Spring Break with Teens: Prom Prep, Easter Crafts & a Day Trip

April 13, 2025Leave a comment

Another Spring Break done and dusted. We had a great week of not having to be anywhere and having the freedom to explore and do what we felt like doing on our own schedule. Reminded me of our homeschooling days. Gosh, I miss those.

Top priorities this past week:

HAVE A GREAT SPRING BREAK
Perhaps get some work done in the garden
Hem Rachel’s prom dress

Caring

It matters a lot to me that I do some fun things with the kids during their Spring Breaks. I spent some time researching interesting places to go on our side of the state and asked Rachel and Nathaniel if any of them sounded interesting. Nathaniel chose The Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum, which I had never heard of, and Rachel wanted to do a good old-fashioned trip to the zoo. So, we packed up one morning and did a “Seattle Day Trip,” which also included a trip to the Dick Blick store in Seattle, which Rachel’s wanted to visit since we moved here. (I generally avoid Seattle like the plague these days because it is no longer the beautiful place that it was in my youth—makes me too sad to spend much time there anymore.)

I also wanted to work on hemming Rachel’s prom dress, but never got around to it. Ugh. She ordered a dress that ended up being too long for her, and it has like five skirts, so I’m getting to experience all the worst parts of dressmaking (hemming) without any of the fun parts whatsoever (basically every other part of sewing a dress). Super jazzed. Next week is crazy busy with Easter prep, so I probably won’t get to it until the week after that. It’s a little too close to the deadline for my liking, but it is what it is at this point.

Gardening

Nope. I’m thinking this year is going to be a lean garden year. I just can’t/won’t find the time to get out there and work on it. Which is fine; I just need to wrap my head around the idea of quite possibly letting that slide this year.

Creativity

We’re in the process of painting some wooden Easter eggs for our Easter table centerpiece. We’ve done pysanky and regular egg dyeing in the past and we’re kind of over putting all that effort into making eggs each year only to eat them or have them break later on. Very few of us like hardboiled eggs, so dyeing up a bunch means a lot of them will go bad over the next weeks. I’d rather make our decorating efforts last, hence the experiment with wooden eggs this year.

It’s been fun exploring new ways of expressing my creativity lately. Something I’ve noticed over the last few years is that I tend to rotate through my hobbies, and once spring hits I’m not looking forward to more time in the craft room. As of right now, I’m looking forward to pursuing more painting projects and dedicating my focus where I feel it’s needed most, like in the garden or in physical activity.

Final Thoughts

I took the week off from quilting so I could focus on the kids and spring break activities—something I’ve finally felt strong enough to enjoy again, and that in itself has felt like a quiet victory. But as I’ve stepped back to breathe a little, it’s becoming clearer that I can’t keep juggling everything I love with the same intensity. Life is gently nudging me to shift focus for a season, and that might mean sharing less online.

That said, this moment of pause also reminded me just how much joy and beauty this space has held over the years. I’ve spent some time revisiting old posts and projects that still make my heart sing, and I’d love to share a few of those with you, too:

Favorite Projects Through the Years:

Quilts

Storybook Hexagon Quilt made by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara. A baby quilt with EPP hexagon blossoms set with string blocks. — Storybook Hexagon Quilt

Farmgirl Vintage Quilt made by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara — Farm Girl Vintage Quilt

Patchwork Forest Quilt (aka the "Hipster Christmas Tree Quilt") made by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara — Patchwork Forest Quilt

Classic & Vintage Double Nine-Patch Quilt made by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara — Classic & Vintage: Double Nine-Patch Quilt for Fat Quarter Shop

Rachel Brooke's first quilt, a Trip Around the World pattern. Made with her mother, Cara Brooke, of That Crafty Cara — Rachel’s First Quilt

Other Sewing

Prom dresses made by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara — Prom Dresses

Jolly Braid Tote Bag made by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara for Fat Quarter Shop — Jolly Braid Tote Bag

Crochet

Three handmade shawls that Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara made for her daughters when they were young girls. — Three Finished Shawls for the Girls

Knitting

Baking Doodle Cowl knit by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara — Baking Doodle Cowl

Rainbow Ombre Mitts knit by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara — Rainbow Ombre Heart Mitts

Peacock Feathers Stole knit by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara. Knit with Jaggerspun in Juniper. — Peacock Feathers Stole

Purple Fair Isle Sweater designed and knit by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara for her daughter. — Amethyst Fair Isle Sweater

Cabled Yoke Cardigan designed & knit by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara for her daughter, Rachel out of pink tweed yarn — Raspberry Ropes Cardigan

NOT FAVORITE PROJECTS

Face Masks sewn by Cara Brooke of That Crafty Cara in March 2020 — FACE MASKS. (We’ve been through so much together, friends…)

I wish a you a lovely upcoming week of spring! Isn’t it just the best season ever?!?! Loving this year’s spring. Thank you so much for being a part of my world.

Rachel’s Vintage Purple Prom Dress (Vogue 2001)

May 16, 2024May 16, 2024Leave a comment

When Rachel picked the Vogue 2001 pattern for her prom dress, I was elated! I love me a vintage pattern, and thankfully, so does she. I wasn’t sure she’d actually go through with the idea when push came to shove, so I was incredibly pleased that she was committed to some vintage glamour for her first prom.

Pattern

Vogue #2001, only released from the archives this spring. It’s a reprint of a 1941 pattern, and the first time she pointed it out to me I squinted at it because it really looked like a 1930s top smashed up with a 1950s skirt. I actually said, “That top and that skirt don’t go together, what is going on here?!” And then I saw the 1941 publication date and immediately thought about World War 2 fabric rationing and how this pattern did not fit into that idea whatsoever. But then my husband and I figured out that Pearl Harbor happened in December 1941, so American patterns were not adopting a “war rationing” mindset until 1942, probably. I wonder how many women purchased the pattern with the intent to make it and then couldn’t make it because of rationing?

Fabric

Rachel picked out a lavender satin taffeta and a lilac organza from JoAnn Fabric. We needed 11 yards of both because the main eater of yardage in this pattern is the skirt, which is ginormous AND cut double. The pattern doesn’t have instructions for two layers of skirt, but it’s what we wanted to do, so I overcast the waistline of them together and then treated it as one skirt.

Notions

Thread: Good ol’ Coats & Clark Dual Duty All Purpose #3440. I bought two out of caution, even though I never use the second spool, but I did actually need the second spool on this dress.
Zipper: The last lilac-colored invisible zipper in my weird assortment of cast-offs that I ordered from Amazon years ago.
Horsehair Braid: The solid main fabric skirt has a 3-inch horsehair braid in its hem. The circumference of each skirt is 528 inches, so I used almost fifteen yards of horsehair braid. The pattern called for 4-inch horsehair braid, but I had purchased the 3-inch braid years ago on Amazon for a “just in case” moment, and decided to go with that.

Time Spent

I DID actually keep track of how much time I worked on this! I wasn’t able to get to working on this dress until a week before the dance, so I made the decision to “live update” my progress to my friends on Facebook—at the end of every hour of working on the dress I’d snap a picture and type out what I’d accomplished as a comment to that day’s Facebook post about the dress construction. I knew that the public accountability would help me stay focused and have a shot at sewing this up in a week. Little did I know, my Facebook friends started cheering me on and leaving me uplifting comments as well, which really buoyed my spirits as I toiled away in my craft room. I will absolutely use this method of social pressure to help me finish big projects in the future!

Muslin: I wasn’t tracking hours while working on the muslin, so I estimate it took about five hours.
Sewing: 39 hours, according to my Facebook posts.
Total: ~44 hours

Highlights

The fact that Rachel picked out a vintage pattern just made me so happy!
The Facebook live updates and the cheering from friends made this so much more enjoyable to construct.
I did French seams on as much of this as I could and the seams are just so beautiful inside this dress.
I was able to do that whole dart rotation maneuver and transfer some annoying fullness in the upper arm and shoulder area into the bust gathers. I did a new thing and it totally worked!
The narrow hemming of the sheer layer is, by far, the best job I’ve ever done on narrow hemming. I enjoyed that step.
I did cheater gathering with a length of yarn for each quadrant of skirt and it worked beautifully. Highly recommended.

Lowlights

The side seams of the skirts are too short, despite having measured the skirt on her to the ground, so her petticoat showed a little bit. No idea how this happened. Very annoyed.
Kimono sleeves are stupid. That is all.
Holy skirts, Batman! Cutting out the skirt sections was a logistical concern. No matter where I went in my house there wasn’t enough room to lay it out in one run so I had to shift the fabric and pattern for each skirt to continue marking it. That brought some challenges, but I got through it.
I bought a hooped petticoat to go underneath this and even had Rachel try it all on with the hooped petticoat, but she hated how it felt to have the skirts held away from her legs and refused to wear it. Which was too bad because I think the skirt was more impressive with the hooped petticoat beneath it. She ended up going with a tulle petticoat and a flounced petticoat over the tulle to smooth things out.

I really love this dress and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to make it for my girl. We bought a book that showed how to do 1940s makeup and hair so she could go with the complete 1940s vibe. She did her makeup beautifully, and I am not known for my hairstyling skills so the hair was a little less than hoped for, but whatever, it worked…enough.

Renaissance informed me that Rachel’s dress was a star of the show the entire night. Girls were coming up to her over and over again to exclaim how much they loved her dress and how it was like a fairytale princess gown and how much they wished they had one like it. Now that I know how much work goes into constructing those precious princess ballgown skirts, I get why they’re not offered in your typical off-the-rack dance dresses. Whew! I’m glad she got to feel special at the dress in her dress! Who knows, the trauma may wear off just enough by next year for me to consider making another one for her…

Links to all posts about Rachel’s Vintage Purple Prom Dress

Renaissance’s Celestial Purple Prom Dress (McCall’s 7091)

May 14, 20241 Comment

Alright, as promised, a debriefing on Renaissance’s prom dress:

Pattern

McCall’s #7091, discontinued but available online as a PDF file.

Caution: It’s a batch of three downloads with up to sixty pages in each download that you have to tape together. An A0 printing option is NOT available. It took me four hours to tape the one hundred and twenty-seven pages together.

Materials

Dupioni Silk in colorway “Comet Tail” (5 yards), Shantung Silk in colorway “Nolana” (4 yards), and Batiste Silk/Cotton in colorway “Apparition” (2 yards). All three were purchased from Silk Baron.

Working with silk is a lovely experience. I opted to do all of my cutting of the fabrics with a pinked rotary blade in order to cut down on fraying, and that was an excellent choice.

I will not use the Batiste Silk/Cotton as a lining in the future because it has too loose of a weave and stretched and grew like crazy inside the dress, causing the neckline to sag more and more as Renaissance wore it. It’s a beautiful fabric and I want to make more things from it in the future, but it’s not well-suited to give structure to a garment.

Notions

Thread: Aurifil 50 weight #2780 when piecing “Comet Tail,” Superior Threads’ Pima 50 weight #8035 when piecing “Nolana,” and I used Coats & Clark Dual Duty XP All Purpose #3510 for piecing the “Apparition” gray lining. Ren used an invisible monofilament thread (that she hasn’t put back so I can’t tell you for certain who makes it) for securing the rhinestone appliques.
Zipper: I used a light purple invisible zipper from my zipper drawer, still leftover from the ill-advised purchase of the “scrap bag” of invisible zippers that really only included colors that I’ll rarely ever use. I used blue Sharpie on the zipper pull to camouflage it against the Comet Tail silk.
Rhinestones: We bought two rhinestone appliques “Devine Pair Applique LA-11” from Planet Rhinestone on Etsy, and a loose pack of various sizes of rhinestones from Amazon.

I originally planned to use silk thread for sewing this all up, but read online that it was a bad idea and that silk thread should really only be used for embroidery and the like. So I went with cotton.

Renaissance spent all of her free time in the week leading up Church Prom attaching the appliques, and Emily, Ren, and I spent a frenzied two hours on the day of Church Prom gluing the loose gems to the dress with Beacon Gem-Tac adhesive and toothpicks.

Time Spent

Assembling the pattern: 4 hours
Sewing the dress: My memory is fuzzy on this, but I feel like it was five weeks’ worth of sewing a few hours a day. My estimate is forty hours of work? All those princess seams took a long time to assemble, and I handstitched the contrast skirt’s hem.
Rhinestone application: Renaissance estimates that it took at least ten hours to sew the two appliques onto the dress. It was her first time doing something like that. And then three of us worked for two hours together to glue the loose rhinestones on, so 3 x 2 = 6 hours.
Total: ~60 hours of work

Highlights

First time working with silk and it was awesome! I ended up phoning Silk Baron to get advice on whether or not to wash the fabric before sewing and whoever answered the phone was incredibly friendly and took their time in explaining the situations where it would be ok and why this was not one of those situations because the dye and the shot weave would lose their coolness factors.
There is only one pucker in all of those princess seams! I really learned how to ease fabric with this dress. I’m a fabric-easing machine now. The trick is to cut the notches before you pin.
The lighter purple contrast skirt was assembled using French seams, which was the first time I’d done them and they turned out great.
Watching Renaissance work on sewing the rhinestone appliques to her dress while watching “The Simpsons.”
Working with Emily & Renaissance to glue the gemstones onto the dress. I always like family group projects.

Lowlights

Taping the pattern together. Seriously, McCall’s, you need to offer an A0 printing option. A lot of sewing happens on a deadline and having to spend four hours upfront taping paper together is brutal.
Owing to my background as a quilter, I default to a shorter stitch length when I’m nervous about a seam. It turns out that this is not the correct default when sewing clothing. My choice to go with a shorter stitch length on the two skirt hemlines resulted in bunchy edge finishes, which no one really noticed except myself. The swoopy hem could have laid down so much nicer if I’d realized that. I did redo the hem on the lowest part of the swoop because it had to be trimmed, but didn’t have time to do the upper portion.
I also wonder if I should have used a thin horsehair braid on the swoopy hem in order to make it stand out more? When the silk was fresh the swoop skirt stood out in beautiful rounded columns, but by the time it was finished it had gotten limp and didn’t do that anymore.
The lining grew a lot and the neckline sagged more and more as she wore it.

Lowlights aside, I am monstrously pleased with this dress! It had twenty-nine separate pieces to assemble because it was a twelve panel princess seam dress, and I made it work! It was beautiful plain and it was beautiful with the rhinestone embellishments. It makes a beautiful swishing noise when she’s moving in it. It’s just a beautiful dress and she loved it and I’d totally do it all over again.

Note: She is wearing a crinoline with the dress to help the skirt stand out more. I think it was this one. Or it could have been this one. I bought both and each girl wore one of them and I can’t remember who had which one.

Links to all posts about Renaissance’s Prom Dress

Church Spring Formal 2024

May 12, 2024May 13, 20242 Comments

I did manage to finish Rachel’s dress in time—11:30 that morning, to be exact—and Renaissance was able to finish adding bling to her dress—at 3:00pm that day, after a two hour gem-gluing session with Emily, herself and me—so all the dress dreams became a reality for the Church Spring Formal. I threw their hair into some updos, fretted over shoes and petticoats, and we were on our way! Their dates looked great, and I think everyone had a good time. We had dinner at my granny and aunt’s house because it was near the dance and we knew that Granny would love to see the dresses. It was a nice evening.

And now, I think I’m going to take a little break from my sewing machine…it’s been a wild two months of non-stop sewing! I’m so pleased with how they turned out and so glad that my girls liked them. Happy memories.

Finished: Rachel’s Halloween Skirt

February 4, 2022January 30, 2022Leave a comment

I didn’t keep it secret, and I let her have it once it was done, rather than waiting for her birthday. She wore it to church last week, minus the witch hat, which she really wanted to wear for the photos. Rachel really likes the “everyday Halloween aesthetic,” so I decided to make her happy and sew up a skirt that fits the description. When I first saw this floral print, I KNEW Rachel would love it.

Details:

Pattern: I’m surprised at how many people have been asking on Instagram what the pattern is, and I’m so sorry to report that this is a massive mishmash of patterns. The pieces are cut from the “Three-Quarter Circle Skirt” pattern found in Gertie’s Ultimate Dress Book, and I modified the pocket pieces to be much larger. I’ve made this skirt before, and I think I lengthened it? I was working from my traced pattern, so I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure it’s lengthened by a few inches because Rachel is all legs. The waistband is a straight strip of fabric, and I do not know how large I cut it because that piece of paper has gone missing. And then I sewed it all up according to the directions found in Simplicity #1369.

Ta…da…😬

Fabric: “Cast a Spell” floral print in the “Spooky & Sweeter” collection that Art Gallery Fabrics put out last year. I bought 4 yards of it and have a good quarter yard left, plus random big scraps.

Thread: Whatever that black thread is on my thread rack. Probably cotton/poly or straight poly.

Notions: Dark Grey invisible zipper from that poorly-chosen purchase of “invisible zippers in an assortment of colors” from Amazon, shortened to the correct length.

Miscellaneous: I bought some new hemming feet for my sewing machine so I could perhaps get through hemming this quickly. I used the foot with the 6 on it, whatever that means. I think it was a rolled hem, about 1/4-inch. I have some larger hemming ones that I’m excited to try in the future, but I figured it would be hard to go any larger on the hem of a circle skirt, so I kept it small this time.

Oh, to be a teenage girl with a mom who will sew you cute little things to further your aesthetic. Ha ha. Enjoy it, Rachie Bug.

Renaissance’s Easter Dress

April 12, 2020April 12, 20201 Comment

I finished it a while back, but she wore it for our Easter church service at home, and I finally remembered to snap a couple of pictures of her.

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I’ve had this pattern earmarked for a couple of years for her. I’d purchased some great dresses from Lands End about four years ago for Emily, and then they were handed down to Ren, and now to Rachel, and they are such a great silhouette that I started keeping an eye out for a comparable pattern somewhere out there in Sewing Land. It appeared one day in the form of Butterick 6450–a bloused bodice with an elastic waist, short sleeves, and a swingy skirt. It works really great for a growing girl.

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This is View C, sewn up in a cotton lawn from Miss Matatabi. I underlined the bodice with white cotton voile for modesty, and attached the same fabric as a lining beneath the skirt. (Note to self: Don’t mix and match underlining the bodice with a lining for the skirt in this pattern in the future–it got messy when it came to attaching the zipper versus the encased elastic waistband. Pick one method of under/lining and go with it for both the bodice and the skirt.) I did not do the gathering on the sleeves, and I was surprised that I ended up using the full length of the View C skirt.

The skirt is seamed down the center front and back on the bias, which is something that I’d like to avoid in the future because I want to sew up a couple iterations of this in gingham prints, but that bias seam will cause all sorts of headaches with a gingham. I know it will be easy enough to throw a different skirt onto the bodice in the future, but sigh…more thinking ahead. It worked well enough with this abstract print, and the skirt has turned out really well and fluttery without the danger of flipping up in a wind gust, à la a circle skirt.

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Construction was easy, with no weird head-scratching moments. I like bias binding on my edges, so I really love that bound neckline–makes me so pleased everytime I see it! The instructions on how to hem the skirt were really good and gave a nice finish. The zipper instructions were a mess and I ended up just hacking the stupid thing in there, but that’s just because I am missing the gene that lets me understand how to put a zipper into anything. Good enough.

I’m planning to sew up this pattern, with a few design changes, at least two more times this year. It’s a great dress!

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At the End of Week #2 of COVID-19 School Closures

March 27, 2020March 27, 2020Leave a comment

We are now 1/3 of the way through the initial school closures here in Washington State, and are now enjoying the escalated “Stay Home” measures that were announced this week by the governor, dictating that we not leave our houses unless there’s an essential need (groceries, medical, etc.).

The kids are doing really great with their online learning, and I actually learned that their school district is one of TWO that made the immediate jump to online learning for the school closures. Cue the “I’m so glad we moved into this particular house” gratitude. We get to walk down to the bus stop each morning to pick up the school lunch deliveries (practicing safe social distancing of course), and I get to have a quick chat with some of my neighborhood mom friends, so we don’t feel completely socially isolated. It’s not that bad, actually.

Crafting-wise, I basically just sewed up medical masks this week. Not exciting at all, and a little anger-inducing because all I can think about while I’m sewing these up is how frustrating it is that we don’t have enough medical supplies on-hand for something of this nature, despite the fact that scientists have been warning us for years that we were historically due for a pandemic of some sort. And then my thoughts wander down more angry roads, and I just end up steaming mad about lots of things. So…no, I don’t like making medical masks AT ALL. BUT, I have friends who work in the medical field and one of them texted yesterday asking if I had made any because her hospital really needs some, so I drove the twenty I’d made over to her house and left them on her doorstep. I guess I’ll need to make more, but I need a break before I go back to them.

I’m going to use my “break from the masks” to attach the binding to my March Blank Quilting project, which just arrived back from the quilter this week; and I’m starting to work with the “Best Friends Farm” fabric that Jaftex/Henry Glass Fabrics sent me as a bonus for April; and I did my part to support a small business by buying up some yardage of an absolutely gorgeous floral print from Style Maker Fabrics that I’m hoping to turn into a dress by Easter.

So, because goals are my self-love love language, I’ll end this with a “Goals for the Next Week” list:

Finish the Florabelle Hexie Stripes quilt. Photograph it and share it online.
Finish piecing the individual blocks for the Best Friends Farm quilt.
Finish the muslin for my Blue Floral Easter dress.
Photograph and share the dress I finished for Renaissance a couple of weeks ago.
Move forward in some meaningful way with my sewing pattern database/spreadsheet. The plan, pre-COVID-19, was to have it completed by the end of the next week or so, but things got way too crazy to keep up with it, so it’s a minor project that’s limping along at the moment. I’ll worry about it more once things calm down in the future.

The week after next is Spring Break, which means there will be no online learning and schoolwork to keep the kids entertained throughout the day, AND we’ll still be mandated to stay home, so…I guess I should come up with some ideas for that as well. Any suggestions?

Wednesday, Week #1 of Covid-19 School Closure

March 18, 2020Leave a comment

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The kids gathered around the dining room table for their first formal day of “online learning” this morning. The girls were left to their own devices (and I only had to reprimand one of them during the course of the day for goofing off before they were done with their schoolwork) and I had Nathaniel work on his stuff in my craft room so I could keep an eye on him, which was needed a few times.

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00100sportrait_00100_burst20200318095105345_cover Because I was waiting to see if I’d get a package from Jaftex today, I didn’t want to start cutting out a dress or anything big, so I whipped up a couple of hair scarves from a pattern I bought when I went to Sew Expo a couple of weeks ago. (And I have no idea why my hair looks so short in that photo, but it’s definitely making me think that a chop-off would look super cute!)

The kids were all pretty much done with their work by the time the “school bus lunch” alarm went off at 10:35am. Our district is making sure all the kids eat during this break by delivering breakfasts and lunches via the bus routes, so we headed over to the bus stop and the kids were happy to say hi to their bus driver when she came ’round.

While we were waiting for the lunches to arrive, the FedEx truck rolled on up to my house and I had to wait a whole ten minutes before the bus came and I was able to retrieve my package from the front porch! The agony!

Because, yep, that package contained fabric. Adorable farm animal fabric that will work spectacularly well for a baby gift for a friend and her impending arrival:

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So. cute. I love those little sheep, and that green print that just begs for some fussy cutting. I think I’ve settled on a pattern, which won’t be as involved as I would like; but, I wasn’t planning on making a quilt in the next six weeks, so it’s got to be a bit of a quick sew so I can still fit in all my spring clothing sewing. Whew! Busy hands leave little time for wandering thoughts, so I’m thankful for the plethora of projects at this anxiety-provoking time! It’s going to be a cute little quilt. Plus, this collection–“Best Friends Farm”–has both a quilt panel and a soft book panel to sew up, too. Lots of cute little projects to share with you over the next little while!

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Well, good night, dear readers. I hope this is a peaceful time for you; a time to reconnect with family and a time to spend in a little bit of self-reflection.

And if it can’t be that, then I wish you wonderful success with whatever it is you choose to use to diffuse your stress. Lucky me, I’ve got a kid who stress bakes, and she made some absolutely delicious soft pretzels this afternoon. I wish you the kind of happiness that comes from eating a soft pretzel on a sunny day with your family. Whatever that is for you, I hope it’s happening. Stay healthy and safe!

Autumn Update

November 11, 2018November 11, 20182 Comments

Hello friends!

Because I’m quite sure you wouldn’t get all giddy over a post that chronicled which boxes I unpacked and where I put the stuff that was in them, I figured it was better to not update you until I had something creative to show you.

I’ve had no inclination to sew, knit, whatever, AT ALL, and I’ve been OK with it because the more I look back on the past twelve months, the more I realize that we went through A LOT of stressful stuff, and it takes energy to deal with all that stress, which came from my creative reserves. Happy moment, though: This last week I had a brilliant little moment where I wanted to make something. That feeling has been absent for months, so I’m grateful that things are calming down enough that my interest in crafting is starting to come back.

201811117370910250702226081 I did grit my teeth and make my youngest daughter a Little Red Riding Hood costume for Halloween because I did have time for it, and her little brother decided to be a wolf so he could match her, and I think they were adorable! Her costume was an exercise in frustration–I could not locate the pattern in her size ANYWHERE. And my best friend rode in for the rescue and bought the pattern* at her local JoAnn Store, not realizing that it came in adult OR child size, and sent me the adult size. (Oh gosh, we laughed…) So the costume ended up being the Adult Small skirt, minus five inches around the waist; a plain white t-shirt with aspects of the original costume appliqued onto the shirt; and I tracked down a different pattern** for the cape/hood. She was so pleased with it all, and totally didn’t care that it was a crazy hodge-podge costume. A woman stopped me at the school Halloween party to liberally compliment me on the costume, so I’m pretty pleased with the experiment. (And totally want to make more things edged with eyelet lace! Such a sweet look!)

20181103_145518-01 And right now I am eyeballs-deep in making linen napkins for my Thanksgiving table because I’ve always wanted linen napkins and I have no crafty deadlines on my plate at the moment. It’s been so. much. fun. researching hemstitching and heirloom sewing, and oh my goodness, do I love me some beautiful heirloom sewing. So much drooling.

BUT…I massively underestimated how long these napkins were going to take, mostly because I didn’t think ironing the hem allowances was going to take twenty minutes PER NAPKIN. Four more napkins to press before I actually get to meet needle to fabric! Ugh!

But look at this gorgeous view from my new craft room’s window…it’s so nice to have something besides a window well to look at!

The napkins are going to be lovely, with mitered corners and hemstitching. I’m seriously in love with them. That bit of brown fabric and thread in my craft-room-view photo is the start of one of them. It’s a gorgeous chocolate brown. So pleased!

And then it’s on to Christmas crafting, which I was really hoping to not do this year, but something went wonky with my bank transfers to my Christmas savings account when we moved, and there is much less in that account than there should be, so I’ma gonna have to get creative with supplies already on-hand. Boo/yay

I’ll probably start writing a bit more, now that things have started to settle. It was such a mistake to think I’d be able to paint everything upon moving in–I’ve come to the decision that I’m going to tackle the house room-by-room, because it’s driving me batty to not have a single “finished” room in this house. I’ve been working on my youngest daughter’s room, and it’s looking pretty cute. I’m excited to share that when we finally reach the finish line! (You can have a housewarming party five years after you move in, right?) 😉

But I am hosting Thanksgiving this year, and there could be as many as twenty people attending, so it’s all about the napkins and the cleaning and the cooking for the next two weeks. (And my dining room table that was supposed to be delivered in August? And then October? They changed the delivery date AGAIN…to December. Fan-freakin’-tastic. We’re eating Thanksgiving dinner on folding tables this year. So classy.)

I hope the onslaught of the holiday season is treating you all well! I look forward to seeing your posts and photos of what you’re working on in these next weeks!

*Red Riding Hood Costume: McCall Pattern #M6187
**Substitute Cape/Hood: Simplicity Pattern #8729

Jolly Braid Tote Bag

October 13, 2017October 22, 202510 Comments

UPDATE, October 2025: The updated pattern has been released and is now available to download from Fat Quarter Shop’s website here. It is no longer a free pattern.

UPDATE, March 2024: I have been informed that the pattern is currently being updated and will be re-released sometime in the future. When that re-release happens, I will make sure to inform you, dear readers. 🙂 If you would like a personal heads-up from me when the re-release comes out, please leave a comment on *this* post, and I’ll go through and message every comment when the re-release happens.

UPDATE, August 2023: The link to the free pattern does not work at the moment. I have emailed Fat Quarter Shop and am awaiting their reply on how to fix it for you! Thank you for pointing it out!

I’ve been posting teasers on Instagram all week about a project I’ve been making for Fat Quarter Shop, and it’s finally time to show you the finished product!

Friends, meet the Jolly Braid Tote Bag, a super easy, very beginner-friendly bag made from Jolly Bar precuts. I’d actually never made a structured bag before this, and I have no idea why I waited so long to get on the wagon! SUPER easy, and totally satisfying to sew.

The pattern is available from Fat Quarter Shop. You’ll need a Jolly Bar package, yardage of two other fabrics, some Annie’s Soft & Stable, one-inch polypro strapping for the handles, and a roll of “Fat Jelly Braid” Triangles on a Roll paper (seriously, I want to buy every available size of Triangles on a Roll because I love it so much).

I chose to make my bag from American Jane’s newest collection, “Merry Go Round,” and I’m really pleased with how cheerful it turned out. When I first saw the dimensions of the pattern (12 x 11 x 5″), I thought it would make a great library book bag for my daughter, so I went with sunny prints to match her personality.

For my two prints, I went with Merry Go Round “Yellow Large Floral” (SKU# 21720-14) for my accent print, and “Red Mono Floral” (SKU# 21723-11) for my lining.

And, because I intended for the bag to hold heavy books, I added two inches to each end of the nylon strapping for the handles and tacked them down inside the construction of the bag so I wouldn’t run into ripped handles in the future. (I have ripped A LOT of handles out of A LOT of book bags…we nerdy girls always carry too many books in our bags!)

My little Miss Junebug wanted to help with the photoshoot so much, so I let her! There’s nothing like spending a beautiful autumn afternoon following your kid around the neighborhood as she proudly shows off her “new bag” to everyone she meets on the street! (Don’t you just love it when a finished project makes the recipient enthusiastically happy?!?!)