For readers who are not hip-deep in the ‘sewing blogisphere’, you may not be familiar with the absolutely explosive growth in people’s sewing what could probably be called ‘Chanel-type’ jackets or ‘Chanel Tribute’ jackets. Go Chanel or Go Home
There are all sorts of patterns around – every one of the socalled ‘Big Four’ has at least one. One of the most popular is the one at the top of the post, Vogue 7975, which has been in their catalog for at least 3 years and is still in their collection and available for purchase. (more…)
Enough with the dueling ground hogs. And wishful thinking as well. 
Many times, Aunt Toby is off-season for a lot of people. It’s geography, you see. Chez Siberia is in Upstate New York and usually for the rest of the US below the Mason Dixon Line, my comments about gardening, the weather, dressing warmly, etc. etc. don’t really line up with their calendars.
When Aunt Toby and the DH first set up housekeeping in a real house (versus their first year of marriage as students, AKA “Annus Horribilus”), we lucked upon a landlord who not only allowed us to rip up a good bit of the lawn, but also encouraged us to do so. One of our ‘challenges” was a humungous maple tree which dominated the backyard and only allowed sun to hit the prime gardening spots for a limited number of hours during the day. And being beginning gardeners, we chose things that we thought would be easy to grow: green beans, broccoli, tomatoes and zucchini.
In our last episode of “The House Rehab that Wouldn’t Die”, the DH and I wrecked out the last room in the house, a little 10’x14′ room that has been used variously as a diningroom, a glory hole, home office, and a kitchen while we were wrecking out the real kitchen and having that redone two years ago(jeeze – did this take THAT long?). 
