carrie girl

leavin' town

i'm going to take a little blogging vacation while i'm in upstate new york. i will be sans sewing machine and have spotty internet access until the 13th, and i know you don't want to look at a bunch of nature shots of the adriondacks for 2 weeks, so i think it might be best just to lay low.

the last bit of sewing i did before packing today were these two clutches. the purple one is a custom order for a really sweet girl who was interested in a couple clutches and a bag. she actually came over and picked out her own fabric and we talked about the project. it was a really cool experience working with someone start to finish on a bag. the pink clutch is for a bag contest/silent auction which supports the breast cancer 3-day through home ec. workshop, a really amazing fabric/yarn store in iowa city. so if you're in the area go to home ec. and bid on a bag for a good cause!

weekend

thanks for all the sweet comments about my little green dress! this weekend consisted of a super quick trip down to kansas city to visit with my family and do a little wedding dress shopping. i wasn't quite prepared for all that goes into the actual shopping of the dress. i was a bit thrown off by being half-naked all day around strangers, but i did get some free wedding cake at one of my appointments. you can always win me over with some cake. i had a lot of fun with my mom (as usual), and i tried on a lot of dresses. i ended up really loving one in particular, but i'm not ready to commit yet. i've still got a little over a year to go, and don't want early buyers remorse.

my new best friend

let's get personal here. i sweat...sometimes i even sweat when i'm just standing very still in an air conditioned room. so when i found a cute vintage dress last month that was cut super close under my arms, i thought that there was no way i could wear this out in public let alone during the summer months. vintage dress plus sweat doesn't make for a pleasant afternoon for anyone. *but* just as i was putting the dress back on the rack, i remembered my brand new shiny french curve that antoinette sent me, and decided i could tackle the lowering of the armholes.

i emailed antoinette asking for her expert refashioning advice, and she wrote back the same day with easy to follow instructions that didn't scare me too much. in a nutshell i was first supposed to unpick the facing, then i was to use the french curve to mark a new armhole 1/4 of an inch lower. after basting the new armhole i was supposed to turn it back inside and press the dickens out of it. if it fit, use a regular stitch and go on my merry way perhaps tacking the facing back down.

and i tried it that way, and it was going very well until i realized i needed to move the armhole down not 1/4 of an inch, not even 1 inch down, but like 3 whole inches down. this is when things started to get a bit wonky. when i basted the new armhole and tried to turn it inward and press, the dress just wasn't having it. it kept sort of warping and resisting, so i started trimming the facing...then trimming became straight up cutting...then i started to panic (and sweat!) i thought for sure that i had just ruined the cutest vintage dress i had ever laid eyes on. then i had an idea to just cut the armhole out to the size i wanted and apply single fold bias tape to finish the edge.

that is exactly what i did, and that is why single fold bias tape is my new best friend. it saved my new favorite dress, and my sanity.

now i can confidently wear my vintage dress out in public thanks to my french curve and lovely blogging friends like antoinette.

*edit* ted would like me to tell everyone that i'm not the "dripping perspiring beast" that i've made myself out to be. i quote him, "you're not that sweaty."

i just finished up a custom order for a fellow bride-to-be who wanted an eco-friendly gift for her bridesmaids. in the first round of travel jewelry wallets i was using organic cotton canvas and vintage fabrics, but regular batting--in this batch i've started using bamboo batting which is made from 50% naturally antibacterial bamboo fiber and 50% organic cotton. if only they made organic interfacing then i'd be totally earth friendly! it is just such a shame that organic materials are so much more expensive and harder to find than "normal" materials.

on another random note, has everyone out there discovered the wondrous joy that pandora can bring to your life? i have been listening to their bubblegum oldies station for the last 6 hours straight while sewing/doing laundry, and have been so, so happy. i also have a station based on the musical genius of lionel richie as well as one based on the song bernadette by the four tops. gimme some lovin' by the spencer davis group just came on...need i say more?

just chugging along here with a new batch of jewelry wallets. 13 in all. 2 are for a custom order, so hopefully i'll get a little shop update going with the other 11 before we leave for upstate new york. i have an order in with fashion fabrics club for some canvas for a few new bags, so if the fabric arrives in a timely fashion i might get those into the shop, too. i'm also working on a vintage dress refashion with the help of the lovely antoinette from clevergirl.org. she told me what i have going on is best case scenario which translates to me as a smaller chance of screwing it up. i'll take pictures as i go along and share--i'm just lowering the armhole on the dress, but i get to use my fancy new french curve!

in wedding news, here's the church(and ted!) it seats about 100. it isn't air-conditioned, but has ceiling fans and a great cross breeze--also we're doing our programs on fans, so that should help out during the brief (but meaningful) ceremony. it has cornfields on all sides that should be tall and emerald by mid-july, and the drive out there looks like it is straight out of a grant wood painting. i'm getting really excited and we are still over a year away!

i have fallen into the sweet abyss of summer. after a road trip up to madison, wisconsin i'm now back in iowa trying to get into the swing of things. and by swing of things i mean reading jude deveraux and nelson demille novels and sleeping in until 10:30.  today, though, i am cleaning and sorting the craft room because the apartment we're moving to in august comes without the luxury of a space for me to sew, so it is going to be a tight squeeze next year.

today is my last day of school...officially. yesterday was the last day with the kids, but today is the last day i have to step foot in the building until august 19th. although it wasn't a particularly difficult year, i'm happy to see it come to an end.

on wednesday, my clementine clutch was featured in the storque's etsy finds which was really amazing. i got some encouraging feedback from fellow bag makers, and really felt the enormity of the etsy community. sometimes you just plug along, not knowing if anyone actually reads your blog or likes the things that you make, and you can start to question some things. i'm always telling ted not to rely on the accolades of others to validate his writing--so i need to take my own advice when it comes to my sewing, but i'll be damned if it doesn't feel nice once in awhile to hear that what you're doing is meaningful and good.

just some inspiration for this wednesday.  pictures from once wed, martha, the small object and me!

 

the weekend was perfect. ted and i decided that things went just about as well as they could have gone. pretty good weather, great food, lots of laughs and plenty of storytelling. all in all, the perfect way to start off engaged life/wedding planning.

the barn wasn't too rustic for the moms, so i think we're going to try and make it work as the reception venue. it's going to take lots of vision and elbow grease, but i think we're up for the challenge and we've got plenty of time to sort out the details.

on another note--would it be crazy of me to make my own wedding cake? i'm not talking about a giant 4 tiered cake, i'm talking something small like this one. i bought sarah magid's book organic and chic, and love her style. we definitely do not want a fondant covered dry cake supplemented with a sheet cake. i took a couple cake decorating classes in brooklyn, so i'm not a total neophyte. i'm just wondering if it would be worth the stress...

we're also considering a little cake with cookies for the guests. i have a brooklyn bridge cookie cutter and an iowa cookie cutter that we could use to make cookies similar to these amazing lovelies from brooklyn cookie. right now everything is totally hypothetical, but i'm already having visions of my tiny hot kitchen in the new apartment and a collapsing cake with lots of tears...

big red barn

 

is it june already? i've been swamped at work with end of the year report cards and graphs and data--real fun stuff. our parents are also coming in town for the great in-law meet-up! in nearly 4 years of dating our parents have never met--ted's are in upstate new york and mine are in kansas city, so no real opportunity had ever presented itself. well, until now. ted's folks are already here, and mine are en route, so it should be fun. we have plenty planned and lots to talk about, so i'm really looking forward to the weekend.

not much is happening on the wedding front. we've been scoping out locations, and just trying to get an idea for what we want and what we can afford. the octagonal barn above is a big contender for the reception. we're heading back this weekend to get a second look and get some parental feedback. hopefully it isn't too rustic!

have a great weekend!