Muse of the Morning PDF Sewing Patterns

How Do You Fit It All In?

I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like to because there always seems to be so many things going on. Right now is also really stressful because The Hubs is running his Kickstarter campaign to fund the publishing of his game Story Realms. It’s a very exciting time, don’t get me wrong, but it’s very stressful as well.

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It’s also Fall. It’s my favorite time of year and it’s a time for looking inward, for making changes as summer settles down into the school-time rhythm. This year though, it seems like there are so many things that I want to be doing that I am having a hard time coming up with my daily rhythm.

Here are some of the things I would like to be doing:
Spend time in the studio sewing or working on patterns.
Create some art or a project with Lil’Miss most days.
Bake food for the freezer and preserve foods for long term storage.
Spend time with Mr.Man each day, reading and singing and snuggling.
Blog twice a week or more with good tutorials and projects.
Volunteer at Lil’ Miss’s school.
Spend time with The Hubs each day.
Go for a walk 5-6 times a week.
Keep the house tidy.
Plan our meals.

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How do you do it? I know that you have so many things that you want to do as well- what are they? How do you get them all done? How do you do it without always feeling like you should be doing something else or feeling like you’re forgetting something? This is what I am trying to figure out. Do you find any books or websites to be particularly helpful? I feel like I need some help right now.

It’s A Sneak Peek!

I haven’t been blogging as much lately because I’ve been busy finishing up a new pattern! I’m really excited for this one- it’s the first one I’ve designed with my little guy in mind!

You know how little guys often have that giant head that either doesn’t fit through regular neckholes or stretches them out?

This is my answer- a t-shirt that snaps at the neckline! Mr.Man loves his dino shirt!

It’s going to be called the Billy Bright Eyes Snappy Tee and it’s really gender neutral. It will have short sleeves, long sleeves and henley sleeves.

And the pattern will be released just in time for fall sewing- I’m hoping for the end of the month! I’ve just been having trouble with my photography… all my fault… like making my other model’s shirt too large and then the next time we met up, I forgot my camera… you know… dumb stuff.

But we’re meeting again to finally get it all right and then it will be ready! Keep a look out!

Things I’m Loving Right Now….

I have this board on Pinterest, where I pin pictures of beautiful things that I see around the interwebs. They’re photos that I find inspirational or beautiful or just plain fun!

Take a look at these amazing pics and check out the sites where I found them!

Isn’t this drawer of embroidery supplies simply delightful?

Makes me want to dig into my projects!

I’m still geeking over SCA garb for next year when I just *know* we’re going to attend a bunch of events. This dress is 20 years out of period, but it’s so gorgeous! Can you imagine all the time that went into that embroidery!?

I feel really lucky that I found our knitting nancy at Goodwill- it’s a cute little red mushroom. These ones are pretty darn cute too! Using a knitting nancy is really easy and relaxing.

Oh my goodness, I am in love with this shawl. It almost makes me want to learn to knit. I love the patterns and colors!

Can you imagine all the little things I could store in all these drawers? They’re wonderful!

I also found this Pinterest board called Everything Primitive, which I am loving! I wouldn’t usually call this my style, but I do like the look of real wood, natural light and old loved things!

A Gardener’s Hand Scrub

I’m spending a lot of time working in the garden these days, usually with bare hands and flip flops on my feet. This means for dirty hands, fingernails and feet. I really don’t like how dirty the heels of my feet get so I put together this hand and foot scrub.

I was inspired by this one on Tip Junkie, which includes soap in the scrub. I’m not a big fan of liquid soap, so I created this version. The soap though, is a great idea to clean and scrub at the same time! I still include oil though for moisturizing purposes since soap can be so drying, especially when your poor hands have been digging in the dirt.

My favorite part of the other tutorial is that it’s not really about perfect measuring- there’s no leftover bits that won’t fit in your jar because the recipe is measured in your jar! So I used that same technique.

Ingredients:
sugar
sweet almond oil (this is a great emollient, but you could also use olive oil)
1/3 – 1/2 bar of ivory soap
Lavender (optional)

Lavender essential oil

I found these cute jars at Goodwill. You could use a regular ol’ wide mouth half pint jar or even those squished wide mouth half pints. Or recycle a container you already have. There are lots of options here.

Whichever type you choose, fill your jar about 2/3 full with sugar.

Grate the soap with your cheese grater. I like to use the really tiny grater, just cuz’ I think it’s cute.

In a small bowl, mix the sugar, the grated soap and a small handful of lavender.

Add enough almond oil to make the mixture slightly liquid-y and blended together well. It doesn’t take much, maybe a 1/4 of a cup. Add 10 drops of lavender essential oil.

Mix well.

Put the mixture back in your jar.

To use the scrub: use instead of soap when you wash your hands after gardening. Rub the scrub into your hands or heels. Rinse.

Ok. Let’s Talk About Something Else.

So Summer Cool Camp hasn’t been going all that great. Or rather, it hasn’t been going at all. K & J’s family has had some health issues and for some reason if they’re not here, I guess I don’t really feel like carrying on without them. Don’t get me wrong, we still do stuff, it’s just more like biking to the park and hanging out. Much less ado.

Anyway, since we haven’t been doing Cool Camp, I’ve felt bad about posting about anything else, so then I just didn’t. All that blogging guilt or something. But, I’m over it now.

So, let’s talk about something else.

I’d like to introduce you to another hobby of ours.

We are medieval re-enactors! You might have heard about the Society For Creative Anachronism (or SCA). The SCA is a group of people who are “dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts, skills, and traditions of pre-17th-century Europe.” (from the SCA About Page).

The Hubs introduced me to the SCA the very first year we met, taking me to the one yearly event that he traditionally went to. I was enthralled of course and we started going to more events each year. I was especially excited about sewing medieval clothing, called garb, for myself and The Hubs. Then when Lil’ Miss was born and making garb for her was fun too!

Isn’t she adorable in her garb- this was when Lil’Miss was two.

Some of the fun of the SCA is the fighting. Fighters wear real armor and fight with rattan swords.

Acorn War 2010

The Hubs’ has never taken part in a war or tournament, but he has some pieces of armor and he fights with friends sometimes. Isn’t he cute in his armor?

Another fun thing about the SCA is learning about medieval crafts of all sorts- but not just learning about them- creating items and making them able to fit in your car to take to events! We have friends who create medieval furniture, shields, armor, who do wood turning, metalwork, singing and dancing, lots and lots who sew garb and many other medieval crafts. This sort of hobby fits right into my other interests of living simply and naturally- because that’s what medieval people did!

We played for a bunch of years, but then we had to stop for various reasons and other things in our lives filled up the space where the SCA had been. Except that lots of our friends still play and so we get to hear about all the fun stuff they’re doing all the time. And they’re having a lot of fun. Maybe too much fun…. We day-tripped an event about 2 years ago, but I was pregnant with Mr.Man and we left early because of my nausea. It’s been 4 years since we camped at an SCA event!

Time to go back. With The Hubs being so busy right now, we’re not able to camp at an event right now (even though he told me that we would be able to), so instead we’re day-tripping this weekend. I’m really excited, and I’ve been working on making sure the kids have garb to wear.

Here’s Mr.Man wearing a tunic that used to be Lil’Miss’s. I made him some pants from my Truly Scrumptious Pattern (they really are adaptable!) and added some trim down the side.

And Lil’Miss in a tester dress from 2 years ago… I added a length of fabric to the bottom and some cute trim over the seam.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about this because if we do get back into playing regularly (which is what I hope), then I’ll probably post some fun medieval type tutorials here on the blog….

If you’re interested and inspired, here’s my SCA dreaming…. pinterest board. I focus on Flemish outfits of the 15-1600s and some Tudor era and early Elizabethan stuff for myself. I would also like to make myself some early Norse garb. For the Hubs, he’s kind of basic early period English- lots of tunics and baggy pants- he doesn’t mind late period stuff, but

So, that’s a little something about us that you might not have expected to see…. what kind of offbeat, exciting hobbies do you have hidden away?