Saturday, October 17, 2009
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...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
It happens every year.
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!
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The lettuce is exploding.
Today I dressed Ryleigh, my 2 year old, in a cute little top I crocheted for her. I meant to get pictures to post on here, but wouldn't you know it, before I could she got all wet from our little blow-up pool. She wasn't in it, but was leaning on the side to fill up a little container, that she then proceeded to water plants with. LOL, she's been watching me I guess. My little gardener.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
My last post, I had started as a draft. On May 19. I erased it all, and re-wrote a new one last night, but when I published it, the date still says May 19! LOL. I have NO idea how to change it. Oh well! I find blogger to make things very difficult to format things the way I like it. I'm having picture problems as well.
BTW - Nice warm day today! Noticed flower buds on the pepper plant! woohoo!!
I know, warm is a relative term. 23 Celcius or 74 Farenheit is what it is at the moment. That's probably 'cool' to some of you. Especially since our humidity is only at 23%. But after a long winter, it's nice and warm to me. Now if only our night temps would stop dropping so close to freezing.......
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
What I've been up to.
This was the inside of my house a few weeks ago. The very beginnings of my container garden. I was so excited. Would you believe the very day after I planted everything, we had 2 inches or so of SNOW?
Yes, I live in the land of 80-something frost free days all year. That is why container gardening is so wonderful here - there are no worries about frost or snow. I just haul everything inside.
I must admit, though, that the tomatoes were a tad heavy.
Especially with the cozy-coats. Filled with water.
Jadyn, my 6 year old, helped me plant everything. We started with 2 tomato plants - 'ultra girl' and 'sweet millions'. The cherry tomato plant is Jadyn's choice and Shayda (my 8 year old) picked out the lettuce- both were bought at the local farmer's market. Here's what one of the plants looked like about 2 weeks ago:
And this is what they look like now:
You can see we added a third tomato plant - it's called 'sub-arctic plenty' and it is probably a perfect plant for our environment. It's more of a 'bush' type so probably won't get as big as the other 2. We also bought a 'tiny tim' cherry tomato plant, you can probably spot it in the other pics. It's so mini, yet it's already flowering.
Here you can see our very first tomato babies! Jadyn was so excited, and happy her plant is the first! lol. They all have flowers right now though.
The next 2 photos show the progression of our lettuce in about 2 weeks:
It's hard to see (Thanks to the shadows) but in the second one you can see some spinach (in the top container) and romaine (in the bottom one) beginning to grow too. I already harvested a few of the bottom lettuce leaves that had tip burn and cut off the brown parts and used them in a salad. So we're already eating from our 'garden'. lol.
And here are some more plants. I have pickling cukes in the round 'terracotta' pots, zucchini in the square pots, and a mix of romaine and spinach in the ice cream pails (hey, I was short of pots, lol!). The poor spinach today was turned upside down by the dog on the deck, so only one seedling remains. I've re-seeded the pot. *sigh*. Our 2-year old golden/lab/mutt mix would give Marley a run for his money. Anyday.
I also purchased a pepper plant. It seems to be doing okay, despite the cool temps. We get tons of sunlight this far up north, so that seems to help. WE also are attempting to grow radishes in the yogurt containers, lol! We'll see how that works out. The pansies in the itty bitty pots are struggling, but aforementioned dog is to blame for that. Those itty bitty yogurt pots are tipped over every other day, I'm sure.
I'm still debating over whether or not I should get more tomatoes. I'd also like to get one more sweet pepper plant and one hot pepper plant. I SO want to make my own salsa. I do have cilantro growing, but it's pretty slow going so far.
And, once again, tonight, I will have to cover up the plants because of possible frost. 4 days past our frost free date. This spring has been awful and cold and LATE. I hope summer is better!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Spur of the moment crafting.
Last night I was watching TV. I'm the type of person who cannot stand having idle hands, and need to have something to do while I'm doing something. Yeah, I realize that doesn't make much sense. Basically, if I'm doing something with my hands, I must have mental stimulation and if I'm doing something mentally stimulating, my hands need do be doing something. Which is why I love the computer so much. Typing keeps my hands busy and reading keeps my brain busy.
Okay, probably TMI for a craft blog....
anyhoo....
Here's the product of my tv watching last night:
Bling bling! Making beaded barrettes is a lot of fun, and so easy and they are so pretty and sparkly at the end. Pictures never do them justice. There really is no way to photograph the sparkle (unless you have a cool filter, or you add fake stars in photoshop).
This first one was made to match Gymboree's Pretty Lady line:
I made it with 4 colors of Swarovski crystals. I like that it also matches a few other outfits the girls have.
This next one is for Jungle Gem. This was my first time doing this araingement of alternating cat's eye beads and Swarovski crystals. It looks really neat.
I did the same thing for this one:
Friday, May 8, 2009
Bows, bows and more bows!
I started bow making about 4 years ago. I bought a dvd after not being able to find any free instructions online. The dvd was ok, but way too basic. I enjoyed doing korkers the most, but wasn't impressed with how my (at the time) 2 year old could pull them apart.
So I eventually asked at a messageboard what were some good instructions and ended up getting TOTT (Tricks of the Trade) instructions off of Ebay. (You can also get them at YCMT or The Ribbon Retreat) They were extremely helpful, especially the videos. Ever since, I've enjoyed the tons of combinations I've been able to make. Some types I'm better at than others (you'll see later on in this post). I've been tempted to try other types of instructions, but really, so far TOTT has satisfied most of my bow needs.
I'm missing a few colors I need, especially for the Jungle Gem Gymboree line, I had to make do for now. I have no money in my paypal account at the moment, so it might be awhile before I get to make something to match that outfit. In the meantime, I purchased 'make your own ribbon' graphics from The Fairy Pixel for that line. You can see, further down in the post, how that turned out.
The zebra print bows are to match both Mod Zebra and Wild One Gymboree lines. They are my favorites, and they are the ones that turned out the best. Unfortunately they are the ones I didn't get a good picture of. Try taking a good picture of bows in a hyper 2 year old's hair. So the picture is a bit out of focus.
I also made these:
for the days we don't feel like bows or piggies or pony tails. These are no-slip clips. Perfect for holding back her wispy hair in front. She's been wearing no-slip clips since she was 4 months old. I love them.
Here are the 'oops' bows of the day:
These are the 'tails down' ones. I actually made them with no particular outfit in mind. These are symmetrical, but hard to tell here:
I love lavender. I remember when I first started making bows, it was impossible to find a nice lavender ribbon. Now RABOM carries this gorgeous color:
The giraffe prints are probably the biggest bows I've made in awhile. They are gorgeously poufy. I wish I'd have bought the 3/8" matching ribbon when I bought the 1.5". I wasn't thinking then, I guess. The middle knot was HARD with a big ribbon and thick bow.
The aqua bows, as well as the lavender, are really my absolute favorite style. It's easy to do, plus very frilly looking, and always comes out symmetrical. I did the same basic style with the TCP bows too, except I added a layer of spikes. If I ever consider selling bows, that would be the style I'd be most comfortable doing.
There's always a chance, too, that it was the transfer paper. I might try a different brand, but seriously, an iron is practially cheaper than the paper is.
I can't wait to try more of those 'make your own ribbon' ribbons. I also have more bows in the works, but not sure how quickly it will all come together. I'll have to show the end product of the new monkey ribbon!
Well the girls are back from the Hannah Montana movie so I must go!