angry chicken

Kolache!

This is a kolache from Happy Sparrow here in Portland and I am now obsessed. I can't recommend this cafe highly enough. They have tasty kolache, great coffee, and are super nice. Baby ate a vegan special and a nutella filled kolache, and I had the same—and then took home one of each kind for weekend munching. So good!!

Thanks to all of you who braved the horrible rain and came out to Bolt last night! That was super fun.

Okay, Miss Delia turns 5 tomorrow, so I need to snap to it. She busy working on her "party flavors" which are really party favors, but I'm not about to correct her, 'cause how awesome is a party flavor?

donut holes.

Details are here and hope you can come by!

(I have a new fall banner and new links up, too.)

make your own sewing patterns!

I received a copy of this new sewing book, Design-It-Yourself Clothes: Pattern making Simplified, by Cal Patch (cool name!) and am really impressed. I often recommend Wendy's sewing books for basic garment sewing know-how, but haven't been able to recommend a sewing book that fully covers pattern making. This is that book. Cal explains thoroughly how to draft, alter, and sew garments that will really fit you. She also how teaches how to grade patterns which is what you need to know if you want to make items in multiple sizes.

There are quite a few designs in the book, complete with sewing directions. But, to clarify, this book contains no actual patterns—because you draft them yourself! This book is full of wonderful tips on creating patterns in many different styles—but the look of all the designs (for the most part) is pretty casual and loose. Not a vintage-tailored look, but more a casual-cool look. This makes the fitting issues easier, but also means the overall style of these pieces are sweeter and simpler than your favorite dress on Mad Men.

I have not actually tried any of these designs yet, have any of you? I bet some people are making some dang cool clothes out of this book.

book siging coming up this thursday!!

This Thursday I will be at Bolt for a book signing! I will show examples from my book—with tips, hints and humorous stories, and then we can all chat, hang out, and one of you will win this tote full of Bend The Rules Love! It contains supplies, a copy of my book, fabric from Bolt, the Bend The Rules Gift Labels—how cool!

Please come on out, I'd love to see you!

Thursday, November 5th at Bolt (Bolt has a cool blog, too, just so you know.)

2136 NE Alberta St · Portland, OR 97211 · 503.287.bolt

7PM

Woot!

**I will be in Seattle on December 3rd at The Quilting Loft for a book signing, too.

some kind of crazy evil

I found myself over at Polyvore the other day after seeing a lovely photo from Uniform Studio and oh my good lord. Hours, HOURS, can be wasted on this site. It's a drag-and-drop collage fashion-y thing. How's that for a great description? Of course you can click and buy, but I'm not even going to discuss this option. So, sorry, but your day is ruined now. My bad. I spent about 10 minutes on this outfit. The sweater makes it for me. That and the umbrella.Here's a link for each item shown. Action Hero just pointed me to shmotter which is a similar site.

An unrelated but amazing link sent to me by Miss Hayley: Uncle Envelope. This makes me happy about the world.

soup report

Many soups have been made in the last month. The recipes made from Love Soup are as follows:

• Green Soup with Ginger (very good, my favorite so far)
• Green Soup with Sweet Potato and Sage (quite good, but I like the first one better)
• Black Bean and Squash (amazing!! even better the next day.)
• Corn and Cheese Chowder (also amazing!)
• 3-Grain Bread (good. The girls think it's lame, but I love it as toast.)

Relating to food making—a bit back I posted about my favorite kitchen gadgets. One of them was a LamsonSharp Turner.  Several weeks ago the fine people over at LamsonSharp sent me this mini-masher as a thank-you and how I ever lived without it, I know not. I use this new mini-masher for making banana bread, guacamole, potatoes and sweet potatoes in soups—I even use it to partially mash beans sometimes. It's small, fits perfectly in my hand (it's shorter than a wooden spoon) and crazy strong, you can really work it. I never busted out my old masher because it was just too big and a fork, well, kind of sucks when you really need to mash something. It would have been prefect for baby food. So, I am thrilled to have this, needless to say.

From the mind of a 7 year old.

Sadie busted out with these song titles when asked about her forthcoming music project she has planned. Unbelievable. There are so many favorites here—I actually am speechless. Delia's is equally amazing. I will share it later. It's mostly the about the subject of the last song on this list.

 

pencil skirt with a sassy zipper

  

I needed a pencil skirt. A red wool one with an exposed zipper and it needed to be longer than the 1980s minis that seem to be all over the place right now. I wanted it kind of long and a bit frumpy, but actually very cool and naughty, because of the industrial exposed zipper and its tightness. So, that was the deal and I made it last week, and it worked out great. 

Here's the sassy back. There were exposed metal zippers at Anthropologie last spring and summer and was anxious to try using one, especially after being obsessed with invisible zippers for so long. I used a method very similar to this one (click on the exposed zipper link) except I included a seam below the zipper so I could make a back vent. The fabric is a lovely red wool from Mill Ends (All wool and lining is 25% off until the end of October and Bolt is having a big sale this weekend, too.) and the skirt pattern was just an altered classic a-line that I have made several times from Wendy's book. She gives dimensions and tips on making the a-line into a pencil skirt. Very simple. This one is lined and I am so happy I spent the extra $$ and used a rayon lining and not a super cheap polyester lining—which feels like plastic wrap to me. I mean, if I'm going to pay the money for really nice wool, why use icky lining against my skin?

This is the type of sewing I love. When I am making tailored clothes it's not super cheap compared to Forever 21 or Target, but I'm comparing it to high-end designer pieces I could never afford in a million years so I feel like I am saving loads of money, if that makes sense and I don't freak out about the baby and child smears that are already on this skirt. I will tell you (in anticipation of questions about it) the blouse I am wearing has that same gathering on the back that I just did that tutorial for (it's from Forever 21, actually) and the tights are from J.Crew (my favorite pair this fall) and the shoes are Miz Mooz. Just in case you are wondering.

Next up I am working a plaid wool dress, which is about 65% done and looking good. Although I realize now it matches our flannel bed sheets almost exactly. At least I am consistent.

New Prints—Folk Art Series

I've been working on these 3 hand-drawn prints for a long time now, and I finally finished them! I am quite happy. There are printed on super fancy heavy-weight archival watercolor paper—you won't be disappointed. There are three in this series. Silvija is shown here (the frame is not included.)

This one is titled Come Home.

And Crest. They are over here at my Etsy shop, which seems to be the best place for me to sell my artwork. Please take a look and my, what lovely holiday gifts they would make! 

super easy blouse alteration

 

I have been altering my purchased (and some home-sewn) blouses lately with elastic in the back. It's super easy, adds some cute ruching, and makes the fit a little bit more formal—which is nice, I think. Especially when I am not in the mood to tuck in my blouse, which is often. Here's the front of the blouse, on the left, and then the altered back, which used to just lie flat, but now has two rows of small gathers between the back darts.

I made a little tutorial on how to do this. I'm a little spacey sounding in this and seem to be forgetting words. You know how it goes.

**update: I swapped in new photos so you can actually see the blouse on. It actually looks exactly the same in front as it did pre-altering—just the back looks different. Of course, don't try this technique if your blouse is tight to begin with.