Oh Snap!

As in Cold Snap. Yep, we have actually cold weather here today and there was still snow on the lawn this morning! yuck!

Usually the first snow fall will have the decency to melt and be gone by the time I get up in the morning but not this one, no sir-ie. This one started Thursday at noon (unusual) got worse through the day (unusual) and by the time I got home from work was sticking on the lawn. This is *highly* unusual for the first snowfall of the year. And let's not even mention how *freaking early* this years first snow is!The middle of November? I don't remember the last time that happened and I've been in this town over 30 years!
(Of course, to be honest, if it did happen before I'm pretty sure I would have blocked it out anyway! )

The dog thinks this is great though. For some wacko reason he loves the snow. Loves to snap at it and bite it and devour snowballs thrown for him and roll in it and generally be silly when there's snow on the ground. Friday mornings walk with him led to a frozen face and many laughs on my part and silly doggy grins on his. Doofus dog, we think you're nuts but we love you!

Being cold and blustery did finally get me into the sewing room though and here's what's on the table.

Earlier this year I made L'il Miss C a cute little kitty apron for her birthday. She loved but had 1 little concern later - Momma didn't have an apron like hers. So for Christmas her Mom and I connived a little scheme, looked through Her fabric and I am now working on 2 matching aprons for l'il Miss C and Momma!
The green is for the body of the apron and the Santas will be the pockets. For Mommas apron the bottom pocket will have some green edging to make the pocket bigger and more proportional, L'il Miss C's won't have that as she's pretty tiny.
I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do a top pocket like the kitty apron but I'll decide on that later. No rush, it's not even December yet, right?
So far all I've gotten done is the material pre-washed and ironed and the apron bodies cut out so no exciting pictures. Except for this cute one.

This is Todd and Zoe and yes, they're sitting on my ironing board. Actually they're sitting and washing in my ironing board >sigh< Is it any wonder I have a hard time getting sewing done?

Ta!

No Actual Sewing was Accomplished

I had a lovely long weekend this weekend. Thursday was a Stat holiday (Remembrance Day up here in Canada) and then with my usual Friday off I had a 4 day weekend.

A perfect time to do some sewing you'd think, wouldn't you?

Sadly you'd be wrong and so was I. I had great hopes for the weekend but what I wasn't counting on was a cold that started Monday. It wasn't a horrible cold per se but it felt like I had a big bag of fluff stuffed into my head and frankly it didn't leave much room for my brain.

So instead of sewing, which I don't really like to do without my brain, I decided to clean the room I use now for sewing. Until recently this room was Miss C's. When I finally put my foot down and told her to pick one room or the other (the other being the spare room/sewing room in the basement) she picked the basement. So I cleaned out about 1/2 the room and got the major sewing stuff in so I could work and she could have some space.

But it wasn't quite what I wanted. For one thing 1/2 the room really wasn't cutting it plus somehow I had made it so that I couldn't get into the 2nd closet in the room at all! So I decided that this weekend would be a good time to do some rearranging and keep cleaning the rest of the space, and that's what I did.

Now I have the closet I store material and costumes so that I can get to it, I have the ironing board set up so it's I can use it *and* watch DVDs on my computer and I don't have 1/2 the room clogged up with who knows what. I'm much happier with how the work surfaces are all arranged and I even got some ironing done while watching an episode of Mad Men.

Not exactly the sewing weekend I was looking for but a productive weekend just the same.

On a parting note, a cute cat picture (since I don't have any sewing progress to show!) and a visual explanation of why sometimes doing your homework isn't as simple as you would think. Ta!

Once upon a time

There was a pretty Marshall's bag that came home with me from Seattle.
I didn't really need another bag but I kind of collect them and this one had such a pretty design on the front and back; black and white flowers. The bag also had lovely pale green sides, almost the colour of my bedroom walls. How could I resist such a pretty bag.

Then one day the bag went to school with C to carry wet swim things in (the reusable bags are *great* for that, especially ones with plastic type coatings) and got shoved into her tiny locker.
There the poor bag got ripped :-(

When the bag came home I discovered the damage and thought "well darn, there goes a pretty bag".
For a moment I thought about repairing the damage but frankly the material is a little flimsy and I didn't then the repair would hold well. But....I didn't really want to throw it out, the pattern was too pretty. So it sat.

Until the past weekend when we went on a bit of a cleaning splurge (not my favorite thing to do. Not even in the top 100!) and I found it again. On the way to the garbage with it I noticed that S had not only cleaned off the dining room table, she had set it too, with my place mats from Korea. (Okay, I admit it, I was cleaning because we were going to have guests) The table looked lovely but there were only 3 place mats (the 4th is already in use on my silverware chest) and we needed 5.

As I stood there looking at the table and holding the poor Marshall's bag I got an idea!

Today 2 beautiful  place mats were born and a large percentage of a ruined Marshall's bag will not become garbage! YAY!!!

I'm even thinking of making some matching coasters from the scraps.

To end today; a picture of Zoe sleeping in the loft bed. I spotted her because she was snoring!

Ta!

So many projects...

... and so little initiative.
I have a ton of stuff to sew and all I got done today was one mending job. :-(

I'm not feeling the best today and I'm a little sad so I guess it showed in my sewing. My BFF was supposed to come visit from Seattle yesterday and instead I got a phone call explaining that she'd been sick all week and just released from the hospital. ACK!

So, she really needed to spend some time at home with her daughter who missed her terribly and rest. If you can do that with a 4yo around. LOL On the other hand how much rest do you get in the hospital?!?

We're going to see if we can get a dog-sitter and maybe go down there to visit next week. If that doesn't work...who knows, we still have the rest of summer to figure this out. But I miss her, and so do my girls.

So, no sewing, but I did get to accomplish one of my list of things to do. See, I've joined New Vintage Lady in her Make and Mend July project. It kind of works with my usual philosphy anyway but I thought it would be nice to have a plan.
Here's her lovely image that explains it all.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm tweaking the rules a bit because a lot of my planned sewing already fits into the plan....but I think she'll let me off on it. At least I hope so.
For today when I wasn't really feeling well enough to do anything major, I decided to grab one of my mends and get it done. As of today C has her pink tank top back and she no longer has to wear it with a safety pin holding the strap on! Yay for New Vintage Lady prodding me! Trust me, she'll get all the credit.
Tomorrow maybe I'll dig out one of my mends...or is it a remake? The weather man says it's going to be hot here later this week so I was thinking I should *finally* fix a sleeveless T I bought....well, let's just say a while ago. It fits me generally but it's too big under the arms.

In the meantime I did get up enough energy to get S into her 1909 skirt and take some pictures. She was already wearing the top and it wasn't raining so it seemed like the perfect time.
This is the skirt that I made when she told me she needed something "1900's" for her school celebration. She told me this Tuesday and she needed it by Friday!
Well, some quick shopping and some quicker sewing and this is what she got.

Here's a side picture and you can see the fullness effect in the back and how the back is a little longer than the front.

A back shot so you can see the fullness. In a skirt where I had a little more time the fullness would have been gathered or pleated and there would have been a back closure. On this one it's gathered by elastic and is pulled over. Not period correct but good enough for the project.

And a lovely front shot to show the nice flat front that was typical of the time...I guess - not really my time frame but hey, not bad for a couple of evenings work!

And now for two silly picture of our furry terror; Zoe! This is what S did with her the other day when Zoe wouldn't leave her alone. That's S's laundry basket Zoe is in.



Ta!