Category: Sewing (Page 2 of 2)

Welcome to Autumn

September 25, 2015 / Louise

We may actually get a rainy day today! Well, so far it’s pretty dry, just a few sprinkles, but the weather has promised us rain… I made sure to water the garden this morning to encourage it! It’s been about two months since we’ve had any real rain, so it would be really nice if it managed it. I’ve got a bunch of fall veggies in the garden now (broccoli, cabbage, kale, turnips) and they would enjoy some more rain. It’s funny, you’d think the harvesting part of gardening would be the easy fun part, but it can also be a challenge. I’ve picked the peppers, eggplants and zucchini, but it’s tough. Sadly that’s it for this year’s zucchini, it will be replaced by lettuce and carrots. Overall though gardening has gone pretty well this year. Next year I’m going to actually manage some squash though!

We got plums and apples from my father-in-law’s trees when we went up to visit him, so there is now lots of applesauce (15 quarts) and lots of plum jam (9 half-pints). I’m really happy to have some more fruit stored for this winter! It also makes me really look forward to when we have fruit trees of our own since the fruit we brought back was only a tiny part of what the trees were producing. Someday! (I have plans for two apple trees, a pear tree, a peach tree and a cherry tree, maybe plums or figs if I get ambitious).

We also canned a whole bunch of pickled hot peppers (10 pints of jalapenos and wax peppers) too. It’s awesome to go down and see our awesome stockpile in the basement. It really brings home how effective the garden can be. We’ve got a lot of food in the basement now, and if we’re smart in planning our meals it will have a pretty awesome influence on the grocery budget. I could do a lot of math to try and figure out my exact return on investment, but for me, my gardening spending comes out of money I’ve allocated for personal stuff/hobbies, so the vegetables are effectively ‘free’.

For those who wonder what the actual cost would be and whether gardening is secretly super expensive it’s about $5 for a ‘market pack’of 6 plants at the local nursery or about $5 annually to grow about 10 plants from seed (assuming you have the equipment, buy nice pre-made potting soil and buy nice seeds). At that point (assuming your garden is made up) just put the plants in the ground and you’re set. There are some start up costs for gardening, but you can get good results with pretty minimal annual costs. Of course there is a steep learning curve like sewing. And making mistakes means losing plants and starting over or trying something else, but this year I feel like I’m finally starting to get it. Also even in a bad year, your plants generally still produce a little (even my poor squash…*sigh*) and that return is enough to offset the minimal annual costs. And when you win? You have at minimum a year’s supply of that food, which is amazing and awesome.

Of course you’re paying for that with time, but at least for me gardening is something I enjoy, so it’s worthwhile. Like sewing and knitting!

Speaking of which, I have sewing and knitting projects to work on too. Since the season has definitely started to change I’m sewing some new clothes for work (some shirts for me and Patrick and a new skirt too) and I made some fall decorations for fun. I’m also knitting a new winter sweater. Having unpacked my fall/winter clothes, I’ve been doing really well and knitting sweaters and cardigans. It’s nice to know this winter will be warm!

Christmas in July

July 24, 2015 / Louise

July has gone by crazy fast. There was getting back from vacation, working on the garden, work projects and all sorts of things going on. And of course various projects and craft things and goals to be achieved! July is also a planning month for me. It’s when I start to think about what I want to get or make friends and family for Christmas. It may seem a little weird to start so early, but some craft projects take a long time. And it’s much nicer to be able to do them a little at a time rather than a rush at the end. It’s never good to end up frustrated and sick of presents when you want to feel happy about giving them to people you care about.

So! July is my holiday planning month. 🙂

I have several different gifts I’m planning to make this year. My father-in-law has requested more wool socks, like the pair I made him two years ago. Or as he put it, “who gets only one pair of socks?” So my goals is to make at least two, hopefully three more pairs of socks this year. I have about one and a half socks (out of a potential six) done already, so that’s off to a good start. And this is worthwhile, it’s nice to make things for people who enjoy them. He’s also told me that the pair I already made are the warmest and most comfortable socks he’s ever had, so more of them should make for a good gift.

The biggest holiday project for this year is another quilt. I’ve made four quilts so far, so at least I know what I’m getting into! The pattern I’m going with is a flexible one, and I’m able to take advantage of some pre-cuts for part of it, so hopefully it will go well. By which I mean I will be able to finish it in a sane amount of time! I’m really happy with the fabric I found. I picked bright colors with themes that remind me of the person the quilt is for. It looks like I’ll also have some extra to make something fun. Maybe I’ll make a pillow cover to go with? We’ll see. I have the first round of pieces cut out, so next is to sew them together into strips, and then cut those strips into other strips and sew them together again to make blocks, and then sew those together again. And then of course make and add the border, make the backing and then assemble it and hand sew the edging to the back. I’m going to tie the quilt the old fashioned way. Or at least the way I was taught to make quilts. I think tying the quilt rather than ‘quilting’ it makes for a fluffier quilt which in my opinion is the best sort of quilt. And I got some nice wool batting from Nancy’s Notions so fluffy is the way to go!

Quilts are funny things. They’re amazing once they’re finished, and working on them can be relaxing (there’s a sort of zen state when you’re tying a quilt or sewing together endless squares) but they’re probably the most challenging craft project I’ve worked on. They take a lot of materials that have to be matched for fabric content, quality, weight and color (as much as possible). The cutting and assembly portions take a high level of precision. And unlike knitting you have to be paying attention while wielding a sewing machine or very very sharp rotary cutter. And then there’s the fact that when you assemble it, there’s the need to move all the living room furniture to get a space just barely big enough, so assembly and tying the quilt had better be done fast. Still, despite the challenges, making a quilt is a lot of fun, and with any luck you end up with something warm and awesome that can last for years. So as presents go, quilts are up there on the list of things I like to be able to give.

I’m also planning to try making some things for Patrick, but I need to finalize those yet. So that should give my plenty of holiday projects, while still leaving enough time for other non-holiday projects, which seems like a good balance to me. 🙂

For the non-holiday projects it will be a mix of sewing, knitting, gardening and preserving (like usual).

For sewing, I’m still determined to make myself some sleeveless button down shirts this summer. Since we’re in the hottest part of summer I should get on that… I have the fabric and everything ready to go after all. And there are plans for shirts for Patrick. Again the fabric is out and waiting, so I just need to get started. I also have some pretty fall fabric to make a new pillow cover (awesome though my Halloween cats are, it’s a little weird to start using them in September…). And in other required sewing there are two work shirts and a skirt waiting for me. And in fun sewing I’m hoping to make a wool Anna dress for wearing this winter. I think the Anna dress is probably my go to pattern now. It’s pretty, comfortable, and is very easy to add pockets to (yay insulin pump storage!). I’ll probably need to line a wool dress which is a consideration…but the pattern itself is pretty straightforward so I should be able to manage this. And I have two pieces of nice wool fabric waiting to be used. Oh, and I need to make my second pair of winter PJs. For those I’ll need to track down some fabric though.

So upcoming sewing includes:

Summer tank tops (B5526, have seersucker fabric already)
Patrick work shirts (Kwik Sew pattern, have shirting fabric already)
Pillow cover (envelope style, have fall fabric already)
My work shirts (B5526, have shirting fabric already)
My work skirts (self drafted, have wool suiting and rayon lining already)
Wool dresses (Anna, have wool fabric, need to consider lining options…)
Winter PJs (KW3553 + Tofinio, need to find some flannel)

Knitting is less decided. I have the Christmas socks, which will be my commuter pattern for the foreseeable future. But I just finished my holiday cardigan, so I need to decide if a shawl or a sweater is up next. On the one hand, a shawl is easier to knit in summer since it’s not bulky (hot humid summers around here…) on the other hand, sweaters have lots of stockinette which is relaxing and I have several sweaters worth of yarn that needs to get used up. We’ll see. It’ll probably be either a grey tweed Rook sweater or a very dark navy lace shawl.

So knitting is:

Commuter project – Christmas socks and more Christmas socks
Home project – Rook sweater or navy shawl

And then there’s gardening/preserving. We’re headed into the end of July, which is always when my gardening challenges show up. I’ve decided though that as long as my garden gives my enough for fresh eating I’m not going to get worked up about it. I’ve had the usual squash casualties (some from vine borers, some from what seems like some sort of squash disease). But my back up zucchini’s are just getting going and look healthy and I’m probably going to get at least some winter squash. Maybe I’ll pull the rest and plant some more beans or something over there this weekend.

My tomatoes are making tomatoes, but the slicers just can’t overcome the tree shade (I didn’t realize that corner got as much shade as it does). So far I’m getting enough for fresh eating though, so we’ll see how it goes. And there’s always the farmer’s market if they fail, and the pick your own place for canning.

I do have some canning I want to do yet this year though, and some more dehydrating too.

Can peach jam and peaches
Can raspberry jam
Can pears
Can pickles
Can salsa
Can tomatoes
Can applesauce and apple butter
Dry herbs (oregano, mint, catnip, sage)
Dry cherry tomatoes

I’m also going to try making sauerkraut this weekend. I’m excited about this one since it’s tough to find good sauerkraut around here and if I get good at it, hopefully I’ll be able to do a big batch and can it later. (Though I’ll have to convince Patrick to let me ferment 25 lb of cabbage…)

Oh, and one more fun garden thing. We aren’t the only ones who have been enjoying the garden (see below). The cats are also super pleased about our visitors.

Summer Produce

May 30, 2015 / Louise

It’s summer! Or at least it really feels like it given that we’ve apparently had the warmest May on record. The garden appears to be enjoying it overall though. My squash and beans are growing really fast, and my potatoes are taller than I am in their grow bags. Unfortunately it means an early end to some of my spring plants. My cress bolted first, followed by the radishes (Note to self: easter egg radishes bolt super fast, I should stick to the little round red ones, they’re the only ones that worked out.) and even the broccoli gave up this week. Amusingly enough it was the “heat tolerant” broccoli that bolted first… It last long enough for me to get a decent head from each plant, and we’ll eat the stalks and greens in stir fry next week. I’m planning to plant more Waltham broccoli in fall, so I have another shot at it. And I can use the bed to grow more zucchini and yellow beans. I already have row covers up I can use for the zucchini. The radishes and cress will be replaced with more lettuce.

I usually feel a little anxious about planting things, since I know I don’t always space things correctly. So far I’m doing pretty well this year, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep that up.

I’ve also been productive with my indoor projects. I made lots of burger buns for Memorial Day and froze a whole bunch of them. And I’ve made Patrick two shirts. With any luck I will also finish a dress and PJs and another Patrick shirt this weekend (it’s an AWS weekend so I’ve got an extra day!).

These are all using my Kaufmann Cape Cod seersucker. I hope they make more, it’s great fabric, comfortable, light weight and in decent colors…

Oh, and we got our first big batch of strawberries. The first round became jam (using the classic recipe this time) and a strawberry-rhubarb pie (using our first rhubarb harvest!). The next round is getting frozen this weekend. I stuck to a more reasonable volume of strawberry jam this year.

Sewing Plans for Fabric and Patterns

January 16, 2015 / Louise

The last list of plans is for sewing. Now sewing is a little harder to plot out than gardening or knitting. Part of this is the fact that I always have a hard time finding the fabric I want and then picking one. Yarn is more straightforward! (Not easy either, but at least easier than fabric.) This year’s sewing is probably going to be more relaxed than last year’s. I have a good baseline of clothes now so it will be less of a giant rush. So I have two goals, first I’m not going to rush and second I’m going to make the things I really want rather than trying to sew in bulk. In terms of not sewing in a rush, this means that if I make a mistake I’m going to rip out the seam and do it again; even if it would look “mostly ok”. I’ve found that when I’m sewing I want to move on and do the next step, but if I leave in all the cludges I’m not happy with the end result, and I will feel a little sad when I wear it since it’s almost exactly what I want.

Summer Dress – I like making a new summer dress every spring. I don’t know what it’ll be yet, expect it will be in a bright print and probably the Anna Dress. I have several blue dresses so I think a nice red one would be fun, but it’ll all depend on what I find. Picking out prints is really hard… Sometimes though I find an amazing one randomly though. That was the source of last year’s summer dress.

Winter skirts – I’m working on these now. There’s no pattern picture since I’m using a self drafted pattern. I wanted an A-line skirt with some, but not too much, of a flair at the bottom. Previously I’ve used a gored skirt pattern (B1314) but it comes out looking kind of frumpy. This might be because gored skirts are targeted at women of a certain age in stores and it doesn’t look ‘modern’ either. While I love having kind of a vintage look to my casual dresses and outfits, it’s not a good fit for work which is often very formal. (until very recently the dress code was suites every day) So the expected look is well cut pencil skirts or trousers. Having a small waist and wide hips a pencil skirt hits at my widest point and then goes straight down which looks awful and wide leg trousers have a very similar problem.

So, how to have a ‘modern’ formal style that also works for a pear/curvy shape? The answer that works best for me is A-line with a gentle flair and a curved waistband. The curved waistband is important since modern skirts often sit a little below your natural waist and if you’re curvy there’s a definite angle at that that point on your body. The curved waistband means that your waistband will follow that angle rather than sticking out and leaving an awkward gap.

Also by having an A-line skirt with seams at the sides, you have a smooth front on the skirt that’s visually similar to a pencil skirt (and is easier and faster to sew, a major plus for lined formal skirts!) but with a shape that emphasizes the waist and awesome curves. Since these are incredibly rare as ready made skirts I ended up looking up some historical photos (1940s) as examples. My skirts end up being similar to the pictures above.

I’m planning to make them out of wool suiting (at least two at standard weight and two at tropical weight). I’d like to do at least two in black, one in dark grey and maybe one in tan if I can find a good color. I will line them with rayon in a matching shade.

Summer PJs – These will be a second set, the same as 2014’s summer ones (Kwik Sew 3553 for the top and Tofino’s for the bottoms) in bright colored cotton prints. I have one pair in a dark teal/green. So I think I’d like a second pair in blue. Or maybe navy with a small red pattern. I don’t usually add the piping or the bow to mine (the elastic is enough). It’s worth doing the combination since the Tofinio’s have a better fit than the basic pants pattern that comes with K3553.

And as for why bother? Sure, PJs can be any random T-shirt and pair of exercise shorts or lounge pants, but these look good and I don’t feel awkward wandering around in them in the morning before I take my shower and get dressed. Also they’re more comfortable. Made in a light cotton woven fabric they’re loose and breathe well which makes them cool and comfortable for summer.

Fall/Spring PJs – These will be the same patterns as the summer ones (Kwik Sew 3553 for the top and Tofino’s for the bottoms) probably with long sleeves (or short sleeves and long pants…) and in cotton prints, probably one set with green and flowers and one set in reds.

Winter Robe – This is going to be a standard robe for wearing around the house first thing in the morning when it’s cold. I’m planning to make this out of dark green polar fleece using Simplicity 1562. If I could find something a little more stylish that would be awesome, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen so I guess I’ll aim for warm and comfortable.

Work Shirts – This will be Butterick 5526, the test version went really well, so next up are versions using fancy shirting. I have a nice silver and grey plaid as well as a french blue with a subtle pattern.

Holiday Dress – This might be a Hawthorne or maybe the Anna Dress or maybe the Snowball Dress or B6089. It will be in a dark navy wool plaid with light blue and lavender lines. I want a proper awesome holiday dress that I can wear with my holiday shawl or cardigan, so this will be it. Whatever it ends up being, I’d like it to have a full skirt and either a shirt collar type bodice or a boat neck. We’ll see…

There will also probably be things for Patrick too, as he requests them. These are most likely to be work shirts and pants, maybe some t-shirts or shorts. I’d also like to make a second set of flannel sheets and some pillowcases to match.

Category: Sewing (Page 2 of 2)

Welcome to Autumn

Christmas in July

Summer Produce

Sewing Plans for Fabric and Patterns

About Me

My Garden!

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