Last days of spring cleaning

I recently had a burst of energy and felt the need to organize.  A couple of weeks ago, I went through our linen cabinets and got rid of some old sheets and blankets that we haven’t used in a while.  That cleared a couple of shelves.  For...

Remember my tub of fabric?  Well, that’s grown a little bit.  I remembered this blog post about using comic book boards to make mini fabric bolts.  I went back to search for it, and ordered a 100-pack of the boards from amazon.  And, ta da!

Little projects

Good things happening lately:
1) We’re enjoying some lovely summer weather around here lately.  (See how baby girl is enjoying wearing her summer hat?)
2) After 13 months, baby girl is sleeping through the night.  After about a week of sleeping through the night myself, I feel like a fog has lifted: less cranky, brain is working a tad faster (you know it’s bad when you forget what the word for “door” is and have to explain to your husband, “you know, that thing you open, with the thing...” oy) and, of course, not dog tired all day long.  Drinking less caffeine.
3) I’m back to working part-time.  I’m looking forward to enjoying the summer with the kids.

I’ve been doing some little projects lately:

What a week!

My son is having a Beatles-themed play at his preschool, and I made the costume for him to wear.  Which turned out to be kind of a disaster.  Oh, where to start... 

Bias!

Before I started sewing, the only definition I knew of “bias” was a tendency or prejudice toward something.  But I just looked up the word on webster.com and did you know that’s not the first definition of bias?  The first definition is:

1 : a line diagonal to the grain of a fabric; especially : a line at a 45 degree angle to the selvage often utilized in the cutting of garments for smoother fit

 
Sewers apparently already knew that. 

This weekend’s sewing involved a lot of bias.  Bias tape, to be more specific.  That’s where you cut a bazillion strips of fabric on the bias (at a 45 degree angle) to make into binding for clothing and various other sewn products. 

From fail to fix

Remember the major fail here?  I decided I’d try to fix it.

Major fail!

One of the most frequent comments I get about my sewing is, “I can’t believe you’re a beginning sewer!”  I think sewing is very forgiving, though.  You can make a number of mistakes and still end up with a good looking product. 

Well, most of the time. 

I’m posting this so you all know I don’t always end up with good looking results.  I thought this Leah tunic from Craftiness is not Optional was so cute.  I love the little cap sleeves.  So, I decided to do the sew-along that Jess posted.  Of course, that was a month ago.  I’ve had the top cut out for a while, just had not gotten around to sewing it up.  I finally had the time this weekend.  The hubs took the kids out to the park for a couple of hours, and it was just the time I needed to finish this top up. 

The cap sleeves didn’t turn out quite right, though.  A little too poofy and the armhole was a little too big.  I think maybe I needed to gather them more.

See the little pouf on the shoulders?  My husband says that she needs shoulder pads for her 80s style big shoulders.  (Don't you just love the peanut gallery?)

Posing is so blasé

Apparently, posing for pictures is so 11 months, totally incompatible with being 12 months old.  I tried the baby girl’s bubble dress on her so I could get some pictures of her in it, and she was not having any of that.  Lots of crawling, lots of moving in general and lots of blurry pictures.

A wee dress

for a wee girl who’s turning 1!

I know the lighting in this picture is horrible.  But it just epitomizes the experience of sewing late into the night, the excitement of seeing the little dress you’re making take shape, having no one to share it with, so you snap this picture in the dark. 

Recharged

 

Oh my gosh, this working full-time thing is totally exhausting!  I don’t know how I did it pre-kids.  Well, I guess that was exactly it.  It was pre-kids.  When I came home, I could just veg, not worry about getting kids fed and to bed.  And I could sleep soundly through the night, not worry about middle-of-the-night wake ups (nowadays if it’s not the 11 month old, then it’s the 3 year old because something is scary, or he can't find his blanket or his baby panda).

Anyway, I finished a huge project at work last week, and Thursday night, I was wiped out.  After putting the kids to bed, I fell asleep at 8pm, despite the 20,000 things on my to-do list.  The baby girl only got up once that night, so I got 11 hours of (mostly) uninterrupted sleep.  I had the next day off, so I took a nap when the baby girl was napping.  Basically, I slept at every opportunity.  And it was glorious.  I’d been running on empty, and my body just shut down and said, You need to refuel!

The funny thing is despite all the sleeping I did, I felt so productive last  weekend.  I guess I just had more energy to spend time with the kids AND get some cleaning and organizing done.  And I got some sewing in, too!

Lovely weekend!

Even though it involved very little sewing.

Working more these days makes me want to soak up the weekends with the kids as much as possible.  We had such wonderful weather this weekend.  We went out to the botanical gardens with some friends.  My son loved hanging out with his friends.  He’s at such a great age.  He loves exploring everything and wants to learn about everything around him.

Watching the bullfrog and fish at the frog pond.