Monday, December 31, 2012

Another zebra print

Pin It
I (Major Moma) have always loved animal prints and it is a good thing that they are frequently in fashion in various forms.  This year, I have seemed to have a special fascination with zebra prints as I have made items with them here, here, here, and here.
And now, here I go again.  This time I am using more of the ITY knit I used for Abi's zebra shirt I made for her fall clothing line. 

Silly pose... really, how am I supposed to pose for these pictures?

When I was in VA and my mom and I were hanging out, I picked up a Burda Style pattern magazine.  It was so funny, as I was buying it (and other fabric type items) the sales clerk almost apologized for the price.  "I know $9.50, is a lot, but it is a great magazine..."  I stopped her.  The magazine is packed with TONS of patterns in a variety of sizes and online, you would have to pay $5.40 per pattern.  Basically, I only need to sew up 2 of the patterns to make buying the magazine worth it.  I have already placed about 6 of these patterns on my sewing list, so I am sure I will definitely get my money's worth.  She must get a lot of people who don't understand the value of the magazine complaining. 
side detail

This shirt is sewn up using the Pullover 11/2012 #128 pattern.  It is a tunic style knit shirt with a deep scoop neck and long cuffs.  It has two different lengths of bands on the bottom hem creating this side detail. (There is another version, #129 without the bands.) The back band is longer than the front.  Burda patterns, in general, come with sparse instructions and no seam allowances.  This was no exception.  But, the instructions it had were straight forward and I have sewn long enough that this simple top was not confusing at all. 

There was one new (to me) technique used for this top.  The neck line is finished with bias tape.  The pattern had me sew one shoulder seam and then finish the edge of the neckline with bias tape.  Then, you sew the second shoulder seam.  The rest of the construction is fairly standard.

back

I really like the top.  It is quite comfortable but when I make another, I will not have the neckline be so deep.  As I lift and carry small children, it is just too easy to  be over-exposed with such a deep neckline.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Hats for Grandkids!

Pin It
Hi, this is M, and I love to make hats.  I love to crochet, but I do have a limited attention span.  A quick hat is just the ticket.  So  I recently took a trip to Virginia  and had to have something to do on the plane.
Fortunately my grandkids in Germany wear my hats.  I have been seeing pictures of them wearing ones I made earlier(made during plane trips)  and I decided that they all needed new colorful ones for the cold winter in Germany.  Besides bright colors always make the winter a little brighter.
My winter is a little brighter, seeing them wear these warm wooly hats. Eli what is your favorite color?  "I like all the colors Grandma"    Ok and I found yarn that filled that bill.

So is this just a self serving show off of my handiwork?  Perhaps!  At the very least this is a self serving show off of two of my six grandchildren... cute and wearing hats that I made.
Well I have to get back to the crochet hook,  I have a project to finish to send to a friend,   A Hat of course.

Monday, December 24, 2012

A Christmas Story

Pin It (Guest post by Pastor James husband of McH.  Lets all give him a big round of applause!)

Hello everyone,

I was asked to be a guest blogger for Christmas and I am humble and thankful for the opportunity.  My hope is that everyone who reads this is blessed and able to find peace over the holidays.  I know it can be a pretty crazy time.

I am posting about Christmas.  The beautiful, scandalous, often romanticized, and rarely fully explored story of the birth of Messiah.  Something fundamentally and forever changed in the relationship between God and Man on that night.  God who was faraway and seperated from Man by our sin and rebellion decided that our great divorce was over and that He loved us enough to drop everything and come down and live among us.  God broke into our reality and reconciled us back to Him.

I want to share the words of Luke 2:8-14 so famously read by Linus in "A Charlie Brown Christmas".

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
 
  14  “Glory to God in the highest,
       and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

I used a lot of adjectives to describe this story at the start of the blog.  Allow me to share why.

This story is beautiful because it illustrates the all surpassing love of God.  He left His throne in heaven, emptied Himself, and came to earth as a helpless baby that needed His diaper changed.  He came in low cirmcumstances to low people.  His plan was to love us, to be among us, and to save us.  God lived just like we did and scriptures say He therefore knows exactly what we go through.  Our God understands.

The story is scandalous because He was born to a 14 year old girl outside of wedlock.  Imagine Joseph telling all his friends, "No really, God got her pregnant."  No one would believe it today and no one believed it then.  God was born in a stable because no one had room for them in a house or in an inn.  A scandalous foretelling of how little room any of us have in our lives for God.  Its a scandal because He surrendered perfect glory in heaven and ignored the glory and riches of earth.  He wasn't born in a palace, or to the wealthy, and His announcement wasn't to rulers.  Smelly dirty shepherds sleeping in fields got the announcement and came to visit.

We romanticize this story because we don't like talking about how dirty it is.  Silent night, holy night probably wasn't very quiet in the stable.  Anyone who has seen labor and birth knows nothing was calm and nothing was quiet.  Anyone who has ever had an emergency while traveling and far from home knows they don't sleep in heavenly peace.  And who gets visited by random strangers right after giving birth?  We pretty this story up a lot when we tell it.

Finally I say this story is rarely explored, and this is part of the scandal as well, because we miss the sentence that peace on earth was declared.  The great evangelical/fundamental cry of the church is that peace with God is made on the cross.  The atoning death of Jesus Christ has ended the seperation between God and Man.  But peace was declared at the birth of Messiah, not simply His death.  Jesus traveled around teaching Good News, the gospel, that God's kingdom was at hand.  The Good News was not the Jesus loved you and died for your sin.  No one in the New Testament heard that message because no one in the New Testament knew Jesus was going to die.  The good news is not that He died, the Good News is that He came.  Emmanuel means God with Us.  We rarely explore the significance of the birth and life of Jesus.  He did more than just die.  He came and lived and that has meaning too.

Thanks for taking a few minutes to read and thanks again to the ladies for the invite to blog. 

Merry Christmas

Cute and Casual Christmas

Pin It
I (Major Moma) love to make extravagant and impractical clothes for my children during the holidays.  (all holidays!)  But my normal default in life is to be practical and this Christmas, that side won.
My eldest daughter's Christmas dress from last year still fit pretty well and Eli has not worn his blazer as often as he said he would, so I didn't want to make another one.  (I also thought it would still fit ... but he grew recently and we could not get it on him this Sunday.)  The baby, Isa, has plenty of dresses, but she really does need some basics.  So, I succumbed to the practical and made her an outfit that could be mixed and matched with a lot of her existing clothes.
I modified a T-shirt pattern from the book, Sewing for Toddlers into a tunic with a ruffle at the hem and a mock-neck neckline.  I used some crushed velvet knit I had in my stash so that it would a be a pretty little tunic to be worn with leggings later on.
For the pants, I designed a pair of tapered slacks with no pockets.  I wanted less bulkiness and she does not use pockets yet.  I also included two pleats in the front and elastic in the back.  The closure is a fly zipper with snap.  I had a wide hem so that it could cuff up and have plenty of growing room.  However, I made them too long, so they have to be rolled a second time.  Thus, no finished looking cuff... until the next growth spurt.
 
Then, to make it Christmassy, I added a wrap top out of double-sided quilted fabric.  It is sort of a vest/ top and simply pulls over her head. (my own design)
 
 
  The top/vest has tiny poinsettias on one side and large poinsettias on the other side.
Isa really liked the outfit. In fact, as I worked on it, she kept on trying to steal the pants and put them on.  That was really funny to watch as she has not yet developed the skills to dress herself.
The top/vest clearly will only be worn a couple of times.  She wore it on Sunday to church and will likely wear it with a dress tonight (Christmas Eve).  So it was not very practical; but it was super easy and I used up scraps I already owned to make it.  But I think the pants and top will be used a lot.  Especially those pants as I should be able to get a whole year's worth of wearing since they are a little big.  (for more pictures, check out my flicker site)
And, that little flower on her head?  I crocheted that!  I am learning to crochet and hope to share some of my projects soon.  I made my eldest one too and hot glued them to old barrettes.
I have decided that this is my Inspiration Point project, since it is one of the few Christmas things I have sewn this month.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas and that your holiday crafting is fun and inspired!

Merry Christmas!!!
 
P.S.  I have entered this into the Sewing for Children contest on www.patternreview.com.  If you like this outfit, feel free to come over and vote!
 


Sunday, December 16, 2012

Little Red Skirt

Pin It  I (Major Moma) have continued to sew for me!  It has been so much fun to add to my wardrobe.  But, I am now also working on an outfit for my littlest one, so it has not been all adult sewing.  And there have been a lot of non-sewing activities going on.  We have been visiting Weihnachtsmarkts, (which are German Christmas markets) playing family games, and engaging in various family Christmas activities.  It has been very nice to spend more time with the kids.
But on to the sewing!  This another of my Grandmother's patterns.  It is S-T-R-E-T-C-H & SEW #425 and consists of two variations of a gored skirt.  One has four gores and the other has a bunch ... really, it depends on your waist sizes so I can't tell you how many little gores you would make.  I made the 4-gore skirt.
 I made it from a thick double knit (bought at Le Fabriques) that has a nice weight for a winter skirt but not a lot of stretch.  But that is just fine for this style of skirt.  It has an elastic waistband ... I am not usually a fan of elastic waist bands, but this fits and looks nice.  The elastic is just enough to pull over your hips but does not gather the skirt.  The skirt sits at the natural waist and I hemmed it so it would swing just above my knees.
 Speaking of hems, I followed the instructions and used a stretch lace to assist with the hemming.  What it calls for you to do is sew the stretch lace on the raw edge of the good side of the fabric using a zig-zag stitch and stretching it as you go along.  Then, you press up the hem, and the lace will have caused the circular hem to gather just enough to lie flat when sewing the hem.  I have never done this before but rounded hems have been tricky for me.  This completely solved the problem! I totally recommend this technique for all your rounded hems.
I sewed the hem with a small zig-zag stitch using a thread matching my fabric on top and white underneath so that it would not show but have some stretch, if needed.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

to color or not to color

Pin It I (Major Moma) made a startling and disturbing discovery yesterday morning. 

I have a grey eyelash.

I had not really thought that my eyelashes would rebel on me at such a young age.  Though I really shouldn't be surprised since I got my first grey hairs in my twenties.  Now, I have an abundance of grey hairs on my head ... my hair; my eyebrows have a couple; and an eyelash.

I started dyeing my hair a couple years ago but it requires so much maintenance.  I have never been one for regular hair appointments and I am currently months behind on my need for a color.  So the greys are running rampant right now and I cringe when I look at them as I do my hair this morning and wonder when I will be able to fit in a 3 hour appointment (I have a lot of hair) in my holiday schedule. 

I whined at a coworker yesterday about this dilemma.

He says "go grey.  You will look dignified and experienced".

Really?  I thought that only worked for men.

I will have to consider it.

Mom let her grey hair grow out a few years ago.  Luckily the women in our line actually have pretty silver hair.  But, she has tired of the grey herself and is thinking of dying it again.  So, I am not the only one on this blog that can't make up her mind on to color or not to color?  That is the question.

Coloring the eyelash is at least easy.  Put mascara on.  There, done.  And since I do that everyday anyway, it is not a big deal at all.



So anyone want to vote?  or say what they have chosen for their hair?

Monday, December 10, 2012

vintage pullover

Pin It It is funny, when I (Major Moma) use my grandmother's patterns, I feel closer to her.  I know that it is artificial ... and one-sided, but I feel like a part of her is with me in the room as I sew up projects that I know she has made many times before.  I live far from her and only see her every few years, so I am glad I have this connection.

This time, I was sewing a late 1960's S-T-R-E-T-C-H & SEW pattern; # 300.

pattern with uncut fabric


I made it in an orange remnant fabric that I picked up when I was back in Charlottesville, VA on business.  (I took the time to visit my all time favorite fabric store, Le Fabriques.)

The fabric is classified as a rib-knit but it has less than a 25% stretch.  So, it is stretchy enough for some give, but really not a t-shirt type fabric.  I bought it because it would be perfect for these patterns.  They were designed for this type of not very stretchy knits.  I also loved the color.  I am a big fan of orange and seemed to only be sewing orange for my son.

The pattern has two variations.  One, with buttons down the front to make a cardigan.  And the second is a pull-over.  It also has lines for a v-neck or a jewel neckline.  I clearly made the pull-over with v-neck option.

The sleeve cuffs, neckline, and hem all have a band.  You know the type ... long piece folded in half and then sewn on with the two raw edges meeting the raw edge of the main garment.  I think this made a very polished finish to the top.

It turned out more fitted than I expected, but I do love the fit.  One of those unexpected but good surprises. 

And now when I wear it, I will know I am living in the footsteps of my grandmother who surely wore this same shirt too.
with my favorite scarf w/ orange and grey elephants

On an unrealted note, we will not be officiall doing the Inspiration Point this month.  There is just too much going on in December and we want to concentrate on being with family.  However, I am posting this picture below and figure it won't hurt to have a free-for-all IP.  What do I mean?  Well, if you make/write/develop anything related to Christmas, or other December holiday, feel free to upload a photo of your project to our flickr account.  It need not be inspired by the below picture, it just must be inspired by a December holiday.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Lay off the Hater-ade

Pin It Howdy y'all this is McH.

The other day, Super hubby and I went on a date. It is date night Tuesdays.  Our two middle schoolers go to youth group and our youngest had AWANA on Tuesdays from 6:30-8:30.  Some date nights we stay at home, some we go out, and others we just run to the store and bicker in the bakery about what we should have for dessert.

Last night we decided to go out.  A compromise we have made is going out for coffee and dessert instead of a full meal but last night we were craving food.  We have really sucktastic restaurants in Oak Harbor.  We flipped a coin on which meal in mediocrity we were going to eat.

We ended up at the local burger and brew joint.  The place was weirdly packed for a Tuesday evening.  I have a rule when I eat out.  I won’t order anything I can cook easily at the house.  Last night I ordered a wild boar burger with blue cheese and bacon. It was pretty good really. Not to mention I was sitting across from my man, so the view was spectacular.

When all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off.  The noise wasn’t the worse part. They had lights that did this flashy thing as well. Like you were getting yelled at by both your eyes and ears. No one moved. I kept eating my burger and the crowded room smiled and laughed as the staff panicked.   We could see right into the open kitchen, not even the cooks flinched as they made your dinner.

Dinner went on and the fire crew came in and helped with the faulty alarm.

When the waitress came for the check she apologized for the “music.”  I smiled back and told her that life happens.  I also gave her a good tip for keeping her cool during the loud chaos.  

“Sometimes you can be such a nice person, honey” Super hubby said as she left with our card.

“What do you mean sometimes?”  He gave me his one eyebrow arched look. 

“Babe you have this huge range of kindness and then on either end you have this strip of pet peeve piss you off.  Come on now, you know when you drink your hater-ade.”

He is right of course; I can be a total hater sometimes. 

I have a phrase I use with my children that I was reminded of  as we were talking. 

Kindness in words and actions.

I want my children to grow up into adults who will show the stranger kindness. I want them to grow into people who will show kindness to their friends, family, spouse, and children. 

I guess sometimes I need to be reminded of that myself. In all things show love. In all things show kindness.   Lay off the hater-ade girl. 

Monday, December 3, 2012

Finished Wiggle Dress

Pin It
As a winter project I (Major Moma), decided to work my way through the book Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing.  I have finished one skirt and now a dress.  My plan has been to make "wearable muslins" for each of these, and then buy wool fabric to do them really right. 

I finished the Wiggle Dress last weekend but did not get a chance to take pictures until I wore it to church this Sunday.  (previous posts on this dress are HERE and Here.) Yes, that is snow on the ground and yes I was COLD taking these pictures.  But, it had to be done. 

I love the way this dress fits!  It is super comfortable.  I used the size 8 pieces for the front and the size 6 piece for the back to accommodate my small shoulders and curvy front.  I have done this before, and it really worked well this time too.  The only other adjustments I made was to take in the hips about 1/2 inch at the side seams.  On my wool version, I will also shorten the skirt portion a bit by taking it up at the hip line about 1/2 inch.  I notice while wearing the dress, the curve of the dress was not exactly where my hip curves the most. 

But these are minor adjustments and I am so glad that it turned out so nice.

The highlight of this dress is the back!  It has a beautiful V-neckline and a kick-pleat at the skirt slit.  This was my second lapped zipper, and it looks better than the first, so I am moving in the right direction.

I am torn on what I want to make next from this book.  There are a couple blouses, but they do not have long sleeves and as you can see, that may not be practical for a couple of months.  Or, I could make another dress?  hmmm...

01 09 10 11 12
Blogging tips