Merino YOU! (And the winner is.....)

First, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you.  Thank you to all of you that entered this, my first Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway.  Participating in the giveaway and making new connections with all of you has been an amazing experience.  Thank you all for your comments and thank you for following the Seedling blog or for "liking" Seedling Clothing on Facebook.   Your support and interest are absolutely invaluable to me!

At exactly 4 pm New Zealand time, I used the random.org (by the way, such a cool site) random number generator, which produced the number 84.    I counted backward three times (a task that feels particularly difficult at this moment -- I think the ol' mama brain needs more frequent workouts....) and came up with the winner:  Vintage Queen Nina of Mannheim, Germany!!  Congratulations, Nina!  I'm so excited to package up your scarf and send it off across the world.  If you could email your details to seedlingclothing@gmail.com, I would be much obliged!  I'll send your parcel first thing Monday morning.

Again, thank you, everyone for entering my first giveaway.  To celebrate all of you and for reaching the milestone of 100 fans on Facebook and over 75 followers on the blog, I'll be hosting another giveaway, beginning later tonight!  I'll post details a bit later once the wee ones are tucked up in bed.

~ Jen

Dye! Dye! Dye!

Let it be said: I'm not much of a pink person.  However, as indicated by a few items of mysteriously pink clothing lingering in storage, this may not have always been the case.  I unearthed three pieces that would be perfectly fine, cute even, if only they weren't so.....well, pink. (Pink lovers, don't abandon me now!  Pink certainly has its merits -- just not on me.)

Pink, meh.  But red -- hey!  I like red!  Pink and red are closely related -- dying from one color to the other should work, right?   Well yes, sort of.  It took three attempts to get the shade I was after.  Mexican Red -- not really so red.  Tulip red -- also, not particularly red.  Finally, crimson -- mostly, pretty much red.  I now know that I may have been using too much material with my first two laundry-sink attempts.  (Word to the wise, when they say to use rubber gloves, they mean it.   Also, probably best not to wear your favorite sweater when working with dye.  Not that I would know anything about that.)  I ended up spending a bit more money in this revamp than I anticipated, but once I got going I was determined to make these things wearable, darnit!

I'm happy with the final shade -- still a hint of pink, but a really rich, vibrant hue that certainly leans more toward red.  Definitely wearable.   Definitely deserving of a future outside the storage boxes.

I love how the dye hasn't stuck to any of the synthetic material -- in this case the stitching and embroidery.

Hooray, success!  Now I'm inspired to dole out a few more dye jobs -- what will emerge next from those deep, deep storage boxes? 

**This is the day of the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway....   I will let the random number generator work it's magic at 4pm NZ time.  Good luck to all of you!!**

The Roastery

Welcome to our own little coffee cottage industry!  We began roasting our own green beans a few months ago -- one of those DIY skills, like bread-baking, that feels especially satisfying.   To be honest, it's a deceptively simple process....Our "roastery" consists of a popcorn maker and a corner of our garage.  We buy fair-trade, single-origin green beans from a local coffee shop for about a quarter of the price of roasted beans, and away we go!  There is a bounty of information about roasting your own on the web -- just type "coffee roasting+popcorn maker" into your search engine.  (Alternately, here or here may be good places to begin.  N.B. there are all sorts of important safety precautions that go along with this method -- please don't burn your house down!)

Learning the ins and outs of home roasting can take a few weeks -- through trial and error, we've found that we like a really dark roast that goes for as long as 6-7 minutes, and that leaving the beans uncovered for at least 24 hours after roasting results in a much improved taste. 

We roast our beans in a Breville popcorn popper we picked up for free, and we choose to roast without the lid on at all (the popper gets really hot, and it almost seems like the plastic lid could melt.)  We feel fine about the chaff (the outer part of the bean, which can create a bit of a mess) being less contained since it's outside in the garage.

My husband and S usually take on this piece of work -- S can help sift the beans and enjoys stirring them afterward during the cooling process.   I'm happy to let them go to it!  The smell of home-roasted beans wafting into the kitchen while I make dinner is just divine....And home-roasted brew, well, it's not exactly the same as coffee that's professionally roasted, but it's still pretty darn good  -- and getting better and better the more we experiment.  Plus, nothing tastes quite like a hot cup of self-sufficiency and economy  (stirred well to taste.)

Cheers!

**  Just one more day of the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway -- please be sure to enter if you haven't yet!**

Tank Dress

Oh!  How I love this little girl.   As she grows and becomes more upright, it's been fun to dress her in a few, well, dresses.   Because she inherits most of her older brother's clothing, and I'm happy to have her in primarily gender-neutral blues, greens, grays, reds and browns, I realize that I may sometimes need to make a special effort to embrace her feminine side as well.  Thus was born this dress -- the first I've made for baby A.  It's the product of another storage-box upcycle -- a tank I love, but which is seldom worn.    I simply trimmed a band at the waist to make it shorter, added three pleats to the neck, and hemmed along the inner arm holes to make them child-size.  Finally, I added ribbons to bring the waist in a bit.  I'm liking the results, and I'm happy to think that this dress will fit for quite a while -- through the toddler years, becoming a tunic as my girl gets bigger.

Amazingly, our autumn days still warm up enough for this dress to be worn on it's own; but it would also be easy to pair this with leggings and a cardigan in the coming months.  Yes, it's been good to celebrate a bit of femininity!  I can see more of these to come.

P.S.... My Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway will be continuing for two more days.  To all those that have left comments and have become followers, likers, or fans -- thank you so much!  It's wonderful to connect with so many new people.   I'll be hosting a giveaway of a different sort to celebrate 100 fans on Facebook, and over 60 followers on the blog; it will begin immediately after my Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway ends.  Details to come.

Merino YOU! (Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway)

I'm very excited to be participating in my first Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway!  I will be gifting this gorgeous charcoal-gray fine-knit merino scarf to one lucky reader.  I have yet to do the edging, as my entry was a bit last-minute, but I definitely will do so before sending.  (Ed. note - - I have just done the edging and it looks fantastic!  I am so pleased to be giving this beautiful scarf away.....)  The scarf is wonderfully soft and the perfect length for both warmth and style.  The dimensions are approximately 10 in x 80 in (25cm x 200 cm.)

So, here are the parameters:

- I will certainly ship internationally, everyone welcome!
- To enter, all you need do is become a fan on Facebook or become a follower of the Seedling blog and leave a comment here afterward.  If you're already a fan / follower, that's great!   You may leave a comment here as well. 
- I will draw the winner randomly after the giveaway has ended.  I will post the result here on the blog, and on Facebook.  For good measure, you may also want to leave your email address.
- The giveaway will continue until the 20th of May North American time (the 21st New Zealand time) -- simply leave your comment before then.
- Your scarf will be on it's way to you by May 24th!

Good luck!

Merino Me (Part Two)

Remember all that merino I stumbled upon?  I've been waiting and planning, trying to decide how best to use it.  I began with a very simple project first -- edging a small off-cut for a scarf.  It's actually perfect -- warm and soft, stretchy enough to tuck into itself easily.  I've loved wearing this as the weather has cooled. 

Next -- and this felt like a big jump -- I really wanted to make a tunic/dress.  This was certainly a lot more complicated, but I warmed up with this top, and did the same basic style.  Again, no pattern, but I'm feeling happy with the results.  Ideally, I would have loved more length -- maybe just past the knee?  But this was the size of the material I had, so, alas....  Ah well, you only live once.  May as well show a little leg from time to time.

I don't have many opportunities to wear a dress like this with my current lifestyle (which demands that whatever I wear be both easy to clean and easy to play in....) but it just so happens that my husband and I have an oh-so-rare date night planned for this Saturday.  I may actually feel like a grown-up!

As for the rest of the merino?  Well, I'm saving most of it for now.  But, I'm planning on participating in the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway starting, oh....tomorrow!  I'll be giving away a gorgeous charcoal-gray merino scarf, made from the same material as this dress.  Stay tuned!

Waste Not....

Even with our stringent de-cluttering policies, we are guilty (er, I am guilty) of letting a few plastic storage boxes of clothing I can't quite part with waste away in our garage.   I did a little digging this week and resurrected a once-loved top and a once-perfect, oft-repaired pair of favorite jeans.  The long sleeves of the top became these super-simple baby leggings  (forgive the grainy rainy-day exposure....)

And the jeans transformed like this....

I'll be honest, making these was a bit harrowing -- I wouldn't recommend denim or this type of stretchy cotton/lycra material to a newbie seamstress like me.  It's a miracle that both the machine and I survived!  I certainly honed my G-rated expletive range during this project.  The center photo is of S assisting with a gentle, soothing touch to appease the sewing machine.  It must have worked, since she allowed me to finish both projects with only the small casualty of a broken needle. Worth the sacrifice to breathe new life into these old favorites.....

Just quickly, a few photos from the shed/studio revamp:

The walls are up!  I think I'll be able to get in and do some painting in the next week.  Can't wait.