Month: November 2014

Shrug Pattern

It’s grown cold and my work dress is short sleeved.  What to do with my cold arms?  Make three more dresses in a long-sleeved pattern?  Possibly, if I had more money and more time.  Instead, I purchased a pattern for a shrug from Jalie Patterns.

This is the first pattern I’ve bought from this pattern company, which is Canadian and has a lot of active wear. I will likely buy more because I liked that the pattern paper was high quality and the shrug was easy to assemble.  Process photos coming soon.

U-Lock Bag


I keep my bike secure by using two U-locks, which I store in my bike basket.  Unfortunately, the metal U-locks combined with the metal bike basket produces a metallic rattle that takes away from the calm and silent nature of biking.  For years (YEARS!) I’ve dreamed of putting together a simple bag for my U-locks. 
Thanks to HabitRPG’s Seamstress Guild I have!  The challenge this month is to Make Something Simple. (a.k.a. the MSS Challenge). The thing I loved about this project is we had to make a Project Log, which could be something as simple as a piece of paper.  Then, you just write down daily what you did, even if the answer is nothing.  I found this to be tremendously motivating.  I don’t sew on weekdays (unless on vacation) because I don’t like having the sewing stuff on the dining room table all the time.  But by logging that on a Tuesday I “thought about bike bag” it seemed like I was working on my project all week long, which motivated me to drag out all the sewing stuff on the weekend.  Genius.
Here is my pattern.

I had some scrap dress material which I serged to finish the edges.  There are two layers here.

Pinning up the middle.

A visual of how the bag will hold the locks.

Locks in completed bag.

Tucked away.
Flap folded over.

And bag folded once more.

So it can nestle quite nicely in my bike basket.  And my ride is quiet once again.

Three sentence movie reviews: Boyhood.

At last I find a Richard Linklater film that Matt enjoys.*  I enjoyed this the second time around too, and was even more taken with Patricia Arquette’s performance this time around.  I also contemplated the fact that Richard Linklater grew up/is raising his children in eras with incredibly different attitudes toward drinking and drugs than my “Just Say No!” formative years.
Cost:  $4.00
Where watched:  Laurelhurst, with Matt.

*He will like Bernie, though.  He just has to watch it.

Roses and stamps

Look!  It’s November and we still have roses!  Hooray!

Also, thanks to the triple threat of finally hitting my saving goal, birthday party and vacation paid for, as well as birthday money means I can start Postcrossing again.  Eliminating the purchase of stamps was one of the ways I funded the vacation/party.  Now I can start sending postcards to strangers around the world. 
While I was there I bought stamps for holiday cards as well as some of Jimi Hendrix.

Various soothing devices.

At school this year we have more than the usual amount of screamers.  A couple of the kindergarteners throw temper tantrams the volume of which I have never seen before.  So here are some soothing devices.  In the front we have some beeswax in green and white. The special education teacher gives this to upset children, so they can distract themselves by playing with it.  In the back are two boats I folded while waiting for a child to stop screaming.  Office managers need soothing devices too.