Unfinished Projects

 I had some unexpected time off the day job in April and I was able to start multiple projects.
Will I finish them?

UFO's are unfinished objects in the sewing room.

 Except for this one.
My daughter came to visit and brought this dress with her. Somehow she had obtained it for free but it was a tad frumpy with full-length sleeves. She asked me to put pockets in. When my kids ask me to jump, I immediately reply, "How high?"

The dress is a sheer overlay over a base fabric. Both float free of each other in the skirt. Unpicking the side seams of both  to insert a piece of pocket went well. I happened to have a pocket pattern piece out for a dress I'm working on (crap, forgot to add those photos to the laptop).
We drafted it a tad longer to accommodate our penchant for carrying our life in our pockets.

I promptly installed the first pocket upside-down. Did I mention the outer fabric was a sheer and fraying like crazy? Had to un-pick all the seams and re-install correctly.

This dress also had sheer long sleeves that ended in a wide 'cuff' that was elasticized. Very frumpy. So dd chopped them off neatly. Her solution was fine as she will always wear a cardigan in her office. But I was on a roll and offered to finish them with a silk rayon vintage bias binding to make them neat - just in case she were ever to encounter hot sunshine in alaska.

 This is my other project I'm working on. I referred to it in a previous post. It sat in time-out until I could  visit Pencil Girl (DrawnToSewing on IG!!!).

I like the back pleat but the whole shirt was too long for my 5'3" frame. So she helped me figure out the length and tinker with the neckline.

 I am going to utilize the mesh around the neckline.
I originally placed a triangle of mesh at the back neckline but I will make that a more shallow design detail.

 Pencil Girl said this was a bit short (about 5" shorter), I may hem it a little longer. Between Papa Bear long and baby bear short.

 I'm mostly all done with this Sunshine Wristlet, aka, a nice cross-body bag for me. A little large to be called a wristlet, it's the perfect shape for my crap. I'm not a big purse gal.

 This strap is to hold the wristlet in your hand and place your fingers underneath. I have zero intention of doing that but it turned out to be a nice detail.

I still need to make the cross-body strap. I don't have enough cork to make the strap lengthwise with the grain. I have enough to make it the other way - which stretches a bit. I'm figuring out how to stabilize the strap so it doesn't stretch.

I also made another little bag but haven't take photos yet. I'm kind of excited about it. It needs a finishing detail as well.

As you can see, multiple projects just needing one or two more steps to finish.

slip pocket on backside added to drop phone into

I did make a set of greeting cards from my dd's awesome photos. Sunset and Sunrise at Turnagain Arm in Alaska. If you're interested, they are in my RunningWithHandmade Etsy shop.

Four photos - four cards. Blank inside.

I have another week off in May, so I'm sure I'll be sewing like crazy.
We'll see if we make some finishes.

Pencil Girls Christmas Gift To Me

longer sleeves. I vote for yes.

Pencil Girl made me this Kimono Jacket. She's been a friend since college and we both worked at the same fabric store - so we've sewn our whole lives together.

Anyway - last fall, she and I went to a Sip (wine in a fabric store!) and Sew at Fabric Depot to meet MimiG (look her up) and Deb  Kreiling. We'd met Deb for the first time at Sew Expo last Spring. She pretty much runs Simplicity Patterns.

Deb is shockingly short (my apologies, but she's shorter than me) and was wearing this beautiful kimono style jacket. I ran and grabbed the pattern, as did Pencil Girl. FYI: Simplicity 1108.

The jacket was so simple and so flattering.

straight from work with sweaty tshirt

 Pencil Girl even egged me on to buy this georgette - a fine flowy fabric on one of our recent Fabric Depot trips. I declined  - mostly because I was just starting the holiday season at work. I don't need more fabric waiting for me to find time.

Was I ever surprised to see this in my mailbox the other day. She does exquisite finishing too. And this is a muslin - made quickly to finesse the fit.

It fits!

Deb from Simplicity added some sleeve bands - lengthening the sleeve at the same time. Pencil Girl even made up some longer sleeve bands for me to try out.

Right now - I'm too lazy to change anything. And for the first time in months, I dreamed about sewing during my nap the other day. I may have the perfect fabric to make another in my stash.

I'm still a bit amazed that she sewed a wearable garment for me, and it fits, that I am showing you totally unedited photos. Don't get used to it.

***Update on missing package - see previous posts if you're nosy:
Today - wednesday - I received an email from USPS inviting me to fill out a survey regarding our recent missing package case. I was not flattering as no one has resolved anything nor have they followed up. Hello - here's my email.............

Tonight - ds found a note from the apartment complex manager that he had a package in the office. **** Could it be the missing one suddenly visible again? Is there two?

Stay tuned. It's almost been a month. Well - longer than three weeks. I mailed it on the 20th of December?

Knit Knotted Scarves

 Pencil Girl sent this photo to me this morning from her 4-H sewing group.
They made these awesome scarves made from old tshirts.

 I immediately replied with "Off with their heads!"
lol
I try not to show faces - especially if I didn't ask permission beforehand. I also rarely post photos of me. Nor do I name people when I post faces. All part of my internet confusion game.

Anyway - aren't these nifty? They cut one inch strips from the bottom of tshirts and knotted them together with a pattern from Linda Lee. Kind of like a big macrame project.

 I also finished this week my (stupid*%$#@&##) hedgehog bags. They have a front zippered pocket with vinyl so you can see inside. I sell them as Lipsense bags in my RunningWithHandmade etsy shop.

I was chatting with another sewing blogger about how someone should make (and photograph) all the ways you can make zipper ends for toiletry pouches for a quick look at BEFORE you sew.

I picked the wrong way - which worked on the first bag. However, the next ones rebelled.
Which started to  make me very grumpy until I sat down with my seam ripper and made them right. 

So, there!

 Hubs is dorking around in the hangar. Making everything onto rolling stock (if it didn't roll before), re-painting walls, generally being crazy. But, both planes do fit inside.

That J-5 (orange) is so almost ready to start it's engine and take it's maiden voyage.

 I made four rope bowls for gifts this last two weeks. Two sewing peoples guilted me into sorting my scrap bin(s) and afterwards, it was a quick grab of the ziploc bag to utilize small scraps in the color I wanted.

 One went to Finland, Two to the UK (with second winging it's way to Ireland), and the final one to my CreativeGirl friend.  I discovered, I had been remiss in making her an orange one (her favorite color). I have one more to make (later, much later) as a gift to another sewing friend. We'll maybe call her MarineGirl.

 We had some 34' nights recently - a little early, so I made haste and cleaned off my back patio, throwing the houseplants into the garage. That frost was a little too close for comfort.

This frog is a particularly ugly lumpy brownish green color - not the cute spring green of my other frogs.

My dear daughter, is on a fall camping trip from Seattle down Highway 101 to Yosimite. She stopped off for a very quick 21 minute visit, hauling our Christmas Present!

 How perfect it is. Got the mountains, the fly fisherman, the river, the floatplane. All etched on ceramic tile and then hand-glazed. One of a kind perfectness. Might be the best gift ever.

This from my daughter who lives in Alaska.
This photo was taken recently on the way to Seward. I just love this picture of the mountains with their dusting of fresh snow and the reflection in the water.

I'm planning to make note cards from this image.

Linking to the 2017 Elm Street Quilts BAG IT event.

Drying Laundry

My niece just moved back to the states after living in Singapore for the last year and a half. She brought back a folding laundry rack cuz no one uses/has a dryer over there. Nor does much of the world. But, here in the states, we all have electric clothes dryers.

After my trip to Japan two years ago, I lusted after a simple drying solution. But all the outdoor drying tools in the USA were permanently attached to your house or inconveniently placed as an umbrella in the lawn. All vetoed by the other person in the household.

All amazon sells is the tiny version of the foldable rack above - suitable for drying lightweight items like lingerie.

I was raised to be environmentally conscious. I compost, re-use what I buy for other purposes, try to keep my (destined-for-the-landfill) garbage to a minimum and generally leave the planet a better place for my children.

So I wanted this foldable, small footprint rack above bad enough to beg my friend in Kyoto to send me two. They are each big enough for a medium load of laundry.

In Singapore and Japan, they also have rods across their patios for hanging big stuff and these racks just hook over them.
I still want to install a big rod across my patio  but I have found a way to use these racks year-round just by hanging it off my kitchen chair.

What I have found in nearly two years of using them?
1. My knit tshirts stay long and no longer shrink "up".
2. Less pilling and everything lasts longer.
3. duh - less energy usage.
4. In the summer, most items are dry by the end of the day. In the winter, inside my house, they are dry in less than two days.
5. Planning ahead if you want to wear that favorite shirt/shorts on a certain day skillset.
6. I still have a dryer for emergencies.
7. In my two person household, in the winter, I use the dryer once a month for sheets and towels. In the summer, they go outside.
8. With my auto-immune bloating tummy, I love the fact that my tshirts stay the original length still.
9. It only takes 5 -10 minutes to clip everything on to the rack.
10. Pencil Girl asked if clothing got musty in the winter and I haven't found it to be so.

This very quickly became my routine and I don't really think about doing it differently.
It's easy to do - my first indicator of success.

Can't recall if I showed pictures of the two planes in the hangar. Still doo-hicking around with the J-5. Still hasn't gone on it's maiden voyage.
And the big old Stearman biplane.

Hope you hop over to my IG feed - RocketGirl50. I just figured out how to use my gorilla tripod to take a video of me skinning tomatoes. Exciting times, I tell you.

Junk Refunk Tshirt Hack

 My friends at BigWhite Goose, here in Canbyland, are hosting Junk Refunk this coming weekend.

I have my birthday week off work and volunteered to help out. Cheryl got in these cool tshirts for the event. Hers had a v-neck. But when I went into the shop to get an X-large before they sold out, all the necklines were round. Up against the neck.

But I know how to fix this. At least, I have a tutorial earmarked to turn a round neckline into a v-neck. It was super easy and fast. The longest part was unpicking the serged seam at the front neckline.

I managed to get the neckline down about 1 1/2 inches. So much better. And flattering.

 This shirt has no side seams. I dithered about adding in hip room at the back but then I would have to unpick the back neckline, so I caved and did the gussets/godets at the sides. I had to lay out my shirt just so to get a 'side seam' to cut up to the undersleeve. I put them in the same way I did my previous tshirt hack.

I auditioned quite a few fabrics to find something that would coordinate. When I was up at SewExpo this year, I bought a few laces. None of the laces quite worked colorwise, but this thin knit zebra stripe in blue did.

Since this is an event, I'm thinking I need to do one more thing to this shirt to get it into the Wowza zone. Pencil Girl suggested tracing the crown onto the back. I would sew the outline and then cutaway the blue - revealing the zebra stripe underneath. I'm thinking I might try to add it to the sleeve instead.

If you are near Canbyland this Mother's Day weekend and want to know all about Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, feel free to come up and get my autograph (lol).

 I forgot to get a before photo. I was going to meet up with Pencil Girl today and I wanted her opinion on a couple of sewing UFO's. This shirt is your basic women's x-large tee.

Other tshirt hacks/ideas here.

SewExpo 2017

I am still processing this last weekend. At the literal last minute (6:43am), I was allowed time off work to attend SewExpo in Puyallup, Washington.

Pencil Girl had been up there since Tuesday and Kyle, from VacuumingTheLawn, was planning to attend. I wanted to go badly but someone else had the time off at work. Miracles do happen - even if the process is too tortuous to watch.

I watched serious sewing inspiration unfold before my eyes and I think I have the last puzzle piece to my future business plan. Since I came home, I have  been busy researching and figuring out how this puzzle piece will enable me to work from home and earn the income I need.

 I met Deb from Simplicity Patterns. She made this dress at the last hour before the show. You would never know how this pattern became this cutie-pie dress from looking at the pattern envelope. She added this denim pleated trim after making the dress and her discerning eye is apparently why she works for Simplicity patterns.

 Here she is holding that pattern up - pardon that lighting. Those were flutter sleeves on the envelope. It's always nice to meet someone shorter than myself who can fit for her figure. --- And then add the pizazz that makes it work.

 The McCall's Fashion Runway Show was amazing and inspirational. Gertie is another blogger who has made this industry work for her. She not only designs patterns and fabric, she is now rockin' the runway.

 Alongside her on the runway was a new to me blogger, Riva LaDiva (washington state). The runway patter was done by Melissa Watson (Oregon!). Her mom helped create the Palmer & Pletch Method of sewing (also Oregon).

These are all people who have made sewing create a living for themselves.

The trends this year are all about the sleeves. From Flutters to Cold Shoulders (shoulder cut-out), anything you do to make sleeves amazing is something to aspire to.

Next to her on the left is Kyle, from Vacuuming The Lawn, who is an amazing technical sewist  from the east coast who I specifically prayed to the gods of vacation to meet up ***in person***.

 Just loved this t shirt knit. I bought two lengths of knit for t-shirts because this show is evolving into garment sewing with vendors bringing those type of sewing materials. Quilting is still huge but it was nice to see some of the sewing notions available to learn about and buy that make sewing your own clothes successful.

I think we all agreed this booth, Style Maker Fabrics, was spot on with trendy fabrics.

 And, of course, the airplane spotting continues. This was in the ByAnnie booth with a ten dollar pattern. I already own this airplane block from numerous historical patterns. Her booth features her patterns and the supplies that make a bag better. Another person who has made sewing work for her.

 A little bit of cute irony. They did have the fabric available from which they fussy cut these little blocks. However, in a fat quarter of material, this was one of 20 sewing quotes.

Irony is the opposite of wrinkly. An embroidery project for the future.

 This piece was a bit overdone with the cut-outs. But I loved it for the inspiration when I make bags - having the under material peep out through cut-outs in the vinyl.

 Babylock's Embroidery machine. It can digitize your designs so you don't have to rely on someone elses designs and fonts. I'm thinking deep airplane thoughts here.

Just peeping out from under my arm is my big Pendleton shopping bag. It holds a million little purchases.

 In the same booth as the squirrel at the start of this post. If I ever quilted - I am in love with this strip applique method of adding texture and depth. 
Thankfully - I don't quilt.

Cuz - they sold kits.

Tempting - so tempting.

 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) in a dragonfly motif.    Love.

My bag from Pacific Fabrics - with an airplane on it. You have to spend $50 to get the bag which is usually no trouble as this Washington fabric store understands marketing to sewists. They stocked pocket tissues with sewing machines on them. They often have airplane fabric, but also other cool fabrics that you must buy.

So, a funny story::: I went early on Saturday  morning before the crowds hit so I could look at everything in the Pacific Fabric booth. Then I took advantage of the cheap coat/bag check to store my Pacific Fabrics haul for the day so I didn't have to cart around heavy stuff.

I didn't know they closed promptly at 6pm. We were sitting in the food court chatting and eating and Pencil Girl had to go off to her Satuday Night Quilter's Evening Out show. Kyle and  I got up to go and get my bag and the door was locked. Tight. Then we had to find someone with keys. To open it up - cuz my car keys were in my coat. Just a little adventure....

Long post, too busy to figure out how to make several posts. Thank you for reading so far.
SewExpo is the best sewing show out there and I'm lucky enough to live 2 hrs and 40 minutes away from it.

I'm back on overtime, so my free time has been used up thinking deep thoughts about the future which is creeping quickly towards me. I'm happy the Sewing Gods intervened and made this trip possible.