So, three or four long days later, I am so much happier and inspired working in there, and I’ve gotten to sew some new things for the house! My favorite project so far is my beautiful new ironing board cover – made from a Vera vintage sheet using this tutorial from Sew Much Good. My old plain-blue cover looked awful and crummy (I couldn’t bring myself to take a before photo, ugh) and this one is so pretty and simple and feels so right in my sewing room. It makes me happy every time I look over at it. Yay!

This is my 2013 craft sketchbook/journal from Ex Libris Anonymous. I LOVE it. I staple fabric swatches or pin paper patterns right to the pages and record all my notes and measurements and extras in there. It’s really nice for projects like this – when I used a great tutorial but made some of my own tweaks that I want to remember.

Here’s what I did differently: I cut my Vera sheet using my ironing board as a pattern the same way that Sew Much Good recommends, but then backed it with fusible batting for padding and sturdiness. The sheet was very filmy and needed some structure. That worked perfectly. Then, instead of 1/4″, I used 3/8″ flat elastic (which is what I had on hand) and instead of cutting and folding my own bias tape, I used hem facing (the flat 2″ wide bias tape you can buy at the fabric store). I needed about a package and a half. This was super easy to thread through, and a very sturdy casing.

The only other thing I did differently was to stitch the bias channel on about 1/3 of the way around, then backstitch and take it off the machine entirely (instead of pulling the elastic while it was still on the sewing machine). I pulled the elastic so it gathered nicely, then double-pinned it in place there. I sewed to the 2/3 point, repeated the same gathering method and double-pinned, and finished with a third round at the end point. Then I eased the cover over the ironing board, took out all the pins, adjusted the elastic gathering so it was nice and even all the way around, and tied a good knot to secure it. Done!

This was a super fun, fast project and I’m especially happy I could make it all with things I already had (the vintage sheet, fusible batting, hem facing, and elastic). I love the sheet, but it cost $3 at a thrift store and was a full size, measuring something like 80″ by 90″ – so when the cover inevitably gets spilled on or fused to, I can let it go without grieving that I ruined something precious or expensive. Plus, I still have a ton left, even after finishing this large-scale project and lining the reversible rainbow dress I made for Pearl for Halloween. I’m glad that these blue flowers can live on in some other sewing projects.

I hope your 2013 crafts have been fun so far! This has been a good stretch of house projects for me and I’m so grateful to have the time to work on them. I just finished sewing a couple of super simple tablecloths and cloth napkins, worked my way through most of my mending pile (FINALLY), and I’m working on some new Pendleton curtains, too.

As Diane noted in her recent review, Mend It Better is arranged like a textbook, with her suggested techniques neatly organized by chapter. There are tons of photos and tips for undertaking a new mending project, which is also a nice touch.

I am very happy to have contributed one* of the 22 mending projects to the book, and along with my contributor copy, Storey Publishing sent me an extra book to give away at our Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting this week. I asked Kristin a few questions about mending, especially patchwork projects, and here are her thoughts…

Do you have any favorite decorative stitches for covering a seam or line in a mended patchwork project?

I know it’s so bland, but I really love the whip stitch or overcast stitch. Just going to town and completely covering it, kind of sloppy, in a bright color!

What’s your favorite mending or embellishment use for binding tape?

I love using it as straps, or sometimes a little accent in a seam, like small piping. So cute!

Have you ever mended a larger quilt or patchwork project? Any general tips for that?

I’ve done some light mending on a quilt I made – one of my first sewing projects – just some basic patchwork. I’m really excited to be embarking on a huge mending adventure this year: restoring a quilt my husband’s grandma made. She passed away a long time ago and it’s in tatters. He doesn’t remember her, so it’s his only connection to her. It’s going to be one of those “for the love of it” projects because mending it will probably take more time than completely making a new one!

Here are a few tips for mending quilts:
1. DO NOT wash it before you mend it. It will just make the damage worse.
2. Unlike darning where you want to stretch the fabric taut, if you stretch the quilt in a hoop before making the basic structural repair, it will actually cause the fabric to ripple when you take it off, or stretch the tear even further. You’ll want to mend it while it’s flat, then repair any quilting stitches in the hoop only after the structure is sound.
3. If you can, work on a large smooth surface with the quilt completely flat. The kitchen floor works great!
4. Sometimes you won’t be able to match the pattern exactly when patching, if that’s the case, think accent vs “sloppy”. One of my teachers used to always say “do it or don’t do it”. So if you can’t match, make it look intentional. Bold contrasting colors can be really fun!

- – - – - –

I think quilters, sewists, lovers of vintage, upcyclers, and wardrobe-refashioners will all love this book. This pieced-vintage-fabric skirt hem idea Kristin included is my favorite project… so adorable!

I’ll be giving away a copy of Mend It Better at our PMQG meeting at 7 pm this Thursday, April 19 at PNCA. We’ll be meeting in room S1 upstairs in the Stagecraft Building right across the street from the main PNCA building (where we’ve met the last two months as well). Hope to see you there!

*Here’s my little project! Thanks so much again, Kristin!

I love it so much. Michelle and I headed over to Artemisia and I picked up some tiny, pretty plants that will hopefully slip through the narrow bottleneck. (I also got to go to Pambiche, the park, Bar Avignon, and Ringside. It was a pretty good birthday!)

Way back in the freewheeling crafty 70s, my parents made a bottle garden for my grandparents in a giant green-glass solvent bottle from my grandfather’s physics lab, and I loved it. I’ve always dreamed about making one myself. Approximately three million tiny, small and medium terrariums later, here I am, trying to figure out how the heck to pull it off – my mom says it’s pretty challenging! Luckily, I have some allies in the form of fabulous vintage craft books…

This is from The Family Creative Workshop (Volume 2: Beachcombing to Bottle Gardens). Love this whole series so much. (I snapped photos of all the pages in the whole Bottle Gardens entry that are here in my flickr set if you want to see them.)

I also have a copy of Sunset’s Gifts You Can Make. I really wish more vintage craft books had color photos, but this is a fantastic book, and I’m so happy that they included bottle gardens as an idea for presents.

If you’re looking for either of these books, here’s what the covers look like… in glorious color!

Andrew found the bottle here, on Division in Southeast Portland. I asked the owner how often he sees these giant bottles, and he said they’re pretty rare, but this is the place I’d keep an eye on if you want one too. Would love to add some other giant-bottle sources if you have any!

My other birthday gift from Andrew was this beautiful Oregon myrtlewood cutting board, made by Coast Range Woodworks on Etsy. It’s really awesome too.

So, hopefully my next bottle garden post will be lots of photos of a beautiful miniature world of lush plants… or maybe just a list of what not to do when it comes to plants and bottlenecks. Either way, I have a hardware-store shopping list ready to go and I hope I can get started on it this week!

Also coming up – just wanted to mention that I’m teaching a scrap projects class at the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store this Saturday from 2-4! We will be making two projects, a sunglasses case and a patchwork draft snake, and all the materials are included for $25. PMQG members get $5 off any class at Pendleton, too…

… and Michelle and Daniela are teaching some great classes too (scroll down).

PS: Thanks to everyone who came to our January meeting last week! Petra wrote up a lovely meeting recap over here at the PMQG blog. We are so excited to do some fun things this year… we have an all-day sew coming up at Fabric Depot on February 4 (9am-8pm) and we’ll be announcing some good surprises for the February meeting soon, too!

and another double-layer one in all the same fabric to fit our vintage (1950) set-in front doorway. A single fitted draft snake just kept rolling away from the bottom of the door, so adding a longer base kept it sitting neatly in place.

Some basics: You can use any sturdy fabric you like for these. I got all my wool fabric at the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store here in Portland, but you could also use home dec fabrics of any type or reclaimed denim.

I’d stay away from whites and light colors that might show dirt quickly. My bright colored one hasn’t had any problems, especially since wool is easy to brush clean, but the darker one seems totally stain-proof.

For this project, your basic formula is to start with a single or patchworked/pieced length of fabric that’s 7 inches x (the width of your door + 1 inch – so, you’d cut fabric 37″ wide to fit a 36″-wide door). And you’ll use a 1/2″ seam allowance throughout.

Here’s a super simple tutorial. I’m a low-fi type at heart, and ended up writing/drawing these steps on paper with a Sharpie instead of trying to do any kind of cool digital illustration. Hope you don’t mind…

Step 1: Cutting.

Patchwork variation… easy!

Step 2: Pin, sew, and stuff.

Step 3: Pin and hand-stitch up the open end.

Double draft snake variation!

Please let me know if you have any questions about the tutorial, and I would love to see your draft snake if you sew one. It’s gotten so cold around here, and I’m so glad to have these little guys guarding the front and back doors… seriously, in an hour or so, you’ll have a couple made and can finish the rest of your holiday crafting in cozy, non-drafty comfort! Or hey, you can stop by a friend’s house, casually measure the door, and make this as a surprise holiday gift.

One last thing: I’m teaching my Woolen Cross Pillow class at the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store on Saturday, December 17 from 10am-12:30pm ($40 includes all materials, plus extra fabric to bring home for a 2nd pillow). Portland Modern Quilt Guild members now get $5 off any Woolen Mill Store class, plus 10% off any purchases at the shop, so be sure to show your PMQG card to get both discounts!

Michelle is also teaching some great classes at the WMS this Sunday, December 11 – Stuffed Penguin (11am-1pm, $25) and Wool Nesting Baskets (2-4pm, $40). Check out her post for photos and more details!

Speaking of garden stuff, here’s how things look for mine now that we’re in week 2. Not a ton of progress, but the plants look pretty happy, so I’m happy too. My herbs (the row of containers behind the bed) are mostly doing awesome, but I managed to kill a brand-new dill start in just a couple of days. Oh well.

I also have another gardening how-to up over at CRAFT: – some simple recycled garden tricks to try. Personally, I would love to walk into Portland Nursery and snap up all kinds of new things more often, but reusing things I already have around the house is a frugal (and easy) alternative, and leaves more cash for say, fabric. If you’re interested, the piece is right here! I’ll be posting one more round of gardening stuff this week with a giveaway, too, which I’m super excited about.

Dipping back into recipes and cooking, I wanted to share one of my favorite things for planning meals and grocery shopping: this great shopping list I found in Kate Pruitt’s DIY column at Design*Sponge. I printed a bunch of them (there are three options, each a little different, and this one works best for me) and start one every week as I decide what I want to cook, and note what we’re running out of. This one (decorated by Pearl, in red), is a mix of basics to get and stuff I’d need for these recipes: cheesecake brownies, pigs in blankets, vegetarian posole, asparagus farro risotto (from Edible Portland), and spring minestrone (from this month’s Sunset).

And back to crafts with Pearl, we collaborated on a fun little project yesterday! We hosted a crafty baby shower (which was my excuse to bake those pigs in blankets and cheesecake brownies) and I made the project on the left, and she dreamed up the one on the right. Andrew asked her what we should put on the bib for her new little friend-to be, and she said, “A BLUE bib!” so that’s what we did. She designed, Andrew cut and I appliqued… doesn’t get much more blue bib than that!

A few more things…

•Crafty Wonderland is coming up on May 1 + 2! They are looking for volunteers to help out in general, and to teach crafts at the event, in exchange for fun crafty gifts. You can sign up here to help! And in other exciting news, superstar Mark Montano is going to team up with DIY Lounge for a free craftathon at the sale — you won’t want to miss that!

•Jeff of Portland Haiti Container Relief announced a little while ago that the two giant shipping containers full of food, water, supplies, and good wishes from Portland have arrived safely and Lifeline has been distributing it all – wonderful news. Thanks so much to those who donated so generously! There’s also another fundraiser/event coming up soon too (a documentary at the Bagdad to raise money for 500 dome tents) if you’re interested.

•Another update for everyone who supported our efforts to get the BPA ban passed here in Oregon: I’m very happy to pass on that both the House and the Senate have introduced new federal legislation, the Safe Chemicals Act, this week! If you have a minute and would like to sign a petition of support, that would be awesome. You can find the petition here and a few updates about the Safe Chemicals Act here. I was so disappointed that our state’s bill failed, but strong federal laws would be even better.

Okay, I’ll be back with that giveaway soon! I hope Monday is treating you well. I have to say that this has been a good week so far, we are happy here in Portland!

The e-book includes all these how-to projects:

Bib-Style Statement Necklace, by Heather Mann
Crocheted Ribbon & Bead Necklace, by Heather Mann
Knit + Stitch Zipper Pouch, by Lee Meredith
Seed Bead Hairpins, by Teresa Sullivan
Dress Up A Dish Towel, by Diane Gilleland
Felt Halloween Bag, by Joelle Groendes
Cupcake Applique, by Christine Blystone
Jersey Doily Scarf, by Bridget Benton
and
Fabric + Button Pincushion, by me!

We’re so happy to share these projects with everyone — all we ask in return is that you support your local independent craft stores. They need you!

And if you make any of the projects, we’d love to see them — please add them to the Knittn Kitten flickr pool! You can also see the photos of our projects there, along with plenty of other vintage and crafty Kitten delights.

*Diane says: When people click on the ebook graphic, the download should start automatically. Some web browsers will display the PDF immediately. For others, the customer will have to look in his or her Downloads folder and click on the file there to open it.

Our garden is kind of freaking out, in the best way. The combination of nice steady south-side sun, decent rain now and then, and some plain good luck has turned our formerly teeny snap peas, Red Russian kale and collard greens into giants! I took this photo on Friday right after I put in the tomatoes and peppers (at the back), exactly four weeks after I planted these little guys.

Day 1:

Day 28:

kale:

collards:

Yay! We’re really happy about it. I’ve had a gray thumb (that’s a charitable description, actually) for years and it’s really fun to see the garden come along after last year’s in the back yard didn’t really like us much (probably something to do with the late planting, unexpectedly crappy soil, over-shadiness, and total amateur approach in general). We’re going to pick some greens for the first time today!

On a totally different front, I just did a jewelry project for CraftStylish that I wanted to share over here.

I haven’t had time to make much jewelry lately (nor wear any, with my quick-grabbing toddler on the case) so this was fun — I took apart an old necklace I never wore and turned it into a necklace and earrings set.

Maybe I’ll wear it while we’re eating our fresh greens…

p.s. thanks for the nice comments and emails, I am going to whip up some teeny terrarium kits and offer them up later this week!

They have thousands of varieties in dozens of greenhouses,

and Ms. Van Veen herself took the time to help me find the one and only baby Pink Pearl rhododendron they had — and for only $5. It was an amazing experience and I am eager to go back soon!

So we planted our Pink Pearl this week! It’s tiny now, but we have it on good authority that it will get big. It’s already started blossoming in just a few days outside.

And our garden has been happy too! It went from this

to this in just three weeks!

The little kale starts I had in recycled can mini-planters love it out there. I’ve already had to rearrange the rows to give them more space. They have grown from the size of this one (in the middle, maybe two or three inches tall)

to at least five times as big — this one has happily taken over the corner of an 8 x 4 raised bed.

And speaking of recycled-can planters, I made some more to decorate our backyard for Pearl’s birthday, too!

This time I used industrial-sized cans instead of teeny-tiny ones and made simple hanging flower baskets. I filled them with trailing ivy geranium starts (which are on sale for 50¢ each at Fred Meyer if you’re also in the Northwest) in three shades of pink.

I left them totally plain except for some sparkly beads mixed into the wires, which I thought looked nice peeking out from behind the leaves and flowers. You could also paint them or embellish them with beads, buttons, or anything else you like!

If you want to make some too, my tutorial is over here. The set of 4 cost $6 to make total, for the flowers (not including things I had around the house — cans, wire, potting soil, beads, and a hammer and nail). After imagining spending $30 apiece for the pretty hanging baskets I keep seeing around, I was really happy with how mine turned out for just $1.50 each. I’ve already gone back to Fred’s to get more ivy geraniums to make a set of three more for our front porch, too!

I do have one thing to show before I crawl back into bed: a little flower-embellishment project to resparkle a plain vintage handbag over at CraftStylish. I took some assorted rhinestones in two different colors

and mixed them into a floral pattern in the spirit of my favorite handbag designer ever, Enid Collins.

It is also a bit like the Blossom Book project from Bead Simple (same color mix — I love those deep-gold rhinestones) and a bit like the Treasure Box I made for CRAFT: 05 (yes, same center rhinestones again! I am a creature of habit, I guess.).

I like it!

Okay, I’m heading back to bed for now… I need to rest up so I can cheer on the Blazers in Game 5 tomorrow night.

I think it turned out pretty cute.

I wrote it up for CraftStylish: how to recycle baby food jars into a teeny-tiny terrarium and a mix-it-yourself chai tea kit for good measure.

And of course I had to work buttons in there somehow.

Don’t forget to check out Jenny’s original post for all the terrarium-making details!