where I'm sewing these days

I just realized this is my 800th post! Aw. I've never actually noticed any of these milestones before, ha! That's a lot of blogging. I started when I was pregnant with Layla, now 7 year old. A blog can become quite special to a person, no? Especially when one's hard drive erases all the backed up photos she felt so responsible for putting on it. That happened to me several months ago, but no worries ... all my faves are on the blog anyway :)

I thought I'd share my sewing room today! I rearranged and orgainized it over the weekend because Casey bought me a little smart TV for up there as an anniversary present. Our anniversary isn't for three weeks or so, but he's leaving town for the mainland for a couple weeks soon and thought it would be nice if I could spend my evenings up there watching Murder She Wrote, sewing and yapping at my kids to get back in bed ;)

Here's what it looks like for now:

 Some of my fabric, cottons and kid fabrics, are under the table in easy-view bins.

 Everyone needs a mirror in their sewing room!

 I have a walk-in closet!

 Yeah, I could use some shelves. These are my clothing and home dec fabrics.

 And this is the ginormous box that my girls have free reign over. I cleaned out my fabrics and was *this close* to donating this box, when the girls spotted it and went nuts. So it was kept and moved and I'm SO glad they have a pile of fabrics to use without having ask me if it's ok. Our upstairs landing ahs a built-in desk where we set up their sewing machine so they have a space to create too. They come up with some pretty great things!

 And I couldn't exclude the view out that sliding door. You can see some tiny tall buildings on the left edge and that is Waikiki. In case you're wondering.

Since we were offered a four bedroom house here, Casey pretty much insisted the girls share the huge fourth bedroom so I could have this little one for sewing. One of the girls in particular was not happy about this at all and I would have given in like a big softie, but he held his ground and I am so glad he did that for me! In the past my sewing spot has bounced around from guest room, to living room, to basement, to right inside the front door, so having a room of my own is a special treat, especially since our downstairs is basically one huge room and the noise levels get pretty up there!

I have great plans for this space to make it even better! I plan to paint the chair green and recover the seat part in a fun fabric. And recover the ironing board also. And hang some floor to ceiling curtains. We are going to mount the TV on that wall at some point and I'd like to buy some fun art from Etsy that I love, but wouldn't really fly in other parts of the house.
Like this Nancy Drew print! LOVE! (source)

And this Jane Austen quote: (source)

Among other such literary loves of mine. I am glad to have that closet so I can keep the room relatively uncluttered. I love looking at great sewing room ideas on Pinterest and I've found my favorites are those that look clean and don't have wall-to-wall bookcases of fabrics and notions (although that can be so pretty too!)

Put your best sewing room organization and storage tips in the comments! What are your favorites thing in your sewing spot?

Happy Friday!

how many of the same pattern can you make before people notice?

My friend Jenn went iPhone fabric shopping for me again and one of the things she sent was this lovely gray twill. I really wanted to make some casual shorter skirts and shorts and especially something to go with my whale shirt (buttons arrived yesterday!) so I got to work on this gray twill right away.

I chose Simplicity 1887, view E

I've had this pattern for a long time, but I remember reading reviews about the shorts having way too much ease and looking rather clownish so I'd put it aside. I pulled it out and thought I'd give the skirt a try and you can see that I did modify it a little:

 I REALLY love how this turned out! It was surprisingly fast to make because it doesn't have a zipper. More on that at the end.

 This fabric has the perfect amount of stretch for a casual skirt and the length is great for my lifestyle here. I have definitely had to rethink sewing functional clothing here in Hawaii because one day can see me at a lunch with Casey's work crowd and hiking a mountainside without a change of clothes. Also, layers, linings, pants and camis are OUT! It's too humid for any of that and the weather remains pretty consistent year round.

 So about those pleats. The pleats in the front and the elastic in the back really made the skirt sit funny. It ballooned out in front and then pulled the hemline up in the back! So I started by sort of pinning and topstitching 4 inches or so down those pleats. That helped a little, but I still didn't like how it ballooned away from my body, it looked weird from the side. So I pinned and topstitched those pleats all the way down to the hemline.  And it worked!!! The fit is beautiful now and the stitching added great detail to a solid skirt. I have plans for another one of these out of a polka dot fabric, for which I'll just fold those pleats out of the pattern piece completely before I cut it out.

 The main reason I love this is because of the elastic, rather than a zipper closure. It's only in the back and side fronts, which makes it still look nice and flat in the front. It made the fit so easy, it was fast to sew, no hand sewing, etc...  And I got to use a little bit of my leftover camera fabric for the facing! We'll call that white serger thread "contrast" instead of "too-lazy-to-change-it" ;)

So, back to my original question, how many of this very skirt pattern can I get away with before people notice that I keep wearing the same skirt in different fabrics?? Cause Jenn also sent me a teal twill that it begging to be sewn up too!

Lastly, since I bragged about the sunset from my lanai, I took a picture to prove it. Unedited! Isn't God glorious?

epic slip and slide

Well, thank you all so much for all the encouragement after my last post! I already feel more excited about blogging after those comments. It's nice to know others are thinking about those things too! I've added several of your suggested blogs to my reader and followed several of you on Instagram, so that's fun! What I've always loved about blogging is the community part of it and it felt like I had lost that for awhile. So thanks again!

I have to share these photos with you because they're too good not to. We had a block party here on July 4th. We've never been a part of anything like that before, but military housing has its perks and one of them is automatic community with your neighbors. Another one is Halloween ;)

I looked out my lanai window in the afternoon of July 4th and saw this:

 The biggest, soapiest, most fun slip and slide EVER.

 Then you walk up the hill and get the soap sprayed off your face:

 The dog piles at the bottom were so funny. Watching dads go down and fly off into those trees was even funnier. It just never got old.

 These are our new friends from church, also our neighbors now! They're newlyweds. Aw :)

Since our neighborhood is on a huge hill (it's so high that my ears pop every time I drive down it!), we can see the fireworks from a clearing on our street. We watched the ones over Waikiki and then went home and the girls could see the ones over Hickam air force base from their bedroom window. The kids say that was the best day ever, which makes me happy because July 4th has always been one of my very favorite days too :)

two sewn things and blogging pressures.

I lost my sewing mojo for a few weeks! And maybe my blogging mojo a bit too, if I'm being honest. I think the blogging world has changed drastically over the past year or two and I'm not gonna lie, I don't love what it's become. I open my feed on Bloglovin' and out of all the sewing blogs I follow, probably half of them are doing the same thing all the time--reviewing the same $25 indie pattern that they incidentally received for free, participating in a blog tour from another indie pattern company, sewing up the such-and-such dress for such-and-such blogger's link-up or the such-and-such sewing network (ahem, Vogue), or whatever. Blah. No offense ... I think it's boring. Even things like Project Sewn, which could be so fun, choose the same bloggers that get chosen for everything else. Why is that? I don't get it. Can we see some skills and ideas from lesser known sewists for a change ?? Do the prettiest blogs always have to win or can those who don't own their domain names join in the fun too? (I am not talking about wanting to be invited myself, I do not sew well under pressure, ha!)

I miss the sewing bloggers that sew from the big four pattern companies that we can all afford, post their free amateur tutorials for us all to enjoy and that include snippets of their real lives too. Those are the blogs I'm having a hard time finding! Are we getting fewer and farther between or am I just not looking in the right places? Are the bloggers with more modest followings and few comments per post getting discouraged because they don't have the time or money or desire to keep up with the changing blogiverse? (I made that word up ;)

At any rate, I'd like some ideas for blogs to follow that fit these criteria! Leave your favorite, but relatively unknown family life or crafting or sewing blogs in the comments so I can check them out!

Moving on :)

I have two things to show you. The pictures are not stellar. I haven't found my favorite photo spot at my new house yet. I miss my brick wall from two houses ago! That spot was so perfect.

The first is a dress I made for July 4th that I really love. I had a gingham from the thrift store that I decided to make a sun dress out of:

 I used the bodice from the Cynthia Rowley pattern, Simplicity 1688, but wanted a more casual skirt so the skirt is Simplicity 2588, a tried and true pattern for me. I like that it's pleated instead of gathered, which gives it a more mature, less sweet look. And I moved the zipper from the side to the center back.

I accidentally made my straps too short! So I got creative and made fabric loops and sewed buttons on to extend them in the back. I used a pop of green thread to sew the buttons on and that is now my favorite part of the dress! A happy accident.

Before that, though, I was making some old things new and made New Look 6285 from the skirt part of an Ann Taylor outlet dress that didn't look very good on me.

 I actually think these photos look alright, maybe I've found my new spot after all! This is my lanai off our master bedroom. You should see the view at sunset!

I bought this pattern because I love how you can mix and match snippets of fabrics, like with this lace and this knit. I wouldn't have had enough fabric for the whole top without the lace inset so this pattern was perfect. It's definitely a looser fit than on the pattern envelope, though, so keep that in mind if you make it. I prefer a loose top in this climate!

In other news, I have found my new fabric store!!!! It is so cool. It's literally an open warehouse in an alley, piled from floor to ceiling with awesome fabrics. If you follow me on Instagram (my user name is nikkischreiner), then you may have seen my posts about that and about the humpback whale print I am making a button down shirt out of! I had to order buttons so I'm waiting on those, but I cannot wait to show you that because it is awesoooome!!!

Cheers! And don't forget to link me to your fave blogs! Or YOUR blog, for that matter! Or your Instagram page, I really love Instagram, I'd love to follow more sewers and blog buddies :)

guitars and other things with strings.

I've been mulling over ideas for decorating our bedroom. I have a hard time with bedrooms, I don't know why! The colors we had in our Colorado house weren't working with the white walls in our past two houses. Plus, our bedspread was worn out. So I started there, found a bedspread I love and all of a sudden, know exactly what I want to do in there! I't already looking really pretty.

I've found myself moving away from florals and anything cutesy and really liking more geometric prints with sort of 60's colors (as evidenced by the new look of my blog, I just realized, ha!)

Anyway, I don't have room pictures to show you yet, but I did get some great wall art inspiration today! We have a blank wall in there that needs a statement and today the Bishop Museum that we are members of had a guitar exhibit. It was REALLY cool and I learned a ton and the kids had a blast.  They had some black and white photos of close up guitar details in there that I thought were really cool so when I got home, I pulled out Casey's stringed instruments one at a time and went to work. We bought him a ukelele for Father's Day and he has a horse hair fiddle from Mongolio, along with an electric and acoustic guitar.

Here's what I came up with:

 I think I'm going to choose four to print 11x14 and frame them for that empty wall in our room. I can't wait!!!

By the way, Casey has already started to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the uke. He will not let me record that (yet), but I was thinking of you and took note of these videos at the exhibit today for your viewing pleasure. You're welcome, homeschool moms who have a kid who loves guitars :)

This very 8-neck guitar was behind glass at the museum.



Haha!
Equally cool, could this animation be the future of guitar?

snapshots.

I've been doing quite a bit of scrapbooking this week. It's a mistake to scrapbook over a year after your photos were taken--it will make you sad and homesick, ha! I start to long for the littleness of my children and for the house we left in Aurora and for the friends and the life we had there.

I know it's just a huge material item, but jeez, I loved that house! It was the only house we'd every picked out ourselves. Together. And we owned it (still own it) and we poured our time and energy into it and it fit our family so beautifully. So I'm not saying that I'm not happy where I am or where we were in Virginia, but it's okay to miss it there, right? The house only represents in my mind the life we had there. Life is good here too! But I sometimes need reminding. 

Occassionally I grab my camera and take some simple shots to remind myself that my life is beautiful. The camera misses the mess that's happening in the rest of the room and zeros in on the pieces that I find lovely and the little bits that make it home here. And a year or two from now, I know I'll be scrapbooking these photos and remembering this life as lovingly as I'm remembering that one :)

Cheers :)