Weekend garment sewing with Rae and April

I've wanted to learn to make dresses for awhile. This Washi dress in particular. This weekend was the weekend.

I grew up with women who quilted and made dolls, but not garments. This probably saved me from having to wear a lot of embarrassing ensembles, but still, I've always been interested in garment sewing. My first sewing project was a purse that I made out of shiny bubble-gum pink spandex in 4th grade. I used it for trick-or-treating and it sagged all the way to the ground by the end of the night. In 7th grade home ec, I decided to sew a purple jersey knit dress (not an easy fabric to start with), while the other kids made pillows. I was pretty proud of myself for taking on an ambitious project, seeing that I come from a long line of women who sew beautifully, but I hit my final growth spurt mid-semester and outgrew the dress before I finished it! It remained almost done, too tight and short to wear, and taunted me for quite awhile.

Since then, I've planned a lot of sewing projects but haven't followed through with most of them. Collecting patterns and fabric was actually my hobby. Then, a couple years ago someone in my knitting group said she wanted to learn to sew a dress that could become her uniform for work. That idea really appealed to me, and when I saw the Washi dress, I thought it might be the dress. The designer lived locally so I kept my eye out for a class with her.

This past fall I took a work trip to Seattle. While looking for a place to eat dinner after a long flight, I stumbled on a very lovely fabric shop called Drygoods Design in Ballard. I'm not exaggerating even a little when I say that ending up in Ballard accidentally was like stumbling straight into Pacific Northwest fantasy-land, where everyone drove Suburus and bearded guys in flannel and chooks sold organic beet juice at a farmer's market on a street filled with coffee shops. I even went into a dessert shop devoted to molten chocolate cakes and $8 jelly jars filled with handcrafted sea salt dark chocolate pudding. I was a little more than charmed by the whole scene and lost my better sense, walking away from Drygoods with the Washi paper pattern and enough expensive fabric for two dresses and a shirt!

This time, I was on the hook to actually follow-through. So, I signed up right away when the weekend garment sewing workshop, hosted by Rae Hoekstra of Made by Rae and April Rhodes, was announced on Rae's blog. Both women design easy-to-sew patterns with a modern sensibility. Rae designed the Washi Dress, and it's been a bit of a sensation among young seamstresses. April is from Columbus, Ohio, and is quite accomplished - owning a local fabric shop with her mom and designing very stylish patterns that she sells online. 

For the whole weekend, twelve of us - some who came from as far as away as Montreal and Chicago - got to hang out in Rae's studio in Ann Arbor, getting tips from both designers on how to custom fit patterns to your body and learn other little tricks of the trade. We also got to try on their dress and blouse samples hanging on the rack. So.much.fun. It felt like a very low stakes version of Project Runway. Except the phrase "that's so adorable" was used a lot instead of "make it work." You get the idea.

My sewing is a little rusty and I'm not the best at following directions, so my progress was a little slower than some of the other women. Most were away from kids for the weekend and laser-focused on maximum sewing time. Some stayed until 11pm Saturday night. I was in a slower paced mood and stopped for all the demos and asked a lot of questions so I could learn how to trace a pattern onto Swedish tracing paper, make a muslin, adjust the fit (particularly in the bust, which involves finding your apex!), and get some tips on garment finishing techniques like shirring, hemming, pleating, and making bias tape. I also got a tutorial on using my serger, which has been sitting in my basement since I snagged it last year from a neighbor who moved to San Francisco. 

It was also fun to be a bit of a tourist in the college town next door to where I grew up. Rae's studio was next to the pizza place my parents took me to as a baby. Saturday the weather took a turn for the even-worse, and I had to call up a good friend from high school and bum a sleepover on her couch. On Sunday I wanted to finish my dress, but I decided instead to go along on a little field trip to Pink Castle Fabrics and my favorite place to eat in town these days - Frita Batidos.

I love knitting, I love painting, I love papercrafting, but I think for a little bit here, sewing is going to be my main craft.

I'll be done with my first Washi dress within a week. Hold me to it, friends. Because like always, I have a more than a few other projects in mind.

6 Ways to Entertain Nieces

One more special little niece entered the world about a week ago and so I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be an aunt. I have five beautiful little girls in my life who bring me tons of joy. A few months ago, I read Elizabeth Gilbert's follow-up book to Eat, Love, Pray. It's called Committed, and it's largely about deciding to marry after a long period of ambivalence. She also writes about the Auntie Brigade, a group of childless women who have enough reserves of energy and time to dote on their nieces and nephews, as well as to be roving aunties to the world. When I read it, I was like, "Hey, that's totally me!"

Over the past ten years, I've had so many special aunt and niece moments, and I can't help but think that some of them never would have happened if I'd been encumbered by children of my own. Recently, for one day during the Thanksgiving weekend, Matt and I went into full gear aunt and uncle mode and spent a full day doting on our three nieces. It was an awesome day.

For those aunties and uncles looking for ways to connect with their nieces and nephews during the holidays, here are the ideas we came up with.

1. Give a music lesson. Beating out rhythms is always great fun. If you don't have practice drum pads, use pots and pans and be prepared to cover your ears. It's even more fun first thing in the morning when everyone is still in their pj's. It totally rocks to have a cool uncle who bangs on drums.

2. Give knitting lessons. Or crocheting, cross stitch or sewing lessons, depending on your hobby of choice. The girls and I have been building up to knitting lessons for over a year. They see me knit at holiday gatherings and have always been curious. Last Christmas they sat on my lap and tried a few stitches with me. This year the two oldest told their mom they wanted to learn to knit at Thanksgiving, so before they came, I picked up some chunky 10.5 knitting needles and yarn. 

The lessons went well and they spent a good part of the day knitting. Of course, they needed a lot of technical assistance along the way. The traditional rhyme used to teach kids to knit is, "In through the door, around to the back, peek through the window and off jumps jack". We found that this method had them asking me again and again, "But where's the window!". So instead came up with our own rhyme. "Go down the hole, chase the rabbit behind and through the middle, catch the rabbit, pull it out of the hole. And off jumps jack (rabbit)". Before they left, the oldest said to me, "This is the first year I haven't wanted anything big for Christmas. I just want yarn." We will see if this is just a fade, but either way, for the rest of their lives the girls can now say, "My aunt taught me to knit".

3. Playground Photo Shoot. It was very cold Thanksgiving weekend, but giving the girls time to run around outside was still very necessary for everyone's sanity. We tried to take holiday card photos outside, but it was just too cold so I got one good candid shot instead. Photographing the girls has been a favorite auntie activity over the years.

4. Make a time lapse movie. This was Uncle Matt's big activity for the day, aside from the music lessons. He showed them a couple examples online and then got out the tripod. The girls came up with some ideas, and then they got to work. They took 30 photos for this movie, which required lot of patience for the girls! They did great though and I can see them trying this again during their next visit.

5. Have a night at the museum. Our amazing local art museum has an adult and kid-friendly Friday Night Live event every week with music and special events. Matt and I took the girls for a 'just us' night out on the town. 

We started out making finger puppets. The museum staff had a great idea to cut the fingers off of cheap work gloves and then have felt, pipe cleaners, feathers, yarn, fabric, markers and googley eyes on hand. 

We got some candid feedback from the girls though that glue sticks are "THE WORST GLUE IN THE WORLD!" for making finger puppets. We had to make some emergency repairs after we got home that night.

After the finger puppets, we almost called it a night. It'd been a very very full day. Still, the girls wanted to move on to the next activity. We headed over to the Africa room, where they had sketching stations set up for the kids. The docent walked us around so the girls could decide what they wanted to draw. They were given a drawing pencil and a gum eraser, and then went right to work. Oh my, they melt my heart.

We had the docent all to ourselves for the first 10 minutes, so he kindly offered to sketch a picture of the birthday girl. I've never seen her sit so still.

After a half an hour of very serious sketching, we headed out. Unfortunately, we missed the music so Matt asked them what they wanted to sing on the way home. The little one yelled, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!" Yep, these are totally our kind of girls. Pretty sure they learned that one thanks to our Beatles Rock Band contribution to last year's Christmas. 

When we got home from the museum, it was straight to bed, after some quick finger puppet repairs.

6. Watercolor paper for snowflakes. The next morning I woke up with a little girl in my face, "Aunt Sara, when are we going to do our project?" I had promised the little one that I'd do a special project with her since the older two spent a lot of time with me learning to knit.

Quickly, before the parents had to load the three girls into the minivan for the next family gathering, I got out some big pieces of drawing paper and some watercolor paints. She worked her magic with water and paint, and then went home with a few sheets of lovely paper to make snowflakes from. The transition from harvest to winter was underway!

I have to say, even though it's not something you hear very often, that I love being a childless auntie. We should celebrate them more.

Reflection

{One photo. No words. I'll let go of the chatter for a bit, and let your mind fill in the story.}

Hot Damn Here I Am

This week I sort of invited myself to come along with a high school friend to the fair. There was mention of the demolition derby on some social networking site to which I threw out some bait. Luckily she bit and invited me along.

I'm an ungrateful child at times about the town where I was raised. It was, in all fairness, very good to me. As soon as I stepped onto the fair grounds Saturday night, I felt more home than I've felt in a long time. You see, the fair was the social event of the year. So much so, that we were given a day off of school to attend. It was in many ways the heart of the community.

I won't say much about the memories that being there brought back for me because I could go on far too long, but I will say that as I walked around Saturday night, I regained a little more perspective on why I am the way I am. If you've been reading here awhile, you'll see what I mean.

Blue ribbons for scrapbooking!? Oh my! There is a Homemaker of the Year contest, where you submit a slew of evidence that you are the best homemaker in town. Knitting, sewing, crocheting, fruits of the garden, scrapbooks, baked goods, etc.. There is also a Junior Homemaker of the Year contest. I don't know why I didn't know about this growing up. Probably because I wasn't involved in Future Homemakers of America like 500 other kids at my high school.

Even though I don't live in town anymore, the wheels are definitely turning about next year's competition. I think my tendency to dabble in many crafts would give me an edge, finally. I'm definitely not the best knitter or scrapbooker or canner but if I round up my portfolio of homemakerliness, I might stand a chance.
Chubby pigs make me feel at home too. It wasn't until I moved to the East Coast that I realized how much the Midwest has an affinity for pork. It's probably the same in the South too.

Fixing up and crashing up cars too. Saturday night was the Demolition Derby State Championship. Oh yeah.

What can I say. It was great fun. And it was good to be home.

Blast from the Past: Part II

I saw two people dressed as the Easter Bunny this week. Both times, I jumped out of my skin when I saw them.

I think this is why! Anyone else scared of the Easter Bunny? I can't be the only one!

Happy Easter!

Surprised by a Sunrise

I sleep in like it's a religion. My body hates the early.

But, Thursday morning I was in Florida for work but staying a mile from the ocean. I'd tried to get up extra early the day before and failed because I'd stayed up watching C-SPAN (sad, but true - this is why I don't have a TV in my bedroom). I did eventually get up and go for a short walk/jog on the beach, but I regretted missing the sunset because it was already sticky by 9:30.

So this particular morning, when my alarm went off at 6:30, I got up, threw on a sweatshirt, grabbed my camera, and left my hotel room. Knowing I was from Boston, the hotel owner jokingly asked me if I was cold since I had a sweatshirt on. Wearing short sleeves at 6:30am is something us northerners do rarely, if ever, even in the summer. Even in Florida when it's already warm.

I drove down to the beach and jumped out of my car, thinking I'd already missed it. It was not pitch dark anymore, even though it had been 10 minutes before when my alarm went off. The cloud cover was thick so I didn't expect much.

I walked on the beach anyway and took some photos. The moon was still visible.

This shot above came out of the camera like this. I swoon. I think the salty mist blurred my lens for a bit.

After shooting for awhile it suddenly got brighter. I turned around and what do you know.

The photos really don't capture how massive the sun was on the horizon. I don't remember seeing anything like it. Probably because I've only caught a sunrise a few times. When I went to summer camp year after year on Lake Huron, our annual tradition was to go down to the beach one morning still in PJs with sleeping bags and wait for the sun to rise. We'd huddle up to stay warm, even in July, and wait to be awed.

December '09: 12 of 31

I spent a good part of today working with older photos, and feeling really nostalgic.

Looks like my cropping skills were honed at an early age. Shrinky Dinks were about the greatest thing in the world. My mom was the best teacher for all things crafty.