Our FI Nest

The sewing plan progress has slowed down as I've been working through muslining the new patterns before cutting my good fabric. I'm not sure I love the muslins but I'm glad to have a bit more of the crappy fabric out of my stash and saved some heartbreak with my good fabric. Before I go into a lengthy post about my process (just kidding, I'll be fairly brief and just show more pictures) here's the final result of the Jalie Rachel dress. I was pretty nervous to cut up this fabric as I really love it so I did make a muslin first. I'm still trying to figure out my proportions and adjustments to make. I have a longer torso and a slightly lower bust line so I added 1 inch at the upper lengthen line and 1 inch to the hem line. When I made up the muslin I found the twist portion was actually a bit low on me.  I also realized I didn't love the simple twist in this fabric and wanted to add the ties on the next version.  I think the lin

I am trying to adopt more meal prepping for the week ahead this year. I'm also trying to focus on grocery spending again this year and part of that is gamifying the points collected at Superstore. My goal is to redeem for some Christmas gifts next year with the point redemption weekends. Checking the Optimum Points app before making my meal plan I made a list of all the items on bonus points and built my menu around that, as well as plans to stock up on a few items we get from there.  I was pretty impressed and got my highest point value from a single shop. I spent a total of $204 and got $41 worth of points. 20% return isn't bad! Beef and potatoes had point offers on them so based on that I went for some ground beef meals. Based on the inspiration for the "Cook once, eat all eat" cookbook I recently heard about I've decided to try focusing the week's meals around less ingredients. Prior to this idea, I've always tried to have different meats and a few v

Certain days really bring home the message that I am living in a busy time of life. A time filled with demanding young kids that are not yet able to realize their ungrateful nature (hello Mr. 2.5!). The other day PapaBird had all day commitments with work leaving me to scramble to do the morning drop offs and be home before daycare closed. Of course it also coincided with a call from the school board saying our bus was 30 minutes late and the worst traffic I've experienced coming home due to some recent snow fall. I found out two minutes before our regular bus time that the transportation board had sent out the wrong bus number and our bus driver was only 2 minutes late. Cue the mad scramble to get 3 kids out the door in less than 3 minutes! I must say I was really proud of everyone! They all did it without complaint and relatively quickly. No small feat when everyone is 8 or under! My day at work was good, though the work is definitely starting to pile up. At least there is an

A few of the things going on this week that make me happy or improve life overall.  Well having my daughter have another small fracture was not a highlight, but it was good that it coincided with record cold temperatures (-35 to -40C all week) so we didn't need to worry about getting her home from the bus stop because buses were cancelled anyways. We have a follow-up appointment on Friday, but she is now able to walk on it without pain so we should be able to arrange to have her babysitter meet her at the bus with the sled this week as temps are up again.  I always love seeing my hankerchief pile after laundry day. It's such a small thing that makes me happy. I'm glad to be cutting down our waste slightly and it's so much easier on our noses than kleenex. Financial savings are minute at about 50cents a week, but hey, the other advantages make it worthwhile! I organized my fabric stash. It was getting overwhelming whenever I opened the cupboard. 

Yesterday was a rare day off. Well I'm actually very lucky with my job in that I get every second Friday off, but yesterday was the first in what feels like months that I didn't have any kids with me! Oh a luxuriously selfish me-day! It was wonderful! I met a friend at the gym for a boot camp class (spoiler: I'm sore today!), had coffee with her afterwards, did a Costco shop and then came home to have 3 hours to myself. After making up a bit of time I was lacking from work I was able to sew up the Clara's for my sewing plan. I've been focusing on adding more colour to my wardrobe this past year and moving away from wearing only blues. These two definitely fit the bill on that one! I also love how well the fabrics coordinate. I cheated on that one though. The lovely ladies at Discovery Trekking fabrics posted a photo in their facebook group showing all the coordinating fabrics so I picked this purple ( Yoga stretch Deep Burgundy off that recommendation. I

I sewed up another couple Jalie Nicole 's recently, but first up is the one that's part of my 2020 sewing plan aka sew down the stash recently bought plan. In my last Discovery Fabrics order I bought some solar stretch in Poppies  because I loved the Nicole version Dawn from TwoonTwooff made. Yep, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. We just won't play who wore it better. To complete this outfit I'll be making some purple Clara's. As mentioned in my last post, they are already cut out and just need to be sewn. Here I'm wearing my Éleonores in raspberry jegging fabric. I just realized I've never actually blogged about these ones so will have to do that at some point. They are my most worn pants. I do love them, but let's be honest, main reason is because they are the only pair of pants that fit comfortably at the moment. I need to lose about 10 pounds to get back to fitting in the rest of my pants. Thank goodness I have a decent wardrobe o

Starting off this year motivated to get all the things done! We all know how that goes, another week in and the motivation will start to wane. Organization This past weekend I've gone through all the kids clothes and pulled out the things they are not wearing to pass on to others. I've gone through the bins of next size up clothes and took out all those that I didn't like to pass on to someone who can use them within my local upcycling community. I'm trying to move from a mindset of scarcity to abundance. I recently read 'How to Quit Like a Millionaire' and it struck a chord with me. I've been stuck in fear mode with our finances. There is no reason to be here. We have so much and are so privileged. I get stuck trying to get rid of things because I don't want them to go to waste. I think if I can sell them, I should. If it's broken, maybe I can fix them so they don't end up in the landfill. Then I get paralyzed and nothing moves and now the

I bought a lot of fabric last year despite it being a year to sew down my stash so I'm trying to focus on using it up and expanding my work wardrobe. I've been hesitant to make the pants because I've recently gone up a dress size and I'm hopeful I'll come back down. I just don't want to put in the effort of making something for it not to fit in a couple months. The dresses and leggings are more forgiving size wise so I'll likely start there.   If When I complete it all I'll have made 2 pairs of Sabrina Slims  Pants 1 pair of  Vanessa Fluid Pants 1 pair of Éleonore Pull-on Jeans 1 pair of Clara Leggings 2  Classic Tee s Sloane Sweatshirt Alice Top Nicole Tunic Rachel Dress It's not quite a full SWAP (Sewing with a Plan) as not all the tops will go with all the bottoms and it is missing a topper that coordinates with everything, but it will fill some holes in my wardrobe and use up a good portion of my recent fabric acquisitions.