Some Crafty Goodness

I've been on a sewing binge lately and I've still only made a dent in the pile of projects I have in mind. Here are a few of the things I've been working on.

I finally tried my hand at shirring, after reading a great tutorial on how to do it at Flossie Teacakes, and this is my first project, a blouse for M, using 2 fat quarters of Amy Butler fabric, bought at The Fabric Addict. The shirring worked so I was pleased with that and I love the fabric but, 2 fat quarters really weren't big enough, the blouse needed to be a bit longer. But now I'll know for next time!

Next, I decided to try my hand at shirring something for me, and when I saw this lovely linen on sale at Fabricland, I decided to turn it into a skirt.

I love, love, love this style of skirt. I think I will make all my skirts this way from now on. It's so comfortable, easy to fit, and I like the line it makes, how it hugs my hips and then flares out from there, I think it's more flattering on my body than a skirt that gathers and flares at the waist.

Next, there's the bag I made. I used Oh Fransson's tutorial and I love the pattern. It's more time consuming than it looks but then you end up with a quality project at the end so that's OK. I like the fabric but I'll probably get tired of it sooner than later...

The next project is a blouse I made for myself using Cal Patch's amazing, wonderful, can't-say-enough-good-things-about-it book, "Design-It Yourself Clothes: Patternmaking Simplified". I love the fit of this blouse and the light airiness of the fabric which is perfect for hot summer weather but I feel a bit frumpy in the small floral print so I'd like to try it again in another fabric (and again and again). I have some lovely fabric from Sandi Henderson's Meadowsweet 2 line that I will try next I think.

Then there was sewing to do to get ready for David and Laura's wedding. M is going to be their flowergirl and C will be their ringbearer. Their colours are navy blue and pewter. So, here is the dress I made for M (it will look much cuter on her than on the hanger but she didn't feel like putting it on yet again after all the fittings I made her do.

And a closeup of the headband she'll be wearing:

And this is C's slightly wonky tie (that satin fabric is really really hard to fold in a straight line, hence the wonkiness). I used the tutorial for a boy's tie on the Purl Bee website. Luckily, Connor already had a dark grey suit that fits him just right so the tie is all I had to make. Although I'm thinking a little dark blue hankie sticking out of his breast pocket would be pretty cute so I might make that too.

Along with a shot of the back where I used one of my trusty labels for the tag that holds the shorter end of the tie behind the longer end.

And finally, there's the dress I'll be wearing to the wedding. I went shopping and fell in love with this dress but it wasn't quite modest enough so I had to make some alterations. It was too low cut in the front and it had sleeves but they were more like half sleeves and I needed to fill in the bottom part of the sleeves. Luckily, the skirt is very full and is made up of a bunch of tapered panels so I just cut out two of the panels, sewed the surrounding panels back together and used this extra fabric to fill in the sleeves and the neckline.

Much easier than sewing a dress from scratch! I'm looking forward to dancing the night away at David and Laura's reception in this dress!

Family Reunion 2010

Last weekend, my mother hosted a Schindler/Spring family reunion out near Spruce Grove at a family reunion centre called Back to the Woods. Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Not counting Shae, there were twelve (I think?) little cousins 6 and under, mostly boys, so this was a noisy, boisterous group.

In the afternoon, some of us drove over to Wabamun Lake to cool off. Unfortunately, the lake wasn't ideal for swimming but it was great for young boys who didn't mind getting dirty and liked exploring the slimy seaweed...

Connor spent most of his time searching for snail shells. He also found a few dead guppies. At one point, he said to Jess: "Dad, did you know you shouldn't squish dead fish?" "Why not" asked Jess. "Because they'll squirt black stuff on your nose if you do."

Summer Holiday, Part 1

Well, we're finally back from the first of our two summer holidays we have planned this year. At the risk of boring you with what is basically a vacation slide show, here are my favourite pictures from our trip.

Right before we left, Shae had her Grade 6 Farewell (aka mini-graduation) so I'm going to sneak in a couple of pictures from that first, before I get to our holiday.

Doesn't she look beautiful? Smart and beautiful, she's a lucky girl!

On June 30th, we headed down to Raymond, just in time for the annual Canada Day parade. The traditional red and white was worn, the parade was watched, candy was caught, and food was eaten. Topped off, of course, by fireworks that night.

After 2 days in Raymond, while Jess and I were on a drive to Cardston, our van broke down. The transmission had been acting funny for a while and all of the sudden, it just stopped shifting and we were stuck, we couldn't go anywhere. The mechanic in Cardston said he couldn't fix it so we had to have it towed to Lethbridge (NOT cheap!) Turns out the transmission was toast and it ended up taking 2 weeks to get it fixed!! Thanks to Jess's parents' generosity, we were still able to go places when we needed to as they lent us their van.

So, our faulty transmission ended up extending our holiday but that just meant more time with family so it all worked out.

The next day, I ran the Raymond 10k race. My goal was to shave off at least 5 minutes from last year's time but 10 minutes was my real goal. Well, I managed to cut down my time by 5 minutes and just barely. So maybe next year, I'll lose the other 5 minutes, we'll see. This is me cresting Temple Hill, the one "hill" in what is otherwise a nice and flat race.

And, crossing the finish line:

Later that day, we headed out to Waterton National Park in the mountains. Unfortunately, it was really cold and windy so we didn't do much more than throw rocks and sit by the water trying not to get blown away. Although Jess did give his arms a workout and took the kids out in the canoe on Emerald Bay.

Jess's younger sisters Caley and Bethany were both in Raymond at the same time as us. Neither of their husbands could come but they both have 2 sons so with their 4 kids and our 4 kids, there was never a dull moment. Shae had fun painting everyone's faces, she's quite the artist.

Maira wanted to be Spiderman too but of course, she wanted to be pink. I tried to get a picture of her and Shae but Maira wouldn't hold still for anything because she kept wanting to show me her superpowers.

Finally, I asked Shae to hold Maira's face still so I could get a non-blurry picture...

Hudson was sleeping during this picture but this is the best shot we could get of the other 7 cousins all together.

Jess took a belaying course at U of L so he could take the kids to the climbing wall there. Here's Shae climbing up the wall. It's 5 stories high.

And here she is all the way at the top:

And Connor's a great climber too, he made it over some really tough spots and made it just a couple metres from the top.

Later in our trip, we drove west into the mountains, to Kikomun Provincial Park in B.C. Caley and her boys came along, as well as Jess' parents and his brother John. This is the cabin I rented for me and the kids (Jess didn't come, he was working that week)

It was really lovely, the only drawback was that it was really close to the highway. Here's a picture out the back window, to show how close the highway is.

But it was a 10 minute drive to the beach so the location was really good.

The boys loved playing with Uncle John, especially when it involved pushing him over.