the goose loves: The Garden Thymes, Issue #1

Hey, Friends! Welcome to my new post series - The Garden Thymes. Yes, that's a pun on newspapers and herbs. We keep it classy on this blog.

Since I've done pretty well with my Tuesday's Ten posts, I figured the best way to post more would be to design another series on a specific day. I played around with Weedin' Wednesdays and Farmin' Fridays, but decided to skip the alliteration this time and go for the classic wordplay on Thyme/Time. Funny story - we haven't even planted thyme. But you won't know that until Issue #3 or #4.

This project, like many others, began many months ago, when my hippie husband Billy decided we should plant a garden and harvest our own vegetables, herbs, etc. I figured that after 7 years of living in Portland,(7?! Can you believe it?!) it was time to give in to the green culture and get growin.

So we decided we'd break out our tools and build us a planter box.

Maybe you remember this photo, when we first shared it back in March. Yep, two months ago. But it was still snowing back then, so there was really no rush.

We found a great tutorial video online, which I can't seem to find now. Some google-ing will probably get you some good ideas to supplement this "tutorial." It's a pretty basic rectangular setup with four walls, no bottom, and no ledges. Maybe we'll add ledges later, since I think they look nice.

We priced out various lumber sizes, and ended up choosing nine 8'x6"x2" boards in order to make an 8' x 4' box, 18" high. If you do some math (or if I do your math for you), that's six boards for the sides (stacked vertically) and three boards for the ends, each cut in half. We also got a 4"x4"x8" post to secure the edges together, and got that cut into four 18" pieces, with a 24" piece leftover. Yay numbers.

Here's our kind Mr. Home Depot, slicing our boards for us. Sure, we have a saw, but they never rarely charge us for cuts, they are wayyy faster, and likely more accurate.

Then we get home, reasses our side yard (the future home of Planter), and decide that four feet wide is too fat, and three feet would be better.

 So THEN we pull out our saw, chop one foot off each of the newly-sliced 4-foot boards, and add those wooden feet onto the ends of our 8-foot boards, securing the pieces together with some scrap plywood that was hanging out in the garage.

Now we had wood to make a 9' x 3' box. (Below are some one-footers waiting to be connected.)

I like lots of screws - Billy doesn't. I won this time.

So here's our dog, posing next to our long sides - 9 feet long, 1.5 feet high. You can see our 3-foot ends in front of the goose, and our 1.5-foot posts standing up.

Ooh, looks like a planter! Sorta.

Where's Waldo Bentley?

Putting the sides together is very simple, but slightly time consuming. You line up your posts with the end of one side, and drill holes all the way through. We used 3/8" holes and 3/8" bolts that were 5.5" long. I let Billy do the hard work here.

Then you take a picture of your dog, who's taking a break from ripping up his nice shark bed in the yard.

Then you take a picture of your husband, who's still working hard on the planter box.

Our sides were made up of three 6" tall boards, so we drilled three holes on each end, spacing them out so that the bolts from one side didn't run into the bolts from the other side. The bolts on the right are at the top of each board, while the bolts on the left are at the bottom of each board.

Then you repeat for the other four sides. Ideally, when you went to the hardware store, you bought 24 bolts that were 5.5", instead of about 15 bolts that were 5.5" and 9 bolts that were other various lengths, like 5" and 4.5". If you didn't, then you can take a break and head back to the store to get the right parts. We would never buy the wrong sizes, though, of course, but just in case you run into that problem...

  We completed two "L" shapes with the four sides, and then brought them over to the side yard to be finished, since it would be way too heavy and awkward to carry the box into the side yard once it was all put together. And we know Billy's my muscles aren't that big. :) And you're right - it's not quite put together here.  We had to go to Home Depot and get the right size bolts.

And that's where I leave you! The Garden Thymes will resume next week, when it takes a closer look at the dirty side of gardening - dirt.

the goose loves puppy coats

Greetings, my dutiful readers! Welcome back to my blog! A lot has happenend since I was last here... the year changed to 2012, it snowed, and I did a lot of things without blogging them! I did even more without taking photos, so you'll never know about that stuff...

But I think I'm back for good, ready to get back on the blogger train and give you some interesting things to read about. Hopefully.

We'll start with one for the pooch, the cutest thing about my blog. Last winter, we bought Bentley a red checkered fleece sweater-coat thing. Here it is, to refresh your memory.

Well, believe it or not, the little terror has gotten bigger since that last snowshoeing trip. Now his nice hunting sweater looks a lot more like a tank top, and there's definitely some midriff showing. So why not make him a  new one, with material I already own?

I started with his rain jacket (yeah, the dog practically has a whole closet full of clothes... haha not).

I didn't want to use quick relase buckles, so I traced strap-like pieces in place of the webbing. I made a muslin pattern first so that:

a) I could make sure it fit him before using my fancy real material

b) I could use it again to make him a closet-ful of jackets

I tried the muslin on him while bribing him to stay still with dehydrated sweet potato sticks wrapped in chicken jerky (yum, right?) Once I was satisfied with the size, I traced the pattern onto my front and back pieces - I used a green checkered flannel that I'd gotten on sale at Joanns for like $1.99/yd last year and a brown minky that I used to back my parents' anniversary quilt (more on that later).

Before cutting out my back, I decided I wanted to quilt the pieces together, and I remembered that when I quilt things, the layers shift. So better to use bigger allowances so that the exact pieces don't shift away from each other. The cream-colored layer is Warm N Natural quilt batting, also on hand from some other project.

I pinned the layers together and quilted them together, just following the checkered lines on the top fabric - I spaced my lines out with four "boxes" inbetween.

After cutting off the excess around my main quilted piece, I made some basic binding with the brown and white polka dot material I used to bind my parents' quilt (again, I'll post that later).

I started by sewing the binding to the back (brown side) of the jacket, with the raw edge facing out, and the folded binding edge facing in. The curves around the shape were tricky, believe me.

For the strap corners, I mitered the edge using the normal technique for blanekt/quilt edges. I then took the folded side and wrapped it around to the green front, and topstiched it down. Not my best binding work ever, but not too shabby. Sorry for not having a photo of it.

The dog doesn't seem to mind my less-than-stellar binding job.

Yeah, that's right. He's wearing a quilted three-layer jacket and he still has to keep warm by the fire?!

Billy doesn't mind the jacket, but says that it looks like a horse blanket. Oh well.

It velcros in the front (under his collar) and on his underside (around his tummy).

And, once I finished it, I realized that it's reversible! So maybe a photo of the brown side another day.

Lovely dog/horse coat for my sweet pup. And he really doesn't mind it so much! Now the next one I make should have buttons. Or feathers. Or maybe sequins? Maybe I need a girl dog next...

the goose loves toddler skirts

Let me start by saying this post was a long time in the making. A LONG time. I completed this project in October, but since it was a gift, I didn't want to post it before I gifted it! And today is finally the day! I'm meeting my old co-worker for lunch and will give her adorable 2-yr-old daughter these cute skirts.

So here we go. My inspiration - a little toddler skirt from Pinterest.

I saw some printed courderoy at JoAnns, and knew it'd be perfect - wintery warm but still colorful! I looked at some different sizes online, and decided to go with 40" width, 13" length. This would give me a seam allowance and room for gathering at the top.

I started by hemming the bottom - half an inch, folded twice, so that all loose edges were hidden. And bright green thread, of course. (Side note - that bright green thread is all gone now. In roughly two months, I used the whole spool. Sewing too many green things, I think... you'll see some of them soon).

And then sew along the seam you just made. This part is actually interesting. You want to sew on the back (inside), so you can see where your hem is, but your back thread will end up showing on the front. So get your tension right so your thread looks good.

I ended up using the standard stitch, but thicker - it repeats each stitch twice for a heavier line.

Then, to make things prettier and really "seal" my back hem, I sewed along the bottom with a decorative stitch.

 I sewed on the "front" of my skirt, but lined it up right so that it overlapped my fold in the back, like below:

Since I wanted all of my edges to be very clean and sturdy, I then did the double-fold hem on the right and left sides of my skirt (which is still in rectangle form), and topstitched two lines down for security.

I also sewed down the top of the skirt with just one half-inch fold (you'll sew it over again for the elastic waistband, so doesn't matter if the raw edge is shown).

At this point, I brought it to my ironing board to iron down my seams.

Here's where I sewed my left and right ends together, inside out, to make my back seam. This turned my rectangle into a loop!

By ironing down the seams, you reduce bulk. If you want, you can also sew down these flaps you just ironed, for more security. I didn't do that with this skirt, but I did with another.

Your ends will also be fairly bulky - I ended up cutting off the bulk at an angle.

Slightly less cumbersome now.

The last step is the waistband. Take your skirt top and fold it down, about a half inch wider than your elastic. I believe I used a 1-inch elastic, so my fold is roughly 1.5". Pin all the way around.

Starting about an inch to the right of your back seam (about an inch to the right  of the seam in the photo above), start sewing down your waistband loop. I followed my earlier hem line to be accurate.

Go all the way around the skirt, but stop about an inch before your hem line. This should leave about a two-inch gap in the back. My pins below show the non-sewn part.

Cut your elastic to the right length - I think I aimed for an 18" waist, unstretched, and then added another inch for seam allowance, for a total of 19".

Attach a safety pin to both ends of your elastic. Feed one end through the gap you left in your skirt, pushing the safety pin to the left and your fabric to the right. Your elastic will travel through the skirt and start to gather the top. Once the end of your elastic (the part you aren't feeding) gets close to the waistband hole, pin it in place while keeping the rest of your elastic travelling through. This prevents your elastic end from getting lost in the waistband.

Once you feed it all the way through, your elastic will meet at your back seam. Overlap them about a half an inch (hence your extra inch when cutting).

Sew down this overlap with several lines - keep it secure!

Then push the elastic loop back into the waistband, and sew down the hole you left in your loop. And your skirt is complete! (Forgive the bad/varying lighting.)

Since your original width (40") was way bigger than your elastic (18"), the top gathers nicely .

I paired this skirt with an adorable cardigan I found at Old Navy.

Super easy skirt. I also made another one for little Mayra with brown and bold colors, with a ric rac hem at the bottom. I'll try to find some photos of that one. Since then, I've also made several smaller skirts, in 6 mos, 9 mos, and 12 mos sizes - some in flannel. Super cute, and fairly easy! I'll share those soon enough.

In other news, today is the Feast of St. Lucia! Happy Feastday and half-birthday to me!