Last night Caleb came out into the living room carrying one of his small chairs.
   M: Caleb, what are you doing?
   C: Mommy, I want to show you how much I love you!
   M: Ok…
   C: (climbing up on the chair and reaching as high as he can) I love you this much!
   M: Wow, that’s a lot! I love you too. How about we put the chair back now?
   C: I love you all the way to the moon and back!
   M: Well I love you all the way to the sun and back.
   C: Mommy, we can’t go to the sun because it’s too hot and we’ll get burned.

Caleb has been bugging me for a little while now to teach him to sew. On the surface, this is adorable, and oh golly gee, he wants to spend more time with Mommy! And wow, he wants to learn about what Mommy is doing! But when you really think about it, the 4-year-old kamikaze approach to life is not what I would call well-suited to the sewing room.

I’ve been working so hard on getting things ready for the Etsy store and other projects that I feel like I’ve been neglecting my mother/son bonding time. So this weekend I relented.

Our first project together was  this little stuffed felt heart.  I had to prop up the pedal so he could reach it.  Originally I thought he could sit on my lap and I could control the pedal, but I think getting to use the pedal was part of the appeal of sewing!  He had an amazing amount of control over the pedal, though.  You know, at age 4, those synapses are still building their neural pathways…when I said “stop” he would keep going for a few more stitches…but he never went fast enough that I got scared he would sew through his finger (One of my biggest fears in teaching a new person to sew).  And he seemed like he really, legitimately wanted to learn to sew, which is more than I can say for other people who have asked me for lessons.  I showed him how to leave a hole open on the edge and flip the heart inside out, how to stuff it and how to stitch it closed.

In hindsight I should have attached a little loop of ribbon to it and called it an ornament, but I didn’t.  It’s a little bit of a funny shape and so the 4-year-old boy that he is decided it was a boomerang!  He took it to school today so I’m sure to never see it again – hence the quickie cellphone picture.  At least I have something to treasure.  Of course, he was not happy about the picture either…

Today, Caleb and I made this angry birds pillow.  Actually, I made the pillow and mostly he whined.  I thought he’d be excited about it since he loooOOOoooves Angry Birds, and he was…until it came down to doing some work.  Admittedly, the project was a little beyond the capabilities of a 4 year old…especially a four year old who doesn’t like to get glue on his hands. (Who the heck raised this kid? Not me, I was never that fastidious.)

It’s simple really. No sewing needed!  Cut two large circles – one from teal and one from red jersey.  Cut slits around the edges of the circles, about 3 inches long and no wider than an inch.  If you don’t cut them at the same time, be sure you cut the same number of pieces!  Cut the face pieces out of felt and attach them using a good quality fabric glue.  Knot the fringe pieces together, teal to red, and stuff the pillow before you’ve finished tying all of the fringe together. Voilà! Angry Birds Pillow!

My friend, Valerie, got married this weekend on the beautiful grounds of the Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg, VA. Helping her devise items for the wedding was quite a treat. This was one of our “concoctions” so to speak.

We found this amazing vintage washstand at Chartreuse & Co, a monthly vintage tag sale up in Fredrick, MD. There’ll be a post on that soon too.  Inside the upper bowl are little bottles of bubbles, and in the bottom, flowers floating in water.  The side pockets were designed to hold the programs using all materials I had on hand – linen from my old kitchen curtains, some embroidered linen upholstery samples that worked with the colors and floral designs on the invitations and brown grosgrain ribbon.  Pretty, no?

P.S. This is a To-Do list project.

Welcome to the first in my series of holiday gift posts! I handed these cute little pouches out last night to our daycare providers during their holiday party.  I wish I could take credit for the design, but I can’t – they came from Quilting Arts Magazine special Gifts issue (2009/2010).  The pattern was designed by Margarete Steinhauer and appears on page 132 of the mag (almost all the way at the back).  The pouches are circular, drawstring, lined with coordinating fabrics, and contain 8 small pockets to store pieces of jewelry; or anything else that you might want to store. They fit perfectly in a gift box for a standard-sized mug.

Drafting a pattern from instructions in a magazine is always a little fiddly. I needed to be able to draw 4 different circle sizes and I do not have a compass; even if I did, I doubt I would have had one that would make a large enough circle for this tote.  Instead, I opted for my measurements to be a teeny bit off and ended up using a dinner plate for the outer circle, a largish mixing bowl for the drawstring channel, a pasta bowl for the inner/pocket circle and finally, a tiny mis en plase bowl for the base circle.  The bowls I used for my inner circle and my base circle were exactly right, the outer circle and drawstring channel were slightly off.  Luckily, this did not cause any problems with the final outcome.

Jewelry Pouch – inside
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

I made seven of these little pouches; the first two as a prototype – once those were done, and I understood how the pattern was supposed to fit together and work, it was easy enough to throw together the other five via the Assembly Line method. I had all of the awesome matching fabrics on hand in my stash, and even the little bits of heavy interfacing needed for the base. The only thing I DID have to buy was the rat tail for the drawstrings. I am absolutely positive that I have a large spool of rat tail somewhere in my sewing room, but it beats me where I put it.  I did not buy enough rat tail so that the pouches will lie flat when opened – I didn’t think it was necessary and I didn’t like the idea that the drawstrings would be so long when the pouches were closed up tight. Overall, I think I would be happy to get one of these as a gift…I really hope the teachers are too!

But I know you want to hear more than that, now don’t you?  Like, where the heck I have been for the last 5-ish months? And what’s been going on in the world of hasty quilting? And what even happened to that crazy art show I was taking part in?  Well, I’m here to answer all of that. Just sit on back and make yourselves comfortable.

At the end of August we visited the beach and to make a very long story short, I broke my leg. If you know me in person, you’ve certainly heard all of the gory details and whining and complaining already. I had surgery to put things back together and although it was my left leg, leaving my sewing foot free, I just couldn’t manage sewing for a while. I crocheted a little bit from my place on the couch, but other than that, not much crafting was going on. I finally managed some sewing in the form of a Halloween costume for my little man.

That doesn’t explain what happened from June to August, though, I hear you cry! Well…I was occupied with Artomatic; then I was just occupied. The weather was just too beautiful, the sun was too shiny, the days were too warm. In other words, I have no excuse. Maybe I just needed a wee vacation from the flurry of sewing that lead up to Artomatic. Unless you REALLY want to psychoanalyze my brain, we’ll never know.

So that brings us up to now. I decided, in a wave of medical bills related to the broken leg, and a fit of insanity, that we needed to spend as little money as possible on the holidays this year. To that end, I am sewing, sewing, sewing myself silly on Christmas gifts. This unfortunately means that I can’t tell you much about what is going on until after the holidays because some of the gifts I am making are for folks who read this blog. I do promise to post what I can before the holidays, plus a few holdovers from the summer that I never got around to.  Hang in there, the sewing hiatus is over!

Before I forget, in other important news – I moved my etsy shop from wonderlandquilts.etsy.com to hastyquilter.etsy.com. If you had me bookmarked, please update your bookmarks. And if you didn’t have my bookmarked, then go and bookmark me. In the new location. *natch*

Stuffed alien guy
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

I know, I know, you thought I only ever made quilts anymore!  Well that’s just not the case.  For her birthday, my friend, Helene, asked me to make my version of an UglyDoll.  This is he!  I actually drew out the pattern so I can recreate him if I decide to.  And I may…with some adjustments. 

He’s made from lime green terrycloth and some felt.  The terry cloth had a touch of stretch, so I pressed some woven interfacing onto the back before cutting it out.  That worked out nicely.  The eyes, horns, ”claws” and belly button (which you can’t see in this picture) are bits of felt.  He’s stuffed firmly but still soft.  The feet & belly button are needle-sculpted.

While i thought the head shape would be cool, I think it needs some adjustment.  More rounded would do it some good.  Also, the arms are stuff too firmly so they stick straight up all of the time, and I’d like him to have more than 2 claws.  I should have clipped the felt to make the claws AFTER sewing it into the end of the arms.  I’m not sure that would have worked either, but at least it would have given me more opportunity for adjustment later.

They’ve named him pearE because he looks like a pear.  H. has to fight with her kids to keep him as hers.  I guess that is something of a ringing endorsement!  She’s already got him guzzling booze and doing laundry for her like a real member of the family.

So last night, the fabulous K came over and brought all of her arty supplies with her, for the purpose of making wee little shrines. I made two & she left me with stuff to make more.

The stamps are from junque‘s “Little Altars Everywhere” set.

Oh hooray! Now I have MORE crafty craziness to make!

For more pics, start here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyson_olander/3189403179/