Long Loved Thrifts: Floral Suitcase

Soooo, I haven't exactly met my goal of posting more this year than last. On the one hand I am completely, 100% okay with this. This blog was always intended to be a fun project and not a chore, so when it's moved down on the priority list I've been totally fine with that. Some life events have also happened this year to contribute to the blog-less-ness. First, I started working full time again, thus leaving less time to loaf around coffee shops with my laptop. Why yes, I am a cliche. Thank you for asking. Second, I've started a new job. Twice. That's right, I started a new job around March then ended up leaving that job to start a new one in August. So there's been lots of general exhaustedness going around as I cram new job knowledge into by brain and get adjusted to the new schedule. Also, the first job included working weekends. So yeah.

On the other hand, I want to get back into a routine of posting at least once per week. I loved the 52 Tuesdays project as a way to stay with that schedule, but ultimately decided to take a break from it this year rather than making it an indefinitely ongoing series. That said, I miss posting about my thrifted goods! Hence, a new idea!! This idea is a combination of wanting to post more about second-hand finds, share their stories, and also add another element.

How do I say this...I like things. I get attached to them and like them for a really long time. I've been this way for, idk, my whole rememberable life I guess. As a wee girly I was super attached to all of my stuffed animals. They had names and I was very concerned about their feelings. Since most were gifts, it started with becoming instantly attached to them after the unwrapping process. It was like I was really being introduced to someone, and beyond that I had just rescued them from their packaging. I also used to rotate my "favorite" stuffed animal so none of their feelings would get hurt by not being given as much attention as the others. This may or may not be a symptom of only child syndrome...

I'm happy to say that as an adult I no longer think inanimate objects have feelings (phew). But I still really like things and particularly enjoy being surrounded by objects with meaning. I guess that's called being sentimental. Also, my taste doesn't change that much. There are lots of things that I've liked for a long time.

So now that I've rambled on for four paragraphs, let me introduce the first of a new series I'm calling "Long Loved Thrifts". The criteria are pretty simple. The item must have been purchased way, way back and still be in regular use. That is, in regular use and still loved. First up, this:

I can't remember exactly when I purchase this suitcase. Must have been high school at least if not earlier. I remember distinctly that I got it at St. Joe's Thrift Shop, which was my favorite thrift store for many, many years. I remember snapping it up immediately without a moment's hesitation. I mean, it's so good. Over the years I've used it for storage and for actual traveling. It fits perfectly in an overhead bin or even under the seat in front of you (insert my smug look as I watch the other passengers cramming their obnoxiously large roller bags into the bin). It also fits a surprising amount of stuff. I love this little guy. I doubt I will even get rid of it.

p.s. No offense to roller bag users. Of which I am one.

Long Weekend at Glacier National Park

Did you know that Glacier National Park is only about nine hours away from Seattle? We didn't. In my mind, Montana was super far away. As in, too far away to consider driving with less than a week of time to spare. Oh how wrong! Kevin was the one with the idea for this trip, and after looking up the travel time we decided to go for it.

I recently started a new job, and had approximately one week off in between ending my previous job and starting the new one. So, Kevin decided to take a Friday off and we headed out of town for a short long weekend to Glacier National Park. True, it would be better to have more time, and some may think it's too long of a drive for such a short timeframe, but it's ideas like those that sometimes keep you from enjoying the time that you do have in favor of waiting for some more ideal future time that may or may not arrive. In other words, we didn't want to put it off just because it wasn't ideal.

We ended up taking off on Thursday night and drove from Seattle to Spokane, which is a bit better than half way. We got in pretty late, but it was worth it to get the extra head start. Before heading out, we went for breakfast at Frank's Diner, which was lovely. Funny story, though. I had a bit of a misunderstanding with the menu and ending up ordering what was essentially scrambled eggs with two sunny side eggs on top. Yup. Eggs on eggs. Ah well.

We drove the rest of the way to Glacier pretty leisurely and got to our first camp at Fish Creek Campground in the early afternoon. Camp was set up and extra groceries and firewood were procured. And some obligatory huckleberry ice cream (they seem to have huckleberry everything in those parts). Then the weather started to turn a bit and we got some rain. However, we were able to start a fire before it got too wet out and spent the night quite comfortably wrapped in a wool blanket enjoying the fire despite the light rain.

Saturday was our full day of exploring. Since we only had limited time, we decided to focus on driving Going-to-the-Sun Road and only doing a few short hikes along the way. The weather wasn't the greatest (a trend for the whole trip), so we didn't get the best views driving along the road. There was a lot of fog and a little drizzle, but we still got glimpses of views here and there as the clouds shifted.

 Once at the top, we did a short hike. Again, with intermittent views. I was pretty bummed that we didn't see any mountain goats - mostly due to fog - but we did get to see a marmot! It was just hanging out along the trail munching and not paying the slightest bit of attention to the passersby. I'd never seen one before and thought it was utterly adorable.

After the hike we drove the rest of Going-to-the-Sun Road, and were delighted to find that the other side of the pass was rain-free! We got some excellent both going down, and coming back through the second half of the road.


Saturday night we moved campsites to the larger Apgar camping area, once again were able to enjoy a fire (best part of camping!) and went to a ranger talk. We were so impressed with the ranger! She taught us all about the Whitepark Pine and it's symbiotic relationship with the Clark's Nutcracker. One super cool thing we learned about this particular bird is that once it harvest the pine nuts it hides them all around in little dug holes or caches. Then, it simply remembers were all it's caches are for later, and does a pretty good job of it too! In a world where we increasingly rely on technology rather than our good 'ole fashion memories I found this to be pretty cool.

Sunday was for packing up and heading out, as I started my new job on Monday morning and didn't want to cut it too close. The drive back was sunny and gorgeous, though, and the whole trip was worth the short amount of time we had. It was a good introduction to Glacier and we've now got lots of ideas for a next - hopefully longer - trip there.

Christmas Sweater Project - July Update

This post has been in draft status for waaaay too long. As usual, my knitting kept up behind the scenes while my posts did not. There will also be no August update since I didn't pick this baby up one bit in August. Another larger project came up (to be shared at some point) and this guy took the back burner. No worries, though, as I'm still on track to finish by December and am feeling confident that I will.

As predicted, I tore through the whole sleeve in July rather than splitting it up into July and August per the original timeline. This means the body and both sleeves were done on schedule and I was able to join and start working on the yoke in September.  I'm very much looking forward to knitting through the yolk with all the fun colorwork. Wish me luck!

• March - Knit 7" of body (half of 14")
• April - Finish last 7" of body to the armpits
• May - Make half of first sleeve
• June - Finish first sleeve
• July - Make half of second sleeve
• August - Finish second sleeve
• September - Join sleeves to body and start the yoke
• October - Finish the yoke
• November - Seaming, finishing, and blocking
• December - Wear it every friggin day

Hawaiian Shirt Redo

Personally, I am loving the Hawaiian print trend that has been exploding this spring and summer. Bold, obnoxious prints in bright colors? Yes, please. More of that.

I absolutely fell in love with this shirt from a store that Kevin and I like to browse, but really couldn't justify the cost for such a "trendy" purchase. Or justify the cost in general since it's way more than I spend on clothes, like, ever. So, as usual, I started to browse for nice flowy, Hawaiian print shirts in lovely colors on my regular thrift store circuit, preferably in an all natural fiber like cotton or silk. I wasn't having a ton of luck when it dawned on me that there is typically no shortage of such thinks in the men's shirt department. Obnoxious Hawaiian print shirts are practically a staple for any daddy-o (including my own if I do recall correctly). I had the idea to look for one in a particularly suitable print and do a little switch-a-roo. In no time at all I had found a peach of a silk shirt in an extra-large size with plenty of fabric to mess around with. I'm not a great seamstress, but it was a pretty small investment so I figured why not. Here's a before shot:

The general idea was to take the back of the shirt and turn it into the front, and then use the two front pieces to make up the new back. I wanted it to be sort of loose with a flattering neckline and sleeves. All in all I'm very happy with how it turned out, although I'll admit I bumbled through it a bit. Therefore, although I'm going to list my steps below, I'd advise thinking of this more as a general idea-generating guide and less of a tutorial. Alrighty, here goes.

I started out by roughly deconstructing it. I knew I wasn't going to be super tight on fabric, so I simply cut the side seams and arm seams rather than taking extra time with a seam ripper. I also cut off and discarded the back yoke section and the collar. I was then left with just the large back piece, right front, left front, and two sleeves. I left the bottom hems and sleeve hems intact so that they could still function as the hems. Less sewing for me = good.

Then I ironed everything and laid out the back piece. I took a good fitting shirt of the desired shape from my closet and laid it out on top, matching up the bottom hem. I carefully traced around it with a washable fabric marker on the wrong side leaving about a 1/2 inch seam allowance. At this point I just skipped the arm hole part and only traced the side seams and top shoulder seams.

Then I cut out the pattern based on my tracing lines. To make sure things were symmetrical I folded the shirt in half and evened out the side seams. Then I sort of eyeballed and freehanded the armhole opening while it was still folded in half, so that I did both armholes at once.


Next up was the neckline. I laid the guide-shirt out again and traced as best I could. Then, I cut out the using the traced line, folded in half, and symmetrified it just like the body. My next step was to use a seam allowance tool to measure one inch all the way around the neckline. This was so I could cut slits a little bit less than one inch all the way around for the curved hem. After the slits were cut (you can barely seem them in the picture), I ironed around the curve at the one inch mark then sewed a simple straight stitch for the hem.

With the front of the shirt basically complete, it was time to move onto the two back pieces. I started by removing the button band parts from both sides then laying them out over the new front piece. I lined things up so that the bottom hems were flush and so that there was enough fabric to totally cover the front piece.

Then, I cut around the sides to match the front and was then left with these two pieces. At this point the bottom edges were finished, and the cuts were made for the outside seams and arm holes.

Next I had to figure out how to make the two pieces symmetrical with a seam right down the middle of the back, while still keeping the whole thing the same size as the front piece. So, I laid out the front piece with the two backs on top of it flush to the sides and bottom. Then, I measured the half way point and added one inch on each side for a wide seam allowance. Then I traced that one-inch-on-each-side-of-middle line directly onto the fabric, unstacked everything, and cut along that line. To finish, I sewed up the middle line and had my two back pieces into one. The final step was to cut the neck hem by sort of free-handing the curve to be about an inch and a half higher than the front.

For the sleeves, I again wanted to use the existing hem for the end of the sleeve. So, I basically took the detached sleeve tube and laid it out under my guide shirt sleeve to get an idea of how long it should be and marked that approximate spot. Then I laid the sleeve tube out under the new shirt by the sleeve hole so that the armpit matched up with the place I had marked. Next I used the rotary cutter to freehand a curve the would fit into the sleeve opening.

I had thought the sleeve might need a little adjustment to fit together perfectly, but it turned out great the first time. I fit the sleeve into the sleeve pocket right-sides-facing and pinned all along the opening. Then it was a quick run through the sewing machine to attach the sleeve and I was done!

I did make a really stupid mistake when cutting the sleeves that I couldn't undo. When I cut them, I put the original underarm seam up towards the shoulder, rather than at the underarm. So, the sleeve seams sits on my shoulder rather than under the arm. I was pretty bummed with I realized my mistake, but in the end it gave the sleeves a sort of dolmon-esque quality and looks pretty good.

 Here's the final product!