SUCH FUN!!!

Here is my stash from L.A. that only just recently were rescued from Abby's trunk.

7 items.  I really thought there were more, but I guess I did take a few things home in the carry on luggage...  

So anyway, now Leon has claimed the snake skin cotton and he wants me to make him a costume.  Not sure about that...  But also not sure I want to look like a snake.

hmmm.. That fabric might want to marinade in my stash for a while.

Speaking of binge'ing...

Lately I've binge watched the 3 season, Amazon Prime series of Miranda. HILARIOUS!  It's centered around Miranda, who is a 6' 1" tall woman, who is very awkward.  

Why is it that I can relate to her so well?...

I loved how she talks directly to her audience when she's shocked. 

Plus, the 30 minute episodes were the perfect chuckling chunk of a show for me.

"what have you done today to make you feel proud!"

Anyway, I thought she looked familiar, so Robb checked her out on IMDB and listed off the shows she's been in.

Oh yeah!!  Spy

 And OF COURSE!  Call The Midwife

Well, NOW what am I going to watch?  

Rear View Mirror

Weekends in the rear view mirror.

For such a somber event, we were all pretty upbeat and cheerful for the drive to Nebraska for my Mom's graveside service.  We ended up having Leon's little brother, Finn, with us for the adventure.  He and Meri got on great.  Leon, Maddy and Matthew hung out in the "way back" and Leon showed off his Lego Star Wars game on his ancient Ipod.

I mostly visited with Robb, worked on funeral thank yous and took out some stitching from some zippers that I salvaged from some of Robb's old shorts that he was throwing away.

 We arrived first at the cemetery and waited in the van.  It was COLD, wet and windy.  It's always windy at this cemetery.  2.5 sets of my grandparents are buried out here and I was only able to put a rose on one of their graves before frost bite was kicking into my bare legs.  Slacks and boots would have probably been a better choice to wear...  

The tent blocked some of the wind and most of the rain, but I come from a big family and we couldn't all fit comfortably, so some stuck out on various sides.

The reason the graveside service was 1.5 months later was so that grandchildren who couldn't make it to the actual funeral could make it to this.  And so that the weather would be better.  I'm almost thinking it was warmer in early March!  But who knew?

Matthew was gracious and helped be a stand-in pallbearer for it.

The service was short but poignant.  

And Beautiful Savior will always make me cry now.

Afterwards, we all drove to another town about 20 minutes away and filled the entire back party room of a Pizza Ranch.  So good to visit with them all.  I got to hear all about my brother's trip to Florida.

Mental note: Buy the strongest and most waterproof sunscreen I can find...  The Florida and Bahama sun was not made for lily white Iowa skin.  He and his girlfriend were peeling pretty good.

On the way home, the kids crashed within 10 minutes of being in the car again.

It reminded me of this photo that I took within 10 minutes of getting in our rental car in Ireland.

Kids are so sweet when they're sleeping... :)

Finally got home after almost 4 hours in the car and our company for dinner (brother-in-law and his wife) arrived 10 minutes later.

Yep - Lisa helped me get some of the food cooked while Robb manned the grill.

After dinner, Maddy helped Meri get all dolled up for a "Porch Prom" that she was attending that evening.

I KNOW!  I'd never heard of a "porch prom" either!  But it was Prom night at our local high school and Meri has graduated so she wasn't going.  Neither were a lot of her theater friends that own a house close to the high school.  So they had a party on the porch, watching and mocking the high school kids as they arrived at the high school for their grand march.  Meri was upset that she couldn't make anything but after hitting up the local convenience store, went to the party bearing chips and cheese dip.  She didn't get back until 2 am and I think she had a great time.

Ellie, Duke and Reedus were all under one roof again for the weekend.  They were excited and as crazy as ever to be together.   The people left back at the house on Saturday had to deal with it.  Not us.   Ellie promptly dragged the food dish to the bathroom and slept behind the bathroom door all day.  She can be moody.

Duke left with Maddy and Matthew on Sunday morning and Ellie stuck around until last night when Meri got done with her community play practice.  And suddenly we're just down to Reedus, who is snoring not so softly under the table as I type.

Teen Challenge arrived at the auto repair place this morning and picked up Meri's car.  Well, it's not hers anymore.

Oh!  My niece from LA came to the burial and brought my fabric that I had gotten in LA in February!  Now I have bunches of fabric to sew with again!  Not that I was running out or anything, but it's great to have fresh material when browsing through my stash and dream about what I could make out of it.  Jen, Meri and I looked through and came up with some ideas already.

Anyway, that was the weekend.  Everyone is back to their own homes and I'm scrambling to get work done today so I'll get a lunch time to sew.

How was your weekend?

Fabri-tainment with cookies and cats

Anyone looking for a new Fabri-tainment center?  We're getting rid of an entertainment center today.  Probably on one of the local swap pages.  I guess I need to take measurements as people who are paying pennies are the dollar tend to be picky. ;)

Last night, I pulled out the Pumpkin chocolate chip cookie dough balls that I'd frozen a couple months ago with Leon and baked them.  I made some quick frosting and dolloped some on top of about half.  That's when I noticed that they were still so doughy that the frosting was making the dough soupy...  

So yep, I put the whole shebang back in the oven for another 5 minutes.  The ones under the frosting were like pumpkin pie...  Still super soft... mmmmmm  

According to Leon though, THUMBS DOWN and "Musgusting"!

Fine.  More for me.

 Found out later on FB that Jill from Blessings of a Stay at Home Mom made exactly the same kind of cookies yesterday too!  What a co-ink-i-dink!

Go check her out and give her some love today.

Leon found a neighbor cat this morning while waiting for the bus.  The bus rolled up the street and he was SO anxious that the cat might cross that sidewalk and get in the way of the bus.  Um no...  It's survived this long without getting hit by a bus, it will be fine boy.  GET ON THE BUS!

Looking forward to a super productive day!  At least I should hope so.  Yesterday was a bust although I did vacuum.

Have a good one!  It's almost the weekend!!!

Inspiring words - Maybe...

Get this!!!

I'm actually working in my office today!!  Surrounded by inspiration...

I do on occasion, but haven't started the day out here for quite a while.  And the weather is even nice enough to be on the deck today!  BUT decided that my office could use some mothering.

Got the boy on the bus this morning and he gave me SUCH a hug, I may need to see the chiropractor about my neck again.  Just saw him yesterday.

The movie about Martin Luther was on PBS last night and I've got it recorded.  Don't know when I'll get a chance to see it, but I will...  It's an important year for Lutherans.  The 500th anniversary of Reformation Day is coming up!

Don't know if you knew that, don't know if you cared.  But it is.  Growing up, I've seen about 8 different movies based on Luther's life and the events surrounding his nailing the 95 theses to the church door.  So it's KIND OF a big deal this year.

If I have to place anything on MY front door, it will be with tape or a magnet.

I used the Fiber Fix stuff on the broken fence!!  It looks ugly right now, but it is able to be sanded now and painted.  That is forth coming.  Probably by this weekend, that fence will look TOTALLY different...

AND be as strong as steel.  I'm not going to try to beat it up with a bat or anything, but maybe we'll put up another bouncy house on a windy day and see if it's still standing later...

Here is the commercial that sold me on it.  LOVE that the parents are getting a little revenge.  

Personally, I'd have given that kid a swat on the butt a LONG time before then, but every kid AND parent is different I suppose...

Have a great Wednesday!

Skeptically Optimistic

Sluggy would be proud of me.  A little disgusted at first, but proud eventually.  I have gleaned 5 bags of fabric from my stash!  They will go to the Goodwill, because if I put any of this on the free table at my sewing group, they'd say, "Really... who would want this??!"  The items probably came from there initially anyway...  Because no one wanted it.

Most of my pieces come from the free table, because either Meri or myself saw a potential project.

Within the last week, I've looked at each piece, so far, with skepticism.  Will I ever use this for ANYTHING??!  If I saw potential, I kept it.    

These are just SOME of the keepers...

I'm pretty optimistic about potential...  So I still have a lot left.  BUT my stash is several tons lighter now and I hope to not frighten people when they come to see it/me.  

Email me privately for an exclusive tour.  

Still haven't found the original pattern for Meri's dress.  It's probably in my upstairs stash.  

I'll go through that when I retire, I suppose...

The Vogue pattern came yesterday though, so we're good!  

I plan to cut out the correct size during lunch, unless something better comes up.

Sew whatcha doin'?

 I made a couple back pack type bags for Maddy and her roommate.  They and most of Maddy's clothes are being packed up as we speak.  She heads back to the great white north of Minnesota Saturday.   I hope these bags work for them!  

They're both made from some tapestry type home dec fabric from the ASG free table and the leather flap is from the free table too.  Someone had brought samples of leather once, all different colors and Meri snapped a bunch of them up.  I did cough up some dough to buy the straps and got to explore our newly remodeled JoAnn Fabrics and use my 10% off coupon.

I'm also sewing two new pillow cases for her futon throw cushions.  Last year I made these. 

This year, they're falling apart, so I'm making new ones with this.  There are zippers on the back for easy take off and washability.  The zipper installation is atrocious... . Just keep them good side up dear!

They're from the free table too and smell vaguely like moth balls...  I'll wash them when I get done...  I'm one of those people that want to start cutting into the fabric immediately and forget all about the pre-wash.  

Call me impatient!

And coming out to my office yesterday, I found this to greet me at my desk!  Maddy and Leon had been doing some arts and crafts out here over the weekend I guess.

 

Sew...  That's what I'm up to.  How about you?

Just Imagine

I got done with a skirt for Maddy last night!  The elastic that I used was a little grungy, so the skirt is in the washing machine right now...  So you can't see it. 

But it turned out really cute!

Here's the tutorial on what I made.  Click HERE.

I did a variation of the tutorial, because the fabric I picked is see through.  I know, I know... See thru is IN! 

Well, not if it's on my daughter!

I took the orangy fabric and folded it 4 inches from in half width wise.  I needed two yards of it and made a tricky french seam so that it wouldn't show.  At least she'll know where the back of the skirt is...

Used the tutorial for the rest with pleating at the (ironed) fold and sewed it to the elastic. 

I even managed to use the selvaged edges for the hem so no hemming required!  Maddy was still a little frantic that I put a lot of effort and time into this last night.  "MOM!  Just hurry with it!  There are lots more items that I need before Girl's State!!"

Yeah yeah... don't worry!   I mean... it's not like she doesn't have other clothes to round out her wardrobe.  My next challenge will be the dying and sewing of the striped dress.  Or a camisole type top out of some silk scarf things someone gave me at ASG.   Got LOTS of each design!  Come to think of it, I think these are silk napkins...  But they'll be gorgeous! 

I just need to line it with something else because as I said before... See thru is ok if it's not for MY daughter...

Tangled in Paint

Needless to say, it was an interesting weekend. And just a word of advice for the young women out there. Have babies when you're young (at least 21 and under 40) when you're capable and your body can take it!

At 45 (hypothetically of course) you need sleep. A lot of it. You know... at least 5 hours on a decent bed. Couches are not a good substitute or a trip to the chiropractor is in your future. And it's such a good thing I'm partially deaf and our bedroom door is good and solid. Meri has been camping out at Maddy's room in the basement...

Anyway... I finally cracked open some paints this weekend and nailed Maddy down on what type of design we're going to paint on this $8000 dress! We're not going to do the large flowers that are on the original design. While we were looking for ideas last night, she suddenly said, "HEY! I love the movie Tangled! What about...."

Then she clicked and clacked on my keyboard. (she was sitting on my lap) (my rocking chair that she usually uses has been moved to the baby areas of the house) After my legs had lost all feeling she suddenly sprang upon a google image that she declared AHA to.

Now I've only seen bits and pieces of this movie, but have seen this little portion of it. Something about tons and tons of lanterns lighting up the sky. Here is one of the pictures she found.
So on her bright yellow dress, we're going to find some suitable colors and paint little rectangles on a portion of the skirt in various muted colors, so they blend. No one has to know her inspiration came from a cartoon movie... and she prefers her friends not know.

She said I could tell you. Who are YOU going to tell?!

Unfortunately the only paints I had in the house last night were primary color poster paints. I need to make up some better stencils and come up with a plan but my testing so far looks kind of cool. Not appropriate for a prom dress, but kind of cool. This is not THE yellow fabric for the dress but just some yellow stuff I had in my stash. Oh and I've GOT to remember to put newspaper underneath when I paint again...
Baby shot! My mom is holding Leon and I'm helping her count toes. He has all of them.

Lippy & Ruthless... That's ME!

How 'bout those Super Bowl commercials?! Huh? huh?! Yeah, some are pretty clever. And some are just plain boring.

One of my favorites were the dog losing weight and then it turns into a cantina from Star Wars. Golden Retrievers and Star Wars... The winning combination in our house!

My other favorite commercial has got to be the Mathew Broderick's Day Off! I LOVED that movie!

The commercial intrigued Meri so much now we need to find Ferris Buellers Day Off so we can watch it together. I found that you can NOT watch that movie online. Neither Netflix nor Hulu Plus let you watch it right away. dang. She is of the generation of instant gratification and I am of the generation of instant gratification or I'll forget it.

Tiffany has been in "kind of" labor since last Wednesday when the hospital sent her home. She's been trying everything under the sun or on the internet to get this baby born. Trust me on this... So far so good tho. The doctor yesterday at her appointment said it very well may happen before their next appointment this next Monday!

Yep, READ MY LIPS. I'll be rocking my grandson by the weekend.

Maybe.

I got to sew last night! Got one more pad made for the crib bumper set that I'm making. So... 2 down, 4 to go. Those straps on them are a pain and I've broken 5 needles so far. That could be because I was low on machine needles and reusing some old ones I found in my sewing box... I may have been desperate and they may have been bent... Got new ones on Sunday.

Maybe the baby is waiting until it's done...

Did some more organizing on my fabric stash on Friday night! Pulled a 6 shelf bookshelf into my office and unpacked the boxes onto it. Got two boxes of stuff to go to the Salvation Army and 2 bags of garbage out of it.

I'm RUTHLESS!
Yeah - it's not very pretty... But browsing through the fabric DOES get your creative juices flowing!
I've been dreaming about a prom dress for Maddy where lightweight silky fabric is woven in the bodice and then the ending pieces flow out into the skirt. I drew a picture. Just not sure... I may have to make an American Girl doll sized prototype to sell it...

Enjoy your random day!

My ADD is showing...

My life is just random these days... No one thing to talk about... ever... Maybe it will slow down after Christmas. probably not...

Meri didn't get the solo that she tried out for last week for her school concert coming up. Probably a good thing, as her voice is almost gone from this cold she's in the middle of.

She also didn't pass her last Taekwondo testing and will try for her black belt again in January.

I took a couple of the presents and the baptism outfit I've been sewing to my sewing meeting last night. The women were very encouraging and gave me some tips on how to take a pucker out from under the zipper on one of them. Whew! I'll work on that over lunch, if I get one.

Had to scrape the windows this morning and as usual, stuck my tongue out at Meri after I scraped her window. It's tradition and she'd feel bad if I didn't. Isn't it funny the things you start when the kids are really little and they just catch on?

Now that the hedgehog is out of my office, I'm rearranging my fabric stash. Now that it's more accessible, my daughter-in-law has been coming out here more often and exploring through it and dreaming about things. Can we make a baby bumper pad out of this? Wouldn't this make a great shirt? I need 45.3 more hours in the day I tell you...

When I took the picture of the leg lamp the other day, I just noticed that we still had our primitive plug in there. It has since been replaced with an outdoor plug in system and is strapped to a pole instead of hanging in midair. Probably safer that way... and I can turn on the outside lights with a flip of the switch. Whoever invented the power strip deserves a cookie today. The Thin Mints kind from Girl Scouts I think... mmmmmI made my usual omelet this morning and put bits of leftover cheesy dip that I made in the crock pot on Saturday on it. Might as well use up the leftovers, huh? At least it wasn't cranberry sauce!

Sipping stale Diet Coke this morning. I really need to get to the store.

Well, that's enough of my strands of thought this morning. I need to start focusing them on work junk now. Have an awesome day and don't let the wolves nip at your feet. I guess I need some fresh pop... the caffeine is all out of this one...

On The Topic Of Stashing

My stash is coming together and surprising me a little... The picture below is a cabinet from our garage (and it's packed...) and then a children's bookshelf that is no longer being used (and it's packed). I still have several boxes sitting around my office waiting, waiting to get sorted and put on a shelf for easy access.I need more shelves! and room...

This is about a third of my patterns... They fill an unused CD rack quite nicely. And WHEN I finally get time to sew again, I'll be able to browse through them easily. I think.
The rest of the room is a mess.

I don't know for sure, but I may have more sewing materials than New York's Mood.

Project Pel-Mel

Meri and Tiffany are switching bedrooms. Meri's current room is bigger than my old sewing room, which is currently Tiffs. I still had a lot of fabric on shelves and in boxes tucked away in that room...

So...

I told them to bring it out to my office and I'll eventually go through it and pack away whatever I want to keep. I think a lot is going to go to our sewing group free table next month!

Here is my office! Well... just the one wall. With most of my fabric stash, patterns and notions.

I may never get on Project Runway... (which started again last night btw!!)

But I MAY get on Hoarders.

A Parade of Puppies & a bit of fabric

On the sewing front... during the process of helping my folks move, my mom gave me a couple boxes of miscellaneous fabric and trims! I've been putting them through the wash getting them ready for my sewing groups Dress a Girl Around the World project that we're going to be doing in a few weeks.

Alternating the laundry batches with bleaching blankets and towels that the puppies go through. We switched them to newspaper yesterday and it's just not cutting it. Not with 8 little ones! And since we don't subscribe to any newspapers, we're running out of supply. There's a reason that the word puppy rhythms with poopy...

On a cheerier note! We took the poopies puppies for their first real outting! I borrowed a wagon with high sides from a neighbor and we bought a little wading pool from the Dollar General.

Since Meri and I were home puppy-sitting, we decided to get the word out that we had puppies for sale!! Gotta find the market for them sometime... So we printed off 20 or so little brochures to hand out curb-side at the annual parade this past Saturday.

A couple of Maddy's closest friends.

There were friends sitting nearby and they babysat one or two for us because we discovered that this size pool does not hold these little guys! As soon as they could, they clambered over the sides to lay in the cool grass. I caught a pic of them before they decided to go completely awol tho. They were a big hit and I heard a lot of "Put the puppy down!" " We are NOT getting a puppy!" "Get back here and pick up candy!" At which point, the little girl would carry a puppy over for her daddy to hold for a little bit while she ran into the street to pick up candy. We were mobbed at the beginning and end of the parade and actually found one person who was seriously in the market for a Golden Retriever puppy! cool... We gave out our brochures to as many as we could that had the following as well as pics of the pups and their parents.

Purebred Golden Retrievers for SALE!

Playful, smart & beautiful little puppies! Will be available to join your family on July 5^th, 2011 when they are 8 weeks old. Each can be registered with APRI and each have pedigrees. Their 6 week shots will be taken care of before that date.

If you’re interested in adding one of these bundles of fun into your home, please contact… XXXXXX

Constantly doing puppy counts! 1-2-3-4! 1-2-3... ah 4!

Got the puppies back to their mommy in decent time for the next feeding.

Anyone want to buy a puppy?

I've been banned...

Last night, Maddy and I went to JoAnns to pick up the final (hopefully) bits to finish the prom dress. The 6 yards of special order organza and 2-3 yards of a couple other pieces.

I accidentally bumped into one of their workers in the aisle and she was surprised to see us again! We had asked her advice on matching some colors for the prom dress on one of the prior visits so she was well aware of our project.Got the stuff cut by the guy that works there and he went off to find my special order fabric, so I went to check out. The first gal that I'd bumped into rang us up.

She said, and I quote... "Now I don't want to see you in here again!"

"Excuse me?..." I managed to spit out, "Do you mean to say that you've banned us from JoAnns??"

She stopped suddenly realizing what that had sounded like. "Oh no!!! I'm so sorry, I meant just for this project!!! You're going to finish it with this right?"

And luckily we were all able to laugh about it! I can't be too sure sometimes... I've been banned from places before... :\

So WHEW!!! My fabric options are still open...

Looking in all the wrong places

Yesterday over lunch, I cut out the 3 panels for Maddy's prom dress skirt. Something I had meant to do over the weekend, but really felt like a slug the whole two days... I don't know why some of you thought I was so busy!But anyway, Discovered that the skirt has actually THREE layers... I didn't plan for that... There is the outer layer of see through shiny organza, the middle layer of darker blue and then the lining that I will be sewing on some netting to make it somewhat poofy. I didn't plan on the lining or the netting...

So! I guess JoAnns will be seeing me again this evening...

I cut out what I could and then decided that I'd start getting the organza cut out too. I measured the pattern piece again and made sure that I added extra inches in case it's REALLY poofy. I didn't want the outside layer to be high water short compared to the under layers... That would kind of look stupid and Maddy would not be happy with me.

I did the math and found that I needed more than the 6 yards of material. darn. I measured the organza on a bolt that I had bought for the bodice and it was 4.5 yards. Can you believe I thought I needed 6 yards for all the strips?? What was I thinking?...

This is the bodice so far. Just waiting for the skirt to attach...

I had obviously done my math wrong... But luckily with that extra 4.5 yards plus the 6 yards that I'd special ordered, I was going to be ok. with some leftover!

The inside of the bodice looks like a quilt just a little, huh?

So I looked around for the 6 yards of special order organza. It wasn't there! I searched the boxes of fabric stacked up in my bedroom in case the kids had brought some things upstairs for me and it got thrown in there. nope.

Looked in the usual spots to drop packages... The glove barrel, the sports barrel, the closet, the laundry room, the car. nope.

So I called JoAnns. "Before I tear my house apart looking for this fabric, could you check and see if I picked it up??"

oops... I hadn't even picked it up yet!

I had been in that store countless times since receiving the call that it had come in, but never once picked it up. The guy who ordered it for me even waited on me a few of those times!!!

sigh... I guess I know where I'll be going tonight...