Happy Leap Day 2012!

Hope you are having a happy day on the 'rarest' of days!

I have no sewing to show you today, so instead here is a pic of some gluten free doughnut holes I made last night. 

not bad but a little more 'cake doughnut'y than what i was hoping for

Did you know that even with the extra day this year (as we have every four) our calendar still isn't synched up perfectly to our revolutions about the sun?We still have to add a second every once in a while!

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) is adding a leap second to the calendar at midnight (UTC), June 30, 2012. That’s 5 p.m. PDT or 8 p.m. EDT, June 29, 2012.

For more info about Leap Year, Leap Day, and Leap Seconds, Earth Sky has a nice little post with some good info or you can check out the IERS homepage linked above. ^_^

Happy Leap Day!

S7236 Not Quite Finished

Well, as much as I had hoped to have a finished dress to share with you today, it's just not going to happen.  I have an inherent ability to take what should be a simple straightforward pattern and add one or two extra elements that means a ton of extra handsewing. lol oh well... 

Here's what I've got for you...

Homemade Hot Sauce

I promise I'll get back to the dress (which is nearly finished) in the next post, but for now here are some food pics.  We were out of hot sauce so I decided to make my own.

For the hot sauce, we usually eat Cholula but I suddenly can't find it in any of the stores I normally shop at. :(  But I have a small collection of dried chilis so I went hunting around for good directions on how to go about making my own hot sauce.  I found this great video. 

S7236 Lining

Monday I posted about beginning work on Simplicity 7236.  Today I'll continue with the lining.

I have in my stash a couple of yards of a basic brown polyester lining.  By now you know how much I abhor polyester, but more expensive linings aren't in the budget and this dress (in the wool i've picked out anyway) really needs a lining.

S7236 Pattern and Muslin

This year I am working hard to sew through my stash of fabrics in order to drastically reduce the volume of fabrics we have around the apartment.  The first big project I found to do for myself towards these ends is Simplicity 7236.

1967

Banana Brownies and a New Dress

In between sewing for other people, I decided I needed to do a little for me. :)

So I've started work on a new dress for myself (i hope) using Simplicity 7236.  This was my mom's pattern and it has a few alterations made to it already.  I've cut out a muslin and am trying to work out the fitting details as I am able to grab a few minutes here and there.

pic from Vintage Sewing Patterns

Little Boy's Apron

Recently my friend asked me if I would be interested in making an apron for her nephew.  I was already getting ready to sort through all of my fabrics, so while I was sorting I pulled out a pile of fabrics I thought he might like and sent her the picture.  A couple of the fabrics (and some of my favorites) were ones that my friend's mother had given me shortly before she passed. Sentimental as I am, I was glad that she chose one of these for his apron.

Apron body

Organizing Patterns and Fabrics

This winter my mother and I received a gift from one of her quilting friends: a big bag of patterns.  After wading through the wonderfulness of all of the patterns I pulled out the ones I'd like to keep and brought some of them home with me.

adult patterns

Mom and I have decided to share the patterns back and forth; it just seems to make more sense this way.

kid patterns

I was actually thinking it would be good for us to share *all* of our patterns, not just the 'new' ones we just got.

 

patterns my husband gave me last year

So I started getting them all organized so I know what I have and can catalog them somehow. (anyone want to gift us a copy of MS Access?)  I used to have all of them very well organized, but after several years, a lot of sewing, and two moves they were all mixed up and in boxes and bags in various locations in the apartment.

omg so many patterns

The box above just has the Simplicity and McCall/ McCall's patterns, but at least now they are in numerical order

shameful

But then there is this growing pile of pattern pieces and instructions sheets that have become separated from their envelopes for one reason or another.  I've managed to get about half of these reunited so far. 

boy-ish fabrics from my stash - one of these may become an apron

I've also been going through all of my fabric and weeding out things I know I will never use.  This is especially hard since some things have come to me from other people's stashes and I have held onto them for sentimental reasons.  Nevertheless, with encouragement from both my husband and from my best friend, I have managed so far to pull out a large basket full of fabrics etc to put in the growing donation pile by the door.

wool and lining patiently waiting to become a dress

I am hoping to photograph and catalog the remaining fabrics in my stash so I know what I have.  When I'm done, hopefully it will be easier to pair the patterns I have with the available fabric in my stash.  While I'm happy to be working again, even if just part time and with a nice discount on fabrics, I really need to continue to sew down my stash both for the benefit of our budget and our limited space, and I'm hoping this will help.

Hope your week has started off nicely!

PJ Pants

So, recently my husband was wearing his favorite PJ pants sitting at the computer when I asked him a question and he turned around and rrriiiiipppp! a giant hole in the fabric next to the center front seam. :(

oh noes!