Fabrics in waiting and a work in progress (finally!!)

 

Part of going to Portland for me is visiting Bolt, a small fabric store in the Alberta district. Walking in there sends me into a fabric panic, because I have limited time (crazy kids making chaos - plus I can't just come back), and limited resources because we still gotta eat and plane tickets are expensive.

Going with a friend helped a lot, and equally sweet was Tim taking the kids to play at a toy store while I browsed and stressed and drooled. 

The little pile of goodies I came out with isn't the most exotic selection, but one thing I took advantage of was their shot cottons. I've never been able to find it anywhere else, and I wanted to see what all the hoopla was all about over them. The peach and teal fabrics are both shot cottons, and super duper soft and wonderful. They are headed towards being part of the girl's Easter dresses.

 

 

I grabbed a couple of fat quarters of some pretty stuff. I think the one on the left is Jay McCarroll, and on the right....I have no idea. There isn't any selvage info for me to look at. I just thought it was really abstract and pretty. 

  

Up in the corner is some Michael Miller called sea urchin that I was compelled to grab while standing in line for the cutting table. Sticking the sale shelves right there is pretty dangerous.  That mustard stuff at the bottom of the stack is 4 yards of linen from Joanns. I didn't have much solid yardage of anything laying around and I wanted to make some Figgy's Banyan pants soon. Mustard yellow linen kid pants. Too much? Nah......

I also got the Far Far Away in yellow when I won a giveaway on luvinthemommyhood. Yes! I won something! I think this might be the other part of the kids' Easter dresses.

And I also got some of this hemp/cotton knit print splattery business at Bolt. One goal I had to was to find an interesting knit to take home because they have some great long rolls of fabric with really wide selvage. You get a lot of fabric with two yards. I'm seeing this stuff as possibly becoming pea coats with hoods for the kids. It would go really well with that mustard linen. Somehow my fabric all ended up coordinating even though I didn't plan it that way or think about it while I was making choices.

Unphotographed is the bottle of Jacquard fabric paint in yellow that I grabbed too. They make great paint.

Finally some sewing around here. The beginnings of a Made By Rae Geranium tunic for Clover. I'm testing the size for making easter dresses. Normally when people talk about "selfish sewing" they are referring to sewing for themselves. For me selfish sewing is basically (not literally) saying to my kids

"leave me the hell alone for a while because I haven't gotten to sew anything for weeks and weeks and weeks. Go find something to do by yourself. I'm not entertaining you. And stop touching my sewing machine."

Normally I feel bad about refusing to do anything with them during the morning just so I can sew, but for real.....it's been AGES since I've gotten to sew any clothes. Like pre-Christmas. Banishing them didn't exactly work, and they still swarmed me, begged for snacks, tv, and attention, for books to be read. They changed settings on my sewing machine, ran away with my tools, yanked pins out of my pincushion and scattered them all over, made heinous messes all over the house. 

So I didn't get a whole lot done. And I ended up having to seam rip out all the work I got done sewing the bodice lining to the outside because I managed to sew them with the lining right side out instead of getting them both right sides together. Brilliant!   

Also, do you see that weird lump of something sitting on top of my fabric? That is part of my awesome paper mache project failure from yesterday. Somehow I deluded myself into thinking that kids who can't even handle a painting project without major drama would really love doing paper mache with me. 

Not really. 

The paper for our mache came from this incident. Violet had climbed into the closet the night before and emptied it of books, ruining a couple of vintage books that were in fragile condition. Then the next morning she amused herself by ripping the remaining pages out and throwing them all over (including in the toilet. the BEST). So I decided to just use it for our paper mache instead of newspaper.

Clover insisted that she needed a mermaid, and didn't really understand the whole process even though I tried to explain it to her. She expected an immediate doll produced from this, and didn't want to try making her own form. So I did that for her while she repeatedly asked me if it was "done yet", and Violet uncharacteristically didn't want anything to do with ripping paper apart and dipping it in something goopy. Violet bailed pretty quickly on the ball I made for her to cover in paper. Clover complained and fidgeted and made weird irritated rubbing motions on her face until I asked her if she just wanted to leave. 

I felt pretty pathetic for having even tried doing this with them. Taking the time to plan something out, set it up, and getting excited about having fun just makes the total and utter fail seem more sad. I sat there for a little while longer getting the head on the mermaid attached and a layer of paper mache on to hopefully hold it in place until I could add another layer the next day. 

Of course, while I was doing my selfish sewing this morning, Violet payed me back by ripping the head off the mermaid.

There are tons of kid crafting blogs out there that show you great stuff and their own kids' awesome results. My calling in life seems to be the parenting fail blog that makes everyone else feel better about their own lives. Lol. 

On that note, I hear my kids messing around with the toilet upstairs.