Made and Making No. 4

Happy Friday! I know I never did post a Made and Making last Friday, but I was just too busy with my dad in town. So today's rendition wraps up a couple of weeks. There's a lot that went on in the Golly Ranch House that I'll talk about soon (small but important projects like replacing receptacles, and finding some interesting tidbits on prior wall treatments and tile in the house), but for now you'll get a couple of small tastes of what we've been up to.

{all images link to Flickr for full size}

Clockwise from upper left

1. New retro porch light. Oh good grief, was our light situation sad on our deck/porch. It was an old, rusted fixture with no globe and a bare light bulb under the covered portion (that I kind of think of as the porch), and then on the uncovered portion (that I think of as the deck, which is a couple of steps down), a huge honking fixture that was ugly. It looked like it could have been several decades old, until I looked closely inside and saw a tell-tale modern sticker. Its fate was then sealed when we saw the same one at Home Depot! Bye bye. So instead, we found this very cute, inexpensive light to replace the one on the porch and just ditched the ugly one. I'll show better photos later, but the upper edge is scalloped! What could be more 50s than that for our little ranch! And for only $20, it was a good deal, too.
2. Green skirt in the living room. I've really been wearing my bias-cut green skirt a ton. Here I've paired it with a Jitterbuggin blouse (same one in my blog header). I took a gamble recently and ordered some twill that had a bit of stretch to it to make a couple more versions, and it was a mistake. The stretch content is just all wrong for me. So I'll have to send it back and pick out something else. This is in our living room, which as you can see is still un-decorated. That rectangular white spot on the wall behind me is one of two glass block nooks in the living room.
3. Zinnia about to bloom. I decided way too late to plant the zinnia seeds that Mel's mom brought over this spring, but I had the seeds and a container so I went ahead. And they've been growing like crazy! They're now just about to bloom as you can see.
4. Freshly painted cold air return covers. Unexciting looking, yes. While my dad was here we were going to replace our cold air return covers, however the same size new ones actually ended up being about 3/4" too big, so it would have involved cutting the baseboards and base shoe. Instead of all that hassle, I scrubbed them down and sanded them to get rid of as much of the years of latex paint as I could, and spray painted them glossy white. They aren't perfect, but they look SO much better now.
5. Spiral cut hot dogs. While he was here, my dad saw a video on how to spiral cut hot dogs for the grill, so we had to try it. Fun! In this pic you can see a bit of our original 1950s half round display shelves in our kitchen, which are currently holding a bunch of my vintage Pyrex and my Juice-O-Mat. Eventually, we'll be swapping out these 90s/2000s counter tops for a more 50s look.
6. Red Queen sweater in progress. Yes, this is not my Unicorn and Lion sweater, but my Red Queen sweater. I mentioned it in my Coronation Knits blog tour post, and then suddenly had the urge to pick it up again after several months and I've been flying along.

Remember, this evening the Coronation Knits giveaway closes, so last call for entries!

Made and Making No. 3

Happy Friday! I didn't have much creative time this week, but I did finish off one sewing project and start another. Could I finally be on a roll?

{all images link to Flickr for full size}

Clockwise from upper left

1. My latest sewing project. I've been thinking the last week or so about what I'm in the mood to be wearing lately, and it's coming down to lots of separates! My green skirt was the first attempt to start filling in the gaps in my separates wardrobe. Having publicly complained about my recent frustration with sewing collars, I had a heart-to-heart with myself about giving them another try as I really do love them. I've been watching Sunni's 2-in-1 sew-along, and when she mentioned an alternate way to sew a collar everything fell into place in my head. Don't you just love when that happens? So this week, I dove into a 40s  Butterick blouse pattern. Well, slow dive. I'm still cutting out the pieces.
2. Homemade pesto snack. With the food processor Mel and I got for a housewarming gift from my mom and step-dad, we made pesto this week! Two batches. One using garlic scapes from our CSA, one using basil from our yard and a bit of garlic scapes, too. This is a cracker with homemade pesto with manchego cheese and grape tomatoes from our neighborhood's tiny farmer's market (we're glad to have one at all). Oh yum, yum.
3. A tip I made up for myself. Solid-colored fabric remnants annoy me, because I cut something out and then have no idea which way the grain is going once the selvages are gone. So I'm starting to attach a teeny little reminder of the fabric and grainline.
4. Underlining. The blouse I'm working on will be underlined! I've never done this before, but I've read about it plenty. Most recently Lauren from Lladybird talked about it. I followed instructions from Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing. I know there's a shortcut, but I have a hard enough time maneuvering fabric, so I'm hand basting. I love that it's making a slightly-underwhelming-in-person cotton lawn print really pop.
5. A possible future project. Recently I was reminded that I love the idea of embroidering quilt squares from the vintage Aunt Martha's kit I have of state flowers of all 50 states. Well, 49, as I discovered this week one was cut out, but I don't know yet which one! I may work on this in cahoots with my good friend and quilter extraordinaire Elisa, because I don't know the first thing about quilting. But I can't shake this idea from my head. It would be a long long long loooong-term project, obviously.
6. My finished apple tree dress. It's finally hemmed, so here's a sneak peak! Hopefully I'll discover the photos I took under the awning portion of our deck during a rainstorm turned out. If not, I'll have to shoot for another photo session. I really like the finished dress, very comfy and cute, and my first time doing side seam pockets. I think this technically qualifies as a quilting cotton, but it's about the nicest cotton I've ever worked with. I'll tell you about it when I post final pictures of the dress soon.

I'm very excited that my dad is staying with us for a week, so there's probably not going to be much "making" going on next week, except him doing helpful dad stuff. So next week's post might be things like "oh look, my dad added an exterior outlet on our garage". ;)

Have a great weekend, my friends!

Made and Making No. 2

Happy Friday! Here's the second installment of my new Made and Making series. Gosh there's been a lot of sewing this week, which is very unfortunate for the knitting project I'm really supposed to be working on!

{all images link to Flickr for full size}

Clockwise from upper left

1. Dress in progress. And it doesn't fit on my dress form! But before you worry, it's only because apparently a 9" side zipper isn't big enough to clear the shoulders of my dress form. It fits on me just fine (with extra ease, even). It's frustrating because now that means I have to recruit Mel to help me hem it, and we haven't had time. So it's completely finished except the hem. Isn't the center front pleat cute? Well, such as it is, pinned to the front of my dress form...
2. My grandmother's earrings. Aren't they darling? My mom gave them to me awhile back. Little palm trees embedded in plastic (lucite, perhaps). They're screw back and I'm converting them to post back so I can wear them. I've been meaning to do this for ages. I have a lot of little things like that, so I'm hoping this summer to tackle some of those niggling things that linger on my mental crafty to-do list!
3. Cherries to make popsicles. You may call them ice pops, or ice lollies. I recently got a book and molds to make frozen treats on a stick. I tried to take a picture of how badly my hands were stained after, but it looked like I'd committed murder. The ice pops turned out yummy—cherries, yogurt and a bit of honey, mostly!
4. Pretty great lapped zipper. If I do say so myself! I love the look of them, and you'll often see them in vintage clothing. I've done a couple (including the above unhemmed dress) and each time it's been a little easier than the last, but this time I tried the method Casey outlined in her circle skirt sew-along last year. Along with lots of basting, I used tape to give me a stitching guideline since I decided not to hand-pick it this time. Though I think it looks better when it's not all still basted and taped and un-pressed. lol
5. The last of the first batch of radishes. With locally-made tortillas (Chicago is full of tortillerias), eggs over medium, a bit of cheddar cheese, scallions from our CSA and cilantro and radishes from my container gardening. (I forgot to mention last week that the few things we're growing are in containers.)
6. My sewing notebook and skirt pattern. Last month, Kerry at Kestrel Finds & Makes wrote a post about her sewing diary. With my sewing relatively sporadic last year, I wanted that to change. I knew my random sticky notes here and there and nonsensical scribbles were not going to help the cause, so inspired by Kerry, I started a sewing notebook. Friends, if you don't have one, get one! It's amazing the difference a little notebook can make. I have an entire page about the muslin of my skirt, a 40s bias cut pattern from New York Patterns. I love their envelopes!


Hope you have a great weekend, everyone!

Made and Making No.1

Some of my favorite posts in blogland are round-ups of goings on in people's lives, especially when accompanied by photos. I've been meaning to start a weekly series for ages, so I can document all the little things in my own week. Finally I was able to plan it out!

I'm going to call my new weekly round-up series "Made and Making", and aim for Friday postings. I'll share snapshots from my week that relate to things I've made (outfits including me-made items new and old, meals, newly completed projects, hairstyles I'm trying out, etc), or things I'm making (knitting, sewing, gardening, home decorating, etc). Snapshots, Instagram pics, you get the idea—you've seen it everywhere, now you'll see it here. lol The number of photos will vary. I'll probably be a little liberal with this "made and making" concept though, so I may sneak in a snap now and again just because. ;)

So without further ado...

{all images link to Flickr for full size}

Clockwise from upper left

1. Ruffles on my sundress. We had a very warm spell earlier in the week, and I can now attest to the wearability of cotton lawn in warm weather with my new sundress. I might have thought this fabric was a pain to work with, but it's a joy to wear. But this begs the question: why don't I own any cotton slips any longer?! I think I need to change that, stat.
2. Strawberries and cream. We joined a CSA a couple of weeks ago. For those unfamiliar, that stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Once a week we now get a delivery of fresh organic produce from a farm in southern Wisconsin. It's just now strawberry season, and we feasted Wednesday night on strawberries with fresh whipped cream. My recipe is from a 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook: with chilled beaters and bowl, beat 1/2 c. heavy whipping cream with 2 Tbsp. confectioner's (powdered) sugar until thick and creamy. I added in a little vanilla extract, too. Yum!
3. Me-made outfit and a wave. You never see me without glasses because I haven't had contacts in years. I achieved a perfect wave in my bangs, although it's not a style I find practical because I always want my hair out of my face. So it was an accidental styling. In this snap I'm wearing me-made earrings I finished this week from 50s cabochons, and a me-made feedsack blouse, one of the first pieces of clothing I ever made for myself, about 2 years ago. It has some serious issues, but I still wear it now and again.. under a cardigan. ;)
4. My first harvest of radishes! I am so exciting to finally have a little yard!! I'm growing radishes from seeds. I pulled the first one out Tuesday and got a whole bunch Thursday. It's so satisfying!
5. My current sewing project, another 1940s dress. I'm using a fun apple tree print in Japanese cotton. I've had very little time to work on it this week, but I hope next week I'll make some headway.
6. A gorgeous vintage fabric for an upcoming tutorial. Part of why I've had no time for my dress! I'll be sharing a fun little project early next week. I'm very excited about it, so stay tuned!


Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!