Pocket Full of Sunshine

So apparently I have a new liking of sailboats and other things related to water. As some of you know I made a dress in June sailboat fabric which I bought for 75 cents! {don't remember? Check it out here}   Well, a couple days after that I went to the store and just happened to find MORE sailboat fabric for $1 a yard. I mean, come on with a deal like that how could I refuse? So I decided I would buy some and make a skirt.

Start out with the materials. For this skirt I used only fabric and elastic.

The next step was to measure and hem. I wanted a skirt that would fall a little bit above my knees and wanted it to have some "breathing room" (aka I didn't want it to hug my curves). You can make your own modifications to how much fabric you use depending on how you want your skirt to fit. Making the skirt itself was relatively easy. I simply wrapped the amount of fabric I wanted around me to measure, cut it, and then hemmed the rough edges. The hard part was putting the elastic on. First you have to measure how much elastic you want by stretching it around your waist (or hips...or wherever you want the skirt to sit on your body). Then you have to stretch the elastic while sewing it onto your piece of material to create the bunching effect. 

Next I just sewed a seam up the back connecting so that I would have my skirt!

I decided that this skirt would be prefect if it had pockets. So I added some pockets. First I cut out the shape.

Then I stitched the fabric together (right sides of the fabric together) using first a straight stitch and then a zig zag so that I wouldn't have any holes. 

I then laid out my skirt and approximated where on the skirt I wanted to sew the pockets and pinned them to the skirt.

The next part was kind of tricky. I cut a slit along where I wanted my pocket to be, making sure that the slit was slightly smaller than my pocket. 

Then I hand stitched the pockets from the inside. Sorry I forgot to take pictures of that step. Anyway, Here is my finished project for a grand total of $3.50!

And there you have it! I know I still have some work to do on my tutorial skills and making sure I take pictures of each step...I'll get there. 

p.s. Sorry I took a month to post this!

Country Livin'

Projects have been few and far in between, but I'm feeling accomplished about replacing the pleather strap on my favorite purse with a real leather strap.  I even have a tutorial for you! (Don't get too excited).

1. Use landlord's super sharp scissors to remove the ugly, ripped up strap

Before

2. Cut a piece of $1.00 scrap leather from The Fabric Warehouse to the appropriate length and width

3. Sew along all sides of new leather strap with purplish-blue thread

4. Wrap end of leather strap through the copper ring still secured to the purse (with old pleather nonetheless) and sew together

Voila!

That took a total of 4 seconds...Nothing to brag about. 

In other news, my garden has taken a turn for the best!   

Zucchini

Basil

Spring Mix

First fruits (potatoes?)

Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me!

Char and I were at our mom's house this weekend and she remarked that our blogging has hit a lull...so I decided to change that. You see it's been kinda quiet on here because not TOO much has happened in the Sanfi-sister's house, but that is no excuse! So today I had a lot of time on my hands so I decided to dig into a project.

At first I thought that my project would be to change my violin strings...which I did but it took me about 5 minutes and was a little bit of a bore.

So then I decided to do something with the fabric and tank top that I bought a couple weeks ago. Under some guidance from this tutorial and a little creative touch found here I was able to make a fun summer dress! A lot of you have probably seen the "tank dresses" that seem to pretty popular now-a-days so you will recognize that that is indeed the style I decided to make. Mostly because I thought it would be pretty easy and cheap! So I started out with the ingredients: 1 tank top (I bought this one for I think $4 at forever 21) At least 1 yard of fabric ($0.75 for mine!) 1 1/2 or 2 inch elastic (I used 1 1/2 because I found some for only $0.97)

Dress Making Ingredients!

Now because I've posted the tutorials that I followed, I won't really post much about the making process. I will say that one modification that I had was that I had to make an underlayer because my fabric is pretty much see-through...that was really the most time consuming part. I'm not sure why though. It took me a couple hours, but I'm super pumped with the final product! 

Feeling Sailboaty!

Details, deets, tails...whatever you like to say, here they are.
Check out them ruffs (that's short for ruffles...obvi).
 

I had some extra fabric so I thought, why not make a headband?
So I did.

In case you didn't catch it-my dress is made out of sailboat fabric!

So there you have it folks-we'll try not to be so distant :)

The Eyes are the Groin of the Head

Thanks to Dwight Schrute for the title of this post.  Let me explain...

Before looking up the exact quote, I thought it referenced "crotch", which somewhat ties into today's subject.  I liked it anyway and decided to keep it.  So it stays.

Moving on...

Last week I decided to attempt my first pantsformation.  I found a pair that I bought a few years ago at Forever21 and then forgot about because they were too wide, too long and too unimportant for me to worry about (my reasoning behind the purchase being the bargain price and my intentions of fixing them at some point).

Long pants may cause side effects

With a little pinspiration and ideas from my new favorite blog I gave it a whirl.

Definitely not as easy as it looked.  I had to sew and re-sew and re-sew until it looked and felt "right".

Wrong.

Thousands of stress-relieving seam-rips later, they were complete! Until I tried them on and realized they had a little "pocket" in the crotchal region.

Like any mature adult would do, I threw a fit and introduced the crotch of my pants to our dull-as-a-butter-knife-scissors.  Miraculously, my intentions of destroying my project didn't work and I somehow managed to fix them with only minimal additional seam-rippage...

Sweet success!

I wore these skinnies to work only minutes after the last stitch.  I will admit that I brought a second pair of pants with me...no trust in my sewing skills...and fortunately the spare pants remained in their home under my desk all day.  As exciting as this accomplishment may seem, the pants were less than comfortable, partially because of the anticipated riiiiip with every move, but also because I crafted these pants based on a stretchier pair and they were a little too tight for my likings.

While I may never wear these beauts again, I feel like I've gained a good deal of knowledge for my next experiment.

Le Tour de Porch

In 1903, 60 men on bicycles set off on a 2,500 km bike race across the country of France. The first of its kind, they were the pioneers of the now famous Le Tour de France.

In the same way, Char and I are pioneering on our own expedition. However, our expedition is less biking and more growing. To answer the question that I'm sure is running through your head, no we did not find some magical serum that helps us to grow-we're both still 5' 1". We have become green thumbs and our porch is a testament to that. Okay, yes we do have some greenery that is turning more into brownery, but that's bound to happen. We have set up plants galore on our porch and it has become one of my favourite parts of our new place. It is relaxing, and smells nice (can't beat the fresh air and scent of flowers!) and is surrounded by our lovely plants. Much like the French countryside, it is a sight to behold. So let me take you on my own little tour. I call this, Le Tour de Porch.

First we have our mini herb garden. Planted only last week I am thoroughly and ecstatically surprised that the basil has just popped up like there's no tomorrow! Look at all those little basil plants! And to the right of that we have the mysterious herbs sent to me by my alma mater, Cedarville University...I really have no idea what herbs will show up in that container. And then finally we have cilantro which is feeling a little shy and hasn't made an appearance yet.

Next up is our fruit and veggie section. Now please note we have a garden plot in the backyard, but this is Le Tour de Porch, not Le Tour de Backyard. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. Tomato plant and Ms. Lemon tree (and their friend Mr. Orange extension cord)!

The Edibles

We're still waiting for the lemons to turn yellow before we can harvest them...obviously.

Can't wait to sink my teeth into this!

Basking in the glorious sunlight is Char's hibiscus which finally flowered this week. If all goes well we're going to learn how to cook using this plant...stay tuned for a post about that!

Beauty

These are our house plants. Although, because we like to consider their feelings, they've been moved out to the ever welcoming porch. Most of them are new to the family, except for Fernando. He's the big  plant on the floor and I've had him since my sophomore year of college. 

Ahhhh porch life

And finally we have our little garden of succulents.

This porch would suck if it didn't have a succulent garden...did you see what I did there?

So that's it. Our greenery at its finest. Now add a table, some chairs, a hammock and you've got yourself a little bit of bliss :)