Because 2 days is never enough.

I’ve written about my Grandmother, Maxine Broad, on this blog before, and in the years since I wrote about her, she passed away, just shy of her 92nd birthday.

I’ve often thought of how much she knew, family stories and recipes and sewing tricks.  She was a exceedingly practical person and it makes me sad to think that over 90 years of that knowledge is no longer here.  And while this is just a part of life that we all have to accept, the care package my mom sent me this week bridged that gap a little bit.

Grandma was a passionate sewer.  Even though it was a necessity, it was also a pleasure to her. The last time I saw her, she told me that the neighbors were always wondering why her light was on all into the night (as she burned the midnight oil at her machine).   The package my mom sent was a treasure trove of old patterns for children’s clothes, quilt squares she sewed but never made into a quilt, quilt patterns and appliques, and lots of notes and drawings in her handwriting.   Some of these date back to the 1930’s.

Having these things makes me feel like a piece of her is still with me and like maybe I’m carrying on some of her passions in my own life.

My darling husband got me a few awesome Christmas gifts and they all demonstrated his good taste and how well he knows me. My favorite gift, however, didn’t turn up until after the holidays when we returned from California.  I was fairly grumpy about returning to the wintery wilds of New York, so the delayed delivery was actual kind of perfect.

Thanks to Karl and Ebay, I’m now the proud owner of some charming vintage sewing supplies. Behold:

I am madly in love with the spool rack, particularly.

No really. I would rather be sewing.

Lately, I’m on such a bender that it’s all I can think about. It may seem like I’m holding meaningful professional and personal conversations; but I’m not. I’m actually thinking about what I’m going to sew next. It’s a sickness.

And super cute and super simple patterns I’ve come across here are only feeding the flames:

Round One: The Spring Top.

This is a great pattern, easy and cute. However, the first one was not that flattering on me, so I gave it to my sister, Kate (the lovely model below).  I altered the pattern and made a much more flattering one for myself.

Round Two: The Baby Dress

Another nice, easy pattern, adjusted for larger children. I cannot take how cute these are. I mean, really. Cara was so adorable in hers I wanted to eat her up. And I cannot wait to see Sophie sport hers.

Round Three: The Mendocino Dress

Made two of these, but the second one, made of the most lovely echino double gauze is my favorite.

Round Four: Baby hat

Anyway, you might have been under the impression that I was writing a blog post. But I wasn’t. I was thinking about what I’m going to sew next.

A couple years ago, I had the pleasure of attending Kate and Eric’s wedding in Massachusetts.  One of the coolest things about the wedding, to me, was that most of their guests were put to work decorating, setting tables, tying ribbons.  The wedding made me feel like I was raising a barn.  In fact, whenever I see them, I feel oddly, and inappropriately, like I’m slightly responsible for their successful marriage (of course, this has nothing to do with me, but still).

So, when I was trying to decide if it was appropriate to put our friends to work for our wedding, I thought about how good it felt to be so hands on at Kate and Eric’s wedding. In the end, we were shameless about exploiting our ridiculously talented friends and family. Either our friends are amazing actors, or they were actually happy to help.  Honestly, no wedding gift could have meant more to me than the creative labors of our nearest and dearest.

Drum roll please:

Save the Dates:  My brother, Ethan, is an awesome illustrator. Since we were little kids, he’s had a style of drawing that I love. He creates these crazy, detailed drawings with all sorts of little objects interacting in surprising ways. Looking at them is like going on a scavenger hunt.  He drew a piece for our save the dates that pulled together all kinds of things that made him think of Karl and me. It was so well done, but also so sweet and funny. It is currently framed in our house and we keep discovering new elements. I seriously love my brother.  And if you ever need any illustration, he’s totally your man.

Invites: Debi is one of the most creative people I know. Sometimes I feel like everything she touches turns to gold. Check out her Etsy site here.  We planned the wedding pretty quickly, so the invites were one of the first things we did and really set the tone for the rest of the wedding. We talked about wanting something with a vintage feel, like old office supplies at a flea market.  And Debi, in all her genius, stumbled upon a true treasure: an old telegram.

This was the inspiration for our awesome invitations. They seemed so unique, but so appropriate for the vibe of our wedding.
Debi is brilliant and if you ever want a museum exhibit, a knitted creature, or some graphic design, call her. Seriously.  (images to come)  My mom also donated all the printing in her shop in Santa Barbara, which was so awesome.

Guestbook:  Tyler is an artist, and art teacher, and a great friend. He used to be a regular at our dinner table and now that he’s moved to Portland, we rarely get to see him. For our wedding, he created the most unique and beautiful guest book I have ever seen, really.  I was so impressed I almost didn’t want people to write in it!

 Flowers: Jackie is one of those jack-of-all trades kind of ladies, to the point that it is actually humbling to be around her. Every time you talk to her you’re like, “wha?? she’s also a ship captain???” So, anyway, luckily for us among this girl’s endless supply of skills is flower arranging.  She took me down to the wholesale flower market a bunch of times and taught me all about flowers: what’s in season, what looks good together, how to get a good price, etc. Flowers are, it turns out, finicky friends – the need all sorts of loving to look just right on their big day. So there was Jackie, tirelessly pampering the flowers in our living room, setting me up with spray bottles and flower food, instructions, buckets; later she made the most beautiful bouquet and awesome table arrangments. I couldn’t have been happier with the flowers, they were so beautiful.  Also, I learned a ton, and didn’t end up in scary wedding industry land, spending a fortune and getting bullied.

Photos: Shane may be the nicest person I ever met. He literally saves kittens, that nice. On top of that, he’s also a sick cinematographer and photographer.  Of everyone I know, he may be the one who loves what he does most.  He’s constantly on the run working on amazing projects. So, the fact that he shot our wedding was unbelievable. He was so generous, offering to shoot all day, so understated, so patient. Of all of our rad helpers, he was the only one who’s contribution may have interfered with his enjoyment of our wedding. However, he did manage to write a sweet country song at the bar. You should ask him about it.   So I hope that means he had fun.

Cake:  Mindy, in all her awesome baking glory actually managed to bake us a three tiered wedding cake. First off all, that seems like a engineering feat beyond measure, second of all, oh.my.god was it delicious. It was ginger with ginger cream cheese frosting (I don’t like chocolate and am a huge pain to bake for).  We wrapped up the third tier to eat on our first wedding anniversary (which is seriously incentive to stave off divorce for at least a year). But every day I come home expecting to find Karl peering out of the freezer with a guilty look on his face and ginger cream cheese frosting across his cheeks. That’s how yummy is was.

Lots of other friends pitched in, making phone calls, play lists, giving toasts, carrying things around. It was such a good feeling.

Thanks one and all.

love.

One of the reasons we decided to have a short engagment (four months) was because I was pretty sure that if I left myself a year or more to plan a wedding, I would go into crafting overdrive and knit everyone outfits to wear or something ridiculous like that.

At the same time, we knew we wanted a wedding that was simple, handmade, and local. Except for my shoes and Karl’s suit, everything in our wedding was either made by us, our friends, or at least people we met. It was a pretty cool way to bring the whole thing together.  All the little touches made our wedding really special and intimate to us.

Here are some highlights of the projects we made ourselves (and by ourselves I mean by me, really, sorry Karl):

Clutches

I saw this awesome tutorial for fabric flowers and decided to make clutches for me and for my maid of honor, Jody.

Ring Pillow:

My father gave me an amazing treasure: lace from my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother’s wedding dresses. I was overwhelmed by how lucky we are to have these kinds of heirlooms in our family and really wanted to find a way to incorporate them into our wedding. My great-great-grandmother’s wedding dress was black and the lace we had was very tassley. I could not figure out how to use it; however, my great grandmother’s lace was beautiful and I was inspired to make it into a ring pillow.  It was so cool to see out handmade rings tied on to the pillow during the ceremony.

Seating Cards

I was really hoping to bring cool textiles into the wedding, but was pretty sure I didn’t have time to sew anything elaborate.  It occurred to me that I could use fabric to make little goodie bags telling people where to sit. I have a number of friends who are very loyal consumers of their favorite types of candy and so I tried my best to match people up with their favorite candies.  A trip to Economy Candy was really helpful for this, making it easy to find even the most obscure types of candy (if you’ve never been here, this place is a treasure! go!).   I have big plans for the fabric, which I collected after the party. Stay tuned, maybe I’ll report on it some day, in a million years, when I have time to get to it.

I’ll update with our programs and favors soon.

Since I finished Felix’s quilt last fall, I’ve perfected my binding technique and switched to machine quilting to produce two cute quilts for two very cute babies. I had a fun time traveling to Boston and Portland to hand deliver them.
First up, Vivian’s quilt:

This was a mostly stash based quilt. I’ve had the yellow bird fabric for a really long time, and aside from a few ipod cases, I really haven’t bee sure what to do with it. I was struggling with how to bring it all together and had laid it out on my turquoise table to think about it. The table color make the whole thing pop. Delivered the whole thing to the Herricks in Boston before Vivian was even born (very impressed with myself!).
Second, Isabella’s quilt:

Isabella was the first baby in a while that I knew was going to be a girl, and while I wasn’t really trying to get all pink and girly, it just sort of happened. I was really excited about using the pink and orange sea horse fabric from Heather Ross’ Mendocino line and a lot of the other stuff came from my stash.  Also, please note, ugly carpet in photo is decidedly not mine. Finished the quilt in a Hilton in Portland, just in time to deliver it to the Moran Chigos residence for Izzy.

When Karl and I got engaged in over our holiday in Eastern Europe, we weren’t sure exactly what kind of wedding we wanted, if we even wanted a wedding. In fact, when the security agent asked Karl his relationship to me and he awkwardly mumbled the word fiance, we both let out a shutter. Not because we weren’t thrilled about the commitment we were ready to make; I know I felt my cup runneth over.   It’s just that the whole idea of being affianced, talking about engagments and weddings, all sounded so… not us.
But we were sure about one thing. Inspired by Mindy and Erik, we knew we wanted to make our own wedding rings. We couldn’t think of a more fitting and exciting way to begin our wedding planning.  We loved the idea of making something so important, lasting, and meaningful ourselves. We loved the idea of doing it together. And we loved the idea of learning something new.

So, we followed Mindy and Erik’s lead and made an appointment with Sam of New York Wedding Ring.  We celebrated our fourth anniversay by spending a day in Sam’s studio making a set of rings. Sam was really helpful and overall, the process of making my two gold rings and Karl’s palladium band was really gratifying.  The end result was so simple and beautiful (yes, I made myself two).

Best of all making our rings together, with our own hands, helped us realize what mattered to us when it came to a celebration of our marriage. The values of handmade, local simplicity became really clear to us and the kind of wedding we wanted came together really directly from there.

Not bad for a days work.

Check out more photos here.

I modified a baby hat pattern to make a sort of starry night hat for my sister-in-law’s baby (due in 4 weeks!).  I am currently working on a second hat for Felix that is identical so the cousins (who will be only 3 months apart) can have matching hats.

Felix was kind enough to be the hat model for the first hat.

In scanning through the last couple entries here, it looks like maybe I have entered this dark, childless place, just making craft after craft for other people’s babies.

But rest assured, that’s not really the case. Instead, I’ve delighted in all these baby items for one big reason: They are SO much smaller than grown up stuff. Consequently, so much faster and cheaper to make than something for adults. And, as an added bonus, the sort of bloblike cuteness of a baby means you don’t have to go crazy worrying about making things fit. It’s just so much easier to lavish attention on little ones.

These little baby slippers are a case in point. Sort of. They were not exactly quicker, since it took me a long time to make up a pattern that actually worked. I spied an adorable pair of slippers in baby Sophie’s room. I went on a mission to figure out how to make them myself. The first pair would have been tight on a small doll, and then second one was a bit like Cinderella’s slipper when Felix agreed to be my foot model last weekend.  These haven’t been tested on an actual baby foot or anything, but man are they cute. I just want to eat them.  And, they were the perfect use for  scraps, including the remnants from a hemmed pair of Karl’s pants, part of a sweater Karl shrunk, and pieces left over from old sewing projects.

At the rate of babies turning up this year, it’s pretty lucky I’ve hatched upon a quick gift, since I can’t keep up with quilts!

The phrase “mission accomplished”, for grave recent historical reasons, may bring to mind someone who, say, celebrates completing something that is decidedly not finished. Maybe a war, or, less terribly a baby quilt. I’m in the latter category, of course.  I suppose I was sort of asking for trouble when I wrapped up the 3/4 complete baby blanket and gave it as a gift at Mindy’s baby shower with a note that read “Dear Baby, I’m not done yet. Please wait until August.” I should have known myself better.
August rolled around and even though Felix took his own sweet time coming in to the word, the extra couple weeks did me no good. I kept procrastinating the remaining hand quilting and finishing the quilt with bias binding. I think my uncertainty about how to actually do the bias binding was the root of my mental block. That or the markedly non-quilting weather we get in a sticky New York summer. Every time I saw Felix, though, I felt more guilty about my inaction. I had visions of finishing the quilt and sending him off to college with it.
Last weekend, though, I had a small quilting renaissance in my apartment. I got some good, simple bias binding tips from the quilting teacher at Fiber notion and swore to myself that I would finish the quilt by the end of the week.

Lo and behold, I actually did it. The fact that it was a gloomy rainy weekend helped, as did the fact that Felix is getting so very cute.  I ran into some trouble with the corners, so I had to jerry-rig a solution.  But overall, I think the whole thing came out really well.  I have to thank my mom, who helped me pick out the fabric when she was visiting back in June.

I have to say, I actually feel pretty proud of myself. And as great as the quilt looked when I finished it, it look a lot better once Felix got his hands on it. Hopefully it will be well loved.

ps. Mindy’s craft project is looking pretty awesome too!