Halloween 2011

We had our pumpkins lit, but no little trick or treaters came a-knocking at our door.  We live out in the country with not many children near by.  The local school has always done a big party, so we didn't really expect any, but this is the first year in many that our church hasn't had a party of some sort so we didn't have anywhere to go.  I spent the evening looking for my knitting needles (still haven't found the ones I'm wanting) and watching Once Upon a Time episodes on TV while working on a felt food project for the Little Guy for Christmas.

I finished the Little Guy's costume yesterday.  It turned out really cute and he loved it and the plastic pumpkin I sent to collect candy in.  This was last week's project.  It was a lot of fun.  There are not many different clothing projects to sew for boys, so getting to make him a costume was fun.  Here's my little pirate captain.  He especially loved the hat.



~Jane

Busy, Busy

I realized today that it's almost been a couple of weeks since I posted a new entry.  I've been busy working on projects and not so much on the computer.  When I am using the computer, I'm watching old TV series on it, since the computer is in my sewing room and I watch it while ironing and sewing.

One of my daughter's friends had a new baby and I promised her a baby quilt.  She has a jungle theme going for her nursery, so I found a cute flannel print with jungle animals on it and have been piecing the quilt.  The top is together now, just need to sandwich it together with the backing and batting and tie it. 

Halloween is approaching and I'm sewing my little guy a pirate costume to wear.  I have the striped pants and the hat finished with just the jacket to go.  This is a priority project since the holiday is only a week away.

The cold weather has hit and I've been busy working on knitting the little guy some warm mittens.  I've made him a couple pairs now, a brown striped pair and this green pair with brown squirrels on them.  They turned out really cute.  They're a little big, so I thought I'd make one more pair a little smaller with a train engine on one, and the caboose on the other.  It's a good project for work, easy to pick up and put down as the case may be.

I have a swap project I'm working on that was due last week.  I accidentally left it at my daughter's on Friday night and spent a couple days looking for it before she mentioned it was there.  Hopefully I can get it back tonight and get it finished up and sent by Thursday.

I've been doing a lot of sewing, so I've also been doing a lot of Netflix watching.  Currently I'm hooked on "Lie to Me."  It's a pretty fascinating fictional TV series about deception experts who read a person's body language and facial expressions to determine whether they're telling the truth. 

~Jane

Catching Up

This hasn't been the most productive week for me.  I'm fighting a cold and right now the cold is winning.  Yesterday and today I stayed home from work.  For me that is unusual.  But I just didn't seem to have enough energy to even try going in.  Yesterday I spent most of the day watching a documentary, Edwardian Farm .  This follows another documentary I watched on a Victorian Farm from the same place.  Really well done and interesting.  While watching it, I drank tea and knit.  To show just how foggy my brain was though, I ripped a mitten out three times before it actually started to work out.  I managed to  get the laundry folded, the kitchen counters bleached, and baked a batch of cookies for my husband.  Then I crashed for the rest of the evening.  Today has been even worse.  I finished the documentary and the mitten and then holed up on the couch watching old CSI's and quilting on my quilt.  My nose is not cooperating and my head hurts.  Hopefully, I can go into work tomorrow.  I want to go over and work at my mother's house tomorrow night and my work ethic says if I can't go to work, I can't go anywhere else either.  So here's hoping I make it to work tomorrow and the end of this cold. 

~Jane

Finally Finished on Friday #3

This week I finished dressing my Schoenhut.  She has been waiting for a dress for 25 years, sitting patiently in my doll cabinet.  I like how the dress turned out, even though it is very, very simple.  It is authentic for her, both in fabric and style.  The only thing I don't like is the way the neck of the underwaist shows.  So I think I'll take the underwaist off tonight and modify the neckline a little.  She needs stockings and shoes.  I'll have to check and see if I have a pattern for them, otherwise she'll have to wait until I can order some for her.  It feels good though to actually have made her a dress.  Now onto another project.  I have a swap gift to make so it won't be a FFOF project, but it needs to get done.

~Jane

Finally Finished on Friday!

This is a cross-stitch of a Tasha Tudor painting.  I've been working on this at least for the past three years.  It's been mostly a slow-day-at-work project, so progress on it has been slow.  I've actually had the Holiday Crafts magazine that contains the pattern since 1997.  I'm really excited to have it done!

~Jane

Doll Sewing Update

Lest you think I've been dragging all these fabrics, laces, and aprons home and just letting them pile up, I thought I'd give an update on my little doll who has been waiting for clothes for 20 years.  Here she is sitting in her original knit lace-trimmed union suit.

I'm using The Mary Frances Sewing Book for instructions and patterns.  The patterns are perfect for my Schoenhut doll.

I used two crisp new linen handkerchiefs from my mom's stash to cut out her underwaist and petticoat. 

The skirt of the underwaist is feather-stitched with red.  Here she's lifting the top petticoat so you can see the feather-stitching.












The upper petticoat has a tuck, lace trim, and pearl buttons. 









I ripped out the hem and the rick-rack trim on a lavender gingham apron and cut a little dress out for her.  It'll have white linen bands at the neck and sleeve edges.  I hope it turns out the way I want!

~Jane

Garage Sale

I'm still working on clearing out my mother's house.  We had a garage sale on Saturday.  I had wanted to have one a few weeks back, but my brothers' claimed other obligations every week.  Finally we scheduled one for yesterday and, of course, the weather refused to cooperate.  It's been dry and sunny for weeks, but yesterday the rain rolled in.  It rained steadily from about 8-10 a.m. and then started tapering off.  My brother had put up a large tarp awning which kept everything dry, but I'm sure lots of potential garage salers got up and looked out the window at the rain and decided to do something else Saturday morning.  We stuck it out though and people came.  Because I didn't want to pack everything back inside, I gave really good deals!  The dozens of boxes of fabrics and linens stored in the greenhouse have been reduced to about 15-20.  There are still about 20 boxes of books - the same ones my brother promised to take to the used bookstore last summer.  I told him I'm taking a box a week to the Goodwill starting next week.  If he doesn't do something with them, they will gradually disappear. 

There is still alot of stuff in the house, but we are going to start working on something different for a while.  We're going to tear the kitchen apart.  It hasn't had a good cleaning or sorting out in at least 15 years.  My brother keeps telling me he's going to do it, but it hasn't happened so Elsie and I are tackling it next since I've had it with his promises. 

We were so tired yesterday but we had the Little Guy come spend the night.  He brought all the old trucks and cars he's been collecting at Great-Grandma's.  He was playing on the stairs and when I went to see what he was doing, this is what he had constructed on the Christmas advent wreath waiting on the stairs to be stored upstairs.  A car perched on each candle.  Too cute!

~Jane