Needle & thREAD

I welcome you to needle and thREAD. What have you been sewing lately? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo and a brief description of what you're up to? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much. Tell me about it in the contents or leave a link to your blog. I'll be happy to come by and visit!

You can get your own needle & thREAD button here in your choice of several happy colors.

It's been more of the same here this week. I did take on the Snow Queen challenge and spent some very happy time stitching up some magical snow on a tutu. We're all pretty happy with the result. 

 

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Beyond that, it's been gift sewing. Can't show too much of that. Here's just a bit:

I read and re-read Lidia Bastianich's Nonna, Tell Me a Story: Lidia's Christmas Kitchen. I have to admit, she had me at the title. This is a darling story of an Italian grandmother who shares her Christmas traditions with her grandchildren and then spruces those traditions up a bit to make them work in modern America. Just darling!

(I've created a new category here, Nonna's House. New season in the heart of our home.)

So tell us all about your reading and stitching! Do you have Christmas secrets you can share in the combox? 

needle & thREAD (and a bonus recipe)

I welcome you to needle and thREAD. What have you been sewing lately? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo and a brief description of what you're up to? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much. Tell me about it in the contents or leave a link to your blog. I'll be happy to come by and visit!

You can get your own needle & thREAD button here in your choice of several happy colors.

Life's been a mixture of Sugar Plum and Maple Cinnamon Butter lately. Sounds like the kitchen, but it's really the sewing room. Well, and maybe a little kitchen, too. Take a little waltz with me through the pretty pictures?

Mary Beth was pretty bummed when she tried on the costume destined to be the Sugar Plum Fairy costume. I snapped a picture of her in it because my mind started spinning pretty much the moment I saw her face. I'd love to show you the whole picture, but she'd be horrified. I promise her face was well worth a thousand words and none of them were lovely. I did send the picture to K. C. of That's Sew K. C. with Mary Beth's permission. K.C. is the tutu queen and two days later, a box of her beautiful lace arrived at our house. We began the tutu transformation in the studio, where Mary Beth's ballet teacher offered both practical and moral support. The girls were rehearsing. Helen and I were stitching. Oh, and then we moved to some other costuming issues and watched Paddy play soccer at the same time. 

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I was on a roll after I left the studio and my mind was whirling with ideas. I had Mary Beth try it on at home and did some pinning. I handstitched late that night (she had her first performance the next day) and awoke early to get back after it. When I read the bodice parts, I felt like the stitching would be better if it were actually being worn while being stitched. Mary Beth was still asleep and I wanted to surprise her anyway. So, Katie volunteered to be my mannequin and Karoline took up the camera. 

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Mary Beth was pretty thrilled when she awoke. (And truly, Katie and Karoline were so excited that their enthusiasm carried me for days.). I don't have any pictures of Mary Beth wearing the newly decorated tutu, but she took this one with her  phone. 

 

Oh, dear. The Snow Queen's costume is looking a bit shopworn next to the Sugar Plum. Whatever shall we do about that;-)?

There is some Christmas crafting underway at last. A dabbled a bit with this tutorial and that. And I've done a whole lot cutting and a wee bit of sewing. I'm pretty tickled with the results and looking forward to doing a whole bunch of these in the very near future. 

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And a little something sweet to go along with the dish towels? Cinnamon Maple Butter! Yes, ma'am.

Cinnamon Maple Butter

yields about 3 half pint jars, with a wee bit left

Ingredients:

3/4 cup REAL maple syrup

2 cups butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

4 tsp cinnamon

 4 half pint canning jars

Cream the butter, powdered sugar, maple syrup, and cinnamon in an electric mixer with a whisk attachment until it's all smooth. Spoon it into the canning jars and tie with a scrappy bow. The butter needs to be refrigerated and it spreads much better if it sits out a bit before serving. I'm not eating bread or muffins or all those typical things upon which one might spread this heavenly butter. But, oh my heavens!, it takes baked sweet potatoes to a beautiful, beautiful place.

(Note: Like most things in life, this is all the better if you scrape a vanilla bean into the mixture:-) 

As for reading, I'm pretty much enchanted by Amy Welborn's new picture book, Bambinelli Sunday: A Christmas Blessing. It's the sweet story of a little boy who visits his grandfather in Italy. Amy Welborn does a masterful job of bringing Italy alive as the little boy learns lessons in craftsmanship, forgiveness, and generosity. We learned a bit about the traditions of the presepe and Bambenelli Sunday, enough to want to research more and we all decided that this book went nicely with The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey (Is it possible that this book is out of print???). And of course, we have to make our own Bambinelli (Sculpey, clay, wood, peg dolls? A little of everything?)

There's a live event today. Join host Judy Zarick and author Amy Welborn as they introduce her new book for children. Just in time for Christmas, Bambinelli Sunday tells a wonderful story about sharing, comfort, generosity, and forgiveness though the lens of a long-standing Italian tradition. 
Join us on December 5th at 3:00 p.m. ET (12:00 p.m. PT).  Log in and ask questions through the chat area.  Amy Welborn will answer them during her presentation. You must register first.

So tell us all about your reading and stitching!

needle & thREAD

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I welcome you to needle and thREAD. What have you been sewing lately? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo and a brief description of what you're up to? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much. Tell me about it in the contents or leave a link to your blog. I'll be happy to come by and visit!

You can get your own needle & thREAD button here in your choice of several happy colors.

Katie’s Book Report Dress is nearly finished. All it needs is cuffs and a hem. So cute: color blocks, sweet pockets, darling pleats. She thinks it's adorable. I so loved sewing this dress. It’s been pure magic to just be in my sewing room and have this creation come together. More and more, I am convinced that there is something about that room and fabric and just, well, all of it, that is essential to my soul at this point in life.  So, yes, magical dress.

 

Except it doesn’t fit.

It’s entirely too narrow across the shoulders. I’ll finish it, I’m certain. Then, I suppose it will sit in the closet three years or so before Karoline can wear it. Katie is bummed because it seems to her like Karoline ends up with quite a few pretty wonderful things that don’t fit her. I still have fabric for an adult Lisette Market Dress pattern that might just fit.

My fiction was delivered to Christian’s apartment instead of to my house (I’m sure he was bemused). So, the whole plan to immerse myself in light fiction was most definitely thwarted. Instead, I’ve been reading back issues of Welcome Home magazine. Welcome Home has long been out of print. Once upon a time, I edited the magazine. Then, I realized that somehow this wonderful opportunity to work from home, in the margins of my life, was sucking the life out of my days. The irony was not lost on us. 

I’ve been pondering a lot lately how the decision to be a mother at home and to make mothering and home the primary focus of my days is a decision I have to make over and over again. More on that later, I think.

So tell us all about your reading and stitching!

needle & thREAD

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I welcome you to needle and thREAD. What have you been sewing lately? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo and a brief description of what you're up to? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much. Tell me about it in the contents or leave a link to your blog. I'll be happy to come by and visit!

You can get your own needle & thREAD button here in your choice of several happy colors.

I haven’t much sewing nor reading on which to report. I’m definitely yearning for some quiet morning hours in which to sew and some quiet evening hours in which to read. They are not presenting themselves just yet. I promised a picture of Sarah wearing her flannel Class Picnic Blouse. There she is, playing with helicopter seeds. Don't you love those?

I did begin to craft a dress for Katie this morning. I’d love to work some more today and finish it tomorrow. We shall see.

 

In the reading department, I’m still very slowly working my way though Living into Community. It’s great book, one that makes me want to reach for the highlighter incessantly. But I’m learning something about myself in the reading: my reading habits have been affected by my internet habits. I’m much more distractible than I used to be. I read a quote and have to fight the urge to Google the person who said it. I’m restless and can’t settle in to do the work of reading something so meaty. Needless to say, this observation about myself greatly disturbs me. It also makes me want to persevere—because it is a worthwhile book.

My friend Linda asked me to David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell (interesting thoughts on conversion in link). She asked me to read it because she wants to talk about it. That’s a guarantee I’ll read a book. Any book Linda wants to talk about is a book I’ll read. I’ve just begun. It’s my downstairs book. Living into Community is my upstairs book. Last week, when I was resolving some long lingering doubts and wonderings, I resolved to change some habits. One of them is “internet reading.” I’ve always been a voracious reader, but until recently it was “nose in a book” reading, not internet reading.  I think the “nose in a book” me is more peaceful. Peaceful is good.

So tell us all about your reading and stitching!

needle & thREAD

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I welcome you to needle and thREAD. What have you been sewing lately? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo and a brief description of what you're up to? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much. Tell me about it in the contents or leave a link to your blog. I'll be happy to come by and visit!

You can get your own needle & thREAD button here in your choice of several happy colors.

The morning sewing time is working nicely so far. Firstly, I’m motivated to get up quickly. When I hear the alarm, I remember  why I set it—to have quiet time alone in my sewing room with some fabric and some prayer. It’s a great incentive to hop to it and maximize the time. I usually get at least an hour. It’s a little tricky to discipline myself to stop, but for some reason, if I’ve gotten that hour in, it’s easy to go back and pick it up sometime during the day, even if just for a few moments. So, all in all, a fairly good report on the experiment. We’re two days in;-)

Sarah’s top is finished. My model is sleeping as I type, so no pictures of the finished product. I’ll add those later today, perhaps. I made Karoline’s Class Picnic Blouse in a Size 8 this season. I made her a 6 last year. So, since I made Karoline’s two sizes larger I made Sarah’s two sizes larger as well. But Sarah’s is going to be pretty huge on her I think. Oh,well. My plan all along was to layer a turtleneck under it during the colder months anyway. It will be fine.

Now, on to cutting for Katie. I’d love to think I get both the Lisette tunic (for the sewalong) and the Oliver + S Book Report dress finished by needle & thREAD next week but I’m going to be away at a soccer tournament for three of those days. So, we shall see. I don’t really think the morning sewing time is all that efficient.

 

In reading news, my quilting fabric stash welcomed a new friend this week. My friend Marcia lived down the street from me during high school. She moved to Kentucky moved the day after graduation. We re-connected on Instagram and I’ve very much enjoyed keeping up with her family there. Marcia noticed that we had some overlapping circles. First, there was Grace. And then there was Erin from House on Hill Road. I don’t know either Grace or Erin personally, but Grace feels connected through Ginny, who is very much close personal friend. And it turns out that Erin is Marcia’s real life buddy.

So it is that Marcia greeted me at my high school reunion with my very own copy of Erin’s new quilting book. And since big parties are not really my favorite scene and quilting books most definitely are, I think Mike was a afraid for a moment that I would curl up in the corner and just read the night away. I am proud to admit I exercised all kinds of self-control and promptly took it up to my hotel room and left it there so that I wouldn’t be tempted.

The very next day, I huddled my feverish self under a million blankets and contentedly eschewed all the rest of life to read this book.

It’s an absolutely beautiful book. It begs you to linger long over gorgeous photos of lovely quilts and fabrics. Then, when you are properly motivated and want very much to create a piece of beautiful fabric happiness of your own, there is this well-written, everything-you-need-to-know text.  When I first got the book, I flipped around looking for the quilt patterns. Don’t all quilting books have quilt patterns? Not this one.

 QuiltEssential takes the focus off the product and endeavors to teach the process so well that a beginner can confidently design and sew any size quilt. It’s all here—from color theory and fabric choices to how to piece blocks and how to properly bind.

For further inspiration, Erin visits eight talented modern quilters who share their joy for the art. She talks to folks like Anna Maria Horner and Rita Hodge and gives us a real feel for the richness and diversity and pure joy of the art.

A couple of years ago, Carmen gave me a whole bunch of mixed pieces of Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric. There is certainly enough fabric here for a quilt top, but I asked myself which quilt top?  I really couldn’t consider designing the quilt around the fabric I have at hand. Actually, so far, I have always purchased fabric a quilt pattern someone else has written and even then, usually purchased far more than I need because I’m so afraid of messing up and not being able to follow the plan precisely. This book is worth its weight in gold if it can teach me to go confidently in the direction of my own designs. Really, though, even if I never design a pattern of my own, this book is invaluable because it equips me to follow anybody else’s pattern. Nothing in the quilting process will be a mystery any more. It’s all here.

Did I mention that the book is beautiful? Oh. So. Very. Beautiful. Truly, everything you need to know about quilting in one incredibly beautiful volume!