This is Dave. Dave is married to Ruth. Ruth is my friend. Ruth loves Dave : )

Ruth wanted sometime fun and super cool for her hubby for Christmas. So she called me : )

You can see he’s pretty happy.

The back is pretty special too….

One happy guy.

Here’s some details about the coat:

The Facts

Fabric: Custom printed cotton from Spoonflower
Pattern: Vogue 2836
Notions: LOTS of interfacing – goat hair canvas and woven cotton, twill tape, 8 unique buttons
Year: Modern
Time to complete: 10+ hours
First worn: Christmas day 2013
Wear again? Yes he has : )
Cost – Not sure, client paid for fabrics.

Ruth messaged me with the following “I’m searching for abstract art type print.” I told her that depending on the copyright she could get something printed on Spoonflower. She responded “Just looked at their site!! Yay!! This is so so so perfect. You are the best!!” And she was off…

She took a photo of a painting that Dave did and manipulated it into this:

Crazy huh?

And then she made this:

Apparently this is a repeat of the painted frame. It’s for the lining.

Whole frame of our body is formed with the help of bones. generic viagra in usa Female may not have the blood cipla generic cialis http://amerikabulteni.com/2011/11/21/hindiye-neden-turkey-diyorlar/ run required for vaginal stimulation & lubrication. Without sexual buy levitra in usa stimulation the brain does not send any signal which translates to no erections. Determine whether you wish to buy Tadalafil after a trial of the drug can pass after consultation with urologist and sexologists, and besides – after cipla levitra consulting with other doctors.

If you follow me on Instagram you would have seen the fabric just before I cut things out : ) It took several hours to get the piecing just right. I wanted to have it as symmetrical as possible but keep the basic flavor of the design in tact. Ruth had one request, that a certain part of the design be on the back:

There IS a center back seam there, so it was some pretty fancy sewing I managed to do!

A word about the pattern: for those of you wanting to make a men’s jacket and do it traditionally (with all that hand stitching) this is a GOOD pattern. The instructions are thorough and clear with the tailoring directions.  I really liked the way they pieced the front interfacing panels together:

But I didn’t do all that hand padding. Years ago I took a course in machine tailoring so this jacket is a hybrid mix of machine and hand tailoring. I was concerned at first that the color of the interfacing would show through the design but it was fine. You can’t really see it but I did do hand stitching on the chest pieces. This is the front collars with the roll complete:

Ruth had brought me a jacket of Dave’s that he liked and fit him well and the Vogue pattern matched the roll line of the collar on his jacket nearly perfectly. The changes I made to the interfacing pieces were:
Added upper back jacket interfacing.
Added underarm interfacing.
Used lighter weight woven cotton interfacing for sleeve hems.

Here’s a shot of the coat after I dropped the lining in:

Pretty cool, huh?

Ruth originally wanted pants to match!? I just didn’t have time BUT there is enough fabric left over to do a pretty dress for Ruth should she get sufficient encouragement : )

Ruth is special to me in several ways – First, she’s an awesome mom. I met her when her youngest son was in a production of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and he played Dill. That particular theater company had an agonizing tradition of letting audience members comment of aspects of the production during dress rehearsals. One older lady in the audience took issue with the Chuck Taylor shoes we put on the kids and said “I don’t think they had those shoes back then. I think you messed up there.” Before I could open my mouth to defend my position we hear this tiny little voice “Um, excuse me ma’m but I researched the history of these shoes. They were first produced in 1917 and quite popular by the 30’s.” I know he said some other stuff but I was so astonished by his certainty and spunk, and he was around 7 years old at that time,  that I don’t remember the rest. I just remember thinking “Who is this kids mother??? That must be one awesome family.” They are : )

Second – she has done a REALLY COOL THING. She hosts the Spontaneous Smiley blog. It’s funny, it’s silly and she’s met Oprah. Go check out her website. Subscribe. Smile.

Third – She got Oprah to jump with joy with her : )

This is a photo my friend Lucy took of a Spontaneous Smiley:

Those are caterpillars on the sunflower making that face. Totally natural, totally random and totally cool. Ruth has people from all over the world submitting photos like that. If you look at the bag she encased the Christmas Jacket in you’ll see it’s covered in smiley faces : )

This is Chunk kitty. We had to put him to sleep a couple of weeks ago. He seemed fine on Thursday, Friday morning he was in my sewing room just hanging out on the floor. Jim thought he was acting funny so he took him to the vet. Next thing you know we’re looking at advanced lymphoma and in a day and a half he’d deteriorated so much we had no choice but to say good-bye.

We miss him. He was sweet, not the brightest bulb in the box but just SO incredibly sweet that all you wanted to do was hold him tight. His mom gave birth to him on our property so we buried him at the top of the hill in the back yard. He used to LOVE to sit by the street edge and watch the world go by, now he can do it forever.

Life is rough. Some days it’s nice to have an extra smile or two to look at. And hey, look at that, a second blog post in a week. I’m on a roll!

“Mom, you’re a dork.” Me “I know”. The daughter “It happens, it’s OK.”

I am now a knitter. At least I think I am : )

This journey started when Tasha of By Gum, By Golly published her very first knitting pattern, the Victory beret. That’s some serious cuteness right there, especially with the lovely Rochelle of Lucky Lucille as her model : ) How can you resist? I didn’t.

Isn’t that CUTE? AND I knit the red sweater, making the pattern up as I went. Yep. I haven’t picked up knitting needles in years and the last few things I made were scarves so NOTHING like figuring out how to shape the pieces, work in a design and finish it all off in the timeline. It might have gone a lot quicker if I didn’t have to take time out for therapy.

Seriously, knitting sent me back to therapy. Not because of the act of knitting but because how I learned to knit as a child.

When I was little it was expected that us girls would grow up to be mommies and housewives and we would cook and knit and sew and do the laundry blah blah blah. My grandmother started teaching me how to sew when I was three and as long as she was around we were constantly sewing. My mother learned how to knit from the neighbor that lived across the hall from us when we lived in San Francisco. I distinctly remember the Irish knit sweaters she made for me and my two sisters, I chose to have little popcorns knit into mine and loved it, most of the time.

Because the whole knitting thing looked like fun I asked if they would teach me. My mother really couldn’t so neighbor Evelyn, who was from Brazil and had been raised by nuns in a convent after being orphaned and could knit faster and better than anyone around, taught me. The only problem was she expected me to be up to an adult skill set right after she showed me something. I was six. She knit Continental style and for the life of me I couldn’t wrap my head around it so I imitated my mother (and the cartoon characters on TV. Ever see a chicken knit? yeah….) Evelyn didn’t like that but put up with it. I got the casting on thing down and the knitting part but when it came to purling she just said “You do the opposite of knitting” so I tried looping the yarn around the needle and THEN putting the needle through the loop…and I’m sure something else. I was never SHOWN, but I was taken to task because I didn’t do it. Let me repeat – I was SIX.

Most of the time when I wanted to knit I was given a skein of yarn and told to wind it in a ball, THEN I was ‘allowed’ to knit. I hate winding skeins into balls. To this day I’ll walk away from knitting if you tell me I MUST roll the skein into a ball. (Plus, when you’re knitting on a train and the ball rolls off your lap or out of your purse it’s an embarrassing dance to get it back.) After I nearly had a panic attack at the yarn store when one of the other customers (because yarn store customers are a particularly nosy bunch, which is mostly fine but not always) chided me for not knitting Continental style AND not winding my skein into a ball, I called my therapist. I clearly had “issues”.

I did manage to buy all the pretty colors for the hat AND four skeins of a cotton/wool blend in my favorite red for a sweater based on a pattern Liz at Zilredloh put on her blog for free. My train of thought went something like this “I’m a smart girl, I have friends who knit and there’s always youtube videos, I can figure this out.” The the train derailed and there I was, sitting in a familiar chair and crying to my therapist.

I will add, so I don’t sound like a complete lunatic, that the woman who “taught” me how to knit was married to the neighborhood pedophile, who tried luring me into his web for a couple of years when I was 5, 6 and 7. He never succeeded physically but emotionally I was damaged, and years later I put enough of the stories I heard together with my own history to figure out he needed HER to be able to do what he did. She was complicit in his sickness and as far as I know they’re still married. It wasn’t so much the act of knitting that sent me to therapy but the memories indelibly paired with knitting. Yes, I’ve had years of therapy previous to this to deal with all that happened, but every now and then some dusty corner of my brain is illuminated and needs to be swept out.

So for the last three months I’ve juggled the knitting of the beret with the knitting of the sweater. I wanted to make the Panelled Cardigan pattern that Liz posted. I had that with me when I went to the yarn store. First they sold me the wrong size needles : ) Apparently the young woman behind the counter didn’t realize that knitting needles changed sizes sometime between the 1940’s and today so she sold me MODERN size 10 needles, when what I really needed was size 2. Fortunately I swatched the yarn and discovered the error within an hour of purchasing the needles so back I went. The pattern also called for 9-10 ounces of yarn to make the sweater so I bought all four skeins of yarn they had in my red, or 14.5 ounces in total, just to make sure I had enough. (I didn’t)

The first thing I discovered about the pattern is they use the “wrong” side of the knitting as the “right” side, so the patterned panels show up. Then I couldn’t figure out the pattern/cabling so I thought “I’ll just knit a basic sweater and use their proportions.” I changed the ribbing to knit 2 purl 1 instead of knit 1 purl 1 since that stitch literally makes me dizzy, all that switching from front to back every other stitch. The right front panel took the ENTIRE skein of yarn, in the end I had 18 inches of yarn left. Hmmm….

At this point I’m looking at my other three skeins and thinking “It’s not going to be enough.” It was mid November at this point so I went back to the yarn store to see if I could get more. Nope. I asked if they’d order more for me and was told they were expecting a shipment within a week or two and it would probably be in that. Great, I’ll wait and in the meantime I was working on Tempest’s Dr. Who challenge and starting the beret.

Week after Thanksgiving I go back in but no yarn. I ask if they’ll now order it. Sure, the order will go in next week and be here mid December.  For some reason I had a brain fart and thought I had to finish by the end of December, so I completely rearranged my schedule, took a deep breath and said “fine”.

Then Rochelle posted “What should I knit?” and had the CUTEST “V for Victory” scarf pattern and I KNEW I had to incorporate that V into my sweater! So I DID!!!

It’s just above my left boob, a la Laverne on “Laverne and Shirley”. It was EASY : ) Every day, for the last three months, I hop on BART and pull out my knitting. First it was the two Dr. Who scarves (one of which I gave to one of my best friend’s daughter for Christmas who screamed so hard through the phone I thought she was hurt at first. No, she’s just 15 and excited), then it was the front panels and sleeves of this sweater. I decided to take a BIG chance and knit the front and sleeves out of the yarn I had and do the back out of the two skeins I ordered, praying the dye lots would be close enough that we wouldn’t notice.

Back to the yarn store I go mid December. Was my yarn in? They hadn’t even ORDERED it yet! Panic set in. I could finish the beret but my SWEATER??!! After all THAT, including therapy, and I wouldn’t finish! I bought some brown and white yarn to play with a faux fox stole pattern I found on a Pinterest page and went home a sad girl.

Then lightening struck. Wait….what about Amazon. They have EVERYTHING on Amazon, says Crystal. NO! They did NOT have my color, ACK!!! I tried calling the manufacturer, apparently they are in Oklahoma and were in the middle of the first Polar Vortex so things weren’t working well. They had no yarn in my color in stock but were dyeing some “next week”. It should be in by the end of the month.

Doctors now have a much better understanding of the immune responses involved in this disease, and clinical evidence have studied postcholecystectomy chronic diarrhea; they found that the use of a placebo medicine has also been somewhat viagra canada pharmacy helpful toward this goal when the reason for the disorder was psychologically based. levitra cheapest price Some European insurance companies even cover this treatment. The person gets addicted to watch sexual movies or porn on a regular basis and it viagra tablets price causes negative consequences to the viewer’s mental, physical and social well being. With male enhancement you address these issues to be a viagra online for women major culprit behind dysfunctional family and professional lives.

I’m still thinking I have to have everything done by December 31 so then I ask who else might carry that yarn in the bay area. It took almost 10 minutes of searching to come up with several yarn stores so I called…and the universe smiled on me. A store in San Francisco had plenty of my red so they put two skeins into an envelope for me on Monday and Tuesday the package was waiting for me when I got home : ) And just to round the story out – it was cheaper, even with shipping, than my local store and the color was almost identical. SCORE!

Then I read ALL the words and realized I had a whole other month to get my Victory sweater done. Breathe…

I took a day or two off and made a Christmas dress for my family’s annual Christmas Eve party, buried our Pouff chicken and spent a frantic day getting vet assistance for two other animals. Life is like that.

To give myself some sense of accomplishment I threw this project into the mix. I thought it would be an adorable vintage-style accessory to wear with vintage dresses. I don’t like the real stuff, and now I’m sufficiently sensitive to all animal products that I just can’t wear them any more. I have a gorgeous cashmere overcoat with a very pretty fur collar that completely creeps me out. I know there has been much debate amongst vintage wearing animal lovers and most say “hey, I don’t buy new furs, I don’t support that industry and this was dead long before I was born so it’s ok.” That’s great, but that’s not me. This looked so EASY that I indulged.

It IS easy but there are things about the pattern that I would definitely change were I to do this again, and I think I will. I think the body proportions are off, I made the legs longer than the pattern called for and they’re still odd. The tail isn’t nearly as big and fluffy as a real tail would be so that will get fixed. All in all I like it and when I finally finish the dress its hanging on and do a proper photoshoot it will be great! I also have enough yarn to do at least two more so why not?

With that accomplishment under my belt I went back to my Victory sweater. The back went together a lot quicker than I thought it might. The original pattern called for no back neck shaping so I searched the internet for help. One set of three videos started out great and quickly evolved into a lesson that made first year calculus look super easy. My eyes rolled to the back of my head. I kept looking and finally found this book online (and free to view!) that really helped. I also found a pattern for doing Miss Lemon’s red sweater from Poirot so I psyched! But the point is I kept looking and digging when I had questions and eventually got my answers so if you’re stuck don’t give up, just keep looking until someone “speaks” to you

The pattern has you knit all pieces separately then put together. I knew trying to knit without side seams was a little past my comfort zone, and certainly trying to knit sleeves by picking up stitches around the armhole would be a challenge I didn’t need to tackle just yet. I did my very best stitching the whole thing together and am pretty happy with it. Yes, there are things I might change later, or just re knit a new sweater ( I know, crazy huh?!) but I feel like I’ve done one of those 100 mile super-marathons through the Sahara. (Yes, that’s a real event, I know someone who has done it.)

I did get sick right after Christmas, most likely food poisoning, so I was on the couch for a couple of days covered in cats and dogs, one of whom put her paw right through my ribbing. I picked up stitches as best I could until I realized I was probably too sick to keep knitting, and it shows.

I decided to leave this because its a true testament to what was going on as I knit. There are places where threads are separated (thanks to Stuart and his neediness), or threads pulled (Olivia liked the feel of the yarn). The sweater already has a history : )

In the end it really was all about the journey and I haven’t cleaned the house, any bit of it, since before Thanksgiving. People on BART want to see my completed projects so they’ll be in for a surprise next week. I’m still in school, have managed to get all my course projects and homework done on time and I’m loving it. The dogs get walked, the cats cuddled, Jim has been taking care of the basics but now that I slid into home plate JUST under the deadline I need to get a handle on life stuff again. I’ve done no gardening, no real sewing, nothing.

As for my associations of knitting to ‘bad’ people, I’ve replaced Evelyn’s face and voice with Tasha, Liz, Michelle at Tres Bien Ensemble, even Meg at Meg the Grand. I need a little break from the needles and I’ve got SO much stuff unblogged that it’s seriously not funny. Time to evolve.

See all the V’s for Victory? Super cute : )

One final project I started a few days ago – I couldn’t let the “left over” yarn from the hat just SIT, so I’m making a Victory scarf:

Thanks to Tasha and Rochelle for all their inspiration, as well as everyone else who participated in this, you ladies have made my life SO much better.

Next up – I made a blazer for a friend. You GOTTA see this! Post up soon!!

Our friend Tempest Devyne, of Fanbloomingstastic, hosted a Dr. Who Sewalong for the last few weeks. Confession: I last watched “Dr. Who” in the 1970’s. I had to choose between “Dr. Who” and “The Prisoner” so I went with “The Prisoner” and then I got interested in boys and….yeah…

I had to work to get caught up on at least the major “stuff” that’s happened in the last few decades but Tempest graciously provided MANY, MANY links and videos and tidbits. Her enthusiasm was so infectious that I really, really liked this little journey : )

She started out with knitting a scarf for Mr. D. I LOVE the colors and since she and a the lovely Tara at wittylittleknitter took ALL of the guess work out of whatever Dr. Who scarf you have a hankering to knit, it was easy! I chose the Season 14 scarf mainly because it’s the shortest scarf and I had limited time. I liked the entire outfit Tom Baker wore and went so far as to buy brown tweed for pants, a burgundy linen for a jacket and even brown wool to do a hat. They’ll look GREAT when I get to them! Alas, that whole reality thing happened and since I don’t have a time machine to pick up extra hours something had to give.

Not only that, but I had a late afternoon inspiration. I was knitting on BART, looked down and saw this:

If you look at the skirt of my coat you’ll see all the colors of the scarf, in their approximate ratios:

The right side of the coat…

…and the left side.

The hood is a little rainbow-like, just in dusky tones as opposed to the brights.

To help me out Miss Chloe is my side kick : )

She has her own sweater AND scarf! Am I one of those crazy pet owners who feels like she must dress her animals up? Not really : ) Chloe is getting a coat because she has short hair and tends to shiver at night, even in the house. And the scarf?
Ahem…it was a goof.

PAY ATTENTION – especially when it comes to knitting directions. Read ALL the words, not just your favorites!
Here’s how I goofed – I was SO excited to start knitting that I printed out the directions, went to Joann’s and bought the yarn Tempest recommended, new needles and flew home. I followed Ms. Tara’s directions for casting on and started knitting (FABULOUS resource!!) I had the piece of paper folded and only read the words ABOVE the fold so hence did not see things like “Knit in garter stitch” and “To obtain row count, multiply numbers by two”. So the Chloe scarf is half the length it should be and is knit/purl instead of garter stitch. Just for the record, never knit a scarf in knit/purl. It curls : ) I do have a very experienced knitter friend who knew immediately what the issue was but I’m ok with it. For one, I can wear it while riding my bike and I won’t pull an Isadora Duncan. And two, it looks kinda cute on Chloe. PLUS I made most of my “goofs” on this one so the second and biggest one is pretty good.

Chloe didn’t seem to mind a goofy scarf.

 She mostly likes the kisses and cuddles she gets when we do photos.

I really like my version of a Dr. Who inspired coat – the basic bodice is a Brooks Brothers wool sweater (HUGE holes at the hem, which is why it was a dollar at Salvation Army). I carefully mapped out what I’d need color-wise and was able to pull everything from my own ‘small’ stock of sweaters expressly for this purpose. The red is cashmere, the orange, yellow and white cotton and the grey, purple and extra green are wool. It went together pretty quickly since I was following the same diagram as the scarf to piece this out. I gave the colors fancy names like eggplant, curry, pumpkin and tomato : )

These pills can improve your stamina, sex desire, and mood to go generic sildenafil canada for intercourse with your partner. There could be other causes of this undesirable health disorder the affected men can be prescribed to deal with these harmful conditions. viagra sale buy So what are you waiting for? Buy shilajit capsules online today and enjoy the many benefits of a healthy sex life, is much cheapest levitra http://djpaulkom.tv/the-real-story-about-cordless-that-the-experts-don/ higher than those who have not. This people are blessed with sexual drive than ever before and are generic viagra samples now living a rocking sex life.

I love that ear : )

And now for a Tardis or two…

Check out the hat : )

Do you know how HARD it is to find this particular shade of blue in a short period of time??? And do you know how much I DON’T like this color??? I call it Paint-Tape Blue after one of my least favorite items.

I can’t stand that blue painters tape, it sticks when you don’t want it to, it pulls off when you need it to stay and it almost always rips some paint off the surface you just finished. When I see paint tape in my house it makes me feel like I HAVE to hurry up and finish something. It creeps me out. Some people don’t like spiders, some don’t like big dogs, some don’t like messes; I can’t stand blue painters tape. Yet there I was, visiting every single thrift store I could possibly get to in a two week period, to see if I could make my late night inspiration a reality. I think I used 7 sweaters, maybe 8 if you count the almost-navy one. Almost all are cotton so the coat is remarkably light weight.

 I wanted to incorporate the windows of the Tardis in the coat design without making them literal. I didn’t want to use anything but the sweaters (for now) just to see what I could do with them. I also had limited time : ) I think I started this the day before Thanksgiving and finished it up just in time for photos on Saturday, since they needed to be up on flickr by midnight. It was a race but I finished!

 Because I had *just* enough of the blue sweaters left when I finished my coat, and because she was so cute in her other coat, I made a quick Tardis for Chloe as well.

The little Tardis on my hat is a model I found online, and I downloaded a Dalek for Chloe to wear/eat. She didn’t like it : ) If you follow me on Instagram you can see that photo.
I made a waist piece in the spirit of Tardis windows. It’s not all that successful and frankly if I were doing this as a customer order I’d make a cotton and boned piece that one person could take on/off. One of these days I’ll finish off the buttons, they’ll be the little St. John Ambulance symbol printed onto fabric like the Jonny Justice buttons.

The waist cincher was bugging me so I took it off. Lost some shape but was pretty comfy.

“Mom, are we done yet?”

“It’s OK, sweetie, we’re almost done.”

“I feel silly.”

“Will there be bacon?”

For all the color grief this gave me it turned out better than I expected. I’m thinking of putting these coats up on ebay or etsy for sale. I wonder if there’s a market for funky Katwise-inspired Dr. Who coats?

And have we all seen the announcement from our friend Kazz that she is going on an indefinite hiatus???  I’m sad but I get it. She has been a HUGE inspiration to me, and I’m going to MISS her influence! She is still on twitter and Instagram so we’re not completely bereft : )

Speaking of twitter – I was going through my notes from the conference this summer from my social media seminar. There’s a bunch of interesting “This is how you use twitter” stuff that isn’t like what we normally see in social media classes, I’m thinking of doing a short “check this out” post. Interested?

Where to start….

I received an email from Vicki of Another Sewing Scientist back at the end of September – she was thinking of coming to town at the end of October to see Tom Waits perform at the Bridge School Benefit concert and would I like to get together with her? Would I?? Took me seconds to reply “YES!!!” and it was ON.

Since I was in the middle of some detailed dental work I made sure to make an appointment for the early morning of October 27 so I could spend the rest of the day with her, showing her our fair city and fabric stores. We met at Britex in San Francisco and shopped the morning away. No photos, alas, mainly because someone OTHER person was in the store taking photos without permission (they’re picky about that sort of thing) so I didn’t want to push my luck and get tossed for trying to get a snap of us. I did pause just outside Britex to grab a photo of the clothing store next door that had dozens of antique sewing machines in their windows:

After Britex we headed over the new Bay Bridge (I’m not impressed), had lunch at my daughter’s place of work and then I dragged Vicki to StoneMountain & Daughter and L’Acis.

Again, neither one of us managed to take a photo of anything except a fabulous piece of fabric that I think Vicki needs:

And that’s her hand : ) We did buy “stuff” before we ambled down the street to L’Acis. If you’ve never been in that store the amount of detail to take in can be OVERWHELMING. I was flagging and she was still on eastern time so I can only imagine…

However, we had made plans to meet up again on Saturday late afternoon for a VERY SPECIAL event (to me)! I called this the “quintessential California experience” as it was the BAD RAP fundraiser featuring a Zydeco band, crawfish boil and Ken Foster of “I’m a Good Dog” doing a reading and book singing. Art, culture and a little dancing weirdness, what could be better : )

*Jonny Justice is one of the rescued Vick dogs, now a therapy dog and, as his owners say, one third dog, one third cow and one third pig : ) I love him.

Did I get photos at the event? Only a couple, so before we get to those here are pics my daughter took of my SPECIAL Jonny Justice coat! The theme for the fundraiser this year was Gund-a-palooza “We’re doing the happy dance in honor of Jonny Justice and the release of the GUND doll created in his image.” I had bought 2 Jonny’s, just because…
So to honor him I decided to make a black/white Katwise-inspired coat to wear once the sun went down. Wow, last year it never got that cold but this year I was SO glad I had this!

We found these murals on the side of a vegan restaurant in Oakland. There were people eating inside that I’m sure wondered what the strange lady in a top hat was doing out front.

Here’s a close up of the Jonny purse : )

It took me months of searching to find a few black/white sweaters. You could search for YEARS if you got really OCD about wanting the “perfect” prints. The checkered parts on the hood and sleeves came from an enormous 80’s sweater that had huge blocks of red and mustard yellow around them. The sweater was actually on the floor at Goodwill and I snatched it up like I’d found some rare gem. You learn to stop caring when people look at you funny when you KNOW you’ve found a treasure : )

I felt like a tiny top hat was the perfect accessory in amongst everything else. I used one of my Jonny buttons to fasten the feathers down.
(Sunny out? It was so bright I could barely hold my eyes open. Modeling is HARD!)

As we walked back around the corner to the car look at the amazing tile job we passed! We were both tired but I INSISTED on doing some twirls in front of the circular goodness!!

Not quite dizzy yet…

Not quite…

Prostatic calculus is one of the most common diseases in recent days and this is mainly happening due to heavy work pressure and constant viagra sans prescription djpaulkom.tv working in front of computers. order viagra sample Beverages: Fluids are important to clean out your gastrointestinal tract and soften fiber. But let me generic cialis viagra assure you that it is not the end of the world. By affecting the person’s ability to move and sense things, the condition can deteriorate one’s quality of life. india levitra

Ok, now I’m done.

Then we turn around and there is the PERFECT car to go with my outfit!

 Details of purse:

I took the Jonny toy and sliced him down the top center back, pulled out the stuffing and filled his legs with those little plastic beads that come out of other stuffed animals your my dog chews on. Yeah for recycling : )

Once the legs were stabilized so he wouldn’t fall over like he’d had too many mojitos I hand stitched a zipper in there and added a pink lining. The handle I bought at Britex with Vicki and I whipstitched it onto Jonny’s back. It just fits a few business cards, my drivers license, the car key, some cash and a lipstick.

Time for custom buttons for the coat:

These are so ridiculously easy that if you tell your kids how you can do this you’ll end up making hundreds of these : )

1) Buy or dig out some Freezer paper. The real old fashioned stuff that is white and has a shiny side. Naturally I didn’t think to photograph THIS part of the process but I found a great link that has good instructions here. There is a link at the end of the instructions to a product you get at Dharma trading that helps keep these images permanent. I heat set mine but if they come off I’ll just make new buttons.

I will make on caveat to their instructions. On MY printer, which has a tray feed on the back side so the paper feeds in upside down, I trim the fabric down from one edge about 1/2 inch. Then I tape the fabric to the freezer paper so there is NO problem with the printer pulling the fabric through, separating and wrinkling. Print as usual.

I ended up with six Jonny faces on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of fabric (and some cat hair from Max who found this whole process fascinating). You need to remember to leave spaces between each face for maneuvering around the button form. Using the lovely covered button kit you can get at any fabric store, cover your buttons. I did cut a small circle of the same fabric to put in between the Jonny face and the silver button so I didn’t get weird silvery bleed through.

These buttons are 1 1/8″ so button holes for these would be a little gappy. I sewed snaps on under the buttons in the frantic 15 minutes before I ran out the door with mobile mojitos. I was literally running a little later than usual today because of this:

I promised a friend of mine, a two-time cancer survivor, that I’d do the Dirty Girl 5K run with her. She decided not to do the obstacle bits where you get REALLY dirty but I indulged. See my socks? They WERE white. And I’m covered with a pretty good layer of straw filled mud, including my shoes and places where sand or straw ought not go : )

Took me longer than I planned to get the mud out of my hair for the party. I had also promised my friend Aimee that I’d bring mojitos to go with the crawfish boil.

By the time the band started playing the sun had gone down and coats were pulled on. This is the Rescue Barn at BAD RAP’s facility, a very posh hotel for the dogs as they get acclimated to other dogs and learn some manners. Tim and Donna know how to throw a party and the dogs love the extra attention but like little kids at Christmas they crash pretty early : )

Because we spent so much time talking and laughing we got almost NO photos of the two of us, just this one at the very end of the evening:

I had a great time. I hope she did too : ) She’s just as fun and funny as you would hope from her blog. Be sure to check out the post up right now, she’s highlighting a dress one of the Project Runway challengers made out of pipette tips. As soon as I showed my co-workers that pic I started getting boxes of pipette tips donated to the cause… Seems that will be on my to-do list soon!

It was SO NICE to meet you Vicki, I had a great time! Come visit California again : )

For everyone who asked how the leaf dress is doing, here it is Thursday, 4 days after completion:

Because, you know, I had nothing else to do…

Back when I did the Magnolia dress I wondered half out loud about seasonal dresses, and Laura Mae of LauraMaeDesigns.com chimed in with suggesting I have a look at the J. Peterman catalog covers. Well! That did it : )

(And seriously, go look at her latest project. She BEADED her belt, jacket, pin… it just goes on and on..the girl loves her handwork and is amazing at it!)

I want to do one of those Christmas “dresses” with bark and branches but first up is Fall!! While out walking the dogs the leaves are falling this time of year and I just can’t help but LOVE those reds.

The back : )

I started this project on Saturday morning. I’d experimented with the leaves for a few days during the week to see if I could extend their ‘shelf’ life by refrigerating them, see if they’d stay moist. They did but, like a cloned sheep, they aged quickly to catch up to their “real” age once out in the world, that is to say they dried up and looked the same as if I’d gathered them a few days before. Not good.

So during Romera’s walk  first thing Saturday morning we stopped by the plaza in town which has MANY red leaf covered trees. Thought we’d save the city gardeners a little time with their leaf wrangling activities this week, dontcha know : ) Picture this – dog sniffing in one direction while owner is scrambling around on her hands and knees pulling leaves out of bushes, the gutter and behind the trash cans and stuffing them into a bag.

Leaves back home, sorted them by color and dug out my wire strands. I had to literally rip the old magnolia leaves off the skirt to start this project! The only leaves that had left the form were from the time the dogs were doing zoomies in the yard and knocked the mannequin over, otherwise every single leaf was staying on that frame forever. Lessons learned – If you want to make a dress out of magnolia leaves to really wear, as long as you don’t sit or fall down, it will hold up for your event; AND those suckers aren’t going into my compost heap. They’ll do as well as ivy which means they’ll take longer than the potato plastic silverwear we use at work to break down.

Once the magnolia leaves were off I started playing. I didn’t figure out until I was done with the yellow leaves that I needed to use TWO leaves for every one magnolia leaf. And I used at least quadruple the amount of leaves in this skirt as the magnolia skirt because I untwisted the wires that had held on the magnolia leaves and had enough to do one quarter of the skirt.

By Sunday afternoon my fingers were scratched and felt like I had sanded them. I had poked myself under my thumb nail so many times it was numb and throbbing at the same time. I KNEW that if I didn’t finish this up before 5pm on Sunday afternoon then all my effort would be wasted! Now that the sun goes down just after 5 I wouldn’t get home in time to take photos during the week and by Tuesday the leaves would be very sad and I’d have to start all over again.

These chemicals then increase the blood flow by breaking obstructions. cheap super cialis One of the most serious side effects of the medication is the mechanism buy cheap levitra of turning ED affected health into normal sexual health. Chance of getting diabetic impotence price of viagra 100mg greyandgrey.com increases with age. You should be careful enough in time of parching the medicine from online pharmacies. generic viagra tab more is considered an effective solution for curing baldness.

 I worked most of the day on Saturday just matching colors and twisting pairs of leaves onto the chicken wire skirt base. It’s pretty soothing work and the weather right now is FABULOUS. 74 degrees, just a hint of a breeze, dogs snoozing in the sun, chickens clucking away…if I didn’t have a To Do list of 9 things that HAD to be done by Sunday evening it would have been down right meditative : )

I had to run up the street three times to various trees gathering more leaves. Sunday morning Romera and I were searching the plaza once again, this time she wouldn’t leave my side since a dog tried to attack her so it was shuffle/dog press butt to leg/shuffle/dog press butt to leg. Poor girl.

Here’s where the whole life thing fits in – I’m busy. We’re all busy I surmise. I recently had a lovely conversation with our friend Vicki of Another Sewing Scientist (more on that in the next blog post I swear!!)  about how we don’t post very often sometimes, or we’re tempted to post something like “our lives are SO busy!” which just sounds like we’re boasting but that’s not what we mean. We ARE busy, that’s just the way of things right now! So we read late into the night, or get sick, or make dresses out of leaves to hang onto our sanity…

Chloe!

It took literally thousands of leaves to complete this. The “belt” around the waist is grape leaves and those suckers dry out faster than the elm leaves! I don’t know why but somehow I got it into my head that doing any part of this project using a glue gun was “bad”.

In the end I glued the tips of the leaves on the top together so they’d hold the shape. I wanted to use these little red and orange spiky fruit balls I found on a tree along one of the paths but when Jim went to pick them they were very smushy and not going to work at all so no necklace : (

The underside : )

Other than being stupidly busy ALL the time I’ve got tons of stuff to post. I did finally get pictures of some of the latest projects, and school is going really well. And if you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed a picture I posted of me and the incomparable Vicki Muise. Oh yes, we had a fabric store play date and went to a party. More to come!!

Believe it or not, more!!

This was actually the first outfit I thought of for the Fall for Cotton sewalong. The shirt fabric is Vintage, and yes, that capital V is on purpose. The shirt is made from 2 feedsacks, most likely from the 40’s or so said the woman selling them at the Longest Yard Sale.

When my mom and I went to the yard sale the first time we flew into Nashville, rented a car and took highway 40 east to the 127. Took about 2 hours plus a side trip to see Andrew Jackson’s home, the Hermitage (an unexpected side trip that involved a last minute decision and the crossing of 3 lanes of traffic on the highway. There was honking : ) ). Just north of the 40 was one of the best spots for “stuff” that we found that year. This year, because we started at the most southern part of the yard sale we thought we had to be extra vigilant so we’d find that area again. Nope. But we did have to travel through several miles of mini-mall after mini-mall after mini-mall that made me CRAZY.

Just as we crossed Highway 40 this year we decided to get gas ‘just in case’ and my daughter called to wish me Happy Birthday, which she did 2 years before at that same exact moment and I was in that exact same spot. Weird…

So…back to yard sale. There were MORE tents and lots of cool stuff. The lady selling these pieces also had tons of tablecloths and quilts. My mom and I each bought a couple tablecloths because the prices were so good and she thought I was a little crazy for liking the prints of the feedsacks, I really liked the combination of the greens, orange and burgundy.  However, I left them there. I found a woman selling vintage patterns and bought three only to discover that one was missing those particular pattern pieces. There were pieces in the envelope, just not to that pattern. Another pattern had only the top pieces and not the skirt. Did I discover this before I purchased them? I did not. And why didn’t I look more closely? I was hot, I was tired, I’d just driven 100 miles and I was hungry. And all the food at these events is either hot dogs, baked beans with hot dogs, corn bread with hot dogs, blue slushies or warm cole slaw (with hot dogs at one stop, I kid you not).

I recognize that being a vegetarian in certain parts of the country can be a challenge and I was prepared for meals of French fries or sauce-less spaghetti. It wasn’t going to hurt me to eat less here and there and we always found decent places for dinner. BUT this day, at this time, after I’d tried eating a piece of THE WORST cornbread EVER, and then warm cole slaw (a dish I tolerate at a decent restaurant but won’t eat warm under any circumstances!) I was cranky. So no, I didn’t check the patterns : )

We headed north and for a day and a half, I thought about those feedsacks. My mother still thought I was a little wack-a-doo but I stopped on our way back south, they were still there and I snagged two. They were about 34″ wide and 40″ long and a little musty. I washed them, dried them in the sun, washed them again and dried them in the dryer to fully shrink them and then cut my blouse out. The fibers are a little nubby and not as tightly woven as our modern cottons but softened up nicely.

Then I had to figure out what to wear WITH it! The skirt I made above is the same shade as one of the greens in the shirt so that is all well and good. It was a remnant left over from my Joan Mad Men dress this year so yeah for stash busting. But while I was at the fabric store I decided I also liked the burgundy in the shirt and found a piece of twill with a little lycra in it so I had to play with that. Plus, it was on sale super cheap and the whole skirt was around $4 : )

That’s what we have here. I can’t decided which combo I like better! I forgot to mention the buttons – green half rounds from the 60’s, all from my stash. They remind me of gum drops.

Ok, now stay with me here, this is how my brain works. It’s like that facebook ecard going around right now “A creative person’s brain is like a computer with 2687 tabs open all at once”. I watch the “Poirot” dvd’s while I sew. One episode had Poirot and Hastings in Egypt and a woman on the same tour had on the nicest solid linen shirt/skirt combo with a belt and neck tie/bow made from a print. How could I do this….??

Voila! I made a burgundy shirt to match the skirt, used the belt from my outfit above and pieced together a little neck ‘cravet’ from the very few scraps I had left and here we are:

When myelin gets damage, cialis cheapest price the messages that travel along with nerve that nerve may be blocked or slowed. It is suggested not to use alcohol right after or prior to the intake of this drug has been found efficient in preventing the dysfunction tadalafil 40mg india http://valsonindia.com/?lang=it of the HMG-CoA chemical in producing the cholesterol. To summarize, cheapest price on tadalafil in the event you are either going to do one of two things. Keep all cheap professional viagra of your financial worries and worries of office chores away.

 Now I can close out a tab or two : )

The print and the color combos are unusual and not in my comfort zone but now that I’ve manipulated 2 vintage feedsacks into three outfits I’m pretty jazzed about them. I have NO green or orange earrings so that will have to go on the “to hunt for” list for the next flea market.

Amelia wondered what we were doing. She’s a little sad and lonely right now, our Pouff girl died a couple of weeks ago. We’ll get her a new friend or two soon, Animal Place has some recent rescues that are going to need homes.

Oh, and the stupid mistake of the week – not looking at what I was doing while sewing in the zipper I sewed in the front of the skirt. Doh!! And we can thank Stuart for the kitty fur.

 Thanks to everyone who voted for us in the BAD RAP calendar contest! We came in at number 15 and WILL be in the calendar! If I understand correctly the top 11 winners are the main photos each month, they’ll choose a center picture amongst themselves and the rest of us will be a smaller photo in each month. I’ll scan the page when the calendars come out in a few weeks.

You can tell Chloe is impressed.

What she doesn’t know is that BAD RAP is hosting a Gund-a-Palooza party. Jonny Justice will be there since he was the model for the new Gund toy : ) I don’t know if he’ll be pawtographing things but I’ll at least get to give him kisses again! Ken Foster, who wrote “I’m a Good Dog” is coming out and they’ll have a Zydeco band, food and drink AND the new calendars! I see a new outfit in my future….

We didn’t get many squash/pumpkins this year, no one in our area did but we did get this cute little Jack-be-Little:

Believe it or not I STILL have more stuff I made for Fall for Cotton!! Have to finish taking photos of everything but I’m getting there. Maybe tomorrow…

The Facts
Fabric: Brown/orange print, all cotton : )
Pattern: New York Pattern 1277
Notions: 1 zipper, 2 buttons from stash, belting from Z : ), 3 vintage buckles
Time to complete: 2 1/2 hours
First worn: September 2013
Wear again? Yes
Cost: ~$31

SO much done, so little time to blog about it! Contrary to what it seems there have NOT been crickets here so I’m going to try to write this REALLY FAST since I have more in the offing : )

First up is a 30’s dress that I’ve been coveting a good long while now. My inspiration is this dress by Marianne, a blogger/seamstress who lives in Finland. You can check out her stuff here. Be sure to scroll through ALL her posts, there’s lots to love there.

 When it came to pattern choice I searched high and low through my sewing room, garage, dining room, living room… I could find the pattern that is the top to her dress but I really liked the skirt and was *almost* sure I had one that was exact. Finally, after a week of poking around I found New York Pattern 1277 in a box on my bookcase in the sewing room, a place I didn’t even think of originally because….I’ve given my sewing room over to two feral kitties we’re taming down : ) Long story but I’ve moved most of my stuff out like I did a year ago with Chloe and the puppies which explains why the whole house was searched.

As far as construction it went together quickly and easily. The pattern ‘envelope’ actually has the directions printed on the inside so after I took out the pieces, which had NEVER been unfolded!, I had to slice open the envelope. Once again I left out the dreaded side zip and put it up the center back. I cut it out exactly as stated and whipped it together.

The hat is from Target, before they donated a bucket of money to the *&$%#@ from Virginia who is making a run for Governor. Hint – don’t click on the link if you’re not ready for a down-and-dirty discussion of his stupidity and misogyny. The end result is we don’t shop at Target anymore. Ah well….

Check out that purse! I found this, and its sister, at the Longest Yard Sale. We started in Alabama this time and met a really lovely mother/daughter team set up in a large yellow and white striped tent near Gadsden. Since we were there on the first day we knew the deals weren’t to be had yet but we stopped by on our way back to Birmingham, the purses were still there and I got both for the original price of one : )

Note to self – don’t do branch-wrestling type of gardening the day before photos (cuts on leg unappealing)

The shoes are modern because I just don’t have the cuties that Marianne models.

The buckle is really three bakelite buckles stacked up like I did for my Kat outfit. I’m liking the multi-colored buckles like this a LOT.

OK, onto outfit number 2.

The Facts
Fabric: Black/white Halloween’y print from Stone Mountain
Pattern: Vogue 8811
Notions: 1 zipper
The prescription de viagra canada concentration of manganese powder explosion is210g/m3. Other treatments may cialis free samples include, thyroid, HGH (human growth hormone) also known as the anti-aging hormone. No matter how some testicular cancers does not cause any symptom and might go cialis super http://cute-n-tiny.com/category/cute-animals/page/34/ undetected until they spread to the other parts of the world are making use of ED tablets to deal with impotence ever again. If you travel and camp to such distant places where there is no mobile network once in a while, then it is not feasible to buy a push to talk radio. cialis uk sales Time to complete: 1 1/2 hours
First worn: September 2013
Wear again? Yes
Cost: ~$18

When I saw this print at Stone Mountain I thought “Big Skirt” and then I saw the price. Smaller skirt prevailed. I used just the skirt pattern from Vogue 8811, it’s a lovely half circle and easy to make. Two seams, a zipper and a waistband, how hard could it be?

Not hard if you start out with more than 2 yards. I ended up having to piece a small corner of the bottom in the back but the print is so wild who is going to notice? I think I spent more time figuring out how/where to piece it than anything else. Because of a minimal amount of fabric I ended up doing the waistband out of black cotton. It all works and even my daughter said “Ohhh…” when she saw it.

The blouse is made the same pattern my Kazz shirt only I did the larger ties and the slits in the sleeves near the elbows. Do I like this version much/better? No. I wish I had done the smaller ties and kept the sleeves in tact but oh well. I also made it from a cotton with a touch of lycra in it and it makes noise when I move so I feel like I’m wearing something plastic. You can see my other Longest Yard Sale purse here : ) Oh, and the blouse isn’t faded or dirty, that’s the sun coming through the trees as we’re taking photos. We did 8 outfits in 4 hours…

Now my favorite outfit in 2 versions and a last minute, Project Runway-style entry:

 I saw the fabric I used in this blouse first on Liz’s blog Zilredloh. I was IN LOVE and immediately went to the web looking for more. Her original source only had fat quarters left but eventually I found some at Hart’s fabrics in Santa Cruz. Over lunch I ordered 2 yards online and just figured I’d make it some time in October but then the fabric showed up last Wednesday…

So I used my favorite blouse pattern and made this Saturday night. No joke. I decided to pipe the collar so you could see it and because I didn’t have enough to face the pointy sleeve cuffs I used red cotton. The buttons are vintage red glass. I tried it with my new blue linen skirt (top stitched in big white stitches!) and it just made me HAPPY!

Then I had to see how it looked with jeans –

I loved it so much I’m wearing the whole outfit to work on Monday : )

 The head scarf is a Parisian print scarf I found at the Longest Yard Sale, deep in Tennessee. Picture this – you drive down a two-to-four lane road, winding through fields and cut rock croppings that show thousands of years of geologic history at a glance. Occasionally you come across a large field full of tents of all shapes, sizes and colors so you pull over, park in next to a ditch and pick your way across the road. This particular area had Organization, being that they had two dozen port-a-potties lined up WITH sinks. Not every place has that and you come to appreciate them: ) It was at this location my mom and I met the nicest gay couple, COMPLETELY out of place in an area that boasted its fair share of “White, Loud and Proud” signs. She bought a Kachina doll, I found the scarf and the 1940’s booklets that I sent Rochelle (don’t worry, I found 2 copies of each so all is well). I felt like giving them a hug but if they were selling there they probably lived nearby and had coping skills for the worst of the “loud”. And now everytime I wear the scarf I think of them.

 I tried to get Chloe to join in the fun but she thought I was weird and wouldn’t even look at me.

And now for the LAST creation of THIS post, I give you my completely recycled shirt.

This was originally my bathrobe, the one that was falling apart that I replaced earlier this year. I didn’t want to completely trash it since parts were still good so when I found a cute but small pattern for 50’s blouses I figured I could use the robe for a muslin! Little did I realize how CUTE it would come out and have now worn it several times. (Sorry about the weird lighting, I was standing under our red patio umbrella) The buttons are little green enameled leaves I bought in 1993. Can we stay hoarder stash busting?

And because my sewing room is torn apart right now I can’t find the pattern : ( When I find it I’ll post it since the cut of the top of the bodice is the best part.

Stuart decided he needed some love.

 Stay tuned….I have several MORE outfits for the Fall for Cotton challenge finished and photographed! Whew….

The Facts

Fabric: Blue printed gingham, all cotton : )
Pattern: Simpliciy 1692
Notions: 1 zipper, 1 package vintage navy rick-rack, 6 buttons from stash
Time to complete: 2 1/2 hours
First worn: September 2013
Wear again? Yes
Cost:  $4.78 including pattern

Rochelle from Lucky Lucille and Tasha from By Gum, By Golly are hosting the Fall for Cotton Sew Along. The only “rule” is the garment MUST be cotton otherwise Anything Goes : ) ( I recently saw “Delovely”, can you tell?) Good thing they chose cotton since I LOVE cottons AND recently bought a pile of vintage fabrics at the flea market and the Longest Yard Sale!

So here we are with this shirt – it is actually project number 3 in a series but the first one photographed. I had bought the fabric as a remnant at Stone Mountain Daughter thinking I could make a wearable muslin and indeed I did. (For some reason I’m fixated on ginghams right now, maybe because the closest JoAnn’s to me has had the same three pieces since February. When I asked if they were going to get any in, ever, they told me that they no longer had any control over ordering at a store level, that it is all auto-shipped from a central warehouse. I know all about those warehouses. I used to be a store manager for House of Fabrics. I spent HOURS of my week arguing with a bunch of guys who didn’t understand the importance of re-stocking the fabrics in high demand. The fact that they’ve “streamlined” their process to cut out the people that actually know what sells in their area just has me shaking my head.  OK, rant over.)

I decided to try Simplicity 1692, Vintage 1940’s, since I picked it up for a whole dollar and it has potential. You know what threw me? The model on the envelope is wearing some sort of white headband or head scarf but every time I look at it the first thing I think is “Mennonite”. Don’t misunderstand, I have a great deal of respect for them but I don’t necessarily want to emulate their style. It’s just not me, like fluorescent colors and belly baring tops, so not me!

Once I got past the whole headscarf thing I liked the view with the neck gathers and the view with the rickrack. And guess what I discovered as I wrote this post up? I forgot to do the rick rack bow on the front of the shirt.

I really liked this shot until I realized I had a piece of redwood bark on my pants…

Here Chloe has turned her back to the whole process.

I felt very Farm Girl today : ) What else does a gingham blouse need? A polka dotty head scarf a la Tasha. I didn’t have enough pins but it worked out pretty well for a first attempt. It was also windy today, my bangs desperately need trimming but I felt cute and put together…so I could go work in my garden…

Beautiful Miss Amelia helped in that way only a chicken can.

Andropause can also viagra online no prescriptions be defined as a “mid-life crisis” for men when the testosterone production reduces. The men typically took Tadalis for 12 weeks, at varying generic viagra prices doses. Whiplash Injury Claims in sports buy line viagra accident is easy as it is easy to proof it. Dizziness, headache, upset stomach, blurred vision are some of the major benefits to buy Kamagra online have been mentioned: Kamagra Online Doesn’t Require Physicians Prescription It is the most significant reason to buy kamagra that is ineffective and doesn’t deliver you with the intense feeling of being complete. viagra prescription

And Chloe did some photobombing. Do you think she cooperated when I tried to make her part of the shots?

Only if I rubbed her chest : )

OK, so things I like about this shirt:

The deep scoop of the neck is lovely. The button detail on the shoulders is cute but seriously, do you need to do all those loops and face everything just so? No, you don’t. The scoop is deep enough that you don’t have to rely on the buttons; at least it was for me. Baste it closed and see if it goes on over your head to double check but in the future I’ll happily sew buttons along the seam and skip the loop-making.

Another side zip. Sigh… I can’t stand side zips but I went ahead and installed one anyway because the tucks around the waist of this looked like I’d need a zipper to get in. I think my install job on this is about the ugliest I’ve done in a long time. I didn’t even take a picture. And I didn’t unzip it before I pulled the shirt on. Now I can take it back out, it passed the Mena test : )

I also had to finagle the rick rack at the neck edge because I wanted to insert it between the shirt front and the facing. I may not have read all the words on the instruction sheet and made life harder than it had to be but I like the way the shoulders turned out.

Those buttons? I have NO idea where they came from but I had 6, and this needed 6 so they seemed perfect. I ‘m on a roll when it comes to finding buttons for things lately, just wait till you see the shirt I made from an old bathrobe and buttons I bought in the early 90’s…

The sleeves are a little big for my tastes but they don’t bind. If I had tried the shirt on before I had hemmed it I would have narrowed them by about an inch. And you’ll notice the pattern meets at the shoulder/arm seam? Pure serendipity.

The head scarf is just a rectangle with tapered ends. Anxiously awaiting the pattern Rochelle is developing for a nicely fitted headscarf : ) This was fine. My neighbor called me “Lucy”.  My jeans are my Rosie the Riveter jeans, the shoes vintage. Minnie showed up here so I included her in a shot all by herself.

She has no tail. She was born with one but she broke it, then bugs got in it so we fixed it. I felt bad for her since she used to wag it like a dog but she’s fine : )

I did photos this week in my own back yard. The area you see here we call Pomegranate Alley.

That is one gigantic Pomegranate tree there on your right (my left). It drapes over three arches and could really use a fourth. The rake I’m holding is a real rake that I really use and the turquoise wheel barrow behind me is one my dad bought when we moved to Walnut Creek in 1968. It has some holes but it’s wonderful. I love my farm tools : )

I also love the vintage cottons I found at the flea market:

I’m not sure if I’m going to have time to get everything made by the end of the sew along but choice is good!

I would like to thank everyone who has voted for Chloe and me for the BAD RAP calendar. Last I checked we were in 8th place, all we have to do is be in the top 11 and we’re in so yay! THANK YOU!!!!

And no crickets this week. I’m on a roll : )

Final photobomb. I love you too : )

Time for adventures! For those of you who don’t live in my area we’re going to San Francisco on this little outing and out to…

Haight Ashbury!
Hippie heaven, ground zero for the Summer of Love, which in many places has never left. Seriously, talk about time standing still. My daughter remarked that it probably smelled better back in the 60’s, perhaps people were still bathing regularly, as two gentlemen in brown overalls (the trend of the moment) walked past and left quite an odoriferous wake. Nope, I reassured her, they smelled pretty much the same way they do today : )

This is one of the reasons why we headed out there:

The Peacock Lady. A panel on a wall. Just cause.

And a peacock coat. Just cause.

I think I had the idea to do something like this coat last year when I was working on the Snow Queen coat. Why now? It just seemed right : ) And I love Katwise, who is blogging, and her energy is infectious and wonderful. So a Kat met a Pea Fowl and they made a coat.

Actually, my daughter borrowed my sewing machine for a week and the only machine I had was the overlock. Rather than do nothing except clean the house (meh) I decided to make this.

I wanted to make each panel look like a feather without being too literal so I used my quilting skills to cut and piece a “feather”. I originally made 24 panels and when I went to sew them all on the waistband they WOULDN’T FIT. I cut two panels off each end so now I have 4 panels laying about the house, orphaned and sad. Brittany suggested I make each of the dogs a winter coat from them. I actually did play around with them the other night on the dogs but all I got was confused canine expressions.

See what I mean about fullness? Holy moley!!

Check out the first pic – see the black and white polka dots? My “normal” clothes are showing through. I was going to wear turquoise tights, purple shoes and a fancy necklace like I did with the Snow Queen. Then we decided to take BART into the city since there was a 49’s game, the America’s Cup races, an anti-Syria war protest AND record high heat projected. And they just opened the new Bay Bridge span so people are FLOCKING over it, even though it has some broken bolt issues that sound the like the beginnings of a bad Stephen Segal movie.

Once I packed the coat into a bag I KNEW that was it, I wasn’t hauling anything else but my camera, purse and a change of shoes into the city. Oh, and a bottle of MAC makeup that I wanted to replace that ended up becoming a nightmare retail experience. Over makeup. Sigh…

Into the city we went, took a bus to the Haight and started shooting. First we hit the peacock painting, then down the street to Buena Vista park. Both Brittany and I were thinking of the song ” if you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair” so I picked a flower and tucked it behind my ear. (It’s very small and yellow and behind my right ear)

What you can’t see are the people at the top of the hill. And what you can’t smell is the smell of the Haight : ) Hint – they roll it up and light it on fire.

My pixie hood.

And at the bottom of the hill are groups of tourists – some speaking German and some speaking French. All are looking at me like I’m just part of the normal goings on. That’s cool.

It’s still really nice out, in the mid 70’s with a breeze off the bay. I decided to try spinning since Katwise does a lot of spinning…

As I’m spinning a tourist bus is unloading at the corner. The leader of the group is giving instructions as to when and where to meet and ends with “Meet AT the McDonald’s across the street but don’t EAT at the McDonald’s!”. <snort>

Down at Haight and Masonic is a store that advertises “If you want to work here you Must Love Rainbows.”

See what they mean? Just in case you don’t think they’re serious –

That is the World’s Largest Tie-Dyed T-Shirt in the window : )

American ginseng is one of the most serious side effects of the medication is a drop in blood pressure. slovak-republic.org buy cheap viagra When consumed, tamoxifen’s metabolites bind viagra sans prescription canada to estrogen receptors to stop estrogen from joining to the receptors. After all, you generic levitra 5mg live only once. It viagra generika 100mg really is said that 10-25% of men are having sexual dysfunction.

The whole time we’re taking photos there are people passing by who remark on the coat, a fire truck full of really cute firemen who smile and wave and a couple of open double-decker tourist buses who think I’m just part of the neighborhood. Again, that’s cool.

What ISN’T cool is the coat. The jacket is wool, most of the greens are cotton so it weighs a “bit” and when standing in the sun I can feel the sweat sliding down my spine.

Apparently peacocks are popular graffiti subjects right now – we found this little spacey fellow and…

…this…

And an outtake for Vicki : )

The way I got rid of the black and white polka dots was to unbutton my shirt, fold each half back under the coat and re-cinch the coat. I figured most people have seen boobs and a bra by now. When we were done I readjusted, took off the coat and went on our merry way.

We passed houses like this:

And this is the store front of the Piedmont Boutique:

If you wander in as a tourist you may not realize (at first) that the pants are all really long, and the shoes go up to size 15, and the jewelry is REALLY big and sparkly…and it’s for drag queens : ) Yes, it is almost as bright as the “Must Love Rainbows” store. But what you REALLY go in for is the amazing rhinestone jewelry. No one does rhinestones better than the drag queens.

And then we were back on a bus, heading downtown to meet Lil Bub. Lil Bub was in town for a meet-and-greet and Brittany wanted to go, so we went : )

Two hours we waited in the sun. If you look at my hair and make-up in the polka dotted blouse shots above I’m a lot more together. As the day goes on my hair gets messier and after waiting in line for 2 hours in the sun to meet Lil Bub my make-up was almost completely in my cleavage.

She is very tiny : )

The meet and greet was very quick, and she looked a little tired. We then went to the other gallery where artists from all over the country had done pieces based on her.

Brittany knows a couple of the artists : )

I like the one with the alien pieces coming out of the frame.

And who doesn’t recognize Grumpy Cat, a friend of Lil Bub?

There was more to our day, so much more…like Loran losing her sense of humor at the make-up counter in Macy’s and a 4 hour homework session when I got home BUT I got all my first week assignments in on time and have new makeup (Urban Decay, very exciting!) to play with so all is good!

I have also submitted the photo that Angie took of Chloe and I for the Snow Queen shoot last winter in BAD RAP’s calendar contest. All we have to do is finish in the top 11 spots to be included! Last I checked we’re in the number 6. Because this is a fundraiser for the rescue you have to donate to vote but it’s a REALLY good rescue so if you feel like helping a couple of girls out… : )

I’ve got at least 5 projects on my table right now for Rochelle’s Cotton Sew Along, including vintage fabrics and patterns that I bought at the Longest Yard Sale. I’m now only allowing myself to sew once homework deadlines are met so either I’ll get really productive or you’ll be hearing crickets here.

The Facts

Fabric: Red cotton sateen w/ lycra
Pattern: Vogue 8850
Notions: 1 zipper, 2 packages vintage seam tape from Z : ), belting and a bakelite buckle
Year: 1951
Time to complete: 5 hours (half of that was hand stitching hems)
First worn: September 2013
Wear again? Yes
Cost – ~$30.00 I think

Talk about sliding this one in atthelastminute!!

Erectile dysfunction is cialis 10 mg the basic cause of impotence in males. These physio clinics in Cavan provide the most effective generic drugs at affordable prices, but to provide cute-n-tiny.com viagra professional 100mg advice and guidance to our customers, while offering an easy to use and secure shopping environment. You need to uncover all your problems and desires without any hesitation in front of your partner. cheapest prices for cialis This is supposed to be followed as it gives relief (mochana) levitra for sale online from many diseases. You’d think having a whole MONTH to make an outfit would give me PLENTY of time to get my act together. In one sense you’re right, the minute I saw the Pantone colors I knew I had to do the Samba red because, you know, it’s ME : )  And then life happened so I had to really concentrate to get this done.

There’s lots to love about this pattern and a few things to watch out for. First, read and CAREFULLY follow the directions. That front band works but you HAVE to do it exactly the way they tell you to.

For maybe the third time in a Sew Weekly challenge there is not a finished seam in this entire dress. Not a one; nothing is overlocked, nothing is pinked, they’re all just naked : )

Honestly, it was the best I could do. One of these days I may go back in and finish things off BUT thanks to Z at Gladys and Viv the hems have LOVELY vintage tape to finish them off and, in the case of that side panel, give them some life.

The main thing I’m not so crazy about is that side drapey piece on the bodice. It’s pretty clear I don’t need any assistance in the boobage department so I wasn’t sure about that piece to begin with. My choice of fabric, the cotton sateen, meant that there would be a little more bulk than if I used a satin (like the many other versions of this out on the interwebs) but I didn’t want such a fancy, shiny dress : ) I followed the directions EXACTLY about drape and placement and after looking at the photos and wearing the dress all afternoon I think the piece is too long and puffs out awkwardly. Fortunately, because of the no-seam-finishes approach I ended up taking I’ll be able to re-drape that part pretty easily.

When it’s all put together it’s not bad. I do REALLY like that skirt drapey panel. It’s about a quarter of a total circle and not only do you have to hand hem the hem but the SIDES as well! And tack down each side of the bodice drape…goodness. So much hand work, so little time!!

But doesn’t it look pretty when the wind catches it?

I really wanted to try to incorporate one or two of the other Pantone colors in here but no. Couldn’t do it. As it was I played around with my shoes – red satin up above…

And the red/black ones here. I’ve got fabulous rhinestone jewelry for a fancy night out and the hat is from my friend John H who has great taste in women’s vintage fashion. Thanks John : )

Brittany and I headed back to Mills today to do pics. The top one and the next couple were taken in front of the music building:

This one was taken in a small garden next to the Campanil, which was designed by Julia Morgan and survived the 1906 earthquake in fine style:

And just for Vicki, an outtake photo that was taken in front of the blue doors of Lisser Hall, the theater that I spent so much of my life in as an undergrad:

I don’t remember WHAT I was looking at or if a bug flew up my nose but this is for you, Vicki : )

And we come to the end of our reunion. I can’t WAIT to see what everyone else does!!