Wednesday, August 24, 2016

At School and Play; a Sis Boom Blog Tour


September is just a few short weeks away, and for us up here in Canada, it means the beginning of school! I'm thrilled (and a little nervous, I'll admit) to be a part of Sis Boom's At School and At Play blog tour. 
Keep reading to the end of the post, as there's a giveaway!
The Sis Boom Leighanna is one of my favourites for several reasons. First, no closures. Second, easy fit. Third, can be sewn in woven OR knit. Finally, it's a really fast sew. This one only took an hour and a half, and that is from cut until finish, plus I forgot to stop the timer when I paused to pull out my eldest's tooth. I had the timer going, because I'm horrible at estimating time. Anyone else?
One thing I did differently this time around, is add elastic to the short sleeves. It is in the pattern, but I've never done it before because both of my girls HATE exposed elastic. So, I decided to add a casing, and include a mini tutorial for you in case you'd like to do the same!
Begin by following the pattern directions until the step where you iron the hem of the sleeves on page 12. Press the sleeve hem as directed, and proceed to the step where it tells you to draw the line with disappearing marker or chalk. Here's where it changes a little.
The pattern tells you to measure up 1 inch above the hem line and draw a parallel line across the sleeve on the wrong side. Instead, measure up 1 1/4 inch, and draw the line. Next, cut two pieces of single fold bias tape the same length as the width of the sleeve. Have double fold but not single fold? No worries, just press it open with an iron, voila, single fold bias tape (that's what I did). Since I used 1/2 inch elastic, I just made sure my bias tape was just a bit wider. If using 1/4 inch elastic, you'll want bias tape that is about 1/2 an inch wide.
Line the bias tape up with the line you drew, between the hem and the line, and edge stitch along the edge of the tape all the way along. Do the same to the other side of the bias tape. Repeat on other sleeve.
Use a safety pin or bodkin to feed the elastic into the casing slowly. Once you've got the end lined up like in the picture, stop. If the end comes into the casing, just feed it all the way through, pull it out and try again. Then stitch down the end, within the seam allowance. I like to give it a couple of runs back and forth, to make sure it's tacked down good.


Then, feed the bodkin/safety pin out the other end and tack that end down the same way. It should look like this.
 

Repeat with the other sleeve, and follow the rest of the directions on the pattern and you're done!
I love how the sleeves look with the little gather, and now my little is actually happy wearing it!
You can get any of the Sis Boom patterns in their shop or their etsy shop and they're on sale RIGHT NOW for 40% off until September 4th using the code BACK2SCHOOL! They've also got a sew-along happening in their Facebook group if you want to join in. Any back to school Sis Boom sews that are sewn between August 1 and September 10 can be entered into the album here. Three winners will be chosen and awarded pattern of choice!
And now for the blog giveaway! Comment below your favourite thing to do in free time (when you aren't sewing) for a chance to win a free copy of the Leighanna pattern. Don't forget to check below for more blog posts with giveaways!
***Edit to Add: This giveaway is closed. ***
Welcome to the Sis Boom Blog tour!

We are excitied to announce that our bloggers EACH have a pattern giveaway on their posts! Everyday something new; so be sure to follow along with this tour!

August 22 Paisley Roots / August 23 Cookies n' Bees  /  August 24 Tina Sew Tiny  /  August 25 Screeching Dinosaur  /  August 26 PearBerry Lane  /  August 29 Troosp To Tots  /  August 30 A Crazy Craft Lady  /  August 31 Glitter in My Coffee  /  September 1 Sunflower Seams  /  September 2 Adventures with Bubba and Bug

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Where I've Been Hiding and Why

All right, I haven't blogged in awhile, and I feel horrible. Not only because I haven't blogged, but also I've been sick most of July and all of what we've had of August. So I haven't really sewn since I made Honey Bee's end of school dress. But I NEEEED to blog, it brightens my mood.
So, aside from being sick, I'll show you what I HAVE been doing!
To begin with, we went camping, which I LOVE! Unfortunately we live in the land of bird sized mosquitos that breed by the thousands (ok, I might be exagerating by a little bit, but not in the numbers!). However that didn't stop us from taking at least one camping trip with our cute little pop up that I'm DYING to redecorate! Hubs says to leave well enough alone, so I'm waiting... for now, lol. (apparently I'm horrible at taking photos during a camping trip so I had to dig these up from last year, I blame dear husband, he thinks pictures are overrated and hates being in them. I therefore find it a suitable punishment that he is in the top pic, and featured on my blog, lol. Don't worry, I assure you that we love each other.)
I did find one current pic of my girls enjoying the outdoors though! Horrible quality, though.
Also, they've had some great times in the backyard, which is surprising really, as their options are really limited at the moment. Thank goodness they've got great imaginations!
At least they love summer. I, on the other hand, do not. (Aside from camping, I love camping and I never understood why since I generally don't like being outdoors. Maybe it's the stress free, devil-may-care approach that we take. The possibilities are endless on a Voth camping trip. Roasted marshmallows for breakfast? Sure why not? Impromptu trip to a nearby water park? Absolutely! Lazy afternoon naps with no regard to bedtimes? A must! Clocks and basically any technology don't exist on our trips. We have a pop-up camper, but we never have water hookup, and have yet to use the stove. We bought it so my post baby body had somewhere soft to sleep, my hips never really did recover from the whole loosening joints bit. Ok, side ramble over, back to the blog!)
You know how some people are affected by winter, it's a seasonal disorder, and their productivity drops? Yeah, that's me in summer. We've got two months of warm up here in Manitoba, and my anxiety spikes when I've got this giant to do list that needs to fit. For example: gardening, pool/beach trips, camping trips, fall capsule sewing, back to school prep, canning/freezing garden results, housecleaning, the way that summer somehow multiplies the amount of dirty laundry etc. Throw in having both girls at home all day everyday and wanting to make some memories with them, AND sicks days, and the schedule is FULL.
Did I forget to mention the complete bedroom overhaul we're doing for the girls? Yes? Well, that's a whole-nother (why does that word sound just fine spoken, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to write, or if it can even be written properly?) blog post coming up. Whenever we finish. Which is hopefully before school starts because the girls are sleeping on their mattresses on the living room floor atm, and are getting less sleep because of it. I can show a picture of how the room USED to look though. (These pics are from the beginning of last year, because apparently I didn't take proper before pics. Well, it looked exactly like this when we started renos, so I guess it's good enough.)
Builders grade paint, tacky 80's ish lighting, and REALLY tacky shag rug. Blech! We're keeping the beds (they were my sister's and mine back when we were kids) and the rest of the furniture, but the room is getting everything new. What's not pictured is the tacky closet complete with plywood paneling interior. Stay tuned for finished results! They WILL come! (after all, the girls can't sleep in the living room forever, I forbid it. The clutter is driving my NUTS! Can you tell?)
And thus comes to end my super rambling, way too chatty without enough pictures answer to where I've been hiding this summer and why! Hope you enjoyed! If you didn't, I'm totally cool with you marking this post as read and moving on, lol. Just keeping things real here, because that's how I like them! :) 
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