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.

The View this Fall

This fall, my creative time is pretty much reduced to taking pictures on my android photo and editing them in Instagram (@wandercraft). It provides about 5 minutes of creative time a day, which is better than nothing. Right now, I'm appreciate it both for the limited editing choices and for a chance to think a bit more about composition in my photos. I also like saving up little snippets of life, that I plan to get printed up into a book at the end of the year. It's become a way to feel like I'm scrapbooking, without the clutter or the time commitment.

Most importantly, it gives me a chance to stop a little here and there to take note, whether I'm out seeing something new or close to home seeing the things I see every day, but just a little bit differently.

The canned food rainbow display is by Detroit artist and activist Kate Draughdrill, exhibited at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (not be to confused with the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit).

Yesterday I had a morning out with my dad, thanks to Heavner Canoe and Kayak rental.

Despite the chilly and drizzly weather this fall, it's been nice to slow down here and there and enjoy some time at home, which you could read more about in this awesome book a neighbor of mine designed and edited (if you're so inclined).

Scandinavian Travel, In Retrospect

I started writing this when I looked at the calendar and it had been a month since my husband and I spent our last day in Norway. Now, another month has passed. We returned to a very fast paced fall where the weeks have slipped by, faster each one. I think of our trip a few times a week though and the shifts I've experienced in my thinking as a result of traveling.

*****
This vacation to Scandinavia was a dream, but on that last day in Norway, we were by the fish market after hours of walking around town on a drizzly day, almost aimlessly in a daze, and we watched on as a two year old melted down on the street, crying and dropping onto his knees next to his mother. I said to Matt, "I think I know how he feels. 'Get me out of this fishy town!'"

Mmm donuts

While trickers were treating at our door...

I made donuts and sipped hot apple cider.

How's it going with your summer goals, if you had any? Despite the fact that this summer has been CRAZY, I've gotten down most of my list. Laying out my goals ahead of time really helped, so I plan to make another list of goals again for the fall.

Here are the details...

* I shopped at the farmer's market with my pal Stephanie, and then we made pasta primavera with locally raised shrimp. Yeah, shrimp raised in Michigan. Totally crazy. Matt and I also finally moved into our new place, which means easy access to a ginormous farmer's market. We took a stroll there Saturday morning and stocked up for the week, chomping on Zingerman's soft pretzels on the way back.

* I rode in my mom's convertible, watching the farm fields fly by as the sun set. It's totally cute to see how much she enjoys having a zippy little red car. Matt enjoyed it too.

* I drank milkshakes with my grandma Saturday night. Even with all the busyness, I've been spending some extra special time with her lately. I also bought an ice cream maker and made watermelon sorbet. Yum.

* I laid down in the grass under the stars. I even saw the Milky Way.

* I went kayaking with Matt, while my brother swam beside us. He was preparing for a triathlon after a long hiatus.

* I visited with my nieces. My 21 month old nice is already headed for a triathlon herself. She spent a half an hour running outside yelling "race!". I could barely catch her.

We also went to Greenfield Village with Matt's family and stood in Thomas Edison's workshop while a man showed us how the very first voice recording was made. It was Henry Ford's birthday (coincidentally), so the man sang Happy Birthday Dear Henry into the phonograph.

Greenfield Village was not my on list of summer goals, but I was happy to revisit it for the first time since 4th grade. In 3rd grade we got to dress up Laura Ingalls style and go to school in a one-room school house for the day, which was pretty special.

Returning to the Midwest means getting reacquainted with the 19th and 20th century history we grew up with. And, nothing says retracing your roots like coal smoke smacking you in the face. You can't tell here, but really, we were covering our eyes and coughing as we entered the park. Matt said, "What are they trying to do here? Give us the black lung?" The park is an interesting visit nonetheless.

At the end of a very hot day, Matt stopped to sit and rest, after a couple hours of giving shoulder rides. The visitors and re-enactors streamed for the front gates. I went to find the girls, who were chatting up the mail woman in the post office about their day. She was being a patient listener at the end of her shift. The best part of Greenfield Village, for me, was the people standing by in costume to fill you in on as much history as you wish to hear. I can't think of anywhere else in the US that isn't a national park where you can experience something like this.

* I've laid on the beach by the lake. I'd still like to go lay on the beach by Lake Michigan. Or Lake Huron. I'll take either one. I am missing the ocean a bit, especially how the salty air would occasionally blow its way up the hill to our side of town.

* I sewed myself a pretty skirt during a Friday evening workshop at my favorite knitting/sewing shop in Boston, the week we moved away. It's a wrap skirt with Amy Butler's daisy chain in turquoise. I don't have the pattern but it's a pretty standard wrap skirt.

I still a few weeks left to learn to make cheese and to go camping. Not half bad for a summer as hectic as ours has been!

Wandering: Out to Lunch in Detroit

Hello Canada.

Hello Riverwalk and Belle Isle.

Hello Ren Cen and GM.

Hello Hockey Town and People Mover.

Hello Ambassador Bridge.

Hello Mudgie's Deli that is more like a cafe than a deli. And unmarked.

Hello Basil Lemonade.

Hello Lunch. "The Honey Bee" - an amazing fajita chicken salad that I will try to make at home. Even though it looks like cat food covered in cheese in this photo.

Hello Art, tucked into a concrete wall.

Hello Detroit! Call me crazy but I'm so excited to be here.

Long weekend projects

Last weekend when we were in the North End, we stopped into a pastry shop for a cannoli. After I put my order in I spotted a cupcake with strawberry frosting and ended up thinking about it all week. And then I stumbled on this recipe. We were invited to a friend's bbq on Sunday, hosted by the same friend who popped into the pastry shop with me. So it was fate. These had to be made and eaten.

I wasn't thrilled with the way the frosting came out, because, well, I didn't follow the recipe. I overdid it with the strawberry puree and ran out of powdered sugar, so the texture was a bit off. The taste definitely wasn't though. Someone actually said, "These are um...kind of amazing." So, that means you should definitely make them. Specifically, the frosting. Just follow the recipe.

This weekend I also continued to organize my craft supplies (it's a really long process) and I finally made use of a bag of soap making supplies I got as a Christmas gift ages ago. Turns out that making soap this way was extremely easy and fast (like 20 minutes fast).

I had a standard issue craft store white soap block, which you melt in the microwave. I added chamomile and apricot seed as an exfoliant, and then the clear purple soap beads. I also added a few drops of lavender fragrance (I should have added more) and several drops of orange soap dye in order to arrive at this cream color.

The melted soap hardens up fairly quickly so you have to work fast. After I filled the molds, I still had a lot of melted soap left so I had to think fast. I grabbed a loaf pan and poured the rest in. I then tried to add the purple beads but the soap was already hardening so I ended up taking the it out of the mold (it was rectangle shaped) and I rolled it into a log shape so that the purple was in the middle. I actually stood the log on end and poured some liquid soap into the middle to fill in the gaps. A couple hours later, I cut the log into disks.

This made a ton of soap! I think we'll be using it for a very long time! Next time I definitely want to read up on different techniques and maybe make some oatmeal soap or citrus scented soap.

My sister-in-law made really cool snow globe soaps with her girls for Christmas and they were a big hit! If anyone else has had success with soap making and has some tips, I'd love to hear.

Wandering: Reading Terminal Market

When I was in Philadelphia last week for a conference, I skipped out on an afternoon session and wandered around Reading Terminal Market for over an hour just marveling at the life of it all. It was a rainy few days in Philadelphia, so slipping away to the warm busy place was a treat.

There is a bookshop entirely filled with cookbooks. Some devoted to single pleasures like Marshmallow Fluff and lemonade.

Lots of sweets.

Cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.

Fresh and local eggs, produce, and meats.

Sandwiches. This muffuletta caught my eye and made me wish my New Orleans lovin' foodie friend was with me.

So much great food prepared by the Amish in Lancaster County.

The food prepared by the Pennsylvania Dutch was so tempting that I came back the next morning and had an egg and cheese pretzel roll, which was the best breakfast I've had in as long as I can remember. After I got home, I woke up from a nap thinking about pretzels.

And I can't forget the pudding. Oh my! I counted 28 varieties of pudding. This must be the only place on earth with such a spread.

There was healthy food too. Vrapple - the vegan answer to the local Pennsylvania speciality Scrapple.

The coolest aspect of the Reading Terminal Market is the clash of cultures and people. There is something for everyone here. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Italian, Thai, Cajun, Soul Food, Jewish, Pennsylvania Dutch, Middle Eastern, Vegatarian and Vegan, the list goes on and on.

If you're in Philadelphia, you really must go.