fun – Sew Beach Life

Capture The Moment

Have you ever witnessed a moment that seems so sweet that you feel like it should be captured in a photograph? Watching children play, and seeing their pure joy is a frequent occurrence that leads to the thought that you wish you had a camera to catch the expression on their face. Especially if it has been a hard or challenging day or season in life. Seeing happiness makes us want to smile and join in on the fun.

Dan and I were walking the beach last night, and moving at a rather quick pace, since sunset was less than a half hour away when we started our walk. We passed other walkers, joggers, and people sitting or lounging on the sand, waiting to watch the sun set. We were strolling past a couple that looked to be in their late 20’s to early 30’s sitting on the beach. The wife leaned in to say something, the husband smiled, and they leaned together touching cheeks, smiling towards the sun.

It was such a sweet moment that I stopped walking, turned to them and said, “Where’s your camera? You two just look so sweet!” The wife reached into her pocket, set her phone to camera mode and handed it to me. I took a couple of quick photos of their faces shining in the sun, glowing with happiness, and handed back the phone.

I am not normally the type of person who randomly starts a conversation with strangers. Dan, yes. Me? Not so much. But I just couldn’t help thinking that this young couple would want that moment of sweetness and sunshine captured. Before you think that I am too much of a weirdo asking someone for their phone, keep in mind that tourist season has started in Florida. On sunny days, the beaches are full of visitors, enjoying the warmth, wonder, and beauty along the coast. It is not uncommon to have a couple or group ask a walker passing by to take their photo. And when I’ve seen a Mom or Grandma taking photos of their group, I’ve encouraged them to get in the photo and taken a few quick shots for them.

I recall my daughter telling me about when their little family was playing at a splash pad, and someone commented that they and Lila were having so much fun that their family needed to be captured in a photo. The stranger caught the huge smiles on their faces as they played together. It is a great photograph.

I love being able to capture a moment of happiness for someone, just like I’ve captured it in my mind. Hopefully, every time they look at the photos, they’ll remember the fun, the happiness, the joy, they were feeling at that moment.

Dan recently sent me a photo he took when we were visiting for Lila’s 2nd birthday. We had taken Lila to the park, and she is flying high on the swing, her hair flying up in the air as she achieves weightlessness.

I love seeing her enjoy a happy, carefree childhood, filled with love and laughter. It makes me smile every time I look at it, because it reminds me of how fun she is to play and interact with. And it reminds me of all the times I’ve been on a swing and enjoyed that same feeling of floating while up in the air.

I’m certainly not advocating for life to be lived with a phone or camera in front of your face all the time. There’s definitely something to be said about just savoring life, and capturing the beautiful moments in your minds’ eye. Life is rarely Instagram perfect, and involves a lot of “cropping out” the not so pretty stuff. But when we take the time to look around, look for the beautiful, joyous, happy, peaceful, spontaneously wonderful moments around us, we can capture memories to help sustain us during the not so perfect moments in life. And if we can capture those moments for others, why not risk being thought of as a weirdo when you ask someone for their phone? 🙂

By all means just enjoy the power-walk, breathing in the fresh air, listening to the sounds around you. But every once in a while you might want to stop and take a photo of the beautiful spaces, and faces, and wonders in life.

Love You “Two” The Moon Birthday Girl!

Can you believe that my beautiful granddaughter just turned two? I planned to write a post about her birthday party, and thought I would include photos of the decorations and snacks and treats, along with her birthday dress like last year. But it was a super busy day, and somehow I didn’t take many photos! So there aren’t any close-up photos of the cute star cookies (you can barely see them on the table behind her), the astronaut ice cream, or moon cheese, chosen for her space themed birthday party.

There wasn’t much doubt that Lila would choose space as a theme, since “moon” was one of her first words, shortly after “Mama” and “Daddy”. She likes to spot airplanes and helicopters, and “Look at stars!” and “See fireflies”. Her vocabulary is out of this world, if I am allowed to brag a bit, about all the phrases and sentences she says these days. She mimics and picks up new words and phrases daily. Possibly even ones she shouldn’t, such as “OK, girlfriend”, which she learned from yours truly! 🙂 It is sort of funny though, since she inserts it appropriately into conversation!

Her birthday dress was made using the free Sew A Little Seam Birthday Dress pattern. I muslined it using some chevron foil print purple knit I found on the clearance rack at JoAnn Fabrics a couple years ago. It looked cute and proportionate, although I couldn’t try it on her since she lives in another state.

Finding fabric that looked like galaxies was a little challenging, since I didn’t have time or the budget to order a custom fabric. But I found some hand-printed cotton at my local fabric store (that has a ton of quilting fabric, and very little knit, which seems common in Florida) that looked pretty and sort of galaxy like. The pattern tutorial calls for a zipper if the dress is made with woven fabric, although it’s only supposed be in the bodice. After installing the zipper in the completely lined and finished bodice, it made no sense to me to not have it extend into the skirt. Since there isn’t a back seam in the skirt (which would have been the easiest solution) I just snipped down the center back of the skirt about 3 inches, and folded the snipped edges under. Attaching the skirt was a bit challenging, since I needed the edges to line up perfectly in order to continue sewing on the zipper. It isn’t the prettiest zipper I’ve ever done, but it was installed and worked perfectly.

To up the “space” and sparkle factor, I added some metallic trimmed satin and chiffon ribbon to the bottom edge of the tulle underskirt. A simple zig zag stitch through the chiffon layer worked perfectly, and it took every single inch of the 3 yard spool of ribbon! I also made the hair bow, by following a tutorial on YouTube. Fortunately, the dress fit perfectly, and Lila wore it all day long from playing in the garden, to learning to ride her birthday scooter.

Last year, she just leaned forward in her high chair and nibbled her cupcake. This year, she decided it was too sticky to hold herself, and wanted Mama to hold it for her! Can you tell that she only gets sugary treats on rare occasions?

The birthday party flew by, with kids, neighbors, family, friends, noise, presents, and the general bedlam that one expects at a children’s birthday party. And it really only ended after it grew dark, and all of the neighbor children finished playing with bikes, scooters, balls, being pulled in wagons, and the adults gathered them inside for their dinners and evening baths.

On her actual birthday, we tagged along on a trip to a local farm. Lila got to see all the animals, go on a wagon ride, wander through a maze, and look at pumpkins, although she didn’t pick one out to take home.

And she got a shoulder ride from Grandpa, just like her Mama used to when she was little!

She also opened her present of Grandma made clothes. She wore her Petite Stitchery Sweetie Leggings (another free pattern) made from a floral double brushed polyester scrap and her Patterns for Pirates Tiny Tulip (also a free pattern), made from pieced together scraps of rayon spandex ribbing from Phee Fabrics the next day. The leggings are a looser fit like joggers, and the 24 months size fits well. The dropped shoulders of the Tiny Tulip make the size 2 a little bit big on her. I had to roll up the sleeves to keep them out of her way.

I made the skirt out of some star printed vintage cotton woven my Mom gave me when cleaning out her house. It’s just two pieces of fabric 12″ high by 22″ wide sewn together, and gathered with swim elastic. Swim elastic works best because it’s soft, and stretches enough to gather a wide opening small enough to fit on a simple rayon spandex waistband.

I hadn’t tried the free (with code in their Facebook group) Halla Leggings pattern before, but gave them a try because the rise is higher in the front than some of the other kids leggings patterns. Toddlers have round little bellies, and I dislike low rise leggings with a baby belly and diaper sticking out of the top! There was a big enough scrap of Polartech Powerstretch left in my stash to make the size 2/3 years. The Patterns for Pirates Buried Treasure Tunic in size 2 was the basis for the other two tops I made.

The sweater knit hacci was part of a panel and I didn’t have enough scraps to make long sleeves. So I cut them as long as I could, added seam allowances, and cut the rest of the sleeves, neckband, and gathered ruffle on the bottom out of Phee Fabrics rayon spandex. The floral print was a scrap of rayon spandex from JoAnn Fabrics. Since the fabric was quite thin, and didn’t have the greatest recovery, I decided to use some white rayon spandex from Phee as the neckband.

It makes for a cute outfit that is comfortable for her to run and play in. She also likes adding the 5 Out Of 4 Girls’ Eleanor Cardigan I made her last year when she is preparing to go play outside. If Phee Fabrics gets any more Polartech Powerwool in this winter, I will definitely have to make her another cardigan!

We had so much fun hanging out with the birthday girl! The 13-1/2 hour drive each way was brutal, but worth it to be able to visit our sweet, fun, loving, adorable, hilarious granddaughter. We can’t wait to visit again for Thanksgiving, but we’ve decided we’re going to fly next time!

This post may contain affiliate links. This means that at no extra cost to you, I may receive a small commission/credit if you purchase through my links. As always, I only give my honest opinion. After all, it is my blog, which represents me! 🙂 Thank you for reading and sharing my love of sewing, patterns, fabric, and pattern hacking. ❤

Super Fun Super G’s

And A Simple Pocket Hack

GreenStyle Super G Tights are my “go-to” workout pants pattern. I’ve sewn more than a half dozen pairs for myself and a pair for my daughter. I’ve perfected the pattern to suit me, and decided to really have fun with this pair. Since it’s hot year round in Florida, I prefer capri length (or an inch or two shorter). It’s easy to fit capri length on one yard of fabric, with enough left over to make a workout top. The G in Super G stands for the gusset. It’s one long piece that stretches from calf to calf, and gives your workout tights lots of stretch and movement.

Since the gusset pattern piece is longer than 36″, simply fold up the ends on the gusset pattern, and cut the ends (adding in seam allowances) out of the same or an accent fabric. It’s a fun way to add another little bit of accent to the inside of your leg.

Supplex is literally the best fabric for workout tights. I’ve used Tricot as the accent fabric on the side pocket panels of my Super G’s, but my favorite accent fabric is Powernet. It gives a little more ventilation, and adds a little bit of sexy sheerness.

On the teal and navy pairs in the photo above, I used Powernet for the upper and lower pocket pieces. That makes the panels sheer all the way to the waistband. This doesn’t bother me, but if you’re looking for more coverage, use Supplex or Tricot for your upper pocket piece.

Normally, the lower pocket panel of the Super G’s gets stitched to the upper pocket, and the lower panel fabric gets folded under to form a pocket, effectively hiding the seam. Since I’ve made so many pairs of Super G’s, I thought it would be fun to give the pocket on this pair a different look. (It also means that you can use shorter pieces of powernet, 😉 in case you only bought a half yard.) The pocket can be moved down about an inch or so, and still be wide enough to hold a large iPhone. You may have noticed this hack on my Super G’s in this post, where the pocket is Supplex and the upper and lower panels are powernet.

The fold in the lower pocket panel piece on the left shows where the pocket seam will be. I cut 3/8″ above that (where I am pointing) to give a seam allowance. I added an inch to the bottom of the upper pocket panel piece, (on the right in the photo above.) Now I just need a pocket piece which was made by tracing the folded over pocket section (the top portion of that left pattern piece.) And then the real fun began!

I placed several long strips of plastic wrap on my glass dining table to protect it, and laid the powernet pattern pieces I had cut out on it. The little bit showing at the top left corner was used for a workout top. The small triangular pieces are the gusset end pieces. The pockets are on the lower left, and the lower pocket side panels are on the right. (I used Supplex for the upper pocket panels.)

Art is often an experiment, no matter what media you choose. It is a wonderful way to play and express yourself. And you get to play with color, yay! Since the grape Supplex I was using for my Super G’s was such a fun color, I knew I wanted to do something fun on the side panels. Michaels Arts & Crafts stores often have 50% off coupons in their weekly email ads. Which I greatly appreciate, since the Marvy Uchida Fabri-Ink kit I wanted to try was $25.

I chose the fluorescent set since the purple, turquoise, and green fit solidly in my little wedge of the color wheel. The set includes refillable brushes, but that didn’t sound as fun as randomly dropping splotches of diluted fabric ink with an eye dropper! The darker splotches were diluted 50/50 with water, and the lighter ones are about 25% ink and 75% water.

Things to keep in mind: I always pre-wash my fabric before it gets folded and put in my stash for use. Never, ever, ever skip this step. This removes any dust, dirt, or chemicals that may have gotten on your fabric from the manufacturing process or during freight. You do not want that on your skin, cutting mat, or machine. It also gets any possible shrinkage out of the way. Ink is permanent, so protect your work surface, hands, and clothes. I let the ink dry overnight (although it dries in a matter of minutes) then pressed it with an iron to heat set it.

Mark the back edge of each side pocket panel pattern piece with a clip to avoid confusion later. To assemble the panels, fold the top edge of the pocket under 1″, press, and topstitch with a decorative stitch. Lay the pockets on the upper pocket panels, right sides up, aligning the bottom edges, and baste along the sides. Then lay the lower panel on top of the pockets, right sides together, and stitch. Press the seam up (so it won’t be visible through the lower panel), and topstitch with a decorative stitch.

With the side pocket panels done, you can simply follow the pattern tutorial to finish up your super fun Super G’s.

I’ll tell you a funny story about taking these photos. This pretty foliage is along a rather busy road. It can be kind of awkward posing for photos with cars driving by. While posing so my husband could take a photo of the back of my Super G’s, I asked him if my booty looked good. Right then a truck drove by and the young man in the passenger seat leaned out the window and whistled at me. Straight-faced, my husband answered, “I think you have your answer!” 🙂 Hahahahahahaha!

I love these early morning photos because the colorful sky is a pretty backdrop for my super fun and colorful Super G’s. And who doesn’t love the sound of the ocean as background music?

Sewing is an art, so don’t be afraid to experiment with it, and with other forms of art to make your own fun projects.

All fabric was purchased from Phee Fabrics. The white Supplex workout top is the GreenStyle Jillian I hacked to have powernet inserts and a pocket, blogged here. The teal and grape Supplex workout top is another fun hack I’ll be posting soon.

Yoga Class Fun

If you follow my blog for sewing, you’ve likely seen that I sew a lot of workout wear. It isn’t that I run, or spend hours at the gym because obviously, I don’t! But I do love going to yoga class. I’ve been practicing yoga for 16 years and besides walking the beach, it’s my favorite form of exercise. Like anything else that you practice regularly, the more you do it, the better you get. I’m certainly not perfect, but it’s fun when I feel like I’m able to get deeper into a pose than I used to. I’ve had some excellent yoga instructors over the years, and am happy that I’ve found a yoga studio with classes I enjoy, along with instructors and regular attendees who make me feel like I am part of a happy little tribe.

I’ve never been able to get photos while practicing, but all of the other “regulars” at Friday morning Ashtanga were on vacation, traveling, had work commitments, etc., so I was the only student. Ashley, my favorite Ashtanga instructor 🙂 asked if she could take some photos as we did class. I had to laugh when she said after class that she “felt like the paparazzi, trying to get all up in there, taking photos.” Hahahahaha! Since I am not some Hollywood movie star or otherwise famous, the paparazzi will never be taking photos of me, so I found this hilarious!

Ashley was discreet while photographing, so you’re not subjected to photos of my sweaty face, just my sweaty back! Just for fun, here are my yoga photos:

It was super exciting to me when I was first able to get my head down on the floor during wide legged forward folds.

My elbows feel like they’re pretty centered and vertical when I’m in twisted side angle, I’m almost to the center of my chest.

There are so many variations of forward folds.

I really like this photo, the lighting was pretty. Can you see the sweat dripping up my spine? And can you tell that I never take off my cross necklace? 🙂 I need to work on getting my palms together though.

My Grandpa taught me to stand on my head when I was a little girl, so this isn’t a big deal, since I’ve always been able to do it.

It’s fun to be able to pike out of a headstand too.

If you’ve thought about trying a yoga class, I hope you’ll give it a try. It isn’t all about being able to stand on your head. It’s more about breathing, and learning to control your breath and your responses to the stressors in life. It helps you build focus, along with strengthening and stretching your muscles. As I’ve heard more than once, it’s a yoga “practice”, not a yoga “perfect”. It is also a perfect time to pray. I manage a couple of Hail Mary’s during the opening mantra, and an Our Father during the closing mantra. Faith is an important part of life, and there’s never a bad time to pray. I enjoy adding prayer to my yoga practice as much as I enjoy a quiet prayer while walking the beach.

Exercise, eat healthy foods, and take care of your body and soul.

If you’re curious about my workout outfit, the tights are the GreenStyle Super G’s, although I did hack the side pocket panels in this pair a little bit. My workout top is the hack I did on the Stitch Upon A Time Titania Top, blogged here. The Supplex, Powernet, and plush bra strap elastic were all purchased from Phee Fabrics.

This post may contain affiliate links. This means that at no extra cost to you, I may receive a small commission/credit if you purchase through my links. As always, I only give my honest opinion, because after all, it is my blog, which represents me! 🙂