Happy Friday! It can't possibly less than two weeks until school starts for K. I have no recollection of the last month, and more to the point, I don't know if I can sew up a new backpack/school bag for K for third grade in the remaining time. When I sat her down and told her that we might have to go BUY one, she was crushed. "But what about last year's??" she asked. Apparently, the Oliver + S messenger bag I made last year was a huge hit amongst her classmates, and she loved telling everyone ... Read more
Sewing for Me: Frances Newcombe (Part 2) Meets Darling Ranges
The thousand yard stare....perhaps it looks like I'm contemplating the plight of the impending world financial crisis or maybe it merely looks like I'm making a mental grocery list. In fact, I'm thinking, "What IS that brownish spot on my curtain?" A picture is worth a thousand words they say, but this one sums it up in six: "Stay down, poufy stomach, stay down!" The theme is 'thousand', it seems, and I have thousands upon thousands of these "what's going on here?" shots of myself ... Read more
Monday Outfit: Frances Newcombe Fabric Part 1
Good morning! Did you have a good weekend? I hope so! This weekend I upheld a couple of promises. First, the enormously talented Frances Newcombe had sent me a generous amount of fabrics from her various Art Gallery collections, and who refuses free fabric to sew up into cute clothes? No one in this household, that's for sure. Especially when beautiful neutrals (perfect for me) and fun, color-infused prints (perfect for K) are involved? I love them, and over the next few weeks, you'll be seeing ... Read more
Happy Friday + Randomness
My mom left Tuesday, and we've been off kilter -- it's how we always get after her visits. K's emotions spiral out of control, I get flummoxed with having to cook again (yes, my mom cooks the entire time she visits. It's her thing) and after speaking so much Japanese, I tend to get thrown off for some reason. M laments that we can't have impromptu date nights and is disappointed that I'm back in charge of meals. This visit was slightly different in that we took a number of little trips and ... Read more
Sewing for Me: The Summer Salvation Dress (aka The Tent Dress) + Quick Tutorial
Today, I give you the one-hour tent dress. This was a completely unplanned sewing project, and I'm pretty sure that if I saw this on a hanger in a store, I would dismiss it as shapeless and unflattering. Then again, I so often feel like my signature style is the muu muu, and this muu muu has been saving me from the hotter-than-normal days we've been having here in the Pacific Northwest. It hit 90 degrees on Monday, which meant that it was about 110 degrees in our un-air-conditioned house. Not ... Read more