Travelin’ Band

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Leigha

We’ve had a hectic, jam packed few months around our house – thankfully, mostly GOOD events, but that doesn’t make it any less dramatic when everything piles on top of you at once. The only rough patch happened right up front:

This kid managed to break his arm by tripping over ANOTHER kid’s shoe in the gym. He was a trooper once he got out of the hospital, and only complained about the cast three or four times a day. I’ve never had to deal with a broken bone before (and neither had Mike), so this was a learning experience. We learned that you DO spring for the water-resistant lining for the cast, shorts with elastic are a must-have because he couldn’t do buttons, and that he would milk it for all it was worth when he got the chance. I can’t blame him.

Then this happened:

I finally, finally, FINALLY finished college. Officially. I walked – nay, STRUTTED – across that stage with my family watching, and I have never been more relieved to be done with anything in my life. Now I am working on getting rid of the feeling that I’m supposed to be somewhere all the time – either an online study group, a night class during the week, or even just the general feeling that I have something due today. I’m going to take a year off and I’m planning on starting my masters’ degree next year, but that timeline is soft right now. It may slip another year as I recover from being in college (on and off) since 1996.

To celebrate graduation and our 10 year anniversary, we planned a cruise to Alaska, with an extra day in Seattle just to take in the sights. We did the touristy things, complete with a crab leg dinner on the docks and a visit to the original Starbucks store. The best part of Seattle was the random bakery we found across from the market called Piroshky Piroshky. There were the huge long lines waiting to get into this tiny, cramped space – everyone wanted one of these things. We stalked them first thing in the morning before we left for Alaska, and from what I ordered, it was worth all of the hype.

And then we got on a giant ship and took off for a week (without our kids!) of touring the barest tip of Alaska. It was just as beautiful as you’ve been told.

When we got back (after being gone from the kids for 9 days), we knew that we only had a few short weeks until we’d be traveling again – this time with the entire family. My sister in law was getting married, and she chose a destination wedding in Jamaica. So for the second time in three weeks, we washed clothes, packed suitcases, and loaded up for a ridiculously early flight. The kids were excited, but mainly about eating in the airport. Kids are weird.

The beaches were beautiful, but we spent most of our time in the pool with the awesome slides. And we took an afternoon off for the wedding.

See those dresses on the left? I made them for the girls, using the Emmaline maxi dress pattern by Violet Field Threads. We had to pick the fabric as a best-guess scenario to attempt to match the flowers, and I think we did okay – it’s a quilting cotton, so they were nice and light for the ceremony. I will say that the directions weren’t as clear as you’d hope when I was making the dresses, but with a little help from The Internet, I pushed through (and no one had any wardrobe malfunctions in the process).

Now we’re just trying to get everyone back into the normal summer rhythm of waking a bit later in the morning, playing longer in the evenings, and just relaxing in general. Here’s to fewer broken bones and more down time!

Success, Easter Dress Style

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Leigha

HEY. YOU GUYS. That Easter dress I was talking about last time? I finished it! And it actually fits the child in question.

Pattern: McCall’s M6020
Fabric: Lisette Scatter Flower White Poplin, pink cotton from my stash, muslin lining
Notions: Zipper, hook and eye

Do you see that zipper sticking up in the back? I put that in. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be, but I was extremely glad to have a narrow zipper foot in my arsenal of weapons. This dress is fully lined; I had to sew the bodice lining down by hand along the sides and across the skirt join, but my uneven stitches won’t show on the outside. I will admit to walking away from the zipper once – the confusing garble of words in the pattern do not count as instructions – but I managed to find great tutorials on blogs and YouTube to help me through. I’ve done zippers in bags and such before, but there was something about putting this zipper into this dress that was stressing me out.

The other thing about this dress is the way the bodice lining works – it’s weird, and the pattern isn’t super clear on exactly how it is supposed to go. I turned to the trusty Internet again, and as per usual, someone had it spelled out with a great blog post and plenty of pictures that helped me understand what I was supposed to do. The rest of the dress went together fairly easily. I did learn that while my daughter is a size 3 around her torso, she’s more of a size 5 in length – hence, the pink band and the extra strip of floral fabric around the bottom to make it longer. It may have been a mistake to begin with, but I actually really like the band of pink around the bottom, so win/win!

I even managed to find a bow that matches rather well; the colors are spot on. Now I can’t wait for Easter to get here so I can get her dressed up in it!

The Easter Dress

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Leigha

When I started sewing, I mainly focused on quilting, and less on the apparel side of things; quilts are typically pretty straight forward (or at least, the quilts that I make are), they are rather One Size Fits All, and no one gets all judgey if your quilt seams are a little wonky. Eventually, though, I caught the bug and started making small things for my daughter to wear. She’s very much a girly girl, so I researched dresses and managed to knock out some simple stuff.

The first attempts were not pretty. But things improved over time.

So I’ve got a hairbrained idea this year to make her Easter dress. And not only that – but this is a dry run for making her dress (and her soon to be cousin’s dress) for her aunt’s wedding in June. I know, right? I’m officially screwing with someone’s wedding, and you KNOW how that can go. I’m glad I’m working the kinks out at Easter, because this pattern and I are confusing the crap out of each other.

I wanted something sleeveless and not overly formal, since the end goal making dresses that are suitable for a beach wedding. Also, it had to fit my little girl and the other, older girl – these patterns split their sizes up funky, between Childrens’ and Girls’ sizes. I caught Joann’s during one of their “5 for $5″ McCall’s pattern extravaganza and scooped up M6020 in two sizes:

For Easter, I got all springy. The final fabric choice for the wedding will be up to the bride, but for this round I’m in charge. I have always loved the Lisette fabrics, but the prices have always put me off; I’m not going to lie to you when I say that I cringe at paying $10 a yard for fabric. When Joann has their storebrand quilting fabric, normally $5 a yard, on for $2.50 a yard, I’m there bright and early to stock up. I stalk the scrap bin, looking for bits and pieces for quilts. I’m the exact opposite of a fabric snob. However, there was some sort of a sale going on for 40% off the Lisette, so I jumped at the opportunity and bought a couple of yards of one of their poplins. I’m pairing it with some pink cotton I already had in my stash for a sash. How happy is this dress going to be?

Now I’m sitting here and I’m trying to figure out exactly how this thing goes together. One thing that I have learned from my previous attempts at using patterns is that you seriously need to sit down and read the full instructions before you attempt it. This pattern has me understitching the neckline and armholes as on the dress – but I had no earthly idea what that is, and of course they just expect you to be able to figure it out. Fortunately, there exists this awesome thing called The Internet, and I was able to locate a YouTube Video that detailed the process nicely. Once the fabrics are laundered, I’m diving in.

Next up: cutting the damn thing out and deciphering the construction. Also, My First Clothing Zipper.

The Beginning of the End

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Leigha

Tonight is the first class of my final semester of my bachelor’s degree.

This has been a VERY long time in the making, longer than I had ever anticipated. Leaving high school, I thought I’d go to college, get my degree, and move on within a “normal” time frame of 4-5 years; little did I know that it would eventually take me 16 years and a change of major (not to mention a marriage, two kids, and the start of my career) before I’d actually get there. And to be honest, I have to get through THIS semester before I’m out; this last semester is the one where they throw THE CAPSTONE at you. The class that is the culmination of all that you’ve learned over the past few years, and that incorporates all of the core classes that you’re required to take. I’m a bit nervous about it (huge group work project and crazy hard tests), but I’m sure I’ll pass it and make it through.

My motivation for school has definitely gone dormant, though. I’m not excited about starting my class tonight, or the other class I’m taking on Wednesday nights – I think that I have hit my semester of Senioritis, and it will be a struggle to push through April and get this sucker done. This is normal, right? This need to forcefully put one foot in front of another and march through the work?

I’m very excited to be finishing, though. The idea of having my evenings back (not to mention the weekends spent studying or the downtime between meetings spent frantically typing out corrections on papers) is really the motivating factor in all of this. I just keep telling myself that in May, the work will be over and the degree will be on the wall, and that will be the “eyes on the prize” to keep me going.

Scrap Hex Update

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Leigha

A little over a year ago, I started a scrappy hexagon blanket that was basically a mix of all of the fabrics I’ve used in various quilts:

Since then, I’ve worked on it sporadically. I love how this is a pick up and go project that doesn’t require any real planning, other than keep a good mix of colors.

IT GROWS!

This is twin sized (or rather, will be once completed), and apparently destined to reside on my daughter’s bed once it is complete – she claimed it after seeing the crazy mismash of pattern and print that seems to match her personality so well. What I love about it is the fact that every time I pull a fabric to attach to a new block, I find a bit of a quilt that has gone off to a friend, or a quilt that is warming my family, or some other project around my home. I just added a set of hexagons from the stockings that I made for our family for Christmas, and seeing those prints mingling in with the others means that this quilt is gathering up family memories as it goes.

I tend to work on it in bursts, in between other projects that catch my attention; I’ll feverishly whip up a baby blanket for someone and ignore this quilt for a week or two, but I always wander back and add a couple of hexagons to it. It is my faithful friend through conference calls and on quiet Sunday mornings before the hustle of kids has started up, and it doesn’t suffer from being ignored – I actually gain more variety because I’ve worked on something else, and I have leftovers to feed into the pile. I like that I have a long term project that isn’t a rushed gift; this project suits where I am in my life right now.

New Tricks

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Leigha

I’ve been sewing for a few years now, but I’ve stuck mainly with quilts – most of the wearables I’ve tried have not turned out as I would have hoped, so I’ve left clothing to the professionals. (The one exception to this would be the dresses I make for my daughter, but she’s little and has no hips to tailor around.) Quilts do not need to be fitted around curves and lumps, and all of their seams are handily hidden on the inside, so it doesn’t really matter if they fray a bit in the wash.

But I am getting curious about clothing construction, so for Christmas, I requested a new little machine to help me out: a serger. And my husband, being a wise man who picks up on hints, bought the exact machine I emailed him the link to.

That door hides a world of terror.

Now that I have it in my paws, I’m serging everything I can find just to test it out – no fabric is safe. I even turned out a little nightgown for my daughter last night out of some knit fabric I’ve had stashed for a while. I won’t say it’s the most glamorous thing I’ve ever seen, but the mistakes are more about my lack of understanding on how to finish the armholes/neck than anything else. Fortunately, I found a tutorial that should help me in the future. Matter of fact, I’m finding a ton of tutorials for my new toy!

This doesn’t mean that I’ve abandoned my sewing machine – not in the least. I spent some time on the day after Christmas giving my daughter some basic lessons on how to sew simple seams. She really wanted a new blanket for the doll that we gave her for Christmas (a knockoff of the American Girl dolls, because really, she’s just going to destroy it). I let her dig through my leftover charm squares, and together we knocked out a little quilt top for Miss Audrey Ann. She was very proud of the fact that I let her sit on my lap and guide the fabric through. I want to teach her about sewing while she’s young; she’s going to be short, and knowing how to hem her own clothing will save her so much money and time over the course of her life.

Overall, it was a very merry Christmas around our house, filled with Skylanders and new speaker sets and family laughter.

Ending 2012 With a Bang

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Leigha

Dear sadly neglected blog,

It’s been a while (9 months, give or take a few weeks) since I’ve sat down and updated you on my goings on, so here’s a quick catch up on me:

School. Work. Kids.

There! We’re all caught up. Another Christmas is upon us; it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that I was blogging about the LAST Christmas, but here we are a full year later, gearing up for Giftmas. This year I got my junk together and actually had all of the gifts purchased and wrapped by the first week of December. No last minute running around for THIS girl; I am determined to enjoy my holiday break. I have spent it sewing a new set of stockings for the family:

This is the first of a full set that I plan on making. I’m currently hard at work on my third stocking; each of them has a different pattern, so I get to try all of the quilt patterns that I admire, but that I do not have the patience to work into a full quilt. I love the look of intricate quilt blocks, but I do not have the patience to pull off a full quilt of ridiculous sewing, so this works out well for me.

January starts the final semester of my college career (well, until I decide to start my Master’s degree, but right now my brain refuses to digest that idea), and I can say that I am SO READY to be done with school. I’ve enjoyed gettin’ my learnin’ on, but enough is enough – I’d like to have my evenings back. This means that the next four months will be a mix of hard work at the start, but very quickly sliding into a battle with slackerism; knowing that all I have to do at this point is just pass these last two classes isn’t motivating me to give it my A game. BUT! Oh, the reward at the end of it all is worth the effort (and no, I’m not talking about the degree itself) – after graduation, and in celebration of our 10 year wedding anniversary, we are taking a kid-free cruise to Alaska. I’m going on a vacation! That doesn’t require a bikini! THIS IS THE BEST IDEA EVER.

For now, though, I’m focused on the next week – Christmas Eve dinner with the family, the Christmas morning hustle with the kids, and then hosting Christmas dinner. Beyond that, I have another week and a half of keeping kids occupied before they go back to school. This is our first year of having both kids in elementary school, so it’s also our first year of dealing with them being out for two solid weeks at the same time. I’m sure by the end of it I’ll be grasping at straws to keep them from driving everyone crazy, but I’m really looking forward to all of the family time.

Mah Fitness

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Leigha

So, I have a new pair of shoes to replace the pair that was ruined by the Austin The Color Run:

The Savior of My Feet

They are the same ones I bought last year, because I ain’t screwing with the formula that helped with my plantar fascitis, which sounds totally gross but is actually just the horrid cramping that occurs in the arch of my foot when I wear a pair of shoes that don’t cradle and pamper like my feet are now accustomed to. My last pair were completely junked by the mud pit that pretended to be a 5K, but was actually a mudder in disguise. When I signed up for it, the race was supposed to be a paved run; when we arrived at the site, this is what we found:

That was literally in the first half mile of the course, when we laughed merrily and continued on, thinking that the whole course couldn’t POSSIBLY be like this. Oh, how wrong we were. My poor, precious Mizunos were completely destroyed when the race was over.

Seeing as this was two short weeks before my half marathon, new shoes were an immediate requirement.

It’s been about two years since I started running, and this also marks the longest I’ve actually attempted to stick with some form of exercise. And when I’m really doing it, I get some really great results – the problem is that I tend to go in fits and spurts. Things keep coming up that make me miss runs, like holidays or classes or my boss in town (have I ever told you that my direct boss lives in Ireland?), so I make excuses about how I don’t have time or I’m just too tired.

The truth is I do have time, and I’m just being lazy.

After the most recent half marathon, I realized that I really, really needed to train better for it. At about mile 10, I was ready to give the hell up and ask someone for a ride to the finish line. The only thing that kept me from doing it was the Walk of Shame I’d have to do, knowing that I didn’t finish the race. I trudged my way through the last three miles and finished; my time was just about the most pathetic thing you’ve ever seen. So, in an effort to do better next year, I’ve got to stop making excuses and do the work. Which means regular meetings with my feet and the road, and less whining about getting it done. I’ve got to bring my finish time down so that my sister can’t laugh at me next year.

Whack-a-Mole

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Leigha

Just popping my head up in here, trying to avoid the hammer slamming down from above upon my tender skull. Life has this way of completely piling as much as possible right on top of you all at the same time; I can’t seem to find the setting that would spread it out over the year, and this is my Season of Digging Out From Under Everything.

Crafting has again been thin on the ground, although I have managed to pull together a sweet quilt top from the Oh, Fransson! Mix Tape Quilt pattern.

I bought the fabric bundle off of Etsy a while ago, knowing that there would be another round of babies in the Spring (there is always a round of babies in the Spring; my friends are nothing if not predictable) and sure enough, there’s a baby girl due in May that I’m going to give this one to. I’m dragging my son with me to the fabric shop today to find something to back it with, which will require bribery in the form of french fries in order to keep him happy.

I’ve also got a shawl on the needles (pictureless as of now). I’ve always thought that taking pictures of lace while it is being knit really does the piece a disservice, because unblocked lace looks like a giant hairball, minus the sticky gunk. The beauty of lace emerges when you block it. Stretching it out to dry opens it up and suddenly, you have this amazing fabric filled with loops and swirls that is really, really pretty. I suspect that I knit lace for that very reason – I love the reveal when lace comes off the blocking wires.

Besides all of that, it’s been business as usual – taking two classes a semester (namely Product and Operations Management and a Business Ethics class), keeping up with two very active children, and trying to keep up with friends and family. I did manage to squeeze in a tiny run earlier in the year:

13.1 miles. You know, no big deal.

Upgrades

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Leigha

Christmas has become more about things that we need rather than things we want around here (at least for the adults – for the kids, it remains a wonderland of gadgets and toys to help keep them from driving their parents crazy). I knew that I needed some new pots and pans to replace an old set of T-Fal cookware that we’ve had forever; the coating was beginning to flake off, probably because we threw them into the dishwasher instead of hand washing them like responsible people would. So, for Christmas, I asked my family to supply me with two new nonstick Emerilware pans. Since there are fewer things I hate in the world than trying to chop cilantro (seriously! It won’t stay still long enough for me to get it completely chopped!), I also asked for a sturdy food processor.

My husband has never been the type to just get you what you asked for. It always has to be upgraded. Case in point: when we bought my Honda Pilot, I went in determined to get the low end version, no bells and whistles. I didn’t want to pay for heated leather seats since I live in TEXAS, and just the thought of heated leather seats turns me into a puddle for eleven out of twelve months of the year. I made two mistakes during that trip: 1) we took our son with us, so I was distracted by a two year old who really, really hated that car dealership even though we brought a portable movie player and a sack full of snacks to try to appease him, and 2) I was 6 months pregnant with my second, and generally worn down by the process of growing an entirely new person. My husband, sensing my weakness, managed not only to upgrade to a nicer model, but to also convince me that we needed a DVD player AND HEATED BLACK LEATHER SEATS in the Pilot. We rolled off that lot eleventy hours later with my head swirling in the exact car that I swore we wouldn’t have, thanks to Captain Upgrade. He’s very sneaky about it, in that you almost don’t realize what just happened until everything is said and done, and he’s sitting next to you looking all smug. And you can’t argue because he just got you something super nice, but you want to argue about it.

All of that is explanation for why he ended up stocking out my kitchen like I’m Martha Stewart for Christmas. First, he started with a cherry red KitchenAid Stand Mixer:Then we moved on to the food processor:And instead of just the two saucepans and the saute pan I originally asked for, he bought an entirely new set of nonstick cookware, along with two extra pans that he picked up along the way:There were also smaller gadgets, like a new microplane for the ginger that I love to cook with, tiny whisks for eggs (courtesy of his mother, since my husband seems to think that tiny whisks are the dumbest thing on the planet), pasta measuring rings, and on and on. My cooking skills are thankfully gathering steam so that I can actually make use of all of this, but holy MOLY it feels intimidating to open cabinets and see all of it.

I suppose that this means that I’m going to have to get more creative with my meal plans to make use of it all. Pinterest has been a wealth of inspiration this holiday season with new recipes, and since I hate cookbooks (more on that later), I’ve spent the past few nights curled up in the corner of the couch with my iPad, pinning recipes and transferring them to my Pepperplate app for future use. Luckily, the kids are getting used to wacky recipes and they don’t complain too much, as long as I throw in a Taco Night or spaghetti in there once a week.

So, cookbooks: it always seems that when I’m looking at a cookbook in a bookstore, I happen to only open it to the pages that have the good recipes. Once I buy it and get it home, I discover that 95% of the book is filled with recipes (or author anecdotes, which aren’t recipes and just take up space that could be dedicated to recipes) that I would never in a million years try out. There are only one or two recipe books that I’ve gotten that I make use of (The America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook is one I do use and love); the rest sit on a shelf forgotten due to the sheer volume of wasted space in them. I don’t buy them anymore, relying instead on the Internet to provide me with new recipes to try for free. Some are hits and some are a big, giant miss, but I think I’d have the same luck with the traditional cookbook gathering method, too. With the Pepperplate app, I’m kinda building my own cookbook of things that I know are winners, without the author’s romantic prose about the beauty of leeks thrown in to make me gag.

Now that the holidays are over and I’ve got some time before school starts back up again (only four more semesters to go, which is exciting and exhausting at the same time), I’m turning my attention to making use of all of these awesome gifts I received before I have to jump back in with both feet at the end of January. Once that starts, the kids will probably be getting Taco Night more often than I care to admit.

Knottyknits

A craft blog