Nesting Dolls of Science

My final stages of getting excited and prepping and drawing to a close.  My mom made some dresses and they have been hemmed, I'm snipping loose threads from my new skirt and ironing some other stuff to prep for this month.  I'm actually becoming excited, and it's all thanks to elasticated waistbands and dresses. Dude, straight talk: I'm in love with elastic waistbands in clothing.  Luckily, I've made a ton of skirts with them as a main feature over the past few years. Now you may be thinking: where did this sudden epiphany come from?  I've been transitioned into maternity pants now for about a month and my bump has just gotten to the point where I really can't wear anything but maternity pants.  The only downside is a maternity pant with panels kind of tends to slide down and can get awfully uncomfortable throughout the day.  Luckily, I know have lots of elastic waistband skirts thanks to making them throughout the year (and when they stretch out, I'...

Let's begin this grand experiment. I have only been sewing for about a year and a half, but in that time, I've begun to amass quite the collection of handmade clothing or hand mended clothing, and I wanted to spend the month of May honestly celebrating that. So I found this post through Colette Blog last year and I was incredibly inspired, so I'm going to try and do it this year.  The whole point of Me-Made-May is to challenge you to wear things that are usually not the number one choices in your closet, which I desperately need to do, but I also want to use it as a way to really inspire myself to stretch creatively. But here's the big thing, I am a full time teacher, meaning I don't have a ton of time to consider fully handmade outfits or make extra pieces, so I'm going to make some rules to make this realistic for me to actually have enough pieces to make it through the month. Maybe in the future, I'll take some of the supports out.  That's what...

I come from a family of makers, so when I began writing down stories of them, I figured writing what they made was the most sensible.  The DIY trend was not a trend for me in my life, it is my life.   My mother comes by the making rather naturally.   Both of my maternal grandparents were Midwestern children of the depression, and making items was useful as well as necessary.   They were incredibly resourceful people, a trait which they passed down to their children.   On my father’s side, I think my grandparents were makers for pleasure.   My grandmother doodled and wrote all her life, and had the creative clean chaos in her home that I so understand as an adult.   I’m not sure about my grandfather.   From stories passed down through my family, I know he was handy, but I’m not sure how well he was handy.   The evidence of this is the deck in my parents’ back yar...

There's a saying:  Jack of all trades, master of none.  Which is how I feel more than 90% of the time.  I can do a handful of things fairly well, but I can't do any particular trade particularly well.   What you will see in this blog is a smattering of what I like as well as some family stories mixed in.  This list includes but is not limited to: Drawing Painting Animating Music Sewing Embroidering Crafting Needle felting Knitting Crochet Croquet Food Eating Building Breaking Teaching Dog walking You know, usual stuff.  Tutorials mixed in, one hopes, as well as completed projects.   I can't promise much outside this, but I'll try to amuse you like a sewing, dancing Schnauzer puppy.  Like my Schnauzer puppy.  He amuses me. I might also complain about messing projects up.  That's likely too. No matter what, I'm going to enjoy myself and I hope you do too.