Unicorn Shirt and Skirt

Posted by Wood | Tuesday, July 28, 2009 | , , | 2 comments »

Some nights, after the kids are in bed, before the dishes are put away or the toys are picked up, if my husband is watching the baseball game I sneak down to the basement where I keep all of my sewing supplies. I pull out fabric, push aside the scraps from my last project, and start cutting. I should only sew for 2 or 3 hours, but mostly I push past that, heading upstairs well past the time I should have gone to bed. On the nights where I stop at a reasonable hour and don't finish something that I've started, I usually have fitful dreams about the project I was working on.

I never leave any time for cleaning up, and I make giant messes on the guest bed we've pushed into a corner of our basement. When Jim wanders down to my sewing area, he always shakes his head in disbelief at how someone can create such a huge mess from thread and fabric scraps.

If I'm bad about cleaning up, and I'm even worse at taking pictures of what I make. I envy the craft bloggers who are as good at photographing their work as they are at sewing, and I love the way they're able to make everything look so beautiful. I don't have that skill, and I don't even have a nice place to take pictures of what I'm working on. I usually don't take any shots until my projects are already on the kids. And I don't know why my husband doesn't do this for me. I guess he's off photographing ivy or rabid dogs or some shit.

When Zan was in town a couple weeks ago, not only was she gracious enough not to complain about sleeping on a bed in the basement covered with errant threads, she also took some lovely pictures of the kids wearing clothes I made. Juniper spent most of the visit wearing her current favorite outfit: a skirt and shirt featuring unicorns from Heather Ross' Far Far Away in blue. I made a basic linen skirt with a large pocket featuring a sweet unicorn standing under a tree, and then hemmed the skirt with a trim from the same fabric. I appliqued a second unicorn onto a plain white teeshirt (zigzag stitching around the edges to make it secure enough for a four-year old's playground adventures), and Juniper loves the outfit so much that more than once I've washed it at night so she could wear it again in the morning. The Heather Ross Far Far Away line is double gauze and lovely, but also quite expensive. This project was a great way to use just a little fabric, and I was surprised to find that I could appreciate the unicorns more this way than if I'd made an entire skirt from this fabric.

These photos are Zan's:

Okay, maybe Jim does still take some pictures of the kids. How meta is this?

I do have a dozen more completed projects to share, and I'm working on the photos. Meanwhile, Jim is in the other room with Juniper and I keep hearing the words "Pegasus farm." This is going to be trouble.

2 comments

  1. Unknown // August 6, 2009 at 7:44 AM  

    I rarely post about my sewing projects for the same reasons. I am too compulsive when I am working. I cannot stop and take photographs of the fabric going through the sewing machine. I try to take pictures of the finished projects when I can, but my model isn't always cooperative.

    Does Juniper rebel against the incessant photo taking?

  2. Katie // August 6, 2009 at 12:01 PM  

    I could have written your first paragraph about myself. Last night my husband invited a friend (an Algerian taking classes at state university in our town) over to our home. Once I heard his son liked superheros I got to work on simple drawstring bags from superhero scraps I had- it was already after 11pm. I have not been to bed before 11 in weeks if not months. I don't think I stayed up this late in college.