Reversible Novelty Vest!

Here, is the finest example, yet, of my tailoring skills!

I'm actually so proud of this vest! I made is for a teacher friend of my mom's, who wears fun, kitschy vests when teaching his kindergarten class.  But the lady who used to make his vests for him retired. So he figured he'd ask me if I'd mind making this one. Of course, I said I would love to!

I had to draft the pattern from a vest he already had, which was a long process of tracing, and measuring, and marking. And taping together sheets of printer paper.

Then, when I cut out the pieces of green fabric,

I noticed that the colours on both right and wrong sides were equally as intense. So it was hard to tell the difference. Because of that, I accidentally sewed the back piece on backwards. The letters were backwards!  We can't have children learning backwards letters!  So I patched on new letters, the right way around.  I actually like the effect. Not all the letters have been patched over, and so it creates some really interesting, and subtle dimension.

Then I cut out the air plane fabric. The teacher originally gave me a lighter blue fabric with larger, more realistic planes on it. But, once again, I wasn't paying attention, and I cut out the front panels, with the planes upside down.  

So we bought new air plane fabric.

The planes go in all directions. So I can't mess it up. 

I sewed the two sides together, inside out, turned it right-way out, and then folded under the seam allowance at the opening, and top stitched it shut. I did the same to finish the arm holes. 

I even top stitched along the seams, to keep the allowances facing the right direction!

Again, like I said, REALLY proud of myself!

Silk Dyed Eggs!

So, this past week, I've been looking up some different ways to decorate Easter Eggs. I came across this wonderful tutorial on ourbestbites.com. You take ugly silk ties (or any other ugly patterned silk) and wrap it around eggs, then boil them, and the pattern transfers onto the shell!

As A fun afternoon activity, my boyfriend and I decided to try it out!

But not before Cain tried to balance as many eggs as he could.

Now, since I pretty much suck at following, or even reading, instructions, I kinda just went ahead and did this project my own way, first, hollowing out two eggs, and wrapping them in fabric I was pretty sure wasn't silk, but I wanted to try it anyway.

What I hadn't planned on was that hollow egg shells float. So we conjured up this make-shift contraption to hold them under the water.

Those ones didn't turn out. They came out of the water just as white as they were, going in. I plan to paint them later.

So then we tried the silk ones!

Even before we unwrapped them, we were pretty sure something had happened, 'cause the water looked like this.

We waited for the eggs to cool and dry, and then...

TA- DAAA!!!

The eggs are so beautiful!! I was practically giggling, I was so pleased!

The tutorial was right; ugly ties make beautiful eggs!

I just wish they could've been hollowed out, so I could display them.

Fall Coloured Mini Skirt

I don't remember what pattern I used to make this skirt.  *Calls over shoulder* Cain! What pattern did I use to make this skirt?

 He doesn't know. He wasn't there.

Rosie and Retro

So, a couple of summers ago, I learned to crochet. After making a baby blanket for a friend, I was looking for something more interesting to make.  I was looking through a crochet pattern book that my grandma gave  me.  This book is from the 1960's and there were a lot of cute, mod patterns.

A pattern I especially liked was one called "Chic Little Bolero", which is odd because it doesn't look at all like the modern definition of a "bolero".