Sewing

New Year, New Patterns!

At the very beginning of my blog, I had a pair of slippers that I gave up on because they were too small and I couldn’t figure out the bottom. Well guess what?! I figured it out! They look a little funny still and I didn’t add the elastic on the back yet, but I have made slippers! They are from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross.

I still have not quite figured out the bottom, but I managed to make slippers that are cute and actually fit. They will be perfect for my at home sessions where my feet get cold, but I don’t want to wear shoes in the house.

Speaking of home sessions, I made a lovely therapist cardigan. It’s out of ponte, which is a new material for me. Ponte is structured, with a little less stretch than some knit fabrics. It’s thicker, smooth, and feels a bit squishy, but not unpleasantly so.

It’s a therapist cardigan because it’s an unspoken rule that you must wear a cardi if you’re a female therapist. 😁 This one is a Grandpa Cardigan by Patterns for Pirates. It’s structured and looks professional, but it’s so soft and comfy that it feels like secret pjs. It also wasn’t overly warm. It held body heat nicely, but also breathed. I think I’ll be looking into some dresses or pants to make with it. This was a new pattern, but it was very easy to follow and sew.

I made a tiny doll cardi too, because why not? I think this is the Fleece Fun pattern.

It’s been cold again, so I made some more sweatshirts and hoodies. The fabric below was made into a black Ellie and Mac Fall In Love sweatshirt with purple dbp cuffs, neck and waistband. I look ridiculous in the picture because it came out way too big and I don’t have a picture of after I resized it. It’s a cotton french terry, so more like a bath towel than drapey, so it doesn’t have a lot of stretch or recovery. It’s a super comfy lounging sweatshirt though.

Probably my favorite hoodie I have made lately is this Lotte Hoodie by Sinclair Patterns. I used two sponsors from the challenge in it. The panel is fan art of Kaylee from Firefly. She is one of my favorite characters.

The panel is from 5 Ocean’s Fabric and is stretchy cotton lycra. The pink and yellow are thinner, drapey french terry from Girl Charlee. I lined it with more of the french terry, since it was thinner fabric. It has thumbhole cuffs, which I adore. The hood is navy dbp.

I received a bonus entry in the challenge the week I made it because Sinclair was one of the sponsors that week. 5 Oceans is a sponsor again, so I bought another panel to use for that week.

I have a few more things that I’ve made, but I’m keeping them for a separate post. I thought it would be fun to do a comparison post with the same pattern and different fabrics. I’ll leave you with a picture I sent to K2 to make her jealous that I got to snuggle Piggy on Monday before work. Wearing my new therapist cardi, of course! I hope your night is as snuggly as she is!

Sewing · Simple Sundays

Not So Simple Sunday Sewing

I thought I’d change it up a little and share a sewing post, so you wouldn’t get too tired of book posts. Gotta keep your interest up for the third book sale next week!

Also, I had a lot of sewing pictures building up. I finally did some sewing that was not super secret and I liked pretty much all of it. Today, I finished my grey cardigan and almost made us late for the book sale, because I had to just finish the end of the edge.

I did finish it though and wore it to the book sale. It was perfect for today’s weather, which was in the 60’s, as it is made of a silver/grey cotton lycra. Cotton lycra is much more breathable than the polyesters and it has a bit of stretch from the lycra. It’s a very smooth fabric, although you can tell by the arms that it does wrinkle a little. This was after wearing it all day. It’s super comfy and fills a gap in my wardrobe, so I’m excited to have finished it.

I have also finished off some tea wallets, a batch of Star Trek ones and some miscellaneous ones from my hand projects box.

Oh, and a random Halloween one. Earl Grey, hot, anyone?

Here are the other ones, which happen to be nice and springy.

Aren’t they cute?

Doll clothes have also made another appearance. I had a really bad evening unexpectedly at work last week and came home jangly and upset. Working on these doll clothes helped me settle, although I still didn’t get much sleep.

This one is a Made for Mermaids Dolly Paige shirt.

It was made specifically go with these space pants!

This pattern is Patterns for Pirates Bonny Leggings with the attached skirt. My machine hated this fabric and kept coming unthreaded, which cased ridiculous thread nests on the inside and there’s a part of the skirt in the back that wasn’t caught in the stitches. They still went into my office though because I wasn’t in the mindset to unpick or try to make my machine behave.

The Bonny leggings is pretty much the same as the adult Peg Legs pattern, except the doll size takes me 10 minutes instead of 20. Here are the other Bonny Leggings I made:

Your eyes do not deceive you, those are white lace leggings, although I think of them mostly as tights. That fabric was in a bag of scraps that a friend gave me from her theater department. It was actually a lace bodice that had been traced, but not cut. You can see a little bit of the blue marker yet on the bottoms. I think the little girls who play with these will be thrilled!

This Audrey dress/shirt pattern from CKC patterns is a good one because it combines woven and knits. Knits for the bodice, wovens for the bottom. It gives me a chance to play with scraps. I made two, and fudged the gathers both times.

I’m super annoyed that my necklines on these look better than some of my shirts I wear! But it’s all practice. These both close with velcro in the back.

And last, but not least, as the little girls keep asking for jackets for the dolls; I finished this starry jacket which was at home thinking about what it had done (otherwise known as it got messed up and I hated it.)

This is the Ellie and Mac Emmelyn Cardigan. I do not like how it turns out most of the time, so I may try a different pattern. It ends up wavy and crooked no matter how I do my seams. But it has pretty stars, so I’m good with the finished product at least.

I have a couple more doll clothes cut out ready to be sewn. I have a white lace and gold lame Audrey dress that I think will make the girls fall over, and a woven jacket pattern to try. I’ll probably be making pjs and a few more “prom dresses,” as they have been requested. I brought my second doll that I got from a friend into the office, just for fun.

In other news, I did buy fabric. I had plans for it and also a gift certificate for my birthday from my inlaws. It was 5th Saturday bag day at the local quilt shop and so I got my present early, also 20% off everything in my bag, including patterns.

The Husband saw this pattern and said “Well, we need this” so it ended up in my bag. It is super cute, but our house might be a little bit more eclectic in decor than originally anticipated. Although, it currently has fairy tale items and Legos as the main components, so I’m not sure how much more whimsical it could get. 🙂

Here’s the pattern.

It is lovely and I’m slightly intimidated by it. I’m sure I’ll enjoy figuring it out though. (Side note: The otters are holding paws!!)

These fabrics slipped into my bag and have been washed and are in the stash. The polka dots may be used for the flying geese quilt that I am having trouble finding a good border for.

The white fabric will probably be a bag lining or pockets. The feature picture today is of a grey fabric that will be pants and the birds needed to be a shirt. The shirt will be knit on the front and have a woven lower back. I’m excited to wear them together actually.

I have been working on some more scrap pieces too from this quilt. It will be going to my friend Cassie, who works at a hospital to be a comfort quilt, but it needed to be larger to be closer to twin sized. I had to make 5 more blocks to make it work. They are done, but not sewn together yet. I needed a break from knits for a little while.

It’s been a fairly productive sewing time for the last couple of weeks. I have had a couple of migraines, but can normally sew, as it doesn’t require reading or screens. I’m starting my list of things I need to sew for spring and trying to weed out my closet too. It’s a large task, but I’m still working at it.

Right now though, I need to work on dinner. We had a late lunch after the book sale, but now we’re both getting hungry. I’m using a new recipe from the 9 x 13 pan cookbook and it smells really good. I may be focusing on that book for the next week or so. I’ll update you on how it goes!

Have a great night!

Gardening · Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup · Sewing

Monthly Review

Well, hello! It’s hard to believe that it’s time for a review again, but I guess it is. My garden has exploded in the past month with all sorts of new growth. I had a salad made with lettuce from the garden just yesterday!

I picked some of both, buttercrunch and romaine. It was delicious! I’ve been picking the basil for caprese salads a lot too. I can’t wait to have homegrown tomatoes and basil for it.

My zucchini plant has taken over part of the garden. (Pictures withheld as to not frighten my father…)  I have five blossoms on it. I may be giving away zucchini shortly. 🙂 I think part of the plant ended up in every picture I took of the pepper box. Except the lettuce.

The tomatoes have absolutely taken over their box. I had to find some sticks to stake up the plants. The Early Girls are huge!

Mr. Stripey is holding his own in the corner.

I have some tomatoes started on the plants, but they are hard to get pictures of, as they are small and green. It’s exciting to see them growing though. So far, no sign of blossom end rot, which was the bane of my existence the last couple of years. I think the garden soil is keeping everything much more stable, moisture wise.

The peppers plants have a few flowers on them and seem to be holding up well, despite the encroaching zucchini. The herbs are also doing well. The strawberries never flowered, but that’s alright. I’ll keep them through the winter again and get some more plants for the berry boxes next spring. A friend has some raspberry plants that we can steal cuttings from too.

I’m pretty pleased with how it’s working out. I think we’ll get a lot of yield this year.

I’m also pretty pleased with my sewing this month. I have made lots of useful wardrobe items and am considering what of my ready to wear clothes I can replace or how to fix previously made items that don’t quite work.

My favorite things this month have been my harem pants, my Harry Potter table runner, the abstract floral dress, the blue lotus Agnes, and my Cocoon Cardigan.

I haven’t blogged about the cardi or the three pairs of shorts I have made in the last couple of days yet. 🙂

I finally found a pattern for pj shorts and pants that fits the Husband. He got his minion shorts a few days ago and I can catch up on Christmas pjs too. He has flannel pants with sweater bears on them that are not yet made. Here are the minions.

They were from the book Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. The failed slipper pattern was from this book, so I was glad to find a pattern that worked. 🙂

I realized that all of my recent patterns have been ones that I’ve traced! My friend slowly dragged me over to Team Trace when I wasn’t looking. She tempted me with PDF patterns that I couldn’t resist. I’m not very mad about it, for being firmly on Team Cut That Sh*t Out (terms coined by my favorite sewing group on Facebook- The Self Sewn Wardrobe by Mallory Donohue.) I will admit that it does make sense, but I still hate printing and taping PDF patterns.

I will admit, this Cocoon Cardigan by Patterns for Pirates, had a lot to do with it as well. It looked so snuggly and wonderful on everyone online who made it that I had to have it.

The shoulders look weird in this picture. I swear it doesn’t actually make me look like I’m a linebacker. 🙂  They are a dolman sleeve, so they start sloped and pick up the sleeve partway down your shoulder. It was a new technique for me and I was super nervous, but it came out so nice. I have plans to make a lighter weight black cardi with an owl appliqué on the back. It’s going to look so cool!

The stars are french terry, which is a new fabric for me too. Here’s a closeup of the stars. They are multi-colored.

There’s a grey colorway with pink stars on the website and I think I want it too. Next time I make this in a non-stretch fabric, I’ll add a tiny bit in width to the lower arms. They are a tiny bit tighter than I’d like.  I wore it to work and received several compliments.  A very stylish coworker said “I don’t even ask anymore, I figure if you’re wearing it and it’s cute, you probably made it.” 🙂 Also, it has pockets!!

The other PDF pattern I have tried and loved has been the Linen Loungers by Patterns For Pirates. I made two pairs for myself yesterday. I may have flamingo fabric ordered to make another pair…

They are both sleep shorts and have a yoga waistband. They are very comfy and didn’t make me feel fat and horrible, which most shorts do. I will be making more of these. The pattern comes with  curved hem option, pants, and bermudas as well.

I’ve done a bunch of organizing in the basement, so I’d like to keep it that way.

Foodwise, we did pretty well. We mostly planned pur meals and we used the InstantPot. We had 24 recipes, with 9 being completely new.

Hits were Korean Beef,

Chophouse Cheesy Burgers, Cinnamon Coffee Cake, and the chewy chocolate chip cookies. The Husband also tried searing pork and did an excellent job!

We only had one miss, the blueberry muffins that were very dense. I managed to make dinners even though I was horribly sick. Overall, a pretty good month.

We’re looking forward to trying to have more new recipes this month and also grilling some more.

Goals for the month:

Food Goals: 

– Try a new Instant Pot recipe

– Two canning recipes

– Battle Cheesecake

– Meal plan

– Pantry meals

 

Sewing/Craft goals:

– 1 or 2 new patterns

– 1 or 2 UFO projects

– Continue to organize

 

Garden Goals:

– Put together composter

– Keep everything alive

 

Well, I have to to get ready for a family wedding. I’m wearing a me made dress and my starry cardigan, so I will feel cute all day. 🙂 Plus, I get ice cream! Have a great weekend!