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Shannon from luv in the mommyhood asked if I’d like to sew up a version of her new pattern, the Sally Dress. How could I say no? It’s a simple dress with no closures, super big pockets, and three variations of sleeve length (zero, short, and elbow). The perfect staple dress, really.

But what fabric to use? I knew I wanted something for winter. I wandered around the fabric shop trying to find the right material: twill was too stiff, flannel was too clingy, suiting was nice, but too expensive. I kept coming back to the corduroy, but my mom jammed me into so many awful corduroy jumpers when I was a kid (sorry, mom) that I just couldn’t do it.

So I  left the shop empty handed. I was all set to make a polka dot version out of some homespun fabric I had on hand. When I spotted this huge, raspberry purple, wool skirt in my stash. I picked it up for pennies at the thrift store ages ago. The plan was to make it into a smaller skirt for me, but there was just enough to eek out a Sally Dress from it!

The only thing left from that skirt is the waistband. I used every little bit of fabric that I could!

When I was just about done, there was a brief moment of panic when the lighting made the dress look like a bad waitress uniform (specifically, a Perkins uniform–if you live in the states). When I brought it out of the depths of my basement studio, thankfully, it was a lovely little raspberry jumper again.

If you make the sleeveless version, there is only 1 page of the pattern to print out. One Page! You get to skip all the pdf pattern puzzling, but there is some mental origami that goes into making that bodice. Don’t worry, Shannon holds your hand the whole way. And in the end you have a beautifully lined bodice!

It seemed a shame to waste the (already hemmed, perfectly matched) skirt lining, so I lined the skirt part of the dress as well. Now it swishes and twirls with the best of them!

But sadly, there wasn’t enough fabric to make the awesome pockets on the Sally Dress. I used the last little scraps to make some in seam pockets, but it’s not the same.  Still, it’s a great little jumper.

How would you like to win a copy of the Sally Dress pattern? I knew you would.

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The winner is #19, Erin! Congratulations!

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To enter the giveaway:

* Leave a comment about what fabric you would use for the Sally Dress.

For additional entries:

* follow elsiemarley on Bloglovin, Feedly, or by email. Then leave a comment telling me you did (or already do).

* like elsiemarley on Facebook. Then leave a comment telling me you did (or already do).

* like luvinthemommyhood on Facebook. Then, that’s right,  leave a comment telling me you did (or already do).

Giveaway ends Friday October 4 at 9pm (central time). Good Luck!

Don’t forget to follow along with the rest of the Sally Dress pattern tour to see all the different versions of this lovely dress!

* Shannon kindly gave me a copy of the sally dress pattern in exchange for this post. My opinions are, as always, my own.

I have been on a bit of a crocheting kick recently. After all the sewing for kcwc I got rather sick of looking at my sewing machine. And I got sick of certain little people poo-pooing things I made for them. So I went to the yarn store and bought some beautiful, soft, and squishy yarn to make something just for me.

I’m not usually a fan of things trying desperately to be something they are not–think tofu dogs. Crochet is not knitting, even though they both use yarn. Crochet is its own art and has its own strengths that I try to showcase. But I wanted so badly to make the bandana cowl pattern by Purl Bee.  Looking at it was painful, because it is so perfect, but I can’t knit to save my life.

Thankfully someone made an equally awesome crochet bandana cowl–no tofu dogs in sight. The cowl is the same shape as the knitted version, but I think the stitches were chosen by someone who loves crochet and knows how to show of its strengths.  It worked up super fast in the gorgeous wool/silk blend yarn I bought. All the cowl details are on ravelry if you are interested.

ooo! looks like there’s a little crochet on crochet action going on in this last picture.

Today I am super excited to introduce you to Mary Jo of Five Green Acres. I am lucky enough to know Mary Jo in blog life and real life. She is a whirlwind of creative energy! When she walks in a room you cannot help but be swept up in her projects and plans and insatiable curiosity about all things crafty.

This is wool. First Harvest: Backyard from Mary Jo, FiveGreenAcres on Vimeo.

Years ago, Mary Jo had an idea that started with carting home sheep in the back of her minivan. Since that day, she has thrown herself into raising sheep, grazing sheep, birthing sheep, and shearing sheep. If that weren’t enough, she then went on to clean the wool, card the wool, dye the wool, and spin the wool. And now yarn! gorgeous, squishy, soft, subtly colored yarn! Please watch this lovely video to see the birth of  beautiful yarn, named appropriately First Harvest.

Because we live so close, Mary Jo delivered a skein in that same minivan! Then my work began. I needed to find a project that was worthy of the yarn. A skein of First Harvest yields a precious 100 yards.  I asked her how she determined the weight and length of each skein:

When I set about spinning up the dyed fiber, I knew I wanted to make a yarn that could be knit up fairly quickly – something that was at least worsted weight or heavier.  The downside of this is that I can only fit so much on my spinning wheel’s bobbin before it becomes too full, limiting the length of each skein to about 100 yards.

Another thing about designing yarn – determining the gauge can be something of a guessing game.  It all depends on the size of needle (or hook) used, right?  I had determined that First Harvest was about a worsted weight, comparing it to other yarn I had in my stash, but now that I’ve added the yarn to the Ravelry database, I see that by their standards First Harvest is a Bulky weight.  Ravelry gets the final say, I suppose, so I’m changing my tune – Bulky it is.  The semantics of weight don’t matter as much in the actual working up of a project, as long as you do a gauge swatch, which we all do, every time, right?  Hee.

I of course did not swatch, so I crocheted and ripped and crocheted and ripped and crocheted and ripped. I couldn’t find a pattern that was special enough for the yarn and used just the right amount of yarn. Finally I gave up the never ending Ravlery pattern search and made up my own pattern (first harvest cowl pattern here).

 

I came up with a pebble-y stitch that shows off the yarn beautifully. Mary Jo created this gorgeous gray/brown color with sumac berries of all things. She named it Portobello, which describes it perfectly: mushroomy, earthy, soft and loamy. Of course I’m not perfectly pastoral, so I added a stripe of shocking blue for the city side of things.

Visit Mary Jo’s blog, Five Green Acres (and shop, This is Wool) to see more of First Harvest and hear stories of her yarn from sheep to skein.

These are the pants with the silly bunting tag I showed you last week. And look! they aren’t on backwards! The pattern is from Happy Homemade vol. 2 and it is by far my favorite pants pattern.  I’ve used it to make these pj pants, these crazy pants, these linen pants, and the exact same corduroy pants in gray (plus a few more I never blogged about). And now these blue beauties. The corduroy is a navy wide wale from joanns and it is so soft.

I found this beautiful brown wool at the thrift store and knew I could use the same pattern for some good, old man pants.Do you think I am addicted to this pattern? I am. I lined the pants with flannel using Dana’s tutorial, except my waistband was separate, so I had to fake my way through that. The pockets are pretty much like Dana’s too only more rounded and I pressed the top bit so the lining would show–sort of like faux piping.

The fake fly (faux fly?)  is one of my favorite things about the pattern and I gussied it up with two lines of topstitching. I also did flat felled seams along the crotch and down the sides, which you can kind of see in the picture below.  I put the pockets up way too high, so now my little boy has old man pants with a big, old man butt.

And just so you don’t think all my garment are perfect (trust me, they are far from it) here is a shot of the inside waistband. That’ll be yur Hot Mess. Part of KCWC is screwing up and soldiering on!

These people sewed on and look what amazing things they made! From the flickr pool today:

1. checked shirt
2. recycled hopscotch shirt
3. rust corduroy pants
4. denim jumper with ribbon embellishment 

happy day three of kcwc!

-a wooden serving tray with a lovely yellow cottage on it. My daughter said, “Is that where Laura [of Little House in the Prarie] lives?”

-a fantastic wool blanket. I got this a while back, but hey! it’s 50 degrees, so we’re still using it! I’m not complaining–this is my kind of summer. Awesome things to do everywhere, but none of that hot ass weather that goes a long with it.

-a ridiculously analog computer. It’s hilarious, how could I pass it up?

-and this bad boy came off the curb. A metal basket for who know what, but it fits our books perfectly. And it’s awesome.

Get anything good from the thrift store recently?