. . . And the second

I finally got Lauren's costume done last night. The coat was done in time for her party on Sunday, but she was unhappy not to have the hat or boot covers.

The picture that she referenced was this one, Pokemon Trainer Dawn. I decided that a basic double breasted pea coat was the way to go:  Simplicity 2534.

I had hoped to use fleece, because it's easy to work with and pretty warm. And although the vest pattern suggests fleece for the vest, it suggests denim, corduroy, or wool for the coat/jacket. I realized that's because you need to interface the front of the coat/jacket, but not the vest. You can't iron interfacing onto fleece.

When we went to get fabric I realized that there is a dearth of light pink wool/cord/denim at JoAnn's in October. Go figure. Lauren said that the color was the most important part, and I saw her point.  There was some light pink quilted fabric, but I thought it would be too bulky in front, it was $10/yard, and I didn't have any coupons. Finally, I thought, "I'll use that sew-in interfacing I have down in the basement." We grabbed the bolt of anti-pill pink fleece (already 50% off, score!), and were on our way. Since fleece is so wide, I only had to get two yards.

When it came time to put it together, I managed to get most of it done in about three hours. Cut it out, sew the side seams, gather and attach the bottom, put on the front, put in the sleeves. Then I stopped. I decided I wasn't going to line it. I still had to put in the front facing, top  stitch it, and do the buttons & buttonholes.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to that last bit until a few hours before the party. Attaching the front facing was fine, and top stitching was fine. Then I got to the buttonholes. I have an automatic buttonhole foot, and it worked fine for Sarah's coat, although it took me a while to remember how to use it. But when I tried it on two thick layers of fleece, it wasn't working. It wasn't moving smoothly over the fabric, and got stuck.  I hate having to rip out button holes and start over--it's hard on the fabric, and it's hard on me.

Gotta catch 'em all!

I remembered that I had some Velcro left over. I sewed it in, and then sewed the buttons on top. It's not as nice as if it had proper button holes, but it was DONE, and we could go to the party. Of course, then there was the issue of what she would wear under it, and as it turned out, she took it off for most of the party anyway.

Yesterday, I stopped to get some white fleece for the hat and boot covers, I thought. I forgot that the boot covers were supposed to also be pink. It was a very near thing, but I had just barely enough pink scraps left to make rough boot covers. The hat is a simple tube; I hand stitched the designs on the front, and also hand stitched the back closed. I think the back looks a little odd, but Lauren says it's right for the picture. OK, she's happy, so I'm happy. And I'm done with Halloween this year, so I'm VERY happy.

Kitchen Experiment, Week 1

A few weeks ago, I decided that I no longer cared to bear the brunt of Kitchen Duty alone. I realized that the whole family should be taking part in this aspect of our lives.

First, I asked for help with the dishes. Our dishwasher has been out of commission for a while, and I don't have a lot of interest in replacing it in the foreseeable future (unless we win the lotto, in which case I will happily get a beautiful dishwasher for the maid to use). I asked Lauren and Jeff to each pick one night a week to clean up, and Sarah to take two nights. That's still three nights for me, which is fine. 

There are two provisions:

1. If you don't get it done on your night, you will also be responsible for it the next day. So far, I'm the only one who has fallen down on the job there.
2. If you can't or just don't want to do the dishes on your night, it is your responsibility to find someone to cover for you. Negotiate a trade of days or cash payout, but get it done. 

So far, this plan is going quite well. It's verging on pathetic how happy I am at having someone else clean up. The only trade so far was last night, when I asked Jeff if he could help Lauren with her science lesson (kinetic energy, potential energy, energy transfer--I didn't have the energy for it) in return for my taking his night at the sink.

The other part of Kitchen Duty is making dinner. I like cooking, but I get so bored with making the same things over and over. The girls are certainly old enough to pick up the slack in the kitchen.

So in addition to cleaning up, each girl also gets to cook dinner once a week. This isn't as much a time savings for me right now, but I think it will pay off. One difficulty is that I have classes four evenings a week, so timing is challenging.

Last week was the first time I asked what they wanted to make on their respective nights. Sarah said "pancakes & bacon" and Lauren said, "biscuits & gravy."  Hm. Not the healthiest, but for the first week, ok.

Sarah was making her dinner as I ran out the door to work (she's made both pancakes and bacon before, and I supervised the batter ingredients, so I wasn't too concerned); when I got home, there were three very crispy pieces of bacon left. She said that she ate the burned pieces herself. I've noticed that both girls tend to get distracted and forget about the food while it's cooking.

Lauren did her cooking on the weekend, because I knew she'd need substantial guidance making it. We used canned biscuits, because I didn't think we should do more than one recipe at a time. She did a good job with the gravy, but when it came time to eat, she said, "I don't actually like gravy very much."

Um. . .  whose child are you, and why exactly did you ask to make that?

At any rate, I'd call the first week of our Kitchen Experiment a moderate success. Week 2: Potato Skins and Tomato Soup.

Pulled Pork

A couple weeks ago, Jeff requested pulled pork for dinner, with a mustardy sauce instead of a tomatoey one. We'd had something similar a few months ago at Noble Pig, my cousin's BBQ place on the east side, and he really liked it.

I found this recipe, which seemed promising:  dry rub, and a separate mustard sauce.  Aldi didn't have pork shoulder/butt, but they did have the next best thing:  country style ribs.  I cut the recipe in half, which seemed to be about right, and cooked the ribs in the oven. My crockpot seems to get a little too hot sometimes, and I was worried the ribs would turn to mush if I left them in there too long.

It turned out really well. In an interesting turn, everyone else in the family thought it was better than I did. I thought it was good, but not as good as Noble Pig. Jeff said, "Well, if you're going to have unreasonably high standards . . ."  I liked the sauce better than the meat itself. We dipped soft pretzels in it, and I put it on my hash browns under my eggs in the morning.

Everyone liked it so much that when I saw a pork shoulder yesterday, I grabbed it. I've made the rub (I'm now totally out of paprika) and it's in the crockpot in the refrigerator right now. Since it's rather massive, I'm not worried about it going several hours tomorrow. As for the mustard sauce, I got some grainy mustard, and I think that will zip up the sauce even more. This is a recipe that is going in the keeper book.

One Down . . .

and one to go.

That was a bit of a stretch for me.  The directions for the pockets was weird, I've never done a proper lining before, and organza made me nervous. I didn't follow all the directions exactly:

•  I didn't properly turn the sleeve lining & the main lining and hand stitch them together. Instead, I basted them together and then serged the seam to clean it up. It's not as nice as if I'd done it properly, but at least it's done. My hand sewing is garbage anyway.

• I didn't do a "narrow hem" on the edges of the organza. Instead, I serged the edges and then turned them under twice. I knew that if I just pressed it and sewed it down, it would be terribly uneven. From a distance, it looks kind of like a ribbon edge. Up close, I've decided it looks like "faux lace."  I would love to have a rolled edge foot for my machine, because I think that would be the nicest finish of all.

•  I topstitched all around the outer edges. I wanted to make sure that lining stayed in place, I didn't want to slip stitch the opening where I'd turned it, and I think it gives it a nice finished edge. 

Detail on the pocket.

• I did NOT make the fabric loops on the back and the tie to go through them. I hate making teeny narrow bands of fabric that I have to turn right side out.  I used satin ribbon instead, and I like the contrast in color. Also, I only did six instead of ten. Seriously--ten. No way. I didn't even bother with the measuring tape to make sure they were evenly spaced.

I did hand sew the collar on, using invisible thread.  I think it adds a great flourish on top.

The pockets had me so confused at first (that flap!), and I'm still not crazy about the directions, but I do like the final look of them. Still, I've told Sarah not to put anything heavy in them.

I really like the fabric we got--it irons up well (I've ironed the hell out of this thing), and from a distance it looks like it could be leather or suede. Originally, I wanted to line it with some cool print, but the more traditional lining fabric turned out fine. It's not a very warm garment, but I think a more substantial lining fabric could have made it too heavy. 

"Faux lace!"

The buttons were hard to get properly spaced at first, until I hit on the idea to overlay the cut buttonholes and use a pencil to mark the right spot. Yes, I know I'm supposed to use the pattern piece as a guide. That piece was downstairs.  In other words, totally unavailable.

Making the muslin first was a very good idea, because I realized that using quarter inch seams would screw up certain areas, such as those pockets, and I was able to avoid that. I did take the seams down as far as I could along the back though, which made pressing them open challenging. Moral of the story: MEASURE BEFORE YOU BUY.

She's really happy with it, and I have to say I'm pleased with the result. That's a big deal for me--in the past, many of things I've made just don't satisfy me. I liked Lauren's Easter dress, too, so either my sewing is improving or my standards are relaxing.

Oh, and I told her that a character like this definitely needs an original name, so she came up with "Detective Belladonna J. Skipworth." Yep, she's a character, all right!

Sorry it's sideways--I keep forgetting the camera doesn't automatically fix video the way it does stills.

My Dream Sewing Room

My Dream Sewing room would have:

• space for cutting table, sewing table, and ironing board (including enough room to move around all three easily)
• multiple outlets
• light, both natural and artificial, from multiple locations
• ample and easily accessible storage for fabric, notions, and tools
• a metal wall and numerous magnets strong enough to hold fabric and pattern pieces
• a rolled hem foot for my sewing machine
• NOT being in the furthest spot from the bathroom in the entire house 
• phone, TV, computer, and music access
• a self cleaning floor

Month of Crazy Sewing, Part 1

This is the (very rough) muslin of Sarah's coat. No sleeves, and no lining, but it was more to figure out those wonky pockets and check for size anyway.

I had a bad moment where I realized that Sarah, tall as she is, doesn't necessarily fit into the smaller pattern size. I really should have measured her better and looked at the pattern before I bought it; it was a bad assumption. I adjusted by using quarter inch seams instead of 5/8ths. This made it big enough across the back, but meant that the shoulders had to be adjusted, and the pocket flap didn't work right. That's the whole point of making a muslin first, right?  To figure out how to do it right when you're working on the final fabric.  I might make the pieces all a bit wider to give me a little more wiggle room.  And I need to make sure I use the sharp scissors and cut the notches when I do the real thing, starting tomorrow.  I still don't understand how to do the lining at all.

However, she does love it and is excited at the prospect of the finished garment.

Total time so far, spent cutting out pattern pieces, muslin fabric, and sewing 15 seams: about 4 hours.