Wordless Wednesday- The Little House
Tag: Adventures
Wordless Wednesday- Vintage Junkyard Gallery
Some of the cars from the Vintage Car Gallery at the Airbnb. There were soooo many more, but also a truly ridiculous number of mosquitoes.
Wordless Wednesday- A Walk In The Park
This was a few weeks ago when it started to get warm.
Wordless Wednesday- Zoo Trip!
All pictures except the Zebra are courtesy of K2.
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday- Charcuterie Chalet Challenge
So we did something ridiculous, as per usual. We challenged our friends and family to a Charcuterie Chalet Challenge where we built houses out of charcuterie materials instead of gingerbread houses. It was wacky fun! I hope you enjoy the pictures and are inspired to create your own fun events!
And finally The Winner! Title: Frosty’s Getaway. Look at the amount of intricate detailing. The chimney! The path! The snowman!! The pepperchini trees! The tiled salami roof!
K1’s mom made it, so I will be sending her a fun homemade prize after Christmas.
Wordless Wednesday- Zoo Animals
Game Night! Sort of..
While chatting with a friend the other night about what to write about as a blog post, she suggested the Train Game, which we had just played online. Full disclosure, she kicks my butt at it all the time! But it’s still fun to play. I know I’ve talked about having game nights with friends pre- pandemic, but not about the actual games we play. Fair warning, our game nights are normally with a bunch of social workers or counselors, their partners, and whoever else is brave enough to join us, so it can be a bit dark, humor wise. Here are some of my favorite games
Ticket to Ride, or the Train Game will go first as it’s a favorite among a bunch of us. The main point of the game is to make a train go from one place to another. There are a bunch of different boards, including a Nordic route, India, Pennsylvania, Europe, and a couple different US route boards. Each board has different bonus cards. We have just the original, US board. It’s set in 1913 or thereabouts, I think, so it’s got a cool vintage feel.
You can play this online too, which is how I’ve been playing it recently. The Husband is very competitive and will block people if he figures out where they are going, which has taught me to do some circular route taking to prevent it. Darn logical minded man. My friends who play online are generally nicer. Game play is typically around 45 minutes.
Carcassonne is one of my favorite games and I really should look it up online, as the Husband claims it is too complicated and refuses to play often. Mainly because I win, I think. 🙂 My friend who taught me this game in college played absolutely cutthroat and I got tired of losing, so learned all the weird little tricks to win. To win, you build the biggest castles, get the most land, and acquire the most resources. I think it isn’t as complicated as Caatan, but it does have a learning curve.
Game play can range from anywhere from 45- 90 minutes, depending on how many people you’re playing with. I have three of the expansion packs and they add some different rules and pieces. I taught it to my younger brother and he really enjoyed playing it as well.
My Mom gave my MIL and I the game Quilt Show for Christmas one year and we played it while we were at the cabin with my sewing friend K2.
In this game, you have to “make” quilts with different blocks. You can make smaller or bigger projects and then show them in a Quilt Show to get points. The person with the most points at the end wins. There are different configurations of how to set up the quilts, by pattern, color, etc.
It took a minute to see how it worked, but it was pretty fun! I would like to play it again some time. I would say plan probably an hour to play.
We have three Firefly games, but not enough of our game night friends like Firefly, so we haven’t played them often. (This would be Joss Whedon’s TV show Firefly and movie Serenity, if you didn’t know.)
The game, Firefly, is super complicated it seems, so I think we’re still a little intimidated by it. Tall Card is kind of based on poker and is a quicker game. And of course, Monopoly, can be a hit. That is if someone doesn’t flip the board out of frustration like my younger brother did one summer. I believe Monopoly was banned for a week after that.
The other games we play most frequently are card based and have essentially the same game play, just different themes and cards. I’ll start with the newest one we bought- New Phone, Who Dis?
Regular game nighters brought it with them one time and we loved it! Basically, you have a main card that you all get to see and pair it with one from your hand that you think is the funniest, most ridiculous, or in some cases hilariously offensive. Then you put them face down and the person who’s judging reads them all and picks their favorite. For example:
The first one to a certain number of agreed upon points wins. The next games follow the same format.
Cards Against Humanity probably ties with Joking Hazard as the most likely to offend people. When you’re playing against mental health workers, the gallows humor abounds. Not all the cards are terrible though. There are some innocuous ones like “Lunchables” and “Bees?”
Joking Hazard is by the author of the comic Cyanide and Happiness, which as you can probably tell by the name, is generally pretty dark. In this game, you make your own comic strip to go with the main card and the judge picks their favorite. This one is especially cool because the whole strip could be wordless. It’s fun, although sometimes cringe worthy, to see what people come up with!
Jobstacles is a pretty tame game, comparatively speaking, so I thought I should end with it. Perhaps then you won’t think we’re too terrible. 😉 In this game the judge puts down a card of a person they need to hire and you add a candidate card and a card that can either hurt or help the candidate card. This game is fun because you get to see what other people think. None of the people normally fit the job, so you’re really having to pick from the best of the worst of the combinations. It’s a very quick playing game and is best with a smaller crowd as you can run through cards pretty quickly.
So those are some of the games we like to play and hopefully will be able to play again at some point. Speaking of game playing, Piggy is currently sitting like this on the couch because I started typing and not petting her, like she thinks I should. I’d better go try and cheer her up. Can’t have the world’s most pathetic dog around the house. It’s killing the game night spirit!
Wordless Wednesday- Herb Farm pt 2.
Thready Tuesday
I had a wonderful, relaxing day last Tuesday! I took the day off work to go to a Jellyroll Serger Quilt class with my MIL.
A jellyroll, in quilter terms, is not a cake, but a roll of 40-42 pre-cut strips of fabric, typically measuring 42 inches long by 2 1/2 inches wide. I would show you a picture, but I made my own! My MIL has a die cut machine that chops all your strips to the correct width. (I’m pretty sure it’s actually tiny gnomes because it’s so magical.) We were both determined to use what we had at home, at least for the blocks. I think we both ended up getting additional border fabric and she got some additional sashing fabric.
Here’s one of her blocks in a very pretty blue colorway. Her quilt turned out much more scrappy than mine, as she had more variety of strips. Mine is more planned, which is weird for me, but I like where it is going.
My blocks were based of a stack of fabrics I got a few months ago at the same place we took the class. You can see all three of the original fabrics in this stack- the dotted pink at the far left, the watercolor looking birds three in from the left, and the leaves next to it.
Here is one of my finished blocks.
I’m super excited to see what it looks like all put together. I’m using a light grey for the frames around the squares. I have a different colorway of the birds for possible borders, but I have to see if they look okay or not. It’s more green than blue. If not, I’ll find something else lovely to use, I’m sure. All of the block fabrics are from my stash!
The quilt pattern looks super complicated, but it’s actually really easy. Just a lot of sewing strips, cutting, and turning them. For the record, I was using my travel iron, so it’s not as powerful as a big iron and didn’t get all the wrinkles. I still have to buy a new regular iron after the tragic demise of my current one. 🙁
It was actually a big sewing weekend for me, as I vended at Detroit Raqs- a local bellydance fundraiser. I made my table extra fancy this time.
I did sell a few things, but sadly, none of the leggings I made specifically for this show sold. Here’s a close up of most of them in the baskets. Those polka dotted ones may end up in my drawer. They are sooooo pretty! They are all the Patterns for Pirates Peg Leg pattern.
The leggings fulfilled two weeks of the 52 Week Sewing Challenge for me. I made the olive and rust ones last week, along with a pair for my friend. I don’t have a picture of her leggings up, but they are a black background with white grid lines and hot pink roses. They are really fun! I didn’t follow the challenge of doing something for the kitchen last week. This week, I made stripes match on a pair of leggings, which is one of my sewing fears, so accidentally fulfilled the theme.
It looks like they don’t because the net is see through in between the stripes. They are super fun though. Since I now have a serger, I’m more confident in making things for other people. There’s much less of a chance that these will split along the seams!
I have finished a couple of projects that I had in my UFO bin. These two shirts just needed a couple of extra touches to be done. The purple one needed sleeves, so I added this mesh type fabric and I think it looks cute. I can wear it as a work out shirt or as a regular shirt. It is the Fall In Love Sweater pattern from Ellie and Mac, with modified sleeves.
This one is a Sweet Tee from Patterns for Pirates. I have a long sleeved shirt in this fabric as well and like it so much that I used the remnants for a short sleeved one as well. It’s triblend, I think, so soft and cozy. It’s a mix of rayon, cotton, and spandex.
I just serged the bottom hem and it looks good. I did grade out at the hips for both of these shirts. I’m shorter and hippier than the models/pattern blocks for this pattern.
I also dove into sewing my own underwear! I know! I was shocked at how easy it is and how much I like them. Every time I try to wear store bought underwear now, I just have to take them off. They are so uncomfortable.
I used a whole bunch of different patterns to find ones that I liked. Here’s the links, in order of how much I liked them. Fair warning, there’s butts ahead. Not mine, but butts in the pattern links. 🙂 Feel free to skip ahead if you’d like!
1. Ellie and Mac Feeling Frisky Panties https://www.ellieandmac.com/products/feel-frisky-panties-pattern?_pos=1&_sid=f15442949&_ss=r
1A. RAD Panel Undies https://www.radpatterns.com/product/panel-undies/
These two were my favorite patterns. They are pretty true to size, although they look alarmingly big when you make them, but trust me and try them on first. The panel undies allow you to use smaller pieces of fabric, but are a little confusing to put together at first. I also changed how I added the liner because I hate extra steps and don’t care if my edges are exposed. Honestly, if someone is examining my underwear that closely, they will shortly have some other, potentially lead coated things to worry about coming their way. Or a barky thing with teeth, depending on who’s home.
I also add the leg elastics with the pieces laid flat. It’s so much easier than trying to stretch them with everything sewn together already. I have used picot/lingerie elastic, fold over elastic (which I left flat, not folded,) stretch lace, and made fabric bands for waistband and leg bands. I may have ordered enough fold over elastic to last until doomsday, so I have been mainly using that. I found elastic with all sorts of fun prints including planets, pitbulls, narwals, piano keys, printed lace, and a ridiculous amount of other cute things. Several Etsy sellers are super happy with me right now. 😉 Mary Supplies, Once Upon a Stitch, and Fluerisy are all the sellers I used. I have been quite pleased with the quality and pricing. My underwear drawer will never be boring again!
2. Made for Mermaids Mama Vicki Hipsters https://www.madeformermaids.com/product/mamavicki/
The Vicki was a surprise hit and is self lined, so is sometimes easier. It does require a longer length of fabric.
The ones I really didn’t like, which I was sure that I would like, were the Stitch Upon A Time Bunzies. They fit all wrong and I was not happy with them at all. I might try going up a size, but in all honesty, I will probably just stick to the patterns I actually like. I have a couple more to try too. It has been super fun to pair up fabrics and elastics into new combinations. I used a bunch of the legging scraps too, so I have a whole drawer of silly and pretty undies.
Okay, I know I said I wouldn’t post pictures of my underwear, but I never said I wouldn’t post detail pictures for the ladies. 🙂 So here goes!
Thanks for sticking with me this far! I haven’t really been sewing much outside of vending and underwear, but am hoping to branch out again soon. Have a great week!
Wordless Wednesday- Colors, Colors Everywhere!
