Sew Expo 2014

Saturday I went to Sew Expo at the Washington State Fairgrounds...I hadn't been in a few years...oh my!  Let's just say I started with a budget and ended with a free for all.

My mom asked me to go because she wanted to take a few classes and wanted company.  Our classes were later in the day, so we spent the morning wandering through 2 massive buildings of vendors.  I was on a mission to find the Bernina stall to try and sort out a problem with a foot I ordered, and as I discussed my problem I happened to spy something wonderful across the aisle.  I have been wanting, dreaming of, drooling over, envying (the list goes on and on) a dress form.  I have read countless reviews, read tutorials for making one, even bought some of the supplies to make one, but hadn't done it.  Now there is no need!  I haven't named her yet, but she is being made and will be on her way to me in about 3 weeks.  She's coming in a standard size (smaller than I am currently), but we took a class from the seller on how to fit her to our sizes exactly (my mom ordered one too).  This is the company that does all the dress forms for Project Runway and Dancing with the Stars.  They have fully collapsible shoulders and are fully pin-able.  The company we bought them from is Fashion Supplies, Inc. and they're French European Dress forms.  What really caught my eye at first was the price.  They were less than 60% of their regular online price (he said their philosophy at these shows is to sell volume, hence the really low price).  Then when I got up close the quality seemed really amazing.  I am so excited!  At first I ordered the dress form (sans legs).  Then I took the fitting class.  As I sat there I really debated spending more to get the form with legs.  After spending quite a bit of time googling and reading more reviews during my next class I caved and went back to change my order to a lady with legs.  I am *hoping* this lady will last me many years to come.

 Padding the ladies with "fluff" will get them to achieve your own shape/measurements.  Then they get covered with a new, tight-fitting spandex cover to smooth all the fluff out.

Of course I was so excited that I forgot to take a picture of the leggy lady that I ordered.  She'll be here soon and I am sure will have a fashion shoot once she arrives.

As for the rest of the Expo, sewing-related items oh-my!  No pictures of all the goodies, but rest assured that sewing-related madness was abundant, and there was even a little yarn thrown in.  In addition to my leggy lady I also bought some fabric, supplies, and 2 wool felt hand sewing kits.

Whew!  I could have used a 2nd day to look around, but then I might have blown my budget by even more.  How does one go to these things and not get out of control?  Many times I think it's just best for me NOT to go.  Apparently I lack a lot of self-control when it's knitting and sewing related!

Instant vs. Delayed Gratification, Discuss

Well the fam started out Sunday morning by jumping out of bed and heading to the Haselwood YMCA for a workout.  This place is so, so much more than a gym.  The kids get to play in the great "playplace", where they even rebraided C's hair this morning because I didn't brush it before we left home (bad mommy!)(although I did brush my own).  They've got a ton of classes, yoga, a pool with lap swimming sections as well as that whole lazy river thing and a few slides.  There are ballet, swimming, dance classes for kids too!  So worth the membership, even if I do only go once or twice a week.

Lately we've been going on a weekend morning as a family.  Today, Big G and I hit the gym.  I guess he did some running and weights.  I, however, tried something new -  a TRX class.  Holy s***.  This was my first time and I knew I was in for it within the first 3 minutes.   The class uses tension straps hanging from the ceiling to do a series of exercises.  Your own body weight becomes your resistance and how you can make it harder or easier.  For someone with a neurological disease, like I do, with really sh***y balance, I found I was able to do all the moves, but one.  It didn't feel like it was hard on my joints, but it gave me a wicked strength workout.  The leg shaking commenced before I made it two steps down the staircase at the end of the workout.  I feel like I've definitely worked out...but I'm thinking that tomorrow I might be in my own private physical hell, where even squatting down to have a pee is an extreme effort.    This I know, is all for my long-term physical health and well-being.  Can't let my muscles go because I don't have the nerve function to build them back up again - thanks CMT1a!  That's the delayed gratification part of my day.

Now for the instant gratification!!!  I decided to participate in Craftaholics Anonymous 2013 Handmade Holiday Gift Exchange (type that twice!).  I actually signed up for both the International and the U.S. only exchange.  I've been paired with two gals - one from Toledo, Ohio, and one from Lithuania.  I've been working on some crafty items as a result.  I've sewn two portable project bags (I'll have to find pics later), and just in the last half hour I started AND finished 2 super-cozy, knit Infinity scarves.  Why do I knit????  Sewing these puppies took mere minutes, plus the cost of the yardage was less than $14 and it made 2 scarves.  When I knit a scarf, even just a cowl, it takes me days/weeks and usually ends up costing me in the range of $20-40 just for the yarn (I am an admitted yarn snob and only go for the good stuff.)  So in less than a half an hour, Scarf#1 and Scarf#2 came into being.

Squishy, cozy, double-wrapped Infinity Scarves.  Aw, fall is definitely here!  Made with some kind of uber-soft, yet unknown knit fabric purchased from my local JoAnn Fabrics.  The color is a little more teal in real life.  Truly instant gratification.

Finished Colette Ginger

Going in chronological order since I last blogged, I should begin with my first trip to Urban Craft Uprising at Seattle Center.  I've been hearing about it for years, first oddly enough from my husband, but last Sunday was the first time I ever went.  I got online to look up the hours and noticed an advert for swag bags for the first 100 people.  Free craft items from indie craft vendors?!  Of course I'm in!  The craft fair opened at 11, but online it said people line up as early as 8:00.  So, what time did we get up on a Sunday so we could hop a ferry to Seattle...wait for it...5am to make the 6:10a.m. ferry!  My husband thought we were crazy, but that's part of the fun.  My friend Jen and I went together.  Thankfully her husband gave us a lift to the ferry.

Knitting time while waiting in line at Urban Craft Uprising.

Grammy is still here and we took C for her 2nd big girl haircut last week.  I just love the fancy braids they do!  She'll sit still as an angel for someone else, but it's all squirmy and whiny when mommy tries something like this.

Western Washington is enjoying fantastically nice weather, and G and I made it to a Seattle Sounders soccer game on Saturday.  The mornings have been starting off with some marine fog, but consistently clearing out to full sun by lunchtime.

And finally, I FINISHED a pattern this morning.  The Colette Ginger skirt.  It's been cut and partially sewn for several weeks.  I thought I had to wait for an invisible zipper foot to arrive, but I instead found a nice tutorial for putting in my first invisible zipper with a regular zipper foot.  The skirt turned out a tad large, but I think it's because I'm still losing baby weight and I lost a little bit more while waiting for zipper insertion.  It's also a test run of this pattern for me, so not the end of the world.  Still very wearable.  I've got some flat photos, but will have to wait until I have a shower and am out of my jammies for a modeled shot!

Up close, small flowery print.

First invisible zip seems pretty invisible.

Her "guts".

Pattern: Colette Ginger, plain wasteband
Fabric:  hmmm...a mostly cotton woven with a little stretch in it?
Size: I'll have to run upstairs and look later.
Mods: shortened it by about 3 inches.  Finished length is 19".

Modelled shots to come.

Gonna try for a closer fit next time.

Butterfly Tofino Pants

Boo!  Just lost my last post somehow.  This will be a quick replacement.  Happy 4th to all, we're off to the beach shortly for fireworks and BBQ.

I almost finished a pair of Sewaholic's Tofinos this morning.  I had all the links in my first post.  I'll write this, then see if I can edit the links in after.  All that's left is threading the elastic through the waist casing, hemming them, and finding some black fabric to make the tie out of.  Woot, almost done!

Pattern: Sewaholic Tofino Pants & Shorts
Fabric: Enchanted Rainforest, Maywood Studios

I cut a straight size 10 based on my largest measurement.  They're pretty darn big on me.  Probably should have cut an 8, or even a 6.  I'm not too worried though, they're lounge pants after all!  This was my first time adding piping.  Not hard at all.  I am working on improving my finishing techniques - did pretty well on all my seams here, I think.  I will finish these shortly and add a picture of them in use.   A note about the fabric: I bought this in the sale section of Pacific Fabrics...I thought it was really loud and  obnoxious, but perfect for PJ bottoms.  It's grown on me a lot and I went back and bought enough for a skirt yesterday.  Did I mention that one of my science kits I teach in 2nd grade is butterflies?  I don't generally try to match my curriculum, but it's 2nd grade for pete's sake and the kids'll think that I'm the coolest in my butterflies!

Pattern Weights

Ha!  Finally followed through with another Pinterest idea and made my own pattern weights.  I saw this a month or so ago and bought all the stuff, but didn't actually follow through until yesterday.  Little G was napping and big sis was my "helper".  I've been using them to trace a pattern off this morning and I really like both the weight (3 washers) and the nice flat stability of the 2" washer.  I thought they might be too big, but I like them.

 I wrapped 3 washers with leftover 3/8" ribbon I had on hand.  The one thing I did notice is that the washers have a slightly rounded side and a completely flat side with a sharper outer edge.  I made sure that I turned the rounded edge out on both the top and bottom of my stack.  I thought this would be better for delicate fabrics and such.

 I did anywhere between 8 and 10 wraps around the washers then secured it with a very fancy knot.  Done!

 This is what I used.  I bought 2 boxes.  I still have one box to make.  I should end up with 13 pattern weights which seems like a good number.

Putting them to use this morning!  I only have Little G with me this morning.  Big Sis is at Grandma's playing with the cousins.  I take it there was a lot of water and ice cream at Grandma's house...finally we're feeling the summer weather.  I think it might hit 90 today!  That's crazy for us PNWers.

And these are the 2 very busy reasons mom's sewing and crafting go so slowly!

100% Pendleton Wool stash enhancement

I was down in Vancouver on Tuesday visiting my cousin and her daughter.  They're family is about to move cross country to Virginia.  They're originally from CA and have been living in WA since January...3 1/2 hours away from us...I hadn't visited yet.  So, I figured I should visit before they left the state.  The kids were super-trouper travelers and slept most of the way South on the highway.  Our plan to take all the kids to the park to play evaporated in the midst of what we call "summer" in Western WA (warmer rain than usual).  I suggested we see if we could squish all 3 car seats across the back of the Subaru and take a short drive.  We ended up at the Pendleton Wool Mill Store in Washougal, WA.  They've been weaving wool fabric there since the 1860s, I think the sign said.  I've been visiting since I was a toddler...H-A-T-E-D stopping there as a kid, now I inflict it upon my own kids!

The fabric area had gotten smaller and smaller every time I go and the RTW clothing has greatly expanded.  In the one tiny corner of yardage that remained I did find 3 rolling bins of remnants, some as big as 5 yards, that were all $5.99 a yard.  I ended up with 9 pieces of fabric, all 100% wool, all 60" wide.

 These 4 are the lightest way of the pieces.  Probably shirting-type weight?  Anyway clockwise from the top-left are a brown/blue plaid, a medium gray with darker gray and rust plaid stripes, a black/white plaid (looks gray in the picture) and a heathered tan-colored piece.

These 3 pieces are somewhat heavier in weight.  The top is an antique white solid, the bottom right is a blue/gray/black plaid that I do remember is washable, and the bottom left is a dark gray.

These 2 pieces are wool crepe.  The top is close to a deep purple and is quite a small piece, a little over 1/2 a yard.  I have plans for that to become a jumper for C for Lad & Lassie Lead at the county fair in August...she'll have to learn to lead a sheep around before that.  The bottom piece is solid black crepe, 3 yards.  I'm kicking myself because they were 5 yards of the piece and I took only 3.  Why didn't I just get all??  Duh!

The 2 kiddoes are telling me it's lunch time...

Grainland Select, Bay View State Park, & Dairyland Milk

What do those all have in common?  My last few days and then some.  School was out a week and a half ago, but I went in and continued to work, clean, & plan until Thursday of last week.  I'm planning on going in to school a lot over this summer to sort, organize, and plan for next year.  I have a new 2nd grade teaching partner and we have a nice spark going that I think will totally energize my planning.  We've already decided that we are going to start by building a "gingerbread village" in our classrooms at the beginning of the year.  It's an interdisciplinary math/social studies/reading/writing unit that I am  modifying to address a huge number of the new Common Core standards.  Whew!  That's where the Dairyland milk cartons come in...and juice cartons and anything else that is either a quart or half gallon cardboard container.

I need to collect 180 of those cartons over the summer and transform them into potential homes and businesses for our village.  I've been hitting up local coffee shops as well as buying all my milk & juice in that size carton...  I wash and rinse each one, cut one side off with a razor, then measure and score the piece so that I can use the hot glue gun to stick it back in place as the 2nd story.  The kids will be buying additional building materials to decorate their houses ($ skills).  For 2 classes of kids I think it's going to take about 180 of these "building"!  11 down...169 to go!

Friday last week we packed up and headed North to camp at Bay View State Park.  First camping trip with both kids.  They had a great time, played with their cousins, built sand castles, and sat at the edge of the bay and pulled handfuls of eel grass!  What more can kids ask for?

My sister happened to have a great beach toy bag that my mom had given her.  It was an empty chicken grain sack that she'd sewn into a large bag.  I stopped by Grandmas on Monday to have her babysit the kids for the day, and I collected a few feed sacks of my own.  They're made of a woven, poly kind of materials.  They're super sturdy and waterproof.  Last night I tried my hand at upcycling them to a beach bag of my own.  I added a squared, box bottom to the bag, put binding tape around the top of the bag, then cut apart a second bag to make handles (no handles on my sister's version).  I can see why Grandma chose not to sew on handles.  These are great bags and the material feels indestructible, but sewing with it is completely unfun!  It is super stiff, crinkly-loud, difficult to manipulate, and just a bitch to deal with.  I have enough materials to make a second bag and I'd rather not, but I should probably just power through and do it today and then never make another one.

Here's my version.  It's probably 3 feet tall and should hold our collection of sand toys.  I'm hoping the handles are up for hauling toys too and from the beach.  I reinforced them as I sewed them in.  These feed sacks are used to holding 50lbs. of cracked corn, so a few beach toys shouldn't be too much?

I'll have to write another post, but I also have some sewing info. to add to the blog.  I drove down to Vancouver, WA to see a cousin who's moving next week.  Sadly the rain cancelled our planned trip to the park, and I suggested we head over to the Pendleton Woolen Mills in Washougal, WA instead.  I may have bought upwards of 20 yards of 100% Pendleton wool.  They had a great remnants bin that I pulled a lot of fabric out of.  Everything in the bin was $5.99/yard!  I had to stop myself from buying even more, but as it was I still got quite a bit.

Felt Crowns ala Pinterest find!

I had a fun and productive Saturday yesterday.  I started out early heading to school to work on report cards and furniture moving and arrangement.  (Note: Long story shortish.  Our school is quite decrepit and old.  We had a ground breaking last week and the day after a construction fence went up closing down our playground for the last 2 weeks of school.  A little over a year from now we will have a new school!  In the interim I went 'shopping' in some retiring teacher's classrooms and scored myself a great u-shaped teaching table.  The downside was that all the furniture swapping has to happen NOW, not after school is out, so that the excess furniture can be more out of the building before construction commences.)

By the time I got home we had a houseguest for the remainder of the day/evening.  A friend's 6 year old needed last minute babysitting so they could go to the Seattle Sounders game (awesome, come-from-behind-winning game by the way!!!!).  While Big G took the 2 bigger kids to the park, Little G and I had a nap and did a little Pinterest browsing.  I came across a fun and simple double-layer felt crown.  How fun and easy!  I pulled out the machine and headed to the basement to find my stash of left-over Halloween costume felt.  I drew out a pattern, cut my first layer of felt, sewed it to a long skinny contrasting layer of felt, stitched around the outline of the cut piece, and finally trimmed away all the excess from the rectangle piece.

I had read on the Pinterest crown that it was easier to just cut out one layer, sew it to a rectangle, then trim the excess, than it was to cut out 2 layers and get them all matched up.  I decided to sew both crowns with contrasting colors of felt: blue/green for our boy guest, and 2 colors of pink for C.  I added one line of decorative stitching for C's crown.  She hasn't taken it off yet, which makes mommy feel happy.

All in all, I was super happy to have taken one of the bazillion Pinterest ideas that I pin and turn around and create it in under an hour!

 The crown is reversible to either the light pink or fuschia side.  C's crown is secured with velcro and should fit for quite awhile.  The blue/green crown I connected with a piece of elastic and is also reversible.  It went home late last night with our houseguest and I didn't get any final pics snapped before bedtime.

Serger!!!

In fantastic news, I am the new owner of a slightly used, Bernina 1300MDC serger!  A serger was my Mother's Day/Birthday present, so I've been doing some research.  I thought I would buy a new, middle of the road Bernina, however, one night last week G and I were trolling Craigslist looking for antique furniture.  I decided to type in "serger" and up popped a very slightly used Bernina.  After a ferry trip and a little bit of a drive up to Everett, me met up with a very nice woman and her serger.  For her it was somewhat of an impulse buy last year, as she already had 2 other sergers, and she found that she wasn't using it.  I was more than happy to take it off her hands!  Here she is - I am so giddy with excitement I feel like giving her a name, maybe Bertha or Helga (something that evokes a 'workhorse' kind of image, which is what I'm hoping she'll be).

She came with every original part, plus all her manuals, and even a DVD of the sewing class Bernina offers to all new owners, the one thing I'll miss by buying second hand.  For the $1200+ I saved of the retail cost I think it's worth it.  

As you can tell from the picture, she isn't set up as of yet...I may have to hold my horses a little bit before she goes into action.  G is still sanding drywall, as I type this, and hopefully next weekend the sewing room will get a coat of paint.  I can set up on the dining room table in the meantime, but I'm not sure it's worth it.  My 2 helpers under the age of 3 would wreak havoc out of any kind of temporary sewing set up.  Plus I actually work 5 days this coming week (!) and we'll be staying at Grandma's for the whole week.  I'll keep busy at her house working on putting my purple and green skirt back together.

In other news, while G was upstairs sanding, and little G was sleeping this morning, C and I went outside to stain the gate.  C had a can of her stain (water) and I had mine.  In about 90 minutes I had both sides of the new gate, some fence post caps, and the last driveway post stained.  Ahhh...just one fence gate and one driveway gate left to be built and then stained, and then the fencing project will be complete!

And what can I say?  Joann's had a pattern sale again this week.  Vogue were on sale for $3.99.  As cheap as I've seen them, so, as you can guess, more patterns.  Oddly enough, not all of them are Vogue.  I think I grabbed one Simplicity and one McCalls that I had seen and coveted in blogland.  I seem to have taken the attitude that if I like it, I should get it because the next time it's likely to be gone.

Excuse the upside down picture.  I've got 2 kids in the room with me and I want to get this post finished!

In quick succession they are:

V1247 - Rachel C0Mey (?) - shirt and skirt for wovens

V1298 - Rachel C0Mey (?) - lightweight wovens

V1169 - Rebecca Taylor - tailored suit!

V1218 - Donna Karan Collection - rayon spandex

V8499 - Marcy Tilton Wearable Art - skirt and pants

V8815 - Very Easy shirt with a peplum.   I may try out the peplum trend, maybe.

Simplicity 2246 Lisette Traveler Shirt Dress

M5974 - Classic Fit, the Perfect Knit Dress, knit wrap dress with ties

I can't help thinking that I am accumulating a lot of patterns in a short time without actually having sewn anything.  All in good time I hope!  I've got 12 more days of teaching, a few days to clean up my classroom, and then I hope to be able to do some sewing, even with 2 kiddoes underfoot for the summer.