This week has been full of:

Look at all those spikes!

I’ve had my eye on this spooky-looking plant in my parents’ front yard for a while. It finally bloomed!

This flower looks like it might be carnivorous.

These pears make me think of big ol' grapes.

The pear trees out front have been weighed down with these tiny, sweet pears for the last couple of weeks.  The limbs were almost at the breaking point when I finally got out there to pick them.

Have you ever had pear cake? If not, you're missing out.

These spotty little apples are some of the sweetest I've ever tasted.

Thanks to my Nana and our neighbor, Granny, I’ve recently come into a lot of apples.  There’s no way I could eat or bake them all into something, so I decided to can them.  Come October when the four of us are 500 miles away and getting homesick, maybe pie made with these apples from home will make us feel better?

We've also got lots of figs.

Our neighbors and family members (the ones with the cows that Chowder and Maxine love to watch) have a couple of fig trees covered in figs they aren’t going to use. We couldn’t live with ourselves if we let all those beautiful figs go to waste!

We're drowning in baby figs.

As well as big ass figs--this is not a pear.

We will more than likely be packing and moving next week, but hopefully I’ll still be able to share the sweet treats I’m making with all this beautiful fresh (and local, and free!)  fruit.

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My favorite thing about summer…

canning tomatoes with my grandmother

photo courtesy of ramsey everydaypants via Flickr

photo courtesy of adactio via Flickr

sweet little cherry tomatoes

big ass tomatoes

I used Flickr photos for the fried green tomatoes and caprese salad because both times we’ve made them this week they’ve been eaten up before pictures could be taken.

What’s your favorite thing about summer?

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The sound of crickets.

My past few days have been full of:

Sookie Stackhouse & Friends (Image Courtesy of http://charlaineharrisbooks.com/)

Sweet Tea (Image Courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org)

Swimming (Image Courtesy of http://www.freefoto.com)

We are definitely in a transitional period–we’re loafing around my parents’ house, waiting to hear back from the bank and our school and the insurance company so that we’ll know which forms we need to fill out or pass along.  Meanwhile, all our stuff is packed in boxes in my parents garage (including my sewing machine and fabric, though they’re fairly easy to get to).  Thus far the temptation to do nothing has been too great, and I’m indulging in some of my guiltiest pleasures while I have the chance–sleeping after ten, chocolate cake for breakfast, long hot baths, and books with absolutely no literary value (no offense, Charlaine).  Now that we’re basically settled for the next few weeks, however, I do plan to take up some light crafting, and maybe even get started on some bigger projects for our new home.

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Sweet Spring Jersey Skirt

A couple of months ago I bought a lot of bright, floral jersey fabric on super discount at Dirt Cheap.  It’s been hanging out in my fabric cabinet since then, patiently waiting for Spring to kick me  in the butt.  Using The Jersey Skirt Tutorial from Ruffles and Stuff and the dimensions from my favorite and most-worn skirt of all time (bought on clearance over a year ago at a Gap after-Christmas sale), I managed to piece together this sweet spring skirt.  I’ve been itching to wear it all week, and today it’s finally warm enough!

There's some weird light happening in my hallway this time of day.

You can see the color and pattern of the skirt better in this picture.

A few things to note:

  • If, like me, you’ve never sewn with jersey before, then this simple project can prove pretty frustrating.  If you look on some of your store-bought jersey items, you’ll probably notice a two rows of stitches on the hems.  I wasn’t able to make this happen on my skirt for several reasons (I don’t have the manual to my sewing machine, it was after midnight when I was working on this skirt and didn’t want to go to the store, I am impatient), but it really does look more professional and will probably hold up better.  I’m going to learn from this and try and take those factors into account on my next jersey project.
  • I should’ve used a stretch needle, made especially for super stretchy knit fabrics like my floral jersey.  Again, I didn’t want to go to the store, so I just used what I had.  I did, however, experience a massive amount of unintentional scrunching of my fabric.  This was great around step 3 of the tutorial, when I needed to gather the skirt, but really annoying when I was sewing down the side and hemming the bottom.  A zig zag stitch may have helped with this, also.  I googled it, but had a hard time finding answers.  I guess only time and more trial and error will tell!
  • Steps 4 and 5 of the tutorial are a little confusing if you’re using a fabric with obvious right and wrong sides, unlike the one pictured.  To clarify: on step 4, the waistband should be folded in half widthwise with right sides out.  Right sides are together on step 5, as you’re sewing the skirt panel onto the waistband.
  • My skirt is, as I stated earlier, based on my favorite Gap skirt.  To get this fit, your initial measurements will be something like 11″ tall for the waistband and 16″ tall for the skirt (mine has a 1″ hem).

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