Sewing

Sewing for Sanity

Considering the fact that I’ve been fighting off panic for most of the day, this title is unusually apt. I’m not sure why my anxiety level is so high today, other than *gestures broadly* everything. There’s also construction in front of my house. They’re repaving, so we cannot access our driveway. We have to park half a block down and walk to an from. Super annoying when it’s windy and raining, let me tell you!

I have definitely been hard at work sewing lately. I have a lot of masks done for the pet themed fundraiser, just have to start posting them. Here’s a peek at some of them.

I wore a rainbow paw print mask today at work actually and it was very comfy.

I sent a couple of gift packages out this weekend. K1 was lucky and got the pair of “jean” leggings I made that ended up not having quite enough stretch. I used the fabric originally to make RAD Pattern Solar Flares that are super comfy. I had enough fabric for the leggings, a pair of baby leggings, 4 pairs of doll jeans, and a pair of doll shorts. My friend from work gave me an absolutely disgusted look when I said I’d made them the day I was wearing them. 🙂 I didn’t grab a picture of the leggings before I sent them. Here’s the shirt that was also in the package.

This is a Tulip Tee from Patterns for Pirates with the optional under/nursing layer. It has three layers on the front. I was especially happy with my floral cascade! It’s DBP and black cotton lycra. Long sleeved for winter. It might be a bit big. This was a new pattern for me, so I wasn’t sure on sizing. I could have gone down one for her. I made a plain black Tulip for me, with just the plain/single layer. I needed a long sleeved black shirt.

The Husband was shocked when he saw I had just made a plain black shirt. Since I’m short, I can actually wear this as a tunic. It hits at just the right spot. I can also pull the band up to my waist and make the shirt a little blousy instead. It looks lovely either way. Maybe I’ll make some more of them next. I banded everything because I have lighter thread on my serger and didn’t want to switch to all black. I may only have two spools of black left. Yikes!

For my second gift package, I made two little baby sets. I used the Bonny Leggings from Made for Mermaids. The shirt is a Kid’s Raglan from Ellie and Mac. This is the faux denim fabric. It feels like secret pjs.

They go with this outfit, which I made a bit ago and then got nervous and didn’t send.

The dino outfit is a Wee Lap Tee from Patterns for Pirates and the Bonny leggings. These are both for one of my other friends with a baby. I hope she likes them and they fit for a bit yet!

One project that I have finally finished and passed along was these napkins for my friend. I owed her for watching Fancy for us for a weekend trip to see K1 and shamefully, didn’t finish them for a while. In total, I think there were 32 napkins. She was quite pleased with them. I just made a double layer of fabric and serged the edges, as she was not picky about how they were finished. It probably would have taken me at least another year to do them if I had to turn and iron all the hems. Yuck. Ironing.

Contrary to the Husband’s belief, I can indeed make solid color items. I just don’t all that often. They can be boring. I made this grey dress from a nice rayon spandex fabric. It’s a CKC Amy, of course, with fun umbrella pockets. It’s been very helpful as it’s a neutral color. It will be extremely useful in winter when I can wear it with boots and any of my fun leggings.

The jacket pictured is a Kimono cardigan by Halla Patterns, I believe. It’s made from a stretch chiffon, possibly. It was a remnant at Joann’s and I had just enough. The sleeves and neck are purple cotton lycra. It’s very fun to wear.

Also very fun to wear are my latest “never thought I’d sew those” socks!

I blame K2. She was sewing them and they are a great scrap buster. Plus, they appealed to my prepper side that insists I should know how to make literally everything I wear so I can do it if the apocalypse comes. Which now, seems oddly relevant. Regardless, I can make comfy socks! I don’t know that I’ll make a lot of them, but it’s good to know. I now have a pattern for ankle socks too, which is what I typically wear. I know. So weird. But also so comfy. 🙂

I made this shirt on the night of the Presidential debate. I thought it was better for my mental health to not watch the circus, so I sewed instead. It is super comfy. The pattern is a Relaxed Raglan from Patterns for Pirates. I made it a tiny bit too short by accident, so added the band to cover it, but I really like it the way it is. I used a new method to band the sleeves. Really, I just folded the sleeves down on themselves and serged the folded area. It cuts the excess off and seals the edges all at once.

The snowflakes are DBP from Purple Seamstress. Aren’t they lovely? I liked them because they were so different. So overall, I’ve had fun. I’m going to start to work on some Christmas presents, so will have to balance out the Super Secret Sewing with regular sewing.

Well, now that I’ve written about sewing, I actually want to go sew more fun things. I’ll be sure to show off what I come up with next! For now, enjoy this 3rd quarter collage from my 52 Week Sewing Challenge!

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!

Crafty · Sewing

Sew Satisfying

Hello! I hope your weekend was splendid. Mine was surprisingly hot, but filled with sewing projects and yard work. I didn’t want to go back to work today, so I made a Lego unicorn and a rainbow. The unicorn is going to join the octopus and the flamingo and be my office mascot. His name is Heinrich. 🙂

We didn’t completely finish the garden, but we did make good progress. We also bought two pots of zinnias and a solar gazing ball for the porch, as well as a pretty purple and yellow flower pot to start my fairy garden. A few more solar stakes made it into our basket, one being a flamingo, of course. 🙂

We took Fancy on a pretty walk on the river on Monday. She was very excited to go to a new place and didn’t try to chase too many of the bike riders.

It was pretty hot though, so we were only out for about 45 minutes. She took a nice nap while we went to visit the Husband’s Grandma.

After our walk, I made a nice sleeveless dress to wear to Grandma’s because there is no air conditioning over there. It’s a very nice old house from the 30’s, but it does get a bit warm on the hotter days. We had fans though and ice cream. 🙂 Here’s the dress.

It’s another Agnes from Halla Patterns. I love this pattern quite a bit. This one is hemmed. 🙂 It’s quite cool and breezy, so it worked well.

I made two other dresses this weekend as well. Same pattern – Simplicity 8294. I used two different skirt styles, one gathered, one pleated (views A and C.)

This is C, with added sleeves and no collar or tabs. I need to do a final iron before wearing it. They have a side zipper.

This is A. Excuse the face, I was trying to take a quick picture before leaving for a funeral. I like this pattern, although I added an inch to each side of the bodice. I think my dragon dress will be made from it and I’d like to try it in a drapier fabric too. These are both quilting cotton.

I think I just figured out why the necklines don’t work. I think I was supposed to bind it, not put in a knit style band. Whoops…

Since this weekend was so hot, I discovered that I needed more capris and shorts to wear in the house. This was the remnant from another Agnes dress.

I repurposed a yoga pant band which made these a 20 minute sew. I hemmed them too! They unfortunately get a little see through when stretched, so they will be indoor pants, or worn with a very long tunic. They are comfy though.

I had a second band sitting around too, so I used it for these purple bike shorts. They have been worn, so are a little wrinkly.

They are not hemmed yet. They have a castaway look to them. 😬 I desperately needed shorts though and they are super comfy. Both of these are Cotton Lycra.

I received a new type of fabric, Liverpool knit, in the mail, which I couldn’t wait to try. It’s a match for the ever so stretchy pencil skirts I love so much. I made a pencil skirt, of course, but I think it would make some cute dresses too. It’s textured on the front and smooth on the back.

I played dress up and found my Valentine’s day outfit for this year. 🙂 I wore the skirt today to see if my Lula loving boss would comment and she thought it was super cute. I think I’ve trained my work ladies well. If I’m wearing something particularly cute, they now just ask if I made it, instead of where I got it.

I did some cleaning tonight and finally unpacked two more desk boxes from downstairs. I had to stop though, too much dust, not enough asthma meds. Blech. I’m feeling better now though and am excited to have a clean desk there again. Hopefully soon, I can sew down there soon.

For now though, I should head to bed. Have a great night!