This Year's Harvest

This year we braided our garlic. Aren't they pretty?

Something New

Just a pretty picture.

New shirt

A month ago, I spent my lunch breaks tracing out a series of tops from Ottobre and Burda. Five different tops that were cut out of five different fabrics all from my stash. All of the patterns were cut straight from the magazine patterns without alteration.

This is the first one I completed. It is from the October 2007 issue of Burda. Design #117.

It is made from a lightweight (slightly sheer) cotton I found at Hancock's a couple of years ago. The top has french seams and went together very well except for the sleeves which I realized were going to be too tight on my arms before I set them in. Thankfully, I had enough fabric to recut them out with an adjusted pattern.

Coleen chose the buttons. I really love them, but would never have thought to try something so colorful... I was sort of set on wood or coconut when I went to the store.


I really like the button plackets on the sleeve with the double buttons.



Here's the back, albeit quite wrinkled from a day at work...


I would probably shorten the sleeves a couple of inches if I were to make this again. They were supposed to be 3/4 length, but it looks like they almost hit my wrist.

I would also think about changing the collar. I am not crazy about it. It makes my neck appear shorter than it is. I might just go without one and do a binding or narrow facing.

I do really like the polo style placket and the inverted pleats that open at the waist.

Now, four more to go...

Birthday Girl

Coleen's birthday was Sunday. She is 11! Sometimes it seems like just a moment has passed since I was able to hold her in my arms. Now, she's less than 6 inches shorter than me- I think I will soon become the shortest in my family :)

After William made her birthday cake (cheesecake with blueberry topping), we took her down to La Crosse and bought her a bike. She was so excited! She is going everyday up on the cul-de-sac to practice riding and really has made progress in the last three days.



The outfit she's wearing in the picture with Biscuit was her birthday present from me. She was very pleased with the hoodie. She loves velour and I was able to manage to sneak this piece in past her and get this made without her knowing about it (one of her favorite things to do is inventory my fabric - so this is not so easy).

Most of the rest of the day she spent on one of her favorite pursuits- reading. She is devouring the Redwall books by Bryan Jacques right now - for the second or third time.

We ended the day with a delicious manicotti dinner and the glorious cheesecake!

Next year, she'll be in middle school... how time flies.

Coleen Made a Jacket!

Coleen just finished a blue corduroy jacket- perfect for fall! Yes, it was cut out and started last September and then has just been slowly progressing, but she is finally finished and I have a feeling it will see lots of wear this spring. Unfortunately, with having it on the table for so long -she has sprouted up and is now two sizes bigger - thankfully, I think we made it a little on the big side so I think it will work through spring. I just am not sure it will make it all of the way to next fall...

Details:

The pattern is from the Spring 2006 issue of Ottobre Design. Sizing 128-170 cm. She made a size 134. She had originally intended to make this from some light blue corduroy, but then we decided that it was too lightweight and we should find another piece of fabric... well, it was my stash to the rescue. I had this piece of dark blue corduroy that was a better weight for a jacket just languishing in the back of my cupboard and there was just enough of it! And when I say just enough - I mean that a couple of the pieces have selvedge seam allowances and the pocket flap facings are cut in the wrong direction!

I think the jacket went together smoothly for the most part. I would help her with pinning (and in fact the one big error was mine - I pinned one of the sleeves in so that the top of the sleeve was lined up with the front princess seam instead of the shoulder seam - oops! Easily resewable and since it was my mistake - I even ripped the seams out for her.) She had a little trouble keeping the top stitching straight, which I think had to do with the corduroy tending to want to shift in the machine.

We really liked all of the details on this jacket and Coleen found some great buttons- again in my stash- silver with some Celtic knotwork stamped into them.

She was thinking on moving onto an easier project, like pajamas next, but I just happened to have a pair of pants cut out for her and so she has already started on those.

They're Done!

I was able to finish up the curtains last weekend and we managed to get them all hung by Saturday night. What a difference it is to have nice curtains up. It makes it feel so much more like our house and less like an apartment we're renting.

The fabric for all of the curtains came from fabric.com.

Our bedroom

Coleen's bedroom. She has sheets with blue & green polka dots too!
The office. These are my favorite. I loved the fabric!



All of the curtains are lined with black out fabric. All hems were hand-stitched which gives a nice clean finish (albeit a slow one) to the outside of the curtains.

Next on the list: pants for me. And then we will start re-outfitting Coleen for spring. I realized yesterday when I took her measurements that she has shot up not one, but two sizes... no wonder all of her clothes seem small.

What I'm working on

Curtains!!!

For both bedrooms and the office... yes, all at the same time.

They are all simple tab tops and just the height of the windows (about 3.5 feet).

I think it might have felt like I was getting them done faster if I had done one set at a time... but now I am on the home stretch- just have to hand sew the linings to the curtains on the side edges. 4 curtains down... 6 to go.

Here I am at work on the curtains for Coleen's room