We went to the botanical garden on Sunday to check out the orchid show, which had some very cool things (orchids with parents, tiny orchids, orchids I’d never heard of). We also walked around the gardens and saw my favorite Secret Garden wall covered in quince. Then Toby stuck his tongue out and the weekend was complete.
Toby
Goodbye, March
Snow Day
We got a foot of snow overnight Saturday. We usually visit Doc’s family on Sunday but they were out of town–so we didn’t drive anywhere, not even to the canyon where it was sure to be amateur hour on snowshoes. We shoveled out, read the newspaper, did some sewing, and walked over to the grocery store for store bought cookies. Thrills!!
Spring Fever
Wednesday Project Roundup: Loungewear Capsule
I’ve mentioned the StyleBee blog here before and how helpful many of her exercises have been. She also put together a “loungewear capsule,” which intrigued me but also sounded a little too fashion-blogger-y. However, she made some good points:
I’ve always felt my ‘after work’ clothes were blah and uninspired but never did anything to change that. I figured, who sees it? Who cares? But the truth is that I do and the crazy thing is I end up wearing these pieces almost as much as I do my core closet items (if not more!).
And I kept coming back to her VERY GOOD POINT to make sure your loungewear doesn’t show your pet’s hair. I’d been living in the same pair of terry Hudson pants I first sewed and a black hoodie (Toby is not black). I needed a few more pieces so I decided to make them all work together.
The “inspo” (since I’m going all fashion blogger today–image source is lost to the depths of Pinterest):
And the capsule:
I started with another pair of Hudsons in a really wonderful Telio bamboo knit–it has way better drape and recovery than the terry pair. It’s exactly Toby color, too:
The two tops are the Thread Theory Finlayson pullover–aka the same pattern I made for Doc for Christmas. (Yes, we are the couple with matching loungewear now.) I made the hoodie version for me in a gray fleece from Amazon:
And I made the shawl collar version in a drapey French terry blend from Fashion Fabrics Club via Amazon (I had some gift cards to use up):
I got fancy with the facings in my versions and used scraps of my favorite projects–Liberty and ikat. (The pattern has fantastic instructions for adding twill tape and making a professional finish.)
These three, combined with the original lounge pants and that flannel shirt, have been keeping me feeling pulled together at home for a couple of weeks now. The color palette means everything works together. Even better–all the cat hair is invisible now!
Weekend Signs
I made the call that it would be too sloppy and too worrisome to head into the canyons (seriously, the Wasatch Front gets all its water from mountain snow melt and this year there just…isn’t any). Instead, we took a tip from Austin Kleon’s blog and found things of interest within a two-mile radius of our house: an accountant’s precise signage, a cemetery, the grocery store’s most excellent chalk art.
Indoor Weather
Some Different, Some The Same
I was going to say that this was the first “back to normal” weekend in three weeks (first there was Doc’s birthday, then Christmas, then New Year’s/my birthday) but we did some non-routine things: a trip to the Food Bank to volunteer with my nephew, a concert at the symphony, and inventory for Doc (which meant an evening of sewing for me. Toby helped).
Blue Skies, First Snow
Halfway Through A Long Weekend
I took today and tomorrow off to keep a friend company post-surgery, avoid Halloween madness at work, have some sewing time, and get some fall cleaning done. (As you can tell by Doc’s note, he is very excited to help with cleaning. Toby was very excited to impede the sewing time.) So far, so good–the weather has stayed near 60 degrees and sunny for most of October. No complaints here.