White knit shirt

I finished the white knit shirt. Here it is!

I made it with a scoop neck instead of a v-neck like the black one I made earlier. It'll be great for summer wear with capris and jeans.

Two things I more or less forgot about white knit shirts:

1. White is not particularly slimming.
2. It's going to get dirty every time I wear it. 

Sure enough, the first time I put it on I dropped an eyebrow pencil and got a little brown/black dot on it. Oh well, it's washable.

Sally Holmes

In a frenzy of gardening! Well, a lot of it is weeding. Give these plants a little rain and they all go crazy! One of the joys of spring is the roses...here's my Sally Holmes on the side of the house. Couldn't be more beautiful.

A bonus is my neighbor on this side says she looks forward to Sally Holmes every spring too - she sees it from her kitchen window, which is only a few feet away and a bit uphill. Sweet.

In an effort to get more done while at the same time feeling less overwhelmed (quite an order), I've been making "to do" lists the past few days, just like I used to do when I was working full time. The first day I had seven items on the list, most of them big, and that didn't happen. I finished four. So I moved the three undone "to dos" to the next day, added a couple small ones, and now I think I have a formula. On today's list was "weed the herb garden", which I just finished. We're so lucky in this climate to be able to grow herbs outside that come up year after year. Some of them flourish all year long. My herb garden is right outside the stairs that lead from the kitchen, so it's real handy. Here's what I grow and use in my garden:

• Sage (used for sage butter and with marinated chicken breasts. Also stuffing.)
• Oregano (for pizza, pasta, chicken, anything)
• Thyme (beans, stews, soups, fish, artichokes, everything)
• Parsley (everything)
• Rosemary (in bread, beans, with lamb, potatoes, chicken)
• Lemon verbena (tea)
• Epazote (used in beans to prevent gas - Mexican miracle herb)

I also grow basil, but that's either in the front of the house where the sun is strongest, or in the kitchen window. That basil needs lots of hot sun! And I have a big concrete planter of the most delicious peppermint in the lower level of the back yard. I use that for drinks, like mojitos. And for wonderful meatballs. Love my herbs.

Spring has sprung!

Here's my newest creative endeavor, a spring wreath for the front door. Tulips are my favorites!!





The fall wreath has finally been retired, but I've kept the parts because I still love it too. No doubt it will be back in October.

Yay Spring!!!

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!