Backyard Bliss

This is our backyard. The back may look like the grass isn't as full in the photo, but it's really a carpet of little wildflowers called snowdrops. They come out in spring. I'm happy to see them this full. The past couple years, the kids were using the back part of the yard as a mini-camp complete with teepees and fairy teaparties. It discouraged the snowdrops.
On the left is a crooked cherry tree on its third or fourth year. Last year I planted a compatible cherry next to it, and I'm so happy to announce there are two clusters of flowers on the new tree. We may have cherries in July!
The redbud on the right is one of our favorites. The branches hang low, and the kids use it as a little fort in the summer. I got the seedling from a lady over near the river (and for the one barely visible on the hill- it's not blooming yet)
I wish the photo could capture the feeling of the backyard in spring. Every year is a treasure, but this year seems to be even more lovely and fresh.

Upcycling Coutour

Last summer, I found the cutest sweater/skirt set at an upscale dress shop while on vacation. I have a standing rule about trying on clothes (I may need to rethink that). When I got home and tried on the dress, the shell top turned out to meet the skirt at the waist, and zip up the back. It fit horribly. The the little sweater was really cute and I loved the fabric. So I tossed the shell out, and put the skirt in my to-do pile (oops- I think I forgot about the skirt in my blog entry of all my To-Do projects).

I bought a shell pattern with darts. Usually I need to up the size I make a lot. This time I picked way too big a size, but it turns out ok. It just made this project needlessly harder.

The wasteband was sewn on separately, which left the hem as the only extra length. Finding extra length is a problem I've never come across before.

I ripped out the hem (which left a nice finish on the edge of the hem).

The pattern fit- barely, and I did have to include the side seams, since I overestimated the size I'd need.

The finished blouse. I'm beginning to think I need to rename my blog The Frugal Crafter, or Cheap something...I really didn't realize how often I do Thrifty things like this until I started documenting it.

Not all ideas are good

Last weekend I had my oldest daughter plant Swiss Chard and carrots in the garden I tilled the week before. This week, I took a peak at the garden to see how the weed situation was looking. There is a section with large seedlings. Anyone with any gardening experience knows weeds don't grow in groups. While this didn't have the uniform look of garden plantings...it did look like a five year old planted them.
He has no memory of where he planted. That's like a five year old. So I asked my teen. After several minutes of pondering, she remembered that last fall I had handed her the jack 'o lantern guts and told her to stick them under the cardboard I had laid out to keep the weeds from growing over the winter. (I was really determined to have a garden this spring) I wish I could go back in time. I really want to shake myself, and find out what I was thinking.  Even five pumpkin seeds can make a huge pumpkin patch.

Add to that, I doubt these will be great pumpkins since the ones we picked were little. I had Great Pumpkin seeds sitting out waiting to be planted. Maybe I can use these to make fried pumpkin blossoms. I've always wanted to try that.
Now, for the rest of the garden, I plan to try the Three Sisters approach- using a corn stalk to grow my peas and beans, and squash growing below. It's too bad I already bought the squash seeds, because the pumpkins would be great growing below the corn.

Babyville

One of my projects coming up is to make cloth diapers for my sister-in-law (I think of her more as a niece).
I have been totally intimidated by this, even though I have three children. Wicking fabrics, or at least that title, are relatively new to the home sewing industry. Here I am, making something dependent on wicking fabric. I can only wonder- is there a right side and a wrong side? If I sew it together backwards, will it hold the wetness against the baby? Things like that.
But tonight I went to the fabric store, and was roaming the isles. I ended up in Babyville. Babyville is a line of products designed to simplify making cloth diapers. Not only did I run into the section, full of bolts of PLU (the waterproof knit used for diaper covers), but everything was 30% off!
That didn't bring the PLU down to the $7.99 a yard I found on fabrics.com, but the $20 snap setter pliers were reduced to $13, and that made me very happy.
I bought all the notion type supplies, ran home and whipped out that snap setter, because the wicked little snaps had me curious about the point- I couldn't imagine using points near a baby. It smashes! I love it. When you squease the plier, it puts a target design on the now flat end of the snap. They look so professional.
I will blog about the making of my little newborn diapers as I do them. I'm so excited. Anyone who knows me knows I have been a baby nut since I was at least two. Diapers were always at the top of my list.

Lovin' Etsy

I've been working on 3 little dolls for my Etsy store  http://www.etsy.com/shop/bittypiggies . This included making 6 sleeper because each 1/3 yard makes two sleepers, and why make up half the supplies I have on hand? But as I was knee deep in foot soles, I was really kicking myself. With the three dolls, that's 18 foot soles. sigh. Not my favorite part of any doll or outfit! But now I'm done and on the fingers and toes phase of the last doll.
So, here's why I LOVE Etsy: I logged on to Etsy to list the baby pictured above, and low and behold, I'd sold a doll that has been listed for over a year! What a nice surprise. Some things move super fast, others sit long enough waiting for just the right person and I start to doubt myself.
This little sale came right after a special order (which prompted the three dolls because I always do a small batch of them).
And I did make a profit this year! It was only $120, but it was my first profit in all the years of rubber stamping, sewing etc etc, so I'll take it.

A store stocked up on doll sleepers. Now that is progress!

When a rip rips

A few non-sewing friends have come to me with holey jeans which have ripped. There are a lot of you on the edge of non-sewing: beginners, and intimidated souls. Here are a few pointers (via photo) on how to go about repairing the legs of your jeans, if you don't have a friend that sews.

The rip. We are going to repair the rip, and reinforce the official hole. You can also do this with Stitch Witchery- ask for it in the fabric store. Where I sew, cut a strip and iron it. It won't be as stable or as long lasting, but it might slow the demise of a favorite pair of jeans.

Use seam ripper to tear the side seam that is single stitched (not the Flat Fell Seam on the inner leg). Make a hole way past the rip. You need space to work.

Pull out the stitches. It sounds fussy, but you really do want to do this first.

I got some hand-me-down jeans for my son that were out of style. So I saved them and use them for patching jeans. There's no back to these anymore.

Pin patch of jeans behind the rip. I actually pulled this in tighter when I sewed. Make sure to arrange the fabric as close to its original position as possible or it will fit funny.

This isn't the darning stitch. This is a zig zag with three stitches per zig. I use this a lot. It's hard to rip out, which is the point. (it's #9)

When you get close to the edge, flip the factory seam out. You will need to work with it later, and if you sew it down, you are going to be really unhappy.

After sewing all the way around the hole (to prevent having to patch again later), I go back and sew the leg shut. Make sure you start past the rip out spot to reinforce the hole, because this factory edge pulls out easily. Also, line the two sides up carefully and go as close to the original seam as possible- if not, there will be a dark blue line showing (I did rip out one of the pair I worked on today for this very reason).

Good luck! And don't mention to anyone that you can do this, or they will be asking you to fix their pants! ;)

I'm a princess (not to be confused with diva)

In just a few minutes, Girl Scouts will turn 100. Since Girl Scouts has been such a big part of our lives this past nine years, I thought I'd take a moment to share some sweet thoughts from the day.
The Cruminator (that seems slightly better than Dowanne) and two other Girl Scouts from her troop volunteered at the luncheon today. When we were practicing last night, just seeing the set up made me want to jump through hoops to cement a last minute seat.
My husband took a half day at work and got our little boy on the bus.

After I got dressed (in a skirt), my little boy tapped my skirt and said<"Are you a princess?"

***Poof***

Any self-conscious moments completely dissappeared.

The girls snuck a cupcake...

At the doors, as people were leaving, the scouts sang,"Make New Friends". I think it was an enterprising touch by a clever leader, but it sure brought smiles to the crowd.

A Little Black Cape

This is from the pattern in my To-Do pile from an earlier blog.

Dowanne (middle daughter's nickname) fell in love with this.

The fabric is a 2Ply Supplex Polyester from Seattle Fabrics. The outer shell is rain proof, the inner shell is a micro polar fleece. I bought some seam sealer to make it waterproof, but it really didn't need it.

This fabric gave me fits with my own coat. It is not forgiving, and when I ripped out my first seam, I had to recut the pieces because the stitching laid open the waterproof membrane inside and also the top.

Dowanne's cape had one incident, but it really isn't in a critical spot.

This was an adult size cape, so I resized it using tracing pellon and taking careful measurements against her shoulders to get it right. She had me lengthen the cape to her fingertips, which I thought was a pretty good idea, and also had me enlarge the arm openings so her arms didn't hang up when she tried to put them in the front pockets- also an important consideration.

I'm now waiting on the waterproof fabric to make #1 a raincoat. I'll be using PLU. This is traditionally a diaper cover fabric, but when I bought PLU to make diaper covers for my sister-in-law, it was so nice, I looked for a color that would make a nice rain cape.

The girls really enjoy being able to tweak the patterns they find to get exactly what they want. My oldest has always been really good about telling me before I cut out the pattern. This cape makes them both think of Sherlock Holmes, and yet it is in style enough that they don't look like they are going around in costume.

The only problem I had in the pattern was my own- when doing the pockets, I wasn't sure which way to sew (wide at the top or narrow) because I don't really mark my fabric with all the dots *gasp*, so if you look at her pockets, they are wider than the cute little flap. But lucky for me, her hands are always in the pockets.

The Girl Scout Bake-Off

While my blog is not about my family, this event called for an entry. My Girl Scout, DoWanne (from all the times as a toddler where she said,"Don't want to." in baby talk, and pronounced Doe- Wannee) invaded my kitchen for the past two days. For a frame of reference, my countertops are beige. At one point I had to scrub black food coloring (which stains the counter hot pink, by the way) off with stove-top scrub.

I paid child number one to take this wayward little boy to the park after this moment of cake envy.

Listenin skill: when mom says,"start the mixer on low until all the powdered sugar and water are combined, then turn to high." please listen.

the other side of my mixer is orange. You cannot see the powdered sugar all over the red wall. All over.

The finished project. May I point out the bags covered in icing in the background and the display boards under the cake? Icing in the corrugated holes of the "clean" boards, too.

To be fair, while her dad and I both cleaned up the kitchen (it took both of us), the next day, after I had cooked a few things, I put her in charge of cleaning up. Here are the results:

This is how it looks when 3 dishes are cooking on a normal day. :)

Half Price Day at Goodwill

I have been corrupted. As you may have read in my past two or three blogs, I've been unknitting a sweater my mom dyed into socks.
Today, I thought I'd better get out to Goodwill before the sweaters are all sold for the spring. As it was, they were overwhelmingly cotton. But I got to thinking. If I don't plan to dye them, I can just pick sweaters with yarn I like, in a simple style (so it leaves more intact yarn). Also, I realized while looking at the sweaters that you need solid runs of color. I saw a really pretty ski sweater, but it had a design with the pattern running along behind the knit. That would be a bear to pull apart.

Here's what I found:
The striped sweater is the most lovely feeling yarn. The yellow one I plan to dye. The light green one is a chenille, but a small weight, so it should make a beautiful pair of gloves paired with the ANGORA on the right- I have a really pretty pattern for a ruffled cuff on a glove, and a mother-in-law who loves fancy things. I can't wait to see how this works out.
Now, here's where the corruption comes in.
I bought a roll of upholstery fabric the other day to make a coat for $2.99 a yard. It's from a bunch of upholstery fabric a woman donated to my favorite quilt store, Always in Stitches. All procedes go to charity.

It's fuzzy. It doesn't shrink and washed beautifully. I was actually heading to the fabric store for corduroy to make the inside facings and the collar. But we stopped at Goodwill first.

This is a shade of brown not sold in the store- I checked. And I would have had to pay $10 a yard for a yard and a half of the brown corduroy and use only a small portion. So instead, I paid $2.50 (1/2 off day, remember)! Plus, if it hadn't matched, I think I could fit in these.

I am going to use this combination of patterns:

The pattern on the right is a designer from Etsy Jamie from Pretty Ditties. It's a full tissue pattern, and the cover is an instruction booklet. The collar and cuffs aren't really me, so I'm adapting the neckline using the Threads pattern. I'm feeling a little Kit Kittridge* meets Maria von Trapp with upcycling clothes and upholstery fabric, but I bet the coat is amazing.

*Kit- One of the American Girl characters from the 1930s whose mother made flower sack dresses for money
*Maria von Trapp- Sound of Music, made outfits for the children from drapes which were being discarded.