Apple Skillet Pie

Okay, so this isn't a sewing post, other than I wore an apron that I made while baking this pie. But, this recipe turned out really well, and I want to make sure I have it documented somewhere for later reference. I got the recipe from watching an episode of America's Test Kitchen, but can't access the recipe on their website without a subscription. So, I wrote down what I did:

Ingredients:
3 lb. apples (~7, Golden Delicious recommended), cored, peeled, sliced
1/2 c. granulated sugar (divided)
3/4 tsp. cinnamon (divided)
1 c. apple cider
3/4 c. flour
3/4 c. chopped pecans
3/4 c. rolled oats
1/2 c. light brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
8 tbsp. melted unsalted butter
2 tbsp. butter
2 tsp. lemon juice


1. In large bowl, toss apples, 1/4 c. sugar, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
2. In 12" skillet, heat cider over medium heat until reduced to 1/2 c. Set reduced cider aside and add lemon juice.
3. In medium bowl, combine flour, pecans, oats, brown sugar, 1/4 c. granulated sugar, salt, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Stir in melted butter. Set topping aside.
4. Preheat oven to 450 deg. F
5. In skillet, melt 2 tbsp. butter. Add apple mix and cook over medium heat for approx. 12 minutes. Apples should be starting to caramelize. Remove from heat.
6. Add cider to apples and stir to coat.
7. Sprinkle topping evenly over apples in skillet.
8. Put skillet on a baking sheet in the oven and cook ~ 15 minutes, until topping starts to brown and filling bubbles.
9. Eat, for breakfast if you live in my house :-)

My latest sundress

Well, it's been a late summer coming to the Pacific Northwest, but I have been anticipating it by trying my hand at making ("designing", if you could call it that) some sundresses. I started by making a couple of very simple shift dresses, which are comfy and cool to wear, but pretty shapeless and not the most-figure flattering items in my closet.

So, I decided to combine the simple-to-make top of the shift dress but combine it with a fitted waist and skirt with pleats. With the skirt of the dress loosely based on Simplicity 2886 , a pattern I love for its pocket placement, I made and remade this dress from a fun border print fabric until it fit. Making it more fitted than the simple shift dresses also makes the construction more complicated -- more pieces to cut and sew together, zipper required to get it on and off -- but I've decided it's totally worth it because I feel better wearing it. Here are some pictures I snapped:




















And, here I am playing around with Zoey and in Photoshop:

Party Dress!

With wedding season coming up, I thought I'd try making a dress I could wear to a couple of them. Here's the pattern I picked, Simplicity 2250 by designer Cynthia Rowley:


I went with View A: a little longer and with wider straps than the other styles. Since the bodice looked complicated, I made a muslin of it first to check the fit and style. I'm glad I did -- I had to modify the fit a bit, and I decided to remove a couple of pleats that were just too much. Some of the pleats actually looked like sewing mistakes to me rather than design elements.The awesome part about making a muslin -- use any color thread, write all over it, it doesn't matter!

The fabric I was using for the dress was flimsy and see-through, so I also used the muslin fabric to underline the dress fabric, following these instructions. I've never underlined anything before, and while it made cutting out the dress take twice as long (since I had to cut every piece twice), it definitely made that flimsy fabric easier to handle once it was sewn to the muslin cotton. Anyway, pictures of the finished product on the hanger:





And wearing it:



And after watching the royal wedding last weekend, now I need to make a fascinator to go with it!

Something useful for fabric scraps and travel

After making a bunch of aprons for Christmas gifts, I had a lot of pieces of fabric left that I hated to throw away, but I didn't have a clear use for them. Luckily I came upon the idea to use them to make bags to put my shoes in when I travel, protecting my clothes from the bottom of my shoes. A quick search brought up these instructions. Changes I made included sewing scraps together to get the initial 13"x18" rectangles and adding a lining (to hide all those seams). Finished product in use:

Christmas break sewing!

Since I had to take 2 weeks off from work at Christmas time, I used the time to make some presents for friends. Here are some aprons I made, in an assortment of colors and patterns. Most fun, I found some colorful buttons I included, just in case anyone needed a button around the neck to get the aprons on and off.

I meant to get pictures of everyone wearing theirs, but forgot. Since Ellie cooked brunch on Christmas day, I did remember to get one of her:

Something to go with a fur collar

After bringing home my new table to sew on today, I had to start a new project to break it in. What better than a faux fur muff to go with the collar I made last weekend? A pretty quick and easy project that I'm hoping I find a use for. I went ahead and lined it with some super soft fleece blanket material, which means it will feel wonderful while it keeps my hands toasty.

The Practical and the Fun

Here are two of my latest projects, representing the most practical of uses (black skirt) and the most frivolously fun (faux fur collar anyone?).


I wanted a black skirt with a fitted waist that flared and pockets (of course), so I went with Simplicity 2413. Since I have a bunch of this black fabric that I bought for 90% off, I went ahead and used it instead of muslin in my first try at the pattern, figuring if it didn't turn out well, it wasn't a big loss and if it worked out, I had a wearable skirt. The pattern was pretty simple, with the hardest part being how to construct the side seam with both a zipper and pocket on it, but the instructions were clear enough that it worked out. Also, I went ahead and added a lining to the skirt that wasn't in the pattern, just because I like a skirt that glides over any tights or hose you wear under it. Anyway, turned out wearable, though I think I'll definitely make it again in a fabric with less body to it next time -- this skirt definitely has a little more "pouf" to it than I expected.


My other recent sewing endeavor was this fun project. It took a pretty long time to make since I did basically all the sewing by hand, but I just turned on a silly romantic comedy, sat in front of the TV, and followed the instructions on the blog. For now, I'm just using a bit of ribbon to hold it closed, but I'm on the lookout for a vintage style broach or button to replace it with. Oh, and on the lookout for something to wear this to :)

Of course, now that I have a faux fur collar, I think a faux fur muff is next on the list.

Here are a few pictures of me wearing them:

Halloween!

After my knee surgery this summer, I had some extra time on my hands that would normally be used for playing tennis. So, among other things, I decided to sew something I could wear for Halloween.

I found some red and black fabric and a pattern that made me think vampiress (more Bram Stoker, not so much "Twilight"). Unfortunately I put off finding some fangs to go with it until too late, but a little red paint on my neck and I was a "just bitten", soon to be vampire.







A couple more pictures:

Another pillow

I used the tutorial on this awesome blog to make a "5 minute simple pillow" cover this weekend. It did take me a little more than the advertised 5 minutes, but that's probably mostly because it's a really large pillow:


-W

Grey Skirt

Fall is quickly rolling in here, and I'm hoping to avoid another fall/winter/spring of day after day of jeans. They're quick and easy and go with everything, and luckily I work in place where I can do that if I want. But, I just feel more put together in a skirt. So, this weekend I made a half-circle skirt out of some grey fabric I've had for a while. I'm not quite sure what the fabric is made of -- it has a little bit of sheen to it -- but the color is one of those perfect neutrals that I find go well with almost any color top.

Sewing this went pretty quickly -- now that I know what I'm doing, I could definitely whip up this pattern in a few different fabrics. It almost took way longer than it should have when I lost power this weekend, but fortunately it came back on just as I was about to start hemming by hand. The blindstitch foot on my machine is probably 100 times faster than me sewing by hand.

Anyway, pretty straightforward and simple, and yet fun to wear. Here are a few pics:






















Coming up next: I started cutting out the pattern for a fall dress. Which reminds me, I need to get more tights to go with it.

-W

P.S. I got a tripod on my way home from work today, so hopefully I'll get more skilled at taking these self-portraits with it over time. It still doesn't help me get over how uncomfortable "posing" feels...

Happy 1st Birthday!

I haven't posted in a while since my latest projects were a possible Halloween costume (which I don't want to post until after I wear it) and a blouse with sleeves that came out very unfortunately and I'm trying to figure out how to salvage.

However, I did make a little outfit for my friends' daughter who turned 1 recently. The pants are still a bit big for her but the top dress/tunic fit her just right. Here she is modeling it for us over a red onesie.

Known Pattern + favorite color = (relatively) quick fun dress

I haven't ever made the same pattern twice just because there are so many options out there and I want to try lots of them. However, since I had just finished my French country picnic dress when I found myself with some inexpensive fabric (90% off!) in my favorite shade of green and unexpected time on my hands, I went ahead and made it again.

It didn't go quite as quickly as it should have since I got overconfident, didn't read the instructions closely the second time, and ended up cutting out and making the bodice twice.

You can see that both times I made this pattern I choose to gather the skirt instead of making pleats as the pattern is written. Pleats just seemed a little too formal for what I wanted to be a casual comfy dress, but there seems to be more poofiness at my belly than I would really like to see. I'm pretty sure it's from the gathers and not my recent lack of exercise, but maybe I'll do some sit-ups tonight just in case...




Photo credits again to my friend Heather!

Dress for a picnic in the French countryside...

I'm just about 1 year from my first sewing project, so still a beginner, but not a complete newbie. Typically I buy fairly inexpensive fabric under the assumption that most of my projects could become an unmitigated disaster at any point in the process -- too big, too small, cut out wrong, run out of fabric, screw up the directions... You name it, I'm afraid of it.


I also usually buy fabric from Joanns since they're pretty much the only game in town where I live, and I'm wary of buying fabric online when I can't feel it. I'm still trying to become familiar with what all of the fabric types out there are and how they match up with the instructions on my patterns -- challis, chambray, double georgette (is there a single georgette?), shantung, pique, and the list goes on. The one thing I do know for sure: the majority of patterns are "Unsuitable for diagonals".

This fabric -- purchased at Mill End on a visit to Portland -- was more expensive than anything I've tried to use before, and I liked it so much I was terrified of making something unwearable out of it. I held onto for almost a year before I felt confident enough in my skills to use it, and even then I did something I haven't done before -- make a muslin -- to make sure I would be happy with the pattern and fit before cutting into my precious fabric.

This is the pattern I settled on, with the intention of using view A. It seemed to fit all my criteria:

• Sundress with enough coverage I could wear a regular bra and not have the straps show
• Pockets! I love a dress with pockets!
• And, most importantly, designed for a border print fabric

So, I set out to make a muslin of it. However, not too far into assembling the bodice, I decided it wasn't right for what I wanted:

I thought it looked too blah, too plain, and a little too covered up. Not that I wanted anything too revealing, but I did want it to look more "weekend picnic" and less "going to church". Looking back on it, maybe it just seemed so plain because muslin is so plain and it might have been better in my colorful fabric.

I took a second look at view C in this pattern. On it's own, it only meets 1 of my criteria (pockets!), but it looked like even with my limited skills could be altered to meet my other desires... I could widen those straps to cover bra straps and instead of using contrast fabric, I could use the border on my fabric for the accents on the dress. Hmm, promising...

I made a muslin of the new bodice since it was so different, and glad I did since it took some practice for me to be able to attach the pieces of the bodice to each other smoothly.

Anyway, long story short and a few more modifications later, here's the finished product, as photographed by my very talented friend Heather: