I also bought a california fuschia, a scarlet monkey flower, and other larger Salvia columbariae and a bee balm that I am establishing elsewhere in the backyard…

I’ve been trench composting lately. Basically when the food scraps bin is full I take it outside, dig a hole in the yard and dump it all in and fill up the hole with dirt again. I haven’t been doing this in the vegetable beds since those are filled with expensive fancy dirt from American Soil. Instead, I’ve been digging in the largish open area that will some day be my native meadow but that right now is horrible old sod and dead dirt.

The other day I was reading a blog in which this woman bought a house, called in a landscaper, bought matching martha stewart outdoor furniture (loungers, table with 6 chairs, a… buffet?!), installed a fire pit and lighting and was, a month or so later, good to go.

I just found it interesting to witness this style that is totally opposite my own. For that woman, having a quickly set up, attractive cookie cutter backyard was probably exactly what she had been dreaming of her whole life. She has arrived. Now she can get on with her preferred task of entertaining.

I just could never do that. I’m not that organized, for one. For two, I find it a bit boring. I like to be doing shit, not entertaining. I can’t deny that my own half-assed, slow, wildly unplanned way of doing thing isn’t frustrating even to me. It is. It totally is. I mean, right now our back yard is mostly dirt, each plant has a janky-ass bit of chicken wire surrounding so that the chickens don’t demolish every.damn.thing. It’s not pretty. Shit is still up in the air about construction so making big plans for the garden isn’t even an option really.

Oh, speaking of chickens, right now Vim is out there building a chicken run. No more chicken tyranny! My comfrey will be free to grow! Our zucchini plants can flourish! etc! I’m excited. Also, the porch will be free of chicken poop.

I have arrived!

UPDATE: my blog is fixed! and since then Vim has bullet the awesome chicken pen and the janky chicken wire and milk bottles are off my plants! A new backyard era is about to begin! yay! The chickens are not super happy about it though. sad face chickens

UPDATE 2: spelling mistake fixed fushia=>fuchsia

various notes:
Mimulus cardinalis

California fuschia

bee balm

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– flowers are good for drying and are nicely aromatic
– has a bunch of medicinal uses including fever reducer and, get this, can be used as snuff for a mild stimulant. heh.
– likes full sun, well drained soil and does not need to be fertilized
– spreads by rhizome
– can be propagated by root division
– attracts good insects,lady bugs and predatory wasps
– good companions plant for raspberries.

I think i will put it over by the comfy. the chickens are going to eat it, darn it. We really need to make the new coop but don’t have time until like 3 weekends from now. I really don’t know how to build stuff so i have to wait for Vim to do it. And i can only badger him so much. This makes me very nervous and makes me feel out of control of my own life.

Our coop idea has morphed into a coop/shed. i sketched up a design a few nights ago. It’ll go along the back wall and will be a very effective barrier between our yard and the post office truck parking lot and it won’t block any sun there either and will still comply with Oakland laws about chicken coops.

OR we could just spend 600-700$ on a coop that someone else has built… and then we will have to buy or build a shed. I’m not having one of those shitty plastic sheds.

We just spent some time flipping the grass and dirt in the front yard. the front yard dirt is interesting, the top 3-4 inches is a very loose combination of soil, dead and composting grass (some tallish variety) from several years and also several years worth of detritus from the weeping blue atlantic cedar that towers over our house. i love our tree. When you pitchfork and flip a patch over you can see how it is decomposing with the help of some mycelium and it’s easy to flip it.

why am i doing that? Well… eventually I am going to put in a native grass meadow. obviously I can’t spend time and money doing that until after construction on our house. Or front yard is small and I’m picturing massive construction machines, porta-potties and hunky sweaty half clothed men drinking diet cokes or shoveling dirt or whatever.

However, the front yard, being in the front of the house, is what everyone sees and comments on. There’s this guy that I really like that lives a block away and is a horticulturist and as i walk Jack to school he often accosts me and gives me advice about the front yard. Friday he told me i should do this pitchforking of the grass to help kill it off and make sure it doesn’t go to seed again. It sounded possibly like a satisfying activity and it was for about 6 sq ft. then i got tired and went inside.

I’m feeling annoyed and helpless and generally stupid because there is this pallet in my backyard that i have been trying to nail some boards into for like.. ever. Finally today I went down to the garage and got some nails, Vim’s nails ie not ones i would ever have bought or chosen to use, and they were too big and i couldn’t nail them in and the boards split and WTF. really, it’s just like 3 boards that need to get nailed! I decided to give up and ask Vim to do it. Now it is almost 6pm and i am finishing up my coffee from this morning. SMRT.

Do you like how i go from not posting at all to rampant posting about stuff no one gives a crap about? me too! Whee!

oh, one more thing. I am feeling proud of myself for not getting involved in someone else’s drama. I ALMOST let my self enter but this time I actually stopped and thought about how if I entered at all i would get sucked in and stressed out. So i stepped away even though it was kind of hard. I did my time and now it is someone else’s turn.

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In 2006 I found this cute Sailor Jerry swimdress at Macy’s:

But now, four years (and 20 pounds) later it got all stretched out and the elastic is all old and creaky. The fabric, though tired, is still great and I may have to work it into a new dress.

Board shorts are good but can chafe and ride up ones ass. So,make one I must. Kwik sew had two patterns that looked good. I went with the one that was just a swimdress without a suit attached (kwik sew 3416) to it because it looked easier.

I’m so pissed I waited too long to buy the rainbow fabric and it sold out! duh, because it was AWESOME! So I ended up with leopard print, pink stars, and cherries. All 6 oz (the cherries may have been 8 oz), 4 way stretch nylon spandex.

I was planning on taking pictures of the process but it went so fast that I didn’t bother.

I used my sewing machine and my serger. For the serger I used 3 spools of wooly nylon with a narrow 3 thread overlock stitch. on the regular sewing machine I used wooly nylon in the bobbin and regular thread as the upper thread. I couldn’t figure out how to get the serger spool of wooly nylon to work with my regular machine. There must be some attachment that makes the spool fit, but I don’t have it.

I used the cherry fabric for the first dress and I made it in a large size. I (almost) always trace my patterns on to new pattern paper or tracing paper and then I cut into the traced pattern since too often I have cut into a pattern only to realize later that I needed a different size.

see overlap here:

no over lap here:

I swear, According to my measurements the large should have fit, but no. I thought it was great until I tested it in the hot tub and it was clear the it was not fitting in the bust area.

I traced out the medium size and used it with the stars fabric. I found an old Paul Frank bikini bottom with the cute skull on it and used it for one side of the top, it was a string bikini so I just left the string attached and then cut off the other string and used it for the other side and made this dress a halter. I also overlapped the two top pieces which seems crucial but is not the way the pattern works.

I used a rolled hem on the bottom of both.

I think I’ll go ahead and make the leopard print one this week and I’ll use an old red bikini top to add some accents.

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The thing is that the reason I didn’t wear these shoes very much was that they are too big and guess what?! They are still a bit too big.

The leather dye and paint were both pretty easy to work with.

I have a pair of white Miz Mooz boots (leather) that I could use the blue dye on and it would stay more true to the dye color. But those boots are too big for me too. Anything pre pregnancy, before I realized that I am actually a 6.5 not a seven, is too big for me but I can’t seem to let them all go. I think I’ll put a toe insert in the blue pair to see how that improves the fit.

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I’m looking a bit angry in this photo. Pay it no mind.

So the pattern calls for lt.wt crepe, lt wt pique, or lt wt linen.
I found a gorgeous purple silk chiffon that I want to use instead. can I use it and then use linen for the lining? Or will I regret going against the pattern instructions?

The skirt is bias cut and it’s not like chiffon has no drape… but sewing chiffon is still tricky for me and I have no idea about pairing something super drapey with something less so like linen.

I checked my closet and I have one dress in see through polyester chiffon that has a silky sort of lining. So the dress has no form at all. and I have one dress that has the same collar shape as this one with and it is made out of stretch cotton and it works fine.

So, in conclusion, I believe I will just try it out. I shall wake up Jack and go to the fabric store. I have a whole four day weekend coming up in which to sew this. And work on all my other commitments.

I think I have too much going on. When am I going to find time to make spats for upcoming holiday shows. I keep having horrid flashes of no one buying my spats. So far that hasn’t happened but it’s still nightmare fuel. I have some cute new designs I am going to do once I get around to getting the sewing done.

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A crappy picture of it anyway. It’s hard sometimes to take a good picture of yourself. It’s not that my camera doesn’t have a self timer but more about shot setup. I could have gone outside with the good camera and tripod but I’m lazy and the inside of my house is just too cluttered to make a good backdrop. This shot includes some cat barf and my husbands yellow crocs and the strap to the camera. Sorry about that!

I made this skirt with Timeless Treasures bicycle fabric that I bought at Hart’s Fabric in Santa Cruz. and some plain black lawn and some super cute ruffle trim from Joann’s. I with I had bought more of the black ruffle trim, I did buy a few yards in red that I haven’t used yet.

I copied one of my favorite skirts onto muslin and then used that as my pattern. It’s just a simple A line and only took a few hours. Here’s how I do it:

- cut main fabric and lining.
- take a lining piece and a main piece and sew them together at the top, right sides facing. Do the same for the second pieces.
- flip up the lining. on one side sew the lining pieces together and then sew the main fabric pieces together. on the other side sew from the bottom up about 3/4 of the way or to where ever your zipper comes down to.
- flip the lining into the skirt ans sew a top stitch along the top edge.
- put your zipper in
- hem the main fabric and hem the lining in towards main skirt fabric.
The End

How do you make a basic lined A line. Does my way sound easy?

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(my R key is sticking and it is very annoying)

I almost bought some of that kokka fabric with birds on it but balked at its 17.99 per yard price tag. So instead I bought a bunch of other fabric that ended up totaling more anyway. I am determined to sew myself a few skirts. Ones I can actually wear…

Hart’s Fabric is great! The staff is nice and the selection is huge and best of all they have a children’s play area!!! What a fabulous idea! I wish Stone Mountain and Daughter would do the same thing.

Instead the staff at Stone Mountain often follow you around and comment on your kid and how he better not run around because a bolt of fabric might fall on him. oh yeah lady? That is totally absurd and if like half of your weekday clientele isn’t women hauling kids around I will eat my hat.

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Those four are Liberty of London – two are lawns, one is a stretch cotton and the other is maybe a silk. The price was really good and I love these! Now, what to do with them?

I’m thinking a skirt and maybe a nice short summer robe with pockets.

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I was in Peidmont Fabrics the other day when my hand reached out for this gorgeous Liberty of London cotton lawn print. I mean look at it?!!! Doesn’t your heart go out to it? However, my hand trembled and quaked as I check the price tag at 37.00 a yard. Instead of a dress then, I bought a tiny bit and made some handkerchiefs. Raise your hand if you think I am nuts.

Then i made a tiny one. Raise your hand if you have changed your mind.

The handkerchief goes really nicely with the pair of delicate rose colored with pearl trim spats I just made too.

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“Tie Silk is Back for one Final Engagement
You love tie silk, we love silk, everybody loves tie silk. The East Bay Depot has gotten in its final donation of glorious silk swatches. Thousands of samples with bright colors, designs, and patterns. This time we have extra large samples in addition to our usual packs of rolled sqaures. Bulk priced at $6.00 a pound.”

Also! Major alert! they have 5,000 empty toilet paper tubes! Woot!

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And then I turn around for ONE SECOND.

And all hell breaks loose as Jack grabs the tin and not only turns it upside down but done so in such a  ‘flingy’ way that buttons go into every single crevice possible for button kind. Then the rampaging starts. As I am frozen to the spot in utter horror he takes the opportunity to bend over and spaz his hands in the buttons while shrieking with joy. Then he starts running around and little buttons are stuck to the bottoms of his feet and make little clicking noises. Its hilarious but is such a disaster than I am almost in tears.

I’m racing around trying to gather buttons back up and he is flinging them everywhere making lunges for the tin I am trying to refill and doing a tiny godzilla tap dance of joy every time he moves.

Things will never be the same. Buttons are lost for sure and I see three still over by the dresser right now.

This was on Wednesday I think. So then, yesterday, he and I are in the baby killer craft room and I am sorting through my fabric stash and I come across one of those bags of pom poms that you can buy at Michael’s. You know when you need like 5 pom poms but can only find the HUGE BAG of 1000. So I think, “hahaha, it would funny to give him this bag”. HAHA. Indeed. Now it looks like a clown threw up in my craft room.

Yesterday I was struggling with my addiction. My mind was on buttons as you know and I was itching to try making my own fabric covered ones. So my sponsor happened to call and I confessed my thought crimes. “How can I justify buying one more craft tool? “. I whined. And instead of the voice of reason she’s all, “oh that sounds awesome you should totally go get that!!” Thanks Mom.

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You want a WHAT projector? you mean like those things in movies where the round disks of film whirl around and there’s a lightbulb?

Maybe we’ll all have given up on this internet insanity by then and we’ll be back to bicycling to the local green grocer to pick up our preserves. or whatever.

I mentioned in a recent post that I have my grandmothers button tin. I loved the button tin when I was a kid. Do all kids love a button tin? Do they all love to pick through the colorful buttons just admiring the colors adn the feel of them?Maybe imagining where they came from or things we could use them for?

The thing is, some jerkwad took all the good buttons leaving the all the very boring ones behind. It’s okay, whoever did it will get their comeuppance in HELL. So what did I do? DUH! I went online and bought someone else’s grandmothers button tin. it satisfies my hearts desires. I have started sorting by color. but I COULD sort by size or usefulness or type (shank, 2 holes, 4 holes, extra fancy) or by project. I can reorganize these suckers every damn day if i want.  so maybe I will.

But I am conflicted. PArt of me wants to cram them all willy nilly into the button tin (although, at this point, with all my own buttons, my grandmother AND some else’s grandmother I don’t think they will all fit in one tin) . If they are all willy nilly then i have the kids pleasure of sort thing through it and seeing it as a tin of TREASURE. But as a grown up that isn’t super useful. I need them sorted and organized in some way, possibly even in separate containers. Right now all the blues and greens are in an old jam jar. and the sparkly ones with rhinestones are in an old burt’s bees green goddess mask jar.

I’m a magpie and love shiny things and seriously these buttons give my soul a deep down delicious rich feeling. Is it just me? Or does everyone love a button tin?

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Thse are from some nice green velvet with white and goldy buttons. The lining is pink fake wood grain from Joel Dewberry. LOVE IT! The backing buttons are from my grandmothers button tin.

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The second pair are black and white houndstooth (canvas duck) with red flannel lining, cute red and black vintage buttons (got ‘em at the oakland museum white elephant last year), and some eyelet lace ruffles (like ruffly underwears. hahaha) on the heels

Both of these are now up in my etsy shop!

minniekins.etsy.com

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It’s already summer here. I HATE being hot. Unfortunately I am sweaty and hot when t is like 70 degrees out. GREAT! Fortunately I have pantaloons to make things better.

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I have not done much crafting lately because I have been reading ROMANCE NOVELS. That’s right. Romance novels. 12 of them to be exact, 6 in each series. Here is the last one I finished yesterday:

People are getting married and having babies all over the place and I find that I want to hang around discussing babies and wedding dresses and shopping. I blame these dumb books. Really, after reading these all things girly should be making want to HURL.

I have GOT TO STOP reading stupid books. I might as well be watching Blossom reruns.

In more crafty news I just got this in the mail a few days ago. Lovely! What a surprise as I orderd this like 3 months ago but it was back ordered!

I LOVE Alexander Henry fabrics. What shall I do with this? I was thinking when I bought it that I would make myself some nice pillow cases. How nice would it be to go to sleep and wake up with these sweet birds under your head? With your head CRUSHING these sweet little birds. How could you?!

An apron might be nice too.

And with that I shall leave you with Miss Piggy singing Peaches ‘fuck the pain away’.

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I foresee several factors to my summer this year. One, I have an almost toddler, two, I get hot when it’s like 65 degrees out and finally, I only have two pairs of pants that fit me but about a million skirts and dress that do. You can imagine that if only points two and three were relevant than all would be well but when you add in the toddler unit the shit hits the fan. I mean, you can’t very well be all grubbing around on the floor and running around picking your kid up off the playground floor while in a skirt. It wouldn’t be seemly.

Last year I attempted to buy some split slips. Split slips are the bomb. They keep your thighs from chaffing, they keep you cool, they allow you to grub around on the floor in a slightly more seemly fashion than without them. After an extensive search engine search I finally ordered some super cheap split slips from amazon. They were not perfect. They were so high waisted as to come up to my armpits an they were made out of that suspicious slippery material. nylon or some such. the lace along the bottom was scratchy. I wore them anyway and they were okay but my hear longed for something better.

This year I ordered 18 assloads of black cotton lawn from fabric.com. Lawn is a lovely thin and cool fabric that I mostly associate with the floaty frocks of yesteryear.

I cut up one of the weird slips from amazon to use as a template although this was not a necessary step as really they are just a pair of voluminous boxer shorts. My goals was to make my new slip waist hit below my belly button and the length be a few inches above my knees. Easily accomplished!

After cutting out my fabric I sewed the leg hole together and then put one leg inside the other right sides facing to sew up the crotch. for the elastic I used some of my huge roll that I scored at urban ore a while back. Around each leg I sewed two rows of black cotton eyelet lace.

Ta Da! I will now be cool this summer and won’t flash the other moms at the playground.

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I have made these spats for a friend. Attributes are: exposed brass separating zipper, rubber heel guards, red flannel lining.

Also, a huge glaring pattern mismatch. FUCK! As i was making them i just wasn’t thinking about because usually the spats i make are a solid color or a pattern that doesn’t really need to be matched. so… fuck.

I’m making another pair of cute ones that he can have instead if he wants. a nice tweedy plaid with thai silk lining, brass snaps and a cute button.

My next pair will be ladies green velvet with rounded toe and taller ankles, white pearl buttons and possibly pale pink lining but i havent decided that detail yet.

Also this fucking awesome pink tie material i found at silk road (going out of business sale 20-70% off!) will soon be some ladies spats as well.

oh yeah, I also just got my new labels in the mail! I do love them so!

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yes well. that’s me. always.

So i’ve been making little tiny baby blankets. travel baby blankets. crib snugglies. baby loveys. WHATEVER you want to call them. They’re cute. They’re so cute and kinda fun to make that i’m sort of obsessed with them.

i want all of the ones i’ve made. grown up car snugglies is how i will market them. “EVER GET STRESSED IN TRAFFIC?!” attractive woman pulls out small baby blanket while driving own the freeway and rubs it on her face. “AH! THAT’s BETTER!” a look of peace comes over her face and she drives off into the clouds like sandy and danny on graduation day THE END.

i went apeshit over at minkydelight.com buying remnants. I got hot pink, leopard, brown and blue dots, green and blue and black minky dot. damn girl, that’s a lot of minky.

I am also attempting to win the prize for “most inappropriate” baby blanket ever. the most recent one i made (pic below) is from some old fabric that has women in orange bikinis laying on bananas all over it. with some flowers thrown in for good luck. It’s great fabric and now it has orange minky on the other side.

I also thought, “you know. i have 4 metric assloads of old teeny tiny t-shirts that not only will never fit me again but that i wouldnt wear anyway.old t-shirts are soft and nice. they will make great baby blankets! right?!

This (glows in the dark too!) will be the first one:

huh! *wink wink* get it?! someone out there wants that right? i totally would.

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She did suggest that when you have your fabric sewn together and still wrong side out and you are trimming the corners to do it at a pretty steep angle, that will make the corners look even better.

This one was for badger to match her spats:

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and another one:
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Once you know how it’s pretty eay although I am still working on the corners where the zipper mets the fabric.

I was excited to FINALLY use my cow girl fabric on something that I will actually USE. I mean, who doesn’t need  a million little zippered pouches? I have at least 3 in my purse right now.  Badger and I got that fabric years and years ago in santa cruz at that little fabric store over by the harley dealership and Bea’s Koffee Kup. Hey thinking about that make me want to take a road trip to santa cruz!! hmmm. maybe next week.

I can’t find the zippered pouch tutorial I originally used but this one actually looks better and the fabric she’s using is so cute: twelve 22 zippered pouch tutorial.

Speaking of zippers I just bought some separating zippers for the steam punk spats I am making. I could only find super long ones and really I only need mine to be like 4 inches long. So I bought a zipper repair kit and have looked up how to shorten a seperating zipper. I doesnt look daunting and I’ll probably get around to it next week.

Links:

zipper anatomy! | shorten a separating zipper | zipper tips and tricks

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The white elephant pre-sale was a few weeks ago and was totally overwhelming. It always is. One needs to brings a personal sherpa in order to fully extract the maximum amount of goodness.
Next year, or maybe this march, I have a new strategy. Get there EARLY. Park close. Return to car with first load of crap and then return.

WAIT A SECOND.

Wasn’t I just posting about not needing any more stuff?

How could I resist all these frames tho? Round and Oval frames tend to be pricey and these were all cheap and totally cute.

For the two matching round ones I’m thinking of doing portraits of our cats. With olives on their heads.

I also bought some foam floor puzzle pieces for Jack to flobber around on. And a ton of cute clothes for an older Jack.

And some very cute vintage rhinestone buttons and some excellent fabric. Oh, and a ton of zippers in various sizes.

The possibilities are endless at the white elephant sale tho. There was a bright blue velvety arm chair that i lusted after for my art room and all kinds of other goodness. We didn’t even make it into most of the areas. I by passed books and clothes completely. Next year we go with no little ones so that we can let our greed run wild and free .. unfettered, if you will.

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