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

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  • 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!

Monthly Archives: May 2011

portabello pixie gathered market bag

When I proudly showed Nic my birdie sling, his only comment was “that’s really big,” so I changed my mother’s day gift plan for my momma from the birdie sling to the smaller Portabello Pixie gathered market bag pattern that I unearthed last month. After making it, though, in the future I’d construct it more […]

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Do you want to snuggle on the sofa and watch a mommy show with me? Will, in an incredibly well orchestrated move at 8pm.  It worked, of course!

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casserole pot holder

Putting to rest our longstanding tradition of pulling hot items out of the oven with old cloth diaper prefolds is this lovely casserole pot holder!  It’s not my most favorite fabric combination ever, but I had surprisingly little fabric left over after the tablecloth and towel extravaganza. (No pattern or tutorial for this one–it’s easy […]

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sewing kit

Inspired by Jessica‘s fantastic sewing kit for her diamonds quilts, I put together a similar kit for my diamonds quilt as well as the hand quilting I’m doing (and it’s all ready to go for bindings, too).  So far it’s so handy I can’t believe I ever lived without it.  Here’s a peek: All this […]

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shirred skirt revisited

I wanted to try out the shirred skirt using Anna Marie Horner’s with elastic instead of elastic thread.  I love my shirred skirts, but a decent tug from Ellie does send them shooting down to my ankles.  I used just two pieces of elastic instead of three for two reasons:  (1) I’m lazy and (2) […]

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fabric stacks: inspiring versus stressful

This pretty little combination reminds me of spring and inspires me: This stack–my ‘inbox’ for clothes I plan to sew–has grown too large and instead of inspiring, it stresses me out.  I desperately need to stop adding projects to my pile and complete the projects already planned.  My eyes are always bigger than the hours […]

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