Little Green Dress

Years ago on another blog in another time, I used to post a lot of the things that I sew. I used to post a lot in general because I had a lot of alone time. I also used to sew more due to said alone time. Now I use my sparse alone time (although I've been told that football season is starting which translates into sewing time for me!) to actually DO projects instead of just talking about things on the internet all day. I wish I could devote as much time to sewing as I used to, and maybe once we build shelving and organize the office I'll be better set up to do some quick projects. For now, I do what I can when I can.

But I recently made a dress and every time I've worn it I've gotten a compliment from a stranger. Nothing feels better than having someone come up to you and say, "I love your dress! Where did you get it?" and being able to say, "I made it." Of course, this probably annoys the people who complimented you, but why is it suddenly about the feelings of strangers??

I started with this pattern:

It's weird in that there's no View A, B, C, etc. Just a lot of random pieces that you can mix and match to make a dress. This is the fourth time I've used it, and each time I try something different with the skirt. I really love the bodice, but I've never liked the shape of the skirt. It hits right under the bust and is supposed to just have one big pleat in the front and one big pleat in the back. I don't mind it so much in the front, but it is really just too much material in the back. I've tried just gathering it, multiple pleats, darts, and now on this one I did little pintucks that I stitched down in the middle. I'm still not happy with it. I think next time I'll just draft out the excess and cut an A-line skirt. And maybe add in-seam pockets because every dress is better with pockets.

 It's pretty comfy. Since it was a quilting cotton that I picked up at Walmart, I flat-lined it with some navy crepe to give it a better weight. The cap sleeves from the pattern weren't really working for me, so I added loops at the shoulders to gather them up. That turned out to be my favorite part of the dress!

Next up I think I'm going to do a couple of knit projects, and I really want to make a peplum top while they're still in. Looking forward to more sewing as the garden is winding down.

A Home for Pfaff

So... you guys know I like sewing machines, right? And I already posted about one of the cases and antique machines that I restored here. But that was just ONE of... um... the COMPLETELY REASONABLE number of sewing machines that I have. I can tell it's a reasonable number because my husband still lets me buy them without rolling his eyes even a little. I return the favor when he decides he just HAS to order expensive industrial (like crop-dusting) strength herbicides that are only available on the internet. 

The really nice thing about collecting old sewing machines is just how devalued they tend to be on the presumed basis that practically no one sews anymore, and those who do buy fancy Janome or Huskavarna machines with a million stitches built in and an automatic threader. Which is not to say that modern machines aren't great, but they are mostly made of plastic and I've ruined an expensive newer machine with some of the crazy things I choose to sew. 

For a long time my sewing machine Holy Grail was to find a Pfaff sewing machine. I'd read blogs and heard people talk about what nice stitching they do, how they are powerhouses and aren't phased by the thickest seams or material. How they last forever and are basically the most awesome thing ever to come out of West Germany. But it's hard to find the old, mostly-metal mid-century models because they now belong to little old ladies who are NOT giving them up. Fortunately for me one day we were at a thrift store and my husband came over and asked, "What's that sewing machine brand you're always looking for? Something with a 'P'?" And then he showed it to me! The beautiful, perfect, Pfaff 284 that became mine for only $25!!

I stole this photo from the internet.

That is not my Pfaff, but it did look just like that after I cleaned it up and oiled it. Unfortunately, my machine didn't come in a pretty wooden case like that. It came in a broken press-board base that snagged every piece of fabric in its immediate vicinity. So for a long time I'd wanted to give it a proper home where I could use it without having to either leave it in the scratchy box or take it out and worry about the bottom of it destroying my desk. Good thing I hoard have other sewing machines!

I picked this table up at another thrift store for $15. It contained a pretty neat in its own right vintage White 468 that was made in Japan.

That's the box that the Pfaff came in.

The neat thing about this is that the motor and belts are internal, so it was late enough they'd figured that out, but not so late that someone thought to, I don't know, PUT A BASE ON THE THING. Why did they used to make sewing machines with so many spikes on the bottom, anyway?

The thing I liked about the table was how it had simple lines that seemed appropriate for the stark, German Pfaff styling. The thing I didn't like was that the finish was orange-y and all scratched up.

Lookin' a little rough there, pal. 

Don't worry! I will help you!!

So I took the thing all apart and promptly let it sit in the basement for five months. What? I'VE BEEN BUSY! A couple of weeks ago I finally had some free time to start working on it. Unlike other sewing machine cases I've refreshed, this one actually had decent wood that wasn't chipping or ruined with peeling veneer. Step one was to strip off the old finish which I did with chemical stripper. Then I sanded it with 150 grit sandpaper, followed by 220, and then 0000 steel wool. Once it was nice and smooth, I was ready to stain.

I wanted it somewhat dark, so I did two coats of Minwax Wood Stain in Dark Walnut. After that dried, I covered everything in three coats of polyurethane, sanding with 320 grit sandpaper between coats.

And voila!

I also changed out the handle with something more industrial/modern which I may or may not regret depending on how often I snag cloth in the return.

It could be styled as a cute side table when not in use.

But with this beauty inside, what are the odds it won't get used?

Fun fact: if someone at Lowe's asks if you need help, you will waste a lot of time if you ask him whether or not they used the metric system in post-Soviet West Germany. They did. Metric all the way. There was only one of the original set screws that hold the machine onto the brackets in the case, so I had to get another. Unfortunately they only had M6-1.00 pan head screws at Lowe's, which wouldn't fit due to the head. So the next day we had to go to Home Depot for proper set screws. Whereupon we returned home and I realized that we don't own a metric hex-wrench set. *SIGH* Luckily we had a star-head bit from one of our various bit-driver sets that was close enough to get the job done.

TA-DA!

Couldn't be happier with the way it turned out, except that now I have to get it upstairs.

If I Never Hear the Theme Song to Zelda Again It Will Be Too Soon

You'll be glad to know that I sat down and had a long talk with myself. I was in a car taking the very, very scenic route back home from an overnight getaway to Atlantic City, but technically that is still sitting. "Self," I said, "What you need to do is not less things. It's to just make more of the blog posts that you mean to make." Being very sensitive about the topic of things, as I generally feel that I have to do all of them - ESPECIALLY in the summer - I replied, "Yes. I know. But I have to DO THE THINGS." Master of compromise that I am...

...let me just point out that even while trying to type out this thought my husband asked if I was "feeling egg-y" which is his way of implying that I should probably get my butt into the kitchen and make some breakfast. So yeah, THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE BLOG POSTS. And the washer just dinged telling me to put stuff in the dryer. And start another load in the washer. And if we're going to eat eggs we'll need toast which means I should start a batch of bread going. And and and...

ANYWAY. "Self," I offered, "Why don't you make a post about something you've done before you start doing something new?" And I've done LOTS of things, so that doesn't sound entirely unreasonable. If I do say so myself.

So what's up lately? It's summer which means the kids are home all day and they. are. BORED. Despite the house full of toys, books, science experiment sets, a trampoline, playground in the yard, bikes, metal detectors, weekly library trips they are BORED. When they say that they are bored what they actually mean is, "We want to play video games but you won't let us so we will get even by telling you every twenty seconds just how BORING life is until you give in and let us play video games." It's only in their heads that I will ever give in, though. We have video game time built in to our daily schedule and I have a saved (I really should laminate that) sheet from one of the kids' 9 to 11 year old check-ups at the Pediatrician which says that kids in that age range should have NO MORE THAN one hour of screen time a day. If the DOCTOR says that, it means that I am RIGHT and boredom is not, in fact, fatal.

One of the things that two of them have decided to fill the time with is piano practice. The mom in me thinks this is a fine idea. The person in me who doesn't want to hear Fur Elise 327498573984579387593875938 times a day disagrees. But mom wins out even when this happens to the piano bench:

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just isn't the same...

I'm not sure how they even managed to do that to the leg, but they did it. Of course, it wasn't in the best shape to begin with. For one thing, this is the bench that came with the piano that my mom bought used when I was a kid, so it's pretty old. Like getting way too close to 40 for my comfort old.

So that was also a problem.

 It was pretty much just held together by a piece of twill tape and some rusty screws. When we moved to this house I decided to paint the piano itself (Why yes, yes I am THAT crazy), but the bench had already been through two makeovers as you can see from the bottom of the lid. I'd covered it with fabric that matched the upholstery on my old, old couch and did like a shabby-chic finish. Then, in a different house, with a different couch, I painted it brown and added fabric that matched a throw pillow (which I still have in this house with yet another couch).. Under all of that there is still the original brown vinyl covering.

Uh, yeah, it's SUPPOSED to look like that...

The only hope was to pull off everything, strip off the paint, and start over.

I didn't take any photos of the fun bubbly paint, or of my lovely then-10-year-old assistant sanding it down, but it looked pretty nice when it was cleaned off. Not nice enough to stain, mind you, but nice. I spray painted it with Krylon Dual Paint + Primer spray paint in glossy black and then covered the top in easy to clean black vinyl. I still like the old fabric, but I just wanted it to sort of disappear into the piano itself.

Look! The legs work!

 I also had to bend the bolt in the leg back into place so that they could, you know, sit on it. I filled the screw holes with wood filler so that the hinges would go in tight, and I used slightly longer screws.

Better, right?

And here it is, now camouflaged in its native environment...

Someday I will figure out how all those other ladies who blog take the pretty pictures where their houses looks nice and you don't just see every bit of dirt and chipped paint.

So now it's all set for kids to sit there and play the theme song to every video game ever over and over and over so as to remind me that even when I don't let them play video games all day, they're still thinking about them. Figuring out the notes to the songs. Writing them down in video game character illustrated song books so that their brothers can build upon their knowledge and play EVEN MORE video game theme songs. But, most importantly, they are, for a few minutes anyway, not BORED.

So it begins...

Several months ago I started using Bloglovin' to read all the blogs I like to follow, and since I liked the format so much I started following a lot more blogs. The thing that impresses me is not so much all the beautiful homes, smart children, and impressive wardrobes that these lady-bloggers have (after all, my home is great, my children have their moments, and have you seen my closet??), it's how freaking often they can talk themselves into sitting down and writing a post. Honestly I have the best of intentions. I am ALWAYS up to something like what I read about on other blogs, and I'm usually even pretty good about taking pictures of it. What I'm bad at is actually getting around to writing the post. Which I guess is why they're able to support themselves by blogging, and I have to post a link to my Facebook to even have anyone notice.

For example, I wrote that probably three weeks ago and then never finished a post. I don't know why I make it into something so hard in my head, since compared to the ancient days where you had to upload your photos to some server then manually do all the HTML it's really easy. So anyway, I'm going to try to start posting more, but be warned that it will probably just be things from the garden for the foreseeable future. Like this!

One day I was so excited to pick the first summer squash of the season. I ran right inside stopping only to pull up an onion and grab a handful of garlic bubils that I'd recently harvested.

The goods.

Chopped it all up, threw it in a pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

And then ate it all in one sitting. Well, my husband got some, and even though he's not a big summer squash fan, he did like it. That's the magic of onions. And Parmesan.

That's summer in a bowl right there.

The hard part was that there had been just ONE squash. Now I'll have to wait like FOREVER to eat more squash. Right?

The next day:

OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE??

Just kidding. This took like two days. And now that the zucchini has started as well there is no way that even an enthusiastic squash eater such as myself can keep up. But I sure will try!

That took like ten minutes. What is wrong with me? (Please don't answer that)






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Thank You For Being a Friend!

Is it just me, or do you get the Golden Girls theme song stuck in your head every single time someone invites you to a party? Imagine me belting out drunkenly and off-key:

Thank you for being a friend 
Traveled down the road and back again 
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant. 
And if you threw a party 
Invited everyone you knew 
You would see the biggest gift would be from me 
And the card attached would say thank you for being a friend.


Although I suspect there would be more exclamation points in my version. Hey, why can't you do TV theme songs at karaoke? How about a KARAOKE THEME SONG PARTY?! Omg, I will have to throw this SOON! But for now my good friend CC hosted a housewarming party to show off her very modern new place close to Washington D.C.

The thing about CC is that she's better than me at everything. She has a very yummy cooking blog - Kitchen Konundrums  where she posts some of her creations. Although you can't tell from that how crafty she is, too. I spotted a home made spring yard wreath and some cool  homemade kitchen magnets at her house as well. And the lady can crochet rings around me without looking down. So when she invited us to her party and said I didn't need to bring anything, I knew I'd have to come up with something great!

Luckily there was an article in Wednesday's Washington Post by Jane Touzalin about her adventures in artisan cracker making. Now, I've made crackers before, but when she insisted, "The idea [to make crackers] struck me as brilliant, for several reasons. It would save me money. It would require no special equipment. It would let me customize my snacks to my taste. And a bag of rustic-looking crackers, tied with a pretty ribbon, would make a charming hostess gift, for the next time I had a hostess," I knew I had to dust off my rolling pin and do it again!

The crackers were simple (recipe follows) and I packaged them in a basket with jalapeno jelly made from last summer's harvest, some home grown cut sage tied into an approximation of a smudge stick, a bottle of bubbly, and some freshly cut herbs. I made matching labels for everything to match the basket, and had a cute gift to take to an equally cute friend!

The party was lots of fun and the food was A. MAZ.ING. (but you had me at home made bread and grilled squash!). For dessert, she made individual mousse cups with fresh whipped cream AND strawberry shortcake cups. WHO DOES THAT? Seriously, it was the best!

Crisp Rosemary Flatbread Crackers

from Jane Touzalin for the Washington Post

adapted from a recipe in the July 2008 issue of Gourmet

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups flour, plus more for the work surface
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup olive oil, plus more for brushing
Flaked sea salt, such as Maldon

Directions

• Place a heavy baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven; preheat to 450 degrees.
• Lightly flour a work surface.
• Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and 1 tablespoon of the chopped rosemary in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center, then add the water and oil gradually stirring them into the flour until a soft, shaggy dough forms. Turn the dough out onto the work surface and knead gently 4 or 5 times to bring the dough together into a soft, smooth ball. 
• Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Work with one piece at a time and keep the remaining pieces covered with plastic wrap. Divide the first piece into 4 equal pieces; roll each one out on a sheet of parchment paper into a long oval shape, roughly two inches wide and nine inches long. Use the tines of a fork to prick the cracker several times. 
• Brush each cracker lightly with oil and scatter a little of the remaining chopped rosemary on top, then a little of the salt, pressing slightly to adhere.
• Bake until pale golden and browned in spots, 4 to 6 minutes. Transfer crackers to a rack to cool. 

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Does This Shirt Make Me Look Like A Transvestite?

So, I've done refashioning before, and this is something that has been in the back of my mind for awhile since I've gotten so hooked on cardigans here in this unending winter. The thing I've never really done is taking a piece of clothing from my kids and making it my own. I have all boys, after all! But when it got cold last year (way too early, in October), I had them each go through their closet and drawers and pull out stuff that they'd outgrown or didn't like anymore. On the chopping block was this sweater that I'd bought for my oldest son when he was seven.

And he was still wearing it two years later at age 9. 

But by age 10 and after a growth spurt brought him up to five foot four, it wasn't going to cut it anymore. But It's argyle! I have such a weakness for argyle. So I stuck it in my closet of stuff I don't like enough to wear, but can't part with just yet. As this dreary weather drags on into late March, I've gotten pretty sick of all of my winter clothing, so it seemed like a good time to tackle this project. First, I tried on the sweater to see if I could just wear it as-is:

Well, I guess I COULD have just worn it, but I like my tops a bit longer, and the sleeves are too short. Plus how exciting is a plain old sweater? Instead I wanted to make it a cardigan that I could layer over other shirts because I have been all about cardis this winter.

I looked through the notions I already had on hand and found some gray ribbon and some target-like buttons from a big plastic bin my mother-in-law gave me. 

I just cut straight down the front of the sweater, using the diamonds as a guide. Then I pinned ribbon along the right side of the fabric and stitched it down, then flipped it around to the wrong side, tucking in the top and bottom to enclose all raw edges, pinned that and stitched close to the edge of the ribbon, like so:

See my Pfaff? I really love this sewing machine. The problem is that every time I use it I just want to use it more and more. This might be the fact that I just watched Fatal Attraction for the first time last weekend talking, but I might have to steal its pet bunny and boil it. It's just been sitting in the bottom of the pressboard case that it was in when I got it, but last night I tried it out in a sewing machine table I'd picked up a few months ago and it fit well enough. Not I just need to refinish that case, get a new handle and some set screws for it and I'll be in serious sewing business! Of course, it's going to have to warm up enough for me to spend time in the garage stripping and sanding it. 

Since I didn't want to have to put button holes on an unstabilized knit, I decided just to sew on snaps with buttons on the outside as decoration. That took a million years (six two-piece snaps and six buttons), but it was ready to wear the next day!

I pushed up the sleeves and put it over a striped T-shirt I've had forever with a black corduroy skirt that I made last month or so. And of course tights since it's still, unfortunately, tights weather. I know my iPhone is in the way. One of these days I'll get around to buying a proper camera and maybe a tripod so these pictures aren't so sad. But probably not any time soon. Regardless, I'm happy with the results. You really can't have too many layering pieces, and on fat days I can put it on and tell myself that I'm wearing a shirt made for a 7 year old.