inspiration for a short cardigan

This is my friend, Amy, modeling the inspiration for my black cashmere cardigan. She is a fellow crafty mama. She made a short, shrug type cardigan from a v-neck sweater and inspired me to go home and do the same! I love having crafty friends!

another pair of patch pants

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you all enjoyed a little holiday and had a lovely feast with people you love.

As I review the many things for which I am grateful, I realize that knowing how to sew has shaped, sustained and customized my life, as well as the life of my family and friends. I am so thankful for that! I am thankful for our mother earth and continue to reuse and recycled when I can.

These are the patch pants I made for little f for the harvest gathering at while back. He calls them his harvest pants. They are a bit different from the pants in my tutorial. I used another pair of pants as a p pattern and made the waistband elastic, so he can take them off and on. Would you be interested in learning how to make them?

the little boys wedding suit

When I bought this pattern from Chicken Hill, I had a few ideas about how it was going to be more boyish, most of them involving buttons. Turns out it was the perfect choice for a wedding suit. Not only was it fairly simple in construction, the clean lines work on corduroy really well. For those of you who are learning to sew, please know that corduroy has a nap, which means you can brush the fibers up and feel roughness, or down and feel smooth. All your pattern pieces must be going up and down in the same direction. This often requires a bit more fabric than suggested in most patterns. I tell you all this because only after cutting out this pattern, I remembered it. Oh my! At least you may learn from this.

Here you see the suit in action with his little cousin, who was the ringbearer at Emily and Rob's wedding in Grand Rapids a few weeks ago.

Love the way this jacket wears. I lined it with a nice cotton batik that has dragons in it, so when he's feeling crazy, he can reverse both the jacket and pants. Could make for some fun holiday photos, huh?

One of the last things I made to wear was this cashmere shrug. It was a turtleneck sweater. I cut off the neck and down the front. Then I cut off the bottom half, folded it in half lengthwise and attached it as a shawl collar. After stitching in the sleeves a bit and down the sides, the bottom ribbing was added to the bottom and a sweet flower stiched on with some large vintage hooks and eyes. I'll show you my inspiration soon...

our wedding best

This fall we attended two weddings, both on my husband's side of the family. One was in Grand Rapids and one was in Detroit. As I reviewed our closets in preparation, I found that we were in need of some finer threads. So I scoped out vintage suits on etsy, and scored this sweet vintage number for my husband. It was the only one there, and somehow it was the right size. He was totally pleased not only with fact that he didn't have to go to the store and try something on, but the price was right too. Since he's totally into the Beatles, it wasn't hard to convince him to wear a 60's mod suit. I imagine it will double as his halloween costume in the future.

For my little boy, I made some elastic waist reversible pants using a pattern made from another pair of his pants. The indigo corduroy was in my stash. I used it to make a jacket too from a chicken hill pattern. More on that coming... His vest is made from a felted v-neck sweater found trifting. I just used a t-shirt to guide me on sizing and cut it out using the neck. Then all I did was sew up the sides and whip up a little tie from some scraps and elastic.

My dress is something I have had for  a very long time. It's a gorgeous black vintage lace number that needed a little love and repair. Before I had a baby and nursed him for two years it fit great and was even sexy at the neckline. This year, it needed some modification so I used nude colored t-shirt fabric to line it and added some elastic from the bra part of an old tank top. On the bottom, I cut off the torn lining and used a black t-shirt to extend the lining a bit. Since the lace floats in a overlayer, it worked great. What you can't see in the picture are the green Mizmooz wedges I scored at Zany, a consignment shop in Traverse City. Now I just need to figure out how to repair the lace which tore while I was holding a squirming three-year-old and a glass of champage at the same time!

This is my husband's cousin (I would just call her my sister), Lisa. She was one of the bridesmaids. The Lovett Hall was a gorgeous venue for this kind of event. The lighting was really nice too.

a lovely wedding party!

What a gorgeous time! The lighting, ambience and especially the dancing were superb. We spend the weekend in Detroit for our cousin's wedding party. There was much planning and work on our outfits, which I'll show you in the next couple posts. For now, this little memory, to focus on all that is wonderful about family.