Wool Flannel Zinnia Skirt….plus bonus knit infinity scarf!

Hold on to your hats folks!  Two blog posts in one week…. I know try to contain your excitement 🙂

So, without further ado…. I give you my favorite skirt!

  This is the Zinnia from Colette Patterns.  Everything about this is right up my alley!  Full skirt: check!  High, but not too high waist: check!  Vaguely vintage look and feel: double check!  [Overuse of exclamation points: check!!!]

And best of all:

POCKETS!!!!

Seriously- who doesn’t love pockets?!

I sewed this up in a straight size 14, with the full skirt no adjustments were really necessary.  However, I probably shortened it a bit because I’m on the shorter side and rarely wear heels.  I made this last fall, so I honestly can’t remember

What I do remember is how easy this was to sew up…. I made a muslin, but I honestly probably didn’t need to, it was all very straight forward- even for a newbie like me!  Which brings us to one of the many reasons I LOVE Colette patterns.  The instructions are incredibly well thought out and easy to follow.  And their website has tons of follow-up tutorials that are harder to include in every sewing pattern….like how to install an invisible zipper or sewing pleats.

But enough of my fangirling…. I made this out of an awesome grey wool flannel suiting.  It’s beautiful and drape-y and sewed up like a dream.  I got it from Mood Fabrics (because I’m fancy that way!) and am super pissed that I can’t find it online anymore 😦

Also, bonus knitting!  This infinity scarf was actually a Christmas present I made for my Mother.  I splurged and got super fancy royal alpaca wool, because I knew she couldn’t tolerate scratchy wool against her skin.  Well….turns out she couldn’t even tolerate super fancy royal alpaca wool, so she gave it back to me- SCORE!  However, I’m under instructions to make a replacement scarf out of non-animal fiber yarn.

   I used a pretty vintage pearl (or pearl-like) button from my stash.  If we’re getting technical about it was my Grandmother’s stash, I just inherited it.  This was also not only my first button hole, but my first attempt at a hand-worked button hole.  Because I am BADASS that way! [but not really though… it’s because the button hole “function” on my sewing machine scares me 😦 ]

  You can sort of see it here (and can REALLY see it in an earlier photo), but I kinda fucked up on the zipper.  I inserted it a bit too low and now there’s a gap…. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to go back and fit it now.  You will learn very quickly, dear reader, that I am NOT a perfectionist.

I finished the hem by hand, as well, with lace hem tape.  I always like finishing the hem with lace tape…it makes me smile 🙂

And finally my attempt at a twirling photo…despite photo evidence to the contrary it does twirl very nicely!  And one last out take ’cause it’s too funny:

This is El Meow talking back to me, when I asked her to move out of the photo.  She’s the only cat I know of that talks back when you scold her!

So, there you have it! My favorite skirt.  It should be noted all photos of me wearing said skirt were taken by the lovely Sarah of gypsysarah.  You should totally read about how she’s renovating a camper with only a screw driver and handsaw….she is very brave (or possibly crazy).

Winter Garden Dinner….a post not about sewing/knitting!

Did you think I forgot about you, dear reader?  Well I didn’t… I just had more important shit to do- Iike read A Game of Thrones! (Spoiler: EVERYONE DIES!)  However, between reading about the exploits of Ayra and Tyrion I made a tasty dinner from very, very local ingredients.  So local, in fact, I only had to walk a few paces out my back door to get them.  That’s right I grew all that shit!  Even more impressive since it’s the dead of winter. [although in Charleston winter should really be in “quotes”]

So, what did I make/grow you may ask.  Well, first up we have Christmas Pole Lima Beans.

Pretty, aren’t they?

Sadly, they don’t stay that vibrant when cooked.  They are a nice big, meaty bean.  In fact, I learned very quickly to just have them in place of meat ’cause with an additional protein it’s just too much.  I cooked them with red wine, chicken stock, water and thyme.  And it took FOREVER!  In the future I need to plan ahead and give them a good overnight soak.

While the beans were cooking I cooked a couple of pieces of bacon and then caramelized a thinly sliced onion in the leftover fat…. that’s right I cook with bacon fat and it’s DELICIOUS!  Once the beans finally finished cooking I added those bad boys to the onions, thickened it up with some reserved cooking liquid and mixed in the bacon. BAM! Dinner!

A Song of Carrots and Kale.

But wait there’s more!  In addition to delicious, bacon-y lima beans.  There was garlic kale.  Which consists of an obscene amount of garlic, olive oil, torn kale, and then a bit of chicken stock for steaming purposes.

Plus roasted carrots– carrots ,olive oil, thyme, salt, oven…. in that order.  So easy.

Apologies for the terrible lighting. We didn’t eat till 9pm….stupid beans!

And there you have it.  Homegrown dinner….. in the middle of “winter”.

There will be more sewing posts….maybe even later this week. I know two posts in one week- IT’S MADNESS!

Stuff to do in 2015….maybe!

Now…I know what you’re saying “Liz-o-matic it’s February you can’t be making a sewing/knitting/other junk goal list in February!”  Well, too bad! As we’ve already established I’M A REBEL not living by society’s ‘rules’…. also…. I didn’t have time to make it earlier

So, without further ado Stuff I May or May Not Accomplish in 2015!

Knitting

I have one goal and one goal only for knitting in 2015 and that is to knit a sweater that actually FITS.  You see dear reader I’m what they call curvy, an hourglass figure….in layman’s terms I’ve got big boobs and a big butt!   [And now I would like to take the opportunity to welcome the new readers who stumbled on this post through weird search terms involving boob/butt and knitting!]
So far, I have made two sweaters in my knitting career:

My first was a bolero (pattern) which wasn’t exactly fitted, but turned out fine if some what tight in the arms.

My second attempt was the Miette cardigan (pattern) and it turned out great….except for the fact that there is no way in HELL I would ever be able to to actually button it up! I didn’t even bother to sew the super cool vintage buttons I got for it on  😦  (To be fair- in talking with my local knitting store peeps things may have gone wrong in the blocking portion of the process)

But all of that is in the past for I shall be making THIS:

I did not take this picture. Source. (please don’t sue me)

Cropped Sweater for Winter by the totally awesome Andi Satterlund.  I’ve actually already started it and am working with my knitting store peeps to ensure I end up with something that does indeed fit 🙂

Sewing

My sewing goal list is longer and less definite, but there are three things which I would actually like to do:

• Finally make this cape! I want to do this right….try to include some legit tailoring techniques and what not.  I’m actually viewing it as practice to one day make a coat.
  

  Cape….the non-super kind.

  As you can see I have all the major materials (which may or may not have been purchased this time last year )…. I just need to start it!

• Make a T-shirt! Now if you’re anything like my Mother you’re at this point saying “Why would you make a t-shirt when can get them so cheap?”  Because I’m tired of my favorite t-shirts falling apart after only a few wears!  Plus, I want get into making wardrobe staples.
  

  Future pretty green t-shirt!

  I’m going to be trying the Renfrew– I’ve actually taken this out to start on it a few times but am kinda stuck.  You see the pattern is designed for pear shaped individuals and as we’ve already established- boobs.  Do I try grading the pattern? Do I try a FBA (see below), which seems kinda silly when dealing with knits? Or do I just throw caution into the wind, live up to my rebel tendencies, and just try it?

• Successfully do a FBA!  This is something I NEED to learn to do.  All the big four sewing pattern companies design their patterns with a B-cup in mind…. Even my beloved Collette brand, who specifically designs with the hourglass shape in mind, only use a C-cup.  So, unless I plan on dropping 25lbs (which I DO NOT), this is a skill I need to acquire.

Other Stuff

• Make pâte….I bought duck livers from a local farmer a while ago and I really need to get cracking on this.

• Run a 5k….I’ve gotten pretty good about running during my lunch break and can now do 1 mile without dying- score one for the asthmatic! But I recognize there’s a slight difference between 1 mile and 3.106 miles.

So that is my list.  Be sure to check back to see if ANY of these things actually happen….. or not.