Sheet Dresses

***Apologies in advance for the yucky photo quality; my phone didn't want to cooperate and my camera is off with my aunt taking photos of whales.***

I will be working at a local farmers market this weekend, and - in case you've never been to a farmers market - this means that I will be outside, in the heat. I love the South, I love the Summer, but I don't love being sweaty. Eww. 

I also am planning on sewing up a dress out of some linen fabric I bought a year ago. But I wanted to make a test dress first, so I used a thrift-store sheet, a dress I already owned, and a few hours out of the morning.

I laid my dress out on some newspaper and traced the rough shape around it.

Then I cut the pattern out.

I used the french-seam method and sewed the front and back together. Next I pleated the front and back so the neckline wouldn't be huge. Then I made binding from the leftover fabric and bound all of my raw edges.

It kinda looks like a maternity dress at this point. But that's alright, because the next thing I did was to whip out a matching belt!

At a later date I'll add waistband elastic, but for this weekend, the belt will be A-OK. 

Before I make the linen version, I'll be modifying the pattern by adding bust darts to the front, narrowing the sleeves, and taking out some of the excess fabric.

I took the time to document another dress I made a few weeks ago. I was testing out a pattern I bought - it was a failure. You can't tell from the photos, but this dress does.not.fit. It has inspired me, however, to just buckle down and create a basic pattern from my own measurements so that I don't have to keep dealing with ill-fitting patterns. It will make for less-stressful sewing.

I'll leave you with the happier images of "fluffy doggy", as he's been nicknamed:

♥ Sarah

Happy {After} Independence Day!

I had a fantastic Independence Day Weekend, and I hope you did too! 

I joined my family in visiting my grandparents in a little town in the middle of nowhere. It's perfect for doing my favorite Summer activities. 

We found a creek and went exploring. 

My grandmother was NOT happy about this next friend we made, possibly because he threw up a fish, bit my dad, and swam towards her legs. But I'm just guessing here.

(It's a young Northern Water Snake - not venomous, just mean-tempered)

And on the 4th we went exploring with my grandfather - we drove around back-roads for 3 hours, getting lost and getting found again and again until we were too tired to drive anymore.

We also stopped by the family well. My grandfather drank out of this well growing up, and his brother still uses the spring it's fed by - he just piped the water up the hill!

That evening we went to a concert-in-the-park and fireworks put on by the town.

I walked around the adjoining cemetery while waiting for the fireworks to start.

This little angel wanted to rock out as well.

It was a good show.

Our trip ended like it started, with one more day of running around in a (different) creek!

I pulled a drowning box turtle out of the water.

It was a wonderful, peaceful trip. 

Thank God for a Southern Small Town USA.

Wordless Wednesday

Urban Farming and a Giveaway Winner!

I ♥ things I can do by myself. I'm not a headstrong, independent first-born for nothing! And furthermore, I like unconventional things I can do myself. So when I met some new friends that lived in the middle of the suburbs and kept rabbits and bees (y'all, they had a beehive on their roof!), I was super excited. I got inspired by reading up on honey bees disappearing due to CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) and I spent a huge amount of time researching different types of beehives and methods of beekeeping. And I approached my poor parents with the seemingly innocent request to have "just one little beehive that I could keep next to the house." My parents, being the absolutely incredible homeschooling-DIYers that they are said ok. 

And so I built a Kenyan top-bar beehive.

And I ordered a pound of bees (approximately 12,000 bees) to be shipped through the mail. I made cool friends at the post office that day!

This is how they're shipped:

And I did all the things my new bee-friends advised me to do. And pretty soon I had a fully functioning beehive with 50,000+ honey bees sitting not one foot from my house!

They gathered a lot of different types of pollen. It was fascinating to watch them go in and out of the hive.

Now, things happened a year later that were beyond my control and my hive ended up creating lots of new hives and then my hive "died". It was sad, but I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to learn what I did. And it has seriously inspired me to look into what is being labeled the "Urban Farming" movement. 

It's so cool, y'all. 

Positive Detroit

People take their backyards and rooftops and apartment patios and instead of letting them sit empty and "wasting space", they flourish with colorful plants and incredible animals.

Brooklyn Grange

National Geographic Urban Farming

Backyard Farmer: Honey I Shrunk the Farm

I'm totally and completely ok with this movement. I fully intend on owning a small farm someday, and I'm an Agriculture Education major, so I may be a little biased though. My sister is still trying to convince my dad that chickens make great conversation pieces as they run around backyards. (He hasn't bought it, or the chickens, yet.) 

If you're a current urban farmer, what are some tips you could offer would-be farmers? 

If you're interested, what would be something you'd have to know before you started your own backyard farm? 

If you hate the idea, why?

GIVEAWAY WINNER:

I used the Random Number Generator to pick a comment number fair-and-square, and Tamara's comment was chosen! Tamara will be contacted and her lovely recycled clutch will be shipped to her ASAP.