Here is Spike. He is one of my houserabbits and he is hanging out for a rare occasion in the bedroom. The cool quilt behind him I bought at a garage sale years ago.

Duh, it has been such a long time..

Here it is, finally I am back to doing some sewing. The dress for Valetine's Day is done! I have been so busy with work that I have ignored my blog. Sorry about that. I have been really into teaching my third grade students many fun things. I have been focusing on some fun creative art projects lately. ( teaching third graders a simple jazz dance, making two carousels and teaching my class origami, as well as making them chocolate chip pancakes)

I am planning to do more sewing for myself, teach my students how to hand sew and maybe even how to sew with a machine!

Wow it has been a long time...

Here it is, half way through September, wishing that I did have more time to sew, cook and do everything else I would like to be doing.

The next project I am planning to start is a costume, based on the Tenniel illustration of Alice in Alice in Wonderland. I am planning to do some preliminary sketches and have all of the fabrics and trims. My goal is to recreate the scene of Alice and the screaming baby turned into the piglet. I have the piglet, but need to make the appropriate bonnet and baby blanket as well as Alice's dress..

I think that my students will really be surprised by the costume!

bye bye June, Happy July

Everything seems to be moving fast, so fast! People( family members) moving, putting things into storage and slowly getting ready for my new classroom. Sewing?? Of course, there has to be some sewing! And of course the official adoption of the two bunnies that I am fostering- Sparley and Mike! Really it is Marley and Spike.

My latest sewing project entails embroidering ( by machine) English netting. So far the samples are okay, but.. not quite what I have expected. I am making yet another shrug out of the netting so that I can wear it over other shrugs or alone. I will have to post some pictures of the samples.

Last week, I picked up the attachment for my machine to do the circular embroidery, I have yet to get it to work.

Well, it has been a while..

Now that the school year is over, I can finally return to sewing for myself. Over the course of the past year of teaching, I have lost about 20 pounds. So, that means I need to make some new clothes and finish the swap that I started in January. Oh and refit some of my favorite tops to fit the newly slim body.

My plan today is to go through my pattern stash and reduce it a bit. I need to finish a couple of the tops that I cut out and then make either one of my vintage dress patterns, a new robe, a couple skirts and a coat. I just don't know what to make first.

more progress with the skirt..

Well, after making the sable cookies I felt inspired to go back to the skirt in progress. I was a little bit baffled on how I was going to attach the lining, since I had already attached the facings to the skirt. So, I improvised on how to attach it- success!! I could not follow the directions completely from the Connie Long book, so I attached the lining by sewing it to the top of the facing, 3/8 of an inch away from the raw edge. It looks lovely!! (Well especially with the bias binding edge of the facing and seeing the lining out of the same fabric. It looks so chi chi!


There is not too much left to do with the skirt- hem the lining, attach the lining at the zip and add the glorious satin ribbon to the front of the skirt!

Sables on a Monday...

Well, I finally made the time to try one version of a sable cookie recipe. This version is from the Joy of Cooking. I am really curious to see how they turn out this afternoon.

I did my big experiment- making my own powdered sugar- one cup of granulated sugar with one teaspoon of corn starch... oooh what a mess!! Next time I better do this in a regular blender and not use the hand held blender. It was pretty funny to see clouds of corn starch and sugar, floating around me.

This is the recipe that I am testing and going to make with my students this week. Boy, I hope that they turn out.

The next version is going to be a more authentic version called punitions. They are not quite as sweet as these.