Fancy skirt update

On Saturday I must finish making my fancy skirt, yea even by Friday it must be done.

Because I'm baby sitting on Saturday, and going to the concert Saturday night.

It's coming a long well. First I made myself a basic straight skirt from a pattern I had in my archives. I made it of a thick unbleached cotton, a kind of canvas. I fitted to me as exactly as I could myself (yearning for a dressmaker's model like Barbara), then put in a side seam zipper. I forgot to put in a pocket which I usually do even when there's no pocket in the pattern. I cut out 6.5" strips of unbleached muslin (I had a lot) and what I could find of bleached muslin (not so much) and ironed it into a 3.25" ruffle. I liked the length of the raw edge of the skirt so I lined the ruffles up with it (I will hem it under later and I won't have to worry about perfect evenness because it'll be hiding uder the ruffles) and hand pleated them in a random, organic fashion.

I was striving for an orderly randomness.

I got about halfway up before I ran out white.

A slit in the back gave me a little trouble, as it's "two ruffles tall." I didn't want it to be really noticeable. I ended up starting and stopping the ruffle at the very bottom, and at the top having a ruffle cover up the slit. So I now have a 5" slit that looks like a 2" slit.

Today I will be cutting out more white ruffles (and being very careful with my rotary cutter so as not to need to get more stitches) and ironing and pinning. I will be trying to get as much done today as possible because I also still need to make a waist band. Maybe I can work a cell-phone pocket into that?
Although the rest of the skirt is cotton muslin, and therefore, not shiny - I thought I'd make the waist band out of a bit of off-white satin that I have. I plan to make it at least 3" tall (maybe more) and incorporate two cloth-covered buttons of the muslin. Then, if I ever want to tuck in a shirt to be more fancy the satin will show.

I'm excited because I think I'm creating a skirt I can wear for Easter (to our very undressy church) as well as to an evening at the Meyerson Concert Hall in Dallas. No easy feat, it required several phone calls to my Cedar Rapids style pulse-keeper. She keeps me from getting to historical when I sew.I can easily slip into what was stylish in 1780. But when I show up somewhere with pannieres on I feel stupid. I have the heart of Tasha Tudor but not the stamina. Oh well. My man probably prefers it that way!

In other news, Corrie and I have added more content to our website! You can now read the first chapter of each of our novels. Also Corrie has written a tasty essay on humor! Come see us at: reformedromance.com !

Oh I almost forgot. I've looked all over McCall's, Butterick, Vogue, Burda (I'm heading for Simplicity next) because I want to make a shirt like this. Does anyone have any ideas where I should look? I have fabric that I haven't known what to do with and this would be perfect! The original blouse is from Modcloth.com but it's not in my size.

Things Around Here

Lots of things have been happening around here. James had two birthdays on at Cici's Pizza on the actual day, for which I don't yet have pictures. Then we planned another for Friday, a sleepover. Unfortunately none of the three friends he invited came. James invited a different friend and I think he had a pretty good time. It wasn't all-singing all-dancing or anything but I think it was memorable.

It was supposed to be a robot-themed birthday party. For second graders I think most of the fun of the theme is picking it out and telling your friends "I'm having a robot birthday!" We sent out robot invitations (to the people who didn't come) and I made a robot cake. With, yes, gray icing. Plates and cups were silvery gray too. Then we went down to the city to see the buildings! They wouldn't let go up in Reunion Tower. The observation deck is closed for renovations. We saw a pretty fountain, and the boys ran down a hill. Simple joys.

I have a problem. Mark is taking me to an evening concert at the Meyerson, and I'm excited but I don't have any evening wear that fits me. I'm trying to find something simple to make.

I called Rebecca and she told me to play up my neck and my legs. I love sisters.

I'm leaning toward the skirt (I would make it longer) because I have a great blouse to go with it. The problem is, that I like sweet, romantic, antique, vintage but my figure (or lack of one) makes certain demands too.

Opinions? Anyone? Anyone?

And in other news, I found a new website called modcloth.com. Here are some favorites from there!

Valentines

For Valentines Day James and I cut out pictures and glued them to cardboard hearts.

He made this one for his kindergarten teacher who likes frogs.

I can't remember to whom I gave the one on the top. I know the bottom heart with the hands and the blueberries was for Willow.

These two I made for my sister Becca (top) and our first cousin once removed, Hannah. Hannah's has a princess with a tiny bit of gold doily for a crown.

I forgot to take a picture of my mom's and my friend Holly's.

Happy late Valentine's Day everyone!

Lissa

Payday Thankful

Today was payday in our family. Payday always reminds me of how hard my husband works for us. It reminds me that I am not jobless - on the contrary I have a very important job. It is: doing all the things in the home that need doing! Payday reminds me that one of my jobs is making my husband feel like all his hard work is worth it! Or to put it another way, I'm in charge of rewards!

Somehow it's hard to remember during the lean weeks at the end of the month that our home still needs to be rewarding. I want to go into housework hibernation and sleep 'til the next payday since I don't get to do any rewarding grocery shopping.

I'm so thankful today that we can afford to have TWO chickens boiling away in our stewpot. I'm so thankful that I could afford my favorite (purple) shampoo. I'm so thankful that I could afford to splurge a little and buy some beautiful purple flowers for our home. Of course best of all is that I get to do all this with our two year old!

Instead of a homily at this point. I'll leave you with an illustrated favorite quote from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

Frozen

As all the kids and all the teachers went back to school, Dallas was still experiencing freezing temperatures. To the disappointment of the kids it was very dry so there was no snow, no ice (except on parts of the roads - boring), and no school delay.

But while collecting deadwood for our fireplace I found a phenomenon I'd never seen in Texas before. I'm sure it's happened before - I've just never seen it. For all of you that have experienced this sort of thing lots of times feel free to laugh at us. (We'll laugh back when ya'll have droughts) Here are the boys enjoying the frozen creek (ditch).

Other pictures are of the lake. The water lapped up onto the branches making giant tear-drop shapes and encasing twigs in a lacquer of ice. It reminds me of when the Pevensie children were visiting the Beaver's House in Narnia. Lewis said the water was frozen in fantastical shapes. Now I know he said it was frozen as if it froze all at once, and this is not what he meant - but I'm a Texan and frozen anything is rather exotic. James brought home a big piece frozen around a twig that was all spheres and roundedness.

The creek appeared to have frozen while it was full. Then the water drained away from under the ice leaving a glassy roof over the pebbly bottom. James had a lot of fun breaking that ice. He even walked across some of the ice that still had water underneath. Peter wanted to walk over all the ice everywhereWe were able to see the air bubbles floating around under there. No fish - it was just a ditch. !

Sunshine and Shadow

Amish quilters have a pattern they call "Sunshine and Shadow." When you see the quilt it's an obvious name because it's made of lights and darks, yet the name has a deeper meaning. Everyone's life is made of sunshine and shadow, and as any quilter knows, without the darks, the lights aren't nearly as pretty. This pretty much sums up my week.
Sunshine: On Monday I woke up with lots energy for cleaning the house, and I did! I did five minute room rescues, I windexed, I vacuumed, I decluttered the kitchen a little, I even wiped down the toilet! Then Peter and I ran errands and visited friends. Incidentally, while we were visiting my friend Biak, she told someone I was her grandmother. A lovely woman named Nee, explained to me that in their culture the word grandmother means lovely, that Biak says I am her "lovely", her "grandmother." I still don't really get all this, but it's exciting to be a grandmother this young! Peter and I did all this AND got home in time to find:

More Sunshine: My mother unexpectedly visited bringing me firewood! Yay for Mom, yay for firewood! She hung around a little, and got to hear Peter talk a lot. Usually he's lost in James' chatter and everyone else's talking. She got to hear him say

"GRANNY!"

"I go potty a little tiny bit!",

and after she invited us to Chic-fil-A

"We go EAT! You come with us Granny?"

Shadow: James had gotten in a little trouble at school (I later decided - unfairly) and on the way home committed the unpardonable sin of asking if he could invite a friend over for his birthday - IN FRONT OF THE FRIEND! Mark had to stay late to get some work done -but those shadows were slight.

Sunshine: The next day - not so much get-up-and-clean energy, but still I "juned" around and we went to the library. Mark was home for dinner and all was well.

Shadow: The big one loomed on Wednesday - Peter woke up from his nap half-covered in throw up. This is the second grossest thing to have your child covered in. All the bedding went in the washer eventually (it took three loads), and he had a bath right then. But he threw up two more times. I don't mean to complain, especially in light of a little girl I know who has a fever, cough, earache, and won't drink any fluids - poor baby. The last shadow is that my sister Rebecca is moving away today - literally driving north as I type. And it's not even that I'm going to miss her - which I will - but that I'm jealous that she's getting to go live in a whole new place with snow! It's an adventure! But you know it all made me really grateful for Monday.

A little more Sunshine: Peter is doing much better today. Mark will be home soon hopefully. But the biggest beam of light is that this is a three-day weekend for him (Monday is off) and being together is always nice.

New Etsy Store!

I have launched my new Etsy store with a grand total of ONE item!

Why Little Yellow Coat you say? Because I like stores that have three word titles, and because I've been hanging on to this adorable girl coat for years! I bought it at a garage sale and despite having two sons have kept it in my closet as an inspiration. I love the scallops on the yoke and on the bonnet (not pictured). The inside is meticulously lined, so you can't see any raw edges anywhere! It's a work of art in my opinion. Here is a pic of the items coming soon to Little Yellow Coat.

These are the "Beatrice" pillows. I have only put one of them in the store because I'm hoping to get into the "recent activity" sampler offered on the front page of the Etsy site - by putting in one of them at a time. Yes, I'm not only crafty, but I'm crafty too! You can go see my new store by clicking the picture of the little yellow corduroy coat in my sidebar.

Merry Christmas!

This is my last blog for this year and to steal and idea from Lady Linguaphile it's only a picture blog! Merry Christmas Everyone!
Can you find:
2 scissors?
a giraffe?
gold beads?
where the time went?











How Pete brought me his apple:

Lots of Ruby Dolls from One Red Robin. I gave them to all the girls that would be here this christmas. I wonder if they'll name them?

I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas! It's amazing how we saw so many people and did so much but I don't feel totally stressed out. It's not over yet so it could happen but I'm going to have faith! Here are some pics of all we did!

From left to right: my homemade candies, our big family caroling, at the San Antonio Riverwalk...
There were also train rides, leaf-blowing, tree-house climbing, treasure-hunting, road-tripping, present wrapping, present tearing open willy nilly, xylophoning, movie seeing, and bread baking.
I'm so thankful for my wonderful Christmas.

Miscellany

I've been slaving away this week on Christmas presents, mostly just for my adorable niece and nephew. While I sew Peter likes to bring me a "cup of tea". He's very careful and brings me the empty china cup: "Here go Mommy." I drink it and say thank you. "Want sommore? - Ohkay, I be wight back - ohkay Mommy?"
I've been thinking I should try to make my own boys something so they don't feel left out. Today I proudly butchered one of my older son's sweatshirts to make pants for my two year old from the tutorial I saw here.
I've been virtually nosing around Australia via the links on one of my favorite blogs: One Red Robin and Skip the Chips.

Can anyone tell I've just learned how to insert links into my text! HA! Unfortunately I can't find my camera at the moment or I'd put up pictures of the pants, and all the other things I've promised to put pictures up for.

Instead I'll just tell stories.
Building 4 is the apartment building where I go to visit Chin families. I look after all the families in building 4 - I try to visit them all once a week. The one I frequent most is: Biak & Sui Zam's apartment. (Biak and Sui Zam being the moms of the two families that live in that one 2 bedroom apartment) I was happy this week because Sui Zam was up while I was there. She's hardly ever been around since she got a job. Yeah for the job! Sad for me missing her because she's really awesome. I so wish we could communicate better because I know she's really funny - I've gotten good at reading faces - I know she'd be sarcastic a lot! Biak is full of sweetness and has a baby boy who is starting to smile. The highlight of the visit for Peter was when we showed off one of our mom-lays-on-the-ground-and-flips-him-over-with-her-legs-tricks. All the ladies exclaimed at that! We also showed a little girl (daughter of a friend of Biak's) the Very Hungry Caterpillar Book. She's 13 months old and all she really wanted (like all toddlers) was to just stick her diminutive finger in the holes. Eventually Peter got her to pretend to eat the strawberries.

Interesting note:
Words that are the same in most Chin dialects:
Strawberry
Banana
Mango
(lots of other fruits - you get the idea)
Merry Christmas
Bible
Jesus

I was chatting with a friend of James' who is from Chin State, Myanmar and he was telling me all about his families emigration to America. It was quite complicated. At one point he was living with his grandmother for several months while his parents (in Maylaysia at that time) worked to get him out. James told him that we pray for the Christians who are being tortured and killed there and he immediately responded "that's why we left!" I asked him if his family had been tortured, and he said "no - because they left" but he knew people who had been.
I am so thankful at this very moment that I do not have to flee the country, leaving my child behind because of torture and threat of death. Right now Peter has a fever, and I'm dissappointed that I probably won't be able to do the things I'd planned to do today, but I have medicine, we have clothes, we have heat, we have a home.
I am so so blessed.

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas (that one was in Chin)

Lissa

All Hands On Deck The Halls

I wonder how many artists dream in color? I wonder if dreaming in color is more common to certain groups of people? A random yoga website said that "scientists say" we dream in color 80% of the time. No idea where they got that number. WikiAnswers had man-off-the-street entries saying all manner of things. The hardest part seems to be remembering whether you dreamt in color or not.

I personally have really vivid dreams, with very romantic plots (surprising I know) with very detailed clothing. At least, I notice all the details in my dreams. For example once I dreamt of a woman in a silk stormy-gray-blue dress (long sleeves and hem), with an overdress of golden lace!

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (just under a week ago) I literally dreamed up a craft! I woke up knowing each of the steps, and just what materials I needed. I had been trying to think of a craft that could reflect each of the Waxler grandchildren, and be homemade, and small. I was trying to think of something I could do with hands - to show the kids handsizes at their respective ages. Well I woke up with a solution so I'm going to share it with ya'll!

Hand Christmas Ornament Tutorial

Merry Christmas!