Thrifty finds

There aren't many things more enjoyable than having an entire afternoon to oneself. It happens from time to time for me and the older I get, the more I relish the occasion. When I was younger I was quick to waste those precious opportunities napping or watching TV...nowadays I'm sure to tackle activities that are best handled without a toddler in tow. Thrifting is just such an activity.

I had occasion recently to hit the thrift/consignment/new and used shops along Hastings and came back with one of my better thrifting hauls.

For a mere pittance at the Sally Ann I was able to pick up a toy for Abner to practice her fine motor skills (zippers, snaps, buttons, etc.)  and a few pillow cases to make more dresses.

For slightly more money at Consign Home, I was able to grab a cute glass pitcher, a milk glass bottle from Portugal, and a glass measuring bowl. I've been on a mission to replace all of the plastic in our kitchen with glass or stainless steel. Finding these items was a big step in going plastic-free. Buh-bye plastic juice jug!

My ultimate score right now would be finding a complete set of vintage nesting mixing bowls...something like these ones I found over at Pyrex Love (incidentally, I never would have imagined there would be an entire site devoted to all things Pyrex...who knew!). I've also got my eye on the refrigerator sets which would come in handy for storing leftovers.

Since I've mentioned my desire to go plastic-free, this is also a good opportunity to tell you about the cool little Abeego Wrap I picked up at a craft fair last month. If you haven't seen these things before, they're a handmade, all-natural alternative to plastic wrap. Made from hemp/cotton fabric infused with a blend of beeswax and plant extracts they are the perfect thing to wrap sandwiches and other lunch items in. No more plastic baggies or container.

No-sew summer cardigan for Abner

Kids can be tricky to dress. They like to run around and get all hot and sweaty so layers they can peel off are a good solution to prevent overheating.

With that in mind, I set out to find a light little cardigan for Abner to wear in the early mornings and evenings when she's outside and it's on the cooler side. After an exhaustive search (by which I mean a quick stroll through the kids section at Joe Fresh), I came up short. There was nothing quite like what I wanted.

Remembering a tutorial I read on Angry Chicken last year (side note: my memory astounds me with its selectivity sometimes...this I remember, but I can't tell you what I ate for lunch yesterday) I grabbed one of the only long-sleeve tops on the rack and went home to make my own cardigan. I should point out that I grabbed the size larger than Abner usually wears so that it could easily layer over other clothes.

start with a long-sleeve top

fold in half and cut up the fold

(just the shirt front, don't cut through the back as well!)

et voila!

It's impossibly cute on Abner and she keeps asking for her cardy whenever we go out so I think she likes it.

If you need better instructions to make your own, you might want to check out Angry Chicken's original post.

A gift for baby Mavis

Friends of ours had a little girl a short while ago. In anticipation of meeting her, I used the free fabric that came along with my copy of Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby to make the Simple Dress from the book. Having received one of these dresses when Abner was smaller, I knew how great this little dress is and knew it would be the perfect gift for baby Mavis.

From a pattern assembly point of view, it lived up to its name, this was definitely pretty simple. But I did find some aspects a bit confusing. For starters, there were no markings to tell you where to extend the back opening to. Such a small detail, but putting it in the wrong spot could mean wresting with your baby just to get the dress over their head or not getting it over their head at all!

I also wasn't sure how to do the bindings along the neck and sleeves. Having a sample of the dress didn't seem to help since what I was reading on paper and seeing in the real life dress didn't seem to match up. In the end I wound up using the binding more like a facing so I don't get the band of fabric around the edges (which didn't really matter since I wasn't using a contrasting fabric for the binding anyway), nonetheless I'm really happy with how it looks. When I look closely at the pictures in the book, Lotta seems to have done it the same way that I did, but when I searched for pictures of other Simple Dresses online, most people seem to have done it with the contrasting bands.

In the end, the finished dress is so cute and looks more professional that most of the pieces I whip up, so I can hardly complain. I'll have to take a stab at some of the other patterns in the book to see if I have similar problems.

To round out the gift, I also whipped up a pair of pants out of one of my old t-shirts. I guess I could have made the bloomers to go under the dress, but I didn't think I'd have enough of the free fabric to do both. Pants are so much more versatile than bloomers anyway. For the pattern, I used a pair of our favourite pants from when Abner was tiny. Hopefully Mavis will get as much wear out of these pants (top) as we got out of the original (bottom).

Overalls circa 1977

A few weeks ago my friend Allie hosted a crafternoon for a bunch of us crafty folk to get together, do a little crafting, chatting and (most importantly) consume a bit of wine. I love events like this where I can show up at someone's door armed with a sewing machine in one hand and giant tool box of craft equipment and fabric in the other, bottle of wine under my arm and no one thinks I'm a freak for doing so.

It turned out to be a very productive little afternoon for me, but I'll post about my crafternoon project soon. What I want to tell you about in this post is what one of the other crafternooners did.

Allie's mom was one of the participants and while a few of us sewed and Allie worked on a new set of greeting cards, she whipped out a sewing pattern from back in the 1970s and proceeded to trace it out so I could whip up a truly retro project for Abner. How sweet is that?!!?

I was so gung-ho to take a crack at the pattern for these overalls that I tackled it that very night. Much to my surprise, they were super easy to do even without instructions! Just a couple of hours from start to finish and voila...Abner has a cute new Summer outfit.

One thing I'm particularly proud of is that I didn't have to go out and buy any new fabric or notions. The fabric was a hand-me-down from my aunt a few months back. The buttons I had left over from a batch of dresses I did a while ago and the thread was left over from some project that I can't remember. It's always rewarding when you can satisfy a crafting craving and use up some of your stash at the same time.

Gardening with the wee folk

The Dear Sweet Husband and I generally have a love/hate relationship with our garden bed. We both love the idea of having our own spot to grow plants and admire their beauty whenever were out on the balcony. But we both hate the fact that nothing seems to grow well in the crappy dirt (it's so bad, I can't even venture to call it soil) and the dirt just seems to blow around everywhere and get into the house.

After seven years of vacuuming dirt on a regular basis, I finally decided to pave it over this year. [I think I just heard my gardening friends issue a collective gasp!] Measurements in hand, I trekked out to Home Depot one night after Abner was in bed and picked out pavers to cover the dirt.

The next day Abner and I filled in the remaining dirt openings (couldn't get pavers to completely cover the area) with succulents and some potted plants. Most of the plants came from an annual plant sale at work. Gotta love filling almost an entire garden space and window boxes for less than $20!

Now that all is said and done, we're left with a neat and tidy little area on our balcony that still includes plants, but doesn't allow nearly as much dirt to blow around. Abner loves climbing up on the pavers and inspecting each of the plants.

 It's not exactly going to cut it as a garden tour on Heavy Petal, but we're all happy with it!

Get to the Point

We made our way to Point Roberts for the first trip of the season recently. It wasn't exactly warm, but it didn't rain, so we can't really complain. The kids had a blast playing on the lawn and crawling all over the logs and rocks along the beach. We had a hard time wrestling all the rocks away from Abner...she loves rocks (we have piles of them around the house to prove it).

The cousins played so well together and we even discovered they're old enough for an actual kid's table (hooray! The adults can eat in peace once again.) We're so lucky to have access to this place. Can't wait to get back down there for some more R&R. Hopefully it will be warmer next time.

Couldn't help myself

Blogger (finally) came out with some new template options today and I couldn't resist playing around again. I promise, this will be the last change for a while.

UPDATE: It seems to be a quirk if you're using Internet Explorer. If that's the case for you...you might want to consider switching to Firefox. Hopefully, the problem will remedy itself shortly.

New and used and awesome

I have recently discovered the awesomeness that is a used building supply store. Aisle upon aisle jam-packed with practical and beautiful items ripped from homes undergoing restoration. Seriously, there's everything from ripped up floor boards, to stained glass windows, to cabinets and even kitchen sinks!

In my neighbourhood, we're lucky enough to have two of these places just spitting distance away. Closest is the ReStore which is operated by Habitat For Humanity. I literally drive by this place every day on my way to work and I've never gone in until last week. One of the best items I spotted was a giant bin of burlap sacks - each for just 25 cents! Sadly, I couldn't think of a good project for them so I had to walk on by.

We also have Jack's New and Used a bit further down the road. It looks like the kind of place that has guard dogs roaming the lot after dark, but it's such an amazing place to explore in the daylight.

Most items are arranged all willy-nilly out in the open, but they also have a selection of finer items kept safely under cover. Obviously their stock changes all the time, but I was drooling over a set of corbels (that I have absolutely no need for) and a pile of brass doorknobs that another customer was buying. 

If you need to bring the kids along, be sure to bring a second adult along to help wrangle them. While the exploration prospects are huge at a place like this, so too are the dangers.

On the day we went, we were on the look out for a few very specific items and came away with exactly what we were looking for...what we bought will have to remain a secret for another post (or two) though! Stay tuned!

Linen dress and dollar store doily

Remember the Carefree Clothes for Little Girls book I posted about a while back? There were a number of projects I had my eye on when I first picked it up and I've slowly been working my way through my favorites.

After the success I had with the little apron on the front cover a few months back, I decided to tackle the adorable dress from the back cover next. The result is this lovely pale green pinstriped linen dress. The fabric actually came from the shirting section (a previously unexplored section which has now become one of my favorites in the fabric store).

 The collar features a trimming of a doily (I got mine from a dollar store) with the rest of the doily affixed to one side of the dress. The sleeves have a bit of a puff to them without looking too much like a 1980s flashback (admit it, you remember some of those dresses our mothers used to put us in!)

The button is wood imprinted with a snowflake (which I realize you pretty much can't see at all in this picture, but trust me, it's there). Creating and attaching the loop was probably the hardest part of the pattern. Perhaps it's just me, but I found the instructions a little lacking on this step, so I improvised by braiding a few strands of embroidery floss and stitched them on. It seems to work okay, but I probably made the loop a bit larger than I needed.

I'd intended this as a party dress for Abner's birthday last month and was in such a rush to have it ready for the party that I didn't even pre-wash the fabric! Crazy, I know. Sometimes I like to add a little excitement to my sewing. So after everything was all stitched up, I had to throw it in the wash and hope that the linen and the doily would shrink at about the same rate -- thankfully they did! Sadly, they didn't shrink quite enough though because it's still going to be a while before Abner will properly fit this dress.

Spool of Thread grand opening!

Image from Spool of Thread.

Have you heard? Spool of Thread is finally having its grand opening this Saturday!

It's a sewing lounge where you can use their machines, tools and space to work on sewing projects in the company of other crafty folk...oh, and they have fabric too! I can't remember how I first stumbled across this great little place, but I've been tracking the progress of Lili and Henry as they get everything ready to open for a while now. Check out how cleaver they are in using yard sticks for their cash counter - BRILLIANT and oh so cute!

I had a chance to meet them in person at last month's Got Craft where they hosted the DIY craft table and had everyone making the cutest little pinwheel pins. I made two, and love them both! Get so many comments on them too, which is always nice!

Definitely hoping to pop by this weekend to pick up a yard or two of fabric and say hello.

Would this be a fashion "don't"?

Abner has quite the flare for fashion, don't you think? This is the outfit she chose to wear to check the mail the other day...underwear on the outside! It looks like she's gearing up for Critical Mass not just to go check the mail! Every single person that saw her in this outfit smiled. I think maybe we should all wear our underwear on the outside occasionally...the world would be a happier place.

Notice the H2T modelling...Tyra would be so proud!

Don't get too excited about that underwear though...no, she's not potty trained by any stretch of the imagination. There was a bout of three pees in a row in the potty a few months ago and I got carried away and bought her a few pairs of underwear. They've now become a bit of a dress up item.

Lunch was nice, nice, very nice today!

I had the pleasure of crashing an intimate concert with Dan Mangan while on my lunch break today. Such a treat to see a Canadian musician I love play live...and to be one of only seven people in the audience! I'm a lucky girl!

I discovered Dan's (yes, just "Dan", we're on a first name basis now) music on The Peak (my fave radio station) a while back. If you haven't heard his stuff yet, get your browser over to You Tube or iTunes and check it out!