From my studio last week: February 21, 2011

So not much happened in my studio last week.  Not even the cleaning that was so badly needed.  Even so, I did get a few things accomplished.

I picked up this hot pink cashmere cowl neck sweater at a thrift store.  It was only $4 because there were some holes in it, but it’s hot. pink. cashmere.

I’m no good at handstitching, so I sweet-talked my mother into closing up the holes for me.  Then, I did some quick reshaping in the side seams so it would flatter my figure.  (Sorry,  no photo of me wearing it.  I’m home by myself today.)  It was a quick, easy sewing project – maybe 30 minutes? – but very nerveracking considering I was cutting into pink cashmere.

One of the holes was so large that there was no way my mother could close it without leaving a small pucker.  My plan was to cover it up with some leaf shapes cut from some matching knit fabric, but then I realized the sweater layers beautifully with a gray vest that covers up the hole.  Even easier!

And last night was Stitch Night at my church.  My friend Melissa brought a bunch of her baby girl’s old onesies for us to make into American Girl clothes.

She’s a genius!!  It turns out that a 6 month sized onesie provides all the fabric you need to make a t-shirt dress for a doll, with just the tiniest of scraps left over. Looking to make more clothes for an 18 Inch American Girl style doll? Check out these sewing patterns we found on Etsy.

We were able to repurpose the trim around the neckline and the hem on the sleeves, so they went together quickly.  And the small scale of itty bitty baby onesies is PERFECT for the small doll clothes!!

And these little bean bags.  I made them with my daughter a few weeks ago, but forgot to include them in my studio recap until now.  We started off following the Five Stones Game tutorial from Wendi Gratz, but Miss I’ll-Do-It-My-Way got her own ideas about two steps in and we ended up with plain square bean bags.

It turns out they’re sized just right for an American Girl doll.  Or they can be little pillows for Littlest Pet Shop figures.  Or you can draw a bunch of circles on a piece of typing paper to make a bean bag toss game.  Or you can put them in your sewing box and use them as pattern weights.  And that was just what we came up with in that one week.  Who knows how many other uses we’ll find for these itsy bean bags?

So that’s it  for the studio recap this week.  My goal for this week continues to be to get the studio cleaned up.  Of course, I’ve added a few more piles in the past week so the job is larger than it was before.