So I had this terrifying dream last night about two menacing angels coming to town (a la "Dogma") and I had to run ahead and warn everyone to get out of town or be destroyed.

Unfortunately, there was a panda that didn't get out of town in time and was melted by the angels.

....But hey, aren't these little panda toys cute? You can make them by buying a kit at Reprodepot.

Finds of the day/week/month

(click on images for larger views)

*linen and cotton fabric from Jaipur for Purl

*You say the shoes were made by elves? I'll take them!

*my plane ticket is reserved for Chicago in February, and Chicago kind of looks like that in February if there's no snow on the ground. I sure miss it. (photo from my friend Scott)

*moonbeam by benefit

*glasses/containers by Luminarc (via Frolic)

*Beautiful editioned photo by Noah Kalina available at 20x200 (it's now in my personal collection!)

*Sea urchin ring by Star of the East (thanks to tip off from Marissa)

*Sashiko embroidery (via Purl)

*a bugle pin, just like the kind my friend Joannie wears on her hat

Ivana Helsinki: Happy Thursday!

A friend at work has a coat featuring a cute bird print, and it turns out that the coat is by a Finnish company called Ivana Helsinki. She showed me the website, and I was smitten.

Can you write a better company description? "Its clothes are full of positive melancholy and hope of tomorrow filled with the camping spirit, home made feeling and childhood memories." Positive melancholy!! Ahhhh! I haven't been this charmed by a company description since I found those Japanese notebooks.

Great design, great concept. The fabrics are whimsical, but not over the top. I want yardage.

Furthermore, right about now I wish I had a bird-print box containing an apple, some thick crackers, and a bottle of exotic, Finnish alcohol.

Interfacing Guide!

Does the word interfacing intimidate you? Do you find yourself staring at the interfacing bolts in the store, with a dumbfounded look on your face? Well, be stare no more, lamby: I have created a free interfacing guide for you to download and read on your lunch break. Or clip and keep in your sewing basket! Or put on your refrigerator like a report card!

Click on the link in my sidebar to download the pdf.

pointy dart solution

I am peeking out from under a pile of quilts and through the haze of Nyquil to bring you a helpful sewing tip, which I scored from Sewing Made Easy, the best sewing book ever.

A few people have asked me lately how to avoid having a pointy tip at the end of your darts. I have been trying to figure out how to avoid that myself. I used to leave plenty of thread at the tip and would tie it, slightly puckering the fabric. But I felt like there must be a better way. Another tip is to cut your dart apart lenthwise and press it flat, which seems to work pretty well to avoid bulk but doesn't really solve the pointy tip problem.


This tip should work a little better. Sew your dart from the outside toward the inside like usual, but once you get close to the tip, slightly change direction and sew almost parallel to the edge of the fabric for about 1/2 inch. This will help your fabric to lay flatter!



If anyone has other tips for eliminating pointy darts, please let me know.

Ok, I'm going back to my pile of movies and magazines and tea. Night night.

Last night I was unable to sleep for a very long time because I started thinking about the size of the universe.

I think I finally fell asleep by making myself remember German verbs. I need to stop drinking coffee after 5 pm.

On a completely unrelated note, perhaps I will buy some pink and brown fuzzy fabric from ebay to make a toy for New Baby Nephew. I bet that stuff makes a mess out of your machine.

Who's gonna get booted from Project Runway this week? PR is the only tv show I get to watch since we gave up cable, so I look forward to Wednesday nights. Sitting around with girlfriends, drinking wine, gossiping, and talkin' trash at the tv only makes it better.

Frankenstein dress!

I think that I'm going to have to start another blog and call it Frankstein Sewing. It's where you decide that you hate all your clothes and you have to start cutting them apart and sewing them back together. You either splice them together to make a new outfit or you just redesign them in some way. That would be fun. Unfortunately, I can only tackle these projects once in awhile, because I'm a busy girl.



My new project was to create a spring dress created from two different dresses. The top of the dress comes from a pink dress with a cute collar and a pintucked bodice I found at the Salvation Army in Chicago. Mr. D. says it looks like a maid's dress, and although I enjoyed wearing it with a ribbon belt and the sleeves rolled up, it was sort of boring. As you can see in the this photo, I had already ripped the sleeves off, thinking I was going to make cap sleeves or something.



The bottom of the dress is made from a navy dress I bought at Target a few years ago. I liked the cut a lot and so I bought two of them- one in navy and one in a chocolate brown. You'll have to forgive the photo- I didn't take the pink dress of the dress form before putting the navy one on! It's also kind of wrinkled because it's been wadded up in a ball.



The navy dress was flattering on me because it has a fitted bodice, a high waist, and a full skirt. I liked that it looked kind of retro without being costumey. But after a few years of wearing, I was done with it. I was going to add something decorative to it, but decided that the design was so basic I could probably turn it into something else pretty easily.





The waistlines of these two dresses matched up perfectly, so instead of resewing all of the gathers on the skirt, all I had to do was cut the pink dress just below the waistline and the navy dress just above the waistline. Then it was just a matter of hand stitching it together and finishing the armholes.





Yay! New spring dress. I think it will look great with the pink belt the dress came with originally, or maybe even a navy and white grosgrain ribbon tied in a bow.

fabric site

If you liked the silk charmeuse fabric used for the Betsy Ross top featured in the current Threads Magazine review, you can pick it up here from Sawyer Brook Distinctive Textiles. They have a great selection of many different kinds of fabrics, including great wools.

I particularly appreciate that they write detailed descriptions for each fabric, since buying fabric online is really difficult. (One person's "stiff" is another person's "scratches the skin off right off of my body"). They also have a very informative blog.

I couldn't get to sleep last night because I was thinking about good dance music, as my partner-in-crime and I are preparing a mix for the upcoming Dance Dance Party Party under our adopted moniker, DJ Moses and the Kid. I should have been counting sheep, but instead I was determining which Basement Jaxx and Beastie Boys songs were more danceable (Do Your Thing and Body Movin', respectively). What songs can you not resist dancing to?

more cute stuff for kids

I'm still on the look out for cute things to make my nephew, and this mobile fits the bill- a great weekend projecct.

threads review!

I'm so, so, so excited to show you the review of my Hip Blouse pattern in the current issue of Threads magazine. I'm kind of giddy about it, actually. Click on the image to read the review!

Next time you're in your local bookstore, pick up a copy! They've recently redesigned the magazine, and it looks really nice- definitely appealing to a younger audience. The editors have also started including articles that are of interest to beginners as well as experienced seamsters.