heather ross pant dress

A pant dress/ romper for Scarlet in Heather Ross fabric from the West Hill Collection.
There is a matching kerchief as well.
It's Simplicity 7608 - a vintage pattern I picked up. It's as sweet on as I thought it would be.
And, it's pink!

Any machine sewing I get done is nothing short of a miracle. It's so hot in the attic even with the AC on.
I have wool projects to show. Can anyone stand to look at wool right now?

sparkle and sunshine

A little playing with sequins this afternoon and maybe a bit of applique too.
To my US friends a Happy 4th of July and to everyone a dreamy weekend full of sparkles and sunshine under the summer skies.

lemonade for the library

This afternoon the kids and I set up a lemonade stand to raise money for our town library. Our lemonade was a bit on the tart side. I used 12 lemons, water, some organic sugar and frozen strawberries from our garden.

We made it as simple as possible setting up in front of the house and they were so cute announcing 'lemonade for the library, 50 cents a glass.' M did most of the announcing and Ms. S did most of the lounging that is when she was not off searching for berries in the yard.

I always wanted to do a lemonade stand with them and since this was such a good cause I just couldn't not do it.
We didn't raise a whole lot but, a little is better then nothing.

tea leaves cardigan

I finished knitting my Tea Leaves cardigan yesterday and now that I have modeled it for you I will be packing it away for the cooler months.

I think the sweater came together nicely and I am happy with the yarn choice.
The fit is a little looser then I expected but, it is by no means too big either.
I'm not sure how I will style it in the future but, for now terry shorts and a bathing suit were all I could muster up the strength to put on this morning. It's 90 degrees after all.

Pattern: Tea Leaves Cardigan
Yarn- Madelinetosh DK
Color Vermillion
Needles 6 and 7
No modifications.

neutrals with pops of color lap quilt

I finished this quilt top Tuesday night and it feels major to me. I don't know how long ago I started this but it was in the beginning stages for awhile. I thought if I put it on the floor and vowed not to take it off until I finished piecing it then maybe it would get done faster and it did- a month, 2 months? I'm not fond of all the cutting which is what slows me down perhaps because I do it on the floor which is pretty bad on my back. Someday my husband and I plan to build a worktable for me because carting the stuff up and down 2 flights to the dining room doesn't appeal either and I like to attempt to keep my mess in one location- my studio.

So, this quilt top is destined to be a lap quilt for me. I laid it out on a twin bed and it's a tad small but could also work as a nice blanket on one to give you the idea of the size.

The concept behind this quilt came sometime after I made a tote bag back in September 2008. Here is the bag.

I used some of the same fabrics and basically the same concept though I think one polka dot square may have worked it's way in there. There is a lot of really amazing fabrics in here and I'm looking forward to it being all done but, for now it's really nice to have it off the floor and in this stage. Hooray for a finished quilt top.

#2 - yellow linen skirt

This skirt is part of my outfits based on a watercolor/collage series. It is made with a medium weight yellow linen with a muslin lining and I used an Oliver & S pattern to construct it. It is a size 3. Every time I work with linen I am reminded how much I love this material.
I'm having so much fun looking through my patterns both new and vintage ones to piece together this series and planning out which ones to use. I'm hoping to use only materials I have on hand for this project but, I may have to buy one yard for the top to go with this skirt as I don't seem to have the right shade.

I'm hoping to talk a little here about the garden soon and also another project I've been working on.
I hope everyone had a great start to summer yesterday. We went to the library and got started on our mobiles for the reading program and went to the pool. I randomly picked books for S and was pleasantly surprised with this book that I had no idea about. I love when that happens.

pinwheels

At some point last week I decided I wanted to make pinwheels. I had some pretty paper on hand and have been really interested in doing more paper crafts lately. This one was really easy. They take about 10 minutes to make and they are simple sweet fun and also great summer decor for a party. A little fiddling around with the wire and they do spin nicely.

After procuring the rest of the supplies which were wire, small wood beads and wood dowels I was ready to go and 5 pinwheels were born last night. One for each of us and an extra. I have one more dowel that is destined to be a wand. Someone's wand broke and she really needs a new one.

Any fun plans for the weekend? Ours include the town pool opening and a big family celebration with lots of little cousins running around together and big people chatting and chasing after them.