My Skipping Steps quilt pattern is all set and done! Hooray! I really do love this as a kids quilt. I mean, we all like zig-zags, right? They’re just fun. And then when you add silly little embroidered animals to the scene, you get even more fun! Nothing wrong with that.

Skipping Steps on Etsy
Skipping Steps on Craftsy

If you’re looking at this quilt going, “hmm… that’s a little familiar,” it might be. The pattern was originally published in Quilts Baby! as Stair-Crazy (also a cute name). I decided to release the pattern on its own, and I’ve re-tooled the instructions and added a complete second set of embroidery templates. The original pattern has cats on the stairs (because I am cat-obsessed), and the new version also includes woodland animals, because who doesn’t love woodland animals?

The piecing of the quilt is really easy – you just sew rectangles to rectangles in rows. It’s one of those patterns that doesn’t really need a pattern. I almost released just the embroidery on its own, but then I realized that it would also be useful and worthwhile to know how big to make each step, how many rows, etc. It would be a good quilt for a beginner who wants to try some simple embroidery or for a more experienced quilter who wants to be able to whip up a quick baby quilt.

I hope you like it. The pattern has seen several pairs of eyes, but I’d love to get a couple more reviews. If you’re interested, let me know!

The Boston Modern Quilt Guild is organizing a project called Quilts for Boston. They are asking other MQGs and anyone else interested to make quilt blocks and send them to the guild so that they can make quilts for those affected by the recent bombings in Boston.

When I feel like there’s nothing I can do about a situation, I’m grateful to be able to put some creative efforts into a form of support.

I decided to try Natalie’s HST/LC blocks. It seemed fitting since Natalie is the incredibly warm person and friend who is organizing the whole project! They were fun blocks. I think I should have made my log cabin strips a little smaller (oops), but still cute!

I have loved sewing things for my daughter as she has grown.

And while I will continue to sew her things, if she is interested, this will be my last kid’s clothes week spent sewing for my kid.

After all, she will be 13 in a few weeks. Not really a kid like that anymore. It makes me happy that I will be able to continue being a part of kid’s clothes week while writing code, even if I’m not sewing for a small person.

So here we are, one last time. Tank 20 from Japanese craft book ISBN 9784834756913, which is a book with patterns in ladies sizes. I find that the simple shapes of the Japanese patterns work well for slim tween. Some of the styles “could even be trendy”. Eva chose the fabric, and so, the top may actually see some wear.

This is my second Laurel. After the jumper, I wanted to try to make a version of the pattern with sleeves, and I also wanted to take on the challenge provided by the “self designed” category of the Laurel contest.

Spoonflower would be a great option for the self designed category of the Laurel contest, but I’m really trying to work through my stash, if possible. (I mean, aside from buying all that sale voile.) I decided to use this gray Swiss dot that I’ve had for some time. (I think I bought it for a dress for my daughter years ago – such a familiar story.) On instagram, I had been seeing all the beautiful fabric that people were making for the printed fabric swap—many pretty things from simple designs. I had been wanting to give printing a go again since my class with Lotta Jansdotter at QuiltCon, and this top and contest category were a good opportunity to put it all together.

I wanted to do stripes with the same stencil I made in Lotta’s class, and I wanted it to look like something I would wear. Stencils scare me a little because there’s a fine line between something that looks cool and something that looks like a crafty arts and crafts project. I wanted my paint to be subtle and pretty. Generally, I don’t associate metallic gold paint with subtle, but I chose a darker paint that is metallic—not glitter—and on top of the gray fabric it’s toned down. The gold on gray reminds me of an antiqued finish. The paint adds a little more texture.

I made a dress—a jumper actually—not because I particularly need one or have been dreaming of one, but because I stumbled, via the powers of the internet, on Colette’s new Laurel pattern and the whopping contest they’re putting on to go with the launch. So, fun contest came at the same time as my annual spring itch to sew garments, and the rest is history

The jumper is made from a really cute brown corduroy with a sweet little acorn pattern. I love this fabric, and whenever I say corduroy in my head I also say “cloth of kings”. It is very soft. I bought it at Joann’s years ago to make pants for my little girl, back when she was a little girl. I tried to make a tova top from it in January, but I didn’t have enough yardage. So really, the jumper felt like a solution. It was the garment I could make with this fabric, and yes, isn’t it nice that there’s a fall category in the contest? It all fit.

But does the dress fit? Yes, mostly. I made a muslin, and from that I thought I needed to shorten the waist. I did this for the jumper, but it’s not quite right. I probably needed to do a small bust adjustment instead, which I’ll do for the next one. This was my first Colette pattern. I hadn’t tried one before because I thought of them as patterns that look really cute on people with large busts. Laurel seemed more forgiving than the others in this way. The pattern instructions were good and the extra info on the Colette site was great. This is the best zipper and blind hem that I have ever done, thanks to those tutorials.

Will it get worn? I don’t know. It might be a little too sweet … acorn corduroy I bought for my 7-year-old and all.

I’m really happy to share that I’ve been working on a kid’s clothes week (KCW) project with Meg, and it goes beyond even the usual stitched realm of goodness. We’re working on giving KCW its own website. Yay!

I love Kid’s Clothes Week—I’ve stitched along in many. I like how simple it is, how accessible, and I like seeing all the beautiful things that others make. It’s been a semi-annual event (we’re now bumping that up to seasonal), and it seems like it deserves a site of its own. It’s big enough, it’s cool enough, and it just feels like there’s more to be explored.

The website we’re building will give you a place to find kid’s clothes patterns and designers, to post your own projects, and to see others’ projects all on one place. You might be thinking, hmm… like a ravelry for kid’s clothes? Well, yes and no. Yes, to posting projects and sorting by patterns, and tagging, and searching. No in that it’s still driven by seasonal challenges. The site will be the place to go for that round’s inspiration, and it will be beautiful.

It has been really fun for more me, as a developer, to work on a site that belongs to the sewing community. If I get to do code-y stuff and stitchy stuff at the same time, I’m pretty much in my happy spot. It’s also be great to be able to make a pretty site. Most jobs I work on do not have the goal of being pretty. It’s refreshing.

I hope you’ll like what we’re building, and actually, I hope you’ll help. Take a look at the KCW blog for more, if you would!

I made myself a shirt this weekend, partially on a whim, partially because I’ve been wanting to forever, but totally because it is spring and that makes me want to sew an annual tunic.

This is my first tova. I’ve had the pattern forever. I almost made a corduroy tova top this winter, but I didn’t quite have enough fabric. I did trace out all the pattern pieces at that time, which made it much easier to make a spring top just because I felt like it. Any other time I had thought about making a tova, I just couldn’t make the fabric commitment. I didn’t feel like making a muslin and I didn’t want to make something that might not suit me using any of the nicer garment-friendly fabrics in my stash. Yay for me that both Sew Mama Sew and Pink Castle fabrics have been having $6 voile sales. This is doable, and PS, the voile is wider so I was able to fit the sleeve up next to the front while cutting, and I think that saved me half a yard.

I made a small because that’s what went with my measurements. It fits nicely in the top, and while it goes over my hips, I would grade the bottom up to a medium if I make it again, just to have more room.

Overall, I like it. It’s a cute folksy style without all the billowing blouseiness. I’m curious to see how much I’ll wear it.

A week or so ago I finally finished this quilt. It had been sitting in my living room with a floppy binding since the A2MQG January retreat, where I all but finished it. It was doing a good job of protecting my white armchair from naughty little cat paws, but really my whole reason for making this quilt was to have a large blanket for snuggling under on my couch.

In the end, machine binding allowed me to get it done. I followed Heather Jones’ machine binding tutorial on these potholders with really nice results, so I decided to try it on this quilt. The results on the quilt were less good for two reasons: 1) I didn’t trim the edges to 1/4 in. but left it at 1/2 in. (what I usually do for quilts). 2) I was impatient and didn’t pin.

But it’s fine. This a super functional quilt. It is great to be under and it spruces up my couch with a little color and pattern. I like its variety of textures – linen, quilting cotton, vintage sheet, double gauze.

Made from Plain Spoken pattern by FunQuilts AKA Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. I started this project as part of the low volume quilt a long on flickr.

I have a habit of not finishing my sweaters until March. Lucky for me (?), I live in a place where it’s still plenty cold.

I started this sweater this fall, and I knit it in between more pressing or gift-related projects. It was a pleasant change from all the fingering weight I had been knitting with, and although a sweater really isn’t a portable project, you can pretty much take a sleeve anywhere.

This sweater is entirely wearable. It’s the best thing about it—I know I will wear it to pills. The sleeves are full length so my forearms won’t get cold, it’s a cardigan, so it’s easy to grab, and it’s a color of blue I lean toward.

Pattern: Acer by Amy Christoffers
Yarn: Free Range from Sanguine Gryphon, now discontinued. (But a lot like Traveller, I think.)

For my daughter who helped me take photos on the way home from school – awkward mom jump:

You may be tired of hearing about quiltcon at this point. If so, please bear with me.

I want to talk about (and document) the things I’m taking away personally. It was fun, and it was really well run, and those things will be easy to remember. Here are smaller things I want to remember:

I want to pay more attention to the quilting part of quilting. Looking at all the quilts in the show, the way the quilting enhanced the whole quilt, it was really obvious and in your face. I can’t see as much looking at photos. I want to be better at machine quilting, and I want to get myself to relax with hand quilting.

Meaning and inspiration, the story behind, makes a quilt more interesting. Makes me want to track down the stories of quilts I see on flickr or instagram rather than simply hitting the like button.

I love a group quilt. The quilt that was on my mom’s bed when I was little was pieced by her college roommate and hand quilted by the roommate and 3 of her friends. They all embroidered their names in the corners. They were from Kentucky. This is the first quilt story I ever heard, and there’s something deep in my mind that this “doing together” is how quilting is. And so, I really loved my round robin class with Sherri Lynn Wood. She is an amazing teacher, with a vocabulary for talking about both improv and group quilting that makes the process approachable and meaningful. (A photo of my quilt from the class is at the top of this post.)

People of the internet are good in real life too. It feels weird to call people by their blog name, even though everyone is doing it.

Trying something without intending to master it can be really fun. Lotta Jansdotter’s printing class was more actual fun than I thought it would be. I will probably print again on my own. It had been years since I’d done printing. I think I was turned off by all the imperfection I was making. You would think that stenciling would be obvious, but I was doing it wrong. (Tap that brush hard!)

Quilting is a big world. It’s easy to be tempted by new fabrics, the newest “a-long”, some else’s inspiration trajectory. While I want to take part and share, I also don’t want to lose the things I’ve wanted to make. There is only so much time, and entirely too much goodness.

Denyse Schmidt’s talk made me remember all the things I like about “making do”. I’d forgotten lately, and was feeling grumpy about it. (See also, if your sewing machine does crappy machine quilting and you can’t get a fancy new one, try hand quilting. See also, garage sales.)

QuiltCon came from the internet. It’s a happy thing to be in a place where the successes of people who came from the internet are celebrated. I could see the consumer end of quilting meeting the grassroots end of quilting. It was an interesting place to be.