I believe that I may have discovered a new species of bird.

Strangely enough, I didn’t notice them until this morning. They must have crept into the house overnight, hopping across carpet and tile and wood to find their hiding places. I have to say that they don’t camouflage very well…I spotted this fellow by the window right away.

He seemed to regret the decision to move indoors and was gazing wistfully through the glass.

Another green bird was waiting for me in the bathroom, having made a cozy nest in the towels.

These two yellow ladies were chattering happily when I walked into the kitchen - I’m sure they tried to get into the jars, but (fortunately) the glass lids were a little too heavy.

The red bird attempted to blend in with a pile of fabric, but I spotted her anyway.

After rounding up the others, I took a quick glance around our rather unkempt backyard. I almost missed him, but a little green fellow was crouching inside a clump of flowers. Fortunately, his cheery yellow beak and wings gave him away.

I have given the new species the temporary name Fabricus vintagalis, at least until the crew from National Geographic arrives and I get my name in Science. (You know, then.)

There were eight originally, but a red-bird and a green-bird flew away before I could snap a photo. The others are waiting until Saturday to do the same.

I’m still trying to finish the new throw pillows for the couch…they’re a very simple design, but it will probably take a few more days. Am trying to heed some gentle words from husband regarding my need to be “productive” all the time. He’s a lot wiser than I am about these things.

I went to WSU’s MFA exhibit during lunch yesterday because I’m always curious about what a mediocre state school’s art department churns out (answer =  about what you’d expect). There were a number of mystefying sculpture exhibits, some boring screenprinting, a couple of installations, and one painter who could paint. If you’re around, I recommend visiting sometime during the month to take a good long look at the work of Isaac Powell and short, amused look at everything else. I finish with a clip from the WSU news service, which pretty much sums it up:

Chris Watts, a professor in the WSU Fine Arts department, and this year’s graduate advisor, has been the formal coordinator of the MFA students for seven years. When asked if the exhibit will have an overall theme, he said, “the strength of the Fine Arts department and the MFA program is we don’t have a certain style, each student is allowed to shine on their own–find their own path. This year’s group was no exception; they continued the long standing tradition of creativity and excellence.” 

Mmm, I’d hate to be the one to break it to him that some paths are better than others.

Last weekend was supposed to be full of sewing. I was supposed to start (and finish) the long-awaited living room curtains and a couple of muslin panels. I was also supposed to come home from our Saturday morning thrifting with a bunch of great stuff to show on this blog. What can I say? Things don’t always work out the way they’re “supposed” to…

Regarding yard + moving sales in general, Josh and I have decided that the phrase “HUGE Multi-Family Moving Sale” has been adopted by everyone from the college roommates  trying to sell three books and a couple of old t-shirts to neighbors getting rid of very well-used baby paraphernalia. None of which really applies to us. We went to one big estate sale, but we arrived 45 minutes after it started and most of the good stuff I saw was in the hands of people waiting in the check-out line. My mum (who was there promptly at 9 am) said that it started out as a feeding frenzy of people cramming stuff into boxes, which I really dislike. There’s something about estate sales that can bring out so much greed in people (I know it does in me!), and I always find it so tragic to walk through rooms full of carefully saved treasures that the dead people’s children and grandchildren didn’t want. I did find a couple of things I like (including a 60s flower-print metal box) but couldn’t manage to take a decent photo of them.

However, even though I didn’t have any great thrifting finds, I can show you the treats that came inside my yearly Easter basket:

My mom has made really, really great Easter baskets for all of her kids for as long as I can remember. They always have something tasty (chocolate-covered almonds, mmm) and something fun. This year, I got an adorable little leather purse and this fabric + trim. The blue ricrac is so tiny and perfect - you can’t really see the scale. I think I’m going to try topstitch it to the shirt-I-plan-to-make from the pattern and fabric below:

JoAnn’s was having one of their $2 Simplicity pattern sales, so I picked up this Built-by-Wendy design and the two fabrics shown. I’ve already cut out the pieces to make pne shirt as-shown in green and another with the yoke from the dress design in the blue Swiss dot. Where are you, sewing machine?

Back to the Easter baskets, though - I wasn’t sure if mom would decided that Marian and I didn’t need them any more since we got married. Thanks for deciding that we still do. :)

I wish I had more artsy-craftiness to show, but I don’t! So I will leave you with the amazing art that has been blossoming for the last couple of days in our back yard.  Quite frankly, it’s a lot more impressive than anything I can come up with.

The title of this post was supposed to be “craft room curtains,” and I got within two seams of my goal last night. And then the sewing machine started having tension problems (why does this always happen to me?) and now requires a trip to the sewing machine doctor. I don’t begrudge this, since the machine was a very gracious gift and I know I’ve got to put some money into it sometime. But couldn’t it have finished those seams first??

I’ve found that I really enjoy making my own curtains. When it comes to curtains, I find that the nice ones are all really expensive and the cheap ones are really polyester-rayon. Sewing your own seems like such a viable, cost-conscious alternative. This curtain is very similar to another set that I did for our old living room that, unfortunately, don’t coordinate at all with our new place. I don’t have the patience to patchwork, so as a compromise I just sew long strips together. They tend to be a little uneven because my sewing machine thinks it’s a racehorse and the fabric just flies by (okay, there’s always was a lot of seam-ripping and muttering when I sew curtains). But I usually like the way they turn out.

The flower print is a pillowcase; I was going to cut it into two panels but it was barely wide enough as-is. The striped fabric is the leftover from a sheet that I’m making into two long panels to hide my shelves (the panels that my sewing machine refused to finish). As soon as I get those up - and I think I might just handsew them - I’ll fix my random assortment of wall decor and take some nice pictures during daylight. Which will hopefully take care of that yellow tinge. And then I’ll unplug that clock, too.

Isn’t this a nicer, cheerier view for our neighbors?

I’m taking tomorrow off for Good Friday, but on Monday I’ll be back with the finished curtains and the weekend’s thrifting finds. Good luck with your own treasure-hunting.

Because I forgot to post about my weekend sewing yesterday, I’m going to squeeze it in before I say anything about the you-know-what. 

SO, I’ve been wanting a new pair of fuzzy lounge-around-the-house pants for a while now. My new Sew-U book conveniently includes a pattern for pants, but (unconveniently) the pattern is kind of complicated. Enter the good idea: make a simplified version of the pants out of stretchy fabric to a) avoid buying/creating a sweatpants pattern and b) see if the Built by Wendy pattern fits.

For my fabric, I used some of the yellow sweatshirt fleece you might remember from my Christmas crafting (it’s incredibly soft, and I bought a lot of it on sale cheap). I was going to trim pockets, waistband, etc. with a vintage yellow print, but I could NOT get the bias binding to lie flat because the knit was so stretchy…and after ripping it out about four times, I scrapped the idea.

Sans cute trim, I think the pants turned out pretty well.  I took out the fussy zipper/fly thing and used simple elastic instead. The fit is okay - they’re quite low-waisted in a way that might not be flattering (on me) as full-fledged pants. If I make them again, I will probably add another inch in height to the waistband.

Tragically, I also hemmed them a little too short after *carefully* measuring the length needed to brush the tops of my feet but not get in the mud when I take the dog out. So they’re kinda more like capris than pants.  Garr.

My absolute favorite part, which makes up for the shortness, is the back.  I kept the v-shaped waistband thingy that jeans always have and it looks really cute in knit. 

Because I was in a hurry to go start-to-finish last weekend, I broke one of the cardinal rules of sewing and did not wash my fabric first. As a result, I spread little clouds of yellow fuzz whenever I wear the new pants. At first I thought the dog was shedding strange clumps of hair, but upon closer inspection I discovered that I was the culprit. Oops. Hopefully they will de-lint a little after washing.

NOW, on to my more exciting news: Josh and I signed the lease for our new apartment last night! We forked over our rent and (enormous) damage deposit, got the keys, and can start moving in anytime! Aaaaaah!

We plan to transfer as much stuff as possible during Josh’s daily trips to Moscow, thereby reducing the stress of one big moving day. I have to say that moving has really bad connotations for me - one of the worst days of my life was when I had to move *literally* across the street and a few houses down. I hadn’t asked for much help (blessings upon the Robson family for showing up anyway) and carried lots and lots of stuff over by myself. And it was horribly hot and humid, so everything felt all sticky and gross. And the new renter started moving in before I was done moving out or had a chance to clean, which made me feel really guilty (even though she was early).  But this time will be nothing like that, right?

I know I should stop talking about the apartment before you’re sick of it, and you can’t get sick of it because I plan to take lots and lots of photos as we move in and fix it up. Therefore, I will only tell one last story. Our new apartment is coated in a semi-gloss layer of a strange greeny-almondy-white, and when we were looking at the place I assumed that things had to stay this way.  Putting a brave face toward the situation, I informed Josh that I didn’t even want to paint because I LIKE the white. Turns out that the landlord is actually pretty casual about painting (”just show me a paintchip first, and make sure it’s not bright green”). So I’m, um, making some plans to paint the dining room a nice light shade of brown. It will look sooooo much better, honey - just wait till you see it.

First off, thanks to all the people who’ve made encouraging comments about the skirt + cards.   I really, really appreciate the feedback.  Card ideas are still floating around in the air, and I really do plan to start an Etsy shop one of these days - but not until work dies down in March or April.  Speaking of which, I was going to post about my new shirt on Friday (seeing as I finished it Thursday night for that express purpose), but work got in the way.  I will be one very happy program coordinator when the last visiting students have visited, the last acceptance letters have been received, the last rejection letters have been sent out, and fall 2007 recruitment is OVER. 

For my first “real” shirt-sewing experience (unless mom remembers otherwise), I picked a Simplicity/Built by Wendy pattern that I thought looked cute and kinda simple.  Wrong-o.  It’s probably not hard for an accomplished sewer, but there were plenty of tricky bits (little gathers, finished edges, facing, etc.) that required some patience + repeat sewing.

*Sorry that the colors are terrible again.  It’s a huge pain to try to adjust five photos so that the colors match and are realistic, and the yellow/red tint is very persistant.  The green fabric is a lot cuter than it looks!

**The shirt also fits better than it looks here - the neck area is flatter if/when I finally manage to add the button at the back.

I further complicated things by deciding that the short sleevelets shown on the pattern cover didn’t go with the rather fall/winter colors of the shirt, so I chose the other sleeve pattern, made them a little shorter, and added the fabric band at the bottom.

If you make this shirt, I really advise making the bias neckline strip (and sleeve edging, if you add it) a lot wider than the pattern shows.  I don’t know why patterns include instructions like “fold fabric 1/4 in. back and press” instead of giving you a bigger piece of fabric and a bigger fold.  Have you ever tried to press a perfect 1/4 inch fold without singeing your fingers off??

Another modification was to take out the ties at the back of the neck (which are always so bulky under a sweater) and add a button closure.  Well, a planned button closure.  I really wanted to wear my new creation last Friday but was too tired to change anything on Thursday night so I wore it the first time buttonless.

The final change I made to the pattern was to add ties on the back.  The shirt is quite loose, in a way that looks (on me at least) a little more Liz Lange than Liz Claiborne.  Okay, that’s a bad comparison, so let’s just say it would work well as a maternity shirt…and that’s not really the look I’m going for at the moment.  The ties help, but it’s still pretty roomy around the midsection (I think it got a few “is she or isn’t she” looks on Friday).  Garr.  Wearing a sweater kind of helps, but then you can’t see the results of my hours of sewing.  So after all that, I’ve decided that if I make the pattern again, I will probably a) choose the dress version, so I can add the belt/tie, or 2) be pregnant and making a genuine maternity shirt.

Also, if you’re interested in seeing real-life versions of other Built by Wendy/Sew-U patterns, this girl does a really good job.  I especially like this and this.  She even made a really cute red version of the Amy Butler kimono robe!

Coming tomorrow: a tutorial for making fabric bracelets, the other project of last week/weekend.

Sorry about the silence - I had a touch of the flu yesterday.  I wasn’t feeling great on Monday either, but I managed to distract myself by finishing the new skirt (I find working on a project vastly preferable to sitting around contemplating my aches and pains).  Here it is in front of the ol’ shower curtain.

About the fabric: I knew I wanted to use up the rest of the linen, but I decided at the last minute to save the green print for a nice spring top and came back from JoAnn’s with a piece of blue and brown vintage-y quilt fabric.  There’s a really nice quilt fabric & yarn store in Moscow (the Needle Nook) which has a collection of vintage reprints that are really, really cute.  Unfortunately, due to the nature of small h0metown businesses vs. giant corporations, the Needle Nook fabric is all $8/yard and the stuff at JoAnn’s was $2.50/yard.  When you do the broke-newlywed-mostlysingleincome math, you get…the giant corporation.  Sigh.

About the pattern: there wasn’t one.  Since Sew U is supposed to contain 2 basic skirt patterns, I was unwilling to invest in another one right before the book arrives.  Soooo, I flattened out an old Banana Republic skirt that fits pretty well, laid it on top of my fabric, and started snipping.  Surprisingly, the waistband and panels fit together pretty well and the overall affect is not bad (sorry I don’t have a full pic).  Some of the fit problems with the original skirt have been preserved (duh) and it would have save me some ripping out if I’d had instructions, but if I can do this without ever having sewn a skirt before then you probably can, too.

I ended up handsewing the zipper and pockets, which wasn’t really ideal.  I haven’t gotten the hang of the zipper-foot thingy on my sewing machine, and after trying to sew it four times with the regular foot I gave up and opted for control.  The pockets were also hard to machine sew because my Singer believes that it is a Thoroughbred and that all sewing should be done fast.  I am trying to convince it that you don’t always need to be the racehorse; sometimes it’s nice to be the fat pony that pulls the cart with the kids in it.  But until I find a way to change this (does anyone know if a machine’s sewing speed is manually adjustable??) I have resigned myself to speady but unsteady seams.

Finally, the hem was a cop-out.  I am afraid of curved hems and wasn’t sure that I could make the blue fabric perfectly even anyway.   So, I cut a long strip with my rotary cutter, did a flat hem on one side, and gathered it at the top.  It’s a little hard to see, but the gathering is done in little bunches that supposedly match the style of the pockets.

After spending a lot of time and energy making the skirt, I had a ridiculous little twinge this morning as to whether or not it would be painfully obvious that I was wearing something rather unprofessionally made.  But I’ve been at work all morning without comments (”That’s cute - did you, um, make it yourself?”), so I think I might be safe for now.

I almost caved to the temptation to finish watching season 5 of Alias last night instead of finishing the kimono robe.  But I didn’t, so I’ve got a) a finished product and b) two exciting episodes left until I have to say goodbye to Sydney Bristow.  Sniff.

I’m afraid that the best place for photos was in our well-lit bathroom, so my lovely new robe is pictured in front of our color-by-technicolor shower curtain.

The final details turned out okay - I tried to sew a blanket corner where the trim along the front and the hem meets, and I should have measured out my angles first.  It’s a little funny-looking.

I am very, very pleased with the fabric, however.  Does it look even remotely authentic, Tim?

Unfortunately, I can’t say that the robe is a particularly flattering garment - it kinda pokes out funny around the hips.  So this is as much as I’m going to show of me in it.

As fun as this was, I think I’m going to take a little break from sewing.  My dining room table looks a lot better when it’s not covered with sewing machine, scissors, thread, material, little pile of scraps…and I have some Alias to watch.  Can’t wait to find out how it all ends.

I came soclose to finishing my robe last night but decided it wasn’t worth losing sleep over.  I’m usually not a night person, but every once in a while I get on a roll around 10 pm and want to just keep going and going until whatever I’m working on is done.  Alas, the new work schedule began today and Josh and I had to be out the door at 7:15.

To be honest, the reason I didn’t finish is that I made the project a little more complicated than it needs to be.  Well, that and the fact that cutting out the fabric took a looooong time.  The way that In Stitches manages to avoid including 25 full-size patterns is that most projects contain rectangular pieces of fabric.  So, the book gives you patterns for the complicated bits and tells you the size of the fabric for the rest.  This is simultaneously clever and frustrating, since it’s a lot easier to say “Cut a piece of fabric 30 inches by 40 inches” than it is to do that.  I spent Saturday evening on the living room floor hunched over my (small) cutting mat and rotary cutter trying very hard to make perfect rectangles. Lots and lots of rectangles.

Anyhow, this is the photo from book showing what the Kimono Robe is “supposed” to look like. 

The pic is not terribly helpful due to the way the model is posed, so I had to read the directions a few times before I realized that the lining around the neck and front lies on top of the main piece of fabric, not under it.  When I realized that, I knew I wanted to use a piece of Tim’s fabric for the trim and pair it with something simple that had a good drape (so the robe wouldn’t stick out too much). I ended up with a tan linen/cotton blend that fit the bill, although it’s not incredibly soft. 

As I thought about the fabric, I realized that the robe would look better with trim around all the open edges (sleeves, bottom) as well as the neck, so I cut long strips for each of those and decided to worry later about how to attach it.  But when I got to the neck, the pattern’s instructions for how to apply the trim were so brilliant that I realized they would work everywhere else as well.  Everyone else may have been doing this for years, but since the method was new to me (and I’m already planning how to use it on my next project), I thought I’d include a quick tutorial.

Tutorial for Fabric Trim with Finished Edges 

1. Decide how wide you want the trim to be and cut a strip of fabric that’s at least an inch wider. (In my case I wanted a 2 inch strip of fabric to show, so I cut it 3.5 inches wide). 

2. Figure out your seam allowance (.5″ in my case) and iron a fold in the fabric that makes the height of your trim = desired width + seam allowance (2.5″ for me; see the black fabric below).  I used a metal ruler for this to keep the width even, and it REALLY helped.

3. Carefully line up the WRONG side of your trim with the WRONG side of your fabric and stitch the edge according to your seam allowance.

4.  Iron the trim + main fabric, fold over so that the RIGHT side of the trim is on top of the RIGHT side of the fabric, and iron the edge.

5. Stitch the far edge of the trim about 1/8 in. from the edge.

Voila!  Your piece is now nicely trimmed with no unfinished edges to fuss with.  I can’t say how pleased I felt when I saw the results.

As I mentioned, I finished all the edges of the robe this way and that did add some extra time (and fabric) to the project.  I’ve still got to finish the bottom of the robe, belt, and beltloops, but I have high hopes that I’ll have photos of the finished product tomorrow.

Bonus: I had enough of the linen left over to cut a skirt (no pattern of course…I just sort of snipped around another skirt I have).  I’m terrified of hems and zippers, so I’m trying to decide whether to cheat and make it really simple or go for a more professional-looking product and “do it right.”  But either way, I don’t think it will happen until next weekend.