Bought Some Fabric

I was really hoping to reveal Vogue 1246 today, but alas, the buttons I ordered last week have not arrived. Keep your fingers crossed for tomorrow. That should also give me time to figure out how to make a 2" buttonhole. Confession... I've always had some kind of buttonhole attachment thingy. But how hard can it be? 2 rows of narrow satin stitch zig zagging with some bar tacks on each end.


So, no finished top to show you. How about the fabric I bought at an estate sale last Friday?

The red is a lightweight cotton-ish fabric, about a yard or so, maybe a little more. The plaid, just about a yard, but it's wide. I'm thinking pencil skirt for me or Laura. Gray #1 is lots of tricot that will be good for linings or a slip or nightgown or 2. There's is a lot of the gray wool on the bottom, too. Destined to be a circle skirt or a cape. Grand total... $3 for all 4.


Then I had a Groupon burning a hole in my purse (well, it expired at the end of December) for Intown Quilters. $20 for $40 worth of merchandise. So I got all these:

Um, yes. I had to pull out the credit card anyway. So, starting with the green in the upper left corner... that's a cotton/silk blend, Michael Miller I think. Next an Anna Maria Horner voile, then a Michael Miller knit. The bottom row is the Colette beignet (am I the only one who hasn't made it), a Liberty style lawn, and a fine wale cord which I'm going to use for the beignet.


Definitely some fun fabrics added to my stash!

Wilma on Wednesday: Chicken Tortilla Rolls

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, if you're reading here in the U.S. If not, I do hope you had a lovely day last Thursday while we were all dining on turkey, watching football, and giving thanks (not necessarily in that order).


We celebrated a small feast at a restaurant on Thursday, and then Laura, Thomas and Thomas' dad came down from Tennessee, and we had more fun Saturday and Sunday.


Saturday was definitely all about the college football for us...

Laura, UGA Redcoat Marching Band, 2007

The University of Georgia played their rivals Georgia Tech (and won!!), and with a kickoff at noon, we needed a basement friendly menu, so chili, guacamole, chips and chicken tortilla rollups made the cut. I don't really know the origin of the rollup recipe, but it's in Wilma's cookbook, and true to form, it's a little vague... I've listed in red what I actually used or did.

Chicken Tortilla Rollups

5 cans Swanson or Underwood Chicken spread (I only used 3 4.25 oz cans)

3 pkgs cream cheese (8 oz pkgs. I used 2 regular and 1 1/3 fat)

1 medium jar Pace picante sauce (I used 6-8 oz.)

1 small can chopped green chilis

Finely chopped onions

Chili powder

Garlic salt

10 flour tortillas

Mix chicken spread and cream cheese together. Add picante sauce to make mixture spreadable. Add the green chilis and onions and add seasonings to taste. (I didn't this time, but I think I've added chopped green olives with pimentos in the past, as well.)

Spread on flour tortillas and roll-up. If you spread it on about 3/4 of the tortilla and tightly roll up, it squishes to the edges and makes it slightly less messy. Chill overnight (well-wrapped). Slice and serve.

The plate above shows about 5 of the tortillas, sliced. You can use any size really, but if you use the smaller ones, you'll need more than 10. This is super fast to mix up, and very popular. The chicken spread is a little weird, but mixed with everything else, it makes a very tasty appetizer!

Vogue 1246 is Next!

Greetings! I'm back from the holiday, and trying to get back on track with my sewing. I actually have been sewing, and finished a slip made from a vintage Butterick that I have in the shop. For details and a review, I'm sending you over to the other blog. (Whew! So much blog juggling!)


My next definite project is a new, artsy top that I've mentioned being in the queue before, but now the tissue is out of the envelope and I'm really, really going to make it. Really.

I've even done some preemptive fitting research over at Pattern Review, and found some excellent advice from ClaireOKC which will be useful because this pattern runs big enormous! There's loose fitting, and there's "I'm wearing a tent".


Don't miss tomorrow's Wilma on Wednesday recipe... a particularly yummy and easy appetizer!

Vogue 7903: A Refashion

I finally turned on my sewing machine this weekend, and came up with a quick refashion of one of my husband's dress shirts, into a blouse for me. Months ago, I bought this Sandra Betzina "Today's Fit" blouse pattern, and kept flip-flopping on what fabric to make it up in.

Vogue 7903

Then, Roland ripped a shirt. And it became a great source of fabric. (He ripped the sleeve, and not along a seam, but just in a random place by the shoulder.) And this:

Became this:

The only changes I made were to grade out at the hips and narrow 2 of the front darts for a bit of room for the fluff, and I narrowed the shoulders by 1". I'm thinking the shoulder narrowing resulted in a sleeve that is a tad too tight, and that lowering the armhole a bit should relieve that. I had meant for the cuffs to not be contrasting, but an error in sewing made that not happen. I used the contrasting color because I didn't have enough fabric, and I'm happy with the "mistake". I was able to cut the collar out of the yoke. And there is very little left. BTW, wearing my Clover pants!


If you're looking for nice shirting fabric, thrifting an extra large men's shirt is a great source. And it made it quick because I used the original buttons/buttonholes. You'll just have to get used to the buttons on the "wrong" side. Why is that anyway?


Notice the patio? Remember this?

The patio is almost finished! Yay! In other news, in my other sewing blog, I'm doing a feature every Monday on fantasy sewing, choosing a pattern for sale in my Etsy shop, and then picking 3 or so different fabrics on how I would make it up. Come on over and take a look. Click here for today's installment!


Finally, a close up of the blouse:

Roland said that it looks better on me than it did on him! I was a little worried about it looking too masculine, so the sparkly necklace (doesn't look so sparkly here) is a nice touch.

The "Wedding Dress" In Action

Last Friday (11-11-11) I attended the wedding of my niece, and wore the Vogue 1252 Tracy Reese animal print dress. I opted for sheer hose, "caged" platform pumps from Talbots, and bracelets and earrings from 2 of my Etsy friends.


I'll let the pictures do the talking.

with husband, Roland

shoes from Talbots

Leather bangles from Amy Fine Design

Earrings from Kristria Designs

with daughter, Laura, in a Ralph Lauren sequined dress, and Michael Kors leather jacket (all scored with great deals at a Virginia Macy's per Laura)

Laura, me and Channing Brauer, girlfriend of my nephew

my mother-in-law, Carol; sister-in-law, Kim; me; Channing; Laura; Laura's husband, Thomas

Of course, my arms look strange in most of these pictures, but all in all, the dress was really comfortable. I didn't end up tacking any of the gathers, as recommended by the pattern. It just wasn't necessary. Quite an exciting and fun evening!

Wilma on Wednesday: Apple Crisp

It's just not fall without dozens of apple crisp recipes turning up on the interwebs. So through me, I'll share Wilma's with you. This is one of her more vague recipes, so the red text is how I interpreted the instructions. It's short, but very sweet!


Apple Crisp


1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
Pour over apples, then sprinkle with cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon juice.
I used 4 honeycrisp apples (which tasted amazing alone), peeled, sliced fairly thin, and placed in a 9 x 9 square pyrex. I squeezed a bit of lemon juice over the apples before the sugar/flour mixture, and then sprinkled on the spices. I could have been a bit more generous with the spices.


Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter (I used about 1/3 cup)
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup flour


Bake for 50 minutes at 350 deg. F.


So yummy!

Dog Sweaters

Hang tight... I'll have pictures of the "wedding dress" at the event itself in a couple of days, but these little sweaters have been waiting in the wings. A little back story... earlier this year I knitted sweaters for Laura and Thomas' 2 little puppies that were not going to get much bigger. Haha. Like any good rescue puppies, they turned out to be something a little different. And bigger. So now their adorable little sweaters looked like they were shrunk in the wash.


Fast forward to a freak snowstorm in October, and reports that the puppies hate cold weather, and I had to get busy. Too late for that storm, but they're ready now.


Basically, Laura sent me new measurements, and having traced a dog coat that my mom had for her little dog, I only had to "grade up" in length. It's a flat style with tabs that go around the neck and belly and velcro shut. I used a sweater knit scrap, interlock knit scraps and batting, giving them 3 layers of warmth. I basted the batting to the interlock, treating it as one piece, put right sides together of the interlock and the sweater knit, left a hole for turning, and stitched around the edge. Then I turned, topstitched to close the hole, and put a buttonhole near the neck for their leashes since they use harnesses. Like this:

I did sew the collar on separately, and I think it is upside down from the original tracing, but it works. You know, they're lots cuter ON the dogs. Hit it!

Sam modeling the sweater side, collar popped, and leash attached.

A good view of how the tabs go around the belly and neck.

Reversible. Looks like a little jailbird (jaildog?).

Ella with her collar popped, leash attached.

Close up of the buttonhole.

The reverse side of Ella's. She's thinking "do these stripes make me look fat?"

"Nah. I'd like a treat now, please. All this modeling has made me hungry."