Sewing: Modern Farm Tablecloth (and Mitered Band Tutorial)

More Modern Farm party prep... I don't know how I got the idea but I couldn't resist doing a large size of these cute farm silhouettes as appliques on a tablecloth. Animals "grazing" along the sides, and...

 

...tractor, barn and silo on the ends.

I have made tablecloths before, the easy way, by simply hemming the edges, but this time I took white twill fabric (part of the Sew Classics canvas line at Joann) and added a contrast band of green (quilting cotton in "Bamboo" from Joann) with mitered corners. It was such a mind-bender to figure out so I created a tutorial for anyone else interested (crazy enough?) and so that I don't have to figure it out if I ever want to attempt it again. Click on the link below for the details.

I used HeatN'Bond and contrasting stitching to add the appliques to the tablecloth. I think these Modern Farm appliques would be so fun on a sweatshirt, place mat or even tote. The Modern Farm appliques in this large size are available in my Etsy shop here. 

Click below to view the tutorial for adding a mitered contrast band to a tablecloth. The first step for me was putting the baby in the Baby Bjorn (yes, it is possible to sew that way) and getting my toddler to take a nap!

Sewing: Luxe Lovey Tutorial

I was invited to be a Creative Guest on UCreate last month and developed this tutorial for the occassion. Because I am a "finisher," meaning that the satisfaction of crossing off a project on my list (and posting it this blog) far outweighs the enjoyment of the process, I love things that can be done quickly. This Luxe Lovey is just such a project. It's perfect for an assembly line approach to making a bunch at once. And great to have on hand for baby gifts. I'm providing the full tutorial here today.

When my daughter, Scarlett, was born, a friend gave her a "lovey." I wasn't familiar with the concept, just thought it was a cute, portable, baby-sized blanket. But she explained that the mother is supposed to sleep a couple nights with the lovey to imbue it with her scent, and then give it to baby so that baby will be comforted by it when mommy is in the other room sleeping, or away for an hour or two. So it's soft and cuddly and portable, and smells like mom--perfect!

I love that these minky and satin loveys are luxurious. A little bit of luxury goes such a long way! And if you make a batch of them the price per lovey is scandalously low--such a nice secret for a luxe baby gift.

 

The potential combinations are endless, but I picked Retro Dot in bubblegum pink and Dimple Dot in white for one lovey, and ...

 

...Minkee Tween Fresh Flowers in mandarin orange and Minkee Tween Cheetah in mandarin orange for the other.  This would be a fun group project--split the bill to buy minky for a multitude of different combinations and go home with a variety.

 

To view the tutorial click the link below:

Cooking: First Applesauce

 

We have a beautiful (Gravenstein I believe) apple tree in our back yard and it suddenly started bearing fruit about four years ago after years and years with no apples. Now we have more than we can handle. The tree thinks it's harvest all summer, dropping apples to the ground, and sadly we rarely seem to get to them before the bugs or lawnmower do. This year we've tried to do better and have started early with a couple family apple harvests.

Audrey has really enjoyed being lifted into the tree to snap an apple from the branch and always wants to relay the apples we pick from our hands to the red bucket we used to collect them.

I made a batch of apple sauce (my first of the season) the way I really love it: chunky with the skins on and with lemon juice a bit of sugar and some cinnamon. I honestly tastes like Christmas or apple pie.

I didn't use a recipe, but in a big, deep pot, I put about an inch of water in the bottom of the pan, added a generous amount of lemon juice (I don't know--a bunch of tablespoons probably), added maybe a cup of white sugar and then cooked on medium high until it bubbled. Then I turned the heat to medium low to avoid burning, and stirring occasionally, waited until the apples became tender and fell apart, incorporating the liquid. Yum!

 

I'm going to try and freeze this and then thaw to serve at upcoming birthday brunch. We'll see if that works--haven't tried it before, but I will have too many other things to do at the last minute for her party and would like to have some applesauce to go along with our farm/apple harvest theme.

 

Sewing: Modern Farm Birthday Dress

Phew! One more thing finished. I have to laugh at my rollercoaster evaluation of projects as they progress. I go from thinking something will be quick and finished in no time at all to feeling like I'll never find the time to work on it again.  So I try to prioritize. After getting the invitations out for Scarlett's second birthday party I started on her birthday dress. Every party needs a new dress! And the effort just happened to coincide nicely with KCWC, so I felt I was in good company trying to find an hour or two to move this project forward.

I had a few ideas for Scarlett's second birthday dress, including designing my own fabric, but I decided on applique farm animals as something more achievable in the time frame. I love the result! I don't do a lot of applique but once I started thinking about it I came up with more ideas than I'll have time to execute for the party, so I may be in the Modern Farm mode for a bit afterwards.

I have wanted to make this dress for some time. It would be cute in so many fabrics--I chose this natural linen which has the most gorgeous hand. I love linen and think it is just fine for it to be wrinkled! I also went with fabric covered buttons, which I prefer for most things.

I almost made this for Scarlett for her first birthday, but opted for something simpler last year. It's always nice to use one of the vintage patterns I've purchased--I am such a sucker for them. This one didn't even have the envelope, which is too bad because the pattern illustration would be darling in color. I love this artist smock look! Too cute!

It would have been fun to put Scarlett in this dress and get some photos but she has been under the weather so those photos will have to wait...

It was fun designing these appliques. Cutting them wasn't as fun, but I used HeatN'Bond, which made it much easier to cut the fabric.  I think these would be darling in a small calico print too.

I wasn't quite sure how to stitch the appliques--zig zag, blanket stitch, stitch by hand.... Not surprisingly I decided to machine stitch (a time saver I thought) and used a straight stitch so as not to muck up the detail in the silhouettes. Though it may have been faster, it was a bit tricky to see through the sewing foot but it improved as I went and didn't take as long as I feared.

 

Now the question: with bow or without the bow? The bow makes it look more like a vintage artist's smock, which I like. But the dress certainly doesn't need the bow and the bishop's yoke with peter pan collar is so sweet on its own. I'll have to take some votes... 

 

 

Painting: Three Little Birds in a Nest

It's funny, because when I started this painting, a little over a month ago, I wasn't even thinking about the oh-so-obvious: three little birds in a nest. Maybe because my third little bird wasn't yet in the nest. Now that I realize what I've done I like it even more!

Some paintings are just for fun, and this is one of those. After working in such a focused, and at times anxious, way on Scarlett's portrait I wanted to do something I didn't care about so much.

I'd thought for some time that I'd like a painting of a bird in a nest for Scarlett's room and hoped to be able to just knock it out. That doesn't always work out (case in point) but this time it went pretty quickly. I found a few pictures of robins in nests online and used them as a reference. I always paint from observation, even if I take significant liberties.

In addition to this turning out to be as quick as I'd hoped, I finished working on it this afternoon (after finally getting little Tess down for a solid nap) with my oldest, Audrey, painting on her easel next to me. So much fun! We'll have to do that some more. It's good time with her and it allows me some rare painting time.

Can't wait to get this framed and hanging in Scarlett's room.