Spring means...

Sewing. Actually, every season means sewing, but I love sewing clothes especially in the Spring. In Texas, Spring is really a milder extension of the long summer and that requires the right kind of clothes to brave the heat. This year I've started my Spring/Summer sewing by adapting a pattern to mimic a favorite but worn out top from past years.


I've owned this top for several years, but now it's stained and even a little holey, so no longer wearable. I had thought about taking it apart and creating a pattern based on it, but the prospect of spending that much time ripping seams wasn't particularly appealing.


I happened upon a Simplicity pattern that resembled the original design enough that I thought I could adapt it.


And I did. I selected the version of the pattern that eliminated the ruffle at the bodice and at the armholes and added the ties around the neck edge instead of a collar or facing. I also sewed in fewer buttonholes and buttons because I didn't think that I'd ever want to button it to the neck.
The Swiss dot fabric came from Purl Patchwork online.


It came out pretty much as I envisioned it and I'm definitely planning a second one...maybe even a third.

Triangles

They may not be my all time favorite shapes, but I like them in this form:


And even more so in this form:

Green:: Day Five

I liked green week.

In answer to a question in the comments about who organizes this week or any other for that matter, I found out about this on one of the blogs that usually read. The woman who organized this particular celebration of green also happens to be one of my contacts on flickr. I guess the best answer then is internet word-of-mouth.

Green:: Day Four

I'm apparently so psyched about green week that I've gotten a notion to put up some of my green plates in my green painted bedroom. Perhaps that's green overkill, but I don't really mind. That is until the next week devoted to some other color.

Green:: Day Three

This may be green day #3, but it's also Wednesday. And that means that it's the day we get our weekly Greenling delivery. Greenling is this amazing service that works with a host of local organic farms and producers of other grocery products to bring these items to your front door. We get the local produce box and I just love it. We've done the basket from the local farm thing before and, while the quality of the produce was great, the variety left something to be desired. The problem with relying on just one farm is that if they're harvesting turnips week after week, that's what you're getting. This is not the case with Greenling. Because they buy from several local farms I get something completely new every week and I get fabulous "unique" items I haven't gotten before in farm baskets. These items aren't super exotic, but they're unusual for farm baskets. For instance I get grapefruit and oranges and apples. Today I got avocados. How great is that? I still get greens,onions, tomatoes...all the ususal basket fare. And, of course, I also receive veggies which are not part of our usual diet like kohlrabi, but new is good too, right?
Lately, Wednesday has taken on a whole new luster because it's the day the Greenling truck comes.

Green:: Day Two

I'm going to be frank here for a moment (collective sigh). Finding green things to photograph is not that hard for me. Why? Because my entire bedroom is painted green. And anyone who has an entire room in that color must naturally gravitate toward it.
Case in point: this was on my bedside table.


And these were set on my chest of drawers waiting to be photographed.


There were/are other green things just in that one room, never mind the rest of the house. So, it's safe to say that I'm not exactly searching out the green or finding my inner greenness. It's right out there, on the surface.

Green:: Day One

I'm not going to sugar coat it (pun intended), I've got quite the collection of Altoids containers. First I should point out that I HATE Altoids. In fact I'm not much of a mint fan in general. But my husband feels quite differently. He likes an Altoid or twenty when he sits at his desk in his office. He doesn't however bring each empty container home as it's finished, but accumulates them and "surprises" me with a bagful.
I can't quite put my finger on what it is about these boxes that I find so endearing, but I love them. So much so that I have them stacked on a favorite cake plate on a dresser at the edge of our bed. Now that I've confessed that, I realize how odd that is, but I'm not planning on relocating them to a spot that makes more sense. Though that begs the question," What exactly is the right spot for an empty Altoids container collection?"
No matter. I'm happy to lay on pillow at night and peer through the slats of the bed at my mini mountain of Altoids tins.