I decided to make a dress for my mother for Mother’s Day with one of my favorite patterns, the Made-by-Rae Washi dress. With so many amazing fabrics out there, I wasn’t sure what to use until I remembered that I had this beautiful paisley-like lightweight cotton that I bought years ago at the wonderful fabric store in Brooklyn where I learned to sew. I love the deep navy with the contrasts of yellow, green and red. It feels very French.
This felt like the perfect fabric for my mother because she is a Professor of French Literature and has studied and lived in France. I made a medium and lengthened it by 2 inches because we are pretty much the same size. The fabric was a dream to work with.
I lined the bodice using the sausage technique that Rae teaches in her videos.
I shirred the back. Rae has a great shirring tutorial here. The nice thing about dark fabric is that you can use a chalk liner to mark your shirring lines. The top of the back is folded up out of the way with wonder clips.
It is always a good idea to pin or clip the top part of the back before starting to sew the shirring so you don’t catch the top of the back in the shirring seams. (I learned this the hard way.)
I lined the bodice with a pale yellow cotton that I had in my stash. 
The contrast is so pretty.
Picture of the inside of the dress. I love the clean finish that you get when you line the bodice. 
I added loops of ribbon for bra straps, a little touch that makes a huge difference for those of us with sloped shoulders. (inside back view below)
I used the navy fabric and made a hem facing. I generally use hem facings to get a cleaner finish as I wrote about here and here. I didn’t have enough of the yellow or I would have used it to make a contrasting hem facing as I usually do.
I am really happy with the final product and hope that she will enjoy wearing it all summer. She actually has already worn it to the theater in New York. Check it out! Beautiful, am I right?
I may have to make one just like it for myself! I will have to check and see how much of this fabric I have left. 🙂
The Washi-such an awesome pattern! Next up, a polka dot Washi for my sister. 😉
I used chalk to mark the shirring lines but I usually end up just using one chalked line and then using the first sewing line to guide the rest of my seams. Shirring using elastic thread is actually amazingly easy. Rae’s tutorial 
I used organic natural colored cotton batiste to line the bodice using 
I added a ribbon with snaps for bra strap holders as I sewed the fabric sausage.
A fabric sausage pinned and ready to be sewn.
Finished shirring visible as I sew the bodice lining.
Once again I used a lightweight quilting cotton in a neutral light pink for hem facing. I have used it for several garments. I have almost run out!
Hem pinned and ready to be sewn.
Hem.
Finished dress back view. The stripes don’t line up on the side but I am happy with the way the back stripes ended up. The photo bomber is my sweet dog Sadie.
Close up of the beautiful nani iro fabric.
Shades of grey can be beautiful!
Today, May Day, is the seventeenth Sunday in my Unplugged Sundays project. It was one of my favorite kind of days: totally unplanned with no need to go anywhere, do anything or even talk to anyone because my husband was away. The weather even cooperated. I wasn’t totally alone in my house. Sadie, our golden retriever kept me company. Sadie is the perfect companion on an unplugged Sunday: totally undemanding, great at hanging out, not expecting me to make conversation and with no problems for me to solve. Sadie the zenmaster below. 
I am generally a people person and I love all of the people in my life. I have no interest in living alone, but I do find that I need alone time from time to time in order to recharge and reset my perspective. I tend to be a caretaker, a problem solver and a listener and I love being all of those things both in my relationships and my work (nurse, teacher) but I sometimes pay so much attention to others that I forget to pay attention to myself. When my children were little and I would have little snippets of time to myself, I often couldn’t even figure out what to do with it, I was so used to spending my days focused on tasks and attuned to the needs of little people. So today, I tried to not do too much planning. I read, I did some prep for some sewing projects: ironing and cutting out several future dresses and I took a walk. First I walked by myself on a quick 2 mile loop in our neighborhood. This was mostly a walk for exercise although as I walked, I really enjoyed the fresh green smell of the air just after a rain. It was cool and still a little misty but not actively raining. The world looked and smelled so fresh and green. I used to run a lot and this was my favorite running weather. 
Flower glamour shot below.
A lone violet amid the clover. Look at how much is going on-so many teeny tiny buds!
Still life with tiny tree.
Everything in the natural world is more beautiful up close. 
A vine growing up our front step. 
I don’t even know what this is growing up out of the moss. Look at the raindrops, the texture of the stem and the colors. Wild! It looks a little prehistoric. A baby dinosaur plant!
The beauty of lush, green new leaves.
And these. Poison ivy? Pretty no matter what it is.
I love all of the textures . I just looked down along the driveway and this is what I saw.
More green at the base of a tree. 
I looked up and the texture and colors of the tree trunk were amazing. I have lived in this house for two years but never noticed this even though is right next to my driveway.
More texture in the feathery moss.
Walking up the driveway I noticed this old fence post. Slowing down today helped me see things in a new way.
Thanks Sadie!
I have had this Cookie Drop Beatrix Tunic in my head since I made my 
I have always loved this green color. It reminds me of the greens used in so many of the depression era quilts and of my grandparents’ house in Louisville, Kentucky. The mirror below hung in their front hall for over 60 years.
My grandmother loved soft blue greens and those colors predominated in their home. I had the idea for the pop of pink and used this fun fabric for contrasting facings.
I don’t remember where I got this pink fabric but a friend recognized it. I think she may have given it to me years ago when I had an idea for a quilt with lots of pinks because it was my daughter’s favorite color. That quilt never got made because life got in the way. It may end up being a future project. I still have quilt sized scraps left over.
An online friend on instagram commented that the pink fabric reminded her of Mary Poppins. I hadn’t thought of that before but once she said it, I could totally see it. I love Mary Poppins. Who doesn’t? I read all the original books as a child and with my children.
I love the versatility of the 
This time, I modified the pattern to use the contrasting fabric just on the inside of the garment. I used Rae’s instructions as if I was going to do a contrasting button placket using the standard measurements on the side with the buttons and then on the side with the button holes, I made the green portion wider and the pink portion narrower adding a seam allowance to each, folding the fabric at the seam where the two fabrics are sewn together, a technique I use for most of my hems. I am really happy with how it turned out. I think the pink on the outside was a little bolder than I wanted to go but I love the way it peeks out. In order to make Mary Poppins and Bert upright, I had to piece the placket facing but I think it came out fine. Waste not want not! The people are sideways on the hem facing which was necessary given the long strip that I needed for the hem facing. 
This fabric is a cotton lawn so it drapes well but was really easy to work with. Although I originally planned to use these green buttons:
I decided instead to use these slightly worn, older, cream colored buttons that I rescued from a button jar that I picked up at a tag sale when I first moved to Connecticut in 1995 (buttons seen below with all of my long threads after sewing button holes. I left the threads long deliberately in order to pull them through to the underside and knot them. It didn’t take that long and it looks so much neater.) I like the fact that the buttons have variations in their colors and aren’t exactly matching. I used a cream colored thread which is much softer looking than bright white. I like to sew the two rows of stitches on my button plackets because they help me line up my button holes and I like the look of the stitching.
I used more of the pink fabric for the facing and hemmed the tunic using the facing technique that I explained 
Drops and dots. What could be better? The cotton and steel cotton lawn fabrics that I used for my Beatrix tunics are still available at fabric.com as of this writing. Happy spring!
On April 11th, my husband and I celebrated 7 years of marriage and he brought me these beautiful flowers. I especially loved these two peonies which were so lush and beautiful.
Each day over the last week, I noticed that the flowers were slowly changing color. They were just as beautiful but each day they took on new dimensions. Day 3 below. These pictures are untouched and this is what the flowers really looked like. I have never experienced this before, a flower slowly changing color.
From deep red-pink to pink to peach.
As the days and went by, the colors faded and the petals took on a range of shades that gave even more depth to their beauty. Day 4 above and below.
As they became more pale and fragile, they became even more beautiful because the light was now able to shine through the petals. Day 6 below:
As the end of the week neared, the petals became a bit more ruffled giving the flower the appearance of turning inward. Day 7:
Just before it started to lose its petals, the second more full peony appeared to reach upward.
Even after its petals began to fall it was still beautiful, looking like one of the flower fairy illustrations from one of my children’s picture books.
I so enjoyed watching their evolution this week and will miss them. I think they taught me something about aging and beauty because they were no less beautiful at the end of the week than the beginning. Time revealed so many different aspects of their beauty that wasn’t apparent on day 1.
I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~Claude Monet
This route was so imprinted on me, it felt as though no time had passed at all. 
When we got our one offer, we jumped on it but decided to rent for the spring so the kids could finish the school year with their friends. I was at the time 9 months pregnant. 3 weeks after she was born, we moved all of our things into storage and moved our three kids and ourselves into this brownstone (below) on 1st Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. A professor was spending a semester as a visiting professor in Boston so it worked out for both of us. I am not sure how we did it. It was also right after Christmas. She was born December 23rd. I went back to work when she was 6 weeks old so that we would be approved for the mortgage on the new house in Connecticut and then stopped working two and a half months later. The two months that I spent in the Slope being a stay at home mom were very happy. I had always been a little sad that I couldn’t pick my kids up from school. Living in the city had meant me working full time. Trade-offs! It was really nice to have that time. It made it even harder to leave. That spring our 8 year old son wanted to walk to school alone. It terrified me but it was really only a couple of blocks down the main drag of 7th Avenue. I gave him a quarter each day and he had to call when he got there. Cell phones didn’t exist. He loved the independence. Our older kids had their own rooms for the first time in this house. They had always shared a room and had bunk beds. They missed each other but Stephen’s room was on the third floor and he had a view out the back of the house of lights and cars from 7th Avenue which was new for him. We had always had apartments where the windows faced into the deep middle part of the block since our other houses were all on the Avenues in the middle of the block. This made the rooms much quieter, something I hadn’t appreciated until we rented this house much closer to the commercial area. He liked looking out his window at the lights.
It was fun to see that some of the stores we used to go to are still there. Many $$ were spent here.
We loved the local book store. This was before the days of Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
Here is what they are reading in Brooklyn. I was surprised to see a book that I am currently reading: Lab Girl. Quite good so far. 
The Clay Pot was where the kids would go with their dad to pick out birthday or mother’s day gifts for me. Great earrings! Everything there is beautiful and one of a kind.
I was telling a friend at work about my day and she wondered aloud if it had been really emotional for me. Surprisingly it didn’t make me sad. I loved that I had so many happy memories of this place and those times and it made me realize that it really isn’t that far or hard to go to. I just need to have an afternoon and subway fare. Til the next time!
Today I found myself with free time on a beautiful day in NYC after getting a clean bill of health from my cardiologist. First I went to Mood, a well-known fabric store near the doctor’s office, where I looked at zippers. After deciding that I was not up for spending $14 on a zipper, even a really pretty zipper, I thought for a moment about going to a museum but then, because it was a beautiful spring day and because I had enough leftover credit on a Metrocard to get me there and back on the subway, I hopped on a number 2 train and went back to my old neighborhood, the place where all of my kids came home as new babies (after being born in hospitals in Manhattan) and where I lived for 11 years as a newly married wife, a new mom, a full time banker and a runner, reader, quilter and sewer. This is the first place I really chose as a home and it was home in my heart and mind for many years after leaving to move to the suburbs. It was a beautiful unplugged day. (3rd street walking toward the park, above and below)
Note the new bike lane! My son, who lived in this neighborhood until age 8 is a biker and would appreciate this.
We spent so many hours in this park. Right across the street from our building was a playground where I pushed all three children in bucket swings and spent many happy hours watching my kids play with whomever they met that day in the sandbox. We usually brought toys and ended up sharing them widely. One day, we started to round them up and I wasn’t able to find all of the plastic dinosaurs we had brought. I asked some of the other kids to help look for them. Ten children started eagerly digging. It turned into a game. One mom asked me if we really had lost one. She thought I had made it up to keep the kids occupied. Every time we went to the park, we made friends. That was the kind of neighborhood it was. I walked on through the park.
The field in the park where I would take my very active toddler and let him run around. 
Most weekends, we would start in the park and walk through the park to the library and the botanic gardens stopping on the way back at Grand Army Plaza to go to the farmer’s market that would be there each Saturday. I would have a child in a snuggli or a stroller or both. It never got old.
And on to Grand Army Plaza.
Then to the library.
Or swimming lessons which took place in a pool on one of the top floors of this building (note the big windows). Two of my children learned to swim here.
Then, most weekends, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. There was always something new in bloom and it was just the right size for small children. It was beautiful today. Everything is budding and green and on the verge of blooming. 
The trees look almost human. 
Rose garden sleeping. In June it will all be in bloom.
Cherry Esplanade. It will be blooming in two weeks and will be crowded with people but quiet today. I remember chasing children along a field of pink petals.
The pond and Japanese garden.
Turtles in the sun.
The Oaks.
Rose garden waking up.
I loved all the crazy new growth at the base of this tree. #metaphor
And this one looks like a ballerina with arms raised.
So much beauty. After walking though the gardens, I went back through my old neighborhood and walked by the other buildings we lived in and visited some of our old haunts. To be continued.
During the last week, I had an unexpected break from work and sewing. The first few days I was in two different hospitals far from home and having tests to find out if there was anything seriously wrong with me (there wasn’t) and worrying about the implications if there was (quite scary thoughts running through my head) and I couldn’t focus enough to read anything. By the way, being a nurse does not necessarily mean being less stressed when you are in the hospital. If anything, it may make you more stressed because you know too much; but I will say that on the whole, I got really attentive, excellent care and was especially grateful that my overnight nurse the night I was most worried, after getting a bad result on a diagnostic imaging test and having to wait until the next day for the next test that would show that there was nothing to worry about, had 20 years experience as an air force nurse and had flown on helicopters and run 3 emergency departments in the military. Talk about feeling safe in someone’s care. Phew! Now, home, I am trying to make the best of having a few unexpected days off and have been doing a lot of reading.
I started reading these mysteries when my daughter moved to Florida and have really enjoyed the character and the descriptions of Key West. Fun for all you foodies out there. The protagonist is a restaurant critic who lives on a boat in Key West. Dream job in a dream location and totally escapist, fast reads. Good for an airplane.
Last week I had an unexpected hospitalization. I am fine but in the process of figuring that out, I had a medical procedure that requires me to not bear weight on my right wrist for two weeks. Yikes! No ironing, no rotary cutting, no hand quilting, ergo no sewing. I was also told not to drive for 48 hours so am unexpectedly home from work. Extra time but not able to sew. Quite the irony. But I am trying to stay positive (having a health scare turn out to be just a scare definitely makes me grateful), do some more reading and think about all the things I will sew once I am back to normal. I definitely plan to make more versions of the patterns I have found to be tried and true for me but I am most excited to try out a new-to-me pattern by 
I am going to be honest and say that I did not expect to love this pattern. It seemed a little boring, a little sack-like and I did not expect it to be flattering but I saw 
I am also thinking that this fabric would great as a Pearl Tunic, or really, anything. LOVE it.
I have a couple of works in process. One is a second version of a 
I am also working on another 
I also have some unfinished 
I also expect to have a couple of new 
I started my unplugged Sundays the second Sunday in January because on the first weekend of the year, I was driving my daughter back to school in Maine. But what a beautiful place to start the new year.
View of Somes Sound, Mt Desert Island, January 3, 2016
Church on week 4; a sunny day for youth Sunday in all its noisy, loving chaos.
Sunset, week 5. Thought for the week: Your life is your message.
Week 6. Sunrise through the living room window. Reading in the early morning is a weekly treat.
Week 7 thought for the week: you are the light of the world.
New Growth week 8. Thought for the week: What is the song of your life?
Still Life with Feather, Burying Hill Beach Week 9. Thought for the week: Exodus 20: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”
Week 10. Taking time to sit on the rocks and watch the birds swimming near the beach.
nursebeansews 