We had a neighborhood garage sale last week and my kids ran a surprisingly profitable lemonade stand and got rid of a ton of old toys that were just languishing around the house. I told my daughter she could use her proceeds to buy a toy of her choice at the Doll Hospital, and she chose this doll that looks quite a bit like her mother (freckles and red hair).

Wood decided to make this doll a summer dress and a matching one she could wear herself. But I have to tell the story of that fabric. We have been looking for a decent fabric store south of 8 Mile for some time, with little success (the JoAnn in Grosse Pointe doesn't count). Wood googled a few stores in the city and the first one we visited turned out to be pretty worthwhile. The La Bon Fabric Store (or Labon, as I think it's called these days) at 18999 Livernois Ave is an amazing relic of when that stretch of Livernois was known throughout the city as "The Avenue of Fashion" (it still is, the store's proprietor reminded me, but the luster of what that once meant has faded as so much retail fled to the other side of 8 Mile). I think quite a bit of the fabric in the store was deadstock, although there was a good variety of fabric types and colors. We were looking for a place that carried canvas as well as fashion fabrics, and Labon did. A lot of the notions were the sort of things you'd find in a fabric store back in the 1970s and 1980s, back when many more people actually made clothes for themselves. The space itself was pretty remarkable, and I learned a lot about the store's history just talking to the owner about the decadent 1940s lighting built into the ceiling. There were huge remnants of deadstock fabric for $2-$5, including the vintage piece my wife used to make these two dresses. It's definitely worth a visit for anyone in the area who is interested in vintage fabrics and a bit of Detroit history.

 

No pattern for this dress, but it's not dissimilar from some of the simple summer dresses she made here. The next Woodcraft I am eager to share with you guys is the product of a whole lot of knitting hours, so stay tuned.

Previous Project: Juniper Bonnet

Jim came back from the fancy fabric store (yes, ladies, when you have a house-husband you can send him on errands to the fabric store while you're at work) with a scrap piece of raw denim that had a weird selvedge. It cost something like 50 cents, and I had no idea what to do with it until it occurred to me that it was perfect size for the iPad case I wanted to make as a gift.

Honestly, I have never had anyone explain the trendy selvedge denim to me in any way that makes sense (I understand it's made on older shuttle looms, and that it's less liable to fray) and maybe this isn't even the fancy selvedge. I just thought it looked cool.

To make an iPad case, all I did was take the measurements provided online for the device and added a little bit along each edge for the seam allowance. I lined it with a nice soft red cordouroy fabric for added protection:

For the closure I made a band that the top flap could fit into. I like how it kind of looks like the rolled leg of a pair of jeans.

We field tested it and sure enough, it even keeps out the great toddler menace:

Most of the iPad cases out there are pretty expensive. This one cost less than $1 to make!

Previous Project: Knitted Gifts

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.

Previous Project

I made something for myself this week. Or rather, I made something for my newest love: my first MacBook. My husband and I are late converts to the whole Mac world (he claims he resisted so long because he didn't want anyone to think he could ever be swayed by an advertising campaign involving anyone who would ever date Drew Barrymore). But we're in now and there's simply no going back.

I needed a laptop sleeve to protect my McBook when I need to throw it in my bag; it's also nice to cover it with a little extra padding when it's just in the house, because, you know, there's a terminator in living with us. I didn't look for a pattern, and I wish I had planned a little more before I got started, but in the end it worked out okay.

I figured all I needed to make was a big padded envelope. I used two medium weight fabrics for the outside and the lining, and put some batting between them. I didn't use specific measurements, and instead just measured around the laptop.

I started by figuring out where I wanted the velcro to go, and then sewed it to the lining (for the flap) and to the outside fabric (for the inside closure).

Then I sewed the edges of the outside fabric and the lining together (without the batting) wrong side out. After turning it right side out, I placed the batting inside, folded the whole thing into an envelope shape with the lining on the outside, and sewed the edge together. Then I turned it right side out, and I was 80% done.

Unfortunately, I left finishing the top edge for last, and that's where it got kind of messy. I put a binding on it (like quilt binding), and I wasn't very precise in my measurements or cutting, so it's little bumpy and uneven.

Here's the back side and some more pictures:

Overall, it's a little sloppy. Anyone more experienced ever made something similar or have any ideas on how to be more precise? How would you have finished the top edge? The velcro closure is all right, but I could have used something stronger. Maybe a button and button-hole (or two)? I'll probably make another one when I fall hard for some new fabric.

Previous Project