Here's another little project I did back in 2011. When she was a child, my mom's family used a set of dishes with a Dixie Dogwood pattern. This is what it looks like:

About 15 years ago, she had gone looking and put together a beautiful set of dishes in this pattern. For Mother's Day, I'd wanted to make a set of napkins with a coordinating pattern. When I was a kid I had done cross-stitch, but I hadn't done much since then. This was all pretty much made up on the spot.

I found a set of light cream napkins at Target, and bought embroidery supplies at our local hobby store of choice. I drew the design I wanted on in pencil and followed the lines when stitching. After a few hours, here was the final product:

What I learned:

• Embroidery, at least at my mediocre level, was faster than I expected. It's also suprisingly satisfying to have as a finished product.
• Be careful to not run dark thread behind cream fabric. It'll totally show through.
• French knots in particular are easy to do but look amazing!

Conclusion: 8/10, would stitch again.

 

This is a much shorter project, but thought it might be interesting. Behold our boring bathroom window:

This problems with this window:

1. This window overlooks a busy street.

2. The cat loves to stand on the counter and look out, and he's done a number on the venetian blinds over time. You can see that part of the blinds are so bent that they have actually broken off. (We didn't want that rent deposit back anyway, right?)

The challenge for curtains is that the towel bar we use all the time is immediately below it. Also, it doesn't look it, but the window is actually pretty wide. Regular fabric isn't wide enough to cover it and have any kind of body.

What I ended up using was actually a shower curtain from Walmart. The fabric goes very well with the different colored bottles in the room. I trimmed the length, and added fixed pleats at the top to give it body. The curtains are held up with clips at the top.

The General is still doing a number on the corner of the curtain to look out, but it seems to be wearing better than the blinds had. The print seems to hide the wear better too.

Costs (approximate):

Shower curtain: $10

Curtain clips: $5

Curtain rod: $10

TOTAL: $25

I like the calming blue atmosphere of the curtain. It makes the bathroom a bit more soothing, and helps to de-emphasize the faint pink of the tile. It's not a permanent solution to be used in bathrooms for all time, but it's great fit in this one.

 

For a while I've been saving photos from various projects that I've done to post here, but I haven't gotten around to actually posting them. Here is an older project that I did. I had a cheap Rothco bag that I'd bought on Amazon that had no lining and I wanted to remedy that. Here are a few pictures of what the bag looked like when it arrived:

I'd picked the bag specifically because it was the right size for my iPad, but being unlined meant it would likely scratch it over time.

So, I sat down with my trusty sewing machine. The first thing you might notice is that it's green. The bottom there says "Sewing Pretty with Hello Kitty", I kid you not. That said, it's actually a pretty good machine. The only real complaint I have is that it doesn't have an elastic stitch. Note: I've discovered that it also isn't great at sewing 4-6 layers of upholstery fabric, but that's not really fair to expect. And even so, you'd be amazed at how much of that kind of sewing I've done anyway. But that's a post for another day.

To do this, I followed instructions for a hidden zipper that I found online. I'm not sure which set of instructions I'd originally found, but this one seems similar and helpful. I had put piece of supporting lining on to of the two pieces of fabric both facing up and drawn the diagram on. I realized belatedly that it was too low, so redrew it a little higher. Then I sewed the square two the two pieces of fabric. Next, you cut through the pieces of fabric on the lines.

After that, you pull what will be the inner lining through, and looks like a neat square. You can see the one triangle corner there that I have yet to pull through.

This is what the back side (the start of the inner pocket) looks likes now.

Next, stick a zipper in the hole and sew around it. I sewed on this side to make sure the part you'd be able to see looked as good as possible. The zipper came from a hanging pocket that had been in the bag to start with. I'd removed it and reused the zipper so it would match the rest of the bag. In retrospect it wasn't the best zipper to use since it was a bit big rather than being a low profile zipper like you'd usually use for this kind of pocket. But waste not want not, right?

This is what the back side looked like with the square zipped in.

Next, pin the back side of the fabric in place. I'd used an iron-on lining to make sure it would have some structure. I didn't think it would sew together well though, so I only attached it in the middle of the fabric and then sewed around the edge.

Or at least that was the intention. As you can see, my stitch line ran over the lining quite a bit. It didn't matter in the end.

Next, I did the other side. I wanted three big pockets so I could keep things like a regular small notebook in there. I folded the fabric in place and then sewed two lines in the middle and then around the three sides.

Next up, I made the lining that would go on the side and bottom from three pieces. In retrospect this is where I made my biggest mistake. I should have made it much thinner. When I attached it in the end, it ended up bunching up and made it hard to sew in place. Not a big deal, but it would have been easier if it had been the right side.

Here you can see how the sides started to fit together. I'd sewed it around one side first.

And then the other side.

Here I took a break from the inside to make linings for pockets in the front.  I hand stitched the lining inside the main bag and the front pockets to keep them in place. There's not really a good way to show cramped hand stitching and occasionally pocking myself in the finger. So imagine a needle and thread and occasionally an quiet epithet. Here are a few photos of the finished project.

I was very pleased with the final product.

Costs:

Bag: $7

Fabric: $5 (clearance bin)

Notions: $0 (repurposed and existing thread)

TOTAL: $12

Sad end to the story though: the size of the main opening was just slightly too small to get my iPad in and out easily. I tried to expand it, but then the zipper looked unfinished. So I only used this bag for about 2-3 months before I gave it to Goodwill. Even so it was a satisfying project, which is all I can really ask for in the end (or maybe finding gold bullion in the bag lining, amirite?).

Here are two photos I took recently that I wanted to share.

This cute bun bun was outside the window at a restaurant in May, and I couldn't resist taking a picture. I love his dashing grass mustache.

The General is hard to capture on film because he's constantly moving. I usually end up taking photo after photo, and everyone once in a while get lucky with a good shot.

It'd been a while, so here is an update to the design of this page. For posterity, here's the old design.