A New Project

A new project, but not a sewing project. Well, sewing will be involved, but mostly indirectly. Well, not exactly indirectly, but...

OK, that's getting too confusing. I'm starting a new blog. I'm keeping this one going too, but the new one is going to be less "all about sewing" and more "all about me". Yeah, that sounds a bit, oh, what's the word, self-indulgent. But that's the truth.

Let's review. Blog "A" (It's a Sewing Life) will continue to be active, and will continue to awe and amaze you with awesome and amazing sewing projects. Wait. What window seat covers? There will also be more actual sewing with the vintage patterns I'm selling over there on etsy. Gratuitous plug for Etsy shop. I've joined Sew Weekly, and will attempt to connect at least some of the weekly challenges with vintage patterns. I mean, what's the point of having hundreds of amazing (and ok, some less than amazing) vintage patterns if you don't actually use a few before selling them. Exactly.

Blog "B" (Project:Uninvisible) will definitely be more personal in that I'll be exploring ways to change my family role as angst and anxiety ridden "lost child" that I have brought with me from my original family to my current family. It seems that the empty nest has left me a bit more unmoored than is really comfortable, and if I am going to really explore my identity and role presently and going forward, I'm going to have to put it all out there. Warning: I'm going to try really, really, really hard not to censor myself, and I'll be putting some opinions out there that I suspect even my closest friends and family members (immediate family excluded) don't even know about.

So why am I bringing this up here, in this nice family friendly little sewing blog? Well, if I'm going to put myself out there and become truly "visible", then I'm going to need some friends, and I'm inviting y'all to drop by and see what's going on in this little ol' head of mine. Sort of a worldwide group therapy, if you will.

It's definitely a Work in Progress, true of blogs as well as sewing projects and Life! The first post is up, so if you want to follow along, you'll be with me from the start.

How about some art? Well, if you want to see it, you'll have to click on over to the new blog.

Frozen English Muffins

These Me Made May posts can get, well, honestly, a little dull. This is what I wore today, yada, yada, yada. Today, I thought I'd start with a little story. You know (or really, you should because I think I've mentioned it) that we're about to remodel our kitchen. Before the contractors start their magic though, we're required to empty everything out, and pack it up. We won't be using our main refrigerator since we have a back up in the basement.


In order to go down from two fridges to one, that means some cleaning out. Yeah, the frozen chicken drumsticks dated 2005 had to go. Straight to the trash. But the frozen English muffins from a couple of years ago? Well, someone might be able to eat those, right? Someone furry or feathery that lives outside? Hubby Roland would think I was crazy (well, he might anyway), so while he was getting dressed this morning, I went out to fling the frozen hockey puck-like muffins into an inconspicuous area near the driveway. It has to be the front yard because I don't want my own doggies to eat them.


So, I quietly fling and get the job done. Alas, the bathroom blinds were not closed, and as he was crossing the bathroom, he noticed odd white objects flying onto the upper "pasture". Totally a WTH moment for him. He's hoping the critters aren't on a low carb diet, and thankfully, it was warm enough (upper 70sF) that no squirrel would chip a tooth on a muffin and sue us. 


Day 14 (Monday)

Top: Butterick 5328
Shorts: Kwik Sew 3614

 I have a love-hate relationship with this top, and I think the hate is winning out. The gapping drove me crazy, so I deployed the safety pin, but this may be the last wearing.


Day 15 (Tuesday)

Top: Ann Taylor
Skirt: Sewaholic Crescent Skirt

Day 16 (Wednesday)


A better look at what I wore yesterday:

Top: Renfrew Pink
Skirt: Half a Crepe Wrap First seen on Day 1

Day 17 (today)

Top: Vogue 8536
Skirt: Denim "half a Crepe" worn on Day 7

I've worn this top a lot, and sadly, it has shrunk in length, so tucking was really my only option, but I think it looks ok.


Finally, wanna see the English muffins? Some of them have been eaten.

Not About Sewing At All

source

Wait.


What?


Do you know about the Bloggess? If you don't, you probably should, but she is definitely NSFW. And if you don't like cussing, well, you might not like it.


But if seeing taxidermied animals dressed up in outfits... like Juanita Weasel above... seems like something you might want to check out...


OK, her blog is not all about taxidermied animals, but she is extremely funny, and her memoir, Let's Pretend this Never Happened, just came out, and I can't put it down!


What about Juanita up there, though? Well, creative sorts have been taking this picture, and adding their own phrases to it. I'm pretty sure that the Kyle that she's looking for is not the Kyle that's my son and probably the South Park Kyle (or maybe not), but...


... if you have a young adult child whose phone always goes to voice mail, or who doesn't answer or acknowledge text messages for days at a time, and you have a few anxiety issues of your own... well, it is likely that in his mind, this is exactly what I look like when I finally resort to threatening posts on his facebook wall, and untold number of texts saying "WHERE ARE YOU?"!!


Please return to your regularly scheduled activities. Tomorrow there might be sewing. Or maybe on Wednesday.

It's An Award!

It appears that it's Awards Season for the sewing bloggers, and I've been presented with one! A huge thank you to Sarah from her Musings of a Seamstress blog for the Liebster Blog Award!! The wonderful thing about these awards is that it brings other great blogs to my attention.

The rules of the Liebster Blog award are:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog award presenter on your blog
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.
3. Copy/paste the blog award on your blog.
4. Present the Liebster Blog award to 5 blogs (with 200 followers or less).
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment.

One thing you don't have to do, like you do for some other awards, is answer any questions about yourself, but I'm just going to share, that I have way too much angst over who to award this to. But it's supposed to be fun, or at least I think it's supposed to be fun, so on that note...

I'm passing this award on to these 5 blogs, some I've known for awhile and some are new to me, too. Check them out!

1. The Blue Gardenia blog
2. Rainy Day Art
3. Tales from Team Awesome
4. Meg The Grand
5. Miss Crayola Creepy

Enjoy!

Thoughts on Losing Weight

Like many, many others, one of my New Year's resolutions was to lose weight. It's a popular one, no? And 2 of the things that I've found helpful are 1) a public announcement of my plan and 2) support of others. This year, I'm following along with Shannon of Hungry Zombie fame as she tries to "tame her arse". Her series has "inspired" me to share just a few things that I learned in my 2 years as a Weight Watchers leader. [These "learnings" are strictly anecdotal and observational. There may be science to back them up, but I'm not looking up the research, therefore, they are my opinion only, and I am no longer associated with Weight Watchers.]

Another disclaimer: there are exceptions to everything I learned (except that 1 pound = 1 pound... that's always true).

So. What did I learn and observe?

• losing weight is hard. Oh, yeah, you probably knew that.
• losing weight is easier when you are younger. If you are younger than 40 and want to lose weight, don't wait!
• a pound of muscle does NOT weigh more than a pound of fat. 1 pound = 1 pound. However, muscle is more dense and takes up less space. That means...
• use your measurements as well as the scale to register progress!
• people have patterns of weight loss. For example, you may lose for 3 weeks and then hold steady the next. Maybe you lose for 4, gain the next week, then lose for 4 weeks again.
• That means that 3 to 4 weeks into a weight loss plan is too soon to decide if you are on a plateau.
• Hormones can be evil.
• Losing weight is harder for women.
• A big exercise day is sometimes followed by a weight gain.
• It's definitely better NOT to weigh every day. Really once a week is a good idea, but I usually can't hold out that long.
• I don't always practice what I preach.
• What works for one person, might not work for the next.
• Writing down everything you eat, even if you are not calculating calories or points or whatever, can be useful.
• Being honest about what you write down is also useful.
• Being honest about how much you exercise is also useful... there are lots of great apps out there to help you record your exercise.
• Exercise is important for everyone, even if you aren't trying to lose weight.
• Losing weight slower seems to be better for long term maintenance.

That's it for now. And I just want to add that while my reasons for losing weight are for health concerns, I'm not gonna lie and say those are the only reasons. No matter what your views on weight loss are, I do believe that a person's weight is a personal matter.

Bamboo?

We had gorgeous weather today, and, since I couldn't think of a reason not to, I tore myself away from some sewing to take a hike with Roland. He's really been into hiking lately (a New Year's resolution?), and since we live ridiculously close to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area it would have been silly to decline the invitation.


If you click on the link, and then click on "view map", we were hiking in the Palisades area. He's been trying several routes. The other day, we stopped at an overlook, and I snapped this:

[I used my Instagram app, and am really having fun with the filters, so that's why the picture looks as it does.] Do you see the mid-rise office building in the background. Yep, the area is really more city than country, but we're so lucky to have this area.


Today, we took a different (and much steeper) route, starting at a higher area and working our way down to the river (and, yes, we had to go back up, too). Everything looked pretty much like it does in the picture above, until we encountered a stand of bamboo. Very strange and green, and we felt like perhaps we were in a different country.

From the hike, we headed to Lowe's to pick up some paint chips for the sewing studio. Painting this week, I hope! And a little sewing, too... there is a minoru jacket sew along after all!

Sewing? What sewing?

It seems that I haven't been doing any sewing lately, but that's not entirely true. I have made some progress on my Ruby Slip (click the badge in the sidebar for more info). Slow progress. Like perhaps, I have turned on my machine for 10 minutes on a couple of days.


Still, the skirt part is cut on the bias, and it has to hang, right? I'm loving my lace bodice part. My lace wasn't quite wide enough, but realized that the only piece affected was the bodice side, so I used Chris' method, and just added a little bit. You'd have to get really close to be able to tell.


Today, I was going to hem the skirt, after I serged the side seams. I changed the thread to gray, and have finally come to the conclusion that I need to get my serger serviced. The tension discs for one of the needle threads just will not hold the thread, and that makes everything go wonky.


Perhaps that will force me to cut out a new blouse project, and fix the zipper on Kyle's jacket this weekend.

Hot, Red Silk

Now there's a title! I've been working on something that's, well, germy, all weekend. Going through the symptoms of a cold as it progresses from slightly scratchy throat to today's fun of totally stuffed up head, blocking all sense of hearing, smell and taste alternating with the non-stop faucet of a toddler's runny nose.


That's a pretty picture, no?


Here's my catch up from the weekend, Debbie Cook style (apologies, Debbie, but my brain has been stuffed with cotton and bullet points are really the best I can do, plus I kinda love this kind of wrap up, and I feel compelled to copy):

1. I finished my denim clovers Friday.
2. Picture tomorrow.
3. They zip in the front instead of the side.
4. Inspired by sallieoh.
5. Mine won't really look like hers do though.
6. I can't really keep up with 2 sewing blogs.
7. SewVintageToday will be moving back on over here.
8. Wordpress is harder to figure out than blogger.
9. Sewing is sewing whether I'm using a new pattern or a vintage one.
10. And even if I'm trying to sell the vintage patterns.
11. Shameless reminder, vintage patterns for sale here.
12. I'm not sewing any Christmas gifts.
13. I've hardly even bought any and Christmas is less than 2 weeks away.
14. I am knitting one Christmas gift.
15. I should be knitting right now.
16. I cut out a cotton/silk/poplin blend Hapi Coat today.
17. What the heck is a Hapi coat?

And it's even going to be red.

And a silk (a blend, but still). The jury is out on the hot.

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.

Some Special Sewing

The conversation goes like this:


Laura: "Mom, can you make us a kind of waterproof cover for our metal shelf. We want to store stuff on it, on our patio, so it will need to be protected from rain."


Me: "Um, I think I could. Text me the dimensions and I'll search around for some kind of waterproof fabric, and let you know."


Off I go to my almost always go to first fabric source, fabric.com. And I find some stuff called polyurethane laminate or PUL. Here's the description from their website:
Description: PUL is a polyester/polyurethane laminated knit fabric with a laminate thickness of 1.00 mm. This fabric is waterproof, durable and has a slight crossgrain stretch. This product can be used in making diapers, changing mattress covers and applications that require waterproof fabric. CPSIA certified. Machine Wash Warm, No Chlorine Bleach, No Fabric Softeners, Dry Low Heat or Drip


It comes in lots of pretty colors, but they chose black. So 5 yards later, plus a 72" sleeping bag zipper from Atlanta Thread, I had a plan. Scroll all the way to the bottom for the finished product if you aren't interested in any of the technical mumbo jumbo.


From my last post, I may have given the impression that I never practice any new technique. That's not really true, and this project needed some practice. First, after purchasing some seam sealant from REI it had a diagram on how a tent seam looks (what one would use the sealant for apparently). Something like this:

If you are still with me, here's how it all came together. Needle used, a universal, I think size 80. Regular thread. Walking foot.

First I laid the fabric all out on the floor, and drew a 1/2" seamline on one side. Then, I placed the edge of the other side, overlapping to the chalk line and taped it in place. I had a helper.

Then, it took 3 passes to get the finished seam. The first one was basted, and frankly, the tape didn't stick well, but this was the only super long seam I would need to do. The other one had the zipper.

The second pass was pulling one side over the basted side so it looks like that little drawing above. Kind of hard to describe in words, and this picture is terrible. You are encasing the basted seam.

Finally, you flip it over, and sew the final edge down. Even with the walking foot, this stuff kind of sticks and pulls. I don't have a teflon foot though, or one with little rollers. It was worse with the zipper insertion. I forgot to take pictures of that though.

I also practice how the corner would come about with a little miniature.

Not pretty, but it didn't really have to be. I made it a little bit longer than the measurements so that they could put stuff on the top shelf.

I think it looks kind of like an odd shaped body bag, but here's what Thomas had to say about it:
Spent some time outside just now to put on the cover! It fits great and have a nice amount of extra room to put some stuff on top and some bigger boxes that don't completely fit on a shelf. Should be great!

Also, it fits perfect if I don't have anything on the top shelf, but I've got some moving blankets on it now, so the corners droop just a bit.


Success!

Department of Random

Well, checked in on my blog today, and what to my wondering eyes did I see, but 100 followers! Yippee!

I really do love my followers and their insightful and supportive comments. And I promised a giveaway, which I will do. Um, just not today. I can't even decide what to get my closest family members for Christmas, much less organize a giveaway for my favorite readers. But have patience, and it will happen.

I've been working on cutting out the Macaron pattern, but I've been distracted, so it's slower going than usual in the cutting out department. And yesterday, I felt compelled to bake. Not any gifts, mind you, but I'm going to blame Christine and her Sweet Treats Saturday feature on her delightful blog. If you click on Sweet Treats it will take you directly to her blog, and the recipe for the Brown Butter Toffee Blondies, which I followed faithfully (except for the walnuts, we don't like them too  much here). And this is what I got:

Guess who likes the gooey center pieces the best? Trust me, they are DE-licious!

And in cold weather news, those of you who live in real cold weather areas, please promise not to laugh. Well, ok, laugh if you must, but it's been snowing here in Atlanta today:

I can hear you laughing. ;-)