Snowboarding

Two years ago, I sat next to this guy on the flight to Amsterdam and it turned out he was finnish.
I was a finnish exchange student 30 years ago so it was fun talking about Rovaniemi, salmiakki, and other unique finnish things I hadn't thought about in a while.

Turns out he snowboards and had just been doing a video shoot for one of his sponsors on Mt. Hood and was headed back home. I was headed to Ireland to visit my daughter.

If you were to sit next to a famous person - who would it be?

This was pretty random and it turned out to be my cup of tea.
Here's to Antti Autti- one of the best snowboarder's in the world:


RELATE TO IT: EP1 - EARLY SEASON TRACKS from Anttisworld on Vimeo.

I just received a new boss at work and I am  buying one way airfares for my upcoming trip to Sweden and Finland this summer.  Aggravating to say the least but I am hopeful about the boss and the airfares will eventually get themselves sorted out.

I Sewed Myself A Top

It is very easy for me to get derailed from bigger projects by the allure of smaller projects.

Sewing clothing for myself is a big project. I might as well call it a huge project.
From determining the best size, to cutting out large pieces of fabric, to determining the best way to sew them with my Singer, my Serger, and/or the Coverstitch machine. A lot of thought goes into a garment.

I sat down yesterday and traced out the t-shirt with a 'U' shaped neckline from Ottobre 303.

This pattern is not for beginners although if you had someone telling you the order of tracing, cutting, and construction then, yes, of course, a beginner could make this t-shirt.

Last fall, I sat down and traced out the v-neck version of this tee and made a muslin out of some thin knit. I'm a size 16. Some knits drape well over the girls and the 'rolls' but other knits cling in all the wrong places.

My friend, Pencil Girl, and I met up last fall at the NW Quilting Expo and she found this fabric for me. I was suffering under the delusion that I had entirely too many knit fabrics and not enough pressure to sew them up. She held the fabric up to my face and it was a fantastic match for my hair and skin color.

This pattern, because you take multiple measurements, fit me with no alterations. The pattern sheet folds out into a bedsheet size and all the patterns pieces are a puzzle maze of lines. They are done in heavy lines so it is easy to take the swedish tracing paper and lay everything out on the kitchen island and puzzle trace out a pattern. -- if you know what the pattern piece might look like than it's that much easier - lol.

This time I used the "U" neckline. I had a vision of something I wanted to do for embellishment in my mind but found out after I made the tee that it would be too busy for this pretty fabric.

Sherril's Sewing saga. Beautiful Flower embellishment.

The Beautiful flower embellishment is gorgeous but maybe next time on a solid color. Sherril tells how to make the flowers here. Her other pattern reviews are here.

It's always nice to see a tee made up on somebody similar in size.

For the neckline, I used the binding pattern piece from the Ottobre 303 and divided it into quarters and pin-stretched it into place. I placed the right side of the binding against the right side of the neckline. I sewed with my reg. machine a 1/4" seam and then wrapped the binding up and over the neckline. I pinned it into place and also decided to hand-baste it to cut down on the number of pins coming into contact with my coverstitch machine. Then I sewed the band down from the front side of the garment - like top-stitching. This caught the back side of the binding.
I don't own any binders (neckline banding) yet, nor do I own the clear foot for the coverstitch. My stitching wanders a tad but only I would ever notice.

I made the sleeves 3/4 length. I have always run a little warm but this last year or two - when my auto-immune is kicking up, I get cold. I am always pushing long sleeves up so 3/4 is a good compromise.

This pattern has you hemming the sleeves right away but I waited until I attached them to the body pieces so I could see how much I needed to cut off. Which was nothing, surprisingly. Either I have longer arms than I thought or the long sleeves Ottobre drafted are short. They sit about 3 inches above my wrist which turned out perfect.

Side view with sleeve.

I used my coverstitch machine to hem the sleeves and the front and back sections before I sewed the side seam from the tip of the sleeve on down to the hem. My little problem is that I don't own enough cones of black thread yet to thread both my serger and the coverstitch. I did deviate a little from the instructions in order to keep from re-threading more than I had to. I think more thread cones will go on the birthday list (hint, hint).

This fabric is from some unknown vendor and it was labeled as 1 1/2 yds @10.95 ($16.40), 60"  wide , Slinky Acetate.

Beautiful colors, gorgeous drape. This tee is on me as I write this.

I am so pleased with how this material worked for me.
It was fairly easy to sew with no curling and only a smidge of slippage.

I love how this Ottobre pattern fits me as well. The vee-neck  muslin that I sewed  - the vee is a little on the high side but that's easy to adjust on the pattern piece. The "U" neckline is perfect for me. It sits just above the cleavage.
Ottobre also drafted the pattern so the front side seam is longer than the back. This is so you can baste some ease where the girls sit.  This is a great fitting sewing pattern for women.

Freezer Paper Stencils

Airplane stencils

For the Fugli giveaway - go here. I think I am closing this Sunday because now that I know I am infested with Fugli's, I feel the need for them to ship out-of-state - even out-of-the-country sooner.

My little great-niece turns one tomorrow.
I have two of these great-nieces and I consider them my practice grandchildren. So much fun.  However, these two little munchkins have 8 sets of G's and they live in a tiny house.
Hand-made gifts work really well here.
You might recall my sister and I outfitted the older niece with a fantastic doll bed for Christmas.

It seems like everybody in blog land has heard of freezer paper stencils. It's incredibly easy to do because for a onesie - you are looking at a 4" stencil at best. The hardest part is cutting out the stencil.

I printed the airplane onto the freezer paper. The frog was traced at the window.

My choices were an Airplane (from the airplane auntie), a dragonfly, and a froggie.
Hint: Pick images that are easy to cut out - i.e. line drawings.

After work today, I stopped off at Walmart to see what they had in solid color onesies. Almost everything for babies is short sleeve. Although we are heading for Spring, I really wanted something in the way of longer sleeves.

This is what I ended up with. The purple stripe, the pink small print, and one long-sleeved bodysuit. All from Faded Glory. These were $2.27 a piece, making this an affordable gift.

First, iron a piece of freezer paper inside the onesie. This will keep the paint from bleeding thru.
Second: Iron the stencil onto the front.  The stripes were very nice to line up the airplane straight.

That's about when I discovered the box of craft paints no longer resides here (mumble, grumble, text).

Ironing the stencil on, generally, means the paint won't bleed under. Pretty cool, really.

I had a jar of Luminous paint in my favorite blue-green, a spring green craft paint, and dimensional paint in black and white.

No - I DID NOT cut out the dragonfly. I have a mylar stencil.

Using what I have on hand, at least the three onesies will be coordinated.

I used the dimensional paint to make froggie eyes.

Photo taken at night-time. It's still a green frog on a pink shirt but it's a varigated green - really froggie green.

 I also tried my hand at shadowing the airplane with the black dimensional paint.This purple shirt probably needed a second coat - a little more difficult in getting an even coat. My shadowing isn't bad. Remember I told you the paints don't reside here anymore? Well - the brushes aren't here either. I had one brush that if I flattened it to a line against my finger, I could get an almost straight line. The prop lines were freehand.

And here's my fave - the dragonfly on white.

Fun project. I didn't post any links because there are about a thousand out there. YouTube videos as well.

The last thing I need to do is heat-set these. Generally, this involves your hot (dry) iron and a pressing cloth. Tomorrow (24 hours), I will cover the design with my pressing cloth and press for a few seconds. This should make the ink/paint permanent thru multiple washings.

Delusional Spring

For my FUGLI Giveaway, go here.
I found out I was infested with Fugli's and I am not happy about it.

Other people who also suffer from Fugli's can go here to possibly eradicate Fugli populations.

All others stay here.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but these Spring flower photos are headed for Minnesota where the Minnesotans will not see Spring for 3 more months.
Here, in the Willamette Valley, we get this absolutely divine two weeks in February - every year!- where the sun shines, it's warm outside and we know Spring is here. We start planting our gardens, we put a few hardy annuals in the ground, we shed our winter gear (trade heavier raincoat for windbreaker) and basically grab Spring Fever by the horns.

We are completely delusional.

Yes, we are.

Thank God for the plant nurseries who, thankfully, forget to stock up on the hardy annuals in February.
I can't do anything about you casting seeds into the your garden pit, but I've been there.

Shhhh...the Slugs are still asleep.
How this primrose survived last years marauding slugs? IDK - one tough mama..

Sunny Anemone

 

Winter Heather. Can you see the buzzing bee?
If the bees think it Spring, then it follows that it is Spring.
This is side-ways blooming Heather, a very unique variety

Trying stupid stuff with the macro, this is the only one that made the cut.
But now it's raining (lightly in our Spring deluge delusion and I can't won't go out and take another.

I only take these to torture my sister in Minnesota

who gets homesick for the big Oregon Delusion.

I saw some tiny Snowdrops behind the Currant bush on Sunday. . .

Fugli Giveaway

Sunday Afternoon (February 12th). GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!
Thank you to all who entered.
The winners are:
1. Tie dye and Pinky fabric goes to Lisa Cox.
2. 2 Children's Prints go to Gwen.
3. Floral spray flannel goes to Strawberry Patch.
4. Polished cotton goes to Kathy (not me!)

Here's hopin' you never discover Fugli's in your stash.

I was reading one of my favorite blogs (at the moment) when I came across Fugli's. I was rather alarmed that I might be harboring full-fledged fugli's in my own home but sure enough, there they were.
Charm About You is hosting a fugli swap party and I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder,  but some of these fugli's are worth getting into your own stash.
No one sets out to own fuglis but there they are. And here they go. . .

Tie-dyed remnant 10"w x 70" long - cotton sheet.

1 yard cotton; 1 1/4" squares bright children's print

1 1/4 yd  cott/poly - dusty pinky solid

2 1/2 yds Flower spray cotton flannel
- flower sprays are blue and pink about 2" diameter.

1 yd bright green fruity cotton fabric. Has texture - can't recall what's that called. .
.seersucker - thank you gwen!

Over 3 yds of polished cotton with cream background.
Squiggly lines (think topographical lines) and sweet little pinky-coral roses.
Roses are about 1 " diameter.

What alarms me is how easy it was to find these fugli's.
And if I look harder. . . eeuuhh.


Here's the RULES.

1.  Leave a comment as to which FUGLI you just love with all your heart.
2.  If you must have two, okay.
3.  I'm doing this as a giveaway. HOWEVER, if you were to swap airplane fabric, I would not say no.
4.  Giveaway is open until February 14th am, pst. I will contact winning entries shortly thereafter to get addresses.
5.  Numero cinco; THANK YOU for taking these away from Canbyland.
6. Right - I have six fabrics, but I  might arbitrarily send them out to four people.  Maybe even three people - less shipping costs to me. Make your plea good.
7.  Open to anyone who sews.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

A Little House

This little house took just a bit of time today to make. A Bit of This and A Bit Of That threw out a sewing challenge   via SewMamaSew's facebook page.
The idea is to make a small gift and add a personal letter. These little houses are being gathered up and sent to a town in Japan to let the residents there who are still displaced from that huge quake last March know that we haven't forgotten them.

My friend in Japan sent this video about

Then and Now - Ishinomaki 11.11.11