F is for Fabric

F was going to be for flannel, except I deleted the picture off of my phone. This is a potential small quilt. I think that I cut the squares out when I was pregnant. LaLa is 3 now. Tuesday, I sewed the squares into tuples containing one print square and one solid (either lavender or purple). I had this whole scheme of how I wanted the top to be, but seeing it all laid out (remember I designed this three years ago) [I just looked at the time stamps, and it was 5/31/2004], and having looked at other stuff more recently, I think I like the arrangement in the picture. When I was putting it together, I got out photoshop and put together a block and twirled it around and came up with this design. I still like it, but I'm not sure about the white blocks. DH wasn't sure about how the middle square was rotated. Frankly, I hadn't even noticed that.

The flannel story is that when I was at Joann's without LaLa, I loaded up on flannel to make pajama pants for the whole family. So far, I've got LaLa's "done" (they need a hem and to sew up the elastic, but heck, she's sleeping in them tonight), got DH's cut out, but it was getting late last night and I have to rip out and redo the crotch seam, cause it was getting really sloppy. I made my first buttonholes ever last night too. It turned out they weren't too hard. The sewing machine directions kind of suck, though. Buttonholes and zippers were things that my mom never taught me how to do - but I can sew the heck out of a "straight" line. (I use that term loosely.)

I've been spending my "free" time at work reading about quiliting lately, which has made me want to get back to that quilt top, and another one that I have in the closet. Sewing has come up a lot on my regular reads (BoogaJ just had an entry here, and Grumperina seems to be having an ongoing discussion with her sewing machine). Plus Ann and Kay have a great set of links on the sidebar. I've become a regular reader of Nashville SNB, and jumping from there to the Denyse Schmidt Modern Quilt Along. Others have been apparently putting together little quilts (they all make it look so easy) for impromptu gifts and stuff. I have serious sewing envy.

It's really hard for me to sew with a three year old on hand so much of the time. The pins, the scissors. I don't feel comfortable having these out when she is. And she has some sort of attention radar, where as soon as I get absorbed into something (a phone call, a book, etc.), then she has a crisis of some sort. My knitting in her presence is pretty much limited to garter and stockinette stitch and those patterns that are the same every row (farrow rib, etc.) It's my compromise - I still feel like I'm crafting something that I want to do, but I can sit next to her and let her lean on me and know that I'm there for her. These projects have become known as my "Wiggles knitting". Krista wrote about a similar topic recently, that really struck a chord with me.

So, in order to eek in any sewing, I've begun to treat it like precious computer lab time. I have a two hour block of time in the evenings after she goes to bed. One night, I cut out two pairs of pajama pants (the attention to detail required in setting up the pattern is pretty painstaking to me). Then last night, I sewed up the quilt tuples and 1.5 pairs of pajama pants in two hours. Now I'm at a point where I have some decisions to make and seams to rip, and I could probably cut out another pair of pajama pants (the monkey's are next, I think) before getting out the sewing machine again. Also in my sewing queue are tote bags. I picked up a lot of drapery weight fabric from the remnants bin - I think they'll make fabulous project bags.

Next time, I'll tell you guys about LaLa and the City Bus.