Winter is here

When the weather starts to get cold and rainy I start to think about nesting and hibernating through the dark months of winter. I go to my studio and sew or I bake. The last couple weeks I have done a little of everything. I bought some nice pink burn out tissue jersey at mill end. I liked the drape and it was inexpensive so I bought a couple yards. I made a shirt from a pattern that has proven to be the best t-shirt pattern I have made so far. It's the Jalie 2805 shirt pattern that has a few different neck line varieties. I tend to like a nice v-neck but with the cold weather I decided to try the jewel neck line.  From this adventure I realized I do not like working with tissue jersey...it takes forever to get the pattern pieces to meet properly. I fussed a lot with this material. I did add a neck band to the pink material because it seemed very loose and I thought it would help keep the neck from stretching out too much. After my struggle with the tissue jersey I cut out a basic black shirt. I found a black cotton jersey sheet at the Goodwill and thought it was a decent material, very soft. I made the same jewel neck shirt, it's wonderful. It took me about 1 hour to make, no fussing to meet the pattern pieces it all went together beautifully. I decided not to add a collar band to the black shirt and instead finished the neck with a rolled hem stitch on the serger. I think this it my new winter shirt, its soft and warm. I had enough to make another shirt so I made a v-neck with long sleeves (the other shirts are 3/4 sleeve's). I really really like this pattern. I did a rolled hem on the v-neck shirt too, but it puckered a bit more than I wanted. It's a warm comfortable shirt and I'm already planing a few for more.

It was also time to get the last of the peppers from the garden. One of the gardeners in our community garden pulled all his pepper plants and left them in the garden to rot...so I took some more peppers and pickled the last of the vegetable from the garden. The peppers are great on sandwiched and in salads. I also found a recipe for Salted Cantaloupe Jam. I had made some Cantaloupe Jam from the book "Food in Jars" and I loved it. I thought the Salted Cantaloupe Jam sounded great. I bought a cantaloupe but it had to sit and ripen for a couple of days as it was very hard. I made the salted jam in my FreshTech Jam maker and it came out quite nicely. I was surprised at how different it tasted because of the salt. It really changed the taste, it was more of a woodsy and slightly sweet taste. I think it would go nicely on chicken or pork as well as on toast. 

Lastly I made another pair of pants for my husband. He wanted some wool pants. I found this nice balk wool at Scrap. It was about 5 yards of material for $10. I used 2 for the pants so that is a cheap pair of wool pants. I finished the pants this evening and my husband tried them on, he did not like that the pockets tended to stick out on the sides. Not sure why this happened or how to fix it with out taking the pants apart. I told him the flair to the pockets it has a slimming effect. We will see if the believes it or if he sends them back for me to "fix" the pockets.

I also had to go to the dump the other day and I found a box of photos. It's always sad to see someones life in photos tossed. Most of the photos were from a remodel of a 'Mary's Kitchen", but there were also several other remodel projects photos. Along with the remodel photos were several family photos, and photos of what looked like high school parties from the mid to late 80's. 

Moving mother and a couple of thrift store finds

The last couple of weeks have been me helping to get my mother's things packed so she could move to town. It's a long story but we wanted her closer so we could respond to there strange and frantic calls. We found her a nice little 2 bedroom place in a retirement community close to everyone else but me. How did I get so lucky, I don't even get a spare key. Any way while cleaning out my dad's desk I came across 4 envelopes with the kids names and their birth year. My father was collecting the money from the year of each of our births. I was actually born in 1962. Oh well I have all the coins from 1963. 
After packing so much of my mothers stuff I decide to drop off some of the stuff at a thrift store. So of course I had to go in. I found this lovely aqua, green and grey quilt top. When I brought it home I thought my husband would be mad that I was bring home more crap from my mothers (I have 3 bags of paperwork from the early 80's). When he saw the quilt top he asked for it to be a curtain for the back room...Oh yea, why yes it can. I love all the bright colors and the fussy cuts for the mermaids, birds and butterflies. All I have to do it back it and I have a new curtain for the back room, if I line it like a quilt it will help keep the draft down. I think I win either way. 
The other thing I have been looking for at thrift stores are needle points. I want to make a small bag using a needle point like the one I saw here.  I use to see needle points all the time but now that I actually want to use one to make something they are difficult to locate. I need ones that has tight stitching so things will not snag the yarn and break it. I found the above needle points recently, the top one was in a free pile next door. It was framed, when I unframed it I found the original tag for, I believe, the piece before it was stitch, the pattern was made in Israel. The second one was found at the goodwill bins in a stack of frames. I took the needle point out of the frame and left the frame. It's a very Thomas Kincade type of illustration. Not my favorite but it's a good piece to use as practice and I think it cost me about $1.  
The place my mother moved into has west facing windows and gets a really nice amount of light. We hope it will also keep her warm. She is always cold, no matter how high the heat is in the house. We also provided her with several warm lap blankets.