wienerdog tricks.

Bring it.

I signed up to commit my soul and self to Wardrobe Refashion's 2-month pledge.

I'm just saying. 

Can't wait to get at that big pile of ready-to-be-cuter stuff right next to my sewing machine. It practically yells at me when I go upstairs. 

This means that I'm committing to keep myself out of the retail shops (which really won't be too hard for me--I got those jeans I really wanted already) and to go at re-making everything that I can get my hands on and then posting about it. Good times.

And some of my friends are very glad that this challenge will keep me from sewing my own underwear.

 

Underwear Goals.

Even though my friend just said, "I don't think the words thrift store and lingerie should ever be used in the same sentence, ever since I saw this (and the 72 other underwear posts up over at the A.C), I've been wanting to sew underwear from my stash of thrifted fabric.Okay, I lied. When I first saw it, I thought RIGHT. LIKE I WOULD EVER SEW THAT. But then it sort of stayed with me. And now I have a full-blown underwear sewing plan.

The real reason for my bitter response was that (as you already know) I am a thrift-shop-materials girl, and the probability that I'd run across Flexible Lingerie Lace seemed ever so skimpy. Until LAST WEEKEND when there I was in a shop I'd never noticed and there it was in a bin screaming for me to buy it. Flexible Lingerie Lace. 45 cents. Triple Yowza. I practically yelled in the store, "Now I can sew some of that underwear!" 

(And please don't miss that the tagline on the package is "It's like pretty underwear.")

I also found some tricky little fake-silkish asian-y fabric that I think is going to make a first rate nightie. Dang pretty. 

Plus, I have three different big chunks (2 yards-ish each at least) of some of that super slick polyester that my godmother's pajamas used to be made out of that I've already made a set from.

So I've got big pj plans too. AND I found a brand new snap setter still in the packaging (okay--so who knows WHEN it was new) so I might just make some fancy snap enclosures at the neck if I can figure out how.

Maybe I'll post the results. But maybe not. 

I know: I'm a tease.

That's Not Just a Stack of Wood Out There In Front of My House.

It's a garden. I swear.

In complete and total praise of craigslist, I finally have the pile I've been waiting for. After pricing out redwood at 47 thousand dollars a board foot, I've been sitting and twiddling my gardening thumbs, waiting for some massive glut in the redwood industry to drive the price down to  . . . like 25 cents a board foot. Or waiting for some way to talk myself into using chemically pressure treated wood for my organic garden. (Good one.) Or for somebody to deliver some perfect scrap wood to my driveway.

Which practically just happened yesterday. Except they didn't deliver it--we schlepped out to a town about 25 miles away and squeezed it into the mini-van along with all our kids. 

I'm dying to build veggie beds and have practically had to practice anxiety breathing techniques to handle not having them out there when it's time to plant already. But then I do a little self-talk and try to calm down.

So far I've gotten from here:

and here:

to here:

and now to here:

and here:

And I've got lettuce and strawberries and lots of herbs and flowers (and even some broccoli starters--it's a nice and cool but not freeze-ish in my neck of the woods) growing happily. But I don't know if you happened to notice the uber-rocky swath on the left. That is what it is still. Which is ugly. And it is going to be non-ugly soon, thanks to the stack of beautiful, aged cedar that I picked up from a guy off craigslist for--Not Kidding--about 40 cents a board foot. And even better than its being cheap (which is really good, actually) it's very very nifty. We drove home with a stack of 2 X 8's that were originally a beach house. Love it. 

I'm going to have wild and crazy food and flower beds there in no time at all, and I will post about my happiness at that time.

In the meantime, how's your gardening life? Sucky. I don't want to talk about it.

Sorry to hear that.

My whole yard is an ugly mess and I don't know where to start.

I totally know how you feel. When we moved in here I was so overwhelmed that we had one of those houses that people would have called the home owner's association about . . .if we lived in one of those places that had a home owner's association. I just decided (after negotiation with my budget spreadsheet for six months over the possibility of hiring Somebody Else to do it) that I would just start at the back of the lot and move to the front. I'm only part way there. Please know that I am so not showing you pictures of the very front of my house right now. That's for next year.

Right. Well, I kill plants.

Me too. So I tackled my non-gardener status just like I've tackled my non-baker and non-sewer status--the library. I started reading my head off about gardening.  The best book I've found (most readable, most useable) is Great Garden Companions. Good pictures. Lots of non-gardener language. Sensible organization. Most of all: you feel like you can go out and do it after you read it and not like you have to be an expert (A note: don't buy this first--or this or whichever one you see all those Real Gardeners in your town flipping through pensively and with a Garden Smart look on their face. You'll never plant anything if you see all those pictures. You'll just sit there and dream about affording a professional landscaper.)

It's all too expensive.

I know. See above. I've only managed that reality by doing a little bit at a time. But I feel your pain. I'm currently  messing with a bed of seeds--which is turning out to be the most gratifying 5 and a half bucks I've spent recently. Those flowers up top are last year's pack of mixed seeds. Good times.

Just do a little to get yourself going. That's what I say.

Totes.

Yesterday I was all about totes. I had the whole day off (well, let's not kid here: I had a sick 7 year old home and a 1 yr old playing with fabric scraps at my feet while I sewed), but still: I COULD SEW! There are so many KINDS of free time, as you know.

So I sewed totes.

Here's the first one, which I have already claimed as a purse, since I am tired of carrying around my camo diaper bag. 

I took my favorite Trader Joe's bag (you know--the cream colored cloth ones) and made a pattern. It was SO EASY. You've probably already done this. Those cloth bags are a super easy pattern to work with because they're just two side panels that connect to a long single piece of fabric. Easy Peasy. (And if this doesn't seem easy, then TELL me and I'll totally post about how to do it.)

The very best thing about this bag is that it's made of that SUPER ROUGH POLYESTER that women wore pants out of in 1973. So really all that can happen to it is that it might melt if I accidentally stand too close to the oven or trip at a bonfire.

The second best thing about this bag is that it's lined. Here's the inside:

But this is the best part: my very own sarcastic commentary sewn right onto my purse. Just right for the moment when somebody annoys me. My purse already says REALLY? Excellent. I'm ready to face the world.

I also made this MEGA TOTE by taking a pattern from this book and exposing it to that same radioactivity that happened on Gillian's Island that made the vegetables huge. And, like the veggies, I'd like to report that the bag turned into something monstrous and strange. Cute though. Who doesn't want a monster beach tote with monkeys designed right into Rich Lady upholstery fabric? C'mon.

The lining is a diamond-patterned SUPER ROUGH POLYESTER (you see I can't get enough of the stuff).

It has a sassy little big outside pocket that appears to have no function beyond style at its current size. (In the smaller version, you're supposed to shove your newspaper in it, I think.) And two smaller ones that actually could help.

So: TOTES! Has everybody already made these and I'm just behind? Probabbbbbbbbllleeeeeeeeee.

I'm going to make another TJ Tote next. I still have more polyester . . .

I will always serve ham with tater tots.

I came to this realization the other night when we had our (belated because of my 8-yr-old's stomach flu) easter ham-orama dinner.

There I was without potatoes. Me: calling my husband with an unnecessarily frantic potato errand. And then I realized: I have TATER TOTS because of this. I know: tater tots are neither 'taters nor tots, but I had them because they are one of the better inventions of the Industrial Food Complex. (Just because I read Michael Pollan doesn't mean I don't eat crap sometimes.)

So I went for it. Because I found that I had this inner conversation about what I should serve and I what I wanted to serve. (I know: you think I think too much.) But I went for it and I have to tell you that I was really happy to see those little taters in my turquoise pyrex bowl. 

And I realized that I need to always serve something sort of funny when I cook for other people. It was a sort of Hostess Valium for me to boldly Not Deliver Perfection. I almost wanted to yell: BRING OUT THE TOTS when I was setting the food out on the table.

So, I think it's going to be something on a stick for my next soiree. (Cheese dogs! Does anybody remember the girls in the red/blue/yellow/white hats at the mall in the 80's who sold the CHEESE DOGS?) Super good idea.

I'm going to have to buy a Fry Daddy.

Way Better Red Shirt.

So I took a man's total Mervyn's-esque long-sleeved waffle shirt and turned it into nicely-fitted goodness for myself.  It was a boxy mess of squared ugliness. But now it fits. I I cut off the sleeves and reattached them so that they're fitted and fancy. And I chopped the long sleeves and made them short. And I took off the ugly beige man buttons and added little ones. And I'm just saying that it's totally cute and that I am addicted to refashioning thrift store clothing for myself. I would totally commit myself here but I need to buy a new pair of jeans and I don't want to have to break a refashioning vow to buy some pants that fit my A right.

So far I have this sinking feeling that if I could just click www.gothteenager.com I'd be able to get the answers to all my refashioning questions. I just know they've had this clothing do-over thing mastered for ages. 

Anyways, while I was sewing this little red number, I was remember having these kind of pajamas when I was like 12. Yes, they did have the button flap in the back. Excellent.

Because apparently after all that Grizzly Adams, Waltons and Dukes of Hazard, I found myself wanting to dress like these guys:

Good one.

Why Adult Ed Rhymes With Sliced Bread, Grasshopper.

So what I really wanted to post today was this amazing step-by-step picture tutorial of how to make a scarf out of an old t-shirt. I mean: it would really just be picture of me cutting something up and then sewing straight lines, but I still thought it might be worth it for somebody that couldn't see the steps in their head.

But then I read this about using only natural light in your photos on your blog (which explains why my children and my made-goods always look so WASHED OUT) and so now I've been waiting to actually get up to my sewing room during hours with natural light. I tend to be sort of a night hog. (That's the offspring of a night owl and a ground hog). So, no pictures.

 

But I've had a couple of things on my mind: the first is that I talked with a mom's group this week about the worth of maintaining your Creative Life while you're up to your neck in your Mom Life. They all nodded, but I could tell they thought I was batty. They all had that You have no idea look in their eye. And then I asked them to share about the state of their creative lives. And this one woman said I have so many unfinished projects. But she said it like she was saying I have so many moles on my A or I have so many unplucked whiskers on my chin. You know--with some sort of Lady Shame.

 

And it led into this discussion (well, that's not true because it was just me jumping up and down and talking excitedly) about how a creative life worth having isn't measured by final products. The goal of a life Making isn't supposed to be about what we make--it's supposed to be about making something. And that the life spent Making is a good life--it's a life where we learn about how screwing things up is inevitable. And that seeing pieces and turning them into whole things is incredibly gratifying. And that any life that includes doing something that we lose time to is a good life. Our souls sort of slow down when we do something that is engaging enough that we stop hovering above ourselves and analyzing our worth (or the size of our butt) while we're doing it and just be able to Do It.

 

Some of them got what I was talking about. Others of them looked at me like they thought I was a really friendly nut job.

 

So that's what's on my mind today since I can't take pictures of my handy dandy turn-a-t-shirt-into-a-scarf project. 

 

Oh--and I also love Adult Ed. It's this wonderful Monday night already negotiated for that means I will be sewing at least once a week. I can't say enough about it. You probably already know Adult Ed is amazing and you're bored reading this. But what if you DIDN'T? Oh my gosh, how sad. What if you thought that Adult Ed was just for people trying to finish high school. It's not. It's full of classes where you make things. And that's a big deal for living a life worth living in my book.

 

It's an appointment with your creative destiny for the gods sakes. Book it.