easter sewing with mingo & grace

I made some Easter dresses!

In a perfect world, I would have a sewing blog where I'd post all of my recent projects. But I don't! So maybe if I start posting them here, then I'll create a dedicated space for them... eventually.

One of my goals this year was to make a pattern that I've never tried before, since I've gotten comfortable sewing the same knit patterns over and over. Which isn't really bad, since those patterns are so versatile, but I'm trying to up my sewing game a bit. I'd been admiring the Blake dress by Mingo & Grace for a long time, and when I saw that Farrah added a women's version to her shop last fall (with lots of variations—pleats, gathers, sleeveless, etc.) I knew that some mother/daughter matching was in order. I tested out Rhoda's version a few weeks ago with a knit version made out of some darling and very cheap fabric from my cheap fabric mecca, Jomar (another huge reason I'll miss Philly) and it wasn't hard at all to make, even with my newly developed sewing prowess. I had to unpick lots of seams and re-read the instructions a few times but overall it came out really well and Rhoda loves it. I'm also happy that it's a versatile dress for all seasons—she's worn the knit version with a cardigan and with a striped long sleeved tee underneath, and in the summer it'll be cute on its own with some sandals.

So, onto these particular dresses—I sewed them up in a pretty rose Essex linen from Fabric.com. I washed and dried the fabric before I cut it out and it came out really soft. It's a heavy enough linen that it doesn't need to be lined, but the women's version calls for a lined bodice and I think it lends a nice finished quality. The girl's pattern has the option of finishing with lining or with bias tape (I did bias tape for the knit version) and I really like the lining version better. Plus, I'm not sure that I did the bias tape right, so don't look too closely next time you see her wearing it. According to the pattern measurements I should have been a 6 on top and a 10 on bottom (?) but I did the whole thing in a 6 (after making a very quick muslin out of the skirt and double checking) and the waist fit fine. I have really broad shoulders so it's a little narrower on top than it should have been, which is a bummer—it's not bad for ease of movement, but it looks a little off in person. I really need to figure out how to fix that kind of thing! (I'm guessing a muslin is the answer, wah wah.) Also, I need to figure out how to master invisible zippers. I had beginner's luck the very first time I sewed an invisible zipper a few years ago when I wasn't as much of a seamstress, and it was just so hard for me this time. Sadly, Rhoda's zipper broke and I'll need to replace it—but fortunately it happened as she was getting in her car seat on the way home from church. Silver linings.

I'm obsessed with these dresses—as is Rhoda, who kept talking about her special pink dress the week leading up to Easter. I was afraid they'd come out kinda blah but I was so pleasantly surprised. And I'm also obsessed with Mingo & Grace! Farrah's style is very classic but with a nice modern take, so I definitely see myself buying more of her dress patterns in the future. Hopefully she'll add more adult patterns so I can match Rhoda more often than I already do :)

new year, new me

(this is what you get when you question my blogging habits, ROBBIE)

Robbie has mentioned several times over the past few months that I have given in and let Instagram take the place of my blog. I guess that is kind of true, as my blog had started turning into a travelogue and Rhoda updates, which is not what it started out as fourteen (!!!) years ago. Yes, my bloggerversary came and went again this month without any fanfare. And yet the world keeps turning.

I've been thinking a lot about why I've let this happen. Honestly I've been confused about the purpose of my blog for quite some time now, probably since Rhoda was born. The weird thing about my generation of bloggers is that most of my peers that I have met or kept in touch with through blogging have gone on to bigger and better things, like Instagram or owning a crazy successful small business (and then posting about it exclusively on Instagram). For someone my age, blogs were not the gathering place for young mothers—it was a place to post stuff that you would now post on Twitter or Facebook. And new/young moms my age do things like regular monthly updates about their kids with cute "1 Month!" onesies or stickers and I can't go for that—not for lack of trying, but it's just not my style I guess since I only did that for two random months of Rhoda's life. (But looking at that post makes me wish I had kept up with it because LOOK AT BABY RHODA.) So now that my people are gathering on Instagram, that's where I am most of the time, I guess. Though Instagram is the new place where, if you're not careful, you can quickly spiral into a wormhole of creeping on other people's lives and maybe being jealous of them or wondering what happened to that random acquaintance's marriage or getting super depressed because you keep seeing crazy stories about poor young moms whose kids died in a horrific accident or were born with some life-threatening condition. I know that stuff was all out there before but I just wasn't aware of it because I wasn't as anxious as I am now and I just didn't care about people's kids that much. And now you can really get away with that creeping behavior because it's not like you can look at the IP addresses of people who are creeping on your Instagram page. So now I just don't look at the "explore" tab anymore and I feel a lot more peace in my life. 2016 has been a great fresh start without all that emotional baggage to be lugged around.

Enough about Instagram—LET'S TALK ABOUT ME. But in jumpy, disconnected paragraphs, because I've got a lot of catching up to do.

2016 has been AWESOME so far. I'll be honest—2015 was rough, in hindsight. I was ready to put that year behind me. Socially it wasn't super great for me in many ways, and physically it was also tough. Why is it that the second I turned 30 I started falling apart? My most recent thing is that I have a prescription for physical therapy to help alleviate pain from a herniated disc in my neck, which is also causing arm numbness and chest pain. I think that parenting is trying to kill me.

Now let me tell you about how awesome I'm feeling. The Philly winter has been nothing short of perfect. Sure, we had a couple of severe cold snaps there—but it was also 75 degrees on Christmas Eve and it's supposed to hit 60 today, and the weather between then has just been hovering in the comfortable 40s and 50s. Not mad about that, since the past two winters have introduced the term "polar vortex" into my vocabulary. And we got our token snowstorm and snow day, and now the snow is melted and it's just a happy memory. It's sad that weather plays such a huge role in happiness but you do what you can.

Speaking of weather, this is our last East Coast winter for the time being because Robbie accepted a job offer in Palo Alto after graduation. Whaaaat. So, seeya winter. Come visit me in California and manifest yourself as breezy and 60 degrees.

A goal I've continued for myself in 2016 is to read a book a week (I met my goal last year, boo yah), and so far I'm on track. In 2014 I averaged a book a month, and having more things to talk about with people is just really great. Though I have approximately two friends here who read books on the reg, so that's kind of a bummer. I miss my DC book group. My other goal is to try one new recipe a week, which has been fun so far. Meal planning is probably my least favorite thing about being a homemaker so this has been a stretch experience. There were many nights in 2015 that we had quesadillas for dinner and I'm not proud of that, but I'm not apologizing for it either. I'm just trying to repent. If you want to know what I've been making you can see that on my "I Made This" board on Pinterest. Also, if you want to get out of a recipe rut you should follow Smitten Kitchen on Instagram, because I've yet to make a recipe of hers that I didn't like and most of them aren't that complicated. She posts several seasonally-appropriate recipes from her archives every day and it's pretty much the main place I get ideas for this week's new recipe. Other solid cookbook suggestions: Dinner: A Love Story, The Joy of Cooking, and America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated are favorite in our household rotation. Just in case you are interested in that kind of thing.

I don't think I ever mentioned on my blog that I started sewing in earnest about a year ago. I took a class on sewing with knits and acquired a serger and now I'm the Sergin' General (I love that joke). I am finishing up a class tonight on men's trousers and now Robbie has a new pair of corduroy pants. I'm not sharing this to brag, but to say that I'm happy that I've found a hobby that allows me to make new clothes for myself and Rhoda, and also allows me to binge watch TV shows at the same time.

Enough about me—I'm hungry and I need a nap. Probably really the two real reasons I don't blog anymore, since that's all I really want to do in my spare time anyway.

just practicing

We got our crib in the mail the other day and I was like, guess I'd better test it out. Isn't swaddling a teddy bear and putting it in a crib a rite of passage or something? I took a nap after I set up the crib and Robbie came home to me sleeping and the bear baby next to me in the crib and I think he thought I had gone a little crazy.

Also, I have to brag a little bit about the quilt in the crib—while I was at my parents' house, I pieced together some of my mom's leftover fabric scraps to make a quilt and I decided that I wanted to learn how to machine quilt (or "stipple," but I hate that word for obvious reasons). So I looked up a tutorial on YouTube and voila! I have a tiny machine quilted blanket now. All it takes is a special presser foot and really strong forearms because all that maneuvering in the machine really takes it out of you.

we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you christmas

I have more Turkey pictures to share but I need a break and there is lots to talk about so indulge me for a bit. Thanksgiving was hardly cold in its grave when I mentally threw November aside and welcomed Christmas with a hearty "ho, ho, ho!" I'm serious. Let me show you.

We bought a Christmas tree. Our tradition is to get a tree from Eastern Market on the day after Thanksgiving while my parents are here for the long weekend. When I was growing up my parents sometimes wouldn't get our tree up until Christmas Eve so I am generally kind of adamant about getting the tree up over the holiday so we don't run out of free time. Please note that our parsley bush is OUT OF CONTROL. Let me know if you need some parsley.

We decorated the tree. Isn't Ida cute?

I started my Christmas crafting. As you probably already know, I can't ever shake the urge to craft and Christmas just makes it worse. I made some ornaments on Saturday and now our tree looks SUPER awesome.

We went ice skating. A new rink just opened up in Georgetown and it wasn't super crowded, so we had a last-minute date and hit up Baked & Wired for cupcakes too. It was a good night.

And last but not least... SUFJAN! I was so excited for this concert and it didn't disappoint. There was a sing-along and he played old and new stuff and there were costumes and dancing and unicorns and confetti and bubbles... and this was printed on our sing-along program:

I just love that guy. Here's an oldie but a goodie that he played on Saturday:

I think this is going to be a great Christmas. We've got concerts and parties lined up for December and Robbie's already planning his sugar cookie extravaganza. Plus I'm kind of happy to bid farewell to a hectic 2012 and Christmas means we're closer to ushering out the old and welcoming in the new on a high note. Am I jumping the gun with these thoughts? Don't answer that.

back in the saddle again

That blogging break was unintentional. I'm sorry. I didn't know it at the time but I was busy prioritizing things that I thought were important, and I think they still are/were important but I let a lot of other things slide through the cracks. The lack of blogging and general lack of desire to come up with anything was just kind of a manifestation of all of those things. But I think I'm ready for my comeback. Do you forgive me?

I have more things to say but I'll just leave you with these three things to think about:

• the Erasure Pandora station is the bomb
• I CANNOT WAIT for the Olympics to start tonight. I've been thinking about it all day.
• this is my mother in-law examining some, er, festive fabric that we found at Joann's on Monday night:

Discuss.

winter is a time to make things

When it's cold, I find myself making more stuff because I'm just hanging out inside watching TV (update—we are now to season four and Robbie is loving it). Here are some things that I have been making while watching my stories—no original creations, just things I've seen around the internet and filed away in my "make later" folder.

Tiny Polaroid magnets for Robbie's Christmas stocking, from this tutorial. Pretty much followed the instructions as written, except that instead of using a white paint marker to paint the edges, I used Wite-Out. A perfectly good substitution.

Homemade, veggie-rich dinners. We had been doing a really bad job of cooking at home and eating vegetables, so we bought a no-frills cookbook and expanded our repertoire. We also ate lots of eggplant this month, which I didn't mind at all.

Various and sundry projects with the fabric bought with my finally-redeemed G Street Fabrics LivingSocial deal. I love the tiny orange boats so much.

A little take-home for our ward's Young Women that we gave out at New Beginnings last week. Isn't it funny how pre-teens get really excited about something framed to put in their bedroom? (Myself included.)

Two 10-minute pencil skirts, courtesy of my talented friend Elle. I aspire to be a crafty maven like her one day. My version was more like a 15-minute skirt (I made this green one before church yesterday [granted, I have 1:30 church]!), because I added a band of fabric to the top of my skirt to give the top a more finished look. But seriously quite easy (and cheap with 40% off knit fabrics, 20% off my entire purchase, making it less than $10 for both skirts—I love you Joann's). Also, I'm obsessed with kelly green lately—also my alma mater's color ("greeeeeen aaaaand whiiiiiiite"!).

Anything else I should be making? I'm on a roll here.

2012: the year of the tiny hat

Happy new year! I have hundreds and hundreds of pictures from our two week vacation, so let's start with the most important thing—tiny party hats. I cannot take any credit for this except for my great taste in friends. My lovely friend Alison blesses the internet with her great (and free!) tutorials, and when I saw her tiny party hat tutorial, I knew it would be just the thing to complete the annual Terrill New Year's Eve party. With the help of my awesome niece Ella, we cranked out almost 30 party hats for everyone at the party to enjoy. Originally I was planning on just making the hats and then letting everyone decorate their own, but it became problematic when some of the younger kids were more interested in touching the hot glue gun than doing anything productive with it. So the kids art directed while Ella hot glued buttons, pom poms, and feathers galore to the hats.

The great thing about the tiny party hats is that for some reason, everyone is attracted to them. I am so pleased with my family for being such great sports and wearing them all night. My 91 year-old grandma even wore hers all night! And some didn't stop there—my oldest sister Bonny and her girls wore them to church the next day.

Here are some more pictures of people in their hats. Somehow I thought that I took a lot more pictures of everyone's hats, but I guess some people were more enthusiastic than others about getting their pictures taken. Bless their hearts.

Stay tuned for more updates and pictures from the holidays! There's much more where that came from...

it sounded like a good idea at the time

Last week I volunteered to make a pie for our work holiday party (which is today), and that didn't really hit me until about 10:30 pm last night. After a bit of whining and "WHY DID I DO THIS" I finally finished the pre-baking part at 12:30 am (yeah, it's not even done baking yet) and went to bed. It is way too early for me to be awake right now. But our house smells like pomegranate molasses so all is well.

I also had the major urge to craft this week, which manifested itself last night. I had some ladies in my ward over to our house for my second annual holiday craft night, which usually ends up being me making a craft and everyone eating lots of chocolate and guiding me in my craftiness. Last night I decided to make some tiny dancer ornaments:

I just want to carry them around in my pocket. THEY ARE SO CUTE! I am especially fond of the currently tutu-less gold sparkly one—I like to call her Eltina John. If you want to make your own tiny dancer, I used this tutorial (found on Pinterest). The most time-consuming part is making the pom-poms (and being patient enough to let the paint dry before you glue anything on or attach the pom-pom skirt), but if you have friends around to tell you funny stories and feed you chocolate butter, then it's pretty much not time-consuming at all. 

Also, when the tutorial tells you to use indelible ink for the face, please follow those instructions, or else you will end up with the predicament I faced with what Julie calls my "Black Swan" ornament (pretty sure you can guess which one)—the eyes will start bleeding with the cheeks and then you just have a freaky black-eyed mess on your hands. But she has character, that one.

gonna dress you up in my love

I went through a brief spell of craftiness last week. I've had a few mending and repurposing projects on my mind, plus some gift ideas that I needed to get out of my mind and onto my sewing machine. So during a fit of throwing away all of my clothes that made me feel like I was still in college, I gave a few of the pieces a second glance and wondered how I could make them feel more like Young Professional Hannah and less like I'm Dating A Cute Boy Named Robbie Hannah. (Not that I don't find Robbie cute still.)

Exhibit A:

Easter dress, 2008. My mother in-law was with me when I bought this little number at Nordstrom (BP, baby!) A few problems, though. First, the dress was just a little too short. Like, any time I sat down in it or bent over I was giving everyone around me an unnecessary peep show. The billowy-ness and tie around the waist exacerbated the problem. Second, the sleeves! Oh, the sleeves. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the elastic around the sleeves was stretched out (I don't know if it was a design flaw or what—unless there's a stretched-out elastic look I missed out on) and the sleeves were constantly falling down my shoulders. I used to cover my bases by wearing a Shade tee underneath, but under the square neck, that just looked so... Mormon.

Anyway, I pretty much was only wearing the dress during winter, with leggings and boots and a sweater to temporarily fix those problems I listed. But when you want something to wear in the summer, it's annoying to look at a dress taunting you in the closet. "I look like a summer dress, but I require so much more effort than you realize," it said to me. So, I turned it into a skirt:

Basically, I just took my scissors to the dress and snipped off the bodice. Pretty easy. Unfortunately, I can only put the skirt on by pulling it over my head. Haha. I was able to use the tie that was already on the dress to keep the dress from falling off my body. I bet that I could make it a little more fancy by adding a zipper or buttons or something, but this quick fix is good enough for me. It took long enough to pin all of the pleats down and figure out how to make the top straight that I didn't want to bother with something fancier.

Onto Exhibit B:

The Downeast Basics dress, circa 2008 (maybe late 2007, but I bought it on sale in early 2008). Everyone in Utah owns this dress. In fact, I had two versions of it before I gave the other one away last week. (Additionally, I have another LBD with polka dot hearts that I kind of like better.) I have shown up to church in three different wards in this dress, and someone has been wearing it on the same day as me. Lesson learned: I stopped wearing it.

I got the idea for repurposing this dress from Monica, who hilariously referred to this dress as "loud, crowded, and dangerous." She was referring to the unfortunate peep show gap at the bottom of the dress (why, dress designers? WHY??) but I also think that the dress had too much going on for my taste (see: ruffles down the front, polka dots, belt, different colored buttons). Her thought was that she should cut the bodice off and make an appropriately "young professional" blouse. So I did it:

And I feel good about it. 

I took too many shortcuts with both of these projects (like skipping rolled hems [do NOT skip the rolled hem, people]) but they were good fast fixes, and they were experiments. Plus, I am happy to have a ledger of "lessons learned" for my next repurposing projects. 

Side note: I don't know how people take pictures of themselves in mirrors. It probably doesn't help that my house is like two square feet and I barely fit in my hallway, where our mirror is.

Shower the people

On Saturday morning Julie and I threw a baby shower for our friend Naomi, who is due any day now! I've never thrown a shower before but if there is food and bunting I'm all about it. Naomi also thought it would be nice to do a book-themed shower because they don't know the sex of their baby, plus, there is nothing so nice as a literate baby. I come from a family of English majors so I can appreciate that.

I think the invitations turned out cute. We were trying to go for a blackboard-type feel to go with the book theme, and I think it came out okay. I spent a night sewing tiny flags to cardstock, and Julie and I spent a delirious night laughing and writing out the invites and addressing envelopes.

The tasty spread. This was my first time baking a strata (um, I'd actually never heard of strata before), and I think it turned out well. Recipe here (I did the cheddar/bacon version [of course]). Also, we actually added more food to this spread and it ALL got eaten. You go, ladies.

Bunting city! I didn't know how many strands to make so I just made a ton and hung them up around Julie's apartment.

 

Cute Julie. She did a great job hostessing.

More decor. I have bunting coming out of my ears now. Julie said that bunting is such a nice decoration because it looks like a giant smile on the wall. I guess I will hang some up around my house when I am feeling down.

Naomi and Josh looking over some of their gifts.

For a little party favor, I asked our talented friend Christina to make a bookmark with this quote on it (and running with the bunting theme), suggested to me by my sister Bonny's g-chat status. I thought it was appropriate for the book theme and I think Christina did a great job designing it. (THANK YOU, Christina!) Plus, bookmarks are useful. I also have a few left over so if you ever get mail from me in the near future it might have a bookmark in it. Haha.

The after-party when the men invaded, and when Christina took a little nap.

I just liked the leftover Pellegrino caps.

Julie and Naomi also have some really nice pictures from the shower on their blogs (compared to my shoddy point and shoot ones), so go check them out!

Bunting on the Thames

Anyone know that reference? Anyone, anyone? I'm sure Eliza does, and Julie can't guess either.

Anyway, this is a sneak preview of the results of my winter doldrums craft binge. They are crappy Photobooth pictures that I sent to Julie late at night, so I'm sorry that my hand is so white. The theme was bunting. (Clearly.) I will post the results and context later. I also have more fun New Years pictures to post but I don't have them with me. I'll do that later too.

This was a pretty quiet weekend. Lots of napping and watching Netflixed TV shows and getting a dent in "Band of Brothers." The goal for 2011 is to watch more TV than we have in our whole lives. I think we're off to a good start.

Treatsies

Before I married Robbie, I considered myself a decent cook. I guess I'm still a decent cook, but that is completely overshadowed by Robbie's enthusiasm for cooking and baking. We made some sugar cookies with the Club Scouts on Tuesday night and Robbie really wanted to decorate more. I had to take a final at home so Robbie entertained himself quietly in the kitchen and would come in periodically and say "Look!" and show me his creations. 

I'm perfectly happy gorging myself on pumpkin cookies every Christmas, and I think that Robbie was getting a little tired of the monotony and took matters into his own hands, and quite successfully, I think. The other nice thing is that Robbie really likes to share (whereas I like to stuff my face till I'm sick) and went out into the frigid outdoors and delivered cookies to some friends and neighbors. A nice guy, indeed. (He also took the pictures because he was really proud. Haha.)

Side note: when is the point in your life where holiday food starts sounding really repulsive? After four holiday parties this past week, I feel gross just walking into a room that smells like stuffing and pie.

She's crafty

Like most people who aren't Martha Stewart for a living, I get my best craft inspiration when I'm supposed to be doing other more productive things, like studying for finals or writing a paper. Needless to say, my house is very full of crafts right now. In honor of December finally coming, here is a round up of my latest and greatest Christmas crafts.

Door decor/wreath alternative. Difficulty level: very easy. Cost: cheap. Idea from here.

As seen in my last post, the tiny little flower garland. Difficulty level: easy, but somewhat tedious to cut out all the circles. I'd suggest cutting and assembling while watching a movie or sitting on a couch talking to your parents, or have your mom help you cut out circles (like mine did). Cost: free for me, because it was all made out of leftover green and red fabric in my stash. Idea and tutorial from here. Suggestion: eight circles make a fuller flower (rather than the suggested seven in the tutorial).

Ooooh I was so excited for this one! I hosted some girls in our ward for a Christmas craft night last night (that mostly ended up being an excuse for us to sit around and eat popcorn and cookies), and this was my project for the night (which involved a lot of unpicking stitches and talking to myself). Robbie and I both have stockings from our childhood but we wanted to start our own family stocking tradition, so I finally got around to making the stockings that I had envisioned a couple of years ago. And there are BELLS sewn to them! I love it.

Some details:

Mine is the holly one, Robbie's is the cute snowman. I totally have stocking envy because I LOVE how the snowman turned out (thanks to Naomi picking up some cool buttons from the store for me). But Robbie is the one who came up with the button idea so I decided to give him the cuter stocking. Haha. Plus, the colors looked more masculine, I guess. And the snowman is wearing a hat. So. That's that.

Difficulty level: medium (easy if you're following a pattern and have an idea in mind, because it took me longer than it should have to attach the cuff to the stocking), and you need to know how to sew a straight line on a machine. Small potatoes. Cost: cheap. Danger level: medium to high, depending on your glue gun and needle abilities... I managed to burn three of my fingers with hot glue and prick my thumb with a needle. So. Proceed with caution.

Now I just need to finish school so I can craft without guilt. I bought a ton of fabric last week at a Black Friday sale at Joann's, including the cutest ever fabric I'm saving as an incentive to get pregnant some day and make a quilt for my future child. Yes, these are things I think about. The lady at Joann's said everyone needs a fabric stash, so whatever. Don't judge me.