Aprons, Yogurt, and Other Randomness

Before I forget, I need to answer a couple of questions that have been asked!  First, Nikki asked what pattern I had used for the aprons I made last month, and I forgot to reply.  I figured it would be good to mention it in an actual post rather than a comment, since others might be interested too.  I just checked, and unfortunately that pattern appears to be out of print now. :(  However, I bet you could find it online somewhere, maybe Etsy or Ebay?  Here is a picture of it--the number is McCall's 5643.  And FYI, I adapt it a bit every time I make it--I basically make View A, but without the flap thingy on the top, and with the pocket for View B instead (except this time I changed up the pocket a little).  I also make it reversible.  So I buy two coordinating fabrics (2 yards of each) and use the second fabric for the main part of the lining.  It's kinda hard to explain, but basically everything is double sided--if the two fabrics are polka dots and checks, you'll have a polka dot and check fabric on each side.  If you end up sewing one of these, you can look back to my original pics if you need it to make more sense. :)

Also, Joey had mentioned that I should post a yogurt tutorial since I've been making it a lot lately!  Instead of that, I'll do the quicker and easier thing--point you to the original blog post with its own great tutorial!  It's found here on Trina Holden's blog.  I have made yogurt three times now (most recently with whole milk instead of 2%) and it has turned out great every time!  The kids love it and Jim eats it with granola nearly every day.  I think it is yummy as well, and I love to put it in smoothies.  

I updated Eating for Two last week and forgot to post about it here--I know some of you discovered it anyway, but just thought I would mention it for those who hadn't!  

Another link I wanted to mention . . . some of you may be familiar with the Fresh Modesty blog.  I stumbled upon it a while back and while the girl who writes it is a whole lot younger than me, I love her style and I especially love her denim skirts!  I think they are really flattering, and I have been eyeing her ebook with 2 skirt tutorials for quite a while now.  I still hope to get it eventually and make myself a skirt or two, plus it would be a handy resource for sewing for Julia as well!  Anyway, she has recently embarked on a new business venture called Fresh Apparel, where she will be offering her "Errand #17" skirt for sale (a limited number will be available at first).  She currently has a Kickstarter campaign going to raise the money for the first batch of skirts.  Now, these will not be cheap--but they WILL be made in USA, and well-made by the sounds of it!  So I wanted to throw out the info in case anyone would like to donate to her business.  (You can donate any amount of a dollar or more--but there are incentives for donating higher amounts.)  You can go here to read all about it!  The campaign is fully funded for the first round of skirts, but she would love to read her "stretch" goal for a second style, and there are three days left to do it.  

We are getting a lovely soaking rain tonight; we haven't had a good rain since we planted the garden over a week ago, so I am thankful!  We have a few small shoots coming up and our tomato plants all look pretty good, but hopefully the rain will help encourage things along a bit.  Everyone but me is in bed; Julia was singing along to the lullabies on the iPod a few minutes ago, and I am headed for dreamland soon myself.  Hope you are all having a great week!

Links, Pictures, and More

I gave myself permission to take some blogging time today. :)  First, I posted in my pregnancy blog for anyone who's interested . . . and now I'm going to chatter here for a little bit!

I'm making homemade yogurt today for the second time ever.  I made 3 quarts a couple weeks ago, and it was so easy, and came out great!  I used Trina Holden's recipe found here.  I'm also trying a new granola recipe.  I tried a molasses granola a few weeks ago which was pretty good (Jim and I both liked it, but the kids didn't), and then a friend shared a chocolate almond granola recipe which is what I'm making today.  It smells really yummy!  I actually didn't have any almonds on hand, so I threw in a bunch of coconut instead.  And I used coconut oil instead of canola, and substituted brown sugar for some of the honey to make it cheaper.  Granola and yogurt is a nice, fairly healthy breakfast or snack, and I used to make granola all the time, but got out of the habit in the past year or so.  I really need to get back to it!

Another thing I need to get back to is menu planning.  Can you believe I haven't menu planned consistently since mid-April?  Oops!  Now that I have more energy again and actually feel like cooking more often, I need to make a plan. :)

We had 3 new baby chicks hatch this week, so that was the big excitement around here!  Our Henny Penny is such a good mama.  This was her third time going broody, and her second successful hatch.  Last fall she hatched 6 chicks (only 5 survived).  This time she hatched 2 on Memorial Day, then the third egg hatched sometime between Tues. night and Weds. morning.  The babies are sooo cute, and we enjoy the fluffiness while it lasts (because it doesn't last long!!).  Here are a few pics.  No names yet, but I'm sure the kids will come up with some soon. :)

These are the first two hatched:

 Then after we moved them all to the little coop for extra protection, this little guy hatched:

Jim is finally done with the work on his truck!!  It's put back together, repainted, and it looks like we might even have a working air conditioner soon (which would be awesome, since we plan to drive it to Ohio later this summer)!  Anyway, Monday was the day he painted it.  Our garage is under our house, so I spent a lot of time outside so I wouldn't breathe in too many of those nasty fumes.  With the way the timing worked out, he was going to need to put the clear coat on around 3 am the next day . . . so we decided that the kids and I would sleep in the camper that night.  The kids slept great, but it was a short night because none of us went to sleep till after 10:30, and Sam woke up (and consequently woke the rest of us up, except Josiah) sometime between 4-5 am.  YAWN . . . But at least we weren't breathing in paint fumes. :)  And after the two older kids got up and out of the camper, I went back to sleep for a while . . . until I was awakened again by Jim and Julia sweetly delivering breakfast in bed!  Meanwhile, Josiah (our champion sleeper) kept snoozing till sometime between 7-8 am, I think.  By afternoon, the rest of us were pretty tired and Julia actually fell asleep on the couch . . . and we got everyone to bed early that night!

Last weekend was a busy one, too, as I was working on sewing reversible aprons for graduation gifts for two sisters, whose party was on Saturday.  Here's how they turned out (some of you long time readers might remember that I made aprons from the same pattern for gifts about 4 years ago, too)!  The only "problem" is that I have always made these for gifts, but so far haven't made any for me!  I think I need to change that this summer, since some of my old faithful aprons are starting to fall apart. :) 

The blue one is my favorite . . . 

 But I also love how bright and cheery the pink is!

Julia will be getting some cute new skirts out of the leftover fabric from these, too! :)

One more link before I go . . . I think I raved in my last post about the Read Aloud Revival podcast, a brand new one that I am loving!  Through that podcast and site, I heard about this summer reading program, Traveling Through the Pages, that I am thinking about having my kids do.  It looks like a lot of fun--I just need to get organized and think of some rewards/incentives I could use. :)  

Well, gotta run and put leftovers in the oven soon for supper . . . so happy I don't have to cook tonight. :)  Hope you are all having a great week!

30 Days of Thankfulness: November 5

Today I am thankful for my sewing machine.  I know maybe that sounds silly, but I was working on some projects today, and having a good reliable machine is such a blessing. :)  Can you imagine the olden days before sewing machines were invented, when everything had to be hand-sewn?!  I certainly can't . . . I don't think I would have had enough patience. :)  

My projects this afternoon were little dolls for Operation Christmas Child boxes.  I got a bit of a late start, but at least collection week is still two weeks away. :)  And I *think* I have almost everything else to pack in the boxes, besides the handmade things.  Pictures will be forthcoming, once I get everything finished!  

What I sewed this summer :)

One of my goals for this summer was to do lots of sewing, and I'm happy to say that's one goal that I actually accomplished--for a change! :)  It was really fun, and even kind of therapeutic after a busy school year.  The only thing that makes me sad is that I don't have as much time to sew the rest of the year!  Anyway, between May and August I made 9 skirts and 1 dress, as well as hemmed a pair of dress pants for Jim and made a body pillow cover for myself, because my old store-bought cover was falling apart.  For this post, I'm just showing you the fun stuff--the things I made for Julia and me. :)

I had used my birthday money to buy some jersey fabric to make maxi skirts.  Before I cut into the fabric, I wanted to do a trial run, so I cut up an old maternity jumper and made this skirt.  It came out a little more snug than I wanted, but it's still wearable.  It gave me a basis to work from, to figure out what I wanted to do differently with my new fabric.

 For my next maxi skirt attempt, I went with a tutorial for a gathered version instead of A-line. (I can't actually remember now which tutorial I used!!  But I think it was similar to this one.)   I wasn't totally happy with the way this one fit, but I don't mind it too much, and I still love the fabric.  Best of all, I had enough to make a matching skirt for Julia.  She LOVES it when I make matching things for her and me. :)  (I'm going to enjoy that as long as I can!!)  We wore our matching skirts to my aunt's wedding in June and got a lot of comments on them. :)

 Sorry for the washed-out pic; I forgot to take any of the two of us together until after we got home, when it was mostly dark out!

 I had found this super cute red flowered fabric at Walmart for something like $2/yard.  I got all they had on the bolt, which was enough to make a skirt for me from my very favorite pattern, and then I followed this tutorial to make a matching sundress/jumper for Julia.  She complained that it wasn't very comfortable (the elastic top, I think) and she only wore it once. :(  But I think it'll still be long enough for her to wear next summer; maybe I can find a way to make the top more comfy for her, or find a thinner shirt for her to wear under it.  I was extra happy to find a perfectly-matching necklace for this outfit at Kohl's.  I love it when an outfit comes together like that!

 I did make this top for Julia, but it was last summer. :)  But I made the skirt this summer!  I used an old pair of her jeans which I loved the color and style of, but which were now too short (and had a hole in the knee).  I had seen ideas online for turning jeans into a skirt, so I used those ideas to come up with my own version.

 It's too hard to see here, but I also added a little flower near the bottom hem (off to the right in this pic) out of the cut off material.  It added a fun little touch!

 I loved the flower she wanted in her hair, too--the perfect accessory! :)  The only sad thing is that this little skirt will probably be too short by next summer, but hopefully she can still wear it with tights through the winter.

 I believe these tiered maxi skirts were my very favorite project of the summer, although they were also the most work.  (And that's a LOT of fabric, let me tell you!! :))  I was so, so happy with how they turned out, though.  I've been wanting a cute white skirt like this for a while, and thanks to a fabric-section-closing sale at our Walmart a few years back, I had yards and yards of white muslin to use.  These were not complicated to make, just took a lot of time because of all the layers.  I used this tutorial from Ashley of Make It and Love It.  

 I also had to show you one of my new favorite hairstyles--on both Julia and me. :)  Got this topsy-tail variation off Pinterest, and I am loving it especially for church!  (And can I just say I adore my daughter's hair--it is so easy to make it look nice in pretty much any style!)

 This is the final maxi skirt variation I made.  I used this tutorial for both of Julia's, but for mine I used a pattern from a friend.  I'm not normally a "green" person, but I thought this would be a fun fabric for summer.  As it turns out, it's nice for fall, too!  I wore this outfit to church a couple weeks ago.  I already had a green tee that matched close enough, the jean jacket was a $1 thrift store find, and the scarf was made by me, a couple years ago.  If you look close, you can also see my new cowboy boots that Jim bought me, which I am loving. :)

I am by no means a fashionista ;), but it's been really fun to add a few pieces to my wardrobe and come up with some new outfit variations using clothes I already have.  For example, the blue sweater/plaid shirt combo in the pics above was one I just recently realized would work together, although I've had both pieces in my closet for a year or two!

I plan to do another post soon about some of my summer thrift store finds and how I add to my wardrobe in that way, too.  For now . . . hope you've enjoyed seeing my sewing projects.  It was really good to "scratch the itch" and get some creating done.  Very satisfying!  And I do have a few sewing projects on my list for fall, too--just not quite as many.  Hopefully I can get at least a few of them done. :)

A post a day--Dec. 19: Felt food

Today I spent some time making felt food for gifts!  I've never made anything other than felt cookies before, so this was fun.  My kids have a lot of felt food that my mom has made for them, but now Julia wants duplicates of some of the stuff I made today. :)  I stuck with easy things for now, that didn't need to be stuffed.  

 I forgot to take a picture of this orange slice with the other stuff.  This pic didn't come out that great, but you get the idea. :)

 Fillings for the pita pocket!  Two kinds of cheese, tomato slice, lettuce and ham.

I hear that making felt food can be addictive.  I think I believe this after the fun I had today! :)  My next project will be a felt s'more!

Finally, a completed project!!!!!!

So . . . I'm sure you might remember way back last winter when I posted this idea for a little bench re-do for the kids' room. And then this summer when I posted about it again, having actually started on it? And then I didn't post anything for a long time, simply because after I got the painting and urethaning done, I put the project on the back burner again, having limited time to do the cushion and pillows. Well, I am pleased to announce that FINALLY, I buckled down and got to sewing, and now I can cross this project off my list. :) As of last Monday, it is done, done, done! And I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Here are some shots:

This cushion involved first making my own piping. I got the tutorial for how to do that here (it wasn't hard, just took a little while). And I got the bench cushion tutorial here. It's definitely not perfect, but I'm fine with that.

As for the pillows . . . I scored these cream-colored throw pillows at a yard sale back in September for a dollar each. Yippee!! I then embellished them with leftover fabric. It was a bit different than my original plan, but I actually like it better.

And here's the lowdown on the cost of this project, just because it's fun to keep track of stuff like that. Mind you, this isn't exact, but a rough-ish guesstimate of how much I spent.

Bench: free (old toybox that my Grampa made years and years ago)

Paint: leftovers from other projects

Urethane: no idea, but I didn't use much :)

Fabric: gift from my mom several years ago

Rope (for the piping): maybe a couple dollars for the amount I used?

White fabric for piping: in my stash, bought on clearance at Walmart last year

Red bandana fabric: also in my stash, leftover scraps from another project

Foam for cushion: a little over $7

Batting to cover foam: in my stash, no idea how much it originally cost

Pillows: $2

Total: around $10-12, give or take a little. Not bad, if I do say so myself! :)

I'll admit that I don't know how much this little nook is actually going to get used for its intended purpose. But it does dress up that end of the room, and the kids seem to have fun playing with and on the pillows & cushion, so it's all good. :)

Summer sewing plans

Over the past week or so I've been making a mental list of projects to tackle this summer. At the top of my list, of course, is whipping my house into shape. A little farther down the list are my sewing projects (or the ones I dream of doing)! Just today I stumbled across "Free Pattern Month" at Grosgrain, and . . . oh dear . . . I'm just going to have to download some of these! (Click the button below for more the link.)

Even though I never get as much sewing done as I think I'm going to, I have many lofty goals and ideas. I have tons of free downloaded patterns in a folder on my desktop already, along with a humongous stash of real paper patterns. And a fairly big stash of fabric, as well!

Here is what's on my list (so far) for the summer. It'll be interesting to see how much of this I actually accomplish. :)

• Summer apron for me
• Sleevless shirt for Julia
• Capris for Julia (1-2 pair)
• Skirt for me
• Something to give away on my blog :)
• Cushion and pillows for the bench project in the kids' room (which I haven't even started yet, though I have all the materials!)
• Bedspread for Josiah
• Possibly some stuff to sell on Etsy--burp cloths, nursing covers, etc.--that I've been thinking of trying to do for a while

There are probably more things that haven't come to mind yet, but I think this will give me plenty to keep busy!

A fleece coat for Julia

I got bit by the sewing bug this week. :) Last Sunday we stopped at JoAnn Fabrics so I could pick up some Simplicity patterns (they were on sale--5 for $5). One of the patterns was for this sweet little fleece coat. I was excited because I've been wanting to make Julia a dressier coat for church. On Monday I went to Walmart and picked out some lavender fleece, and by Wednesday--voila! Julia was modeling her new coat. :)
It looks so nice with the crocheted hat and scarf set that her auntie Joanne made her! Here's a close-up of the hat:
She came up with this silly face all by herself . . . I was pleased that I actually captured it on camera. :) I just love this sweet little girl so much!
By the way, the pattern is Simplicity 2745, in case anyone is interested. It went together a lot quicker than I expected, too! I would definitely put this pattern in the easy-moderate category.