A yellow top

Here's Simplicity 3887 view 'C'. I picked up the fabric when I was in San Francisco and has been wanting to make a top with it since. It felt good to sew all day! DH is not complaining about looking after the kids and doing the cooking for the day. :-)

This pattern has 10" ease, which seems huge! So I made a muslin and took 2" off the front and back each. I made the mistake of doing the same to the neck bands. As a result the collar was too small. I wasn't thinking obviously. Fortunately it was a muslin. The muslin felt a bit tight around the hip, so when I made the real one, I used 1 cm seam allowance. I didn't bother with interfacing for the neck band. It seems to be ok. Do you find a big difference? I also shortened the top by about 2".

The sleeves are puffy. Hopefully it will relax a bit after washing. I think I will add the hip band without a bow. Nonetheless, I love this top. Compare to my first top, this one has much better craftmanship. It makes me happy.

Another snowy day and a completed project

It snowed all night last night again.

The good thing is, it gives me an excuse to stay in the house and do some sewing. I finally get to finish dress 'C' from Stylish Dress Book 2.
 

I actually sewed this a long while ago before all the gardening activities. This is supposed to be a muslin to see how it fit. The fabric is a $2 find from Value Village. It turned out kinda cute so I wanted to add pockets to it.  As the weather got warmer, I started working in the garden and never had a chance to sit down in front of the sewing machine until today.

I made a few modifications: I gathered the front instead of the pintucks as I saw here. I also lengthened the body to get rid of the ruffles at the bottom. And, of course, the pockets.

It's too cute to fit my age and style, but it's a fun project to do. It also give me a chance to practise sewing bias tapes and pockets. I will probably make it again with another fabric.

Snow last night and a party today

We got 10 cm of snow last night. For someone who planted the tomatoes in the ground just two days ago, this is obviously very upsetting. Here's a picture I took when the rain just started turning into wet snow yesterday. The wall-o-waters' kinda cute with the inverted pots don't you think?

Anyway, I didn't have a chance to check the tomatoes today because I was too busy cooking up a storm for a party with Allen's coworkers. As usually, we cooked too much and ate too much. It was great to finally meet some of Allen's coworkers. Both Sarah and Ben had fun playing with the older girls, which means I didn't need to look after them as much and actually got to enjoy the party.

A good day in the garden

Spent the whole day in the backyard, again. Allen finished putting together the storage shed. It matches the house color and the space we have perfectly. It should free up precious space in the garage.

I continued to work on the flower bed. I took some of the perennials out to make room for the arbor. Now that the arbor is in place, I have to plant and rearrange what we have. Probably another day of planting, setting stepping stones, and then it's time to put the tomatoes in the ground!

I also made the gardener's hand scrub. Since my dish washing detergent is green, my scrub has a minty color. So refreshing!

I am too excited to sleep!

We have an arbor in the garden! I have always wanted one - to have a focal point in the garden, to grow clematis, to put a bench or some sort of sitting implement under. Now we have one. Ideas and todos are running through my head. I can't sleep.

So naturally I do what I always do when I can't sleep - surf. I started organizing the huge list of sewing and crafting sites I bookmarked. There are lots of fun and interested things people are doing and showing. There are two that I will try, very soon:

1. Gardener's Hand Scrub I have been working hard in the garden and hands get dirty even with gardening gloves. This seems to be the perfect solution.

2. Banana Crunch Muffins - they look too yummy not to try.

Once I check off the top priority items from my gardening todo list, I will get back to my sewing projects. And I want to take the kids to heritage park this summer. And visit the library more often. Oh and I want to take Sarah to a movie. And do more baking with the kids. My mother-in-law thinks I am always go-go-go. She's right, but there's so many fun things to do!

My baby african violet is blooming

I have 4 pots of baby african violet raised from leave cutting. 3 of them suffered assault from Ben at various growing stage. The one that escaped is bloom now!

Here's the parent plant, which has been blooming since April.

A fresh return!

I am back as a blogger, with a fresh start! I took down wongfamily.net a while ago because I simply have no time to manage the site (I even switched from MovableType to iWeb before I finally threw in the towel). Since then, every so often I have an urge to blog but then there's no place to blog anymore!

So, here I am, another attempt. This time I choose a hosted and free service. As the name suggests, this one is gonna focus on me, Sarah and Ben's mama, having quiet time on the computer. There will be lots of postings on my kids, my husband, my garden, my food, and my sewing projects. Let the fun begins.