More Spring Dressmaking for Beatrix

Since last week's post on the yellow romper I made for Bea, I have been sewing at least one new piece for her each day! While it might sound like a lot, these little pieces stitch up so quickly that I can make one in a couple of hours. I set up my sewing machine on the high bar of the kitchen and have realized I really like sewing standing up! Less hunching over for my aging eyes and the machine is out of reach of the kids! My ironing board is flat on the counter next to it. I've realized that if my kids can deal with me cooking, they can also deal with me sewing! I usually let Felix watch a show/movie while Bea plays at my feet or in a nearby room (or naps!) And it should also be noted, when I am excelling in one place in my life, I'm neglecting something else (ie. tidying my house!) No one can do it all or at least do it all well. Sometimes I let cooking inventive meals slide for prioritizing play dates or let cleaning come second to feeding my creative needs. I also believe children need independence (obviously within safe boundaries) so I'm fine with them playing solo (right now they are opening and closing the front windows and climbing on chairs!) Let kids be kids! And let mommy sew one more seam!

Now... let me tell you a little more about each piece!

Red, White + Blue Romper

This is the same design as the yellow romper (which I sketched and patterned out myself) and I used fabric I had on hand in my stash. The blue ground with white and red flowers is vintage (I'm pretty sure at least... I can't remember when/where I bought it!) and the contrast white eyelet is the same I used for this top for myself a couple of years ago.

I also added some red trim to the shoulder and bum ruffles as well as on the sides of the front faux placket. To finish it off, some sweet little red buttons.

Dark Blue Paisley Dress

This was the next piece I made and I wanted to switch things up just a little with a skirt instead of romper bottom (using a very simple bib + dirndl skirt combo). The blue was in my stash and I used left over yellow from romper #1 under the double shoulder ruffles and behind the sash. It was feeling a little flat so I added white pom trim at the hem and on the sash. It's a shorter left but looks so darling with a coordinating cloth diaper underneath!

Aqua and Navy Romper

I just love this little color combo! Both fabrics came from what I already had and this piece sewed up very quickly. I made the straps out of both colors but placed the navy outward in front and the aqua out on back. I also added a little neckline detail using some of the scrap of the strap (say that ten times fast!) I can't wait to see her run around in this little piece!

Purple Dress

For this piece, I used a vintage 1952 Simplicity pattern as the starting point. I omitted the pockets and sleeves and added trim (also leftover from the yellow romper) to the neckline and on the empire waistline scallops. This one looks very cute with a cloth diaper peeking out too! 

Up Next...

No surprise here - I have enough fabric to make up two more little rompers and I'll probably mess around with that today and tomorrow. It's so fun and quick to sew and I've worked out any kinks through the first versions. Now just for a warm day so we can see those baby legs! 

Top 10 Tips for Researching Your Genealogy and Family Tree

Above, the wedding party from my great grandparents Mary Katherine Stoppenhagen and Charles Werling. See more about them here!

1. Call Your Parents and ask for birthdays, marriage dates, deaths of any grandparent, aunt or uncle they can remember. These details will help you connect to the huge amount of established trees and fill in your own more quickly. 

2. Check Your Spelling! I've found that many of my German and Dutch ancestors simplified or Americanized their names after emigrating to the States. Schroeder could be Schröder or Roush could be Roesch. If you cross check a name and birthday, along with some siblings or parents, you can confirm that name change and potentially find older generations using the earlier spelling.

3. Search Nicknames or Common Names. One ancestor I had trouble with is listed alternatively as Sarah and Sally/Sallie on census records. I believe it's the same person because she has a constant birthday, listed with same husband and same children over the course of decades.  I ended up merging two different entries for the same person and I'm still working on tracking down her parents. It's not uncommon for people to go by their middle names either, so check those!

4. Use a Round About. If you're searching for someone and getting no leads, try looking up someone else in the family you've confirmed - a child or spouse, for example. Marriage licenses are great because a lot of them require the applicants to list their parents, including the mother's maiden name. 

5. Google It. In my example above I was only certain of Ora's birth and death dates when I found her headstone. She was buried near her parents, so I was able to add them into the chart (and by add I mean I matched with existing data) and a whole new branch of my tree became available. The site that's helped me a lot FindAGrave.com

6. Cross Check Ages. It took a couple of different census records for me to uncover a distant grandmother had her child at 17. Presumably no father was involved because she lived with her parents and her son, and it appears the child took his mother's last name instead of the father. But how this was entered into the tree was misleading (and a dead end!) It took me a census record listing parents, daughter and grandson (with their ages listed right next to their names) to have the aha moment. She later married and had children with another man which complicated things a bit during my searches!

7. Search with Less Information. Sometimes you just have the wrong info and if you omit that from your search, you can sometimes find the right info. Try searching without a spouse's name attached, or no birth year (especially if you're really not sure)

8. Take Notes While You Work. Because I bounce around a lot on my browser, I keep the name of the person I'm working on right in front of me written down with any dates I might want to cross check. It's also really fun to yell out BINGO! or write it next to a big breakthrough!

9. Get excited... but not too excited. If you're connected to someone who might have a really extensive family tree, say the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Joseph Smith (we share the same Mayflower ancestor - Elizabeth TIlley Howland), then your chart is basically going to take you all the way back to the Bible. (FamilySearch is a free service provided by the LDS) I stopped clicking on ancestors when I got to Jesus times (literally.. BC!) because I don't have the ability to verify that info... I'm really not sure that's even possible. So get excited, especially for all of those written records that confirm things, but don't get crazy about finding your way back to Noah or Adam and Eve (unless you want to! You do you!)

10. Take a Break. Sometimes you'll feel like you're just going in circles or frustrated with missing info. Or maybe it's already 2am and you're wondering how you stayed up so late (because it's SO FUN! That's why!) Sometimes it just pays to take a break and come back to it with fresh eyes.

BONUS: Read the actual records - many of them have been indexed so they're easy to search and read, but if you're able to decipher the handwriting or scanning quality, check out the original document! I've had to download some and pop them into Photoshop to adjust the balance/make them legible, but it's worth it! I always knew Eva was a wonderful seamstresses and worked as a cake decorator but in this record I learned at age 18 she was a telephone operator! 

Finally, it cannot go without saying how grateful I am for all of the researchers, my distant cousins and family members, whom I'll probably never know, who have updated and shared this information and connected the dots. I've probably solved two or three mysteries, but someone (many people!) set me up for success without even knowing it.  I'm doing my part by adding photos and documents (like the ones in this post!) too in hopes of weaving a tapestry of my family history. 

Notes from the Field | 006

There are a lot of perks to being a stay at home mom. When it's cold and dreary - we can stay cuddled up by a fire. When the first day of spring weather hits (whenever that decides to happen!) we can visit a park and play outside all day. We can road trip to antique stores, make play dates, and I also have the ability to work on a lot of projects around the house that I enjoy, especially now that my kids are a little older and able to play together or solo. 

But there are also some drawbacks that I think a lot of stay at home parents feel bad venting about. There can be a lot of isolation - especially on those cold winter days. Play dates revolve around naps and schedules, so as much as I'd love to have them every other day, they seem to happen every other week. I miss the adult only interaction and lunch dates. I miss phoning it in from time to time. I miss using the bathroom alone. I especially miss having goals outside of a clean house or errands completed. 

I also miss having formal feedback, as weird as that may sound. I never dreaded performance reviews. I like having goals and crushing them. No one will be shocked to learn I was more or less a straight A student (minus a few college level math and econ courses. Solid B-s there!) I mean, does it surprise anyone that I started a blog and lived off the comments and likes for so long? 

I thrive on words of affirmation! I've made a big effort to tell myself you're not cleaning the house for praise or this outfit is for you, no one else, etc etc. I'm doing those things because they're either things that need completed or things I'm doing for myself. But when someone else notices a job well done and says something, man. That makes my day. Or week. Probably not month or year, because even though I wish I could, I can't hang onto that thread for longer than a few days

I guess this is all to say, over the weekend, my little laundry room makeover got picked up on Apartment Therapy and it really felt great to be mentioned by what i would consider an authority on interior design. Of course you guys have realized that over the past six months I've pivoted from personal style to sharing more about my life and home. This blog has gone from our family income to my hobby. Something I'm just doing for fun. I mean, I would not turn down a sponsorship to tile my sunroom floor or new kitchen countertops (WHO WOULD!?) but that's not the goal anymore. So a little (or big!) pat on the back reminded me of how important praise is in my life. I'm not sure if it's a good thing to realize (TELL ME YOU LOVE ME! jk jk) but at least I've come to terms with it. Getting to know myself a little more. Also getting to realize that sooner or later, I do want to get back to work - with goals and expectations outside of the home - and I have an idea of how I want to do it.  

I have no formal training, but I've been rearranging my spaces since I was a little kid. I love choosing paint colors, sewing window treatments or pillows. I freaking love rehabbing furniture. I've started doing minor electrical work and carpentry. And for now it all might be in my own home, but why not make a go of it for others? For years I urged others to jump into what they love via the blogging path, so could I afford to take some of my own advice? I love this stuff. And trust me, I don't think I'm in line to get my own show on HGTV because of one little feature on another site, but I do think it would be fun to help my girlfriends who have new houses.

Anyone else out there who went down a new path after staying at home with kids? Is this just a case of the grass being greener on the other side? I don't know, but it's worth a shot. I'd rather try and fail than never try at all. We shall see! 

Our Farmhouse | Spring Bedroom Refresh

Finally! The sun came out! So here we are with my latest interior project - a master bedroom refresh. Right now we're not in a place to dismantle our lives (ie the kitchen) for a big renovation, so decided to take on a smaller project instead. When I'm styling a space I tend to borrow from other rooms, and after I completed the master last year I moved around a lot of plants, books, odds and ends. The space was feeling a little empty. Time to refresh!

First let me share what stayed the same, which is actually a lot. The paint, window treatments and almost all of the furniture are still in use. We moved the crib over to the kids' room and in it's place I finally assembled a desk Adam gave me for mother's day last year (which was also the weekend we closed on this house and moved it, so that box became hidden under other boxes and on and on). I should also note that I kept my 'Secondhand First' mission with this space! My mom did bring me to a new set of sheets as a gift, but everything else is either second hand or self made. I'll go into detail below!

So what's new, Jess? Come on over and have a look!

Bedding

To brighten things up, I started with a new-to-me white coverlet (found second hand on etsy). Underneath are the organic cotton sheets my mom gave me, which are also white with a small grey print. I swapped out my navy bedskirt with a white version I already had in my linen closet. I also kept the two quatrefoil cream pillows and blue textured pillow that I made last year for this bed. Although green velvet might not conjure up spring to most, it reminded me of moss and since I have a thing for using houseplants in all of my rooms now, it helped pull those colors into the bed area. I'm not sure that last sentence totally makes sense. For the throw pillow I used a modern paisley with a combo of pompom trims that I made myself. (and for the bench makeover you'll see on the opposite side of the room). I also kept the white throw at the end of my bed. 

Behind the bed, I created a new headboard using 600 feet of cotton cord affixed to an oak base (which I also made). It was probably a week of knotting and Adam and I both love the end result!

Above the bed, I installed an oak shelf (on sturdy brackets, mounted to studs!). I'm still working on how I want to style it, so you'll see two different versions of that #shelfie in this post. One version has a Robert Cox oil painting I love and the other is just plants. I like how the painting brings in some blues and yellows (and in that version, I have the blue pillow on the bed) but I also like just plants. I might rearrange it every time I clean the room! Who knows! I've been playing around a lot with that shelf and I think as the plants mature and grow it's going to be even cooler.

Desk

The desk was a gift from last year and I'm keeping it simple with a couple plants and a framed photo of me and Felix. The chair was such a score for me - I'd been wanting to add something rattan to the space and this baby popped up at the Habitat ReStore just a couple days later. I sanded down the peeling poly and then rubbed on some beeswax conditioning paste I made. Finally, I used some leftover velvet to reupholster the seat. Hello retro! I love it! The woman who cut my fabric was like "is this color coming back in style? It's very 1970s!" to which I answered "I'm not sure, but that's exactly what I'm going for!" Green isn't going to float everyone's boat, but baby, it rocks mine! And velvet is just so lux! I used a 50% off coupon to buy it as well so la-ti-da!

Decor

Over the wide dresser is my ever growing collection of baskets and trivets and anything straw. Everything is second hand minus the hat which I made myself. I also have a Calethia plant that I repotted (it made its first appearance in my upper living room) and is thriving now that I actually take care of it. It's kind of been one of those that I let totter near the edge of death before reviving (or used to!) Now she has more room for her roots and gets enough water to be happy. 

I swapped the location of the dressers, but kept the mirror where it was, so I put a plant, a globe and some yellow billy balls up there (those were formerly on my bedside tables!) Looks cute! On the left is the bench I reupholstered, using the same fabric as the throw pillow on the bed. Before it was a cat scratched mess with a loose leg and after it's sturdy and perfect for... gathering laundry and getting piled up with junk. Seriously. I'll try to keep it empty to use for putting on shoes or whatever. Mainly I bought it because I wanted a project and it was $6 so I'm pleased with the end result. 

Lighting

I kept my same bedside lamps but finally installed an overhead light! You guys - I left the old wiring sticking out of my ceiling for 9 months. WTF?! Earlier this week I installed the new light, which I updated with some more macrame. It's subtle enough but still improves the look of a basic builder's fixture. And because I made it into a project, I consider it a "supply" which is kind of a round about way to keep within the second hand first. (I allow myself to buy project materials new.) Because nothing was up there at all, I couldn't just live with what I had and lights can be tricky finding used (there are plenty of boob flush mounts out there, but not my thing style wise). I hope there's no one out there bored enough to blog about the times I had to buy something new from the store! I'm sure I'm the only one who cares about the whole 'Make, Do, Mend' thing anyways!

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So that's my spring refresh on my bedroom. I grew up with parents who loved to move around furniture and make small changes (or big, my mom would re-paint rooms all the time!) and it makes me happy to do the same thing. Huge thanks to my mom who helped me sew, pry out old staples and watch the kids so we could make this happen! If I missed anything, please let me know if the comments!

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See More of my FARMHOUSE Makeovers HERE!