Sewing: Little Girl's Embroidered Blouse with Square Collar

My mom made this blouse for Ana: designed, embroidered, and sewed it.

I love the collar. I used to have a dress with this same collar that my mom had made for me when I was little. It was a white dress with redwork embroidery. I remember it had red lace edging.

On my request, my mom made it a little bigger so it can hopefully stay with us a few more years as she grows.

I love to do embroidery but don't have the time (or patience) for it these days. I still manage to do small napkins and cushion covers and such on and off.

I do sew a lot. Mostly utilitarian stuff - kids' clothes, place mats/napkins, cushion covers, pot-holders, tote bags and such, maybe even costumes at times.

For the last 2 weeks, Ana wore this tops about 60% of the time. It must be her current favorite or something :)

Sewing: Napkins, Place mats

Since the kids are learning to use napkins a lot at meal times (esp., the pre-schooler who simply rubs his food-smeared hands on his shirt and hair and whatever else is within reach), I've been making some napkins on and off.

Usually it is just a pretty printed cotton fabric, no fuss, simply cut a 15"x15" square and sew the edges. Dark color prints, so mustard and turmeric and ketchup and sauce stains don't show. Ana can use a white napkin and have it perfectly white even after several meals. Not Og.

Sometimes, I manage to embroider them, sort of like redwork, only not red but blue for Og as he likes blue.

Of course, not always a single color embroidery either as Ana likes it colorful... But usually very simple running stitch or stem stitch on the outline, nothing fancy.

Over the last seven years, we've drastically cut down on paper towels, tissue and other paper products usage around the house. The main paper consumption happens in the toilet - Toilet Paper.

For those incessant colds that stay with us nine months in a year, the snot gets wiped with a couple of small squares of TP, and hands washed right away as we are in the bathroom anyway cleaning the nose.

"Mama, I have a booger nose", "Mama I want to blow my nose" and so on automatically sends us to the bathroom. And, if we happen to have a particularly forceful sneeze with a huge yield of snot, we simply run to the bathroom wash our face and hands, and maybe change our clothes as needed...

Of course, there is always the "emergency" paper towel roll and TP roll in the car...

Anyway, I'll quit rambling. Here are a few appliqué place mats. The place mats were cut from an old saree my mom left with me. Napkins are just plain muslin.

Sewing: Simple Embroidered cushion covers

My concerned,
"Oh no! Please don't squish them so... the beads may cut loose..."
was met with,
"Well, this is how people use the cushions... if you don't want them to be used, put them in a museum or something."

And that's how my embroidered cushion covers end up in the linen closet for the longest time, never getting their turn in the limelight. For, if they did, I couldn't stand the abuse they had to endure.

Well, not that D doesn't appreciate the work - he exclaimed, "Nice! Beautiful!", before he matter-of-factly folded the said cushion with its precious embroidered cover and tucked it under his head.

Anyway, I convinced myself that I could whip up more in a flash (if I can find the time) and decided to let these embroidered cushion covers cheer us up for the start of this Holiday Season, despite the treatment they get.



With but a few colorful threads and a few simple stitches, the transformation of a dull old fabric to a vibrant piece of art is magical and brilliant.

Embroidery, initially, fascinated me. My mom has always made beautiful embroidery work, as far back as I can remember. She wouldn't just sew the clothes for me, she would add embellishments via embroidery and beads, and even paint to make my clothes special. She also did a lot of cross-stitch and beadwork.

So, it was natural that I took to it early on and from middle school through high school I shared the joys of embroidery with my mom.

And then somehow I outgrew it. It didn't hold the same sort of charm it once did, especially since my interests became diverse and I had all these other crafts to teach myself...

Now, one of the things that used to block the flow of embroidery for me was the need to periodically stop, tie off the old thread and start a new one to continue the work.

This annoyed me no end as it broke the rhythm.

I used to try and 'stretch' the thread to finish just this piece in the frame... and fail.

Of course, the length of the thread has to be reasonable so it doesn't get tangled while doing intricate work...

...and judging the required amount is not an exact science, so, while it is okay to end up with more than needed, it always seems a waste to throw away 4 inches of green and 6 inches of pink as nothing much can be done with it...

Darn, look at me, I am rambling... anyway, since these are out getting air, I thought it would be nice to record it here :)

fleece bag with crochet heart pocket

This whole week was a bit of a blur as all of us were sick at home. We are recovering. It was the Flu, I think... but, with both parents sick, it gets hard to handle a sick and willful toddler. We managed. I can't help but admire parents with more than one child - where do they get the energy from and how do they manage when they all fall sick?

Anyway, this morning, my fever is down, headache is under control, not very nauseous anymore, so I started feeling very restless and needed some creative outlet. I made a fleece bag with crochet heart pocket.

The crochet heart I mentioned in previous post sort of seemed inadequate to send as a gift for a little 4-yr old, so, I decided to make a bag for it :-)

This is a simple fleece bag, with the crochet heart forming the front detail as well as a pocket of sorts to tote all the little-girl things around. I added a simple fringe at the bottom, and some embroidery detail. Fleece is so wonderful for this project as it doesn't fray, or pill, or shrink.

My wee tot is too young now to carry a bag around like this, so, maybe next year I'll make one for her...