Tuesday 26 February 2019

Not an achievement in sight!

Honestly, February has been a complete wash out as far as goal achievement goes.  I should be writing my finishing post to link up with One Monthly Goal over at Elm Street Quilts but I'm still not finished.  I'm blaming ice storms, snow storms, wind storms, snow days, broken fingers and a short month but blaming things won't actually get anything finished so this is a filler post just so I can say that I blogged today and the go and get something productive done.

For your entertainment here is a picture of the snow and the sky on the way home from school this morning.  There is a cardinal in that clump of brush somewhere who was singing his heart out while I was taking the photo.


Happy Tuesday.
Kirstin

Tuesday 19 February 2019

New Fabric

Yesterday I made another muslin for a jacket and I think (crossing fingers and toes and all) that although I am not totally in love with the result it is good enough and I will go ahead and make it up.  So today I went shopping.

It feels like a hundred years since I went anywhere other than the grocery store or the pharmacy so I treated myself to a trip to Spool and Spindle in Waterloo.  You can find this fabulous little fabric store online here but as I live close by I popped in for a browse.  It is so worth it to feel all the lovely natural fibre fabrics.

I was very restrained with my purchasing and this is what I bought.

Some interesting knit/soft shell for my jacket (the zipper is from Lens' Mills).


 It's not a great photo I know but on the right is the right side of the fabric and on the left is the inside.  It's quite thick with a very small amount of stretch and it should be wind proof which might be nice.  Also it shouldn't fray so I can probably get away with leaving the seam edges raw inside which is a total bonus.

I also bought this lovely rayon to make myself a little top for summer.  A short sleeved, accent top for my capsule wardrobe I think.


Rose tells me that I have nothing to go with it and it's really not my style but you know what?  I don't care.  I shall make my top and make it 'my style' and she will be jealous that I have a flamingo top and she doesn't.  So there, who's the 10 year old now.

Guess what I forgot to do?  Look for fabric for my Wonky Wheels top.  Oh well, just have to go again next week.

Friday 15 February 2019

Jacket Muslin Take 2

Another nightmare of a week.  I don't know what the weather thinks it's playing at around here but it's not cricket.  All the snow days, hospital trips (Jacob broke his finger last week) and shovelling have left me with no time for anything.

So here's a quick review of my goals for February
  • Clear out and organise the pantry
  • Put the basement back together after the renovations
  • Make something that I can put in my Etsy shop
  • Choose fabric to set the Wonky Wheels blocks
  • Figure out a layout for Wonky Wheels blocks
  • Make myself a jacket
  • Dye some old bath towels, cut them up, bind them and re-purpose them as hand towels for the kitchen
Not very impressive for halfway through huh.

Yesterday I managed a little work toward the Jacket.  I decided to ditch the Vogue pattern and cut up the muslin I made for last month's dress.  I figured that if I used the dress pattern fitted with darts then drew princess seams on I could cut out an approximation of the pattern pieces that I need.  Miraculously I think it worked.  Check this out.


I was inspired to resurrect this Burda pattern.  I tried out the little blue jacket last year but it fit so badly I didn't even keep the muslin.


Fortunately I did keep the pattern pieces so I was able to compare my new pieces with the tissue.  The back is quite similar but the front is where the fit goes wrong.  The paper is on the left and the Kirstin fitting fabric is on the right.


So I'm a little bit enthused again now, I've even figured out how to widen the waist without altering the length of the princess seams, so maybe at the weekend I'll get a muslin of this one made up.  I do hope it works out OK or February will be a gonner and I'll have achieved nothing.


Tuesday 12 February 2019

Craft Supplies and Dangly Charms

Today is a snow day, the second of this winter.  I wouldn't mind but it should really be called an ice storm day and I'm not much keen on them.

Over the weekend Tom and I have been putting the basement back together.  All the stuff that was temporarily stored in boxes in the office and family room is now back down there, mostly in the right place.  While we were unpacking I went through all the kids craft supplies, games and Halloween stuff and filled 3 bags with bits and bobs for donation.

Craft supplies are something we have a quite a few of and I find it difficult to keep them tidy, it's not easy to make opened bags of feathers, sequins and pompoms look attractive but I've done my best and got it all to fit in this storage unit.


I found a lot of Rose's unfinished craft kits so this morning in the newly cleaned and tidied basement we made dangly charms.  Here they are and that's 1 kit down.  Only 4 to go.  And yes, that is a crop top, before you ask I just don't know.



That's what I do on snow days, how do you spend yours?
Kirstin

Friday 8 February 2019

A whole lot of not much

I celebrate this Friday with a great week of achieving almost nothing.  Here's why...
  • Snow day/ice storm
  • Furnace installation
  • Dishwasher malfunction
All these things have completely disrupted my plans for doing stuff and as a result I am not much further toward any of my tidying and sewing goals for this month.

On Wednesday, when the schools were closed and the kids were home and the plumbers were making an excessive amount of noise in the basement I finished altering muslin #1 of a jacket I tried to make last year.  I then cut new tissue pieces and made another muslin which needs further alteration.  So I altered muslin #2 and am ready with my new pattern pieces to make muslin #3.  This final (hopefully) one will be made of a heavier weight fabric and have sleeves so I will get a proper idea if it will work for me.  So next week I'll know if I can go ahead and buy nice fabric or if it's back to the drawing board and a new pattern.

I was going to insert a picture here of me in the muslin but when I took one it looked awful.  Mmm, maybe it's back to the drawing board before muslin #3.

I did some more tidying in my closet.  Something I've figured out from sorting out my clothes and jewellery, which incidentally now looks like this...

Is that even if my more boring things don't 'spark joy' individually it does give me a great deal of pleasure having them all arranged nicely and I would really like to get my closet sorted out so that I feel a bit excited to look in it in the morning.  I have to get dressed everyday so I think it would be nice if it was a fun experience.

At the moment the bottom of my closet is a holding bay for the thrift store so I found a nice big plastic box and got everything sorted into that.  Then I arranged all my hanging clothes from longest to shortest, rising to the right which is supposed to be uplifting, not sure about this but am happy to give it a try.  My closet now has barely anything in it.

And finally, now that the basement is finished for the time being it's time to put everything back in it so today I emptied out all the craft, art and stationery supplies onto the floor and made some attempt to sort them into a more rational order.  I've done this many times over the past few years and never had a particularly satisfactory result.  I still haven't because they are currently all over the floor.  Oh well, that will be a great job for this weekend.

And that's it.  Next week I must get out and try to find some quilting cotton for Wonky Wheels and get muslin #3 done and dusted or not!

Have a toptastic weekend
Kirstin

Tuesday 5 February 2019

Joyful Storage Spaces

This week I read ‘Spark Joy’ by Marie Kondo. It’s actually the companion to her first book, 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up', but I’ve seen the Netflix series so obviously I know everything already and anyway I couldn’t find the first one at the library.

As you will know if you’ve been following this blog I have been slowly clearing out my home. However, I’d not really given much thought to actual tidying, I thought things would automatically get tidier just because there is less stuff but I am discovering that this is not necessarily the case.

So for me KonMari mania has come at a good time.

I read ‘Spark Joy’ from cover to cover (all 278 pages of it) and one thing really resonated with me and that is that you should make your storage spaces look as pretty as you can.

To put this into practice Rose and I set out to organise the drawers in her room where she keeps her jewellery. We had a lot of fun.

First we went through everything and Rose chose what ‘sparks joy’ for her. She’s quite good at this process and I have noticed that now she says thank you to all the rejected items she finds it much easier to let go. This is the pile of stuff going to the thrift store.


Then we sorted all the stuff we had left by category and organised it in the drawers with little boxes and some drawer dividers I made from scrapbooking card stock (I might put up a tutorial on that). Notice how we made good use of the inside of a Ferrero Rocher box.



We are really pleased at how it looks like a little boutique and now you can actually see all the pretty things she might even wear some of it. Maybe she'll even keep it tidy.

We also did a thorough sort out of the big set of shelves so now there is room for the little jewellery box of clip on earrings from Grandma, these have been a big hit. Here she is in one of her favourite pairs.


Next on the list is the pantry which currently looks like a bomb hit it, I’m not sure I can make it look this pretty but I’m going to give it a jolly good shot.

Happy tidying
Kirstin

Friday 1 February 2019

Goals for February

I have quite a lot of things I'd like to achieve this month so I'm going to list all of them then prioritise a couple for my monthly goal.  But first...

In the last couple of days when all my January goals were finished I made a shirt and a scarf.

I'd had the fabric for the shirt since Fall but hadn't got around to it.  I used McCall's M7331 by Nancy Zieman, I've already made the pull on pencil skirt from this pattern and both the skirt and the top came together with minimal faffing about, in fact I can't believe it took me so long and I'll more than likely use the pattern again.

The scarf is for Rose, inspired by an idea in Lotta Jansdotter's book "Everyday Style" and made with leftover fabric from the cosmetics purses I made as favours for her party last October.  It's a little stiff but wearing it and a trip through the washing machine will probably see to that.

So here is what I would like to achieve this month (not all of it is sewing)

  • Clear out and organise the pantry
  • Put the basement back together after the renovations
  • Make something that I can put in my Etsy shop
  • Choose fabric to set the Wonky Wheels blocks
  • Figure out a layout for Wonky Wheels blocks
  • Make myself a jacket
  • Dye some old bath towels, cut them up, bind them and re-purpose them as hand towels for the kitchen
I don't think all this will be fitted around daily life so I will choose 2 as my February goals, then at least I'll get something done and anything else is a bonus.

So without further ado, my February goals of the month are ...
  1. Choose the fabric and figure out a layout for Wonky Wheels, thus getting one step further down the path of UFO busting
  2. Make myself a jacket

Now I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal February Link-up and going to and see what everybody else is up to.

Happy sewing,
Kirstin