Chris’s Breeze shirt

It’s done!

And he likes it!

You know it’s love when he interrupts his driveway work to try on the new shirt.

The pattern again came together very easily. I did learn a few things.

1. When repurposing fabric, in this case a linen tablecloth, don’t assume it’s actually symmetrical. The stripes on one end were slightly longer than on the other, which meant my pattern matching front to back wasn’t exact. I fudged it but could have made it much easier on myself if I’d checked before cutting.

2. My serger is awesome. The pattern calls for French seams. They are beautiful and wonderfully functional in that they keep woven fabric from fraying. But they take twice as long to sew as every seam is sewn twice. Serging the seams also stops fraying and is done once. Much faster and I’m so pleased to be learning how to use this piece of equipment.

3. I love this pattern and am already planning another tunic out of some indigo dyed fabric I have in my stash. Just need to see if I have enough.

Tuesday March 31, 2020 statistics

From The Times Union website:

Total coronavirus cases:

• 67,384  in New York, including 1,342 deaths.

• 164,610 in the U.S., including 3,170 deaths.

• Worldwide: 787,631. Deaths: 37,840. Recovered: 166,276.

It’s been cold and rainy for the last 3 days. Temperatures in the greenhouse have been around 10 degrees warmer than outside temperatures but that’s not saying much. I plan to start my 8-week seeds on April 1st and to put some pea seeds in the ground. I’ll get my 6-week seeds going by end of week. I have high hopes but no experience with the greenhouse as this is our first season with it. Here’s fingers crossed that all this works and I don’t need to buy starts come May.

I’ve been working on Chris’s Breeze shirt and should have that finished today. Then I’m going to sew up some masks for home use. I’ve been wanting to sew some masks for use when cleaning out the chicken coop, gardening during allergy season (yeah, that’s pretty much the entire growing season), and mowing or working in the workshop. But I didn’t have a good pattern. Well, there sure are patterns out there now. And although we are staying home and therefore don’t need masks for off-property reasons, they will be handy around the homestead. My Dad even requested a couple. So I’ll get those done today too. I’ve got plenty of tightly woven cotton in my stash so I don’t need to buy anything. Always a bonus when taking on a project!

Otherwise today will be full of the usual—cooking (lasagna), critters, and projects (sewing, driveway maintenance, and moving the rain barrel). 

Spring cleaning

The sun was wonderful yesterday. Spent some time sitting out around the fire pit before getting up the gumption to do a bit of cleaning.

The front porch tends to accumulate all kinds of debris over the winter. Wood chips and bark from the firewood stored there, leaves blown in from the yard, sunflower hulls from the feeders, and way more junk than I’d like. 

But a thorough sweeping, some determined tidying, and a bit of rearranging results in a spot that just begs you to sit down and relax.

I need to move another rocker in between the two against the wall. And I really need to get that barber chair finished. Heck, all the chairs could use some sprucing up. Just needs to get a touch warmer before I can really work outside.

Friday March 27, 2020 Statistics

From The Times Union website:

Total coronavirus cases:

• 39,140 in New York, including 457 deaths.

• 85,996 in the U.S., including 1,296 deaths.

• Worldwide: 542,417. Deaths: 24,358. Recovered: 124,164.

Spring feels as though it’s really here. Most of the snow we got earlier in the week is gone already and it was warm and sunny yesterday. I went into the greenhouse to get ready for seed planting and saw some wee sprouts poking through the lettuce bed. They’re more likely to be weeds than Black Seeded Simpson, but it was great to see them nonetheless.

We’re still isolating; easy to do out here in the woods. I’m cooking from the pantry and so far haven’t needed to get creative in order to make meals tasty. As our inventory gets used I’m sure that will change.

But so far it’s all normal food: knishes, chicken pot pie, steak with green beans and mushroom cream sauce, eggs, waffles, spinach calzones, tuna sandwiches, General Tso’s, spanakopita. Sourdough starter is still strong and I’ve made english muffins out of the discard. Will need to feed it again today so I’ll likely make some bread too.

Everything feels a bit surreal. So much of our daily life is just as it was—project based, homestead oriented—but the whole world is upside down and crooked. Reading the news is a morning obsession but then we put it away for the day (or try to) so that we can focus on the positive: we and those closest to us are healthy at the moment. 

All my Twig and Tale patterns

Okay, there are quite a few of these. All patterns were purchased as PDF downloads which I just love. I get them fast, I print just what I need, and Twig and Tale embeds video links to tutorials. Awesome!

Breeze Tunic

Breeze tunic, wearable muslin 

Petal dresses for my nieces (this pattern is free)

Tie-back Boots (slippers)

Trailblazer vest #2 

Planning yet another of these

Butterfly wings-adapted from the Moth pattern 

Dragon wings

I have another vest pattern to try (the Pathfinder) as well as more tunics to make. Oh, and at least two more Trailblazers.

Tunics

Another pattern from independent designer Twig and Tale—the Breeze shirt. I really like this designer; I’ve purchased multiple patterns from them and have had great success with their clear instructions and lovely styles. The Trailblazer vest I made last year is much loved. So much so that I made another one with old Army BDUs and a 1940s pressed blanket as the liner (I’ll get a post on that done soon). This was the first of a couple pairs of slippers. And I also made a variety of costume wings for my nieces and nephews (here are the first pair and I’ll have another post to come). Actually I’ve just realized that I’ve sewn so many of their patterns that I should just do a post of them all.

The Breeze shirt can be done as a long or short-sleeved tunic with optional features like a curved hem, side splits, or pockets. I chose to do the hip length with curved hem, long-sleeve.

Since I’d never sewn sleeves before I figured it would be a good idea to do a muslin. Fortunately it came out good enough to actually wear.

It’s cut from an antique linen tablecloth that had some damaged areas. I easily cut around those to have plenty of yardage. Once I decided that the size was correct, I moved on to my “real” fabric, some gorgeous handwoven from Guatemala. I was more than a little nervous about cutting into this stuff.

Deep breath... 

And cut!

 I’m very happy with the fit and have gained a lot more confidence in my sewing skills.

Close up

I have another swath of fabric from Guatemala in a pretty purple that I’ll be using for another of these tunics, but first Chris has requested one for himself. I’ve got some beautiful grey linen that I think will be just perfect.

Shoes are done!

We got the shoes done! Ended up adjusting some of the instructions. We didn’t like how he attached the button tab. The instructions said to make a tab with long tails, insert them into the shoe near the heel, tie a “big ugly knot”—yes, that’s a quote— and then hammer it flattish. Huh? Have a knot right where your heel rubs? Now, he acknowledged that this was counterintuitive; that it would seem weird; but that the leather would simply stretch and bulge outward and you’d never notice that knot. Huh. 

We decided against taking that chance and instead laced the tab on using our very soft deer lacing. Then we hammered that flat.

The toggle is made out of a long triangle of leather that you roll and spear. Total pain to make but I love how it looks.

The shoes are form fitting and a bit too small right now.

But I’ve been wearing them for an hour and they are starting to stretch and relax. I still think I want to add a bit of length to the pattern, but these are comfortable enough to wear as is.

Not bad for the first pair.