Vogue 7998

Well, Happy New Year everyone! I had to go to work today, not that I did any... And then they let us go at 2:15. Woohoo! I came straight home and started tracing this pattern:
It took me awhile to figure out that the only differences among these 3 pictures are the sleeve lengths. Except, see how the gal in the upper right corner has her hands behind her back? That's because the sash isn't really long enough to tie in the back like she's modeling, so I think she's holding the ends with her hands... I like the way that looks, though (tied in the back, not hands behind the back), so I'll have to make the sash longer. That's why God invented muslins, so I'd figure that out before I cut into my expensive silk. And I think I will also go with the 3/4 length sleeve - in an effort to make it a bit more casual. The fabric I'm making it out of will be fancy enough.

So, here I am in the muslin... and looking smashing, I must say, in my 75c/yard comic book cotton fabric. I think this is a good size... I should be finished with this by sometime tomorrow, since I have the whole day to sew. It's a very easy pattern, but will take some careful work in finishing the seams and edges (silk ravels).

Egads, I am SO pale! I look a bit like a zombie.
A very mellow zombie who happens to sew.

One yard down...

I originally bought this fabric to made my favorite 1-yard straight skirt, but it just didn't want to be a skirt, so I never sewed it up. Now I know it definitely wanted to be a handbag! I love it!
And if I've said it once, I've said it 100 times - I wish all fabrics would behave as nicely as cotton! There was very little fighting required with this project. I lined it with red poplin:
I think I get bonus points too, since the handles were from my stash as well - purchased last year at a fabric store in Grand Forks that was going out of business. Perhaps they're a bit oversized, but I think it adds to the Asian charm. I will definitely use this purse.

Next up... I suppose it's finally time to tackle those silks (she says with great trepidation)!

On Pins and Needles Again

What? Doesn't anybody else do New Year's resolutions anymore?!

You oughta, cuz they help. Case in point? I have accomplished NYR number one already, and the new year hasn't even started yet!

I finished a purse I'd started MORE than a year ago, to match my fabulous brown coat:

I finished a tote bag from a kit that Alida had brought home one day while we were "homeless" to try to keep me from going mad for lack of accomplishment!
And I finished the last of my mini patchfolios that were barely started/half done:
Of course, not all my UFOs were magically turned into fabulous accomplishments this weekend... I was working on a dress made out of gabardine, and hating every minute of it. The fabric was so shifty! I'd have a piece of fabric, say, 8"x 3", and by the time I was done sewing one side of it, it would be 9"x 2"! Frustrating, to say the least. So, after discussing the situation with my sewing mentor (Mom), we decided that it would be really nice to have some grey gabardine pieces in my next quilt!

There was also a really nice brown skirt I'd bought at JCPenney last year that needed to be taken in. I'd put off doing it for so long because it was lined, and that makes alterations way more difficult and time-consuming. But, I took a deep breath and decided to tackle it. First things first: try it on to determine how much needs to be shaved off the width...

Ye gods! It fits perfectly! [sigh] Love not having to alter it, love suddenly having a new skirt in my closet... Hate being a size that used to be "too big" for me.

Next up: NYR #3, using up my stash. I have a yard of a fun cotton print with an Asian flair to it - bought on my last trip to Portland - that I'm thinking of turning into a handbag. After that, I might tackle the lovely silks I bought in Missoula. I never did blog about those, I guess... That will have to wait. I'm tired.

In the meantime, I must say - it feels good to be back at my sewing table. I'd forgotten how therapeutic it is for me.

5 Steps to Sewing Bliss

Guess what time it is? You know it, baby! Time to be making New Year's Resolutions! Woohoo! Lemme hear ya HOLLAAAAA!!

Or not.

My resolutions this year are centered around sewing. I haven't been sewing enough, and I know the move is mostly to blame, but I think some goal-setting will definitely help me get back on track. So, drumroll please... Without further ado I present my Five Sewing Resolutions for 2008.

1) I will first clear out all my UFOs (UnFinished Objects) by either completing them or turning them into wadders.
2) After that is accomplished, I will only work on one garment at a time, and that from start to finish so as to avoid accumulating another stack of UFOs.
3) Instead of buying new fabric I will "shop my stash" until it's all used up or reduced to quilting scraps.
4) I will work on improving my skills with design details or alterations that show my own personal style.
5) Finally, I will do a SWAP including a style board and everything.

To explain, SWAP stands for Sewing With A Plan, and it is a way to help a person sew things that greatly benefit ones wardrobe rather than lots of individual things that stand alone. A basic SWAP would normally consist of 2-4 bottoms, 2-4 tops, and a jacket - all made in coordinating fabrics that were chosen at the beginning. The fabrics are usually solids in 2 basic colors and a third complementary color, plus 1 or 2 prints. The garments are usually made from straight-forward, fairly simple patterns with clean lines. The idea is that you greatly increase your clothing choices because everything coordinates, and they should stay in fashion because you choose classic styles. It's quite a project because you plan ahead for the whole thing by choosing your fabrics and patterns in advance. It's a big time investment, but if I followed through, I'd sure have fewer "I have nothing to wear!" days. The style board is your motivator; a big board on which you post your patterns and swatches of fabric so you can visualize your final goal and keep track of which garment gets made of which fabric.

Phew!

And what's on YOUR list for next year?! C'mon, share! I live and die by comments!

Only 364 shopping days left until next Christmas!

I just LOVE Christmas evening! I finally get to take down the tree and my living room belongs to me once again. Our tree, as well as all our decorations are now safely tucked away in our Christmas box until Thanksgiving weekend 2008. YAY! :)

We had a lovely day, did you? We spent the day with Ryan's folks and younger brother and had some excellent prime rib, oh yeah! Then Alida beat the stuffing out of me at Scrabble... I'm only the Scrabble champ at my house - where my closest competitors are a 12 year-old and someone who sees nothing wrong with words like "cornie" and "restop". I beat them pretty bad the other night thanks in part to the word "porcini" which, I thought I might be cheating, but it turns out that's actually a word. Cool, huh? Now I wish they'd challenged me. They did almost challenge me on the word "thins" though, until I reminded them it was a verb and not some sort of weird proper noun.

My daughter made out like a bandit yet again. Here she is with a semi-automatic weapon that her cousins sent her...
She also got some of those nightmasks she likes to sleep with... while still insisting we leave the hallway light on. "Why do you need the light on if you're going to wear a mask over your eyes?!" "I can tell, Mom! I can't see the light, but I know that I'm sleeping in a room with light and it isn't so scary!" Lord, give me strength.

Here are all the things I got in my stocking... I'll have to plan better next year. Hannah's the one who came through for me with lipbalm and a piece of candy.
Well, it's back to work tomorrow. A short week, thankfully. I love my job, I love my job, I love my job [mumble mumble].

Have a Very iMac Christmas!

Well, hello there! Where did you come from? Oh yeah. I have a blog. Oops!

I've been making DVDs for the past few days, which is one of the reasons I am SO glad to have a new computer! My old one, bless its heart, had to think about things quite a bit. Now, on a PC (from my experience), if it has to think too much, it gives up. Gives up, freezes up, whatever. My iMac never did that, but it was still frustrating to wait on everything. I was just overtaxing it.

But now (!) I can do so many things at once without any slowing down and burning a DVD takes, literally, HOURS less than it used to. A DVD that would have taken 4 hours or more to burn took an hour and a half yesterday.

I know, blah blah blah.

Got my hair cut again. I decided that I would enlist the help of my hairdresser [gasp!] to help me look halfway decent while I grow out my hair. Sure, it may grow faster if I don't cut it, but then I'll look like nobody loves me (or nobody OUGHT to) the whole time. Anyway, here are a couple pictures.
Oh yeah, that goofy guy...
Gotta love him.

Yes, my hair is shorter in the back, but now it's closer to one length and has no weird flippies at the end.

By the way, Merry Christmas everybody! Thanks for hanging in there with me.
Love,
Twila

Space Writer

Ryan is a published author again. This time, it's an interview he conducted and it was published in "Space Lifestyle Magazine" which is totally digital. Click here, (it will open in a new window) then click on the cover image to access the magazine. Ryan's article is on page 10. This magazine is published in Grand Forks by a friend/fellow space studies student of Ryan's. Lots of familiar (to us) names in this magazine.

In other news: This is adorable.

It's a Monster!

Look at that screen!

That, my friends, is my new toy - a Christmas present from my adoring/adorable husband. Yes, he's definitely on my good side now! He hasn't been in the doghouse for some time now, but after this, I went ahead and put it up for sale. (the doghouse, that is)

My old iMac is over 6 years old and there is really nothing wrong with it. No viruses, no spyware, no bugs, no problems... I've just grown out of it. Its new home will be Hannah's room (offline, of course) so she can listen to her music, play games, and type up her stories like she likes to.

It was delivered to my office this morning and I took it home at lunch and fired it up. And of course, like any Mac, I took it out of the box, plugged it in, plugged in my internet cable, and I was online and running immediately. I wanted to take the rest of the day off, and thought about calling in sick, but then I thought they'd guess the truth. Perhaps I could have told them I'd eaten too many Apples?! ha. ha.

Have I told you lately YOU need a Mac? After seeing this, what must I do to convince you?!

A Fun Read

This gal blogs about dresses, and has a series of entries entitled "The Secret Lives of Dresses". They are so cool! This latest one she wrote is the best, I think. Check it out!

I'm no Saint (yet)

So, I applied online to enroll in Carroll College, right? So excited! The Philosophy/Religion major looks like JUST my thing. Every class title makes me want to go out and buy the text ahead of time. And then I get an email from the registrar; did I really mean to apply to Carroll College in Wisconsin or perhaps I wanted Helena?
[sigh]
Back to the internet I go. At THIS Carroll College, the Philosophy and Theology majors are completely separate. The Theology major is taught with an emphasis on Catholicism, (sorry, I'm just not Catholic), and the Philosophy major doesn't have enough God in it to attract me. So now what?
Remember I mentioned potential? Now I feel like I have the potential to be a very comfortable chair, but I live in a land of people with no knees.
I think I'll just start taking general classes - I have some basics I need to get out of the way anyway, but I'd be so much more excited if I had a firm goal in mind! Oh well, it's going to take me years at this pace anyway. There's time to make that decision.

Five Fascinating Faus Pax

1. In China, giving someone a timepiece as a gift is a no-no as the phrase for "giving a timepiece" is a homonym for burying the dead.
2. Also in China, giving a man a green hat as a gift is a "discreet" way of letting him know that his wife is being unfaithful! Would he wear the hat after he kicked out his wife? I wonder.
   
3. In Egypt, giving someone an onion is a symbol of contempt. In our house if Ryan eats an onion, it is a symbol that he doesn't want me anywhere near him for the next three days.
   
4. Despite what they sing in The Sound of Music, you shouldn't bid someone "adieu" in France unless you don't believe you'll ever be seeing that person alive again (or unless you fervently desire that to be the case) as is literally means "to God".
5. Flashing the peace sign (a V with your first two fingers) with the back of your hand facing the other person is the equivalent of giving "the finger" in UK and Australia. I've always understood that the finger means I'm number one... I guess they don't like being told they're number two, s'pose?
   

There, now you are fully prepared to travel. I for one am especially glad to know number two; what a disaster I've probably averted!

My number's not quite up

In September of 2003 I had my blood drawn for life insurance and these were my numbers:

• Cholesterol - 209
• HDL Cholesterol - 73
• LDL Cholesterol - 126
• Triglycerides - 46
  

Yesterday I got my blood drawn for a work-sponsored wellness assessment and these are my new numbers:

• Cholesterol - 179
• HDL Cholesterol - 53
• LDL Cholesterol - 118
• Triglycerides - 40

So, yes, my "good" cholesterol (HDL) went down, but so did my other levels, so I'm calling it a success.
Oh, and I tested negative for cocaine. Yay me! That was a close one.

In other news, the inmates are running the asylum at the local shopping mall. Hannah & I went there this evening after work to pick up some gifts for a gift exchange. The two "women" I saw working at JCPenney were probably not older than 17, VERY casually dressed, and one of them was wearing slippers on her feet! I swear it. Old, fuzzy, hotpink slippers!
Then we stopped to pick up some food for Ryan in the food court and the two teenage boys who were running the Taco John's were playing music so loud I could barely hear the boy's responses when I ordered my food. We're talking obtrusive, obnoxiously loud music.
[sigh]
I guess I'm getting old that those things bother me.

Remember when I said my life was turning out like a homemade sweater? (a bit smaller than I'd envisioned it...) I'm feeling that way again, only more so. My employer wants to put out a press release in the Helena paper for the recent newhires (a new accountant and myself). First of all, I've never heard of a press release for a non-professional newhire, and second of all, what would they write about me? The first two questions were about where I'd graduated from and what my degrees were... Um, uh, I made it through high school, does that count? I have a degree... of about 98.6... Oh wait, that's a temperature, not a degree. What about the third degree? My mom's given me a few of those!
[sigh, etc.]
Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be college dropouts. I really regret not having a degree. I just feel like there's so much potential in me, but time is running out to do anything with it. It's great to look at an 18 or 24 year-old and see lots of potential, but after a few too many years unrealized potential gets stale and turns into... frustration. It's almost better not to have had the makings in the first place. These thoughts of coulda/shoulda are really maddening. Unless I do something with myself, I will forever feel the sting of having wasted something special I was given.
Or maybe I'm just embarrassed not to have a college diploma because I'm too full of pride. And if I'd gone to college right out of high school and changed the whole course of my life maybe I wouldn't have met or married Ryan or had my beautiful Hannah. I know I can't really think about "what if"...
I'll get over this, but you know what? I know I'm not the only one who's ever felt this way. Anyone else want to 'fess up?
Oh, and PS - I convinced my boss to forego the press release for me.

Hello My Baby, Hello My Honey

I always thought the Sweet Adelines were just a women's acapella singing group, but they aren't. They sing a particular kind of music/harmony. How do I know this? Because I have joined the Helena chapter and am now singing the whitest, most SQUARE music you have ever heard in your life; barbershop.
I have a lot to learn about barbershop. One of the first women who introduced herself to me at rehearsal last night said she was a tenor, "Oh," I said, "I heard you at the library and I love that nice low rumble you guys provide!" "Uh, actually, tenor is the high part. You're talking about bass."
Huh?
Tenor is the really high part, Lead is the melody, Baritone (that's my part) is the middle harmony, and Bass is the low part. Interesting, huh? I have to let go of my mixed chorus concepts of soprano and alto! My part is also written in the bass clef rather than treble. That's definitely a switch.
I also found out at the rehearsal just how small a world/town it is... I met the sister-in-law of my childhood chiropractor Dr. Pardis (the one who diagnosed my scoliosis), and two women who are good friends with Ryan's brother Russ...
Anyway, yes, this is a world apart from the gospel I've been singing for the past two years, but when in Rome... Besides, it's a great education, and it really is challenging and fun music. Come hear us sometime!