Burda magazine and SWAP

I got the March Burda World of Fashion magazine yesterday - it was my first time buying the magazine.

I was a little disappointed to find that there were clothes pictured in the magazine that did not have patterns. Particularly the children's clothes; they were pictured with T-shirts, golf shirt type shirts, and other items that I thought would have patterns, but did not.

However, that is not to say that I don't think the magazine is a great value. I think it is excellent to be able to get so many patterns for only $8 (especially when buy it during a sale at your local fabric store and get it for 25% off that!). Not to mention the fact that the same patterns are pictured in different fabrics, so it gives you even more ideas about how to make the patterns more versatile. Take this skirt for example:

In the magazine it is pictured three different ways.

Anyway, lately I've been toying with the idea of doing the Sewing with a Plan thing (SWAP). You see it in various places online, although it seems to originate here. I've read this a few times before, but the other day I came across it again, and it finally stuck with me that the key to the whole thing is to not pick fussy, complicated patterns that you won't finish. You should use the easiest patterns you have, especially ones you have made before, and you can make the same thing out of different fabrics.

Well, I've wasted too much time online already; I should be sewing!

Cilantro-ranch turkey sandwich

I just made the most delicious sandwich, and I wanted to get it down so I can make it again.

from the top down:
Basic white bread from my Breadman manual
Ranch dressing
fresh cilantro
red-leaf lettuce
thin sliced yellow onion
thin sliced green bell pepper
white American cheese
deli turkey meat (next time try mesquite flavor)
spicy brown mustard
bottom slice of bread

yum!

Beatles nursery mural

DSC02365
Originally uploaded by pleiades07.

Well, I have gotten some sewing done, but nothing is photographed yet. I do have a picture of the mural in the baby's room, which was just finished a few days ago. I absoluetly love it. The next day after we got all the furniture in, we just sat and stared at the wall endlessly. It was painted by Amy Cornellier of Xhibition Designs.

Procrastination Street

I have three things I have actually committed to make for xmas this year, and I have spent the last few weeks doing everything in my power to avoid working on them. It's as though I am deliberately trying to create stress for myself, now that I think of it.

First, I am sewing a robe for my husband. I have completed about 2/3 of it, but I need to pick a few stitches out, and I think that's the sticking point; I can't bring myself to do it, so I am avoiding the project altogether.

The other two things are T shirts I am going to decorate for my two sisters. I'm stalling on those because I'm not sure how I want to do it. The stupid thing is I know that if I just start on it and keep going I will come up with something decent, and if I don't I have extra shirts to mess up.

The problem is that I keep thinking of other projects to work on; I need to make medium-sized cloth diapers because my little monster already outgrew the small ones I made and we're back to using disposables ("trashies" in the cloth diapering community vernacular). And I want to make him some fleece booties & hats, and I have materials & a pattern to make a bunch of sleep sacks, and if I had the time & motivation I was going to sew up some pajama pants to give as gifts. And my husband asked me to make marble magnets for a bunch of people a few (more like two) days ago.

That's it. I'm going to work on each of the three xmas projects for a set amount of time today.

How embarrassing

It has been over one year since I posted to this blog. Well, I have been getting the urge to blog lately, so maybe I'll keep it going this time.

I have a new baby, so I've been sewing cloth diapers lately:





I'm trying to come up with my own pattern since I didn't much like the ones I sewed from free patterns I found online, nor did I like the fit of the purchased pocket diaper I tried. I like the way the Imse Vimse wool wrap fit him, but he's probably going to outgrow it soon.

I haven't been knitting much for the past several months because I got tendonitis during my pregnancy, and I didn't feel like knitting much anyway.

Unraveled

Unraveled

To illustrate my earlier post, here is a "before and after" picture of sorts. I didn't take an actual picture of the mistake, but when I started frogging it was nearly the size of a finished medallion (see a finished medallion on the left).

The self-pity begins on post number 2

I just had to rip two and a half balls of yarn out of a sweater I am knitting. I realized last night that I had doubled the number of increases in the pattern not once but twice, so not only did I have to rip out inches of work, the rows (well, technically rounds) I had been working were probably at least three times as long as they had to be. I would probably be nearly done with this sweater if I had paid attention and done it properly.

To make things worse, the previous day I made the mistake of telling my husband that I was making this sweater for him.

When I think about it I want to kick myself.