summer beach blouse

I thrilled to say that I finally made this summer beach blouse that I've been planning to make for over a year now. It's for throwing on with shorts or over a swimsuit all summer long, or for wearing in the evenings to ward off summer chill. I think it would look cute with a skirt as well (this one comes to mind).
I finished this this morning and had an immediate opportunity to try it out at the beach! I love it when that happens. I have to say it was exactly what I had in mind--nice protection from cool breezes and warm summery sun (my favorite beach weather--cool and warm layered on top of each other).

Unplanned but fun: Dieter and I are color coordinated.
I love the bell sleeves on this blouse. The pattern is New Look 6179, which I have made before. I made some changes this time: the fabric is a much lighter weight cotton lawn (purchased from Superbuzzy last year), which makes a huge difference in the look and feel of the finished garment (compared to a quilting cotton). I'm beginning to think that seeking out these lighter cottons is key to making blouses that will really get worn. I also lengthened the sleeves by 2" and the body by about 4"--I wanted this to be tunic length. I had to add side vents to accommodate the new longer length (so it would fit over my hips). I did some thinking about "why sew clothes?" while I was making this. It certainly is not a money saver. For me it is just fun and for some reason I am compelled to do so. I guess I like wearing something I made myself--it makes me feel more "original" somehow. How about you? If you sew clothes, what is your motivation?

By the way, I loved all your comments on the last post about quality and alternative birthday presents. You guys are awesome! Scroll through there for some nice ideas. I also loved the idea of having a "no gifts" party but suggesting the family consider making a donation children's leukemia research (instead of buying a gift). That goes over very well with me, as you can imagine.

birthday presents for parties

Dieter is getting to the age where he's starting to be invited to parties. Here's a little gift we put together for the last party that I've been meaning to share here. In anticipation of such events, I have set aside a few extra sets of crayons and markers from Stubby Pencil. Dieter selected one to give his friend who was having the party, and I made a little blank book for him (just crease blank paper and a cardstock sheet for the cover and sew down the spine--easy and cute. I applied a label to the front). I think this will be our standard birthday party gift for the forseeable future. I don't agree with all the plastic, made-in-China junk that is usually given at these parties, but hopefully this is just a little less junky and still fun for the birthday child.
Dieter got in on the wrapping. Next time, if I think a bit more ahead, he can finger knit the ribbon to tie on the gift. That would be perfect and I bet a finger-knitted cord would be a huge hit with the birthday child--open-ended toys are huge with my boys anyway (finger knitting and playsilks both get a lot of play here).
Dieter also made the card. So what is your go-to birthday gift for child parties? I'm thinking that if we ever do throw a kid party for Dieter we'll go gift-free altogether. The party itself would be the fun thing . . . his birthday is January 3rd so usually we are entirely too exhausted from Christmas to even think about a party. (We celebrate with the family, of course!)

And thanks so much to everyone who commented on my spending freeze post. It sounds like many have gone before me into simplifying and "having more with less." It feels good to find so much support!

about the spending freeze

Some of you have been asking about my little spending freeze. Quite simply, I'm "freezing" all my personal spending for the next year or two while we pay off debt. After reading this book I realized that it is very silly for me to be spending money on all the odds and ends I normally like to spend money on (clothes, shoes, pretty things from Etsy, and especially books) when we have debt hanging over us (from our car and some home improvement type things). So I'm going cold turkey. I'm really just targeting my personal spending--at this point we're still spending a lot on food, a little on entertainment (Faith and I just saw Babies this weekend), and of course I can buy new shoes for the boys when they need them and that sort of thing.

I have all sorts of thoughts about this spending freeze. I see this two year period as a time for personal growth as I figure out questions like why, when I spend so much on clothes, do I so often have "nothing to wear"? And what's the deal with buying all those books? Mostly I see myself settling in more, enjoying and appreciating all that I have, and not constantly striving for the next thing. I'm not terribly materialistic and I hope I don't sound so, but maybe you know what I mean--you see a book or shoe or gift on someone else's blog and you want that thing. For now, I'm opting out of all of that. It feels good, and it certainly gives me a chance to be more resourceful and creative, which I like.

And also--would you like to hear my opinion about Babies? It was cute, very cute, but I thought it would be so much more! There are so many questions that I have and that I thought would be addressed more--more cultural comparisons, contrasts and explorations. For instance, when do the babies start solid foods?, What do their mothers' feed them? Do any of the babies follow a schedule? What do they do all day? And where do they sleep? And what about diapering? The African baby doesn't wear diapers, so how does that system work? I just wish more of that was shown or explored somehow. My favorite moment of the film: when the Mongolian baby is being readied to go home the nurse in the hospital swaddles him so tightly! (In a very pretty swaddling cloth, by the way). The mother then has to get up on the family motorcycle, holding the newborn in his really tight swaddle, by herself with no help from dad, who is already on the motorcycle and has the motor running! She manages to get on and off they ride across the tundra. Loved that.

more good mail

Nicole of Deliajude hosted a giveaway a couple weeks ago, and I am the lucky winner! Look at how cute she packaged everything. This little parcel was a delight to open.
She included a stack of vintage flashcards. They are delightful and I'm sure they'll be making their way into some sort of project in my future.
And here is the main prize--a butterfly garland. It really brightens up the mantle, don't you think? Thanks Nicole--I love it!

Thanks to everyone who commented on their iced tea preferences. I loved all your wonderful ideas and will be trying many of them! Definitely scroll through those comments if you are so inclined and want to be inspired by people's iced tea stories and suggestions.

we are lipton girls

Faith and I have been enjoying a lot of iced tea lately. It is so refreshing and nice to have a healthier comfort beverage than my old Diet Coke (I have done incredibly well with eliminating it almost altogether). I love having a pitcher of iced tea ready to go in the fridge. I take mine with a big squeeze of lemon and tons of ice. Faith has hers with less ice and a babyspoon and a half of sugar.
Here is the pitcher I am using now. Not ideal, because it doesn't have a lid. We started out using this one, which has a nice glass stopper, but Faith broke it recently when taking it out of the dishwasher. It's actually still available, but I'm on the spending freeze, so am making due with this green pitcher. I just use the glass stopper from the old one (I set it down in there but it doesn't really fit of course). Using this one instead of replacing the old makes me feel resourceful, frugal, and has the distinct advantage of increasing my use of a very pretty pitcher in my favorite shade of green which otherwise wasn't getting very much use at all.
We are total Lipton girls! I bought this giant Costco-sized 3-pack and we were so excited to open it (for real--we love the lowbrow simple pleasures). Faith pointed out how good it smells. We steep the tea in boiling water right in the pitcher then fish out the tea bags after awhile, add in some more water, then chill it. I'd love to hear how to make your iced tea and what your favorite tea is to drink iced.

how we tell the klean kanteens apart

I love these plain Klean Kanteens. I actually think I'm less likely to tire of this clean aesthetic than I would be with a print or patterned water bottle. To tell them apart, each boy has a color: red for Rainer and blue for Dieter. When they get a drink we put their rubber band on it. Works like a charm.

and more . . .

Some more photos from the weekend for you. The slipcover on the green sofa is terribly faded and drab. I hate it, but new slipcovers are so expensive! I'm experimenting with putting the quilt over it to brighten it up. I think I like it, although I've never been a quilt over the back of the sofa type girl.
Many many games of memory/matching are being played now. And as fully expected, Dieter easily beats me (I've always been terrible at that game . . . )
I tried a new smoothie with limited success. It's a green lemonade smoothie with lemon juice and zest, honey, spinach and cucumber. I liked it okay but the texture is really foamy. Faith didn't drink hers. The other smoothie is much more universally liked.
But we had a nice time anyway sitting on the porch with our books--and Faith made us popcorn.
This is coming along and getting bigger--little by little. It has a couple mistakes now, darn it.
Rainer got a new watering can. He's a true garden helper.

a backpack for rainer

I have finally finished a little backpack for Rainer. He has been wanting one like his brother's for forever. I've been working on this for a long time. The main holdup was that I rarely picked up the embroidery, so the whole project was stalled. Then I finally made the bag and had issues with the straps. Then it sat unfinished in my studio for two weeks. At last on Saturday I made new straps and finished the backpack. And he loves it! Alas, neither boy wanted to pose with it. Hopefully next weekend I'll get a shot of one of them carrying it.
I have to say, Dieter uses his all the time to take his lunch to preschool--and it has held up amazingly well in the wash, even with the embroidery. I'm happy to say we're a cloth bag instead of brown-bag family. For our lunches, Dieter uses his little backpack, Ken uses this bag, and I use this old bag. It is fun to look back and see that we are really getting a lot of use out of these home sewn items!

Details: the backpack pattern is from Lotta Jansdotter's book. Even though it's not specifically a child's pack, you can't shorten the straps by much, if at all. Also, don't make the (other) mistake I made which was to piece fabric together--it won't slide through the casing! I used a linen scrap, lined with muslin, for the pocket, Ikea fabric for the bag, and linen for the straps.

going old school with the recipes

I have tried numerous systems for storing my recipes and planning my meals over the years, but lately I'm really into simplifying (perhaps it is a theme for the entire year--simplifying my books, my stuff, my clothes, and now my food and recipes). It has finally dawned on me that if I cook super simple meals it means I won't have a fridge crammed with half used jars of condiments and different ingredients that I only used once. A couple weeks ago I cleaned out our refrigerator and threw away a ton of that stuff. It was amazing to have a clean and clear refrigerator where we can see what we need and eat what we have. To keep it that way requires a commitment to cooking and eating more simply and I am all about that right now. As I save money on not buying a lot of exotic ingredients, I am spending more on buying organics and lots of produce (and yes, some frozen entrees for Faith who is a vegetarian now--once again, hooray for Trader Joe's).
With the recipes, what I'm trying to do is get my most loved and used ones down on cards-- easy to find and easy to put away. In the past I've used a giant binder with recipes in plastic sheet protectors. I hate handling that heavy thing, hate all the plastic, and hate not being able to find the recipes I need because they get removed from the binder and not put back. I'm so over that system. So last summer I bought this gorgeous new recipe box with letterpress cards and I've slowly been transferring my most used and loved basic and simple recipes to it. It's a pleasure to hand write the recipes and so easy to find them and to put them away. The recipe box and cards are from here. Well worth the price, I say, and when I'm done with my 2-year spending freeze this is exactly the kind of purchase I feel is "worth it." I'd love to support more etsy sellers and independent artists.

Tonight we had an old fashioned Sunday dinner and I loved it. Fried chicken drumsticks (using my friend Sylvia's recipe--it was fun looking up the scrap of paper where I had written it and recalling the picnic where she made it for us the first time), a big salad, glazed carrots, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for our Sunday treat.

I'm loving this simplified eating plan. Anyone else having these same thoughts about food and eating?

uh-oh

Rats! Now that I have discovered these delicious frozen chocolate croissants from Trader Joe's I am going to want to buy a box every week! Yummy, warm, flaky, crusty. (And yes, I've backslid lately on the no-sugar thing. Back on the wagon Monday).

using the library

I'm trying to embrace a more thrifty lifestyle with less stuff and clutter. One of the things I've been doing towards that end is using the library more. I've had my issues with the library before, but my main complaint has been that I can't get newer books there so am "forced" to buy new. Gradually I've been discovering that this just isn't so. The problem is with the library's search engine, and I'm figuring out that I just have to be persistent with my searches. On Amazon you can search for anything and the book you want just instantly comes up. But with the library it's trickier. For example, I wanted the book Healthy Breads in Five Minutes a Day from the library. I searched for "healthy breads," "healthy breads in 5 minutes a day," and "healthy breads in five minutes a day" and nothing came up. Finally I found the author's name on Amazon, clicked back over to the library's online catalog, searched for the author's name, and it immediately popped up. Same thing but in reverse for other books. With patience and persistence I've found that I can get a lot of books that are newer and not have to buy them at all.

{pretty image from Falling Cloudberries}

{falling cloudberries}

{falling cloudberries}

{last minute knited gifts}

{last minute knitted gifts}

{last minute knitted gifts}

{mollie katzen book}

I'm having so much fun now that I'm getting more of the books I want--and there is no guilt if a book turns out not to suit my taste--I just return it (which also means no clutter). I'm loving this new system.

back in business!

Hooray! Green smoothies! I was missing them so. So yesterday I picked up my parent's blender on the way home from work, to borrow while our was getting fixed, and today when I came home Ken surprised me by having the blender fixed! I don't know how he did it but now it's done. Of course I blended up a delicious green smoothie right away. It was maybe the best one ever.

bookshelves--uncluttered

Over the weekend I had mind that I wanted to do a little cleaning and uncluttering. My proudest accomplishment is this bookcase. I cleaned out a lot of old magazines, gave away a bunch of books I wasn't using or consulting at all, and removed a bunch of 3/4 empty photo albums and old school reports (you can see them here in limbo--waiting in a stack on the floor for their next home--hopefully they won't wait there too long!!)
I am totally delighted to have these books organized and more accessible. We had so much stuff in this bookcase that we couldn't even find what we owned! Ken ended up buying a second copy of Greek Myths because we couldn't find our existing copy! I guess that's a signal to clean up. I've seen books sorted by color like this around the blogs and flickr'. I love the look and there are few enough books that I think we'll still be able to find things pretty easily.
About giving away books: my library accepts donations of used books and sells them in their bookstore. I love supporting that, and in truth it's not too hard for me to part with something I never use or consult. I do love books, though, and ideally we'd have a full wall of bookshelves like this one. That's not our reality right now, though, and if I'm honest with myself there are only so many books that I can truly love and use. Do you know what I mean? In the worst case scenario I would realize that I've given away a book I really want after all and would end up buying another. That's not so tragic, is it? And I doubt it will happen much (if at all).
The nice thing is that we can truly use, find, and enjoy our books ever so much more now. I have been doing LOTS of thinking about how releasing our clutter makes our lives better on just so many levels. Buying, acquiring, and collecting more and more stuff (then having to figure out ways to store it all) is the American way for sure (and maybe human nature) but I'm beginning to reject all that. It never means that I don't like pretty things or will never want to update my clothes or home, but I feel I can do with less.
How about you? Are you rethinking your collections, clutter, and stuff?

a happy mother's day

{my gift to my mother--home grown roses and patchwork towels}

We had a very sweet and happy mother's day here. I have grown to love this day of simple pleasures and family time. Today I was served breakfast in bed (made by my little ones, under the direction of Faith), released ladybugs into the garden, went out to lunch, visited with family, walked through the demonstration garden, watched Little Travelers Germany, and talked to my oldest on the phone. It was exactly my kind of mother's day. I especially love having a holiday to reflect upon my motherhood and to feel so happy about they way all my children are growing and changing.

{gifts from my family}

{woo hoo! have been wanting this forever}

{this too! It's by Lisa Leonard--love it}

{releasing ladybugs into the yard--a yearly tradition}

{lunch at Jolly Cone with everyone--also a yearly tradition}

{at the demonstration garden}

{necklace made by Dieter, mug from Faith and Jacob}

{card from Dieter}

Happy mother's day everyone! I hope you spent it just to your liking!