Sunday Sewing
November 2, 2009 at 8:22 pm | In Sewing | 2 Comments
Yesterday I had a wonderful sewing day. Everyone very kindly let me just keep working on my projects. It helped that I had cut out pieces the previous day for some of them. And with all my working at my own stuff, Paul was still able to paint the front of our garage! Between that, the new driveway, and some new fencing around the garbage can, our outside is looking as nice as we imagined it for the past few years. So what did I sew? Aprons, aprons, aprons!
“The Waverly.” This is a pattern I have made before for my friend Melissa’s birthday. I’ve had fabric set aside for this for some time and I’m pleased with the way it turned out. Sort of frilly and flouncy with the scalloped bottom and plenty of gathers, but also crisp and elegant, with the white binding.
This cherry fabric I purchased at least four years ago and have only just now gotten around to turning into an apron. I loved the cherry border that is printed on this fabric. This border went along both side of yardage. I cut it right in half and then used more of the leftover side to make the waistband and ties. I was very pleased to make the waistband and ties based on the other aprons I had made. I really feel like you can learn some good sewing skills with these projects! Once you get down the construction of main piece + any pockets + waistband + ties, you can really play with embellishments, bindings, and so on.
I am going to use the leftover fabric to make a Tabitha sized apron for her for Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas…I’ll be making at least two Christmas aprons this year. Here’s the first. I used the “Psychedelic Squares” pattern (from A is for Apron) I bought this fabric specifically for aprons for baking Christmas cookies, so I was definitely going for a red/green and fun pattern scheme. I like the ric-rac on the pocket, too.
I have pieces cut out for another one and ideas for a couple more to make as well. When I bought that cherry fabric I also bought some gorgeous bluebird fabric with the intent of making a full apron (covers top as well as bottom), so maybe I’ll try my hand at that as well. But first up, a belated birthday present, another Christmas apron, and another gift apron (or two..). I think one of the reasons I felt motivated to get started on this yesterday is that Halloween is done, it’s officially November, and while not Christmas season yet, it’s almost here and it’s certainly time to think of Thanksgiving and decorations and time to get going on handmade gifts.
Now, I’ve got to start whipping up cocktails and party nuts to go along with my little aprons 
Happy Halloween!
November 1, 2009 at 1:34 am | In Crafty, Family, Sewing, holiday | 3 Comments
This was the most fun Halloween we’ve had in years! At 4 this was the year that Clark not only embraced his costume, but also was thrilled by the trick or treating (last year we did about 5 houses and that was it, though he did love his costume) At 2, having an older sibling, Tabby was also excited by it. She also has a monstrous sweet tooth and was nutty about the candy. And of course, since it’s a Saturday and Paul was actually off of work, the whole day was a fun holiday.
We all painted masks:
Ate loads of cookies that we baked and decorated yesterday:
At nursery school Clark has been gearing up for Halloween big time. Crafts and songs and stories, all culminating in the Halloween parade and party on Thursday.
Bat made with hands:
Mummy:
We don’t decorate too much around the house, except for a string of spider lights.
And of course we’ve had some pumpkins and gourds about for a while now:
And now, the main event: trick or treating.
In our little village Halloween is a huge event. We’ve only lived here 6 years, but my friend who’s grown up here assures me it’s always been a big deal and in recent years has really exploded. It’s somewhat inexplicable, but it’s absolutely delightful and we’re happy to be a part of it. In the village center of 3 streets hundreds of people wander the streets trick or treating. Grown-up dress up just as much as kids (I’m thinking that next year we might; my favorite grown up costumes this year were Paul Stanley and Luke Skywalker with Yoda attached to his back ) and many of the houses have lavish decorations. One of my favorites is this tree with a headless horseman. What’s so awesome about it is that this house was sold 2 years ago and the new owners continued to create this decoration:
This picture is a bit blurry, but I include it so you can see that the tree itself looks like a horse:
Spoooooky:
Here we are ready to walk down to town (note: it was a bit rainy now and then, a very damp walking around.) Clark requested a pink and purple Tyrannosaurus Rex costume and Tabby was a cow (Clark’s costume from 2 years ago, but I made a new hat with more authentic ears) I sewed the main part based on last year’s giraffe costume and Paul masterfully made the headpiece. He really loved wearing it and roaring.
On the way we stopped in at Walter’s (the feed and seed) and he had a wonderful “treat” for us: his pig, Cheyenne, had her babies! They are 3 weeks old and were possibly some of the cutest baby animals I’ve ever seen. They were like puppies. None of my pictures came out very well, so a word picture instead: they are all black, have floppy triangular ears, little round behinds, and little tails with just a slight curl at the end. Their mother is humongous. Seriously large.
On to the houses and the candies. Clark was not at all hesitant about marching right up to the doors all by himself and nicely saying “trick or treat”, “thank you”, “Happy Halloween!”. Tabby couldn’t bring herself to say anything, but was quite happy to help herself to the candy.
Lots of fun, lots of nice town spirit, lots of really good candy.
Happy Halloween!
Getting Organized and Puppy Pants
October 19, 2009 at 12:45 am | In Sewing | 6 Comments
A little while ago I bought myself a spool organizer and I absolutely love it. I find it very inspiring and soothing to see all my spools and bobbins in almost rainbow order. Not to mention it keeps them better organized. Today we were all very mellow-the weather was cold and dreary and we were tired out after Tabby’s birthday party yesterday. So I undertook a little sewing area reorganization. I sorted through all my trims and bias tapes (apparently I have a zillion packages) and I found a good way to organize/store/take better care of the ribbons and trim. I took part of a cardboard box and wrapped them around it and pinned or taped the end. I also did this with the loose bias tape. Voila! So much better. I’d love to have it out somewhere where I can gaze at it all the time, but I put it neatly in one of the sewing tins. I also sorted out all the elastic, pins, snaps, and needles.
Before I embarked on this organization I had sewn up some flannel pants for Tabby. I had cut the pieces out over a week ago and this was my first chance to sew it together. In the meantime I had already made her a pillowcase and her doll some pants out of the same fabric. Well, now they can all be matchy-matchy because the pants are complete.
And, once I saw all my organized trims and notions I knew the perfect way to finish them off: pink piping along the bottom!
And I have to say, I bought this fabric at Wal-Mart (I know) for $4/yard and it is some of the nicest, softest flannel I have ever felt. Plus the puppies are adorable. So, for $4 pants, doll pants, and pillowcase. Not too bad!
What Should Dolly Wear?
October 6, 2009 at 5:25 pm | In Family, Funky Photos, Sewing | 4 CommentsTabitha loves her baby dolls and kisses them loudly, pushes them around in strollers, puts them to bed, wraps them up, feeds them, and is a very good little mother to them (well, she’s kind of rough with them, but she kills them with kindness.) The dolls are usually naked, except for one that she insisted wear a shirt of hers. As you can imagine it was ridiculously large and she was always needing to be adjusted:
So the other day I did some alterations to the 12-18 month sized bodysuit and voila! Baby has a dress and also a fetching little hat. See how happy she is?
Inspired, I decided to make her a dress out of some other fabric. Here she is in her sailor dress and crazy cap:
Check out this vibrantly orange mushroom I found in the woods (there is no color enhancement on this photo):
Yesterday we went apple picking again. This time we got a good variety of Winesap, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, and Ida Red. They were all…delicious.
I Will Never be a Daily Blogger
October 4, 2009 at 1:29 am | In Cookery, Family, Sewing, Wildlife | 1 CommentI’d like to think that I’d cook something or create something and immediately have a photo and a little write up, but that’s never going to happen. I like watching tv after the kids are in bed far too much to write every night (though I do actually think about it every night). This also explains why I am not finishing (or starting) sewing and other projects as much as I might like to. Which brings me to a a few cooking highlights from the past week:
Last week we went apple picking, which was a true autumn delight. (Oh, first we visited Denise and her new baby and she loved the quilt.) We picked many huge apples of the Macintosh and Macoun variety, as well as a whole bunch of delicious peaches (I was suspicious of such late peaches, but they were juicy and sweet.)
What to do with all these apples? Well, the next day I made an apple pie, of course. And if I amy compliment my own baking I will just say that it was fantastic and I made a delicious crust.
For dinner I tried a new butternut squash soup recipe. This was a squash and white bean soup and the seasonings were unusual (not in and of themselves, just for this soup) and spicy: cumin, cloves, cinnamon. Of course I used one of our squashes. Look what a nice color-they were definitely the success of our 2009 garden.
Tomorrow I have plans to can apple slices in a red hot cinnamon syrup. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Here’s a neat spider web pic I forgot to put up last week:
Two nights ago it was 5 o’clock and I didn’t know what I wanted to make for dinner. I feel like 5 is the “time to decide” time because I aim for dinner to be ready at 6/6:15 and if we’re having brown rice or something that needs to bake I figure it needs to go in by 5:20. Anyway, I decided I wanted fish and am pleased to report a pretty fabulous dinner was on the table quite on time. But what was best about it was that I made a dinner that was a childhood favorite. I didn’t have a recipe, but it turned out delicious. In fact, it was better than I remembered. Which either means it was just better than I remembered, or the way I made it was actually better than my mom! Clark called this “Fish Muffins” because the dish gets made in a muffin tin. When I was a kid that was also the appeal to me. So novel! Dinner in a muffin tin! Here’s how I made it:
Sauteed mushrooms and the 2 small shallots I had, as well as a green pepper from the garden. Took two pieces white bread out of the freezer and toasted them and the chopped them up. Took all the frozen shrimp I had (about 5 or 6) out of the freezer, ran them under warm water, chopped them up and added them to the pan. When they were cooked I put the sauteed stuff, the bread crumbs, a drained can of crabmeat, some lemon juice, and Old Bay Seasoning all in a bowl and tossed it around well. Meanwhile, I had been defrosting some frozen tilapia fillets. So, you take a piece of fillet and wrap it in a circle in a muffin tin. I used my giant muffin tin so it didn’t make a solid cup, as it would if you used the smaller muffin tin. Then fill the center with your mixture. Drizzle a little bit of melted butter over the top of each and then bake until done. I think I did 400 degrees for 15 minutes. It came out great!
As for sewing, well the fifth expected baby arrived over a month early this week, so now I have that gift lined up as well as another gift for my cousin’s baby (born the preceding week.) I did not work on those thing today, though, instead I finally got around to making Clark his flannel pants. The fabric is a lovely soft flannel, not of a pattern I would have chosen, but he is in love with it–army green airplanes against a cloudy beige background. It’s a very military looking pattern and he just has not clue at all about camouflage or soldiers or anything like that, he just loves the planes. After the last disastrous pants I made him (I think I sewed them upside down so that the inseam ended up being like 8 inches long) I was kind of worried about these. But they came out great! He put them on immediately and wore them for the rest of the afternoon and to bed. I didn’t get to take a good picture of them close up, but here is playing in them:
So there’s the big catchup. Tomorrow is canning and I know I’ll have great pictures because Eleanor will be our photographer for the event!
Circus Baby Quilt for Michael
September 26, 2009 at 12:10 am | In Sewing | 2 Comments
Today I visited my friend and her new baby, Michael, which meant that last night I finally finished off this quilt. I had made proper bias binding out of one of the fabrics on Sunday, but didn’t get around to putting on until last night. I’m very pleased with how it looks overall. There are definitely some flaws, but it is soft, I think the fabrics are really appealing, I love the backing, and I just think it’s quite cute for a baby blanket. This is pretty much the same style quilt as I made for Tabitha, except hers was made with a charm pack of precut squares. These squares I cut myself and I am frankly surprised and thrilled they came out even!
Congratulations, Denise and Bill!
Tote Bag!
September 10, 2009 at 6:39 pm | In Sewing | 7 Comments
I just finished my latest project and had to immediately take pictures and post about it. This is a tote bag that my friend Jen and I made together (that is, she also made it and we did the steps together, coincidentally we also used the same fabric.) This turned out to be fairly simple. Probably the most time consuming part was ironing on all the fusible interfacing. Basically you make one simple bag, sew on the straps, make another bag for the lining, stitch it together, and turn it inside out. To provide a little extra structure there is a fabric covered piece of cardboard placed at the bottom.
This and That
September 10, 2009 at 1:27 am | In Big Green Froggie, Botanical Photos, Chickens, Gardening, Sewing | 2 CommentsI’ve been so slow about posting lately (I have quite a backlog of books to do over at The Last Book I Read), but I suppose in part it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of sewing and hobby stuff lately, dealing with a mysterious fever Clark had (swine flu? Lyme disease? It went away and he’s fine), and throwing myself into the change of season. I’m so ready to embrace apple picking, jean wearing, apple eating, and so on. Clark goes back to preschool next week and he’s quite excited about it, as am I for him.
So here’s a rundown of pictures of note and such. First, another bee top for Tabitha. It turned out too large, but since it is summery I decided not to alter it, but to save it instead for next summer. This was my first time making real pleats, which came out pretty well.
In progress: sewing a tote bag
In progress: baby quilt for my dear friend’s baby, who was born today. I’ve got the top and bottom tied together and am going to embroider today’s date and the baby’s name on it now and then bind it. Here’s the top after it was pieced together:
The change in sunrise/sunset and daylight hours is very apparent in the chickens’ laying behavior. During the summer (and as recent as 2 weeks ago) by 9am all 9 eggs would have been laid. However, now they are laying much later in the day and I didn’t get all the eggs today until mid-afternoon. One of the ladies:
Our ladies, by the way, are completely people friendly and always on the lookout for treats. They run up to cars that pull in the driveway. If you call out “here chick chick!” one will run and then all the others will follow. If you are sitting on the front porch, one or two might hop right up there to see what’s going on. They are a delight.
Cooler days are very pleasant for Big Green Froggie-he’s been spending quite a bit of time out on the patio. He was in the pond, though, the other day when a hen fell into the pond! The hen turned out to be fine-I ran outside and scooped her up and wrapped her in a towel.
We saw some interesting fuzzy caterpillars yesterday.
Check out the teeny tiny grippy feet that help it hold on to this thick piece of grass:
And here is Tabitha making the face she does when she says “Nooooooo” Ever since she finally started saying Clark’s name (“Clark-Clark”) she says it all the time. It’s especially funny when she says “Clark Clark No!”, as she is here. By the way, neither of us has ever said “Clark-Clark”, so I don’t know why she does.
In the front the squash plants have run amok, reaching out like a sash across this tree:
What’s neat is the tiny tendrils that reach out to whatever they can and grab on, holding up this big vine and its big leaves and blossoms:
Here is Clark standing next to a very tall…plant. I am holding out hope that it is going to be a beautiful flower (I did plant a lot of seeds here), but I think it just might be a spectacular weed. The other tall plants are zinnias. The black thing behind the plants is our new composter, which Clark won at the Somerset County 4H Fair! Very exciting. We are thinking that by having it closer to the house (and it doesn’t smell, so why not?) we will be more likely to empty our compost into it daily.
Hoping to finish the bag and quilt in the next couple of days, and will certainly have some updates then.
Something for me!
August 23, 2009 at 9:46 pm | In Sewing | 5 Comments
Yesterday I was pattern shopping and while I did not find a good jumper for fall/winter for Tabitha, I did find a top to try for myself. I figured I was ready to try something for me after having made a few things. This pattern seemed pretty simple and versatile and just right for summer. I got two fabrics-black on white and white on black, and I love the way they look together.
Paul took the kids out this morning and I sat right down and worked on this nonstop. Start to finish it took me 2 1/2 hours (maybe a few minutes more.) No major missteps, except for a little error on the armhole, which didn’t actually make a difference. The facing instructions for this were so much easier than on the outfits I’ve made for Tabby, that I think I might use this method next time.
I’ll definitely make this top again with some other cool fabrics. I think I will do a size smaller though. I went a size bigger than I’d normally wear because according to the package my measurements equaled three sizes bigger than I normally wear! I was not about to make it three sizes bigger (and looking at the pattern pieces I could see that it wouldn’t have been right), but I did go one size bigger. It’ s meant to be a loose flowy top, but it may be a tad too billowy. Still, I’m looking forward to wearing this with jeans, or black capri pants.
Patchwork Baby Ball
August 23, 2009 at 8:14 pm | In Sewing | 4 Comments
As I mentioned before I have a whole slew of baby gifts to make this month. This project is from Seams to Me, a book I received for Christmas. I thought it was unique and charming and possibly not too difficult to make. The first step is to cut out 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons.
I used a rotary cutter and mat and doubled up some fabrics to make it easier. I had a lot of fun choosing the color palette. Since it’s supposed to be a fun patchwork thing to be played with I thought it was ok to use lots of different patterns and similar intensities. I also included fabrics I thought would be nice for a baby to touch and explore: knit, corduroy, and flannel in addition to regular cotton. There’s even some rayon from an old dress of mine that I used to love. A couple patches I cut specifically for a picture-the flannel doggie (from new fabric purchased to make Tabby pajamas) and a charming picture from some lovely toile. That’s the super fun thing about patchwork, I think-looking at all the different pieces and thinking about which are your favorites and what you think about each one. What I think makes this extra nice is that I had my friend Jen use her machine to embroider the brand new baby’s name on one of the pieces! Because I used fabrics with different amounts of give some part of the ball bulge a bit more (the knit as opposed to the polished cotton.) The final opening is hand sewn shut and I’m afraid that it looks a bit Frankensteiny on those seems, but I doubt a baby will care. Hurrah for Seams to Me! I loved this project and recommend it.
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