More sew news . . .

Finally, I've finished that blouse I was working on. I really do have a thing about buttonholes. Terror, is a good way to describe it. So I avoid them like the plague and never learn how to do them. Well, after a lot of agonizing I bit the bullet and tried my machine buttonholer on a piece of scrap fabric. Sure enough it didn't work. I pulled out the manual, and verified I was using the right foot, right settings, etc. Still didn't work. Finally I called the store where I bought the sewing machine ages ago. They were still in business, that was a good sign. And after I had explained my dilemma the first thing the nice man said was "you are pulling down the black guide, right? It won't work without the guide." The manual hadn't mentioned a guide and when I looked behind the needle apparatus, sure enough there was a black plastic thingy that pulled down. Then it worked just fine. Here is my finished blouse with six, count 'em, perfect buttonholes. Whew!

The blouse fits perfectly, with one exception. The neckline is a tad low for my taste. I will wear it with a camisole and I've already checked - it looks great. I did go back and alter the pattern to raise the neckline, and next time I make it I won't be over-exposed. Hmmm.

Here's the black knit shirt I made recently in a class I took called Sewing with Knits. I love wearing it, it fits like a dream.




So I'm going to make another one of the same fabric, a medium-heavy stretch knit, but this time in white. Like I said, I'm on a bit of a sewing binge!

Sew much news!

Here's what I'm working on now sew-wise! This is Butterick Pattern B6217, and it's a loosely fitted blouse I'm making out of this cotton fabric I've had for ages. Here's a closeup of the fabric - it's really pretty.


In the photo on the right, the blouse sleeves are just pinned on at this point. I'll get them sewn in today, and then I "only" have to do buttonholes (hate buttonholes) and buttons down the front, and the hem.

I have a new dress form that I got for Christmas, and it came with a whole box of padding pieces. Drat it all, I don't have the hourglass figure these dress forms have and, to be truthful, I never did. So I need to pad it up a bit to match my size.

Well that can get pretty sobering, let me tell you! Here's where you learn how much it means to you to look perfect. Not much in my case, apparently. So I padded and padded until the measurements of my doll matched me, and hoped the well-fitting clothes I would make would cover up a world of sins and shortcomings.

That said, I'm turning over a new fitting leaf and am committed to making a muslin sample of every pattern before I make it in the real fabric, just like you're supposed to. Here's my muslin for this blouse. I have to admit it didn't take long and it sure helped me figure out where to alter the pattern so it fits me. Yay!


 

True Confessions: I think this is the first time I've ever made a full muslin to test fit. Well, maybe I have in a sewing class over the years, because I've taken a few. But even then, I don't remember doing it.

I'm kind of on a sewing binge right now. I recently took a class on sewing with knits, and will post the knit t-shirt I made in class plus the knit pencil skirt I made later. These are so quick and easy, I got inspired! Of course I had to buy more knit fabric, so I have a piece of white knit to make another t-shirt and a piece of heathered blue knit to make a midi-skirt. Those are next, as soon as the red shirt is finished!

Little Nash Rambler

Saw this darling car on the street near Fruitvale in Oakland last week. It's a Nash Rambler, I'd guess from mid 50s, in beautiful condition. This car totally reminds me of my youth - in early teens, my girlfriend Cathi and I would sleep in her Grandpa Max's Nash Rambler while visiting Lake Cochran in South Dakota. The seats folded down to make a flat surface - a perfect bed for two giggly girls!

Later, for the same reason (the folding-down seats), my mom wouldn't allow me to go out with a boy in my school who was a little older and very cute because he drove a Nash Rambler. She thought the folding down seats might be too much temptation for bad behavior. Who, me???

Adorable!!!!

Spring renewal: The front steps

It's starting to be time for spring renewal around our house and one of the first projects that came to mind were the front steps. Wow, we were looking a little derelict, if I must say so. I guess it had been at least ten years since the steps were painted and it showed!


Here they are just after we started to work on them, so even though we had started to scrape the bottom step, they honestly didn't look much better than this. Poor babies!

We scraped and sanded and scraped and sanded. One of the steps is concrete, the other two are wood, and the sides are stucco. We also did some repair on the stucco. By the end of the first day we had finished the prep and had primed the whole thing white. That white really stood out - I can't say it looked 100% better than the derelict look, but we were making necessary progress. We quit for the day.

The next day we painted, and when we were nearly done we realized we had the wrong color. It was red, as the steps had been before and as the trim on our house is, but it was really really red. I'm saying it didn't match any of the other reds, sigh. The other can of red paint, which did say porch and floor on it, was too old to use. It had gotten all gummy. I went down to the local Ace Hardware and got another can of that, the Porch and Floor, in Tile Red.

Bingo! It was the right color and an extra coat of paint never hurt anything. Especially since we got it done and dried before the next rain! Here they are  - aren't they gorgeous?

Only problem is, now the porch obviously needs paint too. Well, that's the way with house projects. One leads to another.

P.S. Those are cauliflower plants alongside the steps, and they each have a baby cauliflower down in the middle of the leaves. Yum!

A shoe rack: Order out of chaos

Wayne put up a shoe rack by our back door the other day, and it's made our life a lot more orderly! Who could imagine such a small simple thing could make such a difference?

In the interest of less dirt on the floors, we try to take our shoes off when we come in. Of course, up until now, that has resulted in a pile of shoes by the back door. And wow, what a messy dirty pile it was, with all this rain and leaves and mud on the bottoms. We could hardly get the back door open sometimes for shoes. Not to mention, in order to sweep I had to pick up all the shoes first and put them somewhere else (in a pile).

Isn't this cool?? So neat. So clean. So out of the way!

It was easy to make, too. I saw this video a couple of months ago and kept it with the intention of making just such a rack. First, I love it that the construction person making the video is Sawdust Girl - you don't get so many how-to construction things done by women, and why not?? We know how to do things too, right?

Anyway, I bought the pegs she recommended and then let them sit while all the holiday madness swirled around us. If they hadn't been out on my desk, I might have forgotten about them. The other day, we finally got around to it.

What a great idea!!

Winter from the train (I'm never sick)

Wayne and I just returned from a trip to Portland OR to visit my son Arthur and his family for the holidays. We took the train rather than drive (yes, W hates to fly!) because the weather is dicey this time of year and driving can be treacherous. It's an 11-hour drive, and an 18-hour train ride each way from Oakland. We like the train - it's relaxing and this was a very hectic December. Time for some down time. Here's an example of the scenery going by our window during daylight hours. Pretty! Cold.

It was a pleasant trip up. We slept and there was only one person coughing in our car. Poor guy, had a cold.

The week we spent in Portland was great family fun - board games, a giant puzzle, good dinners, great conversation! Arthur and I baked loaves of artisan bread from a new cookbook he had: Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt. Yum! We bundled up and went for walks in the the cold, although there was no snow until our last day there. The day before we left, I started to cough a little.

Now it's a fact that I'm never sick. I pride myself on it! I do have a good immune system and am overall very healthy, so I don't pick up things very easily at all. Besides, I grew up that way. There was no reward, no special attention, for being sick in my family of origin. If you were strong you got more positive attention, so that became a habit. I was sure my cough would be gone in a few hours. I took a couple of chewable Vitamin Cs.

Back on the train for the 18-hour ride home, I'm hacking up a storm along with half the car we're in. In addition, my sinuses are starting to block up and I am suddenly into a full-blown cold. So much for getting any sleep, which we didn't. So much for never being sick, which I definitely was.

I've spent the last week recovering - extra sleep, lots of supplements and vitamins, plenty of water, cough, cough, cough. Finally, I feel better. I did go to work over the weekend - short shifts both Saturday and Sunday. Wiped me out. I'll give it another few days, and then I'm done with it.

Hope that works!

Survivors

It's already November and my front yard tomatoes just won't give up! I can hardly believe it but I've got tomato plants with big ripening tomatoes and even flowers. I think the flowers are doomed, frankly, as it hardly gets above 65 degrees now. But the tomatoes that are already formed will ripen . . . slowly, slowly.

The taste isn't what it was in the heat of summer, but still. They're better than anything you'd buy at the supermarket. I'm using them for stews now, and chili. Yum!