Sewing to Summer – Project#1

Milk & Honey Mommy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:18:51 +0000

So, here it is. This is the fabric piece that is going to go from being absolutely nothing to a fabulous something. I will tell you that the piece of clothing is going to become something for Lily. The question is, will it be a top, a bottom, or a full body something?

* What do you think?*

You can read more about my Sewing to Summer project. If you would like to link-up, then do so here. Please include a picture of the fabric you are using and any ideas if you know what it will become. Also, if you would like, then share pictures of your sewing area. I sew everywhere in my house because I don’t have a dedicated space. It may be time to make one since I’ll be sewing to summer.

If you would like (although not required), then feel free to grab a button to include in your post or side bar.

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Enter the link that goes directly to your Sewing to Summer post. Remember to come back on Monday, February 20 to reveal your completed final project. There will also be a giveaway of a $10 gift card to either Hancock Fabrics or JoAnn’s Fabrics (winner’s choice) for the people who link up their final project on February 20.

Sewing to Summer

Milk & Honey Mommy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:15:17 +0000

I have to say…I originally started this plan last year. I was excited and the expectation of having a nice wardrobe of summer clothes and making room in my house was more than enough motivation. At least, that is what I thought. Well, I did manage to make a few clothes (or rather finish projects I already started) like these here and this one here too, but my big ideas and dreams of starting and finishing several pieces of clothing before the arrival of summer was just that; a dream.

I like to sew. I’m not a seamstress. I just like to sew. Because I like to sew, that means I like to collect fabric and I like to collect a lot of fabric. When I moved across country, I brought two very large boxes of fabric with me along with a couple of full bolts (flats and tubes) of fabric that at the time of purchase, I envisioned making…hmm, something really cool, but I don’t remember what now.

So here I sit, almost three years after the move, still surrounded by boxes and a few more boxes of fabric. Since we don’t have space like we use to, I know something has to be done and quickly before I am forced to “toss and suffer the loss.” This got me thinking and I came up with a plan.

Most of the fabric I have is light-weight, like for spring and summer clothing. In the midst of rainy days, freezing temperatures, and weekly snow warnings of snow that never comes, but really should because it’s so darn cold, I decided I’m going to fight back! It may be winter outside, but inside with my sewing machine and me, all I can see are summer days ahead.

This is what my closet looks like right now. It’s empty (at least this section). By the time summer really arrives, I expect this area to be full of summer clothes. I am going to sew through my fabric piles until there is nothing left or until summer arrives. Either way, I’ll have a new wardrobe, more space in my house, and ~~an excuse~~ a justifiable reason to buy more fabric after everything is sewn.

Here are a few pieces in my stash. Do you see why I couldn’t give these away? I don’t know what, but they are going to make nice whatever they become, ‘tops, bottoms, or full body somethings’ when they are finished. I have decided there will be no pressure. I will sew at my leisure, but am committed to keep going until all of it is a piece of clothing. Just think, if I could finish something each week until summer, then I would have more than 25 new pieces of clothing. Yes, I have that much fabric and more.

Ahh, I learned my lesson last year. So, the new plan is to complete at least ONE sewing project a month until summer arrives which is Wednesday, June 20.

This is where YOU come into the picture. If you have some sewing projects you want to start, continue, or finish, then let’s hang out together for the next few months and see what we can accomplish through June. I am going to have a link-up each month on the following dates: 2/20, 3/20, 4/20, 5/20, and the final date 6/20. On each date, we are going to share something we have sewn and finished. It can be an article of clothing, home design, craft, or some other project that involves sewing and using up pieces of fabric that you have. I know there will be slip-ups along the way where you may purchase fabric and instead of reducing your stash you add to it. Believe me, that is fine and I totally understand. You just have to use one (or more – share as many projects as you want) of your fabric pieces.

Every once in a while, Lily will reap the benefits of my efforts and River and Canyon might even see something come out of it for themselves. Nothing can stop me now. I just need to remember to keep my fingers (and thumb) out of the way.

If you’re ready to see my first project, then take a look.

You can grab one of the cute “Sewing to Summer” buttons below to use on your blog sidebar and posts if you like, but it isn’t required for you to participate. I’m just hoping this will motivate others as I am motivated to finally sew up a few of my fabric piles.

Are you ready to link up? Click here!

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The Forever {to Make} Dress

Milk & Honey Mommy — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:47:18 +0000

I feel like I’ve been talking about this dress forever. When I looked back on previous posts in this section, then I realize that I have been talking about this dress forever. It could be because it seems like it took me forever to make.Well, I’m done. I finished it a while ago, but I never shared any pictures with you of Lily wearing her new dress. If you know Lily, then you know that it is quite difficult to have her just stand in one place (and be quiet). She has to either sing or dance.

Sometimes, it is both and she doesn’t just sing for you, but she sings for anyone within a three mile radius to hear. She is just that considerate.

Well, this dress made her want to just dance and dance she did.

I didn’t want her hair to be bare so I made her a matching head band to wear. It hasn’t spurred the crafty hair-bow making magic in me, but I’m sure I’ll make a few more hair accessories for her before she turns 18.

I love her in dresses and am going to have to get an earlier start for next spring and summer because it took me so long to make this one. Dance on Lily! Mommy will give you something to really dance about next year.

Just in Time for the End of Summer

Milk & Honey Mommy — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 02:05:38 +0000

Well, I am happy to say that I did finish and with about 22 more days of summer to go. One thing that is good about living on this side of the map is that it will be warm enough for at least one, maybe two more months for Lily to wear the dress. After taking a look at it almost two months ago, I set the dress down again and every time I went to my sewing closet, there is was staring me hard in the face. I didn’t like that especially since the dress won the stare-down.

I have been trying to go through my fabric piles and sew up what I have before buying anything new. That is the same for any notions (buttons, thread, etc.), so instead of buying buttons special for this dress, I dug into my bag of loose buttons and found these for her to choose from to go on her dress. I use to buy buttons (like one buys shoes to go with something they’ll later buy) because they were pretty. So along with my bag of loose buttons I also have another big bag of buttons that are still on their cards waiting for that perfect outfit they will adorn.

She chose this pair. I liked another, but after sewing them on the dress, her dress, I thought she made an excellent decision.

I really like how the top-stitching turned out on this dress. It still looks dressy with its gaudy gold top-stitching.

I use to double-fold my seams where there would be no raw edges showing anywhere, but sergers just make it too easy, save a lot of time, and still give me that neat look I like underneath the dress.

It must look just as good on the inside as it does on the outside.

This is what it looks like on the outside. Lily will be wearing the dress to church on Sunday so I’ll have a picture of her in it. Anticipation. I just can’t wait, but I will.

It’s About Time

Milk & Honey Mommy — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:42:59 +0000

It’s about time that I finish this dress for Lily. I started making it last summer with the anticipation of her wearing it with her pretty brown strapless sandals. The dress is still here waiting on me, but the sandals are about ready to be tossed in the trash because she has worn them to the point of the straps coming apart from the shoe. They were really cute sandals and they would have been even cuter worn with this dress.

The pins have even managed to stay in place keeping the fabric together just waiting for me to sew a few more stitches. I made the dress one size larger than it needed to be so she could get two years of wear out of it. Well, if I don’t finish it this year, then she will not get any years of wear.

My signature top-stitching is always to be found. Although this is a dress, it did not escape the top-stitching. Not too many pieces of clothing, no matter how dressy or fancy, manage to escape my need to top-stitch. I think that urge came about long ago when I use to make my jeans. Yes, I actually use to make my jeans. The pattern was a designer Vogue pattern. I made some pretty good looking jeans and ohhhhhh the top-stitching.

Well, back to this dress. I guess I’ll go ahead and finish it so she can wear it before the winter chill begins.

In the Event of Rain – {How to Make Seedling Pots}

Milk & Honey Mommy — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:57:17 +0000

For the past few weeks, we have had 80+ degree weather, but we have also been having a little bit of this. Actually, it has been a lot of this (you might have heard about it in the news). Our planting area that was weed whacked and ready now again looks like a jungle. Fortunately, our area has not been hit as hard by the spring storms, but we have quite a few scenes like this throughout our yard. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this is not planting ground for anything.

This area can be seen from a window in our home. Lily calls it her rain puddle. When she wants to know if it is raining AGAIN, she peers out to her puddle and if she sees little raindrops bouncing on it, then she knows it is raining. She started doing this because you know sometimes just looking out the window into open area can be deceptive. She has been doing a lot of weather forecasting with the help of this puddle and it keeps telling her rain is here for a while.

With that, we had to make other gardening plans which included a trip to the local garden/feed/gasoline/horse supply/auto repair store and pick up some seeds. We had already planned to plant some seeds this year, but we were also hoping we would have some potted plants (herbs) already in the ground.

We have decided to grow some vegetables along with our herbs. On our way to the store where we got the seeds, we discovered that the town florist and gardening center that closed its doors last year has reopened with new ownership and they have so many vegetables that we can’t wait to plant.

While Lily and I continued to look for a few seeds, River and Canyon got a little sidetracked, way on the other side of the store, and ended up perusing through the John Deere and Bob Cat tractor toys. I was able to bring them back to the mission at hand and we found seeds we wanted and headed home.

I knew one day these tubes would come in handy. I used to save yogurt containers too, but now it is just toilet and paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, and caps from our drink products. They are so hard to throw away because I know there is at least one more use in life for all of those items.

Foil tray, toilet paper rolls, seeds, soil, bowls for soil, scissors, and spoons for scooping the soil are all you need to start building a “garden” indoors in anticipation of the day the rain stops.

The plants we are starting from seeds this year are corn, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, and beans. I was looking at the days to germination (number of days before they sprout) which is not that bad, but it is the day of maturity that I hope I have patience for with the beans being the shortest (58 days) and pumpkin being the longest (110 days). It is because of this that most of the other things we plan to grow this year will be close to ready to use – from pot to ground to my mouth.

We cut one end of each tube about 1.5″ down each side and into about .5″ strips all the way around. Then we folded each strip across the diameter of the tube. The bottom folded nice and neat, but when we placed the tube to stand, it didn’t balance well.

River figured out that by folding the strips back into the inside of the tube, they balanced better and didn’t fall over. Before you put the soil in the tube, just push the strips down toward the bottom a bit so you don’t lose too much soil through the openings in the strips.

Canyon got frustrated for a moment while he was cutting his tube, but then…

he figured out something a little more fun to do with his tube and just like that everything was all better again.

Not missing an opportunity of making this a full curriculum project, I threw in a little multiplication and division with River figuring how many tubes we had and also how many tubes all four of us would get to fill. Folks, I tell you, I am raising a genius.

Everyone got their own bowl of soil because that is just necessary when you have three little people.

I even labeled the tubes because I knew I would get confused, which I did even after I marked them.

We put three heaping teaspoons of soil in the bottom of each tube…

…placed the seed on the soil, and then covered the seed with two more heaping teaspoons.

Before putting the seedling pots into the aluminum tray, I put an old cloth (or paper towel will do) to catch the water and help keep the pots moist without having to water each tube individually.

We placed the pots in the tray and they are ready for watering.

We added a bit of water to each seedling to get them going.

Now all we have to do is wait, and wait, and wait some more.

A little green house effect going on here.

For now, this is how our garden grows. Hopefully we will be able to put potted plants in the ground in the next few weeks and thereafter be able to add these seedlings to our growing garden.

There is nothing better than a challenge and I am participating in the HSV Garden Challenge as I weed and nurture my garden. If you don’t mind getting a little soil under your fingernails and a few rocks in your shoes, then join in the fun and grow a little something in your yard (or on your window sill).

Ya’ll Invited to a Hoe Down

Milk & Honey Mommy — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:40:46 +0000

Ya’ll welcome to come to a hoe-down. I guess I should probably rephrase that for one because although I live in Tennessee, I don’t talk like that and for another, I am going to need more than a hoe to get this work done. Would you like to come to a “weed dig?” The reason I ask is because right now, my working area looks like this and before I start planting anything whether it be seeds or potted plants, somebody is going to have to dig up all of these weeds.

Hmm! I thought looking at it from a different angle would make it look a little better, but I don’t think it’s working. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. This area hasn’t always looked this bad.

In fact, last year when I planted my herb garden, it looked “right nice” after an afternoon of digging and pulling and digging a little more. I was able to see a lot of dirt and I even picked out the small stray green pieces of stuff that always seem to hang around reminding you that its relatives will be growing back in just a few “minutes.”

In the midst of all of this green are some viable plants (and probably some of the crop from last year), but the novice gardener in me was a bit confused and couldn’t figure one ~~weed~~ plant from another until…

I spotted this.

Along with the herbs I planted last year, I also planted blueberries because I absolutely love them and can’t wait to make some more of these muffins because they are so darn good. Seeing this growth is all I need to motivate me to get started with my digging and weeding. I think I am going to stick with what I know and do another planting season with herbs and if my blueberries return, then I’ll be one happy chick. After all, when you have neighbors like these, then I get to sit back and enjoy their overflow.

Last year, the children got to choose some plants to grow. Each one had a great time caring for their plant. This year, we plan to choose a few plants and start some seeds because they have never had the experience of caring for a plant from seed to bud to leaf.

Ah, the invitation still stands if you want to help me weed. I’ll even feed ya’ well. My kids work hard so it might be a good time for all.

Sewing Up Some Loose Ends

Milk & Honey Mommy — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:00:46 +0000

These pants have been hanging around since, well, I think it has been since last year. It all started during a weekend sewing frenzy. I felt like making something and I figured I would whip up some flannel pants for everyone because it was cold. If I had stayed on track, then I would have finished everything that weekend, but of course, I got distracted with that project. I got distracted just as I did after I started this project. That happens to me a lot.

Since spring is coming – really, really it is – I figured I better go ahead and finish these pants before spring came, summer passed, and everyone outgrew them. I finished mine earlier this year and I have been loving the feel of them ever since that day. It has been nice having a pair of warm pajamas to get into every evening.

There! See, that wasn’t so hard. All I had to do was just do it and now they’re finished. Since I originally only bought fabric for pajamas for Canyon, Canyon is wearing the bottoms and I used the fabric that would have been his top to make a pair of shorts for River. He didn’t need longs like the rest of us. River is my child who would wear shorts in a snow storm if I let him.

Lily’s pants are made out of a remnant I bought hoping it would be enough fabric to make something out of it. I liked the message and knew it would be cute on her whatever I had enough fabric to make. After sorting through patterns, I finally found one where the pants would be longs and not bell bottoms. Canyon’s, Lily’s, and my (even after several washings) pants all almost drag the floor in length. I like warm pajama pants like that.

Oh yeah! I think they’re really going to enjoy them maybe into early summer too.

Sewing to Summer – Project #1

Milk & Honey Mommy — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 04:57:20 +0000

Do you remember my Sewing to Summer project I started last week? Well, I remember it too. Although I remember it, I have nothing to show for it other than this picture here. You see, this is as far as I got during the past week. My whatever it is I’m going to make is cut out and ready to be sewn.

As usual, I got distracted and decided to finish up a pair of flannel pants I started a while back because it is so “frigidy-diggity” cold here. I still have summer on my mind, but I have cold on my body. The bitter cold won and I’ve been looking through my fabric piles in the hope of finding some warmer fabrics.

I am not finding anything other than a whole lot of flannel. So in between working on my Sewing to Summer projects, I am going to squeeze in a few more flannel pants. A girl can never have too many pair of flannel pants.

After wearing these for more years than I care to remember, it is time to replace them and stop walking around like I am waiting on a flood. They shrunk two inches after the first wash and the coordinating top that convinced me to buy the outfit in the first place was left with mid-arm length sleeves after the first wash. I have no idea where that top is and I am about to lose these pair of pants too!

Come back next week and I should have two completed projects to reveal.

Sewing to Summer

Milk & Honey Mommy — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:08:00 +0000

When I went to Georgia last year to help clean out my Grandparent’s home, I brought back with me more fabric that I had collected during my years in college. I did manage to leave a few pieces for donation, but the others, enough for another box full, came back home with me.

My parents found some fabric that I had collected and left at their home. Rather than give it away, they boxed it up and shipped it to me because they know I like to collect fabric.

So here I sit surrounded by boxes and a few more boxes of fabric. They’re everywhere and I need a solution to getting them out of my house. We don’t have space like we use to. I knew something had to be done and quickly before I was forced to “toss and suffer the loss.” This got me thinking and I came up with a plan.

If you’re ready to see my first project, then take a look.

Behind the Lens today in our lives: Sewing to Summer Project #1