Tuesday, August 12, 2008

1850s shawl collar vest & Blueberries



I finished Crusoe's vest for Brigade Encampment last weekend. Clearly my mannequin is much smaller than my husband :).

I used Past Patterns vest pattern and it went together really well with the help of the vest pocket tutorial on The Sewing Academy. My biggest problem was that I have never done menswear before and a lot of the steps seemed sort of counter-intuitive to me. All's well that ends well though! I love how it came out, and it really makes my husband's impression, so maybe I will have to try more tailoring again soon!


We all went to the blueberry farm last night and picked over 3 lbs of blueberries! It was the last day the farms around here were open. Our strangely cool summer weather severely delayed the fruit harvests and hurt all the local farmers. But for now, everything is blueberries! I was inspired by Anna Allen's blog to make this blueberry/peach cobbler for me and a friend and it was delicious!

This morning the boys and I enjoyed more of the blueberries in smoothies. We love our fresh produce so much we are thinking about joining a CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Have any of you done this? You purchase a share in a local farm, and every week you get to pick up a share of their organic produce. It sounds fantastic!

Our local organic farm also offers a free-range organic egg share and a plot in the children's garden. I would love for the kids to get to garden and being that we live in a suburban development with very small yards, there is no room for that here. (I've already called poison control once this summer because Nathan was eating my hyacinths, so its probably best to stick with a farm :)

Hopefully, I will have Brigade Encampment pictures to post soon. We forgot our camera, so I am waiting for some friends to send pics. Its a beautiful sunny day here in the NW!

3 comments:

Sarah said...

The vest looks wonderful! I have not used the Past Patterns vest pattern before and was wondering how it would be to work with, since David is hinting at a need for a silk civilian vest. You did a lovely job!

Terry said...

Hi, Lissa-

It's Dad. I had heard about the Community Agriculture thing and was happy to see that you are using it. Do you know if there is a website to find local farms?

Love,
Dad

lissawi said...

There is one for Puget Sound, but I don't know about your area. I will look and email you.