Today though; the backyard is snowcovered and soggy. And I'm jury rigging a fence to keep Hou-doggie in (or is that Dog-dini??)
I can't wait for real spring. Maybe then my doldrums will disappear.
Ta!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Spring?
This weekend the backyard said it was Spring!
Look at all those lovely snowdrops!
Today though; the backyard is snowcovered and soggy. And I'm jury rigging a fence to keep Hou-doggie in (or is that Dog-dini??)
I can't wait for real spring. Maybe then my doldrums will disappear.
Ta!
Today though; the backyard is snowcovered and soggy. And I'm jury rigging a fence to keep Hou-doggie in (or is that Dog-dini??)
I can't wait for real spring. Maybe then my doldrums will disappear.
Ta!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Guest Post
Hi, this is Cathi's daughter C. My mother has done nothing these past few months so I wanted to update the blog for her. Wasn't that nice of me? LAWL Anyway, I'm doing good, and more than my mother apparently. Guitar is going well, I can play two songs now. OK I just know the cords, I just can't get my fingers to move fast enough, I have that problem a lot. Picking classes for high school soon. That won't be fun :( Maybe I'll go into science honers, that might be fun. Oh, speaking of science, since I wanted to gross everyone out, we cut little worm things in half and now they're going to grow their bodies back. OK That's all I can think of. Hope you didn't mind me wasting your time today :P Bye <3
Monday, January 3, 2011
Produce Bags
Well, even though I managed to squander a large part of my last day off before heading back to the work world I did manage to get some sewing done today! Yay! 4 lovely new bags to take to the grocery store for my veggies. Aren't they pretty?
All of this started when I was surfing looking for information and inspiration for Christmas gift bags. That led me to reusable grocery bags (which I do have a fair number of already) and then produce bags.
Produce bags? The thought had frankly never occurred to me but when I started to think about the number of little plastic bags I was bringing home and the amount of energy and oil products used to create them (even though I reuse them at least once and recycle them) ...well, it made total sense to me.
So, like a good librarian, I did some research and decided on what I wanted; 1- easy to make, 2 - washable, 3 - use either stash or thrifted material, 4 - very lightweight material so not to add too much to the cost of the produce, 5 - fairly see through material so the store clerks could see what I have easily.
I searched the stash to no result to off to the thrift store I went.
There I found some material (probably for/from curtains) that seemed to suit. It was a pretty big piece (especially for the $3 I spent!) so I have lots left for another batch of these if I ever feel the need.
(I also found a nice piece of vinyl which I plan to use to recover one of the footstools the cats of clawed to virtual death, but that will be another post another day.)
Construction was pretty straight forward. First I cut a strip off the end of the fabric about as wide as one of the grocery store plastic bags plus a wee bit (for seams). Then I just folded the material in half and cut, then in half again and cut again. For the sewing I first serged across what would be the top edges and then serged the three sides closed. After serging I did a combo straight/zigzag stitch seam to add some strength. This material is pretty ravel-y and produce can be pretty heavy; I figured better safe than sorry.
The drawstring closure was the fun part of this project. I got to use a foot for my sewing machine I don't remember ever using before. Here it is.
I believe this is called a cording foot and it's advantage is that it holds the cord you want to sew over so that you don't have to worry about keeping it where it won't (in this case) get caught in the stitches. In some cases you might want your cording to get caught but for this I wanted the cord to move freely back and forth under the zigzag stitches I was sewing over top. This makes a channel for the cord to move around in and is a really fast and easy to make a drawstring. (FYI it's also a great way to gather long lengths of material! Sew over a cord, pull up, sew down the gathers and voila!)
And there you have it! I now have 4 lovely produce bags with some pretty purple drawstrings and I'm ready to go buy veggies and be a little bit greener this year.
Ta!
Produce bags? The thought had frankly never occurred to me but when I started to think about the number of little plastic bags I was bringing home and the amount of energy and oil products used to create them (even though I reuse them at least once and recycle them) ...well, it made total sense to me.
So, like a good librarian, I did some research and decided on what I wanted; 1- easy to make, 2 - washable, 3 - use either stash or thrifted material, 4 - very lightweight material so not to add too much to the cost of the produce, 5 - fairly see through material so the store clerks could see what I have easily.
I searched the stash to no result to off to the thrift store I went.
There I found some material (probably for/from curtains) that seemed to suit. It was a pretty big piece (especially for the $3 I spent!) so I have lots left for another batch of these if I ever feel the need.
(I also found a nice piece of vinyl which I plan to use to recover one of the footstools the cats of clawed to virtual death, but that will be another post another day.)
Construction was pretty straight forward. First I cut a strip off the end of the fabric about as wide as one of the grocery store plastic bags plus a wee bit (for seams). Then I just folded the material in half and cut, then in half again and cut again. For the sewing I first serged across what would be the top edges and then serged the three sides closed. After serging I did a combo straight/zigzag stitch seam to add some strength. This material is pretty ravel-y and produce can be pretty heavy; I figured better safe than sorry.
The drawstring closure was the fun part of this project. I got to use a foot for my sewing machine I don't remember ever using before. Here it is.
I believe this is called a cording foot and it's advantage is that it holds the cord you want to sew over so that you don't have to worry about keeping it where it won't (in this case) get caught in the stitches. In some cases you might want your cording to get caught but for this I wanted the cord to move freely back and forth under the zigzag stitches I was sewing over top. This makes a channel for the cord to move around in and is a really fast and easy to make a drawstring. (FYI it's also a great way to gather long lengths of material! Sew over a cord, pull up, sew down the gathers and voila!)
And there you have it! I now have 4 lovely produce bags with some pretty purple drawstrings and I'm ready to go buy veggies and be a little bit greener this year.
Ta!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
The best laid plans
I had great plans today to show some of my "green" sewing that is the plan for 2011 but....my laptop died.
So I spent the day getting my old PC up and running in the sewing room instead of in the basement (which my teenager has basically taken over!!!!)
One USB wireless connection and about a zillion updates later....and I'm back!
But now dinner needs to be made and there's no sun for photography. Hopefully tomorrow.
Ta!
So I spent the day getting my old PC up and running in the sewing room instead of in the basement (which my teenager has basically taken over!!!!)
One USB wireless connection and about a zillion updates later....and I'm back!
But now dinner needs to be made and there's no sun for photography. Hopefully tomorrow.
Ta!
Friday, December 31, 2010
The Last Day of the Year
Well, hard to believe (at least for me) but it's the last day of 2010. I really have no idea where the year has gone and when I started to think about it I started to think about all the things that I thought about doing this year and didn't.
Then I smacked myself and told myself to think about all the things I *did* do.
Ahhh, much better.
So, what did I do this year?
I knitted 15 or so scarves (not all pictured) most of which were given away as gifts; my Aunt, my BFF and her daughter L'il Miss C, Family (5), friends (2) and a couple I even saved for myself!
I sewed 5 aprons; one for myself, 1 for Miss C, 2 for L'il Miss C and one for her Mama that matches L'il Miss C's 2nd one.
I made a kimono for Miss S when her class "was" Japan for the Olympics and a psydo 1910's skirt for her when her school celebrated their 100th year.
A torn bag was re-purposed into some new placemats and now everyone has a placemat when we have visitors for dinner.
I made some AWESOME Hallowe'en costumes for the girls and might even get mine done one day.
For myself I made a frugal and kinda ugly pyjama shirt and I learned a new program to show you all.
Not included in the picture (as I haven't taken photos yet) are the three produce bags I just finished, the present bags I made for Christmas (I want a greener Christmas) and the traditional Christmas Eve pyjamas I made for the girls.
Hopefully I get those photographed soon and maybe I'll do an add on.
Happy New Year everyone!
Ta!
Then I smacked myself and told myself to think about all the things I *did* do.
Ahhh, much better.
So, what did I do this year?
I knitted 15 or so scarves (not all pictured) most of which were given away as gifts; my Aunt, my BFF and her daughter L'il Miss C, Family (5), friends (2) and a couple I even saved for myself!
I sewed 5 aprons; one for myself, 1 for Miss C, 2 for L'il Miss C and one for her Mama that matches L'il Miss C's 2nd one.
I made a kimono for Miss S when her class "was" Japan for the Olympics and a psydo 1910's skirt for her when her school celebrated their 100th year.
A torn bag was re-purposed into some new placemats and now everyone has a placemat when we have visitors for dinner.
I made some AWESOME Hallowe'en costumes for the girls and might even get mine done one day.
For myself I made a frugal and kinda ugly pyjama shirt and I learned a new program to show you all.
Not included in the picture (as I haven't taken photos yet) are the three produce bags I just finished, the present bags I made for Christmas (I want a greener Christmas) and the traditional Christmas Eve pyjamas I made for the girls.
Hopefully I get those photographed soon and maybe I'll do an add on.
Happy New Year everyone!
Ta!
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all celebrating today.
I'm currently working on a post of Christmas sewing but in the meantime I wanted to stop by and wish everyone celebrating today a Merry Christmas.
Here's a picture of one of the odd "presents" that kept appearing under the tree over the last while. Oddly enough it wasn't there this morning >wink<
That's Fitz by the way. The same spot has also held a tabby "present", Zoe and a black and white one named Todd. Aren't we lucky?
I'm currently working on a post of Christmas sewing but in the meantime I wanted to stop by and wish everyone celebrating today a Merry Christmas.
Here's a picture of one of the odd "presents" that kept appearing under the tree over the last while. Oddly enough it wasn't there this morning >wink<
That's Fitz by the way. The same spot has also held a tabby "present", Zoe and a black and white one named Todd. Aren't we lucky?
Monday, December 13, 2010
Finally!
Finally I have my quiet house back.
Finally I have some time to do a post
and...
Finally I have done some sewing!
I have been off since the last week of November (yay me) but I have been so busy (at mostly non-sewing stuff) that my blog has been sadly neglected.
The first week I was off I went into a flurry of cleaning and re-organizing. Anyone looking in the window would have thought it was Spring since it looked more like I was spring cleaning than anything else.
Why was a cleaning instead of sewing you ask? (Well, you'd ask if you knew me since you'd know I HATE cleaning!) The answer is ....I really have no idea. I mean I know it started because I was going to have my BFFs daughter L'il Miss C visit with us for a week but seriously, I never clean like that!
It was really like I would rather clean that week than sew! Which is sooooo not me.
So there went week one off and week two was L'il Miss C. I tell you, you forget very quickly how much energy a 4 year old takes. I thought "pshhh I've had 4 year olds in my life...twice! I can handle this!" I\ll never listen to myself again, I know nothing! Nothing!!!
During the week she was here I did manage to finish off the two aprons that were going home with her. Mostly by waiting until my girls were home so they could distract her!
Of course because she was here and we were alone during the best daylight hours I don't have any completed apron pictures for you. But here's a picture of L'il Miss C's before all the ties went on (and all the thread were cut) It gives you the general idea though.
The neck tie will be elastic last L'il Miss C's last apron and the ties will be ...well, ties!
Her momma's apron is pretty much the same although I added some green stripes around the Santa's to make her pocket bigger and her neck tie has a D ring so it's a little more adjustable.
Tomorrow I will try and post about today's sewing but until then...cute cat picture!
This is Todd and he's my silly boy. He loves to get attention by rolling around and looking cute. Today he tried that on my ironing board and almost fell off! Ah the time when you wish you had a camera. Here's how he looks most mornings while I sit at the computer eating my breakfast and reading my Reader.
Silly boy.
Ta!
Finally I have some time to do a post
and...
Finally I have done some sewing!
I have been off since the last week of November (yay me) but I have been so busy (at mostly non-sewing stuff) that my blog has been sadly neglected.
The first week I was off I went into a flurry of cleaning and re-organizing. Anyone looking in the window would have thought it was Spring since it looked more like I was spring cleaning than anything else.
Why was a cleaning instead of sewing you ask? (Well, you'd ask if you knew me since you'd know I HATE cleaning!) The answer is ....I really have no idea. I mean I know it started because I was going to have my BFFs daughter L'il Miss C visit with us for a week but seriously, I never clean like that!
It was really like I would rather clean that week than sew! Which is sooooo not me.
So there went week one off and week two was L'il Miss C. I tell you, you forget very quickly how much energy a 4 year old takes. I thought "pshhh I've had 4 year olds in my life...twice! I can handle this!" I\ll never listen to myself again, I know nothing! Nothing!!!
During the week she was here I did manage to finish off the two aprons that were going home with her. Mostly by waiting until my girls were home so they could distract her!
Of course because she was here and we were alone during the best daylight hours I don't have any completed apron pictures for you. But here's a picture of L'il Miss C's before all the ties went on (and all the thread were cut) It gives you the general idea though.
Her momma's apron is pretty much the same although I added some green stripes around the Santa's to make her pocket bigger and her neck tie has a D ring so it's a little more adjustable.
Tomorrow I will try and post about today's sewing but until then...cute cat picture!
This is Todd and he's my silly boy. He loves to get attention by rolling around and looking cute. Today he tried that on my ironing board and almost fell off! Ah the time when you wish you had a camera. Here's how he looks most mornings while I sit at the computer eating my breakfast and reading my Reader.
Ta!
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