Back in Brown Again aka Refashioning Part 2

Remember those weird elasticy gathered sleeves that I cut off the dress?  I tossed the scraps, but then today I saw that my youngest sister - typical to her creative ways - had seen the scraps and decided that they were too good to throw away.

 So she did this:

Ta-da!  A top and vest for Julie!

Before:

After: 

Back in Brown, or, My Second Attempt at Refashioning

I'd like to say up front that this wasn't a hugely in depth or complicated refashioning, but for someone who usually buys and wears her clothing as is, it was still a project.

The other day at the thrift store I found this cute and very comfortable brown dress.

In love with the beading and embroidery at the waist, not a huge fan of those sleeves.  Also, it had shoulder pads, which was the first thing to go.

Here's a closer look at those sleeves.  They just didn't do anything for me.  So I got to chopping.

After I got rid of that elastic business at the end, I used another dress as a guide to take in the sleeves a bit.

I did a little more trimming to make the ends even, then folded over a 1/4 inch seam and sewed it down.

See, so much better!  I'm a fan of 3/4 length sleeves and I like this hemming much more.

Now I'm all set for a fun day out in the leaves!  I wish... I'll be wearing it to work today.  But on another day, it's a great dress for going out!

Full of Fall

Chili cooking on the stove.  Apples being chopped for Apple Almond Bars.  Wax and crayons being mixed down for a fall candle.  Cornbread being mixed to go along with the chili for dinner.

Outside the weather finally feels like October and inside our kitchen is full of fall.

In case you didn't know yet, it's October now people

It's October people!  Pardon me while I run outside to toss some not quite yet yellow leaves!  Alright, I have returned.

Fittingly enough, today is a bit overcast and cloudy out, so while it is supposed to reach 80 degrees, at least it will LOOK somewhat like fall though it may not FEEL like it.

I love fall, I really do.  After many years of deliberation, I have decided that fall is my favorite season.  If I could move to a climate where it was fall for 75% of the year, I would.  There's something about the change in the air... that nip, the smell.... something about driving past glowing golden fields as they are harvested and dust swirls through the air.  It's hard on your lungs, but glorious for the eyes.

I'm a year round tea drinker, but there's nothing like sitting outside and holding a warm mug of spiced tea in your hands.  Throw on a lovely, cuddly sweater and a scarf around my neck and it makes it all even more perfect.

I am waiting impatiently for the next few days of 80 degrees to pass.... then it'll finally be lovely, wonderful temperatures that stick around for a good long while!

Happy October y'all!

Happy Apple Day!

When we moved into our current house a few years ago, we discovered that the man who built the house had planted all sorts of fruit trees.  We have two pear trees, two grape vines, we had a peach tree until someone ran into it with the lawnmower, two tart cherry trees and six apple trees.

This my friends, is a fancy composite image of our six apple trees.  Except it seems I missed the apple tree in the first one and took a picture of the grape vine instead.

Admittedly, we've never done much with them.  The poor dears have been left to grow as if in the wild with no pruning or anything to discourage bugs.  Last year with the drought we didn't get much fruit, but this year we have an overload!  You wouldn't know to look at them that we've had several different families out to pick apples.  One tree is literally falling apart.

That whole big branch on the side there just broke off!

My father decided that we couldn't have people come and pick all the apples and not do anything with them ourselves, so yesterday he went out and picked somewhere along the lines of 50 pounds of apples and today we turned 21 pounds of them into applesauce.

Hurray for apple-peeler-corer-slicers!

We ended up with four jars of regular applesauce and 5 jars of cinnamon - all in all it took us about 3 1/2-4 hours which isn't bad.  

In addition to the applesauce, we made up some chunky cinnamon apple 'stuff', for lack of a better term, to have with our oatmeal tomorrow morning.

Then, because it is after all the first day of autumn as well as the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo, I made a cake.

An apple pie cake, to be exact.   It's a new recipe, but it seems like it'll be delicious!

In the midst of all our productivity, my mom managed to get a burn on her arm from boiling applesauce, my sister accidentally knocked the blender off the counter and broke it (after we were all done, thankfully!) and I knocked over the sugar container and got about three cups of it all over the floor.  But hey, everyone was in a good mood for the whole afternoon so I consider it to be a successful day.

I think the only fitting way to finish up Apple Day is to have a bottle of Red's Apple Ale with... whatever dinner is.  (The meat was bad, so as of right now we don't have dinner.  We'll figure something out.)

Anyone care to join me?