So....where'd the month of July go? That's my question for you. It seems to have disappeared.

In a flurry of summer activities, I have made enjoying our summer my priority and this blog has suffered. For that, I apologize. To bring you up to speed on some goings-on in our lives, here is a smattering of randomness from our life. 

If you're wondering what's the deal with the sewing pattern above, I'll tell you.

Over the past year or so, my Grandma Barbara has been cleaning out her house and has found boxes of vintage sewing patterns that she no longer needs.  She is a seamstress, or was, once upon a time, and used to make most of my mom, her sister and her own clothing. In sifting through the boxes, which was no small task, I found some absolute jewels.  

I love vintage clothing. I love the simplicity of the lines, the clean cuts, the short skirts, the sheath dresses...there are so many great styles from when my Grandma was buying patterns. I chose to photograph a few of my favorites so you can see what I'm talking about. 

Are these dresses not awesome? Once my kitchen renovation is complete and I can use (heck, at this point it'd be great to simply lay EYES on) my dining room table, I'll haul out my sewing machine and attempt to create some outfits for Brooklyn. 

One thing I found interesting is that my Grandma and my Great-Grandma apparently ordered tons of patterns through magazines. They would come in these pastel colored envelopes from McCalls or something with the pattern enclosed inside. They're so neat!

Sorry this picture is side-ways...I took the picture with my iphone just to send it to my sister-in-law and didn't realize it would be sideways.

I find it hilarious that they put that little disclaimer on the pattern envelope:

"Adaptable for Chubbies"

Priceless.

I haven't looked lately, but I'm betting they no longer include that disclaimer. If anything, they probably go the other way..."Adaptable for Skinnies".

I certainly have a hard time finding things that fit my twiggy children.

These dresses just speak of another time. I look at the pictures and think, "Leave it to Beaver...Nick at Night television". I get this mental picture of cookie cutter neighborhoods with pristine lawns and children riding tricycles down the sidewalks while their mothers put dinner on the table. Idyllic, and probably unrealistic, but that's the image conjured up in my mind by these sweet dresses.

Fast forward a few decades, and here are my own sweet dudes - decked out in goggles and ski hats - their version of aviator gear. And their matching shirts. 

It is so fun watching these boys play together. 

They have a game they call "Buds". It's not really a game, per se, it's just their version of play, really.  They go around pretending to be worker men or business men or men doing manly things and they call each other Bud the whole time. 

"Hey Bud, wanna go drive this tractor with me?"

"Sure Bud, let me just grab my sword and worker boots."

Dorien looks up to August in a way that literally grabs my heart and squeezes it, taking the breath out of me. He adores him.  Thankfully, August is very patient and kind and a superlative big brother. He occasionally loses his patience, but for the most part, he is usually willing to play with Dorien.

Dorien will ask a question of August and then say, "Yeah, that's right, August! Uh-huh!"

August can do no wrong in his eyes.

Roaorr!!!!! 

Kyle took the kids to see the dinosaurs prowling around the Clinton Library.

The kids approved.

August and his "Smoopshie-Poo".

Much to Wyeth's aggravation, August loves to hug and kiss on his littlest brother. Wyeth would rather tackle August.

Can you see the sheer joy on this kid's face? 

Oh my goodness, Dad, this is where BIG PEOPLE SIT!!!!

Don't worry - no driving actually took place.

A sight to bring joy to any mom's heart - kids hard at work creating something together. No fighting. No bickering. Just concentration on making something lovely.

What they're actually working on is a huge activity sheet that came in a Tea Collection order that arrived. I buy lots of their clothes from Tea Collection, and they occasionally send interesting activity books or creative things. This huge sheet was all about India. The kids loved it.

Even Wyeth found a space and got to work.

This is our gym pool. For the first time, we have actually spent time here in the summer!

In previous summers, none of my kids had any swimming ability, so for me to take them to the pool was tantamount to a nervous breakdown (on my part).

Last summer, Brooklyn and August began to get the hang of swimming, and this year, it really all came together for them. They are officially fish.

Dorien, not so much. But, with a kickboard, he's pretty safe. So he toodles around on the shallower side of the rope while Brooklyn and August hang out in deeper waters.

Wyeth....now he's another matter. He LOVES the water, but just doesn't swim yet. 

He is fearless, and will go underwater and come up smiling - water streaming off his eyelashes and off his nose. For reasons that would bore you, the poor kid doesn't have any type of flotation device, other than the occasional kickboard he'll confiscate. Then he'll drape himself over it and kick all over the place.  He knows how to climb out on the side by himself, and I'm working on his floating on his back. I have been trying to schedule some Safety Before Skills classes while he's still teachable and fearless.

The day this picture was taken, I decided to do a late evening dip with the kids. We were pretty much the only people at the pool, and it was extremely relaxing. This was pre-100 degree weather, too. 

As you can see, Dorien loves the water - especially when his kickboard is handy.

Anytime we go to our Farm for an extended vacation, I like to use the time to work on sewing projects.Or other projects, but since I have a backlog of sewing projects, I really wanted to make headway on those.

One project was the Coastal Cargo pants - a pattern I purchased from Blank Slate Patterns.

You pay slightly less by purchasing a pdf pattern which you then print out, tape the pages together, cut out, pin to your fabric and go from there.

Slightly more labor intensive, with all the trimming of pages, but in this case, I really liked this pattern and it was all I had.The picture above was my inspiration, obviously. 

The pattern designer recommends a twill or light cotton. I went with a cotton twill, and would have loved to use a light blue like in her picture, but I couldn't find one. I went with basic khaki. 

After cutting out the pages, this is what it looks like all taped together. You match up the pages together using the little circles. It was pretty simple stuff.

I bought what I had intended to be enough fabric to make a pair for both August and Dorien. I actually bought a little less fabric than the pattern called for at the recommendation of the saleslady, and once I got all the fabric laid out and started putting the pieces together like a puzzle to make them all fit, I got really nervous. It took some tinkering, but I managed to fit all the pieces on with JUST enough fabric for a pair of pants for both. By the skin of my teeth!

Thankfully, the dining room table at the Farm is enormous and seats about 25. 

It makes a marvelous sewing station!

In my planning process pre-Farm trip, I forgot a few things. Like thread that matched my khaki fabric. 

I was kicking myself because the best I could come up with from my thread stash was an orange color that worked, but also showed any and every mistake I made. 

I wish that was the only thing I forgot, but it wasn't. I had intended to work on a couple of other sewing projects for Brooklyn, but also forgot thread for those. I think, on that particular day, after spending the time with all my four children at the sewing store (Stitching Post) picking out fabric and keeping them all in line and changing poopie diapers, trying to encourage my children not to loudly point out dead bugs they found on the floor in the corners...and generally feeling relieved that we hadn't knocked over every bolt of fabric, it didn't even occur to me I might need matching thread. 

You live and learn, people.

Live and learn.

Being the Type A, challenge-hungry girl I am, of course I jumped into a project that challenged the socks off me. Not in an "un-do-able" way, but in a way that I learned so many new things. I have made several items of clothing, but this was my first full-fledged pair of pants. It involved sewing on a zipper, zipper flaps, pockets, a waist band with elastic plus belt loops, making bias tape, making welt pockets, cargo pockets, a tab for buttoning up the pants, a bias tape trim....it was one new thing after another. 

The pattern gave you options. It clearly said, "if you want to, you can eliminate these....steps." 

I do love a good challenge, though. So, of course I opted for every optional feature. Bring it on!

It's a good thing I really love to sew. 

This turned out to be a great learning experience, and yes, a lot of fun.

Here's the finished product - minus a button on the front.

The reason for that is that I was supposed to sew on a buttonhole once the waistband was already complete. I ran into a problem, though. My sewing machine didn't have enough space to do the button hole because of the placement of the first belt tab. I just about drove myself crazy trying to make it work before conceding that it just plain would not. I picked out all the stitch attempts with my handy seam ripper, and ended up buying some tab closures that I sewed on when we got home. They work fine, although a button would have looked really good.

I made them long, so August can wear them for awhile.

The hardest part of the entire project was sewing the binding tape up around the interior seam of the legs. Basically, you sewed the legs together and then folded your bias tape around the jagged edges of the seams. Then pinned them closed. And very very slowly and very very carefully, you stitched the edge of the bias tape down so that it covered the jagged edge. You were supposed to start at the crotch, go down one leg, turn the corner and work back up that leg, across to the other leg, turn the corner and meet back up at the crotch. Because of the pins, it made going one way easy and the other way very challenging. Plus, your fabric gets bunched up all around the needle, so you're looking down into a tiny well of space where you are working and trying not to miss something. I thought I got it, until I finished and realized that there were some sections where the edges of the bias tape had been missed, so it frayed out a little. It definitely doesn't look the way it's supposed to. Fortunately, it's on the inner leg and less likely to be noticed.

Plus, using my orange thread, it looks really obvious when I had to backstitch to secure seams. I figure August will be wearing a shirt over the pants usually, so you won't really see all that.

I was very pleased with the welt pockets, and the way the contrasting fabric peeks through. 

I think it's fun to have the tab option to raise the pants. 

And here's how they look un-tabbed.  I was nervous about how sturdy these would really be, but August wore them to church one day and they held up really well! He likes them, and I'm really proud of them! 

Lots of things I will do better on when I work on Doriens', of course, but overall, I'm very pleased!

This was a sewing weekend! 

Using a Megan Nielsen pattern for a Shirred Maternity Shirt, I sewed up this little navy blue number.

The pattern could be made with sleeves, short or long, or not at all. Given the hot weather, I opted for not at all. This was also an incredibly easy shirt to sew. 

The view from the back...

The pattern also had some suggestions as to how the pattern might be altered. One suggestion was to turn the shirt into a dress by extending the hemline and tapering it slightly at the hem. I have never attempted anything like this, and it was a bit risky, given my totally amateur sewing skills, but it turned out pretty well, I think! Using my serger to sew the front and back pieces together speeds things up CONSIDERABLY! I used my regular sewing machine to do the gathering on the front and to hem the sleeves, neckline and hemline.

When I was cutting out the front and back pieces, I just extended it to the length of my knees and hoped for the best! (Don't you love the face I'm making? August is making a face back at me off-camera.)

I think there is plenty of room for additional belly growth, although it seems like I couldn't get any bigger if I tried! This also serves as a 27 week belly picture.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd been to our Farm and in my spare time, did a little sewing.

Using a pattern purchased from Blank Slate Patterns - the Beachy Boat Neck - I made some shirts for my kiddos.  For each of these shirts, I got the fabric from Girl Charlee, an online website that has fabulous knit choices.

The process begins with the above picture: fabric folded over and pattern pages pinned to the fabric.  With this type of pattern, I printed it myself from a pdf document and taped the pages together. It came with really good instructions, so this wasn't all that hard to do. 

And here is the finished product.

Proudly modeled by Brooklyn!

From the side...

And here was August's version of the Beachy Boatneck...

And a side shot.

And now I will take you step by step through my process, as it occurred, for making Dorien's shirt.

After pinning and cutting out the pattern pieces, I matched up the front and back pieces at the shoulder seams, wrong sides facing out and sewed along the shoulder pieces.

And here is the front and back facing pieces. Also matched up, right side to right side and sewn along the shoulder seams.

Then you pin the facing to the neckline, like so.

In this case, you turn the front and back right side facing up and then pin the facing (matching front up with front, etc) so it's laying right side down onto the right side of the front and back pieces. If it sounds confusing, it really wasn't.

Sew around the neckline.

Once your neckline has been sewn to the facing, you baste the side facing pieces to the arm pieces. This makes it easier to pin on your sleeves, so the facing isn't moving around while you're sewing.

Confession: I had never basted before. It was easier than I thought. Literally just a matter of hand-sewing some stitches down the side of the fabric to hold it in place. It will be pulled out later. 

So, here is the front and back with facing sewn on and the sleeves pinned in place. It really looks crazy.

And then carefully, I sewed the sleeve to the front and back pieces, making sure the facing piece was properly attached too.  The pattern instructions said it might be good to topstitch around the neckline, and they were right.  It definitely made it look cleaner and tighter.

Once the arms had been attached, the next step was literally to pin the sleeve seams and side seams together and sew it up! I used my serger for this part and it was a snap. 

As an FYI, my mom has a ginormous dining room table at the Farm and I took full advantage of this enormous table. I had my sewing machine set up side by side with my serger, and was able to use the other end for the pinning and "preparing" of the fabrics.

Sides all sewn up!

I'm still figuring out how to hem knits, so for the sake of simplicity, I literally just serged the bottom of the shirts. I am not able to set up a double needle on my sewing machine, and since I'm still figuring all this out, I just went with the low-tech approach. It looks fine on the shirt, since it's a slubby knit anyway. 

Last step: Put the shirt on the future wearer, measure the length of arm and hem and finish it up.

Since this shirt was for Dorien, I made the sleeves slightly shorter than Brooklyn's and August's. And I did hem the sleeves, using my regular sewing machine. 

Voila! 

Side shot. I love boatneck shirts and somehow, they seem even sweeter on little kids. 

Dorien's fabric is the softest knit and he looks so sweet in it!

I also got significantly faster with each shirt. I think Dorien's shirt (yes, it is also smaller) took me about an hour and a half to make. Brooklyn's shirt, being my first, probably took about 3-4 hours. 

Final products on my precious little children.

Another shot of my beloveds.

And after all that work, you definitely earn yourself a nap.