Sewing With a Plan. A Small Plan.

I have been thinking lately that I would like to do a little SWAP-ing. I've been seeing a lot of really cool wardrobes on other people's blogs. The only thing is, I know that I would never finish such a large undertaking. But I like the idea of sewing things that go together, so that you don't end up with a skirt that matches only one or two items in your closet. I have a couple of those.

I had been idly toying around with the idea in my head for a week or so anyway, but also with the idea that really, I have way too much fabric in my stash and need to quit buying fabric. But as most of my fabric was purchased without a plan, it doesn't really go together. I'm not big on neutrals, really. When I saw that patternreview.com is running a mini-wardrobe contest, I thought, perfect. The deadline will also insure that I get to work and get the items done in a somewhat timely manner.

The rules for the contest stipulate that you sew 4 items, with a total of at least three different garment-types (In mine, pants, skirt, and tee shirt), and three different colors (In mine, grey, green, and khaki), to make a total of four separate outfits. (In my case, green shirt/grey pants, grey shirt/grey pants, green shirt/khaki skirt, grey shirt/khaki skirt.)

The two grays and the turquoise stripe are all from my stash (grey is probably my favorite neutral). I bought the khaki to make the skirt out of specially for this. Because khaki is very dull, but it does go with everything. I have a khaki skirt that is one of my most-worn skirts. I've had it for 6 or 7 years, since college, and it's starting to get stains and stuff.

I've never sewn real pants with a fly before, so this should be a learning experience. I thought about checking out Wendy Mullin's SEW U from the library and using the pants pattern out of it, but the reviews on that are less than stellar, so I went ahead and downloaded the Nichola pants from Burdastyle for free, mostly because it was more instant-gratification and I only have three weeks. About half of the pants made using that pattern have looked really good, and half look oversized and ill-fitting. Knowing the pattern runs large, I compared it to a pair of pants that fit like I want them to, and cut the pattern down a little. (about 2" off the waist, all told)

Hopefully I can get the pants to fit well. I'm very picky about pants fit. Well, if I'm buying them new, I am. If I'm taking hand-me-downs or buying cheap at a garage sale, I'm not so much, and that's why two of the pairs of pants I wear most often annoy me every time I wear them.

The shirts will go together fast.

Knit Top - It's So Easy!

This is Simplicity 3548. It was the test project for the pattern, which I bought on a whim, because I'd noticed my sister had several tops of this type (with the gathered neckline) and they were really cute. It makes a prettier change from plain tee-shirts, which I have a lot of, while still being comfortable and casual.

A very quick sew. The fabric is very soft and drapey, too.

Unfortunately, $2 a yard knit fabric from Wal-Mart isn't really high quality, no matter how attractively cheap it is (When will I learn this lesson? When?), so the first time I washed it, three holes developed on the front (which was after I took the picture). So I sewed on a little fabric embroidered applique. Like so:

Garden Vegetable Tacos

My vegetable garden this year is pretty sparse. I planted two rows of carrots that didn't come up, I've got one cantalope vine and two squash plants, plus about five okra plants and some potatoes (We'll see how that one turns out. I just planted some little potatoes I had that were sprouting.).

Today some of my okra and squash were ready. Here's a recipe I made up for lunch. Not only does it give you a new way to use up all those yellow squash (and probably could be done with zucchini) and add vegetables to your diet, it's frugal (using less meat than regular tacos).

Ingredients:
1 package taco seasoning mix
1/2 pound ground beef (or 1/2 the amount of beef called for on the seasoning package)
2-4 yellow squash, chopped
6-10 okra
chopped onion to taste
crispy taco shells

Toppings:
avocado, sliced or chopped
sour cream
grated cheese
tomato, etc, etc.

Brown ground beef and stir-fry vegetables until barely tender. Add water and seasoning mix according to package directions and simmer 5 to 10 minutes. Serve in crispy taco shells with sour cream, grated cheese, and avocado.

This recipe is very flexible. There are lots of vegetables that could be substituted for squash and okra. Bell peppers would be good, for one. Potatoes would work. I generally view recipes as just general guidelines, anyway.

Brandon really liked these, and I was sort of surprised, because he's not as fond of most vegetable-heavy recipes as I am.

How does my garden grow?

Not very well, it turns out. It's been very dry and hot during the times it needed not to be.

But after I got back from camp, I found that some of my flowers had bloomed, and were very pretty!














The pictures don't do justice to the tiny blue flowers (anyone know what they are?), but sadly, they do justice to the rest of the flowerbed, which is basically bare dirt.

Lots of Embroidery Floss

I bought a ton of embroidery floss (a multi-pack of 36 little skeins, which, it turns out, would make somewhere in the neighborhood of eleventy-billion friendship bracelets) to take to camp. We made lots of friendship bracelets (with varying degrees of success) in my cabin, but there is still a lot left over, and having all that embroidery floss is making me want to embroider things. I like embroidery, but too much of it hurts my wrists, so I only do it sporadically.

These little cuties are going to be quilt squares:








I found them on Floresita's Vintage Transfer Finds blog. There's a lot of cool stuff on there, and on the Hoop Love photo pool on Flickr.

Bad blogger

I'm about to go to Black Mesa Bible Camp for a week as a camp counselor, so you won't be hearing anything out of me for a few days.

It should be fun, but hot. It's always hot.

I went to Black Mesa from the time I was nine until I graduated high school, and I love going back and seeing kids enjoying the same things I did.

I'm all prepared with supplies to make friendship bracelets in the not-unlikely event of a rainstorm that confines me to a small cabin with 15 hyper little girls for an hour or two.

In my absence...

I have been a bad blogger for the past couple of weeks. But this week I actually have an excuse. I was staying with my sister, watching Connor because his regular babysitter (the one who actually gets paid for it) had the week off. "Fun" is not the word I would use to describe it, exactly, because there were a lot of dirty diapers involved, and a fair amount of screaming and crying (not me, Connor), but I really enjoyed spending so much time with him. He has such a cute button nose, such cute blue eyes, etc.

I made my sister a baby sling, but I didn't get a pic taken. It wasn't really exciting to look at, anyway, just a bunch of navy blue cloth.

Stop here if you really don't want to know anything about my husband's underwear.

The other project I've been working on is boxers for Brandon (that's a nice bit of alliteration for you). There are actual boxer patterns out there, and I thought about buying one of them, but ordering a pattern over the internet would cost me $12 or $15, and wouldn't be nearly as instant-gratification as taking apart a pair of his old ones and using them for a pattern. Well, if by "instant gratification" you mean "an hour hunched over with a seam ripper, taking notes as you go". I love ordering things over the Internet, but I hate waiting for it to get here.

It worked. I had been wanting to try making a pattern from an existing garment for awhile, anyway. And this was a project of manageable size. I actually made the pattern and the muslin before I went to watch Connor, and while he was napping this week I managed to make two pairs.

The seams are flat-felled, which doesn't take long as there are only four seams, one of which is very short. I did make a casing for the elastic instead of sewing through it, because I am just not confident that I can do that without messing something up. Brandon said he couldn't tell the difference (wearing them) from store-bought, though.

And that pair on the left? The print is of corn. Perfect for a farmer. Except he doesn't grow corn. But there aren't any prints of milo out there that I've run across. Definitely not in the sale section of Joanne fabric.