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Palette Challenge Project #1- Truffle Dress
I completed my first project for the Colette Patterns 2012 Spring/Summer Palette Challenge and I couldn’t be more pleased. I have to be honest, as my third ever handmade garment attempt, I kind of needed this one to be a win. I liked my Meringue skirt for the fabric and the piping, but structurally it had issues. I learned so much about fit making the Pastille dress, but realistically, I don’t see it being something I will wear very often. If I was going to keep spending time making handmade clothes, I really needed to make something I adored, to make it worth it. Luckily, I love my Truffle Dress! I had read several…
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A sunny Sunday in the garden: thinning’s not so painful when you have chickens… and a short rant on weeds.
Everything is growing in the garden right now, including the weeds. I have been told that a weed is just something in the garden you do not want. I also realize that there are people that tolerate and even embrace dandelions. I know it can be used as food and medicine. I respect that. Maybe it comes from my own ignorance as to how to properly contain and utilize the dandelion, but for now I hate dandelions. I hate them because they grow so aggressively, in places I don’t want them and can be difficult to remove. So this time of year I am obsessed with dandelions. I want them…
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2012 Spring & Summer Palette Challenge
Woohoo! I’m going to do a sewing challenge! Apparently, twice a year, Colette Patterns hosts seasonal wardrobe “palette” challenges. For this one, the idea is to pick a color palette for Spring and Summer, make a “mood board” (with examples of your colors, fabric, inspiration, etc.) and then make as many garments as you can, in 8 weeks. Here is my mood board (I totally had fun making this by the way): I already had the first two fabrics and had been eyeballing the third. The first fabric swatch, going from left to right, is a vintage fabric that I bought from Etsy. The listing was for a 60s style back satiny…
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A Pastille for Easter
I completed my first dress (my second garment and the second project in the Colette Sewing Handbook), just in time for Easter dinner at Flower’s house! My inspiration for the fabric and the trim was from this post from the Nashville blog, Lladybird. The author, Lauren, makes the cutest clothes and always seems to find the perfect fabric for each project. To steal a saying from Monica, the owner of the West Seattle Fabric Company and author of the blog Bursting the Seams, my new dress is “happily imperfect”. Most of my mistakes are on the inside though (my surged seams suck) or are barely noticeable unless I point them out. I am…
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It’s a Spring Plant-o-rama!
Remember the nice fluffy beds I got ready a couple of weeks back? All that hard work made for some very quick and easy planting. In my first bed, I planted three different varieties of beets; “Chiogga” (my favorite, cool stripey and delicious), “Early Wonder Tall Top” (they’re red, big and great for canning) and “Touchstone Gold” (yellow and small- perfect for roasting). While I do remember the general rule of thumb (from my gardening class), that you want to plant a seed about twice as deep as it’s size, I always just look at the back of the seed packet for how deep to plant the seed and what kind…
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Sew-along Tag-along: Pastille Muslin
There is currently a “sew-along” happening, where fans of the Colette Sewing Handbook, are “sewing along” with bloggers Rhinestones and Telephones and Miss Crayola Creepy as they sew all the projects from the book, in order. I had never even heard of a sew-along, but when I heard about it, I thought to myself, “I am a fan of the Colette Sewing Handbook and I have already made the first project, the Meringue skirt!” Unfortunately, when I found out about it, they were already moving on to the third project in the book, the Truffle dress, and I was just starting the second project, the Pastille dress. I do like the idea though, of…
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Getting Ready to Garden- Part 2: Preparing Beds
Q: What’s the most important ingredient in your garden? A: Your soil! The folks at Seattle Tilth, in my training and in the Maritime NW Garden Guide, have always emphasized the importance of good soil. They refer to it as a “living bank”. What I took away from that (and I am oversimplifying once again) is that you have to make deposits, by adding organic matter (humus) and nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium) to give plants what they need to feed and grow. Since different plants feed heavily on different nutrients, fertilizing (and rotating crops) helps keep your living bank from running empty. I make deposits to my living bank…
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My “Meringue” skirt- dance party tested, sewing nerd approved
For a long time, I have dreamed of making my own clothes, so this is kind of a milestone for me. Last weekend, I completed my first ever garment; the “Meringue” skirt from The Colette Sewing Handbook. First of all, this book is awesome. I read about it in a post on Seattle blog, Not Martha. It was perfect timing when I saw it, because I had just gotten my new sewing machine and was looking for a good book to learn from. I ordered it right away and was not disapointed when it arrived. It’s hard cover and spiral bound, so it lays flat and and stays open while you work. The…
