Cross-stitched blanket

I love the (expensive) blankets from Swans Island. The blankets are wool but are designed for summer. They're light, thin and much cooler in our (un-air conditioned) bedrooms than the thin quilts or flannel sheets we used to use as bed coverings in the summer. Both kids have one; I just wish we adults did!

I love the simplicity of the blankets but I esp. like that plainness when contrasted with something fancy. So I cross-stitched a monogram on my daughter's blanket:


The design is from one of the Rouge du Rhin books I got from The French Needle. I did the cross stitching with a couple strands of DMC floss over two threads. It was easier in some ways than stitching on linen because the space between the threads is bigger but more difficult in that the wool sticks together. But it turned out fine.

I did this one in 2010 but *still* haven't done one for my son. . . .

Shadow stitched butterfly dress

Ooh, I like how this dress turned out.


After the very traditional, little-girl white & blue smocked dress I made for my girl, I wanted to make something that seemed a little more grown up. I used the Jane's First Day Dress pattern again, used a bright orange & cream dot fabric and shadow stitched a butterfly on the front. This was only the second time I did shadow stitching; it was quick and easy.

The trimming is a small brown rickrack; I sewed it into the seam around the front panel and attached it by hand to the collar. You can't see it well here but there is small cream Swiss embroidered trim on the sleeves.

I altered the pattern slightly by raising the neck a little and doing a round rather than a pointed collar.

Smocking a blue-dotted dress

I started a new dress for my girl. She's getting older and it seems to me that the window for making really traditional, high-waisted, collared, smocked dresses is closing but I wanted to sneak a couple more through.

The fabric is tiny blue pindots on white. I don't have a pleater so I always hand pleat for smocking; this time I could use the dots for spacing so I didn't have to mark it out with a ruler or smocking dots. I didn't think it through but as I was pleating realized that this means the dots themselves line up in rows.

I'm using the Ginger's Basic Yoke Dress pattern. It's just a straightforward puff-sleeved, Peter Pan-collared dress but I chose this pattern years ago because of the wide size range (6 months - age 12). The smocking is with a single strand of Floche in colors 3325 & 775 and the smocking design is from 'Jennifer" in Australian Smocking & Embroidery #82.

8/17/11 update -- here's the completed dress (finished back in June)! I shadow-stitched the bow on the yoke. It was the first time I did this kind of embroidery and it was easy-peasy.

Citronille nightgown

Today it's hot. Yesterday it was hot. Unseasonably hot. The poor girl's eczema has been acting up and she's been wearing her knit pajamas. So I wanted to make her something to sleep in that was as cool as I could make it.


I used the Capucine pattern from Citronille; I bought it in person from Entree des Fournisseurs but they do international mail order too. I modified this shirt pattern by lengthening the pattern 15" or so, angling the side seams out an extra inch or so, and adding an extra inch in width to the gathering in the front and back.

The fabric is a very thin lawn -- see how sheer the (single-layer) sleeves are.

Hopefully the girl will sleep better tonight. . .

Kit's room

So for her birthday we got my daughter a longed-for American Girl doll. I think these are just very expensive, but we've both enjoyed some of the books. And my girl really wanted one and it was lovely to be able to get the doll for her.

Anyway, one of my concerns was where to keep the doll. They're big -- 18" tall. Most kids I've seen with them keep them on top of some surface -- a dresser or a bookcase or something -- but she doesn't have that furniture in her room. So we decided to use the 3' space at the end of her bed as Kit's room, a place for her to keep the doll and accoutrements and to play with her.


The only problem with this idea was that the door to the attic is on the facing wall so we had to be able to access it. Also, because the space is so small we wanted as few obstructions as possible -- i.e., no legs. So we made a deep shelf out of plywood and hinged the supports. So when we want to get into the attic the table folds down.


We can even still hang up her play tent when the table is folded out of the way. In use, the table is fine for putting the bed on, dressing the doll, etc. It's not sturdy enough to lean on or draw at -- there's too much play in the hinges. I think if we decided it needed to be stronger we'd think about putting fold-down legs just in the front corners.

You get a peak here at some of the clothes I made for Kit. The Frannie dress pattern for girls includes a version for an 18" doll; that's my favorite thing I made so far.

Easter rabbits 2011

This year's Easter rabbits weren't quite ready on time -- the kids got them Easter morning but they were naked.

These went together easily, as they really should since I've now made 6 of these Gail Wilson rabbits. The only real problem was that the oatmeal linen I used was kind of thick so the girl rabbit's pinafore was a tight fit over it before I let out the seams.

The pink wool is leftovers from a coat I made years ago. I didn't have a good fabric for the inner ears so I used the same pink and needle felted on some cream and brown roving. It looks cute; we'll see if it holds up. . .

Citronille coat

I made this coat for the girl last fall. She continues to wear only dresses & skirts so I wanted her to have a dressy coat. The pattern is Citronille's Alice.

The outer fabric is an inexpensive wool from Mood Fabrics. I deliberately chose something thin because some of the coats I'd seen made from this pattern were bulky at the gathers. But while I wanted thin fabric I also wanted warmth! So I lined it with warm back satin lining and interlined it with boiled wool from an old coat of mine. And then for extra warmth I knit inner cuff liners for the sleeves.

I even made bound button holes in the outer fabric and hand-worked buttonholes on the inside.

It all turned out just grand, except that I should have interfaced the hems -- the fold line is decided inelegant.