My job for the day is to turn these knit shirts (and one dress) into summer pajamas for my kids. I only have a vague notion of how I'm going to do it, but it has to happen because it's hot!

Many of you have asked where I get my knits. The answer is the Dig & Save. It's a store somewhere between dumpster and thrift shop. I'm not making it sound very glamorous am I? I suppose it isn't really, but it is very cheap and very awesome.  The store is full of giant bins of clothes too tattered or stained for the thrift store. You have to literally dig through them to find what you are looking for, or in most cased what you didn't know you were looking for. Everything you do find is $1/pound (half price on Wednesdays).

I often go looking for t shirts to cut up and use for something else. All the different names of knits (and all fabric to be honest) confuse me, but if I can feel the fabric I know exactly what I'll make with it. All the knits pictured above are soft and stretchy, but not too stretchy. There are some that are thin and will work for pj tops and some that are thicker for pj bottoms. I could've never gotten exactly what I wanted through the internet.

That said, there are limitations to using old t shirts: pockets, buttons, v-necks all can get in the way. When I stumble upon an XXL turtleneck I do a little dance. If you don't have a digging-based thrift store in your area or just want straight up yardage for your project, Girl Charlee is a fantastic online resource for knits. All of their fabrics are reasonably priced and though I have gotten some printed knits that were a bit scratchy, 90% of the time they are butter soft.

Have you ever finished a Christmas present in May? I suppose that's what happens when you start the largest and most complicated crochet project you've ever attempted in November.

Yes, this is a christmas present for my mother (and birthday present and now mother's day present). Yes, she has seen it, unfinished and unblocked. Yes, that is kind of mean: "Here is this thing I'm making you that's half done and kind of crappy looking! Aren't you excited? No, you can't have it! And I have no idea when I'll be done! Merry Christmas!"

Oh well. It is actually done done now. I finished the crocheting in February I think, then I had a little project fatigue. I did not want to see it or touch it or do anything else with it. Has that ever happened to you?

I was super nervous about blocking the shawl, because blocking could make or break this project. This project I had devoted a crazy amount of hours to already.  Finally, I borrowed some blocking wires from a friend (thanks, Debbie!), bought 200 pins, cleared off the guest bed, and blocked that sucker. It turned out nicely, seeing I had no idea what I was doing! The before and after blocking pictures are pretty striking. Block your work, people!

You can find the link to the pattern on Ravelry. Sorry there isn't any information about the yarn I used. I will try to hunt it down, because I've completely forgotten what it was called. It was a lovely lace weight, mohair blend just slightly variegated. It was the absolute perfect yarn for this project. I guess I'll just have to go back to the yarn store to see if they still stock it.

Maybe this would be a good time to start working on her present for this christmas...

I'm on the fence as to whether or not that is an appetizing photo. You might just have to trust me that these salmon cakes (salmon burgers?) are delicious. Delicious and quick and heathy to boot. At dinner time, checking off two out of those three is usually a win. All three is a freakin home run.

This recipe is my (highly) modified version of this salmon burger recipe. A good friend of mine made it for me, kindly converted it to be gluten free, and it was amazing! I've made it many times since and have come up with a few more changes.

The first change I made was to swap out store bought mayonnaise for the homemade stuff. Wait! Don't go! Homemade mayo is not too fancy for you or too complicated for you. Just remember when you [insert thing you did and thought was going to be super hard] and it turned out to be pretty simple. Okay, insert making your own mayo. This stuff is lovely. I'm guessing you wouldn't really enjoy eating a spoonful of mayo out of the jar. The homemade stuff will have you licking the bowl!

Add some smoked paprika and it gets even better.

I had never bought a can of salmon before, tuna, yes, but never salmon. Wow they shove the whole fish in there: bones, skin,  fat, I wouldn't be surprised to see a rogue eyeball one day. After you get over the initial eww, turns out it is a lovely and cheap way to enjoy salmon. The can I bought up there is "wild alaska salmon," which I think is fancy ad talk to trick you into believing it's wild caught. Since then I've found the same large size can at Whole Foods that really is wild caught. At 2.99, it's two dollars cheaper too.

sweet potato salmon cakes

ingredients

for the salmon cakes:

• 1 14oz can of salmon
• 1 small sweet potato, cooked (in the oven or microwave), cooled, and mashed.
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons homemade mayo (recipe below)
• 2 green onions, chopped
• small handful of parsley, minced
• zest of one lemon*, and juice of half that lemon

for the smokey mayo:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
• about 1/2  cup oil (light olive oil is very nice. I used a mix of macadamia nut oil and olive oil because that is what I had. Please don't use canola oil, it's really no good.)
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon (or more) of smoked paprika
• salt to taste

directions

to make the smokey mayo:

Combine egg yolk and mustard in a small bowl (the french do it in a tea cup, or so I've heard). Whisk until blended. Add a tiny bit of oil to yolk mixture, a few drops at a time, and whisk whisk whisk. Keep adding drops of oil and whisking until the mixture looks emulsified (i.e. not weird and oily). Gradually add remaining oil in very slow thin stream, whisking constantly, until mayonnaise is thick. If you keep whisking, it's hard to go wrong, but the internet is there if you do. Add the lemon juice and salt, whisk. Set aside 2 teaspoons for the salmon cakes. Stir the paprika into the rest. Voila!

to make the salmon cakes:

Drain the can of salmon. You can, in theory, eat all the salmon bones, but I remove the larger backbones. I suggest dumping the salmon in a small bowl and removing the bones. Then combine all the ingredients (including the salmon) in a large bowl. Mix with a spoon or your hands. Shape into small patties. They will be a little wet (if you don't like this, use a larger sweet potato). Melt some butter in a non stick pan (cast iron, teflon, or my new favorite blue steel). I'd say about 5 minutes a side, maybe less.  Serve with your lovely homemade mayonnaise.

*it's easiest to zest the whole lemon, then cut it in half. I speak from experience, people. Then you can use one half for the mayo and the other for the salmon cakes.

I totally left you hanging! Sorry! Well, the dress is done and it turned out even better than I had hoped.

I don't think I could say any more about this dress--I mean I've written 6 posts about it already!

The seventh hour (in case you are wondering) was spend hand sewing the lining to the zipper and sewing a little hook and eye in the back. Oh and sewing a veil, which was very poofy and weird, but veils are poofy and weird by nature, so I think that means I got it right?

Her first communion went well. She didn't slip and fall in her high heel (!) shoes. And multiple people said the dress fit her personality to a tee. A fantastic compliment if I ever heard one. And she loved the dress! She may not ever wear it again, but maybe her daughter will someday.

polka dot fairy tale dress

• hour 1
• hour 2
• hour 3
• hour 4
• hour 5
• hour 6

Hour #6

1. arm binding: There has to be a least one sucky part of every sewing project, right? The dress was all smooth sailing up to this point. It was about time I hit a sucky patch. Enter the arm bindings. They seemed too large to begin with and then the directions tell you to shape them--with your iron--into a gentle curve. My words were not very gentle as I ironed and steamed and stretched those suckers all out of whack.

Now they were enormous! I wanted to throw them out and start over, but I thought I'd give my sad, stretched out arm bindings one more chance. I pinned, and pinned, and pinned some more before I sewed the bindings on. Pin to Win! Pin to Win! I say that to myself when I really want something to work and I'm worried that won't. Sometimes it's just wishful pinning, but other times you really pin and win. Okay, enough of my private sewing dorkiness.

And look! I won! Kind of. The arm binding went on without any tucks or weirdness, but the inside was super wavy. Probably because it was stretched all to hell (see above). I had been planning to machine stitch the whole arm binding on, but there are not enough pins in the world to make that work.

2. hand stitching: So hand stitching it was. And after I hand stitched the arm binding, I couldn't do a machine hem. So hand stitching it was again. And wow that took me more than an hour! I am a super slow stitcher, it seems--say that 5 times fast!

Hour #5

1. tulle: For all of my sewing career (ha!) I've worked with pretty straight forward fabrics: cottons, wools, and knits now and then. I've never been drawn to the slinky, fancy stuff. Those fabrics are not really my style, but mostly they look really tricky to sew. Turns out tulle is not that awful. It is difficult to sew something practically invisible and it was a bit slippy. But  did you know that tulle doesn't fray? No hems at all! Zip, zip (that's the sound effect for a few seams) and the poofy bit of the lining was done.

2. lining: The lining is a few rectangles sewn together and then hemmed. Easy peasy. Then you baste both together and gather them like the main skirt. I don't think this step actually took me a whole hour, but plenty of previous steps took more than an hour so let's call it even. There are still two more days (two hours!) left in Kid's Clothes Week. Don't you go taking the weekend off!

Are you coming to hang out with me tomorrow? I don't know how many people are coming. If we don't all fit, there is a nice little bar across the street. It'll either be cookies and coffee and sewing, or bloody marys and fried cheese curds and sewing!

Hour #4

1. the zipper: The little strip of plastic we all dread. I knew it was coming up and the damn thing was making me nervous. I have done zippers successfully before, but this was an invisible zipper. An invisible zipper is like a regular zipper folded up weird. First you have to undo the weirdness with an iron, then you can put it in--this involves more muscle than you would expect. :)

I have to say the directions for sewing in the zipper were completely non-intuitive. But the thing that makes Olive + S directions so good is they know when you think it's weird or you think are doing something wrong and they assure you all is well. The directions for the zipper say, "The zipper tape will seem to be twisted at the bottom if you have everything pinned and stitched properly."  You can see how reassuring words like that are when it's late and you don't know what you are doing and it looks like everything is going to hell.

And everything did not go there with this zipper. Seams match! It is [almost] invisible! Good things all around!

2. the collar: How could four polka dot smiles not make you happy?

The collar went surprisingly well. Again, it's because the directions are crazy good. They suggests drawing your stitch lines on the collar, because curves can be hard to get just right. And my polka dot smiles are almost just right. They're not frowning at least. I even got them on the dress correctly on my first try. I did unpick the basting and fiddle with them a bit to get them in the right spot, but still, I was expecting to sew and rip many times. Collars have not been my friend in the past.

I'm going to be totally mean and not show you the dress yet. We still have 3 hours to go! Hang in there.

Have you been keeping up with the kcw blog this week? and the flickr pool? All the clothes you are making are amazing!

Hour #3

1. bodice: Here we are at hour number 3 already and there's hardly been any sewing! Well that's about to change. The first bit of sewing I tackled was the bodice. That went so fast that I didn't even photograph it--and I even made two bodices (one for the main dress and one for the lining).

2. bow: The pattern for the bow on this dress seems hilariously huge. Once you've folded it over and sewed up it, the bow takes on slightly more normal proportions. Then you have to gather the ends and place it in just the right place on the bodice.

3. skirt: The skirt on the fairy tale dress is a giant rectangle. This make it easy to sew up (and to hem later), but to attach such a large rectangle to the bodice requires lots and lots of ruffles.

4. attaching the skirt to the bodice:  I have to admit gathering ruffles is one of my favorite bits of sewing: pinning two very different lengths of fabric together and gathering the longer one to magically match up just right.  And look, they match!

Success! The bow didn't even get caught all crazy in the seam. I had to pat myself on the back for that one!

Day three and I've made the main dress and the lining of the bodice. Looks like the dress is practically done, but we're not even halfway to the finished product!

Tomorrow: more polka dots!

Hour #2

1. laying out pattern pieces: I think laying out pattern pieces to use the least amount of fabric is a lost art. I am certainly no good at it. And I find many new patterns I buy don't even include a layout diagram!  Oliver + S does of course. I tend to use freezer paper for my patterns so I don't have to pin anything. This photo is right before I ironed all the pattern pieces down. And right after I took this picture I thought, "wait! I should really make a muslin."

2. making a muslin: this photo should be titled "trying to sew a muslin while carrying on a conversation with a 3 year old (about snacktime) and a 6 year old (about what a muslin is) simultaneously." The title explains why the darts are on the outside and why one shoulder seam is right and the other so wrong.  It did fit--it may not look like it in the photo, but trust me it fit.

3. cutting the fabric: now this took me the whole hour. Every piece up there is double (either folded in half or two pieces stacked on top of each other).  This is how 6 yards of fabric comes together to make one little dress!

The fairy tale dress (view B) is mostly one color, but the collar and bow can be a contrasting color. Well, obviously you can do whatever you like, but two fabrics are suggested (and it's a good suggestion). I was going to find a sweet floral print for the second fabric, but then I discovered this vintage sheet in my fabric stash. White swiss dot for the main fabric and multi color polka dot for the contrasting fabric? I mean come on! It's perfect!

We like to talk about the process, but tend to only show the finished product. The finished part is pretty, the seam ripping and the swearing not so much. I wanted to take this week to break down a project into all its parts. Kid's Clothes Week says to take an hour each day to focus on making kid's clothes, so each post this week will be how I spent that hour. And by sheer luck I chose a project that took me a little over 7 hours.

Hour #1 :

1. printing out the pattern: I'm using the Fairy Tale Dress pattern by Oliver + S. This is my first pattern by them (I know, I know) and I chose it because I wanted something complex but totally clear. Also, my daughter's first communion is at the end of kcw and she need a dress for the occasion. It's true  Oliver + S patterns are expensive, but when I saw this beautiful dress on flickr made with the same pattern I knew the pattern would be used for years to come.

I purchased the pdf version of the pattern because none of the shops in my area had it in stock (and I didn't plan ahead). Instead of printing and taping all the millions of pages together, I sent the pdf to my local print shop. They printed it out on one giant ream of paper. It was slightly more expensive than I hoped ($12) but it also saved me a ton of time. I was in and out of the shop in 5 minutes.

2. tracing the pattern: I could have just cut it out, but that seemed too wasteful. I'm starting to warm up to tracing patterns. Armed with a hot cup of coffee, I might even say I enjoy it.

3. ironing fabric: ironing on the other hand, not so enjoyable. For a size 7, the fairy tale dress pattern requires almost 6 yards of fabric. Crazy, right?! I was lucky to hit Joann's on a 50% off sale day. The main fabric is a pretty swiss dot ($4/yard), the contrasting fabric (for the collar and bow) is a sheet I got at the thrift store long ago, and the lining is simple white shirting ($3/yard). I wanted to do it in eyelet, but I had no idea eyelet was $20/yard! I love the fabrics I ended up using, but they wrinkle easily. The ironing took me at least an hour if not more!

Stay tuned tomorrow for hour #2. It will be riveting, I'm sure!