Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

I finally, finally made Judah some shoes. These have been my go-to baby gift for several years now, but I just hadn't gotten around to making any for Judah. I guess the saying holds true that the cobbler's children go without shoes.... They're a little big on him now, but I'm glad they'll fit him for several more months. One reason why I waited was because my cute boy fabric stash was sorely in need. So this past week I got a big order from fabricworm.com , my new favorite place for fabric on the web. They carry really, really cute stuff and even sell you combinations of fabric that would work together in a quilt. I've been mulling over some different quilt ideas for several days now. Maybe that will be my next project. (And yes, I worked on this on my post call day instead of finishing my paper, but I decided that after being on call I deserved to do something more fun...)

This is my old method for "organizing" my jewelry. I got a little tired of it, and especially before I went on vacation, I wanted to make something a little better. Here is what I came up with, after looking at a few ideas online . And unfolded: With places for my necklaces:(that snap shut!) And my earrings: And a second one I made for a friend: Now if only I could sew my way into some renewable energy....

Here are some recent shower gifts I made. A friend, who loves horses and riding, is having a little boy in the next few weeks. I really loved how these shoes turned out. I found these sweet little buttons in some of the sewing things I got from my grandma. I loved this little detail.

I got some photos of the cute note card portfolios I made for Jeff's parent's - so I thought I'd go ahead and post them here. It was a really fun project, and not too difficult. (And see the manly sewing on the brown one? I was very excited to have actually made something I could describe as manly. Because there are just not that many things to be made that are manly. Or if there are, I haven't found them.) I also made a bag for my good friend Kim, given to her last weekend when we went up to the lake house and hung out with her and a few other friends from seminary during her weekend-long birthday bash. It was a relaxing time filled with lots of good food (including this cake that Kristin made) and we even got in some craft time! Check out Sara's blog for photos of that! This is another bag from the patterns in this book , which I really love. I've only scratched the surface of the patterns in it, but they've all been great. The baby bib pattern I use cons...

After I finished my first quilt , I was quickly inspired to get started on #2. And somewhere in the middle of the whole quilting process, I abandoned the project, folding it into my craft room closet. About a week or so ago, I decided I couldn't take any more mocking from the folded up fabric and decided to finish it. I'm not sure what took me so long. Although, since it took me about 2 years to finish the first one, 6 months is an improvement. I even took my inaugural post call nap underneath today. I quilted it in circles, to contrast with all the lines and squares in the design of the quilt. And I tried a "self-binding" quilt, where my backing fabric was cut larger and then folded over to make the binding. This worked fairly well, but as usual, my slightly wonky sewing created some issues. Here it is on the back on my couch. I really like the colors and how it matches our living room. And here is my latest baby shower project - to be given away tomorrow. I got th...

I had a little too much fun making felt food for my niece and nephew. This was probably the funnest thing to sew. And you can bet that felt food will be making more appearances around holidays. Just so you know, the top picture is bacon, eggs, and toast with jam. The second one is two sandwiches, one with turkey, cheese, tomato, lettuce, and the other one with PB and J. And the bottom is pizza (which hopefully was obvious) with pepperoni, mushroom, and green pepper pieces, none of which are sewn down so it can be made in numerous flavors. There were a few other things I made that I forgot to photograph, including two journals (one for Jeff's mom, and one for his dad) based on this idea . They both write lots of notecards, so I made them each a little cloth folder to keep a pen, notecards, envelopes, and stamps, to make it easy to slide into luggage or just pick up and take to the coffee shop. I'm very pleased to say that the one I made for Jeff's dad is easily the most man...

Today starts my holiday vacation! We're driving to Charlotte tonight so we can leave bright and early tomorrow morning to fly to Colorado! I'm currently frantically trying to get all our stuff packed in as few bags as possible and leave the house in a neat-ish state. Hopefully we'll have a few posts while we're gone, but if not, you'll hear from us later. Here's the first glimpse of homemade Christmas, a bag I made for my mom, using a pattern from this book .

The first of the Christmas craft updates: business card holders for the other women residents - these made their way to their new owners today, so now I can post the photo!

The view from my craft room. Yep...I'm still sewing - hopefully I'll get finished by Christmas.

I realized I haven't posted any recent crafty items, although I have done a bit of sewing here and there when I'm not stressed out at the hospital. (Incidentally, there are just 8 more days of this rotation for me, and the end cannot come fast enough.) For Austin and Elise 's wedding, I wanted to do something and contribute, so I asked Elise if I could make her some purses to use as bridesmaid's gifts. She was happy to let me exercise my creative brain and basically gave me free reign over what kind of bag to do. Of course, before I made all the bags for the bridesmaids, I had to come up with a pattern and do a test run so I wouldn't mess up the cute fabric she gave me. I dug around at my house and found some fabric lying around that I liked, and made a bag for myself to test the pattern. It's small, but not too small, and brown and blue with polka dots. There aren't too many other combinations I would like more. Sadly, I did not take pictures of the actual ...

Here are my latest projects, a few presents for Jack's birthday. This bunting was inspired by several I had seen on various crafty blogs, most notably this one , where there is a tutorial. I like the idea of a decoration that can be used for celebrations for a long time. Now I want one for our house. Here is a crayon pouch, another item that has been floating around blog-dom for a while. The tutorial can be found here , with a very nice pdf file pattern. I modified it a little so that I could applique the car onto the back. If anyone else has any good patterns or tutorials they use for boy presents, please let me know because I am quickly running out of good ideas. Boys are just a little harder to sew for. I just started my very last block of medicine for my intern year. Only 14 more calls until intern year is officially over!!

Making a quilt is something that has been on my list of life goals for a while. I actually started this quilt, oh, several YEARS ago on a whim, thinking I'd make it for someone who was pregnant. It's been so long I"m not even sure who I was thinking I'd make it for. Obviously, though, it did not get done then, mostly because I was sewing it by hand and quickly realized that it would take a LONG time to finish. Little did I realize just how long that would be. Last year while I was in Texas I got some steam and got the front mostly finished, then ran out of steam again when I tried to order this special foot for my sewing machine that then didn't fit, and so the quilt was again relegated to the closet. Moving, of course, put another damper on getting it done, as did the general business of being an intern. Saturday, though, on my day off, the weather was blah and so I decided to work on it. I realized I could just use the regular foot my sewing machine already had, ...

The shoes are made from this tutorial . The skirt is more or less based on this one . So craft away!

I guess I'm just at the stage of life where lots of friends are having babies. Which means I get to enjoy making some very cute things. Such as: These shoes are quickly becoming a favorite thing to make. And making that tiny little skirt was just too much fun!

Ok....so I found another pic from a recent project I made for our sweet niece. And I couldn't resist posting it. The pants I made from simplicity 3765 , but just made them reversible. (This might sound complicated, but these pants are a breeze to make.) For the onesies, I used some wonder under and fused fabric to a plain, cotton onesie, and then stitched around the edge. I think the fabric-embellished onesies are my favorite, even though freezer paper stencil s are also fun. Oh yeah...I forgot to mention that to make the shoes, I used the tutorial found here .

I realized that there were lots of crafty projects I hadn't posted yet. So here they are: A fun library bag for Sam and Jack. Cute shoes for Ashlyn: A Knitting needle case for Jeff's mom: Just looking at these photos makes me want to sew some more....