Tag: clothes

Monthly Review
Monthly Review

Monthly Review

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We have been busy beavers lately. Last year at this time, I had three jobs and was rapidly losing my mind. This year, I can actually focus on the house and yard. I feel much more settled.

We finally put up the hanging pegs we decided we needed in the bedroom. I think we’re going to paint it blue maybe, to match the bottom walls, but for now it’s grey.

We have some spring bugs coming in again, so it really was time to get my purse and work bag off the floor. The Husband also hung new work lights downstairs over my sewing area and now I really need to clean it up. I can see everything! 😳 I knew I had to clean up anyway, in prep for moving back down there for the summer sewing season, but those lights make it hard to ignore things.

We also broke down yard projects by section last weekend and started on some of them this weekend. We chopped a bunch of the out of control front landscaping and I pulled everything from the side of the garage. This was about halfway through.

I ripped weeds! Pulled dead things! I tore out trees! With my bare hands! Well… with a huge trimmer, while wearing gloves. 🙂 Now it looks like this:

Doesn’t it look so much better already? I’m going to put my fairy garden here. It will mostly be in planters and will have butterfly and bee friendly flowers in it. If the ground cover gets too crazy, we may rip it all and put down mulch.

The Husband chopped up some tree limbs that had fallen on our windy day, mowed the grass, and wielded the leaf blower and hedge trimmer. I feel much better about the yard now knowing we can take it in small chunks and get things done.

We were going to get the garden started, but we couldn’t find the tiller at our inlaws. We did get it staked.

Hopefully next weekend, we can till that spot up and get started. So that’s some yard/ house projects from the month. Let’s move on to the food!

Food Review

I used 19 recipes this month. 10 were new recipes. Hits were the fried chicken, prosciutto wrapped chicken, the white pizza sauce, and the dulce de leche ice cream.

The pasta in this picture is homemade fettuccine! Pasta is definitely not as scary as I always thought it was.

Chicken seems to turn out well for me. It’s one of the meats I can regularly eat more than once without texture issues. I also made a different version of spaghetti with a can of sauce and 3 cans of tomatoes. It was much less liquid.

We did have some misses, including one that was so bad, I didn’t even blog about it! 😬 It was a crockpot version of Italian Wedding soup,  but it got weird after the noodles were added and got all slimey and starchy. Blech. I don’t even want to talk about it, except to say, don’t cook noodles in the crockpot ever… The other miss was more of just an “eh..” moment. Beef stew in the crockpot. Wasn’t great, wasn’t horrible.

I honestly think that this blog has improved my cooking skills. I wasn’t as confident about trying new recipes, or trusting my instincts when it came to seasoning. We also haven’t had very many misses lately, so that has to count for something. I also used my spice grinder that I got for Christmas and will be definitely using it again. It made it very easy!

Speaking of skills that have improved, let’s move on to the sewing review.

Sewing Review

I have made 5 projects this month. I have made four more in the past three days, but those haven’t been blogged about yet. Stay tuned for Monday or Tuesday!

My favorite has been my polka dot maxi skirt.

It’s so comfy and lovely. Plus, I saved $36, plus shipping! 🙂

I actually loved everything that I’ve made and am proud that I’m using my stash. It’s so fun to walk in wearing something I made and get to tell people that.

Here’s my other polka-dotted item.

My secret pajama shirt with my very first knit neckband. It’s a proud moment for me. I blame my friend and Instagram for that. She and all these other people keep making all these cute knit things and I couldn’t be left behind!

So far, I’ve made 28 or 29 projects since January. If I keep this up, I might beat last year’s record!

So, for goals this month, I have mainly the same ones.

Food Goals

* Try a new technique, or equipment

* Meal plan consistently. I don’t know why this one is so hard for us, but it is. I end up panic cooking halfway through the year

* Pantry meals 1x per week, at least

* Make more side dishes

 

Craft/ Sewing Goals

* Complete decorating office clipboards

* Decide on summer decorations/ make summer decorations

* Complete Me Made May

* Go through clothes and get rid of unworn ones

* Make 2 solid color or neutral pattern dresses

* Use my serger!!

I think that’s it. I’ve got another shirt waiting on me to sew, and a sad puppy wanting pets.

Have a good night!

Me Made May Adventures!
Life Posts · Sewing

Me Made May Adventures!

LSieh2 Comments

I’ve decided to do something big and scary. I’ve decided to go even further out of my box and participate in Me Made May. Started by Zoe, from “So, Zoe, What Do You Know?”, it’s a way to examine your handmade wardrobe and figure out how to fill gaps and wear more of your handmade items. You create your own challenge and can choose to document in any way you want. Most people use photos and a lot are on Instagram. I took my first picture for it today.

I decided that I would use this time to really figure out what works for my wardrobe and what doesn’t and get more comfortable with taking pictures of myself. Part of the reason I sew, is because it helps me feel better about myself to be wearing well-fitting, cute, one of a kind clothes.

To start, I made a pledge post stating that I would commit to wearing me made items 3 times per week, documenting on Instagram, and here, with either flat lay outfit pictures, or pictures of me wearing the outfits. I will also try to make 2 plain or neutral printed dresses.

I did a closet inventory of my handmade items yesterday.

I have 10 shirts, 9 dresses, 3 pj pants/shorts, and 17 skirts. I need to go through everything and pull the ones I haven’t worn, or won’t work. A lot of my skirts are made from novelty fabrics and I need to get more creative about what to wear them with. I think this will help me really narrow in on what I like to wear and help curb my novelty skirt phase. Not that I shouldn’t have cute clothes, but I need to be more aware of what I can make work together.

I did just make two more knit things, a tunic, which can be worn with several colors, and a polka dot maxi skirt.

This one feels like my expensive tunics, but was from the discount store. It skims my curves and is from the Perfect T pattern. I would tell you who it was made by, but I left the pattern at my friend’s house… It totally threw off my plans yesterday.

This maxi is black with white polka dots and has a large fold over waist piece. It’s super comfy and a good substitute for the very expensive one I was pining after last summer. This one cost $6 or so. I was very proud.

I tried to sew last night, but everything went wrong and then this morning, I had terrible sewing dreams. Fabric went missing, people were yelling at me to finish, I was on Project Runway, Scissors disappeared. I had to use paper scissors to cut fabric!! 😳

I took tonight off, but do have some projects planned for the next couple days. The fabrics in the feature picture are going to be two dresses and a red, short-sleeved tunic.

Hopefully they will go fairly well and I won’t freak out. Wish me luck!

Stay tuned for more Me Made May news.

Sewing Confessions
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

Sewing Confessions

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I have no one to blame but myself for this spree. I had told Kayla about the magical discount fabric store where everything is $2.99 a yard and we finally managed to go on Friday. It coincided neatly with a pattern sale at Joann’s and the rest is history.

Here are the patterns I bought:

L to R top: Dress with shawl collar, sweetheart neckline with button accents, tunic and cardigan

L to R bottom: Peter Pan collar for my dragon dress (fabric is the featured pic,) Wrap dress that wraps from the back to the side. It looked so interesting, I had to get it. Plus, the Simplicity patterns were all .99.

The good news is that I have plans for the fabrics I got from the discount store and it will hopefully help me get more comfortable with knits. I have an irrational fear of them, but also several different knits waiting for projects already.

Kayla was very excited once we got there. She and I both had projects in mind. I want some more tunics and she wanted some raglan shirts. It was fun to introduce her to the store. They had moved recently into an even bigger place.

The Husband knew I was going and when I came home with black fabric with tiny beach umbrellas on it, he said “Well, of course, you needed that. You can make a sundress with it.” Oddly enough, that’s exactly what it is going to be.

How cute is that?! I tried to resist, but it lured me in. I sort of have a style in mind for it, just have to find the pattern.

This lace for $2.99? I probably should have gotten more of it. I got 3 yards to make an overlay on a dress. I got grey material, which I thought would work underneath, but I think I accidentally got rain poncho fabric, which is fine. I need a rain poncho.

I think this is the back of the lace, but I like the grey part showing.

This is apparently double knit. I have no idea what that means, except that it has another knit on the back. The owner was excited by it while she was cutting it. I’ll have to do some research. It was going to be a casual, kind of slouchy tunic.

Navy polka dot knit. I resisted buying a $42 dollar maxi skirt from a semi-famous fancy clothing company last summer and have been on the hunt for a polka dotted fabric ever since. This will be a $4 maxi skirt, which I’d say is a win.

Tunic! It’s hard to see, but it has little shadows of the colors in it. I like it and it will be a very nice tunic.

This will be a dress like the strawberry dress. It’s actually a deep Kelly green and a deep navy. They are both very vibrant colors, but got washed out when I took the picture. I think it’s a cotton rayon blend. It’s got nice body and drape and is slightly heavier.

We will be going back, I’m sure, but not for me at least, until I get some more projects done. I have probably three or four more knit fabrics downstairs waiting to be made into something useful.

Lest you think I frittered my time away unwisely in a grand shopping spree, I’ll show you the projects I have finished lately.

Christmas Lily zippered Pouch for Etsy/Twinflower Fancies.

Two tea wallets because I had black thread loaded.

These were from a random Halloween batch that didn’t get finished. I have a couple more too, but am waiting to see what I get back from what I had at Hawthorne and Vine. Obviously, I still need to get the threads cut and a button added to the cats.

I self-drafted this curved hem on the tunic. I used a familiar shirt pattern and extended it. The sides are split and turned under. The neck and sleeves are finished with a thick black bias tape. I’ll add a tiny bit more room if I use cotton again. Knits would be fine with the same dimensions. It’s got a cute silver sun or starburst pattern.

Here is an in process shot of the fabric:

I also finished my castle shirt!

This is the fabric I ordered with the dragon fabric. I made the sides flare a little and added some more pleats to the neckline and back. The original line is too wide for me, but I need it that size elsewhere. I gathered the sleeves, so they look a little better. I kept thinking I had put them in upside down, but they just needed to be poufier.

I’ve also been organizing up a storm. We got a nightstand for my side of the bed yesterday and I was able to clear out some of my dresser. I was pretty ruthless with my closet stuff too. I put several things in the giveaway pile. My winter sweaters are now hanging in the closet in a sweater hanger thing. I’ve still got a bunch to do, but at least it’s a start.

Fancy is giving me this look and whining. We are 15 minutes past her bedtime and she is terribly unhappy. I’d better go put her to bed.

Hope you enjoyed seeing all the sewing! I’ve got a pretty good momentum going that I would like to keep up. I’ve got to beat my 67 project record, after all. 🙂

New Seasons and New Sewing
Crafty

New Seasons and New Sewing

LSiehLeave a comment

I finished the Rainbow Snowball Quilt! Finally! I even had a little of the fleece backing left, which will become a dog coat for the Fanciest pup I know. 😉 I just have to meet up with its new owner and it will be gone. I was desperate to start a new black and rainbow quilt, so I knew I had to finish one of the quilt tops that was waiting.

Here’s the Rainbow Snowball and the backing for it. It’s french seamed essentially, sewn and flipped, and sewn again. No batting because of the fleece backing.

The new rainbow quilt is a Friendship Braid pattern. I had a lot of the pieces cut already, from Maelee’s quilt.  Here is the new quilt:

The colorful pieces are just on one side. This is two pieces how they’ll be when finished. The edges will be trimmed, so they’ll be rectangles.

I have three strips done and a fourth started. It will probably be five strips, potentially six, if I have enough orange and yellow. I run out of those colors all the time! I don’t really use them, but if I’m going to keep making rainbow quilts, I need to get some fat quarters or remnants.

We had fun on our Super Secret Christmas Mission. I took some pretty pictures! It was fun to go on a weekday. It felt like we were playing hooky!

Since our weekend started early with our trip, we continued the fun with a massage on Saturday, a visit from Katy and Fancy’s secret dog friend, Moose, a party with Kayla on Sunday, and a visit to the Lego store. We came home with the next piece of our Christmas Lego village: the Christmas station, a little nutcracker ornament, and the world’s biggest Lego bag. I’m pretty sure I would fit in this sucker. See?!

(I will not be trying to fit myself in the bag, by the way, I just think I could. I think it would confuse Fancy a lot and she would probably try to eat the bag to get me out of it.)

My weekend continued through today unexpectedly.  I didn’t have to go to work at all. My first and last appointments cancelled and I rescheduled my middle one. It was right in the middle of rush hour and would have taken me longer to get there, than the appointment itself. It’s weird transition time right now, since I’m trying to get everyone transferred or referred before I switch to only one center. I will be much happier when my commute is 15 minutes instead of 45.

Because I had this extra time, I was able to work downstairs a bit. The responsible sewist came out today and instead of running out with coupons in my hot little hands for new solid fabrics, I looked in my bins! I want to make some more solid or neutral reading dresses to wear with patterned leggings.

I kept finding cute fabrics that I hadn’t seen in a while. I rediscovered another flamingo flannel piece. It’ll be pjs, of course! I cannot have enough warm jammies ever. I’ve been known to wear flannel pants in June.

Isn’t it cute? It’s waiting to be washed.

I tried to make  dark-colored dress, but didn’t have enough of the fabric. I started a tunic in a very light cotton. As I’m typing, I realized, I should have used a pattern from one of my books! It would have been the perfect fabric for it. Either way, it’s a new pattern, so it still counts for my list.

This is the pattern.

Here are the pattern pieces and the color.

It’s possible I need to branch out color wise… I have a ton of blue clothes fabrics.

Well, Fancy is telling me that it is her bedtime and she would like me to go to bed too. I hope you’re staying warm as fall turns into winter. I’ll be warm again in the spring. 🙂

Monthly Review
Monthly Review

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

Sometimes we need a little reminder of the beauty in life, while tragedy surrounds us. I took the featured picture while stopped (yes, Mom, completely stopped) in traffic one day after work. It certainly made my commute a little better.

I briefly lost my notebook with all of my recipes, notes, and craft lists in it, but it was in my work bag.  I’m going to need a new one soon, this one only has a few pages left. Should I make the next one all fancy, with different kind of paper, like graph paper and ruled paper? I should probably just use one of the many half filled ones I have lying around here.

So I have the backing for the Rainbow Snowball Quilt! It’s brown dog themed fleece, since it is going to a home with dogs. I will finally get it finished in the next few weeks.

I completed a quilt for my OT friend and have one more quilt top that is destined for her too. I’m going to send them together.

I made a dress! I took a chance and added lace and it turned out really cute.

Four more hip wraps are done and waiting for Ooky Spooky vending.

I tried some new color pairings with the hip wraps and I love them. Hopefully other people will love them too!

The lyrics are on my second office picture and they are hanging on my wall. A third one is simmering in my head too.

The words say “I’m holding on. Why is everything so heavy? Holding on. To so much more than I can carry. I’ve been dragging around what’s keeping me down. If I just let go, I would be free. Why is everything so heavy?”

I did clean a little nd then got side tracked by fabric and now need to clean again. I have problems cleaning while I’m sewing. Fabric gets put in a pile and it’s much more fun to keep sewing rather than put things away. I was able to sneak some fabric into the laundry though, so now I can get to the projects.

The top two will be dresses or skirts, the Minions are supposed to be matching pj pants or shorts for the Husband and I. Yes, we’re dorks. 🙂

For food goals this month, I didn’t use any new ingredients, I don’t think. I did make spaetzle for my new technique. It was a lot of work. My arms got steamed and tired. It tasted good though.

I also made a new muffin recipe for breakfast and made chili specifically for lunches. I did pretty well meal planning.

I used 7 new cookbooks, five family or my recipes, and made 20 new recipes overall.

Hits were the roast chicken, Fancy’s treats, and the tortellini Stroganoff.

Misses were the stuffing. It was too dry for the Husband.

We had so much chicken this month that the Husband got sick of chicken. He’s typically fine eating the same thing for a while, but this was too much. We’ll try some different proteins this month for sure. We might even try some meatless dishes!

Fancy had a big month and met lots of dogs and people. She had lots of playtime and got a few new toys to chew on.

She also cuddled a lot. She’s definitely a people dog. 

Sewing Goals for next month are to make at least one clothing item, one item from the UFO bins, and finish a wedding quilt. I also want to work on some more bags for Etsy and vending.

Food goals are to try more meatless dishes and get creative with breakfasts. Also, to continue to make the freezer meals for long days.

The Husband has his play pretty much all month, so our dinner schedule might be weird. We’ll both still need lunches though.

My garden is on the verge of dying. I had a hard time keeping up with the watering when it was so hot. I also didn’t realize I should have been plucking blossoms that wouldn’t have a chance to mature first. Next year I will know. My herbs are still growing though, so that’s good.

Fancy is demanding walks by jumping off and on the couch, so I have to go get her out before she takes out the furniture. Have a good week!