Adirondack balloon festival

We were lucky enough to make it to the Adirondack balloon festival this past weekend. This is the second year we have gone. And while last year was more impressive with numbers of balloons present it was still really neat.
I still have dreams from time to time of the balloon festival my folks took me to when I was wee. So I hope we are giving the girls similar life time memories.

Four season crowns

It's taken me 4 weeks to do about 6 hours worth of hand sewing but I've finally finished these crowns. The colors at the local craft store were some what limited. But the kiddo's don't mind in the least. They run around playing 'Queen of the fall' or 'King of the winter' or 'Lady of the spring'. These crowns have become a staple in our outdoor walks and play. We cannot seem to go on a walk in the woods without them. You'll probably see a lot of these crowns in the coming months.

Boat races in absentia

Every year since I was small my family has celebrated labor day in the north woods of Michigan with friends, food, costumes and boat races. Now these aren't your usual kind of boat races. These races have been running fifty plus years and the boats are small and made on site. Folks come from all up and down the river with entrant numbers sometimes reaching ninety. I have only ever missed three years since we began going and this year was one of them. Admittedly I was somewhat disappointed but decided to make the best of the situation. We invited some of our local friends to the the park for our own boat race. The only rule was that the boats had to be made of things we found in the woods so that they could break down in the river if we couldn't catch them.

On the search for good boat building supplies

Boat building in action

The launch!

Only one boat (that we know of) crossed the finish line. Yep is was a river wrought with peril for homemade boats. But boy did we have fun. What a day, what a day. Thanks to the friends who joined us and thanks to the river for being so obliging (even if you did eat our boats).

Fifty years of fabric, or someone else's stash

I was recently given the most marvelous gift of twelve or so plastic grocery bags of fabric. There were fabrics in there from the 50's through the 90's and perhaps some from even before then. This was a woman who saved every last scrap of everything remotely, even possibly reusable. A child of the depression, she knew the value of reuse. She saved everything from old curtains and cushion covers to old hand made articles of clothing. There was even the very start of a quilt in there. Before I even washed anything, I freecycled some of the synthetics and a few others. I love fabric but even I cannot own that much fabric. So now I'm down to the gems plus a few others. In truth some of it is rather rotten. But the lovely lady who's fabric this was took care of that for me too. In among all the other fabrics was the beginning of a braided rag rug. I've always wanted to make a rag rug and now I've got the material for it.

Some wonderful articles of clothing were to be had. This was the only one remotely wearable. I'm not quite sure why it was in there. It only has a small hole in the skirt.

Repurposed sweater part one

A little time for this.... A little time for that... and everything else in between. My but we've been busy. I haven't had time to sit down at the computer to post in several days. So I'll play a little catch up.

So I was flipping through a children's clothing catalogue the other day and came across a wonderful knit dress. Never one to spend $50 on a dress for a four year old, I've decided to do it myself. Did I mention I am kind of a cheapskate? I also don't want to spend $30 on the yarn it would take to make it. So I'm trying something new. We went to the Salvation Army and bought a woman's sweater for about $5. I'm going to try to recycle the yarn into a dress. This is a shot of us unraveling the sweater. I couldn't help but hear the Weezer sweater song in my head the whole while. I'm going to try and write the dress pattern myself too. I'll let you know how that goes.
And when we just can't stand to be in the house any longer, we take a trip to the park.

A dinner party in the back yard! We haven't got much space in the house so when we have folks over to dinner, we take it outside (in the summer of corse). I love being able to sew because I can do things like whip up some quick napkins for a thing such as said dinner party. In truth I realized about 2 hours before our guests arrived that we were short a few napkins. I could have thrown some in the washer but what fun would that have been (any excuse for new napkins). My new theme is a different napkin for everyone. It adds flair to the table. It all turned out quite nicely though. Don't you think? Not to bad for something we threw together on short notice.

Here is a fun little project I made for a birthday gift. It is a princess and the pea set. The doll was from a pattern in Alicia Paulson's Stitched In Time. I downsized it a bit. But otherwise it's just about the same. I got the idea for the set initially from a Soulemama post where she made a princess and the pea set. In her post she references Treefall Design and a similar project she did there. The web just goes on and one doesn't it.