Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

Masthead header
Needles and a Pen bio picture

  • Welcome to my blog!

    Hi! I'm Traci. I'm a Registered Nurse who loves quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and the great outdoors. In my pre-scrubs life, I owned Real Photography, and you can still see my old wedding and portrait photography site here .

    I've created a map that shows links to our camping/hiking/general family fun review posts that you can find here. It's pretty much the coolest thing on this site. Thanks, Google!

    I great big puffy heart *love* comments, so please let me know you visited! I try to always reply!

skirts

Saturday, April 23, 2011 Posted in clothing, skirts

I finished this swiss dot skirt a month or so ago, but haven’t had a good chance to take pictures.  I’ve even worn it but forgot to have Nic take some pics.  My plan was to have him bust out a few pictures today of these two skirts in use, but it snowed this morning and is crazy windy and I’m having an epic-ly bad hair day so no in use pictures.  Which is lame because these skirts are way cuter on than they are in these pics!

I love this skirt.  The swiss dots are so delicate and I really like the twirly circle skirt cut.  I used the Yard Sale Wrap pattern from Weekend Sewing that I’m so fold of, but because the swiss dot is so sheer, I made 12 panels, knowing that 12 would be enough to cover me twice (I am that scared of linings).  I got it at a big sale at a local fabric shop, so even though it was a whopping 4 yards of fabric, it came in around $15.  I made a skinny waistband and ties again, as I did when I made with skirt from the Heather Bailey Nicey Jane church flowers.

This DS Quilts fabric is one of those fabrics that when I first saw it, I couldn’t decide if I loved it or hated it.  I decided that I loved it and that it would be perfect with my chartreuse cardi that I wear wayyyy too often.  It is, and if the snow lets up it will be my Easter outfit.  The pattern is something I’ve wanted to try out because I suspected it would work, but wasn’t sure.  It’s 6 of the yard sale wrap skirt panels with an invisible zipper and a 2 1/2″ straight waistband.  I had to fudge it a little and make the seams a little bigger to make it small enough in the waist, but it’s a totally legit fudge and not worth redrafting the pattern (and I’m definitely making it again).  My zipper isn’t that awesome, but I’ve seen worse craftsmanship at Target so I’m rolling with it.  With my 50% off coupon, this skirt used 2 yards of fabric and one invisible zipper and cost $11. I’m totally getting my money’s worth out of my serger!

add a comment

Greenstylemom - Cute, cute! And you look so good in skirts.

H2Ogirl - I love this fabric line and a skirt is perfect for the fabric you have. . love it!

Dolores - Both skirts look pretty. I love that DS print, wish I had some in my stash.

dxx

Diane - Cute skirts! I got some of the DS for a skirt too, I just have not made it yet… Seeing yours may inspire me to get started!

Kristie at OCD - Looks great! Love the photo of the Swiss dot skirt in the sindow 🙂

Audrey - I love both skirts, but the DS one is awesome! I bought two yards of this print to make a dress for my daughter and niece, and now I want a skirt like yours! I have that book, but I haven’t made the skirt before. I may have to chat with you at the next meeting to see where you added the zipper in and how you added the waistband.

blast from the past – my first quilt

Saturday, April 23, 2011 Posted in quilts, WIPs

This quilt is going on 15 years of UFO-ness.  It’s the first quilt I ever worked on, though I’ll probably have made 50 by the time I get this one finished.  It’s a sample quilt that I started at the tender age of 13.  I was hand quilting it at the stroke of midnight 2000.  Many of the quilting patterns have meaning.  On one block I quilted bikes for the 7 day cycle trek we did for charity.  The crazy quilt block has the handprints of the toddler I babysat so often she was like a little sister.

Once I got to college, though, the quilt languished (though whenever I find it in the closet I do take it out and refold it to keep away those permanent creases!).  Hand quilting this bed sized quilt is no easy task, but when I took it out to show my friends a few months ago, they both said it was too pretty to stay a UFO, and Beth said that I should just make a promise to work on it for 4 hours a month or something like that to keep it moving forward.  So…I decided that it would be my guild project.  I’ll work on it every time we have a guild meeting, and eventually I might actually finish it!

Sadly, the stitches I am making now are wayyyy worse than these even small beautiful stitches of my teenage years!

Maybe I’ll get there again some day!

add a comment

A.J. Dub - It is beautiful! I love the fabrics and colors. The quilting is awesome!

Melissa - Well, that Beth is a smart cookie. I love the idea of it being your guild quilt! 🙂 It is a beautiful quilt, and I’m glad you agreed with us that you shouldn’t let it languish in your closet.

Susanne - That hand stitch is such a cute and creative idea!!! I’m going to use it on my mothers day gifts!!!

Angela - but your quilting i saw on saturday was gorgeous!! I have tons of questions ie thought of to ask you about you quilt you were working on!!

My Swap Stuff » 3 Beans Studio - […] Traci talks about using the hand prints of a toddler as the quilting on one of the blocks. A lot of our Mother’s day gifts have involved hand prints, but usually with paint and porcelain. Only, even after a few years of doing that, it was getting a little old–or maybe a lot old. I had considered paint on fabric, but I didn’t want it to be too cheesy or too 80′s. (some how I associate hand prints on tee shirts and bags an 80′s thing). Anyway, Traci’s post gave me this idea. Simple hand towels. Every time our moms dry their hands, they get to touch the hands of their grandchildren. (AWWW!!!!) […]

Renee Johnson - LOVE this quilt, your first quilt. How can I get a pattern? LOVE the scrappy squares!!!

Friday, April 22, 2011 Posted in Uncategorized

Will knows that he has to sleep in his bed during the week in order to have a sleepover in our room on Friday nights.  Last night he came into our bed.  I didn’t feel like taking him back and when I reminded him that he needed to go to his bed in order to have a sleepover the next night, he just moaned and rolled over.

This morning I felt him wake up.  He snuggled in next to me and stroked my hair and then froze, sat up, jumped out of that side of the bed (Nic was in the shower) and scampered as fast as he could out of the room.  I could just feel the “OH CRAP!  I’M IN THE WRONG BED!” thought dawn on him.  It was too cute. 

And because these years are so short, there will still be a sleepover in our room tonight.

(I need to stop hanging out with women 30 years my senior if I’m ever supposed to be expected to deny him snuggles!)

Friday, April 22, 2011 Posted in Uncategorized

Mom? Can you paint my toes? Only not purple. Purple is for girls.

Will, admiring my purple toenail polish.

Friday, April 22, 2011 Posted in Uncategorized

I am in the dining room feeding Ellie and playing on the laptop. Will is in the living room watching cartoons.

All of a sudden I hear a panicked voice: “MOM! This isn’t appropriate! I thought it was appropriate but it’s not!”

I look over and he’s hiding under the sofa cushions. I look at the tv and it’s just a cartoon that seems to rely heavily on slapstick. A moose is trying to cut down a tree but first he chops off a finger and then it appears that the tree is going to fall on him.

“It’s okay, sweetie. You can change it.”

“No!” I hear from under the cushions.  “You have to do it!  I have to be under the pillows.”

I change it to Bedtime for Frances and he reemerges. 

“Thank you.  I thought it was appropriate but I made a mistake.  It wasn’t appropriate.  There was blood.”

Friday, April 22, 2011 Posted in Uncategorized

Will’s friends said his show and tell was dumb and so now I have some five year old ass to kick.