Monday, August 10, 2015

Linen napkins

I've been going through my stash for fabrics.  JoAnns is way over by the mall, and I haven't had the time alone to spend looking online for fabrics, but I do have a fabric stash.  I pulled this linen out and played around with the yardage for quite awhile.  From skirts, to dresses, to shorts, to some sort of a jacket, but I just wasn't happy.  The linen seemed to stretch a bit when hung on a dress dummy, the weave felt a bit coarse..
 so I opted for napkins.  I did want some linen napkins though.  I made daily napkins, cocktail napkins and hor dourve napkins.  I picked these sizes because they fit the amount of fabric that I had.
 The cocktail napkins.  I made a pattern measuring 7 by 7 inches.  This included a 1/2 inch hem all around.  The finished napkins were 6 by 6 inches.  This fit the scraps that I had left over from the daily napkins.  These are great for icy drinks on a glass top table.
 The daily napkins are a great everyday size.  I made a pattern again measuring 21 by 21 inches with a 1/2 hem allowance.  The finished napkins are 20 by 20 inches.  I have been able to successfully spot treat these and get the stains out from spaghetti sauce.
 The hor dourves size again was based on what was left over and what size napkin I could get from that size.  The Internet told me a hor dourve napkin was 12 by 12 finished, but I had to go down  an inch.  The pattern I created was 12 by 12, and the finished size is 11 by 11 inches with 1/2 inch seam allowance all around.
These last few were a shortened hor dourve, for lunches or what not.  So far I've been extremely happy with these napkins.  They are beautiful to see in the drawer, and the kids seem to really like using them.

I'm taking a brief (hopefully) break from sewing.  The ironing board I brought down from the attic is broken.  A plastic piece that holds the ironing board up is broken.  Since I had to recently buy a new refrigerator, I've decided to sand the rusty part of the old one and repaint it with a metal paint.  My husband is trying to get the fence protected, but we are having a heat wave and the painting is going slowly.  He's got the rusty part sanded, but I wanted to use a much stronger white paint (he had green, black and white in the garage)  and he needs a paint filter to breathe through for that paint.  I plan to paint the whole thing all the way white at a later date.  

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Swimwear and a car update

 The pattern above is from Kwik Sew 3567, which is a sport top.  I made mine in swimwear fabric and 3/4 sleeves.  I want this to go over my one piece tank and my one piece racer back, also from a Kwik Sew pattern.  I can get in and out of the pool and not get cold, stay protected from the sun, and not offend neighbors or children.

 These bottoms were made from Kwik Sew 3239 in the same swimwear fabric.  My butt can get a little big, being a pear shape, and I also wanted some extra modesty butt coverings at times.  I wear these over my tank like a pair of swim shorts if I feel the need too.  Besides the 2 KS tanks, the sport top and the swim bottoms, I also have a bottom tie skirt from KS 3330.
 I forget to reorder my pictures.  I'm showing the inside construction of the sport top.  I used a sew and finish technique on my sewing machine.
My toes, and my Arizona Birkenstocks.

And, now a car update.  When we purchased our car, we bought it through a Honda dealer.  That dealer sold his dealership to a big multi used car dealership that has authorized Honda repair people.  After the last recall episode, I wanted to move away from that dealer and get fresh eyes on my situation.  Another recall notice came in and we moved up the road to a well thought of Honda only dealership.  The recall was sent out from Honda just to make sure everyone was sure to get their parts replaced.  This new guy took us over and sat into our car and explained to us that Honda did indeed replace the horn piece with the airbag attached because the other airbag was defective. * We thought this was the case, but the old multi car dealership was very confused and kept changing his story.
The next recall was for a gas cylinder.  So our car is perfect and if there is anything else he can do for us, let him know.  It felt like it was the first time we purchased our car.

I'm finishing up another project.  We think we may be losing our fridge.  Retire early and every major appliance goes.  In early retirement, there is no income, but that division of the company is closing forever.  We are also brushing off old sealer from our fence and putting on new sealer.  I'll try and remember to get a picture.  The brushed off fence looks great though.