Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving


First off, my apologies for being two weeks between posts. It is never my intention to go so long, but I seem to blink and days fly by. I have been busy sewing and will detail more about that in my next post. My progress includes three skirts, two tops, and pants (all for me!), one shirt for my middle son, 7 pairs of pj's for my boys, three pj pants for my daughter, and finishing a UFO for my youngest son. I still have 4 pairs of pj's cut out for the boys and two shirts for my oldest son that need to be sewn, plus I need to cut out one pair for pj's for my daughter. So as you can see, my silence hasn't been for nothing. ;-)

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving. My family is blessed beyond measure and I hope the same holds true for yours. Enjoy the day!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Happy Veteran's Day!

I want to extend my most sincere *thank you* to all our veterans as well as those currently serving in the military. My family doesn't take this duty lightly and we recognize that it is because of these brave men and women that we live in the land of the free and home of the brave. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service to our great country!

A few days ago I received a nice surprise in my mailbox. Don't you just love surprises? Well the wonderful folks at Ottobre magazine somehow found out that I'd won the PR Sewing for Children contest and sent me these goodies! Now how sweet was that? All the way from Finland - it totally warmed my heart. Included with the card were three little buttons for my children to wear on their clothes, backpack, etc. and a beautiful 2009 planner/calendar. Thank you Ottobre team!!!!! See I keep telling you all they are so awesome, they seriously have the best customer service and not to mention the best kids patterns.

So my ironing board cover was getting a little ratty. It wasn't that bad, but the ironing board I got came from Wally World. I really wanted an oversized ironing board so I upgraded earlier in the year. I had looked at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, but they wanted like $80+ for the ironing board and I just couldn't see spending that much money. So I happened to be at Walmart (my least favorite store) one day and saw they carried the oversized ironing boards too. I can't recall the exact price, but it was $40 or less. I came with an extra cover which I have no idea where I put. I could have dug around to find it, but I found the cover always wanting to grab what I was ironing and shifting around. Plus the pad it came with is ultra thin. The bottom line was this ironing board needed a makeover!

I have seen others make ironing board covers on their blogs and figured it couldn't be too hard. I found some off white denim in my stash and figured that would be perfect. Durable, yet light colored so I wouldn't get any bleeding of the cover onto a garment (wouldn't that be a nightmare!). Then I picked up a package of 100% cotton batting at Joann's over the weekend.

To make the cover, I first traced around my ironing board leaving a 2" margain around the board (let me say this now, you need more than 2" to do it my way, I think 3" would have been perfect).

Next I cut out my fabric.


Then I serged around the raw edges of the cover so the edges wouldn't ravel. After serging, I pressed a 5/8" SA, stitched the pressed edge down to form a casing in which I fed 1/4" elastic through the casing. I put it on my ironing board and adjusted my elastic to get the fit right. Once I got the length of the elastic where I wanted it, I sewed the ends of my elastic together and closed the casing up.

Lastly, I placed my ironing board upside down again and traced the shape onto the batting. I cut two layers of the batting plus I used the original batting/pad as the bottom layer on the ironing board. I have a total of three layers plus my cover and it seems like the perfect thickness.

Here is the finished board. I would have liked the elasticized edge to go under the board a bit more, so next cover I will trace with a 3" boarder so I have enough extra fabric around the edges. I actually didn't have enough fabric to make it any wider tho since what I had was a small scrap. Oh well, live and learn.

Here is the underside. You can see it's skimpy on the sides, but I got it pulled up more in the front for better coverage of the cover. In all, a quick and easy project, tho I did start it yesterday but was interrupted by having to get the kids from school and take them to swimming lessons.


I hope this inspires someone to make a new cover for their ironing board. Such an easy project!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Yummy Mail!

Who doesn't love a good mail day? My mail lady has been good to me the past few days - check out the goodies I found in my mailbox!


I got my latest issue of Threads magazine. It was fun to cozy up with this new issue. Inside was a fantastic article on fabric shopping in Portland, OR - coincidentally that is where the Pattern Review Weekend will be. The date is TBA, but will be sometime in May 2009!

I also got my latest issue of Ottobre Design and like usual this didn't disappoint. Well it is disappointing I don't have a little baby girl to sew for, but nonetheless there were some great garments I will be able to sew for my kids and maybe even myself. Yes, you read that right, sew for myself from an Ottobre kids issue. I actually fit into the size range of the tween/teen girls and I've seen many designs that I like in the past, but haven't pursued sewing anything for me yet.

Then the new Burda World of Fashion showed up! Even if I don't get around to sewing something right away from my BWOF, I still enjoy getting it every month. There are always at least a few garments I can see myself wearing, but it's so fun to look at. The November issue didn't fail me either, I see many things to my liking. I also love it that when I need a pattern, I can go back through my notebook and look for something that fits the bill. I am getting quite the collection tho, I have five full years now. I honestly have no reason to even buy a pattern at the store!

Lastly, but definitely not least, I got the BEST surprise from a sewing buddy - the famous Vilene Bias Tape which BWOF recommends sewers use to stabilize fabrics!!! I have wanted to try this product for so long, but anyone who sews BWOF knows, it's not available in the US. Well my dear sewing friend went to visit her family in the UK and brought some back for herself and decided to share with me. If you're reading this Abi, thank you again - you hit the nail right on the head! I'll post once I try it and let you all know how it works out, it's sure it's fantastic!

Monday, November 03, 2008

Halloween (albeit a little late)

Yes, I'm days late, but here are a few pictures of the kids. Only two of the group turned out well and then all the individual ones didn't turn out well at all. So this is all I have to share. :-( The first two of of my youngest and we took them the day before Halloween so I could enter his pumpkin costume in the PR Costume contest.




The above one is from Halloween night. Here we have a blue Lego, Pirate Girl, Pumpkin Boy, and Mr. Baseball (all made by me which is a first, tho the Lego involved no sewing).

In other excitement, I had my all day sewing pants session that I started with the Palmer/Pletsch sewing school on Saturday. I can't even express how exhausted I was when I got home that night - it was a long, but fun day.

My pants are fitting very nicely and with minimal alterations. I still need to unbaste the side seams and put on the bum pockets, then restitch the side seams and apply the waistband. I think I'm going to like them. Tricia (my teacher) is so sweet! We ran out of time in class, doesn't everything always take longer than anticipated, so she's having her open sewing class on Wednesday and invited us all back so we can finish our pants during that 3 hour time block. I'd like to go, but am not 100% sure if I can make it at this point. If I was really ambitious I would have another pair of pants cut out and started so she could fit those for me too.

On the pants I picked, my alterations included removing some of the inseam from the from only (about 3/4" tapering to nothing at about the knee level), scooping the seat about 1/2", a slight swayback adjustment in the back seam as well as in the back of the waistband. It was pretty painless so hopefully now when I make pants I'll know what to look for, or I'll just make a gazillion pairs of these if I end up liking them a lot after I have them all finished.

So up next is to finish the pants, work on PJ's for my kids (who are in dire need of new ones), pants for my youngest, shirts for my oldest (and probably the other two boys too), oh and some stuff for me. Guess I better get busy, huh?

Also, thanks for those of you who emailed and posted comments about the Accutane. I'm still on the fence about what to do.