Sewing Plans: May 2020

I seriously cannot believe that we are already four days into May. Time in quarantine is so very strange but I am excited for all that May is going to offer us. In honor of Me Made May and wearing handmade, I am focusing this month on mostly completing some garments I have had in my queue for a while, with a few home projects thrown in. This round up also does not include the fabric that I just ordered from Blackbird Fabrics a few days ago since I am not sure what the processing and shipping time will look like for their company right now, particularly since they are based in Canada and I’m here in the US. If that fabric arrives in time, I am excited to add a few more projects to this list for May and probably June.

Garments

AH! I am so stoked to cut into this fabric. I have plans for three garments to complete this month. I basically live in breezy dresses over the summer, and all three of these will fit the bill perfectly. From left to right in the fabric above, I’m planning another Wren dress, a Roscoe dress, and a Hinterland dress.

I sewed my first Wren dress last month (see my goals post and that fabric here) but I have shamefully yet to blog about that piece. It went pretty well, but as I am learning more and more with each project, the fabric matters so much as to whether I will love and wear the finished piece. This is, of course, such a “duh” moment, but it’s really sinking in the more that I invest in beautiful, quality fabrics rather than just picking out what’s on sale and hoping for the best. The floral fabric I sewed the first Wren out of is a really soft double brushed poly I purchased at JoAnn’s. It’s nice, but I had some issues with the fabric in the skirt being way too heavy and probably need to go back and fix it to be really happy with it. For the blue floral above, (purchased a few months ago from Freeman’s Creative), I am going to sew version 2 and lengthen the sleeves by a few inches like I did in my first, but I’ll keep the skirt around knee-length this time. This should also help with the drape of the skirt and prevent pulling on the bodice.

The Roscoe dress will be a new pattern for me but the instructions are incredibly clear and I have no doubt I will love this pattern. This is a berry-colored Robert Kauffman linen blend fabric that I have used for both versions of my Gypsum skirt and I know it will drape wonderfully. I have been really enjoying other sewists’ Wilder gown creations this year, and I think this long dress will be a good test to see whether I’m really into that shape or just like it on others. I’ll be sewing the View C.

The final garment I’ll be tackling is the Hinterland dress by Sew Liberated. I actually bought this fabric, a linen blend from JoAnn’s, a year ago to make this pattern but ended up running out of time over the summer and decided to save it to sew this spring instead. It’s such a great transitional piece for where I live (and Meg is also a NC resident!) and I definitely plan on sewing a version with sleeves later, but for now I think I will do the sleeveless version. I’m also toying seriously with the idea of making this dress with snaps rather than buttons. Something about this fabric just makes me think snaps would look really cool and I’d love to have that as an easy button-alternative for the future. Either way, I will be sewing it with a half-placket of buttons, not full, and will likely remove the bust darts as well.

The fabric I ordered from Blackbird will be destined for a few more exciting summer makes! I plan on sewing the Union St. tee, another Orchid Midi dress, and another pair of Winslow culottes (see my first pair here!) with what is headed my way. Will share more when it arrives.

Home projects

Even though this month’s focus will be primarily on garments, I have a few home projects I want to complete as well.

The first is to finish the second set of curtains I have picked out for my office using that tan and white gingham. I had an incredibly specific vision for what I wanted these curtains to be, and so of course I ended up ordering the fabric to make them myself. It’ll be simple to do, I just need to sit down and complete them! This fabric is from the adorable and appropriately dubbed Kitchen Window Wovens collection by Elizabeth Hartman.

The blueberries fabric from Rifle Paper Co is going to become a few face masks. I’m using the pattern by Ellie Fun Day which is really similar to the State the Label pattern I’ve seen a lot of folks making. To be honest, I am doing this as an act of love towards a few family members and coworkers, but I have had a real mental block with sewing masks. It makes me really sad to sew them and I can’t seem to get much energy behind making them. I think it has to do with using my creativity as a coping mechanism for this time, so I don’t think I will be making that many unless they are needed.

And finally, I am going to stop procrastinating and finally re-cover my sister’s backpack (which she legitimately gave me a year ago to fix, sorry Carrie!). The plan is to cover and/or remove the brown, stained portion of the backpack with this fun vintage upholstery fabric we purchased together while thrifting last year. Mostly I have procrastinated because I’m really intimidated to figure out the best way to approach this, so if you have any tips or tricks please leave a comment.

That is a LOT but I am very excited to have a clean sewing room floor and lots of time ahead to dive into these makes. Here’s to handmade!

25 Days In: the 100 Day Project

This photo is unrelated to this blog post, Nash is just really cute

27 days ago I started the 100 Day Project and I set out to blog every day for 100 days. And naturally, this week as I was planning out my post for making it over a quarter of the way through this challenge, I missed two days of blogging. Naturally.

Ultimately though, I don’t really care. This week was a challenging one on several fronts and ultimately, blogging 25 of the past 27 days is still an incredible achievement over my prior rate of maintaining this blog with regular content before April 7. Here are some other great things I’ve learned and noticed so far with this project:

• I’m taking a lot more photos! I was really hoping that this would happen as a by-product of blogging daily, and happily it has been true. Daily photography has always been a passion project of mine and a huge hobby for many years, but the past year or so I noticed that some days, the only photos I had on my phone were meme screenshots from Instagram. This made me sad. Now I am thinking through how best to catalogue and use all of these new photos beyond my blog. Rotating inspiration board? Seasonal gallery wall? TBD, but it’s a great change.
• I’m developing more goals beyond this blog, and seeing even more success. Some of these goals are directly related to my day job, some are exercise or food related goals, some are purely for fun and personal. The point is, for me, making progress on this goal has inspired me to make progress in other areas of my life.
• I am feeling more creative. I’m using different creative skills planning, writing, shooting photos for, and sharing my blog, which is inspiring more creativity in other crafts that I have a regular habit to do already. It’s really fun to see new energy around all of the things I already love to do.

I am already so grateful for this project and am learning a lot about myself, this blog, and my future goals from this experience. If you have a goal you want to accomplish between now and July 7, it’s not too late! The best day to start is today.

Friday, Friday 5.1.2020

WHAT A WEEK.

Demotivation and a crazy week do not a happy person make. But we made it!

This week I made some fun progress on my Things of Spring counted cross stitch. Still only about halfway done and trying to set some goals around this project so I’m done before summer arrives :)

This week I walked over 8 miles all thanks to the reminders of my trusty FitBit.

This week I made plans to celebrate a friend in a socially distant and responsible way.

This week we made progress on some personal financial goals which in the midst of all of this craziness felt really good.

This week is also the start of Me Made May! This is the first year that I think I’ve had enough wearable handmade garments to actually realistically participate in showcasing my handmade wardrobe and I’m excited to finish two other garments that have been on my list for a long time as well. More details on that this week with my sewing goals for May.

Happy weekend friends, and may it be a restful one.

The mending pile

I had grand plans to post this yesterday with full details on what I want to work on for #MeMadeMay (starting tomorrow) but c’est la vie. It’s been a busier week than I expected.

The last time that I reorganized my office I made some dedicated space on these shelves for my mending piles. The mending that I do ranges from handmade garments that need modifications, ready to wear garments that need buttons re-sewn, thrifted garments that have been stained and need to be dipped in indigo, and everything in between. The piles are organized by what modifications need to happen, so when I’m feeling inspired to bring these pieces back into my wardrobe, I can knock out all of the buttons being reattached, or the seams that need to be sewn at once.

I’ll confess that I don’t get into these piles (hence, they’re piles and not one or two pieces) as often as I should. I find it to be much more creatively fulfilling to craft new pieces and can find it daunting to try to make good fixes to my clothes. So one of my goals for Me Made May is not only to sew a few new garments that I have picked out, but to make some progress in my mending as well.

How do you organize your mending projects, or do you knock them out as you need to?

My new favorite cookbook

I have a bit of a love affair with cookbooks. I love reading them like actual books - reading all of the forwards, intros, pantry suggestions, equipment ideas, and reading through each section like a textbook, methodically looking at each recipe and how it fits into and with the other recipes and ideas included in the book’s pages. I find it to be a really fun way to see food from a new perspective, and see how each author approaches cooking, and sharing, food. It’s a really fun way to get me out of my cooking comfort zone and try something new by stepping into someone else’s kitchen.

I checked out Amy Chaplin’s Whole Food Cooking Every Day at the end of February, and because of the pandemic, have not had to return it to the library yet (a very small silver lining). At first, it seemed really intimidating, but the more that I got into it the more I understood the philosophy behind each recipe and Amy’s method of cooking and now I LOVE it. Each section has a base recipe, whether that’s breakfast grain bowls, dressings, nut milks, breads, veggies, etc., and then many different variations on that central recipe. Some of it is certainly a bit aspirational (I can’t imagine not putting sugar or even honey in a hot chocolate mix, even if it is adaptogenic), but it’s also really gorgeous and has inspired me to try some new things in the kitchen. As it states on the cover, all of the recipes included in the book are gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian. We are none of those things in our household, but I really love focusing my meals on plant-based and whole foods as a former vegetarian.

The first big hit was her simple coconut butter, which was unbelievably easy and so so delicious. From there I was inspired to try making my own peanut butter, and we have literally been eating it by the spoonful this week. I’ve also made her Berry Chia Pudding which uses orange juice to lightly sweeten it and is unbelievably good, as well as her grain bowl for breakfast and a zucchini dressing. Everything I’ve tried has been great, and I think it is pretty easy to identify recipes in there that work with your current diet, and then work up to some more complicated recipes. I am excited to get into her veggies chapter, and experiment more with making my own flavored nut milks as well. I have made my own cashew milk in the past (I prefer it over almond milk) and some of the flavor combinations she suggests adding to them look so good. I also really appreciate that this cookbook does not focus on the health/nutrition aspects of its recipes, not listing the calories, fat, etc. I think this is fine some of the time, but I think it can be a dangerous and potentially obsessive path to go down in the pursuit of “healthy” (which I find often just means “skinny”).

Anyways, I love this cookbook and highly recommend it! When the pandemic is over and I have to return it to the library, I’ll definitely be purchasing my own copy.

FO: Wool & Honey Sweater

Yay! It is done!

I have had this sweater on my “to-make” list pretty much ever since it came out a few years ago. It’s the perfect combination of being cozy, but polished, and comfortable to wear. While some there are really amazing patterns coming out all of the time these days, I especially loved working on this one because I knew I had loved this pattern for a long time and would love wearing it for a long time, too. I prefer a narrow sleeve and love the combination of a boxy sweater with slimmer sleeves and this sweater really delivers. And unbelievably, it’s also my first sweater knit in BT Loft (it won’t be my last). This yarn is definitely an investment, and I actually just collected these skeins, in the Fossil colorway, over a couple of years. It was intended originally for a lacy shawl design also by Brooklyn Tweed, but when I realized that I was just one skein short of being able to knit this sweater, I went over to Hillsborough Yarn Shop, used some store credit I had saved, and cast on.

Despite this color looking very natural and undyed, it did actually have some color variation in the lots that I had collected, and so I alternated skeins while knitting in the body and no one would be able to tell. The honeycombs are created using this really clever technique that at first, looks a little floppy and weird but when blocked, becomes really striking.

I knit the size S because with the generous ease built into the body, I was in between sizes but my gauge was coming out a bit bigger than what the pattern calls for. I think it worked out, because it’s definitely still boxy but I don’t feel like I’m drowning in it either. The only modification I made otherwise was to lengthen the body by about an inch and literally used all but one yard of all five skeins (including ripping out the swatch to use as yarn in the sweater). There was some nerve-wracking yarn chicken at the end there! The body of this sweater would have been really excellent movie theatre knitting had we been able to go to the movies over the past month, as it’s just really long rows of knitting and purling.

You can see my full project page and the pattern on Ravelry here. 10/10 would recommend and I know I will be wearing this one so much when the weather cools down again (and also today, with the AC on).

A walk in the woods 4.26.2020

Almost didn’t make today’s post happen, but I’m glad I did. I took another walk in the woods this weekend, and it was so good. I walked nearly four miles in the cool humidity (something I think only Southerners will understand), up and down hills, only stopping for particularly beautiful plants I needed to identify. There was a clearing in the middle with a large pond, and some ancient pipes held up by brick columns in the middle. There was also a golf course in there somewhere. All of the nicely wooded areas around where we live also seem to weirdly be near golf courses.

I saw a few ferns today amidst the beeches and oaks and maples, and it reminded me instantly of a hike I took by myself in October when we were visiting the Seattle area. I took our rental car outside of town by myself while B had an interview into the mountains and was completely captured by how different the forests were than the ones I was so familiar with here. The mountains seemed to rise up suddenly and out of nowhere on that highway and took your breath away. The trail was covered in pine needles and surrounded by squishy lichens and a few fall buds of flowers that were holding on despite the coming cold. It truly felt magical, even when I ran into other hikers on the trail. It was like another world.

Just like today, I wasn’t trying to prove anything to myself or to anyone else. I was just moving my body, in the woods, breathing the air and the smells of the forest, and yes, occasionally stopping to identify a particularly amazing plant. It was much cooler, I remember, and felt like maybe I hadn’t dressed warmly enough, but by the time I got into the hike it was perfect, even when I was panting to climb a particularly steep slope and feeling out of shape. It was where I wanted, and perhaps in the moment, needed, to be.

The waterfalls here are much smaller, more like little streams slowly trickling their way towards an unknown destination rather than majestic checkpoints along a steeply sloped path. In Seattle, there were no golf courses to be seen, only ferns on ferns and mosses and goodness. But the feeling was the same, and I am so grateful for the chance to get outside and do this the way that I am, particularly in a time such as this in the area where we live. (And I am grateful for the blog, to be able to process all these feeling this way on a weekend, too.)

Three moments of gratitude for a Saturday

1. I started tracking my steps with a new-to-me Fitbit and walked 2.5 miles around Duke’s campus. The weather was cool and very nice.
2. THIS CAT who literally never sits on my lap fell asleep on my lap for close to 30 minutes. Magic.
3. I made honey roasted peanut butter with literally just 12 oz peanuts, salt, and raw honey. Wow.

Hope your weekend is going as well as this and you have lots of gratitude moments!