Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
My Pandora Park plot
I have a new summer dress to show off but no photos of it yet so instead it is pictures of my community garden plot which I finally got down to working on Sunday.
When I got there, the plot looked like this:
Now, while the wild-growing pansies are beautiful, they were pretty much taking the whole plot up (not to mention the buttercup, the clover and the many other unidentifiable plants growing in there!)
Fortunately the earth was easy to turn and *full* of worms so it was short work to getting my garden plot looking like this:
It’s a little less vivid, but there’s a whole lot more space for veggies now. This isn’t the best shot, but at the far end are two leeks from the last gardener, two spaghetti squash plants (for which I must built supports), and some cabbages. I hope to get some more seeds and starts in this weekend. I’m a little late on it, but still with plenty of time to make it go.
More adventures in sewing.
Two mishaps:
- I put my finger under a running sewing machine while trying to stitch a zipper and got a needle through the flesh (to the side, not the nail fortunately).
- I put together most of a dress pattern – the hardest thing I have done to date, and when I put it on last night it turns out I have made it two sizes too big! I’m looking at ways to alter it tonight to see if the work can be salvaged.
So the learning continues and I’m feeling a little obsessed at the moment. The oversized dress can be hemmed down on the sides a bit without too much fuss but I do think I am going to remake the whole thing again at the proper size which is really the better way to get a good fit. With different fabric of course – I can make a pattern more than once but I don’t like using the same fabric over and over…. so this weekend I’m going to hit Spool of Thread and see what retro-y cuteness I can come up with.
It’s interesting, this process of learning to construct clothing – a total mental engagement as I work my way through (sometimes poorly worded) instructions and then try to apply them to cloth. And unlike quilting, a dress comes together in relatively few hours. I mean, despite the sizing problem – my very first dress has come together in about six hours so far with another 2 to finish it off. That’s really just two after-work evenings or a Sunday project. A quilt takes 4-10 hours per stage – cutting, piecing, basting, quilting – and that’s just for simple projects!
I am hoping by the end of this week to have a dress to show off here – one that is not bunching in the back and bagging at the sides – but in the meantime I’ve left this post with a picture of a crocheted shawl completed last week. This is another field of new explorating and also satisfying my need-to-learn impulses!
The front yard job.
After two years of talking plans for the front yard, we finally broke ground on our little plan back in May. You might remember this photo of the initial attack:
Since then, we have intermittently worked at our little front patch (which has grown increasingly shady under the leafing beech trees) and finally have about half of it mulched and planted. This is about as far as we are going to get it this year I believe – due to the timing of the year and also the cost of putting in more plants. I would rather wait until next year when I can divide some of our shade-loving perennials rather than shelling out a ton of more money at the garden centre. Also, I’m waiting to see how the wild dug oregon grape and sword ferns do – as I have access to many more on my parents’ property and will install them if they seem to like the locale.
In any case, by the end of this weekend we have a front yard that looks like this:
Which is feeling pretty sweet. I have to also acknowledge that Brian has done most of the work on this yard as I have been preoccuppied with the veggie garden and also my new community garden plot. One thing you can’t see in these photos is the veggie bed I put in to the right-hand side is doing quite nicely and even in the limited light, my greens are sprouting and starts are coming along. I think this is going to be a good summer greens and winter veggies bed given the shifting light availability/
Check out the detail gallery below, more photos to come shortly!
Fashion Friday: My new skirt!
Recognizing this isn’t the best photo – it was shot on my camera this morning before work. But here! Proof that I made and wore my very own skirt! It’s a little bit more see-through than I would like so I’m going to have to make a slip to go with it, but even so I’m wearing it in the office right now.
A new skirt for six dollars.
I am always amused when someone points to a sewing project – a bag or a quilt – I’ve done and says “I could never do that.” As though I am some sort of sewing genius.
The fact is, before 2004 I had never used a sewing machine. And not only that, I practically failed sewing class in grade eight because I couldn’t for the life of me make a bean bag frog (my Mom took my sad attempt apart and resewed it for me). Yup. That’s me. Sewing genius.
But somewhere in my short residency on the Sunshine Coast (where I had *lots* of time on my own) I decided to own a sewing machine – a $150 Brother from London Drugs. And then I stumbled into a class on basic quilting which involved making a potholder from which I extrapolated that a quilt was only a potholder times sixty. Shortly afterwards I completed a queen-sized quilt which is still in use in my home despite my poor stitching job. From then on it was mostly small things – lap quilts, baby gifts, table runners and the like. Not too many projects over several years, but enough to keep the sewing machine in use. And somehow, through projects that worked and didn’t – I got better at the whole shebang. Better at designing, better at colour and fabric choosing, better at sewing. Just like that!
Except just like that took about six years. Which would have been shorter if I had done more of it – but a whole lot of other things were going on at the same time which made it hard for me to sit still and work through things. In the last few months things have really accelerated on the learning curve which I chalk up to the purchase of a Pfaff machine at Christmas time. While I recognize a good seamstress can make clothes on any machine, I feel that for me a better machine kicked my sewing up to a much more enjoyable level.
But I digress. For me the “I could never do that” phrase over the past few years has ebbed with regards to most sewing – the exception being clothing. As much as a quilt seemed straight forward (if time-consuming) and shoulder bags were just a matter of learning about interfacing and practice – the idea of clothes-making has always terrified me. But it has also intrigued me, because I see so much fabric I would love to wear – if only I knew how to turn it into something!
I am hoping that as of this week I’ve gotten over my fears – and by tomorrow I will be the proud wearer of a new skirt entirely of my own making. A basic four-panel with an elastic waist – but a skirt made by moi nevertheless!
It still needs a hemming, which is the plan for this evening – and a little stitch around the elastic – and good to go! I am really pleased to say that following the pattern turned out to be much easier than I had thought it would be, which gives me the confidence to try out other patterns. Which is the point of this post really…. that it’s all in trial (and error) that we overcome the parts of us that say “I can’t” and put a new skillset in our quiver instead.
So I’ve got a cheap (six dollars in fabric plus five dollars for the pattern) new skirt that I will hopefully wear to work tomorrow and a promise to myself that when I do finish it I am “allowed” to buy fabric for a clothing project to work on next week. Another skirt of the same pattern? Something from Sew Serinidipity (which just came in the mail last week)? Or a tunic pattern I saw in the Butterick catalog? So many opportunities to build my skills some more. But I’m only taking on one “Easy”-rated project at a time to avoid becoming overwhelmed. A couple years at that and I should have a whole new wardrobe!
Red Cedar 
