be more practical - a beach blanket. since it was my first quilt, i didn't want to do anything too fancy, so just did a block pattern and sewed it up similar to how i did my duvet cover. i also wasn't sure i was ready for the task of binding it, so i decided to "birth" the quilt which is a technique of sewing the layers together and turning it inside out, then sewing the hole. this project ended up being much more difficult than i thought. i had difficulty with puckering on the back and could not for the life of me get the tension right. so it's not perfect. which i think is perfect since it's not too perfect to not be used!

elena's wedding

here are a few pics from the only time i really had a chance for photos where the professional one wasn't around... in the limo after the ceremony.