~Staple Dress~

A friend's church has a hobby night about once a month, and I try to go when I can. There are several reasons: not only do I Get to Talk to Grownups and Get Things Done, but I get to Eat Yummy Treats. And also? I get to Skip Bedtime (my daughter's bedtime, that is!). So it's a great chance to get out of the house!

This weekend I lugged my machine, iron, fabric, pattern, pins, etc. and made a dress! When I came home all I had left was the hem and the shirring. I finished it Saturday and wore it Sunday.

If you look closely, the belt is not quite covering the shirring.
I had trouble getting the shirring in the right spot,
but I think that if I had a wider belt it would cover this issue.

This pattern, the Staple Dress, is a fun sew. No buttons and buttonholes, or zippers; no darts or sleeves. Honestly it only took me four hours to make because I was talking. Oh, and eating. :-P

I mentioned before, that I won the pattern in a blog giveaway, and that the fabric was some I had on hand. The fabric is a cotton, but it has something stretchy in it as well. It isn't stretchy like a knit, maybe just a little spandex? I'm not sure. I happened to have matching thread, and the elastic thread for shirring. It's always nice when I have everything I need on hand!

Because my serger is still at the machine shop, I followed the directions and did French seams. With regular seams finished with overlocking (and no talking, just sewing!) this dress could go together very, very quickly.

 

I came home high on caffeine and giddy that I'd made myself a dress. :-) I'm pretty sure this is the first dress that I've made for myself since the 90's! I've made clothing items since then, of course, but not a dress. I'm looking forward to getting some more sewing projects done in the coming weeks! I've been so busy canning I haven't spent time sewing, and I truly miss it!

~Thinking about...Crocheting~

The other night I pulled out a stack of crochet booklets I have and looked through them.

Crochet Fantasy! March 1986! Goods that are great for BAZAARS!!!

Besides some little doilies, handkerchief edgings, and hideous stuffed animals, there is this beauty:

 

Don't you love that sweater? The sleeves look so cozy, almost like an afghan. No, wait. The shawl on the left is what caught my eye. Truly, I think it is beautiful. Would it be too much like wearing a giant doily? I don't know. But the current trend for wearing shawls is to wear them backwards (what would our grandmothers think?) as a scarf.

And the second thing I'm thinking about is this tablecloth. It is made up of 4" squares, so it wouldn't be too daunting.

So...those are two projects I'm thinking about! I don't know if I'll do more than think about them, but it's fun to dream sometimes! :-)

~Thinking about sewing~

A few weeks ago I was doing laundry, and I noticed one of the rags that came through was really, well...raggy on the edges. So I serged the edges. Actually, I serged one edge. The other edge messed up my machine. Oh, the irony of trying to make a worthless rag look nicer only to break my machine!

I got word back from the sewing machine shop today that the blades are messed up and since they don't have them in the store it will take about another week before I have my machine.

I haven't sewn much of anything this summer. But faced with the fact that my machine is in the shop, I keep wanting to sew!

I think this will be my next project:

I won the pattern in a blog giveaway, and the fabric is some I was given. I think this will make a nice fall dress (with a sweater). I don't plan on doing the high-low hem version. :)

~Blah, blah, blah~

Well, then! Happy fall and happy 1st day of October! :-)

Thing have been busy around here! I have been canning my little heart out. I love canning, then I dislike canning, but I love it all the more after seeing all the rows of canned produce on my counter! I love it more than I dislike it so I keep on going! Interested to see the list of things I've canned so far? You can click over to my page, Putting Food Up - 2013. My jar count is at 205 right now. I've yet to get apples for applesauce, and I would really like to get some more Concord grapes to make some jelly. Oh, and I would love to can some more beans!

I read canning recipes in the winter and dream of canning in the summer. My main "dislike" with canning is truly the accompanying dishes. It seems like my whole summer's story has been, "Do the dishes so I can can; do the dishes from canning". LOL

I've mostly had enough jars, though I had to buy a dozen pints, and a dozen jam jars. Not too bad. I dug into jars I bought off Craigslist a few summers back, and thought it was funny to be canning in "antique" jars that are as old as myself:

A friend has Concord grapes, and kindly offered some to me. I canned 14 quarts of grape juice:

My friend makes her juice this way, and I'm anxious to see how it turns out. One jar unsealed when I was putting them down in the basement - the jar had a tiny chip on the inside. The juice wasn't very strong, but from what I read you're supposed to wait 3-4 weeks before opening it. I got some mineral water and made "soda" for my daughter and myself. Since we don't drink real soda, she was easily convinced. ;-)

And then, moving on to other randomness: I picked up a new pair of glasses tonight. They are quite a departure from my other glasses!

My daughter asked me to measure her recently,

making me realize that the reason she's been proverbially eating us out of house and home is that she grew 3/4" in a little over a month!

Well, that's it for randomness for now! Happy fall, y'all!