2009 Wrap Up

Well I had planned to put this up yesterday, but had trouble with my computer and then we lost power at 6:15 last night so it had to wait until this morning.

I was inspired by a few graphs I saw so I did a little tally of what I sewed in 2009. I have been keeping track of what I sew for a little over three years in a spiral notebook. It has come in handy so many times and it's also fun to look back and see what I've made.

In 2009, here is a breakdown of "who" I sewed for. As you can see, I wasn't in first place, instead it was all about the kids (go figure). The gifts were things I made for extended family members (ie not my own kiddos), mostly for Christmas gifts but some where birthday gifts and baby gifts too.

Here is the breakdown of pattern brand used. There are repeat patterns on here and KS is dominating because that is my go to PJ pattern. Also the "That Darn Kat" is the undies pattern I use for my youngest ~ you can see which ones in this post.

Another thing I notice is that I need to suck it up with my BWOF and Ottobre - seriously those magazines are expensive and if I'm not using them, then why the heck am I buying them? I have 5 years worth of BWOFs and 10 years worth of Ottobres - I should never be sewing anything else (or buying anything for that matter!). My Ottobre is up for renewal and I'm considering dropping it, but breaking up is so hard to do. I really look forward to getting the magazine, but with 10 years worth, can there really be something different and new making it worth the price each year? I still have a few weeks to ponder it. Have you had this struggle? If so, how did you decide?

Now on to my Christmas sewing. I sewed like crazy for the entire month of December and am so glad that is over. It was fun and a great idea, but it was so time consuming and overwhelming at times. A few of my favorite things I made are pictured below.

This is a pillow I made my sister. Why I like it so much is that she and my BIL acquired a business in 2008 called Acorn Uniforms in the Seattle area so it's rather fitting for them. It's a free pattern at YCMT if you want to make your own.


I also made three of these door hanging pillows to give as gifts. I wanted to make myself one, but ran out of time. I'm sure I'll make more of these, they are super easy and so cute. You can get this pattern free at YCMT too (can you see I have been using this site lately - it's really great!).

I always make the kids special pjs for Christmas Eve and really liked the prior year's matching snowman pjs. When I looked for matching fabric online this year, I didn't find anything that jumped out at me plus a lot of the Christmas knits were too girly. I really wanted to use fabric I had stashed and then it came to me - M&M pjs! My MIL collects all things M&M and all the kids have their "own" color so I decided to make them pjs in their M&M color! They were a hit and looked so cute IMO. I used this freezer paper stencil technique for the M's.

Up for 2010, not sure. I am not really a resolutions girl. I don't like making goals that I don't know if I'll keep. Heck, I have "to do" lists in my head each morning and most of the time I don't even get those all the way completed. I do know I really want to make myself a nice coat. I purchased some gorgeous wool coatings from Fabric.com in the fall so I have the supplies. I also want to make a trench with the Burberry fabric I purchased at PRW. Another pair or two of Jalie jeans are in order too. Lots of "wants" so I'll just keep plugging away and do my best while still enjoying my hobby. Oh and definitely using those BWOF (it will always be BWOF to me by the way) and Ottobre mags!

Wishing all my readers a healthy and happy 2010!

Instant Gratification Sewing

I was needing some instant gratification sewing after having a few hang ups over the past week. My first hang up was not having the proper zipper for my skirt made from Ottobre Woman 5-2007-4. Now this wasn't a major catastrophe, but annoying because I really was on a roll. Once that was finished, I started tracing out a blouse from the 8-2007 Burda WOF #117 with the tie front. I read a few reviews about it on PR and learned the shoulders were more dropped than shown in the magazine pictures and line drawing (apparently Burda had fiddled with the blouse in the pictures and that the line drawing wasn't quite accurate). So I did a bunch of fiddling with the pattern and now I need to make a muslin, however I decided I first needed a little instant gratification hence all the knit tops. First up is Kwik Sew 2694! Yes, it's been reviewed over 85 times on PR, but it's clearly a winner. Paired my new top is my fabulous new Ottobre Skirt.

A better look at the Kwik Sew top...

Next up is the famous Jalie Crossover top - another clear winner that uses minimal fabric and takes less than 1 hour to make. I actually made myself three of these in the last two days - purple, red, and white.
Last up is a new Vogue Sandra Betzina pattern #2980. At first I wasn't sure about the top and if I was happy about how it turned out. Well I'm still not happy with the fit, but now that I've made another Jalie crossover top with the leftover fabric, I'm sure the problem is actually the fabric - I think it has a little too much recovery. So I will probably try it again when time allows. It sure is a cute twist on the ordinary t-shirt and went together pretty quickly.
In sad news, my serger has to go to the doctor tomorrow. I had a little mishap that needs repairing, plus it needs to be cleaned too. I think this will be a good opportunity for me to straight up the mess I've created in my studio and hopefully work on my muslin of the Burda top. Until next time, happy sewing!

Presenting Vogue 8386!!!

I know it's hard to see the dress because it's black, but I did my best to lighten the picture up without making me look like Frankenstein. I'm very pleased with how the dress turned out, tho it's slightly different from the pattern envelope picture because it's meant for people with more boobs than I have. I just posted my review on Pattern Review for your reading pleasure and have an additional picture of the bodice up close.

The wedding was very fun and we (DH, my sister, my brother-in-law, and myself) shut the place down! I haven't been out past midnight in eons and it was so fun. When I woke up this morning I told DH I was so glad I wasn't one of the people who was drunk last night because I can't even imagine the hangover some of them have ~ yuck! It was an all Diet Pepsi night for me, plus I find it hilarious to see how stupid drunk people are! LOL No offense if you like to get drunk, but seriously people can make some complete fools of themselves. Oh well, it gave us all a good laugh!

My next project is a swim suit. I have never made a swim suit, but got some really pretty swimwear fabrics when my family went to Disneyland this spring. On the recommendation of my sweet PR friend Vonne, I went to M&L fabrics in Anaheim. I probably could have spent all day there, but I only had a few hours before we had to checkout of our hotel so I went on my way and counted my blessings that I was even able to go (DH thought it was ridiculous I wanted to go fabric shopping while we were on vacation ~ obviously he doesn't understand how important it is to explore your resources, huh?). Vonne told me that M&L had a huge back room of flat folds where everything was super cheap. I got several cuts of swimwear fabric for only $1.98/yd! For the first suit tho, I'm using a fabric I got for $1.99/yd from Fabric.com - it's a Chez Ami fabric overrun they had that is super cute. I'm using Kwik Sew 3238 ~ the bottoms are the skimpier ones from view A, but the top is from view B. I got the bottoms made the other night and they fit perfectly! I'm not sure if I'll get to work on the top today, but should have it done in the next day or so. I plan to make DD swimsuit using the same fabric too using Kwik Sew 3165 ~ view C for hers.

Pictures of my "Baby"

I'm having a "mommy moment" and want to share the pictures I just got back of Andy from JCPenney. He's such a sweetie (well most of the time! LOL) and they captured his personality to perfectly.

The outfit is something I made. I love to be creative with the kids clothing, but I don't make too many really creative things anymore. The kids are so hard on their clothing and it just kills me when they only wear things once because I'm so afraid they'll ruin it so I just make a few extra extra special things now and again.

I got my Vogue dress all finished. It's in the dryer right now (thank goodness for poly/lycra blends ~ wash and wear is so nice!) because I got some deodorant on it during the fitting process. I will have DH take pictures of me and post them tomorrow along with a review on PR.

WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited, I got through to Dave Ramsey today and got to scream "We're Debt Free!!!" on the air with my three older children! It was just a quick conversation and I really didn't get to tell much of "my story", but still I pray that I've given inspiration to some other listener. Hearing those debt free screams has given me so much motivation and now it's my turn to pay it forward. Thank you Dave for the opportunity to shout out to the world! :-) You'll be able to listen to my call by going to the Show Archives. It's the show from July 6th and I'm about 15 minutes into the first hour (I'm the second caller).

In the sewing world, I am still working on my Vogue 8386 dress and I have to have it done by tomorrow night - eek! It's been a little slow going with DH's birthday, the 4th of July holiday, and then a friend coming to visit yesterday, but I really have it mostly done. Since I'm a member of the IBTC (aka small boobs), I'm having a really hard time getting it to fit in the chest. I guess that is why they have recommended body types on the envelope and mine was not one of the recommended ones - oops! Hopefully I can salvage it to wear tomorrow night.

The safari jacket is finally finished!

Gosh, I feel like the safari jacket has taken forever to finish, but finally it's done!!!! The fabric is a bit more wrinkly than I'd like it to be, but live and learn is just going to have to be the case. It's a 100% cotton twill from Joann's ~ I think something with a little stretch in it (or poly) would have helped with the wrinkle factor). I posted a review on PR ~ it has another picture showing the jacket with the belt.

Since I was on a roll, I also made myself two pairs of shorts using a pants pattern from the May 2007 issue of Burda WOF. I am so ecstatic at how well they turned out! Pants are a major struggle for me - getting them to fit that is (sewing is the easy part!). I was so delighted that they turned out to fit so well and will definitely be using this pattern again and again. I posted a review of these as well. They are #112 in that issue (the picture at the top with the jacket is one pair of the shorts I made).

I started working on Vogue 8386 last night for the wedding that is coming up next Saturday. I'm a little late in starting it, but so far it's going together well and hopefully it will fit well once it's completed. Keep your fingers crossed!

In other news, DH finished his last work weekend of overtime today and now will be officially debt free (not including the house) on Friday when he receives his paycheck! I'm so excited and plan to call Dave Ramsey on Friday to scream "WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!" on the air. The other time I called his show I got through on the first ring, not sure if I'll be that lucky this time - I sure hope so. I find it so motivational to hear people call in and share their stories about getting out of debt. According to my excel spreadsheet, we have paid off right at $90,000!!! The number is actually a bit higher because I didn't include all the interest we paid that I didn't keep track of. That is some serious debt reduction and sacrifice in the last 14 months ~ I'm so proud of my DH & myself for being able to keep focused and kick our debt to the curb. Thank you honey for working so hard for our family ~ I love you more than you'll ever know! XOXOX

Burning the midnight oil...

Yesterday was a busy day. My youngest son turns three on Monday and I really wanted to take him to get his pictures done yesterday while the older two were still in school (their last day is Monday). I figured it would be way easier to have two kids in tow rather that four so we headed to the "city" to JCPenney. We didn't have an appointment so I prayed the whole way there they could get us in pretty quickly. Fortunately we were about to get in about 1.5 hours after we arrived which worked out perfectly since I had some other things to do at the mall as well. And sweet Andy did a wonderful job getting his pictures taken, which was a huge relief since last year he was much less cooperative.

As I posted in one of my early posts, my family is working on becoming debt free after being inspired by Dave Ramsey. When we started last spring, we had some credit card debt, two auto loans, a small loan on our home equity line of credit, and a balance due on our new mattress which we purchased on a "one year same as cash" deal. As much as it seemed like it was going to be a very overwhelming task to pay all this off, we have really tried to keep our eyes on the prize and keep our budget in check. Well fast forward to yesterday and we are now almost entirely debt free (with the exception of our home which we hope to have paid off sooner than later). We just need to pay off our bed and that will be done next payday (in two weeks)!!!! I was very excited once our home equity line was paid off and our credit card debt, but I'm even more jazzed that we have no car payments anymore!!! Now if my lovely minivan will last me until my kids graduate from high school (I probably shouldn't hold my breath, but it is a 2005 so it should last right???).


So all this to bring me to the title of my post "burning the midnight oil". As we got ready for bed last night, the phone rang and it was DH's work calling him in because something was broken (he's a millwright at a newsprint mill owned by Weyerhaeuser). The beauty of his job is that he can get just about as much overtime as he wants, but the bad thing of signing up for weekend duty is the potential to be called into work in the middle of the night. So here I was home alone and I have a horrible time sleeping when DH isn't in the house. So I decided since he was going to work, so was I! Down to my sewing studio I went to work on my safari jacket. I don't feel like I got a lot accomplished, partly because I had to tidy things up a bit before I could start working on it, but I got a few uninterrupted hours of sewing time and now have the collar on and the sleeves ready to be set into the jacket. It's really close to being completed. So I sewed until shortly after midnight and listened to my Dave Ramsey podcasts to keep me motivated. Thankfully DH came home and saved me from myself, I really am a slow sewer in the wee hours of the morning and definitely needed to go to bed before I screwed something up.

Safari Jacket

Well I truly am back in the saddle (finally!). It felt so good to start a project!!! I can't believe it took me 3 full weeks to start feeling better - definitely the creepy cruddy that wanted to hang on for dear life.


I picked up Vogue 8208 at the recently $3.99 sale at Joann's. I really thought a short sleeve Safari jacket would be a fun wardrobe option when it's warmer outside. Sometimes you want a jacket to look put together, but it's too hot for something long sleeve. I'm using a khaki/tan colored twill I picked up at Joann's so it really does look like the pattern drawing. I'm about half done with the jacket. I think it's going to be pretty easy since it's not lined. I don't think I'll do anything special like Hong Kong finished seams on the inside. I hate to go to all the work and not end up liking the jacket. Plus, when it's on, no one will see the inside anyway.

Back in the saddle again????

Well I think I'm finally getting over the hump of this darn cold. It's been 2.5 weeks now and it's just down right rediculous I'm still feeling not like myself. So this morning I decided to jump back in to work on the my Alice & Olivia jean-style skirt Vogue 2811 ~ I'm using a white twill fabric and making the longer version. I worked on this last week on a day I was feeling so-so and all went well until I got to the waistband. It was too big in the back thanks to my swayback, so I had to alter it. My alteration didn't go well, so I tossed it aside and headed for the couch. The other day I had a moment of ambition and decided to rip the waistband back off. Fast forward to today, I went in my sewing room to try the skirt on and see how I'd tackle the waistband. When I slipped the skirt on, oops, I forgot I cut the top off the zipper off when I sewed the waistband down and yes, you guessed it, I pulled the zipper pull right off the zipper - ugg! So now I need to decided if I'm going to try to salvage the skirt (it was looking so cute) and insert a new zipper or toss it in the trash. I hate stuff like this. I put lots of work into it, but if I don't get the waistband to sit right, then I'll be bummed I even plowed forth since it will just be wasted time. Zippers sure seem to be a problem for me lately too - the zipper I installed in the Simplicity sundress I made a few weeks ago proved to be faulty when DH was helping me unzip it the night I made it. I ended up having to use my seam ripper to get the zipper out so I could get the dress off - nice, huh? Thankfully Joann's exchanged the zipper, but I still need to put the zipper in the dress still. Darn zippers!!!

Easy Ice Cream Dessert

Yesterday three friends and their children came over for an evening visit. I've known these gals all my life and we try our best to get together regularly even tho we all don't live in the same town anymore. Between us we have 11 children and thankfully they all get along well and enjoy playing together.

We had a simple meal of sandwiches, chips, potato salad, and a yummy dessert I made from the most recent issue of Kraft Food & Family Magazine called Oreo & Fudge Ice Cream Cake ~ talk about delish and super easy! It was a hit with the ladies and definitely something I'd make again. For an added touch, I sprinkled crushed Oreo cookies on the top before I froze it. I also think it would be just as tasty if you just spread plain Cool Whip between the ice cream sandwhich layers instead of the fudge mixture. I got DH's approval too, but what's not to love about the combo of chocolate and vanilla????

I didn't finish my ribbon board yet. Went to both Joann's & Wal-Mart looking for the ribbon and found none. My sister suggested I try Michael's, so I will go there when I'm out on errands today and hopefully find a match.

As much as Wal-Mart drives me bonkers, I did happen to see a black slinky there on the bargain table for $1/yd. I took the rest of the bolt and hopefully it will wash up nice. My ex-step-brother (can you follow that?) is getting married in July, and I found the perfect dress to make using the fabric. It's an evening wedding and at the country club, so I want to look swanky. Here is the pattern I have in mind, but will wait until the pattern goes on sale, hopefully within the next few weeks. It's Vogue 8368 ~ I will make view A (the red version).