Must be sewing season

What is it with all the sewing this year? I got bit by all the other folks doing it lately and had to indulge in some myself.

What kicked it all off was a bench cushion.


I liked the fabric so much, I bought 15 more yards and made some lined panel curtains for the living room. These took forever and I was thoroughly sick of them by the time I was done, but they look nice and that's what I was after. Remind me that curtains are a good thing to buy.


Knocked off a couple of little bags for my manager at work (she was using Starbucks paper bags for her totes - couldn't have that!). These are so easy - placemat bags like Noelle made a few years ago. 2 hours max! Perfect.


And then, for the first time in years (and I do mean years, maybe decades), I had a hankering to try making some clothes again. Here are some summer skirts - can't get good shots of them on my own, maybe I'll try again with help.

Poppies on gauze - really full skirt with lots of panels & godets:


Brown embroidered linen drawstring skirt with cargo pockets (hard to see here, but it's all about the fabric anyway):

This one was a copy cat of Cyndy's camo cargo skirt - same pattern, although I didn't realize that until I was nearly done. I learned from her frustrations and skipped the fussiness at the waist - just threaded the drawstring through buttonholes instead of outside the band under twill tape. It did take me 1/2 an hour and lots of study to remember how to do a buttonhole, though.

Some recent highlights

A few things we've done recently that were fun:

• Biked ten miles along the Sammammish River Trail with Noelle & Patrick, plus Max on the new trail-along bike we got from a coworker. Max did just great, pedalling along. Was a bit tired - 10 miles was a bit much for the first time out. Need to do it again!


• Hiked down to Snoqualmie Falls with my team at work. Down made my legs all jiggly and up made me red faced and sweaty, and then we sat down for lunch at the lodge. Icky sticky me, but very yummy food. I need to get back into shape. Won't help the red & sweaty, but will help the huffing & puffing.


• Wandered around Poulsbo & Bainbridge with Mom & Lisa. Loved seeing the old stomping grounds and getting blown about on the ferry. Miss all that. Ferry rides are shorter than I remember. And our little farmhouse is now a sports complex. Time passes, things change, but Sluys Bakery remains.
  
• Max's first "lemonade" stand - actually a juice stand. Talked him down from lemonade at $5/glass a few weeks ago to juice (which we actually had on hand) for 25 cents a dixie cup. He enjoyed it, and really enjoyed the $4.75 he pulled in. The hand made sign was a bit hard to read from the road, but folks knew what it meant anyway. Kid + box + sign = first business venture, awwwww. Thanks for your support!

Hello pretty posies

Been a while - I'll chalk it up to a lack of computer time on the computer that has photos. Anyhoo...

Aren't these pretty? I love my peonies! They're such flowers!



The pink ones are in full bloom and the white ones are on their way. Wish my lilacs would do something - wonder what it takes to get the three scraggly specimens I have here as full & lovely as the one tree we had at our old house.

p.s. - forgot to mention that these flowers brought a whole bunch of little tiny ants with them. Max was rather entertained, but disgusted at the same time to have ants on the dining room table. The flowers spent the night outside to try & encourage the ants to go away - hopefully they all hopped off and won't be in our house today.