Category: Sewing

A Fishy Tale
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

A Fishy Tale

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I was super excited to find out that I accidentally uploaded all my pictures from the last 30 days to the Cloud. While I didn’t have all of them back, I ended up with the quilt show pictures at least and a ridiculous number of adorable Fancy pictures. 🙂 

If you’re not sick of them, you might see some more quilt pictures after all! There are some pretty cute baking themed ones that would go perfectly with some recipes from my 25 recipe list. 

One of the coolest things we saw at the quilt show was a demo on fish leather. I had absolutely no idea this was even a material that you could get! 

The presenter, Pam Manthei and her husband Joe, import the leather from a tannery in Iceland. Their company is called Fiskur Leather and all the skins are made from fish that were caught for food in the wild and are not farmed fish or caught for their skins. They are dyed with environmentally friendly dyes and the water is heated by geothermal energy. How cool is that?! Apparently the fish skin is fairly neutral in color and takes dye really well. 

How amazing are these colors?

The leathers are made from cod, wolf fish, salmon, and perch. There were so many different textures and colors! The perch had this lovely large textured scale pattern and the wolf fish had these cool spots on it. The salmon has a very small scale pattern. K bought some black salmon leather to make a wallet for her Dad, who is an avid salmon fisherman. I believe he black piece in this photo might be a salmon leather. 

The vendor, Pam, was very nice and extremely knowledgeable about her craft. She was so excited to hear that K and I were sewists! That was actually a pretty common dynamic we heard a lot there. Apparently we’re part of a new trend for younger people to get back into sewing. It’s fun to be trendy sometimes (although I was sewing before it was cool.)

Pam makes lovely things, most of which you wouldn’t even know were made from fish skin! Some of her purses really embrace the natural fish shape and other things completely catch you unawares.

These pictures all have elements of fish leather in them. See if you can tell where they are. I’ll tell you in the captions/

The bright silver strips in this picture are the fish skin.
This one is a little easier! All of it is fish leather, except the blue background square, which was felt, I think.
The hills in the windmill picture are fish leather and I think all or most of the birds.

If you’re interested in knowing more about the fish leather, especially since K and I only heard part of the demo, please visit the Fiskur Leather website. http://www.fiskurleather.com/about-us.html

The whole expo, but especially this interesting material, reminded me how much I don’t know. I’m excited to learn and discover more!

Sewing Expo- Things Bought and Learned
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

Sewing Expo- Things Bought and Learned

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I thought I should share what I learned from the Sewing Expo, now that my brain has had a chance to absorb it all. I hadn’t been to an expo like this before, so it was a bit overwhelming. The classes were all over the expo center an occasionally difficult to find, but I did manage with some help from other attendees. The featured picture is this fantastic little stand that had all batik jersey and rayon fabrics. I really wanted to just roll up in them and nap, but I thought it might be frowned upon. Sadly, they were a little too pricey for my budget. 

This next picture was taken in the exhibit hall. Such a dangerous place with all the pretties! There were also multiple quilt exhibits with different themes. Those are the pictures I’ve been posting. 

I took two classses and attended a fashion show. I had a free class for bringing a friend, but my brain was too tired, somI skipped it to shop instead. 😄

The first class K and I took together and it was a pants fitting class with Cynthia Guffey.  She was an excellent instructor,  but a little terrifying. She had several tips for us, including how to readjust waists- basically rip off the existing waist and make a yoke that fit instead. She adjusted a participant’s in front of the class and it was amazing to see how it fit much better. 

She also told us that the smiles or frown lines in pants points to the parts that needs to be adjusted and how to adjust those parts as needed. We covered a ton of material in an hour. I’m glad there were two of us in the class because I’m sure I would have never gotten all the material on my own. 

The second class was a notions class and I now have an even bigger list of helpful things to use that would help with sewing. A couple of the neatest ones were a heat safe ruler, scallop maler, and prarie point maker. There were also some glue pens and this fantasitc glue you can iron. I had learned about that previously at a vendor stall and almost fell over when she stuck her iron right down over the wet glue. That might actually make me want to appliqué! 

Here are some of the notions I picked up. 

The famous glue, a washable tracing pen, and a glue pen for thin lines. I didn’t see the heat proof ruler at the notions stall because I got distracted by the next picture. 

There were two baskets of wide lace on the counter for $4 and $6 a yard! Since this type of lace would normally be around $15 (at the cheapest) a yard at Joann’s, I snapped up a bunch of two yard pieces. I may get brave enough to try undergarments! (Don’t worry, those won’t get posted on the blog!) I stuck to stretch lace as it will be more useful, but really I wanted all of them! 

I also found a lovely set of batiks and some Christmas fabrics. The batiks were from a shop that is close to my work. The ladies were very nice! 

The Christmas ones were from a variety of places. 

And these hearts were 25% off and too cute to pass up. The white has triangles and other geometric shapes. 

These were also from a mix of stalls. I’m going to use some of the dinos to make dino tea wallets. The white tone on tones are music and checkers. It can be hard to find whote fabrics that aren’t floral, so I’m always on the hunt for them. 

K and I made people crack up wherever we went, as we kept finding the “perfect” fabrics for each other that we absolutely had to have. And then blaming each other for our totals. 🙂 These were from Vogue fabrics. There was so much fabrkc there I think my brain simply shut down at one point. 

We also planned out what patterns we were going to use for each fabric and it made a lot of the vendors very happy to see “nice youg ladies” sewing. These adorable owl buttons are going to go on a cowl neck sweater, hopefully soon. 

The snowman is coming with me on our Christmas trip for something to do in the car, or on a quiet evening. 

There were a lot of interesting things there and I’m very glad we went. Next year, if it’s back, I might plan to just take two classes. 

We did see a fashion show featuring Kentaro from Project Runway, but alas, I am short and all my pictures had another lady’s poofy hair in them. It was pretty neat to see the details up close though. 

We saw a really cool new technique for quilting sith chenille yarn and learned about a very interesting new kind of leather, which I’m going to do a full post on later. 

Here’s a picture of the chenille quilting. 

I have to head out to work, but I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into the Sewing Expo! Have a great day! 

Monthly Review · Sewing

Sewing Review

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I’m back! This time with my sewing projects for the month. I have been sewing lots of wintery things. I need some more, longer sleep shirts. I do not enjoy the random cold spot in the middle of my back on cold winter nights. Brrr…

This cozy shirt is one of the warmer shirts I have made. It is. Relaxed Raglan pattern from Patterns for Pirates. I ordered the fabric after getting a sample of a different color in an order. It was not entirely wht I expected, but it’s still soft and warm. 

It grew a little as I was making it, so it’s pretty oversized, but perfect for sleeping in. The sleeves are deliberately long, which really meant I didn’t shorten them. 🙂 

I know you’re probably completely sick of seeing this pattern, considering I have made a bunch of them. It’s interesting to see just how much it changes with each new fabric. I intend to make many more. These are the other two I’ve made.

This one is a black sweatshirt material fleece. I did something funny with the neckline, so it got really wide. I’m considering adding a comtrast band under the first. It’s definitely an “at home” sweatshirt. I was wearing it before the picture, so that’s why the sleeves look wrinkly and weird. 

Mmm… pink.. The floral fabric is a triblend with cotton, spandex, and rayon. The pink is a lovely cotton spandex. Both fabrics are from Girl Charlee and were on sale! That makes these even better! 

I still have a bunch of the floral fabric and am debating what else to make. It’s so soft! 

I had one disappointment when sewing this month. I made these cool foil lightening leggings.

They seemed stretchy enoug, but then when I went to put them on, they wouldn’t stretch past my derrière! Boo! I will just cut down the side and add a strip of plain black. The pattern actually comes with a pocket feature, which I might just try out. 

I also made my purple harem pants and this lovely vest for Kalamazo. I seem to have only uploaded a close up of the vest. I’ll have to post the full costume one day. It has a green background with a gold crackle overlay. Those flowers are iron on pieces and it’s accented with gold dance coins.

I wore a green tank top, gold jewelry, a fairy headband, and a fairy skirt. 

Last Friday, I attended a tree skirt workshop with my MIL, but it isn’t finished yet. It still needs some bias tape, which I need to make. Sadly, no little elves have appeared to do it for me, so it’s taking a little bit extra time. It was a fun class though and a pretty easy pattern with the special curvy ruler. I would definitely take a class at the store again. I’ll write more about it when I have finished it. 

I didn’t really make many new things for my vending event, but I did make these three Star Trek tea wallets. 


“Tea, Earl Grey. Hot.”- Picard

I think there are a couple more things that I have finished or made, but haven’t taken pictures of. I’ve been finding myself reaching for more handmade items lately. It’s fun to wear them and have people try to figure out if it’s one I’ve made or not. One of my kid clients didn’t believe me that I made my dress today and said I must have bought it in the store. I must be making some professional looking items!  

My goals for this month are to finish up the Christmas gifts, sew up enough items that my fabric fits in bins again, and to make up my cozy jammies and sweaters. I would like to try some of my other patterns too.

To send you off to dreamland sweetly, here are pictures of Fancy utilizing her holey sheet to perfection…

Sew Funny
Sewing

Sew Funny

LSieh1 Comment
The title of the post in inspired by the email I got from one of the fabric websites I use. It said in large bold letters “We’re worried your fabric stash might be running out!” After I got done laughing, which took a while, as you might imagine, I had to go organize fabric.
Don’t worry, I still have enough to last through the zombie apocalypse! I checked! Some of it is even sewn into the projects I bought it for!
Things to be T to B: tablecloth into skirt? Green linen shorts? Husband Christmas pjs, Star Trek potholders for FIL, 2 cozy flannel pjs for me!
For example, this grey and pink sweater.
I made it into a lounging at home sweater and it is currently keeping me nice and toasty. It’s not helping with the being sick chills though, so afger I write this up, it’s straight to bed for me. Preferably with two quilts. Speaking of quilts, I finished one from my stash. Fancy slept on the edges while I was making it.
I’ll post a bigger picture once it’s been delivered!
I quite enjoyed hand quilting it and have one destined for my friend who is an OT that might get hand quilted, or at least tied. It’s a smaller one, which hopefully won’t take me as long. The featured picture is fabric from my latest pair of leggings. It feels like it has more spandex to the mix than the other ones do. They are still so soft and comfy! I wore them today to work with a tunic and cardi. No pictures, as I’m cozy and a bit disheveled from work. This stack of fabric is all going to be pants of some sort. The black is ponte, a heavier fabric that will be made into more structured pants. The polar bears and the snowflake fabric will be more cute leggings. The bears appear bigger in the picture than they are in the picture. That one came in a bundle, so I have two yards of it. I can make a pair of leggings and probably some kind of shirt from it.
This flamingo shirt I made with the leftovers from the sweater. The back is also pink.
It’s my new favorite pattern, the Relaxed Raglan from Patterns for Pirates. I thought I didn’t like raglan style shirts when I got one from Lularoe, but as it turned out, I just didn’t like that one! The fabric was a bit rough and it was super, duper tight in all the wrong places. These raglans look and feel good on me. I’ve made four so far and have some more planned. Sometimes once I get a good pattern down, it’s hard to not make about 6 more of them. Sorry for the short update! I have a couple of things in progress, but think I need to get to bed semi-early. As my dad always says “Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care.” Have a great night!
Sewing And Other Pretties
Crafty · Sewing · Uncategorized

Sewing And Other Pretties

LSiehLeave a comment

I think it’s safe to say that Fancy enjoyed her Gotcha Day celebration! The Husband got this good picture of her before she got to enjoy her treat.

I have been sewing up a storm because there was a contest and I had to make all the patterns! So the following pictures are all from Patterns for Pirates, just to save time and my fingers all the typing. 

I made four pairs of Peg Leg Leggings. 

The plain black ones are capri length and are cotton lycra and the rest are regular length in double brushed polyester. The space ones are my favorite, but were also less stretchy than I wanted them to be, so they are a little problematic, but wearable. The bat fabric is from Purple Seamstress, the black fabric is from Knitpop, trucks are from So Sew English, and the space is from Sincerely Riley. I may have too many fabric shops on my ipad…. 

This Cocoon Cardi is made of the softest, comfiest French Terry ever. Side note, how cool is it that I now know all of these knit fabric terms? A year ago, I had no idea what these even meant! Now I’m buying them all online and confusing the heck out of anyone who hears me talk about it. 🙂 Anyway, back to the sweater.

Fancy was scared of the dog in the mirror and hid behind me. I’m excited to wear it once it gets cool enough. I made a second pair of linen pants, this one in blue. 

They are comfy and look spiffy for work. I went out on a limb and tried a new pattern. I don’t think it works for me, but it might be cute for someone else. Also, I really need a new cutting mat.

One last picture of Fancy destroying her little present. She loved it!

I’ve got to go think about dinner. I’ve been told that Husbands like dinner. 🙂

Fancy Sewing
Life Posts · Sewing

Fancy Sewing

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Fancy is shocked that this is not a post about sewing things for her!

I do have a dog costume book, but she is not so fond of things on her head. She is going to come with us to Renaissance Fest next year, so we may rig up a cape or something to attach to her harness. 🙂  

I did sew my fabulous costume and am quite proud of it. We went with K and J again and she made their costumes as well. Here’s a picture of K and I all pretty!

We had a lot of fun! We got to see some fun bellydance and a really cool African drum group. And shopped, of course! 

I had originally planned to go as a pirate, but got this crazy idea to make a vest and had started the shirt already. The skirt I had from my first bellydance at the Ren Fest. It was cold that day, so I was glad to wear my handmade purple leggings underneath. 

Here’s the details of the vest and shirt. Fancy was super interested while I was taking pictures. It probably smelled like turkey legs and all sorts of other things. 

I made it from a linen table cloth, given to me by a friend and her mom for experimentation purposes. It’s currently unhemmed, because I couldn’t decide how to finish it off. It’s pretty short, but I didn’t realize it when I made it that it would be that way and didn’t have a huge amount of fabric. The sleeves are made from a lace piece I had in my stash. The elastic twisted, but it isn’t really noticeable when it’s on. Despite the chill in the air when we got there, the linen was quite comfortable.

I wasn’t going to make something, but then my harem pants went wonky and I didn’t have a vest to match. Then, on Thursday, while driving to work, I thought “I should just make a vest with the peacock brocade!” For once my rational brain and emotional brain were in full agreement and when I texted the Husband and K, they both were very enthusiastic. My fate was sealed. I needed a new vest! In a day and a half!

The vest was actually the pattern I was supposed to make last year, so I had cut the pattern pieces already. I had this peacock brocade from a while ago and still have enough for at least a set of panels for a dance costume for my October dance. 

It came out so pretty and elegant! I used a cotton batik for a lining. The trim was from a Knitpop sale. I knew it would come in handy for something. I did have to buy the buttons and elastic cord. One side came out notched and one straight and I, of course, didn’t notice until I had sewn it all together. Brocade also frays like there’s no tomorrow, so unpicking it is not an option. Grr… 

Here’s a closeup of the details. This was before it was sewn, I was just checking to make sure it would match.

I had pretty flowers in my hair and a very large coin necklace to go with it. It was fun to get all dressed up again and I may use the vest in my October dance. Here’s a detail shot of everything. 

I’ve sewn regular things as well. I made this bicycle cardigan and it’s very cozy, but light enough for the weird transition point between summer and fall. I am making weird faces in all my full pics, so will post a shot later. 

In other craft news, my friend K made us these fun pictures for the Harry Potter party and I didn’t post them with the wands like I should have. I love the light/dark quote. 

I love them and am excited to display them. She did a great job! 

Hailing from my childhood, I decided to make use of my scraps from my clothes and quilts to make some American Girl doll clothes for my Etsy store and couldn’t resist buying this set of official doll patterns for my American Girl, Kirsten. I even had pretty close to matching fabric. This should be a fun experiment, I think. Maybe I can talk my Dad into a making a little spoon for her spoon bag. 🙂  I also bought a doll size treadle sewing machine online because it was the cutest thing ever and can you imagine the photo opportunities?

I haven’t been making too many new things for vending in October because I have so much! I’m hoping to make some things out of the vegan leather I bought, but I haven’t figured out what to do with it, or how to sew it. I need to find out what needle to use. It’s very thin, so I don’t know if a leather needle is needed. It’s also slightly stretchy. Hmmm…. I’ll let you know how it goes.

In garden news, the squirrels have declared war and I have accepted their challenge. Fancy has been showing more interest in chasing them, so I’m hoping they will stop stealing all my tomatoes! Terrible squirrels! The young jalepenos have also been targeted, but not eaten. They are super spicy this year, so I hope the peppers burn their furry little butts! 

I’m late at work this week, for most days, so that might limit my sewing time, but I have plans! Fall is sweater weather, so I want to replace the ones that don’t quite work with more comfy ones. Secret pajamas make the winter bearable! 

Right now though, it’s off to bed for me! Have a lovely, cozy night! 

Sewing · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday

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“A good use for me is to let me go away with my sewing machine and come back with some really new stuff.” – Betsey Johnson

“People who assume my books are only about quilts obviously haven’t read them! I’ve always known that my books are about quilters – in other words, people – rather than quilts or quilting.” – Jennifer Chiaverini

“I am certain that a Sewing Machine would relieve as much human suffering as a hundred Lunatic Asylums, and possibly a good deal more.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

“All creative people want to do the unexpected.” – Hedy Lamarr

Crafty · Monthly Review · Sewing

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

We have had a busy weekend, although it did involve sleeping in a lot. Apparently Fancy was very upset this morning when I was still sleeping and she couldn’t cuddle with me. 

She probably hasn’t had as good of a weekend as we have. Her weekend involved lots of baths. This was her before one of these baths. She’s probably wondering why her treats were going into the bathroom. 

She’s normally pretty good with baths. We have given her lots and lots of treats during them, but this is probably too much for her. Luckily, the smell is going down so we should be able to cut down on the baths for now. Hopefully she’s learned that the stripey kitties are no good!

The Husband and I had separate fun things to do on Saturday. He went to a friend’s house for video games and I had some ladies over for crafting fun. K brought her sewing machine and B brought scrapbooking. S helped me make Harry Potter wands for our party in October. They turned out so cool. It was definitely a group effort, as K brought the chopsticks we used, and B helped pick the end stones. Here’s some pictures! 

The bottoms of the wands. It was fun to use up bits and bobs from my bead box. 

A fancy styled shot. This banner turned out to be a very tiny banner, perfect for a little space, or a dollhouse. I got it online and it’s a reminder to check my sizes before I buy it. I was expecting it to be bigger. We made the wands with hot glue, paint, chopsticks, and beads. 

I also made faux Mercury glass vases for a multi use decoration. 

Sewing wise, I have also made a few things that haven’t been blogged about. I made a pair of white cotton lycra shorts to go under dresses. Specifically this dress:

The fabric is from Girl Charlee and I think is a rayon spandex. It’s very light and silky. I haven’t worn it yet because all my shorts are too dark to wear with it. I’m excited to finally be able to wear it. This was one of my floral fabrics that was on a massive sale a few months ago. It’s hard to resist fabric that is $3.00 a yard!

I made this floral dress too. This one is out of DBP- double brushed poly- from So Sew English. I quite enjoy this one too, although it can be a little hot sometimes. 

I can’t stop making these shorts! I think I’m up to 10 pairs? I have a maroon pair. I don’t have good pictures of them though and they are currently wrinkly from being worn. My latest pair is made from lightweight denim, with both front and back pockets.

I got brave and tried a pair of pants from this pattern and I adore them. They look spiffy and are super comfy. They are a black rayon linen blend from Fabric.com. 

I used a yoga waistband, because why would I use anything else? They are super comfy. I will probably get some other neutral colors of linen. I like these pants. 

Speaking of pants, this fabric was running through all my sewing groups and I finally succumbed. Who doesn’t need Marauder’s Map leggings?

I enjoy wearing them and will have them for the Harry Potter Party. I have enough scrap fabric left to make a cute tank or shirt from them. 

In non clothes items, I made a little progress sewing on the star quilt. Fancy likes to cuddle with me while I’m quilting, so I haven’t worked on it in a little bit. 

I made some pattern weights, but seem to have lost the picture. I used a bunch of scraps and they have been very useful. Much better than using random things like cups, canned goods, and dog toys. 

Foodwise, I thought it had been a bad month, since I had several weeks where I didn’t make anything new, but it turned out to be a pretty good month. The party and canning recipes helped. 

My favorite recipes this month were the cardamom plum jam, chocolate bundt cake, Dilled green beans, margarita shrimp. 

Misses were the Basil Pecan Pesto, which we had with a chicken leg over pasta. I don’t think I ever had a picture of it up, it was kind of a greyish looking paste. I used a recipe from Southern Living Small Jars, Big Flavors. 

Everything else was pretty good. My numbers overall were 36 recipes with 23 new recipes. I have a lot of things canned for the winter, which is nice. Yesterday I canned a Chunky Tomato Salsa and a Roasted Garlic Pizza Sauce both from Better Homes and Gardens Canning. 

I am running out of time before work, so will have to report my goals for the month later. I’m not sure what to do with my food side of things, especially if I am still in a food rut. Please bear with me as I experiement with different food ideas. 

Have a great week! 

Fabric Mail and Planning
Sewing

Fabric Mail and Planning

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Fabric mail is one of the best kinds of mail. It falls somewhere in between letters from my Mum and new books. 🙂 That’s saying a lot, considering how much I love both of those things.

I had a bunch of fabric come in lately and started organizing it into pictures based on what each piece would be. I thought about adding to my written list, but it now spans several pages in my notebook, which are all mixed in with reviews and book lists. It makes it a little hard to be organized. Sometimes my brain doesn’t want to be organized at all, so I’m working on creating a system that will actually work.

So far I have a lot of fabrics that I bought knowing exactly what it would be. There are some that are waiting for the right pattern or inspiration, but here are the ones I have so far.

These will be shirts. The owls, waves, and stars will probably be Perfect T’s from Pamela’s Patterns. The middle two will be Brunch Blouses from Patterns for Pirates. They are all woven, except the stars. For the top two wovens, I plan to have a knit back on the shirt, like my hot air balloon shirt.

These will be dresses. I’ve started on the pink and black on the top. It just needs a black lace hem and it will be all set. It’s an Agnes from Halla Patterns.

The blue floral will be a Kimono dress from Halla Patterns. It’s ITY, which stands for Interlock Twist Yarn. It’s very slippery, smooth, and cool to the touch. It has tiny darker blue stripes all over it. The black is all ruffles, which I didn’t realize when I ordered it. I kind of want to make either a ruffle dress or ruffle pants. The hearts want to be a dress pattern I haven’t found yet.

This next set is all skirts. The top two, the black and the mint, are going to go together just as they are. They will make a beautiful Maxi dress or skirt.

I really need to make a skirt soon from the ice creams. It’ll be fall before we know it and then it won’t be fashionable if I’m wearing summer things for fall. The bottom one is a table dressing from Ikea. It has the border on both sides that I think might possibly be a dress, if I can find a pattern I can work with.

This next set is all about sweaters. Nice, cozy, favorite part of fall, sweaters!

The top is french terry, the middle is an open weave lace, and the bottom is a single brushed poly. I got the stripes in a mystery box and am excited to see how to use it.

‘

In between organizing, I made some pillowcases for the Husband and I out of Star Trek fabric. I suddenly have a lot of friends who watch Star Trek and it makes me think I should actually sit down and watch it from the beginning. I haven’t seen or don’t remember a lot of the episodes. These fabrics were on sale at Joann’s and I had to text the Husband to see if he wanted them. His dad will be getting potholders to match the ginormous Spock oven mitt we gave him last Christmas. (Seriously, it was bigger than my head!)

I keep screwing up the first one and getting the second one right. I have terrible spatial reasoning skills sometimes and keep cutting them not wide enough.

Here’s the second one that actually turned out.

I also made one just for me!

Because who doesn’t want a bright flamingo pillowcase?  I don’t know if I want to know that person. 😉 My friend gave me this fabric for Christmas and I wanted to keep it whole.

I failed at making this fabric into a large pillowcase, so cut it down in size and made a mini knee pillow. I just have to get a form for it. It’s paired with the yellow from the flamingo pillow. It’s super bright and cheerful!

I didn’t ignore Fancy. She doesn’t get a lot of fabric things, as she likes to tear them apart, but she will be getting her own stocking this year out of these two fabrics.

Aren’t they adorable? The clerk asked me if anyone had said anything to me about buying Christmas fabric in August, but I just laughed and said there was no guarantee it would actually get made before Christmas. 🙂

It’s been a pretty good couple of days. I hosted Craft Night tonight and got to see my craft ladies and gentleman. Fancy was very good and got extra excited when she had her party harness on. She ran to the edge of the couch and sat staring out the window. 🙂

I’ll leave you with a picture of the chalk artist at the Toledo Zoo this past weekend. We didn’t see too many of his works, but this one was pretty neat.

Have a great night!

 

Monthly Review
Gardening · Monthly Review · Sewing

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello again! This month has been a strange month with getting sick, a blown tire, and many, many social events. We sometimes look at each other and say “did we really plan this much?!” It’s nice to see friends and do fun things, but I am grateful for the chance to just relax tomorrow. I do have some sewing and maybe even some canning plans.

Fancy was with the dogsitter this weekend, as we went to the Toledo Zoo with some friends. We got periodic dog pictures and she looked very content. This was the look I got all week from Fancy when I tried to go sew in the basement.

I made sure to walk her a bunch this week and tried to get some longer walks in. We went for two walks a mile or more and this was her face then.

Then, of course, this was her when we got home.

Silly dog. 🙂

I wore new shorts to the Toledo Zoo this weekend and since we had gone with my sewing friend, she was wearing shorts, a tank top, and a hat she had made herself! The shorts and tank had jungle animals and the hat had sea creatures, so she matched the environment very well. Here is a picture of my shorts fabric. They are very wrinkled from wearing them and are in the wash, so I don’t have a better one yet. (This was taken before we dropped Fancy off on Friday, hence the tiny dog paw in the corner.)

They are Bermuda length and a very light cotton I got at the fabulous discount store. I have about a yard left and need to decide if I want a tank top out of it, or a little cotton skirt. They have a blue cotton lycra yoga style waistband and were extremely comfortable for walking around all day in the 80-90 degree heat.

Here are a couple of other pictures from the zoo. Notice that there don’t appear to be any penguins or flamingos missing… 😉

It was a very fun day and I’m glad we could go. I have never been to that zoo and the Husband had been when he was small, but not recently.

Now for the review part of the post.

I did finish two things from the UFO box; a bag for my friend and the blue floral shirt.

The owl cardigan is done too and I wear it a lot, but it’s hard to take a picture of it, since the owl is on the back. I didn’t finish the blue striped skirt and don’t quite have enough material for the star tank top, but am working on what to do. I think I’ll pair it with a plain black back and go with that.

When I pulled out the blue stripes, I wasn’t sure that I wanted it to be a skirt. I realized I didn’t have a lot of colors to pair with it and now am conflicted. The picture makes it look like a darker blue, but it’s actually very bright. It is also more see through than I realized, so I might have to line it.

I’m still thinking about what else I could make with it if it’s not going to be a skirt.

I did make 8 pairs of the Linen Loungers, plugging a huge hole in my wardrobe. I have consistently worn a pair of them at some point during the day every day this week. There were two that I didn’t blog about, both sleep shorts. One has sharks, made at the beginning of Shark Week, and the other pair has yoga frogs. 🙂

So overall from this one pattern, I made two pairs of shark shorts, the yoga frogs, the plaid Bermudas, purple linen shorts with fancy pockets, the grey/teal/purple with lace, Minion sleep shorts, and flamingos. Whew. That’s a lot of shorts! It’s been so hot lately though that if I’m at home, they are all I want to wear. I had no sleep shorts too, just had been wearing my normal bike shorts, which then caused problems when I had no clean shorts to wear under skirts or dresses. It’s nice to have fun sleep shorts! The Husband can shake his head all he wants, but he also likes his Minion shorts I made him last month, so he really doesn’t mind.

I made two other items specifically for Shark Week this year, a shirt and a pair of every day shorts. Here is my shark week wardrobe! I enjoyed wearing them all and surprisingly, no one really commented! My fashion sense must be either pretty cool, or pretty weird, so no one really wants to say anything. 🙂

I kept thinking I had made more things this month, but I think I was remembering mending some things and doing some organization. Only 11 things got made. My brain seems to want to make 20 every month, but I had to tell it to chill out. 11 is fine. 🙂

The garden is growing well, although I did have some blossom end rot again. We’re trying to be very consistent with watering and it’s been rainy the last little while, so I’m hoping that helps. Here’s some garden pictures. These tomatoes are still orange on the bottom.

There was a bee in the zucchini blossom.

The peppers look about the same still. I’m going to harvest some peppers to use for salsa for our Big Summer Blowout Party. Hopefully I’ll have a few tomatoes to throw in it too!

Foodwise, it was a very blah month. I didn’t make a lot of new recipes. I was better about getting pictures, even if I though it wasn’t a new or exciting recipe. We did eat a lot of garden lettuce and still have some to eat up this week. When I went through my blog posts, I think I must have missed a recipe post, because I didn’t have much going on. Both the Husband and I seem to be in a food funk. Normally it’s only one or the other, so it’s enough tougher when it’s both. We’ve also been out with friends for a lot of the weekends, which tends to be when I do a lot more new cooking.

I made 14 recipes total… That’s so low! Out of those recipes, 6 were new recipes. Luckily, all of the new ones were hits. I only had one miss, the manacotti which didn’t cook.

The Husband’s favorite was the Turkey Parm.

I did use a new recipe from Voracious by Cara Nicolleti- The Olive Oil and Yogurt Cake.

It was pretty good and I ate it for breakfast. It had less sugar and was almost on the edge of savory rather than sweet. It had citrus in it, but you could definitely taste the olive oil. The Husband didn’t eat any. The olive oil weirded him out. I ate it with cream when I wanted sweet and yogurt when I wanted breakfast. It was pretty dense, with a crispy outside and tender inside. The citrus didn’t come through very much.

This post is getting super long, so I won’t type out the whole recipe, but if you want it, I can do it at a later time, or you could visit your local library! 🙂

Overall, I think my sewing is growing by leaps and bounds, but my cooking has fallen by the wayside. I think I’m a little burned out and don’t really want to plan things. It’s very confusing. I think I might go through my cookbooks and see which ones I haven’t used yet and decide if they should really be on my shelf if I don’t get excited to use them. This coming week is fully booked and I think I have mostly late evenings, so I’m going to see when and what I can prep ahead.

Goals for the month:

Food:

  • Go through cookbooks and weed them out.
  • Meal Plan consistently.
  • Try 1-2 new dishes (main, side, dessert). I keep getting stuck on just having dinner new and I can do other things to count towards this goal.
  • Use garden produce and herbs.

Sewing: 

  • Work on October Bellydance costume.
  • Sew/Finish one UFO.
  • Catalog fabric.
  • Go through craft books and weed them out.

Garden:

  • Keep things alive.
  • Use produce and herbs.
  • Develop canning list and plan.

Wow! That post got a lot longer than I thought it would. Thanks for sticking with me! I hope you enjoyed the pictures from the zoo!