A little pocket tutorial

 I've used this side seam pocket on a lot of my clothes in the past and everytime I do I have to rethink how I did it before. Well, this post will be my reference in the future.

Step 1. Cut the curve for the pocket about 7 inches below the armscye. This time I made a little template to keep the shape the same on both sides.

Step 2. I used a pocket pattern from some previous pattern and it works for everything so I keep it pinned to my design wall. It's about 9-10 inches long on the straight side and about 6" wide on the curve. Cut two, one for each side, and serge the curved edge.

 Step 3. Make some bias strips, 1 3/4 inches wide. I  used cotton duck for this dress and since it is a bit heavier I thought I would 'face' the pocket with the bias as a single layer instead of doubled as the white bias is above. (That bias is for the neckline and armholes)

 Step 4. Sew the bias on the front side of the pocket opening, using a 1/4" seam. 

 Step 5. Fold over the seam allowance, press and stitch from the wrong side about 1/2 inch from the edge.

This is how it looks on the front. Trim the excess even with the side edge of the dress.

 Step 6. Place the single layer pocket over the curved pocket opening. lining it up with the side seams. Pin in place and stitch from the wrong side around the curved edge. 

 Voila! it is done. The raw edge of the pocket will be the serged into the side seam.  

Here is the finished side seam, with the scissors inserted to show the finished pocket. I prefer this style of pocket, because it lies flat, no protruding bulge, is fast to do and easy, if you can remember how to do it. With lighter weight fabrics I would double the binding and sew it to the wrong side of the fabric, fold it over and topstitch it from the front . 

Here's the pattern I kinda used. I eliminated the sleeves, added a bust dart at the arm opening, lowered the neckline, lengthened it quite a bit, added side seam pockets and devised the underbust seam because I was using two leftover fabrics. In the final dress,/jumper/pinafore, I added a casing in the back for narrow elastic. 

 

Two more examples of the side seam pockets. On the left is another iteration of the same devised pattern, only this one has a pleat down the front and back. 

And the pants...can't find the original pattern, but of course it got adjusted a zillion times, so nevermind. 

Trying to be patient

It's been a waiting game here these past two weeks. I have my other house on the market and while I have had two offers, both have fallen through. And the comments from multiple buyers has been that the floors are squishy. What that means is that they are uneven and need to be fixed. It may be due to the flood, or just age, as the house is 65 years old. My realtor and I agree that this must be remedied, to the tune of $9000.00 Gulp, I hate to have to put more into this house but needs must. 

Second, in my current house (THE last house) the grass has been planted and it is up and looking so green, which only makes it more enticing to think about gardening. 

To that end I have potted up about 75 hostas and caladiums.

I also have received my order of three Southern Comfort Heuchera, which are in the bottom corner of that photo.

And my barrel planters are coming along great. There are buds already on the day lilies and I recently bought some bare root pink bleeding hearts and they are all up and looking enthusiastic. Unfortunately I have squirrels and today my window boxes got dug into and I'm fit to be tied. I was planning to transplant my lettuce seedlings into them, but now I am not so certain. I'll wait and put them into the proposed new garden bed that I hope to get built by my faithful brother in law John, in the coming week.

My wheelbarrow has a flat tire and my garden fork handle has separated from the fork part so I am prevented from doing any digging myself. My knees are grateful for the reprieve. 

The three dogwoods are in full bloom and I am so thrilled to have have them. Two white and one pink. 

And the Bloodgood Japanese Maple is perky and a long with the dogwoods it's ready to find its home somewhere in my yard. 

In meantime, I have been sewing some clothes. And converting some thrift shop items to fit me better. I love being in my sewing room and using some of the fabrics that have been stashed.

I devised a pattern from a pullover blouse and made a 'pinafore' top. I am using that name because nothing else seems to work. It covers the necessary parts and can be used as a shop coat, sorta. Taking a selfie is difficult and even worse when I see my resting face in the picture. What a grumpy look I have.  Anyway, I am showing the side seam pockets in that selfie.

And then I made a second pinafore out of Japanese panels that I got from my former business partner Laura Wasilowski. about 22 years ago. Seriously. 

They are real batik and my hands turned blue from the dye as I sewed this item.  It will have to be washed separately for sure. Once again I am showing the side seam pocket here, which is difficult to see, for all the patterning. I must have pockets in everything and these are so much easier and faster than even patch pockets. Bias binding is my new friend.

Brother 1034DX Serger

And now for something completely different....

I shop at my local Walmart a lot. Like five out of seven days I have to pick up something I need, and since it is just down the street from me,  it is mostly out of convenience. However, when I buy something that isn't right, or I changed my mind, or for any reason at all, I know I can return it and get a refund with my receipt, which of course I always keep.

Recently in their miniscule fabric department, I notice the Brother sewing machines they have for sale on the shelf, give a smirk, and walk right by. But I have wondered if their serger is any good. Or, how can it be, at that price? 

 I was visiting my sister yesterday and we were trying to get her Babylock serger that she found on Ebay,  to run nicely, with no success.  Now I am not a mechanic, but I have had a bit of serger experience and can usually rethread and adjust the tension and get good results. So when I couldn't, I brought up the idea of maybe getting her the Walmart serger, and if it didn't work, then I would just return it, and mystery solved. 

This is where I would post pictures, but the website won't let me, so the link to everything is here:

I bought the serger and brought it home and carefully unpacked it, and did a test run. It came pre-threaded with four different colored threads.  I admit I was pretty excited and didn't look first at the threads that had been jostled in shipping and two had slipped into one slot, so when I sewed a sample the thread broke and I immediately assumed LEMON! But then I saw my mistake, rethreaded the machine correctly and ran another test sample. Perfection! I kid you not. My heart was pounding! This is amazing. 

The price I paid was only $252.00, and now as you look at the link you will see that since yesterday, it went down to $235.00. Wha??? 

Hrumph. 

Anyway. I packed it up and brought it over to my sister's house and set it up there, changing out the four little spools of colored threads for big spools of white serger thread and rethreaded the thing from scratch to see how difficult it would be if everything came undone. Not bad at all. Seriously. That is always the stumbling block with sergers, but the pictures on the interior show exactly where and how everything goes, and it works just fine. Not noisy, plenty of accessories and even a thread catcher tray which my $$$$ serger doesn't have. 

Lots of folks have sewing machines and want to sew clothes, (or home decor items) but have to finish the seam edges so the fabric doesn't ravel, and that is off-putting. With a serger, sewing the seam and finishing the edges is a one step deal. But sergers have been so expensive for so long or difficult to operate, that sewers convince themselves that they don't really need or want one. Now that is no longer the case. 

I am telling you all this, because it solves a lot of problems and makes sewing a truly enjoyable experience. 80% of my wardrobe was made using my serger, and it was a pleasure to construct the shirts, pants and dresses that I wash and wear with confidence. 

  

 

Just thought I would let you know. 

Spring Insanity

 Every Spring I ask myself why didn't I buy a truck instead of a car?  At least I did buy a hatchback which helps me get smaller loads home, on my own. For bigger stuff I have to rely on my brother-in-law, the famous John. 

I've gone back and forth on what to do about foundation plantings, and decided on these pots, as the easiest for me to do on my own, being that I am officially an old lady. 

I do have a plan, but this is step three, and I have yet to do steps 1 and 2. Those would be 1. digging out the earth where the pots will sit, 2. cover that spot with weed barrier and mulch and then 3. finally placing the pots on that mulch. 

I don't have the mulch yet, but the bottom third of the pots will also be filled with mulch before I fill the rest with potting mix. Lowe's and Walmart have mulch for $2.50 for a 2cu. bag. I will need LOTS. 

What goes in these pots? Hmm, definetly shade plants, like hosta, heuchera, ferns, astilbe, begonias, impatiens, and coleus. This photo above was taken at 1:30pm, and the pots are in total shade. 

 I moved my flower pots to the deck so my landscape guys could level and seed the yard. It's great seeing the perennials return. Mostly. 

I admit I didn't keep up with watering last summer but the daylilies, a couple of daisies, some coneflowers and some salvia managed to survive in most of the pots. I have already added some bleeding heart roots and a few corms of purple oxalis. Then I went on a quest to find a pink dogwood with buds on it. I came home with a white one with buds and a red one with buds, but no pink one. .

 Then today I went looking again. I ended up going to Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia where I finally found a bud filled pink dogwood and two Japanese Maples, all of these are from Walmart. The prices were so much better than at Lowe's, and their small size made it easy to get them into my car. These two trees were labled Bloodgood, one of which is obviously not. It's green, for heaven's sake and even the trunk is green compared to the darker reddish brown of the real Bloodgood. I don't care what it is, I love it.

With any luck it might be a Coral Bark Maple which is my fave. Even if it isn't, it has beautiful leaves.

 I started a bunch of lettuce, from a variety seed pack, so I have no idea what is growing here, but there are 25 sprouts and that is way more than any one person needs. However, they are pretty when they become mature and I can add them to my flower beds as filler and then give them away later.

 Now I am getting ridiculous, but this is a shot of a purple oxalis emerging, and I am pretty sure you won't be able to see it, even if you look hard. But I know it's there and it makes me so happy. I dug up a bunch of corms from my previous house and I have planted them in the first porch railing box. This is a nursery box and as they emerge I will be transplanting them everywhere. 

And in the house I am rooting lysimachia (Creeping Jenny) and plan to use them as spillers in the front yard pots.

OK, that's enough for today. It is raining off and on and of course that is so good for the grass seed and all the other living things yet to come.

Landscaping

 This is the before picture, or the 'after the grass was removed' picture and before the top soil was added, with grass seed and straw at the end.  O nevermind. This is the middle of the work picture. Notice the white something in the dirt next to the walkway. This is a large tree root, which cannot be removed, but will not be an issue since I plan to built a raised flower bed over this area.

 Here we are at the end of the day with the Bobcat still here, sitting on the future widened driveway. I plan on having that area paved, since so often off-street parking is needed.  In this picture there is a space without straw for that future raised flower bed, which is exciting to me. 

 The view from the street. I am trying to imagine all of this as green grass, which by the way will be fescue, not Bermuda grass, my nemesis.  The entire back yard has also been leveled, seeded and straw covered. A buried concrete foundation for some previous outbuilding was discovered and broken up and removed.

 This area here, adjacent to the porch, is always shady, so I am happily planning a large Hosta bed, my fave. 

And since the old house was listed on Wednesday, by Friday, we got our first offer, which is good. We are countering, but it looks like I will soon be back to owning just one house. Yay!