Kids Clothes

Tomorrow we're celebrating the third birthday of my friend's twin girls. I had little idea of what size they actually are, but I used some pattern measurements to figure out the height and waist of size 3. I'm hoping that these sparklie skirts either fit well, or are too big. It would be a bummer if they were too small.

I got to use my newly rebuilt serger and also the ruffler foot that I'm still really excited about. Both skirts together probably took me 4 hours total, possibly less. I also used my serger to fasten in the elastic waist band, which is a first for me. I historically haven't used my serger to do things that don't require cutting, and it works pretty well.

Nourishing Traditions and the Attraction to What We Can't Have

The other day I was hanging out with Krista and she mentioned this nutrition cook book whose basic angle is that whole unmodified foods are best for you. And that our society's obsession with altering food formats (by homogenizing, sterilizing, or denaturing) is seriously detrimental to our digestion and general health. This book also promotes eating fermented foods.

While I was in college I got really into this type of nutrition; and was a huge advocate of this philosophy. My philosophy is still pretty closely aligned, however I am a vegetarian and this book isn't completely on board with that. I also feel strongly about only eating foods that have a low glycemic index.

As a side, there's been studies that have linked folks who eat fermented foods with less incidence of allergies. I've been taking a probiotic recently and my honeypot took it for some days. While he was taking it he had less issues with his body reacting to certain foods. Interesting, no?

I'm going to make yogurt today, and see how it goes. Wish me luck.

On another note, my serger has been breaking needles for several weeks now when it shouldn't be. I finally brought it in to get it fixed because the timing probably is off. It'll be gone for a week and now that it's gone I've come up with all of these projects that I want to do. Why are we attracted to things we can't have? I must be patient.

Ruffler Foot

I've been sewing so much more than normal lately. Besides making specific maternity clothes, I've made a sundress that I can fit into and made new curtains for several rooms in our house. Most of these projects had ruffles or pleats on them and they take forever to do by hand. I've always known there's such a thing as a ruffle foot and a couple years ago I vaguely remember putting some energy into finding one that would fit my machine. But I don't remember ever getting one.

Well, again I had become focused on finding a ruffle foot for my machine and even went to a sewing store last weekend and talked to them about ordering one. Since I didn't have my machine information I wasn't able to order one at that time, which ended up being a pretty good thing.

A couple days ago I'm looking through this pile of stuff in my craft area and guess what I found?! The pictured ruffle foot! I can't believe it. I'm pretty sure I didn't buy it myself, but I do have some vague memories of asking my honeypot to get one at the sewing store near his work maybe a year or two ago. And it looks like he got me one(!!), and I stashed it and forgot about it.

Well, this thing is pretty fantastic. You can see how complicated it is by the picture, and I haven't yet figured out how to make it gather a particular amount of fabric predictably. I'm sure I just need to play with it some more because there are a lot of parts that can be adjusted and there's 4 settings to choose from. I'm so excited to have this new gadget (that will save me so much time!!)

Maternity Clothes

I've been sewing quite a bit lately. Most of it has been making maternity clothes that I like and are comfortable. I had these two pairs of jeans that I was wearing almost every day for a while, but they've gotten so they're a little tight in this one place. It's like there's a tight string right at the join of the elastic top part and the "normal" looking pants part.

Regardless, I've found that the yoga pants with the stretchy knit top parts are so comfortable and great to wear. So I've just made my third skirt with that type of top part and finished it this morning. This skirt (pictured) and the last one are similar in that they're a patterned cotton weave fabric on the bottom, with a stretchy cotton knit panel on the top. I even made the stretchy knit part small enough that I'll be able to wear them when I'm no longer "big bellied." The other cool thing is that they both have pockets too!

The first skirt I made is completely made out of stretchy knit and is solid forest green. It's a little longer than the skirt in the picture, and doesn't flare as much either (because it's just cotton knit and nothing else.) It also doesn't have pockets. I made it pretty fast a couple weeks ago out of desperation of having very few options for what to wear.

This picture also shows how "big bellied" I really am. I was just told that if I went into labor now it would be okay. I guess that means I'm "fully baked" now. Statistically speaking, I probably won't go into labor for another 3 or 4 weeks though. First babies are usually late.

You can also see how much sun I've been getting in the picture. It's been so nice around here. I went on a bike ride and hike today. It will definitely be my last bike ride as I was in some pain with how squished everything was under my rib cage. There just isn't much room to work with anymore. I'm still looking forward to some more hiking, or urban hiking depending.

Craft Time!

I've recently been interested in working with knits in some sewing projects. I have some vague memories of having lots of problems sewing with knits. But that was a long time ago, and my skill is probably higher than it was at that time.

I purchased a couple colors of knits last week and today I finally made something.

I can see how it would be hard to work with this fabric. It doesn't really have any memory of what shape it was when it was flat and square. Also, it's stretchy in one direction but not in the other. So it's even more important to be careful how you build items.

I understand the use of starch and sizing a whole lot more.

sir cuss boot camp

We had a casual craft night tonight and I sewed the "backdrop" of our bm theme camp. I think it came out good. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but you can tell how wide it is. And it goes up into two points, but those parts were folded back.

I'm really excited about this year's burn. I think it's going to be fun and good.

I've had these really weird ridges in both of my thumb nails and they would grow out over time. They seemed to appear in the same frequency, every couple months or so. I think I figured out what they were. I was about to push my cuticles back a couple weeks ago and it occurred to me that this would be about the time that the ridge would start. So I didn't push my cuticles back at all at that time. And the last ridges are about to grow out. It's pretty weird and shocking to me that I was hurting myself so much and not noticing.

Hippy Skirt!

I have this skirt that I completely love (No, not that one pictured.)
It influenced me to make a similar one out of cotton (using fabric I already had!). The final product is pictured on the left.
In the process I learned how to correctly do shirring (pix). I only had to tear out the top shirred part 4 times before I figured out how to do it right. I was quite frustrated until I remembered that I have this sewing book - purchased for me in the 80's when I was just starting my sewing interest. It's an artifact from the past, much like my Betty Crocker cookbook that's in the 3 ring binder.
The steps for making this skirt was 1-serger the tiers, 2-gather each tier onto the one above it, 3-then add the rows of shirring to the part that sits on your waist or hips. When I was done sewing it, I dyed it some fun colors. This was a fun project. It brought back memories of my tie-dying days. (Did you know there was a time when I was making around 3 thousand t-shirts [and other items] a summer? - I basically made all the tie-dyes that this relatively large craft/fair vendor sold. As a result, I'm a pretty good tie-dyer - I have lots of experience, though it's starting to get a bit rusty now.)


This first picture is after I was done sewing it - and about to dye it.
Here's what it looked like after dying it, but before it was finished fixing.
And here's the back of the finished skirt. The first picture in this post is the front.