How to Fit the Pattern Pieces Back in the Envelope

I am definitely not the originator of this idea; I came across it awhile ago on the internet but don't remember where.  However, it is so useful that I hope it's okay to reshare it, in the interest of helping others struggling like me to get their patterns back into the envelope.

I usually trace my patterns.  I like to preserve the original pattern, plus I just find it easier to make any alterations or notations on my traced pattern piece.  I use a sharp pencil and thin tracing paper that I ordered here.  Sunni at A Fashionable Stitch has an explanatory tutorial on How to Trace Sewing Patterns, if you want more information on that. She also sells the necessary supplies.

After I finish tracing the pattern pieces I will be using, I lay the tissue sheets out flat on top of each other and fold them until they are slightly narrower than the length of the pattern envelope.  (This will work even if you cut out the tissue sheets themselves.  Just lay them out as flat as you can and start folding.)

I have a clear ruler that is slightly less than the width of the pattern envelope. You can use anything you have that would be the appropriate size.  I lay this ruler on the tissues and start folding inward.

Here are the sheets all folded up:

And here they are nicely stuffed back in the envelope:

Voila!

This sure beats my old method of painstakingly trying to find and match the original fold lines, or giving up and cramming the tissue into the envelope in frustration.

New Look 6096 -- Bohemian Dress

Are you up for some sewing posts?  I have a few things I did before Christmas that I would like to share.

First up is New Look 6096, the long-sleeved View A.  This pattern was chosen by my lovely daughter (tip: if you are sewing for a teenager and you want them to actually wear it, THEY need to pick the pattern or the fabric).  She liked the style of that dress, and I happened to have some fabric in my stash that I thought would work. Because this fabric was from the thrift store, I'm unsure of the fabric content, but it is thin and cotton-esque -- think about lawn-weight (lawn the fabric!) or slightly heavier.

I made a size ten, adding length to the sleeves and the dress.  My daughter is long and lean (5'9"), so this is pretty much a standard adjustment for us.  I had never made anything quite like this.  The sleeves are actually part of the bodice.  There is elastic around the sleeves, the neckline, and the waist.  The skinny bow at the waist is merely decorative.

A view of the back:

I have to say this is one of the easiest dresses I have made so far (even though the pattern itself is not designated "easy").  Her brothers teased her about looking like she was from the 60s, but I love how it looks on my daughter.  It also looks great with a jeans jacket thrown on top.

I am also happy that I finally figured out how to use this loop turner:

I have had this for awhile and never got the hang of it, but this time I realized that you have to get it started (vs. just giving it a yank, which always resulted in tearing the fabric).  But once I got it started,  it turned the narrow trim for the tie in probably five seconds flat.  AMAZING!  Now that I have figured  out the secret, I LOVE this tool:)

Toy-Making (and Other Gifts)

Christmas (and birthdays and other special days) always seems to catch me by surprise.  I'm one of those people that is not born with a good sense of time (my husband will agree with this:).  Every year I have lots of ideas of making gifts, but realistically I need to work on those ideas starting in May, and in May I'm usually busy thinking of other things.

My daughter, however, is wonderfully creative, productive and efficient, and not hampered with the curse of procrastination.  She had another good year of Christmas gift-giving.  In a matter of two weeks or so, she made three stuffed toys.  All of them were from the book Wild and Wonderful Fleece Animals by Linda Carr.  This is a great book.  My daughter has made most of the animals in the book, (including a duck, walrus, penguin, dog, and a pig) and they have all turned out looking fabulous. 

Here are the three she made this past December, all destined for younger relatives:

A Panda

A Leopard

A Brown Bear

A better look at the bear's face

Then she also knitted this sweet baby for a little cousin:

Sleeping Baby

This little baby was made from the Snuggle Dolly pattern by Tina, who blogs at Tea and Woolly Socks.  The only change my daughter made was to convert the flat pattern to knitting in the round because that is what she prefers.

And look at the present I received from my friend Elizabeth of MrsThomasinaTittlemouse fame:

It's a wonderful zippered pouch to keep on-the-go projects in. I promptly filled it with my long-suffering hexagons and took it on my cross-country journey, where I was able to sew hexagons together in the car.  Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for your gift and also for your thoughtfulness xx

Christmas Wrap-Up

The month of December slipped by in a blur of sickness, so that I felt like there was little more than a week to prepare for Christmas festivities.  The only goodies that got made were chocolate covered pretzels and sausage balls.  The peanut butter balls and coconut balls will have to wait for another special occasion.  No outside lights got put up, either.  But we did have our tree, and as I've said before, for myself I prefer the grinchy look, so the tree was well-adorned in round, colored lights.

Our stockings also were hung with care.

After months of parched conditions, a deluge, accompanied by thunder and lightning, erupted the night of Christmas Eve.  An empty five-gallon bucket on our back patio was filled to overflowing with rainwater by Christmas morning!  Despite Christmas morning beginning with a rainy 50 degrees, by early afternoon we had this:

My three youngest in the front yard

A White Christmas is truly a magical gift.

View from the front door

Here are my sheep, Mocha and Latte, who enjoyed the snow a lot more than they enjoyed the rain.

This is the most picturesque my backyard has ever looked:)

The stockings were pushed to the side to make room for a cozy fire.

The next day we had to make a two-day road trip east to see family.  My older two stayed behind to work. The rest of us drove through an entire day of this:

Along the roadside in Arkansas

It truly looked like Narnia, so beautiful and surreal, and the roads were perfectly clear ---- until we got near Little Rock, Arkansas.  There they were so treacherous--cars were in the ditch everywhere -- that an 8 hour drive turned into 12 hours.  We found out later that parts of Arkansas got 10-15 inches of snow.

Anyway, we made it to see our families.  I hated to leave my older boys behind, but I think they were glad to miss the four days cooped up in the car.  It ended up being good visits with everyone, though sleeping was another issue;)

Now I am home and trying to catch up on everyday life, which has included absolute mountains of laundry and a general cleaning out of closets and drawers.  January does push us to make a fresh start each year, doesn't it?

Soup for What Ails You

Last week was a week of sickness in my house.  A horrible stomach virus made the rounds, beginning with my husband, who ended up with a brief stint in the emergency room getting rehydrated.  All the kids that got it (four of them!) faired slightly better and got well at home, but while it lasted it was miserable.  The patients were left feeling weak for several days.

Only two of us, my just-turned-18-year-old son and I, escaped unscathed.  And we are still somewhat surprised because, despite all the Lysol and Clorox, there is no way we were not exposed.  I am just very thankful, I prayed that I would not get sick until everyone else was done (all moms understand that prayer!).  I have ended up with a cold, but that is very minor in comparison.

This put a little damper on Christmas festivities around here.  The tree and some indoor decorations are up, but no outside lights:(  No goodies have been baked so far, either.  Not much cooking went on last week at all.

However, even sick people with little appetite need nourishment, so soup it was.  First I made this soup.

I'm sorry, I don't know where I got the recipe.   It's been copied on a card for YEARS and I never actually made it til last week.  I have to say I really liked it, a great soup for when you are feeling under the weather.  It's easy to make and the lemon flavor is refreshing.  (Caveat:  if you don't like lemon, this is not the soup for you.)  Here's the recipe:

Avgolemeno (Greek Lemon Soup)

Bring 6 cups of chicken broth to a simmer.  Add 1/2 cup uncooked rice.  Cover and simmer just until rice is done (about 15 minutes white rice, 30-40 minutes brown rice).  Whisk 3 egg yolks with 3 Tablespoons lemon juice.  Whisk a ladle of hot soup into egg mixture, then add back to pot.  Garnish with fresh parsley and black pepper.  Great with warm pitas and hummus.  Makes 8 cups.

Then I made good old chicken noodle soup.  I used this recipe.  I know there are many ways to make this soup, but this is a quick and easy one when your energy resources are low.  The only thing I would do different next time is to saute some celery in with the onion.  DO NOT double this recipe.  I almost did and am so thankful I didn't.  This makes a huge pot of soup, so be warned:)

Hope you are staying well this holiday season, but if not, you might want to try one of these soups:)

Crochet Granny Blanket

After finally finishing my ripple blanket, my fingers got itchy for another long-term crochet project.  Many great options presented themselves, a bobble blanket maybe chief among them, but I had a lot of yarn left over from the ripple that I felt like needed to be used.  On the other hand, I didn't want to make something in exactly the same color way, so I ADDED to the yarn collection I was trying to use up (there is a twisted logic in there somewhere, I hope:) by purchasing all the rest of the solid colors in the I Love This Cotton yarn that is sold by Hobby Lobby.

Completed squares so far

Now some of these colors are not necessarily beautiful, and some of the colors are very similar to other colors, and Hobby Lobby doesn't sell some of the colors I wish they would (like raspberry, apricot, pumpkin, a silver gray, watermelon), so it is not readily apparent that all these colors are going to play nicely together.  (Since I began this project, they have added a color, "Apple Green," which I am happy about).  However, I felt sorry for the ugly colors.  Attributing hurt feelings to inanimate objects is a trait that I share with my oldest son.  Usually I root this feeling out with some strong common sense arguments, but not this time.  I did feel downright greedy buying ALL the colors, but the skeins are only $2.66 each when on sale, so that's not too bad, is it?

Anyway, my inspiration blanket is Kristen's summer cottage blanket.  If you love beautiful crochet and knitting -- among other things -- then you will love her blog, aptly named Cozy Things.  I don't really imagine that mine will end up looking quite as lovely as that, especially not with the colors I am using, but I am making it like hers, and will use her directions to join the squares when I get to that part.


For the granny square itself, I followed Jacquie's instructions here, on her blog Bunny Mummy, which is another very happy and helpful crochet site.  It's an 11-round granny square, changing colors each round. The colors are random, and once I use a color I don't reuse it until all the other colors have been used.  That forces me to pick the colors that are not on the 'favorites' list.  There is no master plan, I just start with a color and then the next is chosen, and then the next..... Each square is a 'surprise' when it is finished, which adds to the pleasure and anticipation for me.

Yes, it's a little psychedelic

When I have enough squares, I will use a single color to make a final round around each square, and that will hopefully unify the blanket.  My daughter is very doubtful about how this is going to turn out:  it looks too great-grandmother-y for her.  Maybe that is why I like it.  As I make this blanket, I feel a connection to the women (including my great-grandmother) who have made similar objects before me.  I understand what they were thinking as they looked in their yarn bag and thought, "I'll choose THIS color," or "I'll just shut my eyes and pull a color out."  No overanalyzing the color scheme here, just relaxing and letting the blanket design itself, in a way.

The only bad things are: 1) it is not super portable, since you have to drag around ALL those colors of yarn and 2) this:

Lots and lots of ends that will have to be woven in.  I try to save those for mindless TV watching, or for long phone conversations.  That way I can get something done without having to devote a lot of brain power to it.

It will be a good while before this is done, maybe not until next winter.  But I have a totally unreasonable fear of running out of things to do, and I certainly don't have to fear that as long as I have projects like this to keep me busy.

Meet George.....and Harry

These little monkeys were knitted by my daughter, using the directions in Itty-Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson.  The first monkey, who we'll call 'George', was commissioned by a friend of mine who is expecting her first grandchild, a little boy, to be born any day now.  She and her daughter had seen my daughter's other toys (you can see some of them here), and they wanted one, leaving the choice of animal up to my daughter.

"George"

George turned out so cute that my daughter made another one for her younger brother.  We'll call this monkey 'Harry.'

"Harry"

Both were made using sock yarn from KnitPicks.  We ordered it from there because the only sock yarn we can find locally is variegated, which wouldn't give the monkeys the striped effect.  Because George is for a baby, he is stuffed with plain stuffing.  Harry is partially stuffed with plastic pellets, which makes it easier to sit him up, but the pellets tend to settle, so he is not as fluffy as my daughter wanted.

There are plans for a third monkey, but knitting those skinny arms and legs in the round got tedious, so my daughter had to take a little break before further monkey business.

Don't you just love the little topknots?

"Ah, this is the life!"