Day at the Ventura County Fair

Today I took my girls to the Ventura County Fair to see how our entries did. If you remember one of my earlier entries Lily made a quilt to enter. Today was dollar day so it seemed like half the world was there. We were lucky to nab a free parking spot about a 5 minute walk from the fair.One of the things that really struck me today were all the really vibrant and saturated colors everywhere.

A colorful ride
The required clown. My baby didn't seem to mind him although I was terrified of clowns as a child!
A colorful display of fishbowls. Luckily Lily didn't win one. She already has a Beta fish.
4-H girls waiting to see how their guinea pigs did during the judging. Aren't they spiffy?
The girls up on the swing.
Lily with her quilt that won first place, YAY !!!
Above and below my sibling dresses which got third place.

The cupcake dress won second place

sew country chick: Rolling trolley flea market cart liner tutorial

sew country chick: Rolling trolley flea market cart liner tutorial: "O.K. so I have to admit I spent another Saturday night at my sewing machine. I was planning on going to the Rose Bowl Flea Market on Sunday ..."

Rolling trolley flea market cart liner tutorial

1. O.K. so I have to admit I spent another Saturday night at my sewing machine. I was planning on going to the Rose Bowl Flea Market on Sunday morning and I always see this stand there that sells liners for carts like mine. I believe they are about 25$ each and the fabrics are kind of boring . I always say to myself," I can just make one of those things, I'd rather save the money." I inevitably ending up buying something small and it gets all banged up against the wire in my cart. Making a liner is pretty simple.
2. Measure the 4 sides of the cart and add a half inch to each side. Measure the floor of the cart and add 1/2 inch seam allowance too. You will have 5 pieces to cut from your main fabric, I chose an old western themed fabric I have had lying around since my 16 year old was little. I was going to do his room in a cowboy theme with it but decided it was too feminine.
3. Cut the same size pieces out of another fabric for the lining. I used an old sheet I don't use anymore.
4. Sew up the two cart linings separately.
5. Cut 8 long pieces for straps about 20 inches by 4 inches.
6. You will iron each strap piece in half right sides facing together. Stitch up along the edge of the long piece of the tie .
7. Use a safety pin to turn them right side out then turn the raw edges in and stitch across them.
8. Fold the straps in half and place them along the upper edge of one of the sacks facing down on the right side of the fabric.Place the folded edge along the upper edge of the lining. The folded strap will look like two when you are finished.
9. Now place your lining inside the outer liner right sides together. Stitch along the top edge leaving about a 5 inch space open so you can flip it right side out
10. Turn it right side out and iron the little 5 inch space shut and stitch it closed!

Pattern review Burda 7828 Wrap dress

I wanted to make a simple wrap dress with a top I could adjust for nursing my baby. It's so hard to find dresses one can wear while one is nursing . I love to wear dresses and this design actually is not a true wrap dress, but unties and partially opens at the bust area. If you reinforce the neckline with elastic you can pull it down for nursing without pulling the v neck out of shape. The dress below is a size 10 and I slashed the pattern at the bustline to accommodate my larger than normal nursing bustline, ahem! Needless to say it looks a lot better on my dress form than me. My dressform hasn't had four babies.

Things I would change about this pattern:

1. I would definitely not attach interfacing to the ties at the bustline. The interfacing made the ties way too stiff and as you can see, they don't drape very nicely

2. Ignore the measurements on the pattern envelope. This pattern runs about a size too big. There is nothing more annoying than cutting out an entire pattern based on your true measurements and the pattern specifications and then stitching up the pattern to find that it is huge.

In short, this is a great little summer dress and a very easy pattern to follow.

Find of the Week 1965 Monark bike

Vintage 1965 Monark

I was at the Goodwill the other day for their monthly 50 per cent off sale to stock up on old wool sweaters that I intend to refashion and sell on Etsy when I found this cute bike sitting there. It was only 10 dollars so of course I bought it. I already have two bikes, a mountain bike from ten years ago when I was doing my outdoor chick thing and a beach cruiser I used to use all the time when we lived near the beach. Even if I couldn't use this bike, I have three daughters at home and one of them would be bound to love this "antique".

When I got it home and started cleaning it I noticed the original bike license from the " City of Torrance 1965 expiring 1968". How cool is that? Oh and the bike is also made in England.

Upon trying to find a suitable parking space in my shed , I started pulling things out and organizing and cleaning which led to a massive three day clean up which had me loading my pickup truck for three trips to the dump, cleaning several pieces of old furniture which I listed on Craigslist, and taking a truckload of things back to the same Goodwill where I originally bought my bike

 There was a community event going on at the dump for residents to take their big trash items for ten dollars a truckload. Upon pulling into the dump there were so many giant piles, some with perfectly good looking pieces of furniture and bikes and toys on them it got me thinking about how much we waste and consume in this country. Even poor people here have too much stuff.

I asked one of the volunteers where everything goes and fortunately some of it is recycled but a lot of it just gets dumped in the landfill sadly. It's like our whole country has just woken up with a big hangover from all the overspending which occurred before this recession started. Hopefully we will all be wiser about consuming so freely in the future. Needless to say I didn't get any sewing done this weekend but now I'm leaner and meaner and ready to roll!

Easy quilt for kids to make

Lily wanted to make a project to enter into the Ventura County Fair so I trolled around the internet to some of my favorite sewing sites and I found a tutorial for an easy picnic quilt with rock pockets on the back at sew mama sew.

1. Above are the fabrics we chose . I wasn't that crazy about them for making clothing so they had been sitting around . I have never made a quilt before so this was a learning experience for me as well. I cut out all the fabrics for Lily's quilt. Lily really balked at the thought of cutting out so many squares, 16 in all.
Future Crafter
2. Sewing the squares together
3. Rock pockets sewn onto the back.
4. Hand tying the quilt together
5. The finished product.

6.We'll see how it goes at the County Fair next week!

vintage find:french enamel ware and messy kids

I just wanted to share a little shelf from my kitchen I'm really proud of. It's up high so no one can get to it. With 4 kids at home all summer, not to mention their friends who are over all the time it's really hard to keep the house as I would like it. Actually it's impossible! My 7 year old and her best friend are rollerblading on the living room floor while conducting a tea party with lots of gooey honey on my dining room table and my one year old is shredding up a stick of string cheese and smashing it into the floor next to me while my 16 year old son is making fried eggs and leaving the shells all over the stove as I write this. Oh, and now he just ran out to play some tennis while leaving his dishes all over the place. No they're not brats, they are actually pretty nice. It's like they are just really unaware of their surroundings. They just don't notice the messes they make until I point them out to them. I wish I didn't notice either. So please don't think me self indulgent for posting this small vignette above of how I would like to envision my home.

I have actually been collecting French tinware for the last ten years. I bought the canister set in Isle Sur La Sorgue France 7 years ago before the almighty dollar tanked. I got the whole set for about 30 dollars which would be unheard of now. I also have a matching match container shown below. It 's probably from the 1930's or 40's. The Defense De Fumer Sign is an old no smoking sign I bought on my last trip in Paris and so is the Metaspirine sign which is from the 50's. The 1 bis sign is an old address sign I got for 2 euros.