I Made Some Oven Mitts, and I'll Probably Make Some More

 

It was my birthday last week, and the kids and I had made all kinds of plans. The teenager tipped me off on signing up for birthday freebies, so we had some of those to pick up, and we also thought it might be fun to buy iced coffees and hang out for a while at our favorite indie bookstore. For dinner, a local pizza place gives you your age as a discount on your bill on your birthday, and at 47, I feel like I am finally old enough to really work that discount! Afterwards, Matt said he would set up the projector in the family room so we could all eat cheesecake and watch my favorite movie on a super-sized screen.

But first, the kids had to cool their heels for a couple of hours, because I told them that what I REALLY wanted to do the most on my birthday was sew some new oven mitts!

Our current oven mitts were all old and raggedy, which doesn't actually bother me, but Matt kept somehow grabbing pans with the raggediest part of any given oven mitt and burning himself, which is obviously not an oven mitt success story.

So I found this oven mitt pattern from Suzy Quilts, printed it out, and spent part of my birthday happily sewing away!

The exterior pieces are canvas--a couple of years ago, I got into buying canvas remnants whenever I stopped by Joann's, and for a while I was sewing all kinds of stuff with it, but now it's just sitting in my stash and I'm stoked to have a good use for it!--and cotton batting. I bought a TON of cotton batting yardage online during the Covid lockdowns (just between us, I mathed incorrectly and waaaaay overordered, ahem), and after being used on tons and tons of quilts over the past three years it's finally down to a scrappily remnant amount, as well.

The interior pieces are all quilting cotton of unknown provenance and in patterns that I LOATHE, but I keep it around anyway because quilting cotton! So useful! So a couple of these oven mitts have American flag insides, and a couple have pitchfork and straw hat insides, shudder. Don't look inside my oven mitts!

Here's a little of the quilting on the exterior pieces:

These oven mitts sew up SO quickly! I put a few shortcuts into the Suzy Quilts tutorial to make it even quicker, so if you, too, want the absolute quickest way to a new oven mitt, do this:

1. Follow all the regular steps to cut out the pieces, baste the lining to the fabric, quilt the exterior pieces, sew the two interior pieces together and the two exterior pieces together, and turn the exterior side of the mitt right side out.
2. Insert the interior side of the mitt (which should still be inside out) into the exterior mitt. The two parts of the mitt should be wrong sides together.
3. Turn the raw edges of both parts to the inside, clip it well with those super handy plastic clips you finally bought yourself after seeing them on Tiktok and wanting them for years--

--and sew around the edge to finish!

Here's a photo of Luna helping me photograph my brand-new oven mitts on the back deck, right before the kids and I headed off for iced coffee, my free Crumbl cookie, and a couple of hours of book browsing:

These oven mitts have been in use for a week now, and we love them! The two layers of canvas, two layers of quilting cotton, and four layers of cotton batting feel like plenty of insulation, and the size works for every hand from the teenager's to Matt's. Even though I don't think we need more than four oven mitts in our rotation, I'm very tempted to make more while I have the canvas and the cotton batting and a pattern I love at my fingertips. I could save a couple each for these kids' future first apartments, and I could put a few in my handmade presents stash, or just set them aside to replace these when they get worn.

Actually, though, our current hot pads are just as old and raggedy, so maybe I should make some new ones to match my new oven mitts!

Three New Ballet Skirts, or, It's So Fun To Sew with Slippery Fabrics /s

 

The world of children's ballet is a Whole Thing, y'all. And I'm not even talking about the body politics or the stresses of casting or the superb posture training. My teenager has danced in the same pre-college ballet program since the age of approximately four, and so you'd think the uniform would be pretty standard. Leotard, tights, and shoes, and you can even skip the tights if you're dancing Russian-style.

But no. Every year, and sometimes every semester, is just a new, annoying way to spend my money because these people cannot seem to make up their minds about how they'd like the children to dress! At one point in time, several ages wore the same leotard color, so that switching to a new leo color was a momentous achievement. Then they decided that every level should have its own color. Annoying to buy all new leotards each year, but at least there was something of a resale market. Then they decided that kids could only wear camisole-style leotards, so we all had to go buy new ones. Then they kept everything the same for a year, which was cool, but in the last month of classes decided that the kids should wear a completely different color of leotard and ballet skirt just for the recital--here, by the way, is that white leotard and skirt that my kid wore exactly once. Then they decided that you could wear any style of leotard you wanted as long it was the right color, but they had two different levels wearing two different colors of green, and do you know how hard it is to tell online if a leotard is more mint green or forest green (this one is neither mint NOR forest, it was determined)? And don't even get me started about the level that had to wear "grey"--Friends, there are a lot of greys in the world! Then there was a year in which they did uniform by ages but grouped several ages into a single class, and that's how we discovered that my teenager is the only teenager exactly her age in the program, because she got to be the only black leotard in a sea of burgundy, and guess how much she did not love that.

Over the years we've gone from kids can wear ballet skirts to every class (everyone bought SO MANY skirts) to kids can never wear them ever (after, of course, everyone had bought and owned and loved 4-6 different skirts) to now kids can wear them on Saturdays. I think. For now.

My teenager is, as you might imagine if you've ever known somebody who submitted daily to a strict dress code, thrilled by the upcoming Ballet Skirt Saturdays. Because I can never just buy something and be done with it, I found this pattern for an asymmetrical SAB-style ballet skirt from DsSewingPatterns on etsy, ran it by the teenager, she approved, and then I bought it and we went fabric shopping.

Because fabric shopping is the funnest part!

Four-way stretch isn't really my jam, nor is sewing thin, slippery mesh and tulle, but the teenager had a fabulous time picking out a few fabrics to try, and she was so excited to have me sew them up for her that she literally stood next to the table as I worked, just, like, watching me stitch while listening to my Dolls of Our Lives podcast. I felt very attended to! 

Luna helped, too:

Fortunately, this is one of the best, easiest, and most straightforward patterns I've ever used. The magic is in the cut, which, as you can see if you look closely at the template below, IS asymmetrical!

This means that you can wear it truly asymmetrical, with one side longer, or the way my teenager likes it, with the longer part at the booty for a little more coverage.

The photo below is technically my muslin, although I have a Depression-era fear and loathing (thanks, Mamma and Pappa!) of wasting fabric, so I got the teenager to choose something on clearance that she would still reluctantly wear. She's got those October Saturdays pinned down now!

I did alter the pattern quite a bit in length after sewing this muslin, which is why you should always sew a muslin. Fortunately, the saving grace of this thin, slippery, asshole fabric is that at least it doesn't ravel, so I could just trim the bottom to my preferred length and didn't even have to hem it, hallelujah.

That spiderweb fabric also worked out perfectly when turned inside-out to make the black waistband on this, the most glorious of all ballet skirts:

My teenager and I are absolutely enamored with this skirt. To be honest, she's probably not gonna wear any of the others as long as this one is around. It's a sheer black mesh with these flowers and sequins appliqued on it, and it. Is. Stunning. Now imagine it in motion!

I'm just going to show you a few more close-up photos of it, I'm so proud of it:

Y'all aren't going to believe this, but over winter break the pre-college ballet department reorganized the levels AGAIN, so after having all the kids in my kid's class wearing black leotards all semester, even the ones who were technically supposed to wear burgundy, and me thinking that my kid was going to be wearing black leotards six days a week for the next two years and therefore buying her even more black leotards for Christmas, now they've decided that everyone should go back to... BURGUNDY. You know, the color that LITERALLY NOBODY WORE LAST SEMESTER. BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL WEARING BLACK. A CLASS FULL OF KIDS WHO NOW OWN SEVERAL BLACK LEOTARDS THAT FIT, AND THEY WANT THEM TO BUY SIX DAYS' WORTH OF BURGUNDY LEOTARDS INSTEAD. JUST FOR THE SECOND SEMESTER OF THE EXACT SAME CLASS FULL OF THE EXACT SAME CHILDREN.

I participated in the Great Burgundy Leotard Scramble of 2019, and I am not going back to that nightmare scenario of battling every other parent in the class for the, like, five burgundy leotards, total, that exist in the world--burgundy is not a popular leotard color for the ballet world at large!!! They can put whatever they want on their dress code, but they have pushed me, personally, too far. I bought my teenager a shit ton of black leotards back in August, and a shit ton more black leotards over Christmas, and two shit tons of black leotards is what she will be wearing to class next semester whether they like it or not. 

Sigh. Do you want to make bets on how many classes until I cave?

Team Mouse on the Christmas Tree

 

The Nutcracker battle is fought not just on the stage, but also on the Christmas tree this year!

And Team Mouse is finally winning!

I bought these super cute felt Mouse and felt Officer patterns thinking that they'd make adorable gifts for the other Mice and Officers in my teenager's Nutcracker casts. I only thought that because I sew by hand so rarely that I had completely forgotten how time consuming it is, oops!

First, you cut out all the tiny pattern pieces:

Then you figure out what color you want everything to be. I still have plenty of felt wool scrippy scraps (I just checked my gmail, and I originally bought this felt way back in 2017--definitely time to finish using it up!), and this kind of small felt figure is the exact perfect use for them. Wool felt is much more beautiful than acrylic felt, and has such a nicer texture, that it's worth it to use it in a project where both of those features are really highlighted.

Cutting out all the little felt pieces wasn't super fun because I was too cheap to go out and buy a proper pair of tiny scissors, but I did get to use my favorite heat-erasable Frixion pens to trace most of the patterns, and that's never not thrilling:

Finally, just spend a million hours hand-stitching the cutest little Mouse Soldier in the world!

Um, I did NOT end up making felt Mice and Officers for every kid in my kid's casts. I did make a different present for just the Team Mouse kids, but it was a lot quicker and easier than hand-sewn felt ornaments!

I do think this sewing would go a lot more quickly the second time, now that I know what I'm doing, and I DO have another Mouse and an Officer already cut out and ready to go. Frankly, though, I think I need to have an appointment with my optometrist first, because I'm not sure I've got the eyes for hand-sewing anymore...

The Harper Tunic, a Second Try--And This Time It Fits!

 

The bad news first: fewer kittens fit in your pockets when your Harper Tunic actually fits!

Although to be fair, the kittens, themselves, are bigger now, too. Look at these nearly seven-week-old chonkers!

The lightest of them (our picky Pickle!), is about one pound, 10 ounces currently, so we'll probably have these foster babies for another couple of weeks. 

With my first try at the Harper Tunic, I took the advice that if I was between sizes, I should size up, but the finished tunic was just too roomy.

This time, I cut the pattern down to an OSP, and I love it!

I also love sewing this tunic. It's got some nice details, but is overall quite quick and easy to sew. My fabric of choice was a $5 thrifted sheet, the perfect price so that if, as with my first tunic, I didn't love it, I hadn't thrown too much money at it. I've got enough leftover from the sheet to sew some other projects, although not enough for another garment.

Don't you love a nice spiral of tidy double-fold bias tape?

Also as with my first tunic, I sewed a second pocket onto the front. When I tried the first tunic on, I just wasn't feeling the asymmetry, so I added the second pocket to this tunic as a matter of course:

Good thing, because the pockets are my absolute favorite part of this garment! I can hold so many kittens, sure, but also gardening shears, oregano sprigs, and sunflower cuttings:

It's also VERY comfy, but alas, it's still not anymore flattering than it was with my first try. I, personally, don't care, but as we were getting ready to go out the other day, both Matt and Will each asked me separately if this was what I was planning to wear:

It most certainly was! Here I am in a McDonald's parking lot, waiting for my French fries and Diet Coke:

After that, I wore my new tunic to the Museum of Miniature Houses (yay for Smithsonian's Museum Day!), then to IKEA for dorm stuff for Will, then to Trader Joe's for almost every single seasonal autumn product they had in stock, and then back home to lie around drinking pumpkin cider and eating Halloween Joe Joe's while my brand-new vanilla pumpkin candle burned and kittens used my body as a battleground:

That's probably all the Harper Tunics that I need for myself, although I do have the short-sleeved version printed out, and I could see myself sewing it up next summer when it's hot but I miss my giant pockets. Will's also somewhere in the middle of piecing together a Harper Tunic pattern of her own (oh, the hell of all those 8.5"x11" pieces of paper that must be trimmed, lined up, and taped together!!!), so that will be a fun beginner sewing project for me to help her with.

And then we can go out and about with our matching unflattering but comfy tunics!!!

The Harper Tunic: My First Try

 

The good news: this Harper Tunic is easily the most comfortable item of clothing that I own, second only to my four-year-old Black Panther-branded jersey knit jammy pants.

The bad news: it's so roomy that it's probably unwearable on any occasion in which I care what I look like. That's not many occasions, true, but it's not none occasions!

Even though I've been sewing constantly for 18 years (my first project was a ring sling for tiny baby Will!), I can count on one hand the articles of clothing that I have actually sewn for myself---including that ring sling! I've sewn countless garments for the kids, and even a few things for Matt, but I am very much a novice, still, at sewing for my own body.

For the Harper Tunic, I'm on the cusp between the OSP and OSP2 sizes. The Chest measurement for the OSP is 38"-45", and the OSP2 is 45"-52"; my chest measurement is 45". I'm solidly in the OSP2 range with a Waist measurement of 42.5", but I'm again on the cusp between two sizes with my Hip measurement of 49"; the OSP is 42"-49", and the OSP2 is 49"-56". I read somewhere as I was researching this pattern that I should opt for the larger size if I was between measurements, so that's what I did. 

I sewed this tunic from an $8 cotton sheet from Goodwill--Goodwill's prices have gotten RIDICULOUS, so please don't tell them that their sheet prices are still reasonable, lest they up those, too, and I lose my favorite source of affordable fabric! This was mostly intended to be a muslin, so I'm not super sad that I don't love it. Instead, it's like a bonus that it's wearable at all, even if its entire lifespan will be spent with me doing kitchen and yardwork.

Because look at those pockets!

I added a matching pocket on the opposite side of the tunic, and now I have enough room in my pockets to fit five five-week-old kittens:

I mean, they don't hate it...

My next step will be to cut down my pattern to the smaller size and try it again--I've got a $4 dark red sheet already picked out for it, so I'm pretty stoked. Will is still in the process of assembling her Harper Tunic pattern--so far, her sewing lessons have consisted of the fact that cutting and assembling pdf patterns SUCK!!!!!--but I think I'm going to have her cut her pattern down another size, too, as she is also on the cusp of two sizes and unlike me, she would majorly loathe wearing an oversized shirt.

I mean, she's also probably going to loathe wearing matching shirts with her mother, but to be honest, she's kind of oblivious so there's a good chance she won't even notice...

The Road Map Quilt is Finished!

 

Quilts intended to be given for a specific holiday are the BEST, because you have to finish them!

And that's how the giant denim log cabin quilt that I've been dreaming of for my own bed is still a WIP several years old, with the extra-wide red flannel that I bought to back it narrowly escaping from being accidentally used in every new project I think up, but this quilt, intended as a car play mat for my baby niece's birthday, went from idea to reality in the space of a single summer. 

It also happened to get WAY overengineered in the process, but whatever.

To see the quilt design as I thought it up and pieced it, check out this post where I show off my finished road map quilt top. 

After it was pieced, I needed to think up a few applique embellishments. I wanted the embellishments to hint at the purpose for each area--the park, the neighborhoods, the construction zones, the parking lots, the rivers, the roads, the oceans, the dino dig sites--without being too prescriptive. I wanted features that were naturally stationary, so no animals or vehicles. I had trouble figuring out all the pieces that I wanted, and I had trouble clearly explaining my vision, which led to the fun game of people trying to help me by suggesting ideas, and me going, "No. No. No. Nuh-uh. Not that. Um, no. Nope. Not that, either." 

Fun fact: that's actually my pet peeve when people do that to ME, so sorry!

I never did end up happy with my choices for the river (I don't think the piers look like piers) or the construction zones (I think these cones are oversized compared to the other elements)--

--but I love how everything else turned out. I used all stash for the applique pieces, and almost all materials upcycled from other garments, so I think there's a lot of fun texture variety that will appeal to a toddler. 

There's toweling for the beach!

And work pants, quilting cotton, and bias tape for the houses!

I like the idea that this will be both a play mat and a snuggly quilt. The cotton batting will be comfy on little knees, and cozy on little sleepyheads!

I don't know why I can never have any peace when I'm working on the floor. These photos are just a glimpse of ALL THE DRAMA that took place on this spot.

Jones was in the way and screaming his head off, so Syd thought she'd distract him by giving him some catnip off the hanging planter in the window. 

It distracted him, alright, but only to the extent that he rolled and ran around screaming all over my quilt that I was trying to trim, hollering for more catnip. 

And then Spots heard him and she came hunting for catnip, too, and then they both started hallucinating mice under the quilt and attacking it.

Here it is two episodes of Surviving Antarctica later:

During this time, I also learned that Will does NOT think that traveling on foot through Antarctica is a legitimate path of exploration, and especially not if you fly to the continent. And if you do go there and get stuck and nearly die, you nevertheless have no business asking a whaling vessel or a tug boat to pause its legitimate business to come save you and your crew, because you knew full well what you were getting everyone into.

So that's that, everyone! Please consult with Will before planning your next trek.

I barely had enough of that stash cotton batting for this quilt, and I'm going to be very sad the next time I start a new quilt and find myself having to buy new batting. But that's a problem for Future Julie! Present Julie also found a grey flat sheet in the stash that matches the grey flannel roads perfectly. I'd been holding onto that sheet because I thought it was the one that I was going to use to make the final blackout curtain in my bedroom, but I compared it to the other two curtains and it doesn't quite match, so

1. Where is the sheet that matches, so I can make that curtain?
2. Where did this sheet come from, and what did I intend to use it for?

Well, whatever it was meant to be, it's a quilt back now!

When it comes to quilting the lines on grey flannel roads, it's Frixion pens for the win!

I didn't even iron the marks away, just washed and dried the quilt and those marks and the chalk marks on the black flannel roads disappeared like magic!

A back-to-front blanket binding...

... and my road map quilt is finished!

But, of course, the most important question: is it fun?

Better get out the Hot Wheels and see:

It's fun!!!

Here are some cars parked in the bias tape parking lot:

And here are some in the park, parked by the waffle shirt and inside-out sweatshirt tree:

Because our baby niece lives in California, Matt designed her a palm tree, and I made it from some T-shirt and dress pants fabric and put it in the park:

The construction cones are blocking off the construction zone so that non-work vehicles stay out:

There are a couple of houses already in the neighborhoods, just waiting for some building block and LEGO neighbors:

And if you ever want to do some paleontology, this is the place to do it!

After work, you can drive to the beach to relax:

You might remember that for a while I was super worried that the quilt would be, just, ridiculously big--like, her parents have to have enough floor space to lay it down, for goodness' sake!--but now that it's finished, I don't think it's too large:

I mean, it IS pretty big--that's Matt's head just barely visible over the top of it, so it's a good six feet!

But the child simply HAS to have enough room to spread out. It's no fun if you can't spread out!

Syd suggested that for upcoming holidays, I should create quilts with different small world themes to connect to this one. Like, you could drive to the outer space quilt to the north, or the deep ocean quilt to the south. Perhaps a mountain range to the east, complete with castle and dragon?

Thinking up new ideas might be the best part of handmade presents!