Friday, September 27, 2013

Sunny tank and not so Sunny days

If you've ever been to the Pacific North West, you know that this time of year we are diving back into rainy season.  For us that means rolling up the bottoms of our jeans and wearing more hoodies, for the tourists who like to frequent our little town it means holding newspapers over your heads, cinching up your hoodie (it looks ridiculous, in case you didn't know), and making brilliant observations to the locals like "sure is rainy here!" and "looks like you forgot your umbrella!" and the always popular "better get those kid home before you all float away!" 

Well, yes, it is very rainy here, sorry Edward and Bella will NOT be sparkling anywhere today.  No, I did not forget my umbrella, as much as I would LOVE to have something to poke you with to get out of my way, its too much hassle with two kids in tow.  And don't be ridiculous, its only been like three days.  The first year I was stationed here it went over 100 days of non-stop rain.  That was pretty miserable, everything was just soggy and wet and GREY... and that's coming from someone who had just spent four years at "Castle Grey Skull." (and anyone who just said "By the Power of Grey Skull!," I know how old you are!!)

Rainy season aside,  my children seem to be warm blooded.  They are never cold, even when I'm wrapped in a blanket, Inara will have stripped down to her undies.  So despite it being in the mid 50s and rainy today, when she came out in this shirt... I thought hey! I'll write about this one!
I decided at the beginning of the summer that there were two things I needed to learn to do well... shirring and a lettuce edge.  At the time my serger and I still had a slightly tenuous relationship, though now, we are on better terms.  I hunted around and found this free pattern on Baby Lock's website:  http://babylock.com/projects/ (it's called the Sunny Days Tank from MODKid).

If anyone else has a slightly ridiculous sense of humor, let me know if you find file name at all amusing when you download it?  I cracked up, and thought maybe Day rather than Days would have been a better name.  

So I pulled out the manual and the "quick guide" for various stitches and determined that although the rolled hem settings were there, the lettuce edge was not, but never fear, the directions say to "slightly stretch the fabric" as you feed into the serger to get the lettuce effect.  I found rather quickly, that more stretch = more effect. But I got the hang of it pretty quickly,  though I will say i have a little bit easier time with it when it it on my sewing machine instead, but that may just be me being weird. 

Anyways, the shirring caused a bit of a headache as well, as I have a Brother, so off to google I went, and found some awesome videos/tutorials to help me figure out what to do.  I now keep a tiny screwdriver in my sewing machine for when I need to adjust the bobbin tension so I can shirr.  And, if you have a brother and worry about adjusting bobbin tension, there are a couple of options. 

For me, I just always turn it exactly a 1/2 turn and put my little screwdriver in the hole where you but the bobbin to wind it, that way I remember that I've adjusted it.  When I'm done shirring, I turn the tension back and put the screwdriver back in the "bin of misc things I need when I sew." 

If this method won't work for you, or you'll get confused, you can get a second bobbin case and write a big "S" on it in so you don't confuse it with your everyday use one.  This way, when you want to shirr, you can just pop the whole case out, and put the shirring one in. 

Either way, the top came together pretty well, though I do wish it was a little longer, which I will take in to account for the next one - I was thinking of making one that is more nightgown length for her. 


I also decided that I wanted to see how it looked in a woven.... so that day I did one up as well. 

Obviously it's just a rolled hem, since it's a woven and not a knit, but I still think it looks darling.  I only added 1/2" to each piece to account for the lack of stretch from it not being a knit, and even though it looks small, it fits her really nicely.

I think what I like about these is that even though they look really summer, if Inara ever decides she's cold I can layer it under a long sleeved top as well, and it will still look just as cute. 

We spent the week here battling the stomach flu, so two little grumps and I are going to continue to snuggle, and *hopefully* they will be feeling 100% tomorrow, and *hopefully* there will be a break in the weather, because I want to have some good ol' local fun and take the kids to Old Mill Days!

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Long names and princesses

Inara is a funny kid...  She's super emotional and sensitive, very concerned with what everyone thinks of her, changes clothes at least 3 times a day, but likes to fight zombies, play video games, and be a super hero.  From day to do I never know whether she will want to be called Harley Quinn, Princess Sparkles, or Vis.  Why Vis?  Because she decided it was shorter and easier to spell than Inara, so its easier when she has to write her name.  I can totally relate.  I remember as a kid coming home from school in tears one day because my name wouldn't fit in the squares for the standardized tests.... there were not enough bubbles for Carrion-Murayari.  As a new cadet my jerk of a cadet 1SG insisted on calling me New Cadet Alphabet (13 years later and I still think that guy was a moron).... and of course New Cadet Charlie-Mike (yea yea, Army folk, laugh away) stuck for the first couple years.  And of course "Carry on, Carrion," was a cadre favorite.  Man, reading that, its no wonder I was always doing pushups ... how could you not roll your eyes at that??

Anyways.... my little zombie hunting princess was SO thrilled when I showed her the pattern I got to test.  I picked the first set of fabrics and she picked the second...
 Lots of Michael Miller here... the fairy ones are about all of the Michael Miller I have, but man they are some of my favorites.  The fairies are Michael Miller, as are all the fabrics in the bottom picture.  The others are random blenders -- the pink/green from Troy, and the salmon from my LQS...
Both of them got some minor changes along the way... the first one the white was swapped out for a prettier green (Jason Yenter Modern Solids), and the bottom took out the darker pink and added in a sparkly white I got from Joann's (I didn't have enough white MM Fairy Frost).  

As always, I love the Candy Castle patterns, because she has a great way of breaking down each step clearly, with lots of pictures (and these nice ones that show me what it should look like after the trickier steps), and these funny little notes of encouragement along the way.  What I love most about this particular pattern is the options... She added this cool sheet into the pattern with all the different options....
Awesome right? So of course I couldn't just make ONE for the testing.  I wanted to try both the one piece top skirt and the paneled top skirt, and I wanted to try one of the longer sleeve options (in the end I went with elbow length, after much discussion with Inara, we decided it was the most "royal" option).  And even better, it comes with two fits - slim and regular.  I tested the slim fit, and the sizing was spot on. 

AND as if that wasn't enough, the pattern comes with instructions for making embellishments, that just totally bring the whole look together.  The pattern released yesterday... in sizes 6m-10yrs, and this is a total must have if you have a little girl.  Here is the link to her shop...  http://www.craftsy.com/user/1947946/pattern-store

There is a lot of gathering, but great instructions, and I think all in all, each dress took me two evenings to sew (cause we all know I don't sew until the kids are in bed!)

And...the part I've been dying to show off.... First, here is my Spring Fairy Princess dress... One piece top skirt, ruffled underskirt, sleeveless with flower and left embellishments and decorative top stitching on the bodice. 






 Gotta love the twirl right? ^^  And I think that the flowers totally bring the whole dress together. 
 And... Here is my Cotton Candy Princess dress... Elbow length sleeves, paneled top skirt, ruffled underskirt, and bow accents on the scallops. 







Now if only the lovely PNW weather had cooperated and given us some sunshine!

Monday, September 23, 2013

I make hoodies... and mistakes

Last month I did the Peek-a-boo Pattern Shop sew along on her Facebook page.  I usually don't do sew alongs, partially because I get a bit intimidated by everyone's creations, but mostly because I am terrible at sticking to timelines.  I never know from day to day how the kids are going to be when I sit down to sew, so I get very nervous about sticking to short timelines.  But it was the Hangout Hoodie and I just knew my kids would LOVE it.  If you don't have the pattern yet, I highly recommend this one... the instructions are clear, the pattern pieces are easy to put together, and as always, the finished product is so stinkin' cute, you'll get compliments everywhere you go. 

As with most things I decide to make for Inara, she likes to be part of the "creative" process.  I show her which shelves she can choose from, and she picks her fabrics out.  Most of the time she comes up with some good combinations.  Occasionally, I look at them and attempt to convince her to do something else.  Her logic is usually along the lines of "if it's pretty, it matches."

I have quite a few of Amy's patterns, so I did my cursory skim through and got to work.  While I love the fit and variety of PDF patterns, I really hate cutting and taping all the pattern pieces, so for me, that's always the biggest hurdle when I decide to do a new pattern.  No matter how hard I try, my lines are just a tad off here or there... not that it seems to effect things in the end... but still, clearly cutting and taping is beyond my abilities.

So I worked up the first one, and I TOTALLY messed up the placket to attach the hood to the body.  I mean, it was BAD.  The fabric somehow snagged under the footplate and pulled sideways and sliced a chunk off toward the bottom!  I've been using my serger pretty much daily for over six months, and had never had this happen before.  I'm no master with my serger, but I'm pretty confident with it - I can do ruffles, and rolled hems and lettuce edges... but man, this was bad.  So after swearing a bit at my machine (clearly it could not have been operator error), and stomping around in a tantrum because I knew I didn't have enough to start over, I took a deep breath and did the best I could to mend it and figured, oh well, its for Inara and she'll love it and I just won't post it to the Peek-a-boo group and no one will ever know...

Then I went on to make Connor's out of some very nerdy fabric I had collected and had no idea what I wanted to do with...  The button is from Incomparable Buttons, which is a pretty cool company.

Then I decided I really loved them and made two more... one more dress one for Inara and a short sleeved one for Connor...

Connor who insists on picking out his own clothes in the morning, goes for this one all the time...I even got adventurous with his and made the contrast band at the bottom And look how great the placket came out on all three of them!?  But then a couple weeks later, someone in the group was struggling with her placket and I realized I was doing a dis-service by NOT showing the pictures.  Because, in the end, Inara loves it, wonky or not, and it shows that everyone makes mistakes, really silly ones sometimes, but here's some encouragement for everyone who has sewn a totally crooked seam, sewn right side to wrong side (we've all done it), or spent an evening on the couch ripping seams kicking yourself for being so stupid...


See how wonky the placket is?  And that's AFTER I fixed it?  I was going to trash the whole thing, but look, she doesn't even notice that it's messed up.  So chin up, we all have had some long dates with the seam ripper, and I bet we've all trashed a project or two that could have been saved. 

Stay tuned... my first "tester" gets released tomorrow and I'm super excited to show it off!

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Crazy kids and inspiration

This past week the kids were driving me crazy.  Connor hasn't been sleeping, and as I call it, has been a nurse-a-saurus all night.  Inara for some reason has been throwing fits all week.  We had issues for a while with that, but we implemented a 'sticker chart' and it really seemed to be working.  By about Wednesday I was frazzled, tired, and frustrated.

I posted on my Facebook wall asking for some inspiration, and as always my friends stepped up.  I was reminded of the awesome news that a friend from highschool got engaged, thoughts of new babies, and fresh bread, and random acts of kindness from strangers.  Even some yummy pictures of David Tennant (always inspiring)....
But one comment stood out, and made me realize I was being a bit on the ridiculous side.  So I hugged my kids, stopped trying to sew in five minute intervals and took the kids to the playground.  I'm friends with a women I've never met, and really only talked to a couple of times, but I follow all of her posts because her son is sick, and undergoing treatment, and yet she is always so upbeat, funny, strong, loving... and even in her moments of weakness, she is still this amazing human being.  She's the sister of a friend from ages ago, who was one of those people who made a lasting impact just by being in the room - positive, genuinely caring, and amazingly talented... you can check out his music here...  Dan Lavoie  .  His nephew inspired me to make my first ever rag quilt...
 I had a great time making it, and I *think* Caleb liked it.  Its cotton woven's on the front, and flannel on the back, with middle layer of flannel as well.  I figured it would be warm and snuggly for a cold hospital room. I ended up throwing like 6 blocks into the scrap bin as I went because my "X"s weren't perfectly centered.  All in all, I was pretty happy with the outcome, but if this is an "easy" quilt, it totally shows you why I think quilting is so much harder than clothes!

Apparently the full moon occurred this past week, maybe that has something to do with how randomly awful this week has been?  But really, so the kids were nuts, at least they are happy and healthy.  So I didn't get a lot of sleep, I made two gorgeous dresses this week that I am so stoked to show off, AND I had an excuse to drink more Death Wish coffee.  All in all, maybe I should complain less, and try to enjoy the little things a little more.  Like right now... I am going to go enjoy snuggling with Connor. 




Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Flips and Ahhhhs

Tuesdays and Fridays I take the kids to this thing at the Local YMCA called LiveYers...  Dorky name aside, they enjoy it.  I pay $2 a kid, and from 10:30-12:00 they get to go nuts and run around with other kids.  There are bouncy balls, toys, a couple of small slides and some foam mat things. 

My fearless child thought jumping off of this thing was the best thing ever....
Inara, ever uncooperative... refused to LOOK like she was having fun in the picture... but really, she had two little boys begging her to play with them and spent the whole time running and flipping.
The great part about this is that I generally get to come home and put Connor down for a nap and sew!  Since I'm working on a tester, I can't show you that yet... but I am going to talk about little pieces of paper instead...Tonya makes these things called Ahhhhs, and 6 months ago I had no clue what an Ahhhh was or what EPP was.  Ahhhhs are Artistic Hectic Hexotic Hillbilly Hexagons (boy I hope I got that right), and EPP is English Paper Piecing (scary quilter stuff..)  Basically, you get these pieces of paper...








And they come together to form things like these....





If you're me, ones like that one are still pretty daunting.  Quilting still scares me... its so much harder than making clothes and stuffies.  Though, you do get better as you go... here is my first Ahhhh... AND a dress I made last week using Teagan's Fitted Bubble Dress from Create Kids Couture .  They had a contest to embellish the plain bodice on the dress.  I didn't win (the winner's was Ah-mazing, by the way), but I enjoyed making it, and Inara loves it, which is what counts...

Come a long way with my EPP, wouldn't you say?  Tonya has voting open on some really cool EPP projects that people made...check them out :  Hillbilly Quilt Shop

I like that they are hand sewn, because I can work on them while the kids run around the playground, or while we watch TV in the evening, or even in bed at night so long as I don't lose the needle in bed again...
I highly recommend trying them at least once. 

<cue baby crying> I think I need to relieve Dad of baby watching duties now!  Once the kids are in bed its back into my little haven (I'll show you that soon...)


Monday, September 16, 2013

Picking a name is harder than you'd think....

The other day I was super excited to win a contest for Candy Castle Patterns... My Salt Water Taffeta (thanks for the name +Tonya Owens ) Triple Layer Tunic was selected from a bunch of really gorgeous entries - when they contacted me though, she asked for my website and I went ...uuuuuhhhhhh.... 

So I decided it was time to get my butt in gear and start doing something with what I make... So after much back and forth with Tonya and +Kimberly Odell late night on Facebook... we came up with some REALLY good names... and about 10x as many REALLY bad ones...   So thanks ladies, you guys rock.  When all was said and done we came up with what I think are a great Etsy shop name and a great Blog name...

Tonya, for those who don't know, is my boss.  She is the owner of Ozark Fabric and Other Fun Stuff (an awesome little fabric shop on Facebook) and www.hillbillyquiltshop.com (which is where I come in).  I count tiny pieces of paper (I'll explain that more later), cut ribbon, and deal with the website, as well as invoice the sales from Ozark.  She keeps me busy, but since I sort of go nuts when I'm not busy, its a good thing...

Oh!  Here's my tunic...
On my snarky little model, my almost 5 year old daughter, Inara.   We live right on the water, so we headed down to the tiny beach in town for pictures and play time....
The short one is Connor, my 14 month old.  If we had an external photographer the next image would be him diving head first into the water and me dashing in to grab him...

Anyways. mostly this will be my adventures in sewing, spiced up a bit with my attempt to not irreparably mess up my kids in raising them, and maybe a dash here and there of kitchen fun...  I promise I will take some time in the next one to introduce myself a little better, but really,  the kids in their cute clothes is way more interesting!

But, since this is my first blog post, I'll keep it short and just welcome anyone who jumps on to read ... and leave you with a couple more pics of some Candy Castle Patterns, mostly because I am working on my tester, and so they are on the brain!... The first two are the Bubble Gum Dress modified with the swing skirt from their sew along... (side note, Inara likes to pick her own fabric combinations, and I think for the most part she does pretty well.)

 This one ^^ I modified more and instead of it being an actual wrap dress, it has snaps on the insides and a faux tie.  Sadly, the gorgeous silver bias tape proved to be a little itchy...
And finally... the Magic Gumdrop....

Thanks for checking in and hopefully I can be slightly more entertaining and helpful in future posts!