Olivia Farbenmix Hoodie Dress

Not only did I sew this, but it was my first time dyeing material. Tres fun. You can see how I did it in the next picture - a big bucket in my laundry sink. I stirred with a paint stirring stick (lol).

It was also at about this point that I realized this was going to be WAYYYYYYYYYY darker than I had planned. I followed the instructions. Maybe the bucket was too small. Oh well. Jadyn liked it. I used Painting Red Rhinos knit - PRR was once a kid's clothes manufacturer and they often had overruns of undyed fabric that would be put up for sale after each season. I've had it for a long time. It's perfect for using Fiber Reactive Procion dyes (Also got those a long time ago, lol, from Dharma Trading) because the print doesn't get dyed.

You may be wondering why the hood and pockets are white, LOL. That's what happens when you are so concerned with matching up the plaid, that you forget to reverse the pattern to cut the second piece. I dyed only after I cut out the pattern pieces because I wanted to match the thread. So, as I was sewing the dress, I realized the hood was just not going to work. Good thing I had some white plaid left over to cut out a new hood. I wasn't going to try to dye it again, it might have ended up some totally off shade, so I figured white was how it was going to stay. :) I don't think I've ever done an entire outfit without some sort of screw up *sigh*.

In the end though, this turned out nice. The sleeves are a tad long. The leggings are from a YCMT pattern that I lengthened (barely enough). Even with all these little faults, I love how it turned out. It's so Euro.

I wish I could show better pictures, but my camera is acting up. Anyone know why a Nikon D80 with an 18-135 lens would continuously hunt/search for focus on auto focus??? Whatever it is, it sure is annoying. It's much better with my 50mm lens. See, now I'm babbling. :) I better quit while I'm ahead...

It happens every year.

My craftiness falls apart during the summer. It's not until the cool days reappear that I feel like crafting again.

We had a nice summer, weather-wise. My container garden did OK. I did end up with tons of cherry tomatoes. Next year I'll probably plant more of the normal size variety. We had lettuce for quite some time but it bolted early, as we had a TON of hot weather in July. My zucchini was awful. I figured out it needed to be hand pollinated after I researched the problem a little. I did get a few that survived after that but only one big one. One of my cucumber plants died of wilt. Just one day, it was dead, it was so weird. The other one survived long enough to produce about 10 cukes. They made very yummy cucumber salad. Then it started getting very cold at night and it slowly wilted too. *sigh* Next year I'll have a garden plot so hopefully things will be better in the actual ground!

Right now I'm working on a coat for Ryleigh, my 2 year old. I don't like big fluffy winter coats because they can interfere with her car seat seatbelts. Normally I just put on a one piece fleece suit. This year I also wanted a warm fleece coat but they are hard to find. The ones with good fleece anyway. So I'm going to make one. McCall's M5743. It's all cut out, I'm just trying to figure out the embellishments I want before I start sewing. I want it to be Euro-ish.

And my 2 older girls have started taking sewing lessons. So far so good. :) Maybe I'll have to showcase their stuff too. So hopefully there will be lots of pictures to come this winter!