2011 in Review

We became homeowners on Dec 31 of 2010, and a lot of this year was learning the in and outs of being homeowners. We removed what didn't want and started building in what we did. We peeled wallpaper and painted walls.

Shoveled snow and learned the importance of roof-rakes.  (Hint: don't pile that much snow that close to your house)

Perennials were planted in the spring and bulbs were planted in the fall. Lawns were moved and leaves raked. Floors were swept and appliances replaced. And at some point along the way it stopped being their house and started being ours.

Starting the day after we moved in, we filled our home with friends: Pie Day, poker games, dinners and documentaries. The highlight was inviting over all our friends for a summer time barbecue and concert.

And we saw a little doggy online and decided to invite him to stay for the long-haul.

During Lent I wore skirts for 47 days and visited Washington D.C. for the first time.

In sewing, I got my own studio space and made a thing or two.

Fiber-wise, I learned how to dye and needlefelt.

I bought a loom and made a total of one scarf.

I also did a fair amount of spinning, but haven't quite met my knitolution of knitting anything with handspun yet.

Knitwise, this has been a huge year for me. I've released three patterns with Quince & Co., one with Twist Collective, and six on my own. I started a mailing list.

It's amazing to me how much has happened in one year, and how quickly that year has gone. There's snow on the ground outside now and it's a few days to Christmas. It's been a helluva year in the best way possible.

Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year!

A Stocking for Steiny and Other Makings

I was trying to not to be one of the those crazy pet parents who gets their pets Christmas parents (which seems to be a largely American thing - yes?), but I gave in and not only got Steinbeck a gift, I sewed him a stocking.

In my defense, it only took me the baking time of about 2 dozen cookies to get the whole thing done from conception to completion and it's totally cute. The fabric was leftovers from my Valentine's skirt and a wreath I'm still trying to finish up.

In addition to the aforementioned cookies, Ive made my annual batches of dark chocolate mint fudge and peanut brittle.

The goodies are baked, the house decorated, the packets shipped, and the gifts (mostly) wrapped, with three days left, I think I'm good to go!.

Tying Up The Week

Um, wow. How did it get to be Friday already? Heck, I'm not even sure where November went. In any case I wanted to pop in over here say "hi!", and I thought I'd throw in an outfit post, since this one is just about the opposite of the skirty outfits I've posted in the past.

There was a period in high school where I would wear ties all the time, now the only one I own is this one. I like to think of this outfit as the chic girly take on classic grandpa style, with the gray cardi and wool tie. Also, I love my new boots and I'm sure you've all experienced how hard it is to find the perfect boot.

Sweater: Pas de Valse, knit by me.

Button up shirt: Banana Republic Outlet

Tie: John Henry, was my dad's.

Jeans: Old Navy

Boots: Clarks

In other news, I've been busy Christmas decorating and crafting, and I hope to share some of that with you all soon! And oh yeah, I cut off all my hair again.

Happy Friday!

A Little Bit Country

One of my guilty pleasures in life is Time-Life Music infomercials. There's something endearing about the standard formula of past-their-prime musician + woman-of-a-certain-age co-host + those 5 second clips of unforgettable hits of the 60s and 70s. On a lazy Sunday afternoon Mr. Cleaver and I will merrily let it run for the full half-hour and our ultimate favorite collection is "The Golden Age of Country."

My costume this year is a tribute to the Golden Age of Country, the Grand Olde Opry, and fantastic country songbirds of the age like June Carter Cash, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton in all their big-haired, chiffon-clad glory.

I came across Simplicity Pattern 2180 a few weeks back, and thought it would be the perfect starting point for my costume, but it was out of stock in my size. However a kind friend in my knitting circle picked it up for me on a trip to Augusta, so I was in business!!

I knew the dress would have to have a gauzy chiffon component, preferably in a pastel shade and this Jenny Lewis video inspired me to pick up some lace trimming as well. I treated the seafoam-y tafetta-esque base fabric as an underlining, and sewed the two layers together before making the darts/seams/etc. which made dealing with the top layer chiffon a bunch easier.

It's not the best sewing job I've ever done, I skipped a few steps like the waistband facing and replaced the sleeve cuffs with elastic, but for a Halloween costume, I think it turned out pretty swell.  I'm racking my brain for occasions/places I could get away with wearing this dress in ordinary life, because I kind of love it (and I'm definitely remaking the pattern in a more casual fabric at some point).

Mr. Cleaver joined in on a more modern take on the theme, thanks to a cowboy hat from Target and some clothes from around the house. Our first thought was to do a more "rhinestone cowboy" look (like Buck Owens), but this was easier.

We went to a Halloween party over the weekend, where Mr Cleaver claimed to alternately be Toby Keith and/or Hank Williams Jr.

Even Steinbeck got in on the action (he is from Texas after all).

I even tried to keep the pumpkin in the country theme, though it looks more like a Holstein pig than the cow I was going for.

But while we may look country on the outside, inside we're both still rock ' roll.

PS - thanks to Bristol (and her dad) for the loaner cowboy boots!!

Fall Update

On Thursday I finally got around to making my annual apple pies. Technically you could say I made six, but I ended up with two, as four went to my co-workers who came over for a pie-making lesson/afternoon.

I might of eaten pie for breakfast. Twice.

In other news, I've planted about 100 bulbs for the spring,  raked some leaves, put the down comforter on the bed, finished my first sweater of the season, and sewed about 70% of my Halloween costume.

Yep. Looks like fall.

[PS - want a sneak peak of my Halloween costume or other projects in process? Check out my twitter account! ]

Best Barbeque Ever

One of the things Mr. Cleaver and I were most excited about when we moved from our one-bedroom apartment to the house is that we'd have space to have people over.

Oh sure, we had friends over to the old apartment, but, for example, when another couple came over for dinner once we had to move the table into the living room because there wasn't space in the kitchen. So it was a tad limiting.

But now our home is constantly filled with family and friends and that's my favorite thing about being a homeowner.

This past weekend was the best iteration of that so far with our housewarming/birthday BBQ and Hoedown.

We invited a bunch of our friends, family, and coworkers over for a potluck and BBQ. Friends and family brought the sides and we provided drinks, meat, and the band.

Which makes this the coolest party I've ever thrown.

Of course all the credit for the band goes to Mr. Cleaver, who after seeing a set by our favorite New England band Brown Bird, sent them an email to see if they would do a home show. They said they could, gave us a price and some available dates, and we worked it all out.

As Mr. Cleaver said, it like when you hear about people who have Jay Z at their bar-mitzvah or something, but on our scale.

(If you want an example of what it was like, Brown Bird played a set at the Newport Folk Festival the preceding weekend that you can stream in its entirety at NPR.)

It wasn't the cheapest thing we've ever done, but we both agreed that the experience and the memories were worth every penny. Particularly because all the guests had a great time too (or at least that's what they told us) and several wanted to steal Steinbeck, who charmed practically everyone. :)

It took a little when we first moved back to Maine in the late August of 2008 to really settle in and find our groove, but I was reflecting on our life in Portland earlier today and thinking about how wonderfully FULL it is and how I'm so grateful for it all.

(On a side note: I've just joined the chirping masses on Twitter, you can see my latest tweet in the sidebar or follow me @Ms_Cleaver).

In the Studio Part Two

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. But with the past month I've had it's not surprising. Here's a quick recap before I move on to new things. Since July 2nd:

• Got a dog
• Mr. Cleaver turned forty
• Released the Smocked Tank

• Tour de Fleece happened and I have about 600 yards of handspun yarn
• Turned 28
• Saw the final Harry Potter movie
• Helped write and turn in our major funding application at work
• Took a business trip to Buffalo and spent inordinate amounts of time in the Philly airport

• Saw an Elvis Costello concert
• Released Alaria with Quince & Co.
• Submitted a potential project packet to a knitting mag
• Painted and revamped my studio
• Knitted a design for another knitting mag to be mailed off today
• Had a giant BBQ in my backyard with over 30 friends and a live band.

Whew! and I thought summers were supposed to be slow!

I'll post about the BBQ later this week, but today I wanted to show off my newly revamped studio space.

As you may recall, when we moved in, the first floor bedroom looked like this:

In the early days of moving in, we stripped the wallpaper and I'd been using it as a studio in this configuration.

While the hearts and bears stenciling was an improvement over the baseball wallpaper, I still wanted an update. So my big birthday request was to paint the studio (I ended up with a much bigger gift than that, but more on that later this week).

There was a heat wave the weekend of my birthday, so we waited to paint until the next weekend.

Steinbeck was very helpful and only stepped in paint once.

The color is Yolo Colorhouse Water .02 - a fantastic blue that looks at alternate times of day anywhere from periwinkle, to lilac, to grey. The trim is the same Air .01 as in the living and bedroom.

The other major change comes from hanging things on walls, particularly the addition of the pegboard.

Pegboard makes me feel so organized.

Some other notable items - the original Ms. Cleaver portrait by Sharon Barto and three old knitting magazines courtesy of Bristol Ivy.

I still want to put some kind of yarn storage on the wall to the left of the loom, crates or hatboxes maybe and eventually all the carpet in house should be replaced, but other than that, I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to start making stuff in there!

My Apron Collection

A few weeks ago, Casey of Elegant Musings asked for fellow bloggers to join her in a blog tour of Cherished Collections and having previously mentioned my "wicked apron collection," and made no secret of my love of aprons, I jumped at the chance to share my, wait for it....... aprons as part of the tour.

I'd like to say my love affair with aprons began in my middle school home economics class, when our final sewing project was a simple bib apron. In true 90's style, my featured sunflowers and was sadly lost in my first post-graduation move after college. But in truth, my apron obsession probably came because I lost that apron and needed a replacement.

I picked up another bib apron from ebay, in blue gingham, which I still use, but it was then I discovered the adorable half apron, of which I have now amassed eleven. I used to have an even dozen, but I passed one featuring a chicken off to a friend.

My first, and still on of my favorites, also came from ebay and features adorable pockets in fishy fabric, which I later recreated the shape of for a Christmas gift, when I lived in Chicago.

Surprisingly enough, only one of my collection is one I made (yellow gingham),  with most of my apron sewing skills having been put to gift-making.

A good chunk of my aprons have come from antique stores, where I grabbed them for around $5-6 dollars (black & white and embroidered pink). At least one has come from a garage sale (grey gingham with chicken scratch). A few I can't recall where they came from.

But my most precious one are the ones that have been given as gifts, including the Christmas bells from a roommate, the green hostess apron from a knitting friend, and the rose hostess apron from a co-worker- perhaps my most precious one, because it was her grandmothers. As was the plain white one I embroidered with Raggedy Ann.

And I use each and every one of them, because as they become dusted with flour and sugar, they become all the more cherished to me.

Meet Steinbeck

It's been a bit busy around the Cleaver household for the past week, because on July the 2nd, this guy joined our lives.

Meet Steinbeck (formerly know as Drake). He's a 3-year old shepherd terrier mix, we adopted via Lucky Pup Rescue. This handsome fella came all the way from Texas to live with us.

They say it takes a few weeks to a month for the dogs true personality to come out, but thus far we've discovered that Steinbeck is a 60-pound cuddle muffin, who wants nothing more than to sit on the sofa and be in your lap. Which is just fine with me.

IN just a week, we've pretty much fallen in love with this guy, as for what he thinks of us??

Time will tell. :)

OOTD: Making it Work for Me

Remember a few weeks back when I said this sweater wasn't my favorite, but that I'd probably wear it a ton anyway? While I still think it isn't the most "me" thing I've ever made, I have been wearing it a lot, and as the frustration of making it has worn off, I've grown to really like it. It's cozy and very versatile.

In this outfit, I paired it with another "out of my comfort zone" piece, the very red Red-Fox dress.

I fell in love with the dress, and bought it even though as a red-head (ish- auburn really) I've always avoided red. My last attempt at styling this dress I shared didn't quite work for me, the red/black was just too harsh methinks, but this "southwestern" take is a much better fit. The turquoise necklace hints at it, but if I had cowboy boots, it would be really southwestern.

Necklace: from my Mom

Cardigan: made by me

Dress: Red Fox by Shabby Apple

Belt: from my Mom

Shoes: Bass Outlet

When you end up with items that aren't in your usual style, how do you make it work for you??