Linen Love

Take some time to enjoy this fascinating (and relaxing) look at the production of linen- from planting the seeds to finished garments. Lovely.



I bought five yards of natural linen recently on the recommendation of Rachel from Stitched in Color. It has made its way into almost everything I've made since. I love its weight, sturdiness and subtle textural variance. It just can't help its elegance.

Birthday pants!

Adam's birthday is this week and we celebrated at my mom's house this past weekend. She bought balloons (one of his absolute favorite things in life) and crepe paper in all the colors he knows, and I must say I was more excited for his party than I have been for any other celebration, hmm, maybe ever.

I made him some linen trousers. They've got the cutest pockets, and are fully finished inside, so no stray threads. I even made a little piping to go around the front waist piece. I'd originally picked out a deep burgundy fabric with tiny gold stars for the facing and trim, but switched midstream to a blue fabric with tiny-tiny flowers. It was easier to work with, and I'd already made a ton of 1/4" bias tape in that print, so that's what I used.

I'll have to get some photos of him wearing them, which is hard to do because he's such a busy person. I'll see what I can get away with tomorrow morning when he's more, um, pliable.

Oh waily!

Dang if I'm in it deep with this swap. I got my partner today and I'm honestly a bit intimidated! I'm not going to say too much about what I know about her, but let's just say she's a professional in the world of sewing and design. I simply Must Not disappoint! Oh golly.

So a few weeks ago I won a giveaway (shut up I can stop any time I want) during Made by Rae's Celebrate the Boy month. I got a pattern for some little trousers, Dapper Dillingers by Patterns by Figgy's- just too cute:


Anywho, I finished sewing up the muslin pair last night and I must say that they were a treat to sew. The construction is very straight-forward and logical. I love indulging my OCD streak in sewing projects. I'm very much looking forward to putting them together again, this time cut from some natural linen for the main and some burgundy cotton with little gold stars as the contrast. One of the nicest things about this pattern is how well-suited it is for all kinds of seam finishes. Yes, there will be bias tape, mark my words.

I'm a bit more than reasonably excited about a new line of pattern designs by the designer of Oliver + S! I really love so many of the Oliver + S designs for children and have often wished she designed for adults. And now she does! Chris of Pickup Some Creativity posted about maybe doing a sew-along for this dress, and I am looking forward to doing exactly that!

Ugh, car repair.

Our car started doing A Thing the other day. We know we have a leaky transmission pump seal, so it needs oil every so often. Well of course we thought it was related to that. Luckily, there's a transmission specialist down the street. Unluckily, he said it's not the transmission. Back to luckily, he said he'd drive it over to another shop for us.

Weird but, sure ok, drive our car around, why not.

And this really proves my theory that car issues only ever crop up once my financial life is beginning to take on some sense of order. It's like a Law of Conservation of Poverty.

In other news... I am seeing signs of addiction in my life. To blog giveaways. Yes, it's sad and terrible. I have a whole section of my Reader portioned off to keep track of blogs that do them regularly, and.... this is hard to admit. I check those blogs first. I'm sorry, I know it's not fair to other blogs. Your pictures really are pretty, and I really appreciate that tip on how to take pigeon-toed self portrait polaroids against peeling paint walls! MMM that bacon cupcake looks DELICIOUS! But, are you going to, you know make a move? Or are we just here to talk?

~snicker~

Well you know, the risk level is low, so I'm thinking it's going to be a really long time to hit rock bottom. A major enabler this month has been the Vintage Sheet Blog, which I mentioned yesterday is doing a giveaway every day for the whole month of March. Today's offer is a stack of squares of, you guessed it, vintage sheets.

Who loves free stuff?

I do. I love entering blog giveaways. I stay at home with a very young person, so you know, in a situation like this, you have to take excitement where you can get it.

Here are some current ones with neato booty up for offer:

Fat Quarter Bundle at Made By Rae

Includes 6 fat quarters of what they're calling "boy fabrics," though we know fabric isn't actually gendered, right? I like these prints and wouldn't mind them turning up in my mailbox.

Fat Quarter and Charm Square pack at Pink Chalk Fabrics

I just learned that Pink Chalk Fabrics does a giveaway every week called Fat Quarter Tuesday. This week she's offering a charm pack of Sherbet Pips (above) and a fat quarter stack of coordinating solids. Nice.

Finally, The Vintage Sheet Blog is celebrating her one year blogiversary with a giveaway every day in March. Today she's offering 3 vintage floral pillowcases and a lovely photo print by Monica Charbeneau. I do love how many people seem to be putting vintage linens to such good use. However, I've begun to think that there's now no way I'll ever come across any on my own at the thrift store.

Where do bad toys go?

There's a completely spooky thing in our house. It's Adam's Old MacDonald singing tractor, and it's terrible, horrible and awful. Wanna see?

ShakyCam courtesy of Adam + my phone

That's the farmer's cow mooing at :28. Yikes. The first time I heard that I was in the shower and Adam snuck into the bathroom and played it. Omg, good thing I was already in the shower.

So obviously, the batteries are dying. But we don't have the right sized screwdriver to open the case, so it's just dying a slow, painful and noisy death. Adam loves it every bit as much as he did before the farmer started raising hellcows and hellducks. But it's seriously disturbing.

I'm not really the "joining" type, but...

I joined the swap. I was on the way to the kitchen to start dinner, and I thought, what the hell, let's get out there and change the world. ;)

Tonight David is leaving work early so I can go to my "weekly barcrawl" as he jokingly called it. He likes to poke fun at me like that. It's nothing like that, actually! I joined a weekly knitter-and-crafter meetup group called Pints 'n' Purls that meets in the basement of a local brewery. So far, I've only been once, but I had *the best* time, and I'm really excited about going again tonight! I'm even going to Do My Hair. Plus, you know, BOGO appetizers. So.

All the other ladies there last time were either knitting or crocheting, but I brought some embroidery I've been working on. I downloaded a free pattern by Andrea Zuill and did you know embroidery floss is like, basically free? I just picked it up on a whim a few days before the meetup, but I'm finding myself getting more and more interested in embroidery and other small-scale work. I mean, I love piecing a queen size quilt top as much as the next grrl, but it's nice to work on something tiny once in a while too.