Copycat.

Back in May, I spent a lovely day with my cousin shopping at the outlet mall.  Cutting right to the chase here: I found the Perfect Dress that day.

Knit (for comfort).
Polyester (easy wash and dry).
ITY (Interlock Twist Yarn fabric, which is nearly impossible to wrinkle).  And most importantly,
cut like it was made custom for me.  

Of course, I bought it.

The sad part is that the store only sold this dress in ONE fabric and ONE color.  What's a girl to do?

Copy it!

Don't go gettin' all impressed.  This was an easy one because it's simple tank style with no sleeves, and it's not super fitted.  In all, the dress only has 4 pattern pieces.  A roll of tracing paper, a sharpie marker, and we were in business.

The black is the store-bought original.

Mine aren't exactly like the original.  I changed the direction of the skirt pattern because I like the stripes better that way. (To be honest, it was a goof. I didn't pay attention to which way the stripes were and I was excited to start the project and just hacked out the pieces and got busy stitching.  Oh well...they're still wearable!)

(also, I just now realized that when I photographed these dresses, the black one is backwards!  Oops. The front has the same detail as the rest.)

Does the second one in line there look familiar?  It should, because this is it's third life.  I bought a set of t-shirt knit sheets a looonng time ago at Target, and made the wrap dress.  And later I used more of those sheets to make a maxi dress.   (I had pink streaks in my hair then...I should do that again!)  Sadly, neither of those dresses exist anymore, because I chopped them up to get enough fabric for the above knit dress.  

I'm glad I did.   This one suits me more.  See how cute!

I wear one of these every day.  Hey - there's nothing wrong with having a uniform!  The top fits just right, and the full skirt hides the bumps and rumples that come with being over 35 and a mother to two.

What about something other than stripes?  Yeah, I went there.

Retro-inspired chevron, Baby.   Polka dots and solids are also in the plans...someday.

Oh!  One more thing!  I was able to make all these knit dresses because the serger is working again.  Dude, really!  IT'S WORKING!  No idea why the sudden change in it's attitude, other than I said Mean and Threatening Words to it.  And I spent significant time shopping online and selecting it's replacement.  It must've noticed.  :-)

Happy Birthday America!

Where we live, the big fireworks display is on July 3.  Why?  Not a clue.  The show was fabulous and we had an amazing view of the action from the roof of my husband's office building.  However, today is actually Independence Day and it's important to celebrate it, even if the Big Show is already over.

So our day began with Freedom Pancakes!

Mix up about 3 cups worth of pancake batter, and split it into thirds.  Color one batch blue and one batch red, then make all the pancakes.  Let them cool a minute, then cut out the shapes with cookie cutters.  Swap out the colors...and voila!  This is fun for any occasion.  Use hearts for Valentines Day, pumpkins for Halloween, dinos on your 3-year-old son's birthday, blah, blah, blah.

My son snarfed his plate of cakes down and declared this the Best Day Ever.  (I don't read too much into that, though.  He uttered the same statement last night during the fireworks show, and last week when we got a free cookie at the grocery, and before that when he found a forgotten gift card stuck in his dresser drawer...he's easy to please.)

At dusk this July 4, we'll be content with our six boxes of sparklers.  :-)

What have I agreed to?

So, yesterday my daughter came up to me and said, "Mom, can you make me a sweater?"

Since I love 1) making things for others and 2) making sweaters specifically, of course I said, "Yes honey!  What would you like it to look like?"

And she handed me this.

Ginny Weasley

Yup, that's Lego Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter.   And I'm supposed to make her sweater.

Some projects are just meant to be, because a quick rummage through the yarn leftovers bin resulted in the exact shades of gray, burgundy and white for this cute little cardi.

Lucky kid.

Making Progress

First, it's been over a month since my last post and that's just plain unacceptable. Stuff got in the way.  Life stuff.  We finished an addition to the house, and then hired landscapers to repair the yard, and then dear hubby decided to remodel the kitchen and all this was happening at the same time and while I love progress (and new stuff) all the chaos has made me nearly lose my everlovin mind.  As of tomorrow, all plant materials will be installed into their new homes, and my biggest concern will be keeping everything adequately watered.  I'm nervous.  Growy things have never, ahem.....thrived in my care before.   But I'm determined this time will be different.  Because progress is expensive.

Grow Dammit!  Aaaaahhhhh I said GROW!

huhhuhhuh...growing nachos is cool.

In other news, the serger stopped serging.  Mechanically, it's just fine, but it started to skip stitches.  Mom said that's usually a sign the needles are too dull.  No problem.  A couple of new needles and it'll be good as new, right?   Wrong!  They don't make needles for this serger anymore.   It was my mother-in-law's before I got it, so I have no idea how old it is.  I suspect it's one of the earlier versions of home sergers.  I've scoured the Internet, fabric stores, quilt shops and everywhere I can think of and no needles exist.  Seriously frustrating.

If you happen to know where I can find two needles for a Babylock 5260, let me know.  I'll be your BFF for all eternity and send you cookies on your birthday.

Irene

My Great-Grandmother was named Irene.  She was hilariously funny, didn't take crap from anyone, and called it like she saw it.   She lived in a different era than we do today - one that managed to merge fashion with comfort in a delightful way.  Irene never wore pants.  Ever.  In the 24 years we were a part of each others lives, I only saw her wear dresses.  There were two kinds of dresses in her closet: Church Dresses and House Dresses.

I love a good summer dress.  One that's light, fun, washable, comfortable to wear running errands, yet fitted enough to wear out for dinner.  So I started a quest to create the Perfect House Dress.  There was much trial and error, but I think this is it.

I call it the Irene Dress.

Irene 1.0 and 2.0, plus Irene Jr.

It's a simple style with rounded, retro-inspired collar.  Pullover with tie at the back.  A bit of elastic in a casing gives the shaping, combined with pleating detail.  There is a small pleat at the back neck, too, but I forgot to take a picture of the backside.  Sorry!

Collar detail and pleating

The Irene Dress began as Simplicity 2029, which is a sleeveless top.  The collar and front pleating is directly from that pattern.  Everything else is my own design, including additional length and shaping, back pleat, and the empire waist with elastic casing.

My daughter wanted one too.  Instead of trying to downsize my pattern, I bought McCalls 6501 for hers.  It's similar, but without the empire waist or pleats.

I remember my Great-Grandmother for something other than her dresses, too.

Cookies!

She always always always had tea and cookies ready to share.

Miss you, Grandma.

Quilt Blocks are like Mogwai

Sure he looks cute and harmless, but remember what happens when the three rules weren't followed?  They multiply.  Everywhere.

That is kind of whats happened with the Craftsy Block of the Month around here.

My Mom visited just over a week ago, and she is also doing the BOM.  April's blocks were those nasty little hexagons which involved English Paper Piecing, and needed to be stitched by hand (she's a rule-follower, which is probably why her block looks so much better than mine).  So she brought her blocks along to work on while she was here.

Perfect, aren't they.  She is using a fat quarter bundle of coordinating prints.  It's going to be just stunning!   Especially if she uses hot pink sashing between the blocks.  But this is her quilt, not mine, so I'll try not to insert myself into her design decisions (too much).  These are all Mom's blocks so far:

On to my quilt.  Remember the drama around the hexagons?   I absolutely did not want to English Paper Piece anything, let alone hand stitch all those stinkin' hexagons together.  Well, my Mom was diligently working on hers, and my Daughter said, "I can do that!" and she did!  She learned the paper piecing technique, and she hand stitched my second April quilt block.  I am eternally grateful and I owe her Something Important for doing that block for me.

This is the block she did.  Fabulous job!  And she's only NINE!  

I finally found time to go back and assemble the March blocks, and they were delightful!  Scrappy, mis-matched, creative little bundles of fun.  Check it out:

These are all my blocks so far:

Lastly...

Having block patterns and colorful fabrics all over the place motivated my daughter to launch her own block of the month journey.  I bought her two fat quarter bundles in pink and lime coordinates, and she got right to work.

She's learned a lot about geometry, seam allowances, chain piecing, and pressing technique.  She also loves the steam feature on the iron for some reason.  Weird kid.

She has the above four blocks finished so far, and the octagons are ready for hand sewing. 

At the end of this journey, we will have three multi-generational quilts to display!  I'll post pictures throughout the process.

Nook Necessities

Well hello!  I haven't forgotten you all.  I've been writing blog posts regularly (ahem...in my head) and I'm practically bursting to share the luxurious spa wrap I designed (!!!), the Craftsy quilt blocks, the Irene dress collection, and so much more!  I've been busy busy busy with the sewing sewing sewing and all the words to talk about it are creating chaos in my head.  I wish there was an invention out there that would take my dictated words and blog them for me.  Blogging is the part I can't ever seem to get to.  *sigh*

I need a minion. Or a House-elf.   Or any creature that takes dictation and has above-average typing skills.  (I'm non-discriminatory.)

Anyway...

Several months ago, about the time the Barnes and Noble people launched the Nook Tablet, they were super awesome and gave us loyal customers who already had a Nook Color a very cool system upgrade (for free!) which included the ability to stream Netflix. Now, not only can my Nook Color read books and play Scrabble with me, it can also function as a teeny TV so I can lie in bed and watch bad reality shows from seasons past.  It was love at first download.

I also like to watch shows while I'm crocheting, and it's really hard to keep the Nook propped just so on your knee while also balancing a ball of yarn, hook, and a work-in-progress.

Ta-Da!  The Nook Easel!

I friend showed me a similar idea for an iphone stand.  I studied the picture, flipped it horizontal, took some measurements, and created this little gadget.  It's really easy.  If you can sew a straight line and follow basic instructions, you can do this.

Here's the back.  Yes, I sewed my label on upside down.  Oops.  That'll get fixed later.

Unfolded, it looks like this.  I wrote the instructions and uploaded them to Google for all to enjoy!  Click the linky here:  Nook Easel Instructions