Under the sea quilt is over my head

Happy New Year! Or as Jack has been telling everyone, "Happy New You!" I'm typing (and sewing) without the use of my pinkie finger, because I jammed it last night. Did I mention I dropped my laptop on my toe in the airport on the way to Seattle and it was all bloody and bruised and mangled? Pregnancy is making me CLUMSY. 

Even stinky baby cousins like the quilt!

I decided it's time for me to learn how to sew for realz. I sort of fake sew, like Nipper Knapp fake plays the piano. That's what he calls it. If you walked into a room and heard him playing you'd think "that guy can play the piano". But no, he insists he's only faking it. I'm the same way with sewing. I sort of muddle through and figure stuff out, but I don't know any rules, or tricks, or how to follow directions. Unless of course those directions are written by one Ms. Pickel of Swimming In Brine. More on her later. 

The doll's quilt is kind of hard to see. Like quilt camouflage.

I gave sweet sweet Anoushka her quilt and matching doll's quilt for Christmas. She loved them. My stepmother loved it too, but all I could see was the flaws. I really wanted to learn how to make a proper quilt, from a proper pattern, using the proper terminology. But I didn't want to make some musty old amish looking thing. So I googled "mod quilt". Dudes, there is so much good stuff out there. The first thing that comes up is this genius site called Oh Frannson!. The next site I stumbled on was Kate Conklin Designs. Perfect!

Kate Conklin Sea Views Quilt

My stepmother really liked Anoushka's quilt, so I thought I'd make one for her and my dad for their new camper. They camp in the Florida Keys for the winter. I asked about colors, and she said she'd have to think about it, but my dad said her favorite color is turquoise. I started looking through the fabrics I have and found I actually have a whole bunch of the Heather Ross Mendocino in blue left. I went to Michael Levine downtown and bought a few more yards of similar colored fabric and my quilt theme was born. UNDER THE SEA!!! Perfect for camping by the ocean under a palm tree. Lucky me, lucky me, Kate Conklin happens to have a pattern called "Sea Views". Looked simple enough so I downloaded it. Uhm...

The fabrics I chose. Some Heather Ross Mendocino, and some of her Far Far Away 2 Cats and fiddles in sailboats. So cute! 

Yeah, I don't know how to sew wavy lines, and This Conklin lady SAYS it's easy as pie, but she is a liar, or at the very least a very bad explainer. (just kidding, I heart her for making this great pattern, I'm just not smart) She's Aussie so maybe there's a language barrier. When she says things like take the top piece and wiggle it, that means nothing to me. It's also entirely possible, that you know, I'm in over my head, sewing a project not meant for a FAKE SEAMSTRESS. 

No worries. I have backup. I email Nicole over at Swimming in Brine. I'm telling you this woman should start a school or an online tutorial service, or a pattern making business. She is not only an amazing seamstress and designer, she is a great teacher! She thoroughly explained to me, how to sew the inside lining of my Christmas stockings to that there would be no seams showing. And now, she showed me how to sew a wavy line. Genius.  


I'm including her full explanation and PHOTOS that she sent 1/2 after I emailed begging for help. She sat down, and actually sewed something and took pictures. I'm telling you, the girl is a mensch. Once she gave me her explanation, the whole thing IS in fact easy as pie, and now I plan to be sewing up a storm, so get ready for quilt city Grandma Kare. 

My post Pickel tutorial wavy lines on test fabric. Perfecto! 

In the meantime, here is the tutorial for anyone that wants to make the Kate Conklin Sea Views quilt, and is a dumb dumb like me.


1) cut a piece of fabric in half with wavy line. 2) flip one half so right sides are together...seams do not match - don't panic. 3) make the first part of seam match and start sewing with a small seam allowance (i use 1/8"). if you use a bigger seam allowance, you will need to do a lot more snipping (see step 7) and/or trim the entire seam allowance with pinking shears, so that the seam allowance fabric can "bend" around the curves. 4,5) as you sew, keep moving the top layer so that the edges stay together. make sure the needle is in the down position any time you do any wiggling. 6) you should end up with a semi-ugly seam. 7) iron the seam (i ironed it open), cutting little slices into the seam allowance in any hard curves where one side of the seam doesn't want to lay flat. 8) spray with starch and iron from the top...it should be golden. 

starch is your friend. use it GENEROUSLY, because it not only makes things iron pretty and flat, it helps them stay the way you intended, AND it is sizing, so the fabric won't stretch and buckle when you do lots of piecing. i have never actually measured, but i wouldn't be surprised if i use a half a bottle of starch per quilt. 

I'm a squanderer

I squander time, and good will, and fancy face cream, and all kinds of other good stuff. I don't mean to do it. I always begin with the best of intentions. I will be efficient today. I will return every phone call I receive. I will not use the $60 eye cream on my decolletage in the hopes that it will "reconstruct" that whole area.

When I was 14 my best friend told me she thought I worked better under pressure. Huh. Why do I remember that? Because it's true? Prolly. But it's not like I waste time laying around looking at my belly button. I waste time making other projects for myself. That way, in case I'm not FREAKING OUT enough about the one or two things on my plate, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth things on my plate are usually sufficient to keep me crackin. I know I've talked about the sinking feeling that the resounding answer to "how do you do it all?" is probably ADHD. Truth is, if I wasn't doing all this stuff, I'd be getting myself into a heap of trouble. No doubt about it. No idea what kind of trouble, but I'm sure I'd be good at making that too. Mommy stopped crafting, and that's when she started robbing banks. You know, just to see if she could.

SO to keep myself on the up and up this week, I started, and finished a few things! So long prison orange, hello pink lap quilt. It's kind a disaster. I had an hour, and I wanted to finish it, but I didn't have one whole piece of batting, but I did have three, so I tucked them all in there, and sewed the edges, and then realized that whoopsy tootsie, as soon as I wash it, those middle pieces are going to curl up inside the thing and be all lumpy and make me hate myself. So I just stitched them in. Just went and sewed a couple of ugly lines right across my pretty pink quilt. You win some you lose some.

Burned two Yodas did I

Today I started preparations for Jack's birthday party on Sunday. Let's be honest, I started preparations days ago. Today I started baking. I'm making an R2D2 cake. My mother practically begged me not to. She sent me an email with links to two Pasadena bakeries who make specialty cakes. She said "I'm buying". She offered to send me to a spa. Again, she said "I'm buying". But how sad would it be, the mom who made ladybug and owl, and  minnie mouse cakes for her friend's kids bought her kid an R2D2 cake. There's not enough ice cream ala mode to wash that down.

R2D2's refrigerated noggin

You think I could get some ritalin from some kids in the neighborhood?

quilting by candlelight

Before I was a complete invalid last night, I got a little bit of sewing done in the pink room. Nip and I turned on a movie, he laid on the couch while I sewed at the desk. I mentioned before that I don't know what I'm doing. I just cut strips out of some old Anokhi sarongs from Simrane in Paris, and some old Heather Ross Mendocino fabric. I also had an old Anthropologie dust ruffle that I cut up because it fit my color scheme. I'm just sort of making my own pattern as I go, loosely based on the mix tape pattern by Oh, Fransson! I love finding a new use for all these pretty fabrics. We'll see how it turns out. Besides pink.

making rag dolls in the loony bin

Ok, so I have to admit that I've been letting the stress get to me. I need to get a grip. I'm not curing cancer over here. Nobody's life is at stake. I told Sadie that I feel like I'm shouting at myself  "I WANT THE TRUTH" and then myself is yelling back at me "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!" Dude, chill. 

Yesterday I was at the gym doing a guilt workout so that I could say that I had lost at least a half a pound for the biggest loser dealie (I did!). I was also trying to blow off some steam because when I woke up, I couldn't turn my head from side to side, after doing our first dance rehearsal, which made me feel old and craggy. Just about everything everyone says to me makes me want to unhinge my jaw and shout "I'm all full thanks, leave your card by the door". 

Today instead of buying a HDMI to mini HDMI cable, painting fiber board lightning bolts, and learning what it means to transcode, I went into the pink man cave and ironed. That's right. I said it. I IRONED. I got out some of my old sarongs that Nip and I bought at Simrane in Paris before Jack was born. I bought tons of them, but the pink ones I wore the most (obv) and they've gotten so worn, that they're pretty faded, and some have ripped. I ironed them, and then cut them into strips so that I can make a quilt. I thought I'd mix in some of Heather Ross Mendocino fabric too. Yeah, no, I don't know how to quilt, but why should that stop me? I don't know how to act, or shoot music videos, or write songs, or take pictures, or make cakes, or be a mom, or really do much of anything at all. But the idea of doing all those things keeps me interested. SO I ironed and I felt better. 

SO back to the day before at the gym. I was on the treadmill, and because I felt like I needed to maximize the use of my time, I decided to practice my Lady Gaga dance moves (at least the arm movements) on the treadmill. Yeah, that's right, I don't give a damn what kind of crazy I look like, I'm a MOM. SO I'm there, happily walking, watching the tutorial on my iphone propped up on the magazine rack on the treadmill. I've got my headphones on, I'm pop and locking, and as I bring my arms down in front of me, I get them caught up in the headphone wires. The earbuds jerk out of my ears, and the phone tumbles to the ground. The moving sidewalk underneath me, I fumble to grab the headphone, or phone, anything, and as I do, I KICK the phone. KICK it, like I was Pelé, and lucky me, the treadmill is located on the balcony overlooking the weight room, and over it goes. In slow motion I watch my 2nd iphone set sail, and as I'm on a treadmill, it takes me a second to smash the stop button, jump off, race to the banister, and see, is it dead?  There it is, on the ground. I look around, did anyone see that? On top of being the psycho loser doing bad dance moves on the treadmill, I am now the psycho loser asking some meathead to keep an eye on my phone, until I can come down and retrieve it. This guy, whose neck is at least as wide as my waist, grunts enough of an acknowledgment. I grab my bag, and run down the stairs, pick the phone off the floor. It's still playing the Lady Gaga tutorial, and besides having some serious gym rat cooties, it's fine. Hoorah! AND...scene. Please tip your waiter on the way out.