Month: February 2023

Tuesday Project Roundup: Fancy Pajamas For A Sewing Party

Karen

I did a thing outside my comfort zone on Sunday and attended SLC Frocktails, which I’ve been calling Sewing Prom but is just a cocktail hour to meet and talk to other people who sew, hosted by a local fabric store. But I went all by myself! I talked to a lot of different people, mostly about their outfits and about the best patterns! I am truly proud of myself.

I also made a new outfit for it, one I’d had on the mental list for a while:

Yes, those ARE formal satin crane print pajamas. The fabric and piping had been in my stash for a while; I even tried out the pattern (Closet Core Carolyn Pajamas) as a wearable test last year. (I made the pants a few times, too, but never blogged about any of them.) So this wasn’t an unknown pattern and I didn’t have to buy anything new for it–my only challenge was getting these sewn in a week. (And also somehow forgetting I used a smaller seam allowance on the pants and having to unpick them all and try again.)

I was brave and did a social event on my own, but my bravery failed me at asking anyone to get my picture there. But here’s a shot as I was walking out the door:

My pretty dress days are over; I’m in my Hilary era now (pantsuits forever) so the formal pajamas were a great way to feel fancy but also be comfortable.

Softening

Karen

Sure, there’s easily six feet of snow in the lower canyons (and something like 30 feet at the highest elevations) but the sun was shining yesterday and some of that snow was melting. AND the afternoon seemed like a proper afternoon, not just a sudden jump from lunchtime to twilight. I think…I think winter might be losing its grip.

(Winter isn’t giving up willingly, though; there’s another snowstorm in the works for tomorrow.)

Every Word This Guy Says

Karen

This was uploaded seven years ago but (as far as I can tell) really started making the rounds this year. I saw it at the beginning of February and thought, “No, January is the worst month”…but with long, long weeks and more snow and all the bare trees with “some awful truth hiding in the branches,” suddenly I see this guy’s point. Anyway, Kevin Killeen is my new hero:

 

“It’s a month that doesn’t hold up life as any better than it is.”

“Something great happened here but it’s over, and that’s the way February is.”

“Carbohydrates are big this time of year. Also lotions.”

“If you can live through February, you’ll live another year.”

One more week, friends. Hang in there.

Wednesday Project Roundup: Puffy Quilted Chore Coat

Karen

My quilted chore coat is done! We got some pics on our greenhouse visit and I just love how this project turned out.

I started work on piecing this in early December and had most of that done in mid-January. Then I had to pick a pattern–after muslining the Paola Workwear Jacket, I scrapped it and decided to use the Simplicity 4109 I’d made before. (If you spend two months assembling the fabric for your jacket, you don’t want any unknowns or weird fit issues.)

When it came time to quilt the pattern pieces at the end of January, I knew wanted a really puffy and soft jacket. I love the long quilt coat I made but I used a flat cotton batting and quilted it pretty densely so it just isn’t cuddly. For this, I used “Cloud Loft” polyester batting and just outlined the star shapes and it’s as fluffy as I imagined.

In February, I sewed it all together, made the bias binding, bound the edges, and gave it a final (careful) wash and dry to puff it up but not shrink it. (The Cloud Loft’s bulk took out some of the ease in the pattern, so it was kind of a nail biter if this would even fit in the end–but it did.)

The hanger shot, with a custom label of course:

And the details/sources:

This all started with a pack of 5″ squares from Harmony Provo of the Warp and Weft Honey line. I filled it in with Kaffe Fasset fat quarters from Harmony and a couple Etsy shops, plus some gingham and old, old pieces from stash. I got the Kona white background fabric from Sewtopia (plus some more Warp and Weft fabrics), and used a Storrs cotton lawn backing from Blackbird Fabrics.

Extra shout out to Martha Moore’s tutorial on attaching a collar to a quilted body–the tip to quilt along the roll line of the collar worked amazingly well, even in this puffy batting.

Greenhouse Days

Karen

I’m calling these The Greenhouse Days of winter, when you just crave something warm and green but there’s still so much cold and gray to get through (with another foot of snow expected tonight, sob). We took a trip to the big “orangerie” at the botanical garden here Sunday and it was glorious: the sun was shining through the glass, there were tropical plants everywhere, we could take our coats off.

Even outside, despite all the snow, is looking promising–this is the same magnolia tree I took a picture of a few weeks ago. Hang in there, little buds!

Friday Links

Karen

1. I found the Moog synthesizer channel on YouTube and this has been good background music/ makes me want to play with a synth. (Remember, Robert Moog tells us his last name sounds like “vogue,” not “dude.”)

 

2. I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts but this 10-episode series sounds intriguing:

When journalist Danelle Morton’s daughter skips town to hop trains, she follows her into the train yard, and across America. Join Danelle as she travels the country to understand what drew her daughter into the hidden world of the railroads.

 

3. A goal we all share (sound on):

 

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Mystery Flesh Pit!

Karen

Continuing the, um, visceral theme of the week*, our buddy Mike found this art/sci-fi worldbuilding project and it’s been fascinating me.  As the creator, artist Trevor Roberts, explains:

The Mystery Flesh Pit is the name given to a bizarre natural geobiological feature discovered in the Permian Basin region of West Texas in the early 1970s. The pit is characterized as an enormous subterranean organism of indeterminate size and origin embedded deep within the earth, displaying a vast array of highly unusual and often disturbing phenomena within its vast internal anatomy.

Following its initial discovery and subsequent survey exploration missions, the surface orifice of the Mystery Flesh Pit was enlarged and internal sections were slowly reinforced and developed by the Anodyne Deep Earth Mining corporation, who opened the Pit as a tourist attraction in 1976. In the early 1980s, the site was absorbed into the National Park System which operated and maintained the Mystery Flesh Pit until its sudden closure in 2007.

There isn’t a story to read about it, per se, but you can click through the fake ephemera Roberts created and just get lost:

I’ve been thinking about why I find it so compelling–because I don’t usually go for horror–and I think it’s the idea of making a national park out of something that’s clearly alive and giant. Like, the Yellowstone caldera is also huge and mysterious and dangerous, with lots of “orifices” and acidic pools and geysers, yet we’ve created a whole park with hotels and restaurants and dams on top of it. Of course we’d do the same inside a “superorganism.”

Anyway, go explore the Mystery Flesh Pit. And don’t forget to buy a souvenir on your way out!

 

 

*My colonoscopy went fine and Doc’s antibiotics seem to be doing the trick! Hopefully we are done with Poop Stuff for a while.

Welcome To Poop Week

Karen

We had to get Doc antibiotics yesterday to try to head off more diverticulitis, and today I get to prep for a colonoscopy (it’s early for me to start but I did a genetic test last year and have an elevated risk, so…that’s the point of screening, I guess).

Poop stuff! Again! At least Toby is Team Normal Poop this time around.