Cover the chair with a few layers of padding. I used about 4 or 5 layers of quilt batting, but there's probably a variety of battings, foams & padding stuff that you could find at any craft place to use for this. Just depends on how smushy you want the seat to be.




Cut a piece of fabric slightly larger than the seat, lay in all on top of each other, they break out the staple gun! I like to put a few staples on the sides across from one another before I move on to the two remaining sides. It keeps the fabric nice & straight, and it's easier to do the corners when the middle is already stapled down.



When you're all stapled, trim the fabric so you can see the holes that the chair screws are going to fit back into. Plop the top back on the chair (I find it helps to have all the screws slightly screwed up through the top of the chair so you can make sure the pad is situated properly over all 4 holes before you go screwing it all back together), and go to town!


Now I need to get to work on a tablecloth to cover up the old, scratched up table top!

The Littlest Print Exchange

I'm not sure if anybody around here makes artwork in editions, or if you know anyone that does, but I thought I'd take a chance and tell you about a new project that I started today. It is a juried print exchange (in which I am the juror) and it goes like this: Submit an online portfolio of some of your artwork. If your work fits into the group, you make an edition of fifty 3.5" x 3.5" prints and send them to me. I sort them out into portfolios containing one print from each of the fifty participants. Each participant is then sent one complete portfolio. I'm planning a fancy package to house the prints. At the end, you can buy a bunch of tiny frames from Ikea or Dollar General and cover your walls with awesome artwork. I'm mostly interested in printmaking disciplines like relief prints, intaglios, silk screens, or lithography, but I'm also excited about digital prints or photographs. Anyway, think about it and check out the Littlest Print Blog if you might be interested.

Two Silly Projects

After finishing a Very Big Knitting Project (a sweater that took me a month to complete) I needed a couple of quick instant-gratification-type projects. A "palate cleanser" if you will. I also didn't want anything I'd have to put much thought into color/type of yarn. In fact, this first project was originally going to be something that I used leftover odds & ends from past projects, until I realized that the sizes (and washability) of the various leftovers were so different, I wasn't sure how it would all come together. So I spent the $3 and bought two skeins of "peaches & cream" 100% cotton yarn to work with.



This first project is, obviously, a SWIFFER COVER (try not to be too jealous). When I showed it to a friend, she said, "Oh, I just use a dishrag on mine." Hmm...well, that would have been quite brilliant if I had figured it out. But then I might not have seen the need for this knitted swiffer cover. And I wouldn't have felt nearly as fancy while I swiff.

Quick & Easy project two was knitting cuffs onto dish gloves. Theoretically, the cuffs are supposed to catch that water that runs down your arms & into your gloves when you accidentally lift your hands out of the water at the wrong angle. I haven't tested them yet, so I'll have to report back about whether they work. But in the meantime, I'll feel much cuter than usual as I wash dishes. (It may even motivate me to stop sticking every giant pan I use in the dishwasher!)

The Shelf

I don't know if this qualifies as something I made, since it is a "found item." And I don't know if it qualifies as a "found item" since I had my stepfather pry it off a hearth in someone else's home with a crowbar. But it sure was a project!



This shelf came from an old house that has since been burnt to the ground. It stood on my grandfather's property in southern Illinois, on one of his fields. He had purchased the land from the Hawf family, and came to own the old house. It was in serious disrepair, and only squatters had lived there recently (or meth addicts, if you like.) The house was so old you could see through it; it had no plumbing (just an outhouse), and a potbelly stove heated the place. We went through it and salvaged what was left, then it was burned, and my mom built her new house where it stood.

I fell in love with the hearth shelf, and my stepfather pried it loose for me. He flattened the rusty nails on the back. I didn't change a thing on it. I just scrubbed it down with a bucket of soapy water on their front lawn and let it dry in the sun. Then, when I finally hauled it up here, I was just faced with how to hang it up.



First, I attempted to drill through it, mark the holes, and screw it into drywall anchors. That was a miserable failure, and nearly led to divorce. The wood was so incredibly thick and sturdy, and it took forever outside in the hot sun to drill through it. Then, because the wall in our spare bedroom turned out to be more plaster than drywall, I only succeeded in putting several large holes in it. I patched them, repainted over it, and tried again. I finally succeeded in mounting a couple 200-lb. hanging hooks, and mounting hooks to the back of the shelf, and simply hanging it up like a large picture.



I love the old decals along it. It has held up very well, and I have to say it was almost worth all the work of dragging it up here, washing it, and mounting it while pregnant and crying hormonally. Almost. Just don't look at the wall behind it... It needs to be sanded down and repainted one more time!!

Personal Triumph Booties!

This past fall, I decided the time had come to tackle a knitting project All By Myself. I had done scarves, hats, potholders, a blanket, socks....but in each project, I either had the friend who taught me to knit, my Knitting Guru, who entered the picture a few months later, or You Tube videos to show me what to do. I decided I wanted to try to tackle a project just by following a pattern, and see if I could do it without any help.

I chose booties, thinking that they couldn't be much harder than socks. I did go to my Knitting Guru to ask for a pattern that she thought was do-able by an amateur, such as myself. She gave me two great patterns, and although the one I decided to do had a mathematical problem in it (the directions for each row didn't match up with the number of stitches in each row) I figured a way to get around that and knitted up five lovely pairs of booties. A couple of them had little holes around the ankle where you can string a ribbon, and although it was very cute, I thought it was also totally impractical. (I am not the type of mom who would spend any time tying and re-tying ribbons around my baby's kicking ankles.) So I modified the pattern yet again and came up with this bootie that I really liked. I knitted six pairs in various colors...they were pretty quick to make, and I wasn't sure what sex my sister's baby was going to be so I wanted to be prepared! Since my nephew turned out to be a boy (as nephews often do) I sent a couple of the boy pairs up to Wisconsin this weekend. I gave away two of the girlie pairs to friend's babies, but I still have this one multi-colored pink pair left. Anyone know a baby girl with about an infant size 3 foot who needs some warm booties this winter?

Hot Air Balloon Centerpieces

As you saw in Ruby's nursery curtains, I have a hot air/flying machines theme going in her room. I decided to extend that theme to her baby shower this past summer before her arrival. I know, I know - you aren't supposed to be in charge of your own shower decor or theme, but my mom lives pretty far out of town, and she had already thrown me one shower at her house. So I decided that the more I could have done by the time she got here just one or two days before the shower, the less she would have to do and the more we could just visit together, have fun, and eat. The eating was especially important to me in my last month of pregnancy.

I bought some potted flowers. I think these were called "firewitch cheddar pinks" or something like that. I'd be lying if I said the name alone didn't appeal to me. But I wanted to get perennials so that people would get a more lasting take-home item. I got some unisex-looking baby fabric from the clearance section of Joann Fabrics, some unpainted napkin rings, and several 8" styrofoam balls. By the way, are you aware how much those balls cost?! After looking around for quite awhile on the internet, I actually felt that Joann had the best prices on them. If you get the next size up, there is a huge price jump of like $10. So I decided that the $3.99 eight-inch balls would be perfect!

I wrapped the fabric around a ball, then pulled it through the napkin ring. Then I took scissors and kind of hacked away at the bottom until all the fabric was trimmed away. I pushed a kabob skewer (you know, the kind you get at the regular grocery store) up through the center. The sharp end was perfect for that. Then I stuck it down into the plant. Then I cut up a regular white plastic party tablecloth to cover the container that the plants came in. I tied curling ribbon around the base to secure that on. Next, we tied ribbon on by going under the bottom, up to the top and crossing it over, and then taping it down to the bottom so it didn't move (you could also start at the top, cross under the bottom, and then tie at the top so you can curl the ends). Ma had made cute little buntings from leftover streamers (from the other shower with my aunties and cousins) and brought those with her to tape onto the sides. You just cut a circle, put a slit in it to the center, and accordion it until it is a half circle. Then you repeat with a smaller circle.

We put one centerpiece on each table with some confetti, then tied a small ribbon under one of the chairs. Then we announced that the person who got the ribbon under his or her chair won the centerpiece. I was proud and happy when people actually seemed happy to have won...

Weird Shirt

Last year, Chris and I went to a Weird Al concert in Milwaukee: the GREATEST CONCERT OF MY LIFE. (And no, it wasn't my first concert.) I knew we were sitting in the front row (yeah, NOT easy to score if you are familiar with the screaming hoards of nerdball Al maniacs), so I had to represent. A t-shirt was necessary to let Al know that I'd been with him since the beginning: third grade, when I first snotted to the tune of "Another One Rides the Bus." But many weeks of browsing Ebay yielded nothing in my size. But who needs your size when you have skillz? I got a size large shirt and customized it.

I used the book "Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt." I chose one that was ruched on the sides. First, I got a shirt that I already had and knew fit well to use as a template. Then I traced a bit larger than that to figure in seam allowances, and a few inches longer so that it could be gathered.

In this design, you cut strips to use as the ruching cord. Then you sew the seam allowances to the outside, and sew them down so that they form tubes to thread the cord through. You weave the cord up one side and out under the arm, then down through the other tube. Then you tie them at the bottom on either side. White trash-a-licious.

The neck holes and the arm holes can stay unfinished, because you're using jersey knit, which won't unravel (the whole book is really based on this principle.) I cut a slit in the top, and sewed a small piece of extended elastic at the bust for a nice little gather. The shirt came out really well, and the evening was a total success, except for the time Al looked right at me and I was singing the WRONG WORDS. He pointed at me, like, "NOW sing that line!" one line later. Doh! I'm sorry Al! I love you!

Incidentally, I didn't post these pictures last year in part because I was afraid they MADE ME LOOK FAT. Um, yeah. And now? I just look at them late at night and allow a single tear to trickle slowly down my cheek.

When this shirt fits again, I'll know the pregnancy weight is off!