The new Pfaff

So I had her serviced and she purrs like a dream. I have it in the original 1954 cabinet. The one disappointing thing is that there were once four drawers. There were four drawers when it left California and in the moving around and shuffling of things, two of the drawers were lost. :( We’ve made some phone calls to the folks they stayed with along the way but, so far, no dice. I’m really hoping they can find the other drawers.

 

It has a decorative stitching function that I can’t seem to get to work. I need to write more on that OldPfaffForum and see if they can help me out. It zigzags and does straight stitches beautifully. I just wish I could figure out how to make it do the decorative stitches.

 

The two drawers that did make it to Alaska, contained a lot of cool, old stuff. I’m not sure what to do with it all. There are a ton of these sail needles. She used to make wedding dresses so it seems like delicate needles would be more of what she would use. These are really hefty triangular needles.

 

Here are three of them. See how big they are?? What did she use them for?

 

What do I do with all this other stuff? And look, only 15 cents!

 

This one’s only 8 cents.

 

And look at these cute little packages.

 

Is there any market for this kind of thing? Should I just toss it? The family took a few things out of the drawers (one of my fiance’s brother’s baby teeth, ewwwwwwwwwwwwww) and they said to throw away the rest. I have a really hard time throwing things like this away. What should I do with it?

Cute Skirts!

Look folks! Sewing! On a sewing blog!!

I made these little twirly skirts for my girls. Are they not cute? This first one is made out of shirting material. The background is a cream and the stripes are hot pink and gray. I used the directions from Dana to make these. She has a ton of awesome tutorials.

 

I added a little fun bling to this skirt.

 

I used my serger so all the inside seams are pretty. I used variegated thread for extra special fun.

 

I added my label to the back so everyone knows where the back is. On these skirts, it won’t really matter since they are the same front and back.

 

I used my serger to make an east rolled hem.

 

This one is made out of slightly thicker pique material. I’ve had this fabric is my stash for a few years now. 

 

I did the same rolled hem but used a spring green thread for contrast.

 

This is actually the first skirt I made. The ruffled layers are an ITY knit from Fabric.com. It turned out pretty fun.

 

Because it was an ITY, I didn’t hem it.

 

The inner sections are a hot pick like the top. This skirt is more droopy when the girls are wearing it but it also has a lot more movement and actually twirls really well. 
 

The shirting material is the perfect weight for this project. I’ll be making a lot of these. The knit is a little too floppy and the pique is just a little too thick. A duppioni silk would be great; lots of body but not too thick. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to spring for silk for six year-olds.

July and August in Pictures

 

We’ve had a lot of fun in the past few weeks. Yikes!

Don’t some people pay good money for mud baths?

 

Picking out pin bones with pliers so we can make smoked salmon. Very helpful little helpers.

 

Yikes!

 

My new man. He wants me, he really does.

Ran some races. I was Team Dirtylicious.

 

Had what could have been a pretty nasty bear encounter but I think I scared them as much as they scared me. Go Dawn. Momma bear is underneath the left-most cub.

 

Family portraits. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

 

Fall bloom and harvest are in full swing.

 

Caught other types of fish too. Can you say yum?

 

Summer funnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

No wonder I’m so tired!

Sewing Stuff (Finally!)–Jalie 2319 Sweatshirts

I always have this problem when we go camping. Camping involves rain and dirt and marshmallows and campfire. My kids all own raincoats and we take them camping. Inevitably, they end up with little burn holes in their polyester raincoats and it makes me angry to ruin good clothing. So this year I made them a rain/fire/get-in-the-muck coat. I used this amazing Polartec fabric that is wind and waterproof and breathable. You guys have seen it here before when I made myself a running vest. I love that vest. I used the Jalie 2319 pattern that I’ve used so many times before (here, here, and here).

The kids loved them and they practically lived in them over at the fishing site. For those of you who don’t remember this pattern (it’s discontinued) here’s the pattern front and back:

 

 

And here’s a smattering of pictures of the coats. I embroidered fun stuff on the back of the coats. I can never get Little Miss Thing to stand still long enough for a good picture. They are all the hooded version and I used three different types of ribbing for the four coats. My son has striped knit binding, the twins have a green binding, and Little Missy has pink cuffs and rib knit because what other color would she have? Um, pink is the only color, right?

 

Here are all four of my coats (my son is waaaaaaaaaaaay down at the beach – that counts, right?).

This was Miss Helpful posing for me.
 

In the end; happy, warm kids and coats with no little holes! The kids call them the Camping Coats. The only technical thing I would say about this coat is that the torso seems to be a bit short and the arms a bit long. I always add an inch to the torso length and I should have took an inch off the arms. Obviously I left the pockets off this version.

Where the heck has Dawn been?

Well, I’ve been kind of busy. Remember when I used to write about moose hunting and the harvesting and butchering that happened at the end of the year in the fall? Well, fishing season happens in July and The Man I’ve hooked up with is a fisherMan. We don’t typically get a moose every year now but we eat mainly salmon. Yummy, delicious, fresh-from-the-net sockeye salmon. The family commercial fishes and last week was a good week. Each sockeye weighs about 6 pounds and the tender that picks up the fish typically pays between $0.40/pound and $3.75/pound. This year I think they are paying $1.40/pound. Before we sell any fish, we put away enough fish for the family. I usually take about 60 fish for my family of six. We typically eat fish three times per week. My kids love it and I have quite a few recipes that rock. Oh, and I should mention now, if you are going to tell me I’m a bad, horrible person for killing another creature, then move on now vegan/vegetarian/meanie-head. Mind you, I have no problem with what anyone chooses to eat but I do have problems with people who randomly, anonymously write nasty things. If you have a problem with what I eat and publish to the web, don’t read it. If you do want to comment and say I’m a bad person, at least have the balls to use a name and link it back to your own blog. Don’t be a chicken-shit and write nasty comments and then put it in an anonymous post. Sheesh.  (Did you know there is such thing as a freegan? They only eat out of dumpsters. I learned this on Project Runway the other night.)
Many of you really liked the moose hunting posts and the backstory on the hunt and butchering so I figured I’d tell you a little bit about this too.





Bloody corpses below this line*.
******************************************************************************************************


You’ve been warned!
*******************************************************************************************************



So here are the beauties. This is about 350 fish. Almost all of them are sockeye (red) salmon. This is my favorite kind. First, you catch the little suckers in a gill net that hangs between two buoys and two anchors. This suspends the net in the water and the fish try to swim through the net. Their heads fit through but the bodies do not. They get stuck by their gills. We pull them out of the water, take them out of the net, and bleed them (sorry to your squeamish sorts).


We get them to the beach and take them to the cleaning station.


Then they are put in bags in the creek. This creek looks nasty and polluted but that’s because of the high concentration of iron in the rocks here. The water is crystal clear and perfect to drink (well, except for our little friend Giardia - we don’t drink the water.)


Fishies get filleted. Son pokes heads.


One of my jobs was to man the vacuum packer and start processing the fish. There is no power here so this is all done with the help of a generator.


Here is some of the haul.


My son and I dissected several of them and looked for parasites, organs, and sex organs. He’s definitely a science nerd like his momma. Here he’s cutting out the eye to find the lens (yes, It’s kind of macabre but this is how kids learn about things and get interested).



Salmon roe.


While The Men were out fishing (7am to 7pm), I watched the six kids on the beach. One of them is just a little crawling guy who eats sand so he was caged. Yes, he’s in pink. When you’re at fish camp, you wear whatever is warm.


Here’s little J all cozy on the beach. He napped here for two hours and was happy as a clam.



The older kids played in the sand. No, it’s not like a Florida/California hot beach. There was a steady breeze and it was about 60 degrees.


Sometimes we made boat and floated them down the creek. Remember, the water is clear, it’s just the bottom that looks bad.


Five of the six cousins (see my son in the background?). Little man is sleeping.


On the way back to Anchorage, we drove past the oil rig. Is Alaska not a kick-ass state?


I actually have some sewing to show you. You’ve already seen it in these pictures. Hinty, hint, hint!

 

 

*Okay, this line used to say, “Bloody corpses blow this line.” There’s a really good reason I teach middle school-age kids. When I say that typo, I actually laughed so hard, water came out my nose. I have quite the imagination.