Butterick 5664 -- Lilac Boucle Dress

An uncertain look

A lot of times with sewing you get the question:  which comes first, the fabric or the pattern?  In this case it was most definitely the fabric -- a lilac boucle -- which I bought from Walmart back in 2006, when Walmart stores had decent fabric departments.  I know this because the receipt was still with the fabric ($26 for 4 yards, which I probably thought was a lot of money at the time).

Originally I planned to make a suit, but I lacked the confidence to cut into the fabric, and it has been languishing in storage ever since.  I'm feeling a little bolder these days, so I decided to use the boucle this spring.  I had intended to finish it for Easter but instead wore it on Mother's Day -- it takes me awhile to get things done:)

I was concerned about the boucle -- which has a very loose weave -- falling apart, so before I cut it out I fused tricot lining to the back of the fabric.  Although this was time-consuming, it made the fabric very easy to sew.  I chose Butterick 5664 because I wanted a basic sheath dress, and the dress on the pattern cover looks like it is made out of boucle or suiting.

I must confess that I had some fitting issues with this dress.  It was not too difficult to make, but the way it's put together -- there is no shoulder seam, the sleeves go over the shoulders, the front and back are not sewn together until last -- makes it difficult to tell how it is going to fit until you are already done.  The lining can't be used as your trial dress.

I cut a size 14 but added one inch to the side seams and an inch to the hemline, which has become sort of standard for me.  However, this pattern has a lot of curve to the side seams, and when I sewed the dress as drafted and tried it on,  it looked like a cartoon -- my hips were way out from the body -- quite honestly, I was shocked at how ridiculous it looked!  I should have taken a picture just to give you a laugh, but it was so ludicrous, and I had already put a lot of work into it, that I just jerked the dress off and redrew the side seams, taking almost all the curve out.  Alas, my hope -- that making a curvy dress would make my cylindrical body look curvy too -- has been cruelly dashed:(

Also, I feel like the upper back is a little too large.  I keep having to pull the dress down to get rid of that gap.  The shoulders are also very wide, and they have to be kept wide or the dress will not fit correctly.  Here you can see the color -- it is pretty fabric, and I was glad to find a zipper that matched.

It is fully lined with a light pink cotton blend sheet -- a comfortable choice for wearing in the heat.  However, even with copious underlining and trimming the seams and heavy pressing, it is hard for me to keep the lining from showing on the outside at the neckline. This has been a problem on other lined dresses, too.  Any helpful hints?  I did put some effort into making this.  I even trimmed the lining with some cotton lace left over from my heirloom sewing days.

As I sewed along, I had a niggling suspicion that the dress was a little reminiscent of Adele's carpet dress. I am an Adele fan, but that was not the look I was going for;)  Despite my misgivings, I finished the dress and promptly put in the magic closet to marinate, unsure if it was a keeper or not.

Then a few days later my husband informed me that we had to make an appearance at a party in one hour and were to be dressed in Mad Men-esque attire.  I really own nothing that is even remotely Mad Men.  This dress was as close as I had.  So I got it out of the closet and put it on and realized it wasn't as bad as I thought.  It was WEARABLE, and that is still my sewing goal.

Off to the Mad Men party

Surprisingly, other people seem to like it, which has given me a little more encouragement.  I have since worn it twice more:  for Mother's Day and to an afternoon wedding.  I won't be making another one like this anytime soon, however.

I will close with a photobomb moment:

Ah, that's better.  This is my youngest son.  I have to take advantage of these moments when he still wants to be in a picture with me:)

Trip to California

Back in April my husband treated the both of us to a little vacation in honor of my birthday and our upcoming anniversary (this summer we will have been married a quarter of a century:).  We went to California, a state neither one of us had ever been to before.

We flew into San Francisco, then rented a car and drove about an hour north to where we were staying.

Driving across the famous Golden Gate Bridge while the fog is creeping in:

We didn't take time to visit Alcatraz, but we saw it several times as we drove across the bridge:

Walking around Chinatown:

Our forays into San Francisco were brief.  It was enjoyable just to see it (and its vertical streets!), but to really get the most out of it you need to stay in the city.  And it would be a big help to have a local person show you the ropes about getting around.  We had no problems in the Chinatown area, but on our last day before we went back to the airport we -- in our ignorance -- drove into a section of the city that was like trying to drive in downtown NYC  -- very chaotic and very stressful!!  We got out of there as quickly as possible, but that meant we didn't get to ride the cable car:( However, we did eat lunch at Tartine Bakery.  We couldn't buy their famous sourdough because that only gets out of the oven in the late afternoon and we had to catch our plane, but the lunch was still delicious.

Most of our trip was spent outside.  We went to Muir Woods and walked the trails amid the redwoods.

We drove from there to Stinson Beach.  Here we are stopped at some roadside trails along the coastline.

We stayed in Napa.  Our hotel had a lovely courtyard with lots of flowers and a small pond that was home to two nesting swan couples, as well as quite a few ducks.  Here are the two white swans:

The flowers in this part of California were quite spectacular and probably my favorite part.  Don't you just love this gate?

Mostly we just enjoyed meandering around, having no agenda.  We drove around and saw vineyards and cows and cute little houses, and we went on small hikes.  On our next to last day we went on a five-mile hike in a state park near Napa.  Thankfully we saw no mountain lions (although there was a warning at the entrance to the trail), but we did see some turkeys:

And some deer.  This deer was bedded down near the trail, and she never moved despite our proximity,  making us wonder if a baby was coming, or maybe she was just used to people.

Here is a picture of us after going out to eat one night, tired but happy:

The Hawks Return

Last year we had a great deal of enjoyment watching a pair of red-shouldered hawks raise a family. (You can see those posts starting here and following the links).  At the time I wondered if they would return to the same nest, and I am happy to report they did!

This year they seem to have fewer babies, which is probably for the best since last year one got pushed out of the overcrowded nest.  So far we have only spotted two babies.  (They are easier to hear than to spot because they are very, very vocal when they are hungry!)

Their nest is in a pine tree in my neighbor's yard, right across from our driveway.  This is a bit unusual because there are not many pine trees where I live.  Most of the native trees are some variety of oak (primarily post oak) or mesquite.

This pine tree is probably appealing because it is so much taller than any of the other trees around, giving the hawks a great view of the neighborhood.  They appear to be totally unbothered by all the activity taking place underneath their tree.  If these babies are like last year's, when they get bigger they will peer curiously over the side of the nest at any basketball games going on in our driveway.

Here you can see the beautiful markings on the mother bird as well as some of the materials used to make the nest.

Taking pictures of them from the ground is always a challenge.  I have to zoom my camera as far as it will go and aim in the general direction of the nest.  I can't tell what I've gotten until I download the photos onto the computer and blow them up a bit.  I did manage to get one good one of mother and baby:)

A Little Gardening

Back in February when we were going through bouts of sickness, on the good days we put in our garden.  This year the lettuces didn't do much, but thanks to our cooler than normal spring, some of our other crops are doing quite well.

Here are some of our onions:

We planted three kinds:  red, yellow and white.  My husband buys the onion sets, and this year Son number 3 and I planted them.  FYI:  there are many, many little onion plants in those sets:)

Son number 4 wanted to get in on the planting action, too, so he planted radishes and beets.  The beets didn't do much, but we did get some radishes.  Here he is harvesting them (we had to pull them up to make room for the corn):

Ta-da!

Part of the radish pile:

Here Son number 3 is surveying the rows before we pick some peas.  In the blue buckets are tomato plants.  My husband is experimenting with planting them in buckets, but the jury is still out on the wisdom of this method.

Pea plants are so pretty.  A close-up of some of the peas:

I wish we were more organized, but alas! we are not.  There is no record of what kind of pea this is -- English pea or sugar snap?  Raw, they are very sweet to the taste, which is why I wondered if they are sugar snap.  Nevertheless, we treated them as regular English  peas, shelling and freezing them.  While a part of me really enjoys shelling peas (and breaking beans) -- there is something very satisfying about it -- I will say you must shell a LOT of peas to get even a bowlful:)

We are woefully behind on being self-sufficient.

BUT......it is so worth it to try new things, gain new skills (even if it's ever so slowly), and just live life.
Gardening -- even in our haphazard way -- is one of those things that brings our family pleasure.  Actually, it's mostly my husband and me, but I'm hoping that our enjoyment is rubbing off at least a little on our kids.  I'm hoping it's good for kids to see their parents interested in and trying new things, whether it's gardening, or painting, or sewing, or cooking, or woodworking, etc.  One of my prayers for them is that they will always be interested in life and have eyes that are opened to the wonder of it.

Some New Friends

These past few months my daughter has spent some time here and there sewing up some new friends.  This beautiful girl is from the Clara and Pearl pdf pattern from  Gingermelon Etsy shop.

With her jacket on:

A little close-up:

Showing off her shoes:

She is made of wool felt ordered from A Child's Dream Come True.  The trim on her dress is tatting left over from my smocking days.  She is entirely handsewn.

And now let me introduce you to the mouse family.  Mama Mouse (her cardigan was designed and knitted by my daughter):

Papa Mouse:

Son Mouse (he's a little large to be "Baby Mouse"):

The mouse family was the featured cover project on Issue #11 of MollieMakes, a great craft magazine

 full of cute projects.

All the mice were also completely hand sewn.  Their bodies are made out of white muslin and their clothes were from fabric scraps (of which we have plenty around here).

I love the little creatures my daughter makes (and so does she), but we don't really know anyone else who feels the same way.  We sort of keep this part of ourselves under the radar.  Do you love little dolls and animals?  Or do you have some parts of yourself that you don't necessarily share with "just anybody"?  It's somewhat ironic that we can share things with people we haven't met and yet feel funny about sharing them with people we know in real life, but I think it's because most people that read our blogs feel some identification with us and our interests -- otherwise they wouldn't keep reading:)

McCalls 6654 -- Skirt Remake

Winter version -- don't be frightened by my red eyes;)

This is a skirt I made back in March.  Let me preface this by saying that I do not like sewing skirts.  I prefer to wear dresses because they are stand alone, so to speak.  Skirts mean you must also have a suitable top, and those are not very plentiful in my closet.  In addition, most of the dresses I've made hang from the shoulder, allowing me to bypass my waist.  Sewing a skirt, however, requires me to fit my waist and my hips, and on me there is not a whole lot of difference.  Hence my dilemma with skirt patterns:  do I choose the pattern based on my waist and then make the hips smaller, or do I choose it based on my hips and then make the waist wider?

However.....at least two years ago my mother gave me a thrifted maxi skirt made out of tencel fabric.  I love maxi skirts and dresses, but this one was slightly too big and it was rather full.  I never wore it--even once-- because I just didn't have anything to wear with it.  I do love the feel of the fabric, though, and it's not a fabric easily found in my local fabric stores.  Rather than donating all that fabric to the thrift store, I decided to try to transform it into a short, straight skirt.  Straight skirts generally look better on me than A-lines.

I have tried the book Sew What! Skirts book several times, but unlike my friend Elizabeth at MrsThomasinaTittlemouse, I have had no luck.  The skirts have turned out too big (no matter who I was making them for) and unflattering.  I'm either having a problem with the math or the measuring (or both).

So I opted to use a conventional pattern, McCalls 6654, view B.  It is an easy pattern with several skirt variations, designed especially for knits.  The hardest part was deciding what size to use, what with my aforementioned size issues, plus the fact that each knit stretches differently.  After cutting off the waistband and cutting the skirt apart at the side seams, I wrapped the fabric around me to where it looked right, and then measured the fabric against the sizes on the pattern to see which to choose. This seemed to work, although with a different knit the size might need to be changed.

While I was at it, I thought I really need more room in the front and less in the back, so I ended up cutting a size 14 in the front and a size 12 in the back.  The front and back are both cut on the fold.  I raised the cutting line on the front fold by 1/2 inch because I read that can help to disguise a fuller tummy.  I don't know if all that really made much difference, but the skirt did at least fit.

It was impossible for me to get a good photo of the seams

I left a seam in the back center because it was in the original skirt.  The waistband was cut between a 12 and 14.  I used a 1/2 inch seam allowance instead of a 5/8 inch when attaching the waistband to the skirt because I was afraid the one-inch elastic wouldn't fit in the casing otherwise.  Once I decided on all the calculations, the actual sewing took only part of an afternoon.

This is closer to the actual color

It is just a simple plain little skirt, but I like that it transcends seasons.  I can wear it in the winter with boots, as here, but I will also be able to wear it this summer with flats.  At least now it gets worn.  And other than choosing the proper size, McCalls 6654 is a very easy pattern -- good to have in your sewing arsenal.

Spring Has Sprung

Sage in my side yard

"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;" -- Song of Solomon 2:11-12 (KJV)


Despite having a fairly mild winter, our spring this year has been rather cool (for Texas).  Today I have my windows open and it's very pleasant, but another cold snap is predicted for later this week. So it seems that spring is lingering a bit longer than usual.

These photos were taken a week or so ago, all in my yard.  I really enjoy peeking in at your worlds through your blogs, but if that is all I do, then it can make me feel dissatisfied with my life and inadequate. It's very easy for me to overlook the beauty around me as I do the daily rounds of cooking, laundry, picking up messes, etc.  Part of the reason I started my own blog (and maybe why some of you did as well) was to remind myself that there is beauty and wonder and fun and even finished projects in my world, too:)

I know the dandelion is supposed to be a weed, but it is a marvelous combination of engineering, beauty and whimsy.

Irises do very well here (in North Texas).  These white ones -- I think of them as 'ghost irises' -- have naturalized in the tiny finger of woods in my backyard.  I also have some tall purple ones, which are just now coming into bloom.  I can't take credit for any of them; they are gifts left behind by former homeowners.

This is a blossom on one of my trees, the live oak if I recall correctly.  We have oak trees aplenty here -- live oaks, post oaks, and other miscellaneous ones.

Some more sage.  Sage is one of the few plants that has done well for me with almost no effort -- a plus in my book.

We have two lovely crepe myrtle trees in our front yard.  Their leaves are just beginning to come in, but the bark is beautiful year round.

And here are my two sheep, Mocha and Latte, enjoying some fresh grass in the backyard.  Originally purchased to eat our sand spurs and awful stickers, they have basically become ornamental pets.  Not the most practical of decisions, in case you are similarly tempted:)