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Tutorial: The 1-yard Skirt

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The finished skirt!

The Shirt Skirt tutorial provided on Instructables was my inspiration for this project. Rather than purchase a t-shirt for it, though, I thought I’d try my hand at creating the skirt using cotton fabric. One of the stores nearby was having a large sale last week, so I purchased a yard of fabric for about $5, hoping it would be enough. Considering I was going from a tutorial that used knit to using cotton, I knew things would turn out a little differently.

I pre-washed my fabric, mainly so that once I wore and washed this, it wouldn’t end up too small for me! (It’s happened before.)

Using elastic thread, the fabric naturally shirs as you sew.  I was nervous about this, because I had cut the material wider than in the tutorial I was working from, and didn’t know how the material I was using would react.  Thankfully, it worked out beautifully! 

I LOVE the result!  I’ve typically only made skirts from stretchy knits before, since I don’t have to be too accurate with measurements, and love the fact that I can gain or lose weight and have the skirt fit me fine throughout!  But this project opened up a whole new world for me!

Here’s my tutorial for making this skirt with a yard of cotton fabric.  Next time I make one, I’ll take more pictures than just the finished result!  (I was nervous about this, so I didn’t take pictures along the way in case it didn’t work out. Silly Z.)

Tools:

Elastic bobbin thread
Regular thread for top thread (use a matching color or contrast for your fabric)
Scissors
Ruler/measuring tape
Iron
1 yard cotton fabric

1.  Fold the material in half, selvages on bottom, cut (and now frayed from the washing process) portions on the sides.  Cut 28 1/2″ long, and then cut along the fold at the top.  Since most fabric is about 45″ wide, this leaves you with 2 rectangles about 28 1/2″ long by 22 1/2″ wide. 

2.  Press a 1/2″ seam along the bottom, folding twice for a nice hem.  NOTE:  I left the selvages on, so the selvage ended up being folded up into the hem. 

3.  Press a 1/8″ seam along the top, folding twice for the top hem.

4.  Sew both top and bottom hems on both pieces of fabric.

5.  With fabric right sides together, sew along the sides, allowing about a 1/2″ seam.  You should now have a nice tube about 55″ in circumference.

6.  Wind an empty bobbin with elastic thread and load the bobbin.

7.  Starting about 1/8″ from the top hem seam, start sewing on the right side of the fabric, so that the elastic stays on the wrong side of the fabric.  (I did this wrong for my first line of stitching.)  I secured each line of stitching with a little backstitching; keeping the elastic thread on the inside of the skirt makes for a cleaner look on the outside.  Go all the way around the skirt.

8.  Stitch another line about 1/4″ from the first, securing at the end of each line.  Continue stitching until you’ve completed 8 lines.

9.  If desired, press the stitched area.  This will shrink the stitching just a little more.

10.  Wear your new skirt!

Robots and Rockets Quilt – Part 1

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I saw a pattern for a robot quilt a few weeks ago that caught my attention. That pattern ended up being my inspiration for this quilt.  (Note:  This is my very first major quilt project. I’ve made a lap quilt, a couple of wall hangings, and a pieced table runner, but never a big quilt.  Until now, that is!)

For this quilt, I decided to create a pattern that would allow the robots and rockets to be mostly pieced, rather than appliqued like the pattern I’d seen online.  For a queen size quilt, there are 6 robot blocks and 6 rockets.  The completed blocks ended up roughly 20 inches square.



Some Basics

For quilting novices, let me explain a few basic concepts.

1.  Piecing refers to sewing pieces of fabric together to make the front of a quilt (top layer).
2.  Batting is the stuff that goes in the middle of a quilt.  It comes in different varieties – thick, thin, cotton, cotton/polyester blend, polyester, fusible (meaning it can stick to your fabric using heat), white, or natural.
3.  Backing is the back of a quilt.  Sometimes it is also stitched together (pieced), or extra-wide fabric can be purchased for this purpose (most fabric, especially quilting fabric, is 45 inches wide; extra-wide fabric can go up to 108 inches wide).
4.  Quilt are either quilted or tied.  This is the process of doing something to keep the top, batting, and backing together.  Most quilts purchased in stores are quilted by machine, or, machine-quilted.  This is simply using a very large sewing machine to sew designs onto the quilt. (Sounds easy, but it’s not quite as easy as it sounds. It’s definitely fun, though!)

The Robots

Each robot is constructed using the following:

Head: 4.5″ x 4.5″
Body: 8.5″ x 6.5″
Arms: 2.5″ x 4.5″
Legs:  2.5″ x 4.5″
Feet:  2.5″ x 2.5″

White fabric:

Head: 2, 4.5″ x 4.5″ squares
Feet:  2.5″ x 2.5″ square per foot
Arms: 2, 2.5″ x 6.5″ strips
2.5″ x 20.5″ strip for top of block
2, 4.5″ x 14.5″ strips for each side
4.5″ x 20.5″ strip for bottom of block

Misc. colored pieces were used for decorating the robots.  I sewed the decorations onto each piece (head, body) first, then assembled the robots.

One robot in pieces.

To assemble:

1.  Sew feet to 2.5″ white squares.
2.  Sew foot strips to legs.
3.  Sew legs together.
4.  Sew legs to body at base.
5.  Sew arms to 2.5″ x 6.5″ white strips.
6.  Sew arms to body+legs piece.
7.  Sew one 4.5″ square to each side of the face.
8.  Sew the head to the rest of the body.
9.  Sew one 4.5″ x 14.5″ strip to each side of the robot.
10.  Sew the 2.5″ x 20.5″ strip to the top.
11.  Sew the 4.5″ x 20.5″ strip to the bottom.

(Note: all seams are 1/4″ seams and are pressed between each step.)

Completed robot before the top, sides, and bottom were sewn on to make the full 20″ block.

I had fun mixing colors for each robot!

The Rockets

Each rocket was made using:

Nose:  8.5″ x 4.5″
Body:  8.5″ x 10.5″
Fins:  2.5″ x 4.5″

White fabric:

2, 4.5″ squares for the nose
2, 2.5″ squares for the fins
2.5″ x 8.5″ strip for the bottom of the rocket, between the fins
2, 2.5″ x 12.5″ strips for the sides of the rocket, attached to the fins
2, 2.5″ x 20.5″ strip for the top and bottom
2, 4.5″ x 16.5″ strip for the sides

Misc. color pieces were used for embellishing the rockets.  Just like the robots, I sewed these on the rocket bodies before assembling the rocket blocks.

To assemble the rockets:

1.  Sew one 2.5″ square to each fin along the diagonal. Cut 1/4″ away from the sew line and press open. Be sure to sew on opposite diagonals for each fin, so that the white triangle opens to opposite sides for each fin.
2.  Sew the 2.5″ x 12.5″ strips to the fin pieces, attaching at the top of the white triangle on each fin.
3.  Sew the 2.5″ x 8.5″ strip to the body.
4.  Sew the 4.5″ squares to the nose on the diagonal, so that there will be a point to the nose when the pieces are opened.  Trim 1/4″ away from the stitch line and press open.
5.  Sew the body to the nose.
6.  Sew the fin strips to the body + nose, one on each side.
7.  Sew the 4.5″ x 16.5″ strips to the sides.
8.  Sew the 2.5″ x 20.5″ strips to the top and bottom to complete the block.

Doesn’t look very rockety, does it?

I just folded the fins and nose along the stitching line.
Voila – rocket!
A couple of finished rockets before adding the extra white fabric to make the 20″ blocks.
I just loved the way these turned out!
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Robots and Rockets Quilt – Part 2

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This is part 2 of the Robots and Rockets quilt I made for Gabriel’s room.  I entered this in the Pacific Fabrics quilt show/contest at the Northgate Pacific Fabrics store. I know, lofty goals…first major quilt, and I entered it into a show already! But (and I know this is a completely shameless plug) from April 1 – April 20, if you’re in the Seattle area, stop by and vote for your favorite quilt!  Mine is #43.  I won’t blame you if you vote for another one; there are some pretty awesome quilts on display there!

Now, on to how I completed the quilt after getting the robot and rocket blocks pieced.

Completing the Quilt

Cut 5″ strips from robot fabric.  Cut to the width of each block (roughly 20″) horizontally, and to the length of each block vertically (if your robot fabric has a direction.  Otherwise, just cut to the width and length.)  You should have 15 strips for the horizontal borders, and 16 strips for the vertical borders.
Cut 16, 5″ squares for corners between blocks.

Sew one 5″ square to a robot fabric strip. Continue alternating square and robot until you have 4 squares attached to three strips (striped square – robot – striped square – robot – striped square – robot – striped square).
Sew the vertical strips to the blocks, until you have 4 rows of three blocks each, with vertical borders on each end of the strip (following the same pattern as above with the square and horizontal border pieces).
Sew the horizontal strips to the block rows.

You should end with four rows of three blocks each row with borders between the blocks and all the way around the quilt. (See the photos for clarification.)

To be honest, lining up the corners and border strips was the toughest part of this, since not all of the blocks ended up exactly square.  I had to get the blocks to be as close to the same size as possible, then trim the borders accordingly.  (I actually just sewed everything together, then realized I was WAY off on the horizontal borders, had to unpick the rows and try again.)

I used 108″ wide fabric for the backing and machine-quilted the entire quilt.  The striped fabric was also used for the binding.  The striped fabric looks really overpowering when seeing in a full yard cut of fabric, but it blended in beautifully with the robots and blocks!

Here’s the finished product!  I’m VERY happy with the result!

Top half of the finished quilt!
Close-up of one finished quilted rocket block.
Close-up of the quilting as seen from the back and the binding on one corner.
The backing works so well with the top of the quilt!


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Chocolate-Lemon Buddies

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Recipe:  Chocolate-Lemon Buddies

I was looking at various Chex mix recipes and decided to make a twist on one called Chex Lemon Buddies.  I used Meyer lemons which are sweeter and less acidic than regular lemons.  The result was a definite win!

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 tsp grated lemon peel (I grated the peel to two Meyer lemons)
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (equal to the juice of the two Meyer lemons)
1/4 cup butter
9 cups Rice Chex (or your favorite rice puffed squares cereal)
2 cups powdered sugar

Directions


In a large bowl, place the 9 cups of cereal.  Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine chocolate chips, lemon peel, lemon juice, and butter.  Microwave on High for 1 minute.  Stir, then heat another 30 seconds.  Stir until everything has melted and combined.

Pour the chocolate-lemon mixture over the cereal and stir until the cereal is evenly coated.

Place the coated cereal in a gallon zip-top bag.  Add the powdered sugar and toss until the cereal is coated.

Spread on a large cookie sheet covered in foil and let dry (or start eating them like we did!).

Headphones

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Today, daddy took one of his headphones and put it in little man’s ear. After a couple moments of confusion, little man broke out into a grin. Little man then started grabbing daddy’s headphone and putting it in his ear, smiling every time. Daddy, realizing what he’d just taught the boy, suddenly groaned, “Oh no…”

I don’t think my husband will ever again be able to listen to a podcast by himself if little man is around!

El Accidente

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Lat night, we got into an accident on I-5 as we were heading south to go see the festive lights and such in Bellevue. We were rear-ended while coming to a stop and hit the car in front of us. Thankfully, little man was asleep when it happened, rear-facing in his car seat, and was laughing and playing with the accident response folks minutes after it all happened. I, however, shook from shock for awhile. I was rear-ended a few years ago, so I got to re-live some of that accident during this experience.

A couple amusing things from the experience:

A.  Apparently, my first reaction to being hit while on the road is to cry out an annoyed/irritated, “Hey!” I was rear-ended around 5 years ago, during which my first reaction was to yell out, “Hey!” as I was pushed across an intersection.

B.  Rich and I were first concerned about little man. Rich got out of the car and walked towards the driver of the car that hit us yelling, “Hey! We have a baby in the car!!” as though knowing that would have stopped the accident from occuring in the first place. I was screaming awhile, scared that little man had been hurt. Once Rich showed me little man was okay, I started screaming and shaking for other reasons.

C.  This would possibly have been a fine opportunity for some choice language to be used. However, when the driver of the car (a woman) behind us came to see if everyone was all right, I turned and started screaming at her, “You FREAKING…!!!” I stopped in part because Rich started calming me down, and in part because I couldn’t think of a single mean word/name to use! (And I really did scream the word “freaking” at her. It was the only word I could think to use.)

I had neck pain from being hit, and because of the prior accident, decided to be safe and get checked at the hospital. I got strapped to a backboard, neck and back immobilized. Thankfully, there was no serious damage. As I lay strapped on the board in the hospital, I decided to start counting blessings.

A.  Grateful for having kept little man rear-facing in his car seat after his first birthday. We saw no point to turning him around, since he wasn’t making a fuss about it. I kept thinking last night how grateful I was he was literally laughing and playing with emergency staff minutes after the collision. Having taken the force feet-first, he didn’t even seem to be sore later in the evening!

B.  Grateful I started weaning little man from nursing so much. A week ago, he was nursing every few hours. It made his waiting at the hospital much easier on all of us, including our friends who came to help watch him while I was being examined.

B.  Grateful we already fought the sleep battles. He slept through the night before, and slept through the night after. I feel like God gave us a little tender mercy of rest right when we needed it.

C.  Grateful for a second set of wheels. It means we can still go home for Christmas.

D.  Grateful that, even without the second car, we live super close to a few grocery stores, a pharmacy, and even places to eat if we wanted to eat out.

E.  Grateful for the friends who came to help us last night both at the hospital and at home. I know there are many more who stand ready to help, too.

F.  Grateful for my heroic husband who made sure we were ok, took control of the situation, talking to emergency responders, giving info, calming me down, and was just such a rock through it all. My husband is my hero.

G.  Grateful for insurance. So, so, SO grateful for insurance.

The list goes on, but those things have made the top of my list in the past 24 hours.

Bottom line, I’m grateful for a healthy family and wonderful friends this Christmas. So grateful!

A Sewing Crisis

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After tonight’s trunk or treat, I found myself wanting to do more sewing. While shopping for the costume items, I had seen a cute knit that I fell in love with and had to get to make a skirt. The last skirt I made was pre-pregnancy; it’s been awhile!

So, I grabbed what I thought was the pattern I wanted and started. As it turned out, it was a new pattern that I had transfered to pattern material but never used. Thankfully, there was enough material!

With a brief intermission for feeding little man and getting him to sleep, the skirt making didn’t take as long as I expected. I was almost done and just needed elastic for the waistband when I realized I had no elastic on hand!

What does a girl do when there isn’t elastic for the skirt currently being made, and it’s too late to grab some at the fabric store?

Well, if you’re a little crazed like I am, you go rifling through your closet for another item in your closet to sacrifice for its elastic! I had two options – a skirt or a pair of pajama bottoms. The pajama bottoms needed some extra work anyway, so out came the elastic!

Note: while when starting the project, I anticipated not finishing in time to wear to church the next day, never, during the great elastic hunt, did waiting until Monday to go buy more elastic enter my mind.

Happily, the skirt was completed – just in time to realize the top I originally envisioned wearing with it was somewhere in the pile of clothes to be ironed! Thankfully, crisis averted: there are plenty of other choices currently in the closet already!

Ugly Sweater Pumpkin Patch Excursion – 2011

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This year, our friends invited us along to their annual Ugly Sweater Pumpkin Patch excursion!  The idea is simple: find an ugly sweater, and wear it in public at a pumpkin patch!  Friends, the sweater you see me wearing in the photos is one I’ve actually owned for a number of years.  Those who knew me from church when I was a teen will probably remember it.  It was perfect for this event!  My rainboots even coordinated! I was excited for not only the whole idea of the ugly sweater excursion, but the chance to go to a corn maze and pumpkin patch – both things I’ve actually never done until today!
Us with our friends, the creators of this occasion, in our ugly sweater glory!
Note my rainboots, this will be important for the upcoming story.
Does this count as the “family pumpkin patch photo”?
Racing ducks!

These piggies weren’t even a full 24 hours old when we saw them!
We went to The Farm in Snohomish, Washington, where we saw ducks race, piglets that weren’t even a full day old, and got to have fun racing ducks ourselves (rubber duckies, but it was still awesome!)
The corn maze was in the shape of the state of Washington.  We rode along the bottom of the state, then were dropped off in Idaho to enter the maze.  We started in Clarkston, then visited Vantage, the Tri-Cities, Ellensburg, Bickleton, and other great Washington cities.  The maze was pretty awesome, complete with highway markers, road signs, and even road closures (I-90 was closed in two places!).  My rainboots proved quite useful traipsing through the mud!
We ended up exiting the maze a little early to the pumpkin patch.  While choosing pumpkins, a teenaged girl with her friends exclaimed, “Hey! You have the same boots as I do!”  My back had been towards her when she made the comment.  I turned around, saw that she did have the same boots as I was wearing, and said, “Hey! I do!  You have great taste!”
That’s when she saw the sweater. And the scarves.  And the hat.  And little man in his outfit. (See picture below.)
Her and her friends’ looks were priceless.
I simply moved on, found my hubby and our friends, and shared the story.  What was even more awesome was that it seemed this girl and I were destined to keep showing up at the same spots together until we left the farm!  I kind of felt sorry for the girl, who will probably never be able to wear those boots again.  Or at least, not without a quick vision of the bejeweled sweater!

Jury Duty 2010

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A friend of mine posted this link to a video recap of the case that I had served on as a juror in 2010.

I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything online about the fact I served on the jury for this case, or for any case, for that matter.  But, I did, and the experience was one I would never trade for anything, but would never want to repeat, either.  I gained a profound respect for the United States’ justice system during the course of the trial and will never listen to another news report about a big case the same way again.

There are a number of other impacts this experience had on my life, but suffice it to say, it was definitely life-changing.