variations in fabrics

Carolyn - cmarie - posted a question on her blog about why the same pattern fits differently in different fabrics, and how to learn what adjustments to make.

Well, to really get an idea of fit in different fabrics - you could do what I did - make a very simple pattern 7 times in different fabrics, and then wear them over and over.

I had an elastic-waist, no-pocket pant pattern that I finally got to fit well. I made:
a very lightweight gray stretch denim
a heavyweight blue pinstripe denim with no stretch
a brown stretch gabardine
a royal blue non-stretch gabardine
a forest green non-stretch gabardine
a very heavyweight avocado non-stretch twill
a soft brown/gray 100% wool tiny plaid that surprisingly had a bit of stretch

I had to create a sudden wardrobe when school started this fall because I had gained weight. These pants coordinate with most of the tops already in my wardrobe(some of my tops were also too small, but some not...). And I did add a small inside pocket at the waist elastic - big enough for a couple of credit cards, my driver's license, and my work ID.

Anyway, I sure can compare the different fit of these fabrics - all from the same pattern and all made in about a month.

sewing patterns

I went to Hancock's fabrics in Springfield MO last week. Now, I don't know how long that store has been in that little strip mall, it sits way back off of the road, but I only found it recently when I was looking for something else (story of my life).

Anyway, they had both Vogue and McCall's patterns on sale. I have only used Vogue a couple of times - and decided I have to stick with Very Easy Vogue - but I digress. I don't really like McCall's as well as the other main brands, but - for 99 cents!! Anyway, I picked up 3 patterns and fabric for 4 items - jacket, blouse, tee, and pants.

Now let me explain that I had just been in Coldwater Creek, and LOVE almost everything in the store. But at $90 for an unlined cotton jacket, and $56 for a plain tee, it ain't happening. Of course, what CC has that I can't duplicate around here are those gorgeous fabrics. They have a cotton knit batik in mainly browns, but with one other color (mine, of course would be the aqua, but I do love the red also). This perfect fabric, however shows up in a faux-wrap with a rather large neck opening (again, not gonna happen!) So I want THAT fabric, and I want it now! But again, I digress.

Digressing again, I want to point out that one of the pants they have (I didn't even LOOK at the price.) was in the EXACT same fabric as the pants I was wearing - and I made - dark chocolate cotton gabardine with a touch of stretch . I know fabric - I can tell.

Anyway, so three patterns, 4 fabrics - $88 -

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--wait for it
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WHAT!!! They charged me full price for the patterns!

I went back, and they were extremely nice. The manager was actually on the phone with the head office talking about why some patterns weren't ringing up at the correct price. I got a refund of $52.

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YES! FOR THREE PATTERNS! Who pays full price for these things???!!! This is obcsene!

SO, for those of you doing the math, that's only $12 per item. You can't do that well at Wal-Mart.
(for those of you who know me, you can stop all that snickering about WHEN these items will be finished - that's not my point here.)

perfect pants

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I sew - but not always successfully.
I stumbled upon some sewing blogs - created by women with not-model shapes, but with a love for clothes and sewing. How inspiring!
And did I mention that many of the pants in my closet are getting worn out? So I grabbed a pants pattern, and began making it fit (This started a while ago - the first fabric I attacked was a wool tweed in browns.) I made a pair, and they were (of course) unwearable. But I made some notes about what had to change, altered the pattern, and sewed up a second pair. These are good enough, and I wore them several times already. I did throw them in the washer and dryer, and they might have shrunk even more -

I made further changes to the pattern. It's just a no-pocket, elastic waist pant - you'd think it would be a no-brainer. I do add a pocket inside the waistband, because pants without pockets are not practical, but this way, there is no gap-open. Last week, I sewed a pair of pants from dark gray dollar Wal-Mart fabric. They fit me perfectly! So I made a pair of dark chocolate stretch gabardine, and they are a joy. Yesterday I cut out stretch denim in a dark blue with a pinstripe. I bought an avocado twill for another pair. My wardrobe is looking up.

About two weeks ago, I had a new pattern and the fabric I am going to use - a batik cotton in greens. I had them in my hands. Now I can't find them anywhere. sheesh!

I also began adjusting the pattern that I use for a plain top - over the head, no buttons, zips or snaps. You'd think again, that not much changes are necessary. But I made a dark-blue-on-teal print knit top that looked crummy. I changed the sleeves and shaped the sides to curve a bit - very minor changes, and now the top looks good. I have two gorgeous pieces of silk dupioni - a copper color and a green, and as soon as I am brave enough to cut them, they'll be done in a flash.

I love to sew, and in the time I spend in three different stores trying on 14 things that don't fit, I can make an item that fits and flatters.

water droplets

or, what I did to my porch

first picture is my screen porch to the south - second is the view to the west- third is the view to the north from my screen porch

We love living in the woods. BUT...
The &*()(&d@%#$ elm trees spread these long hanging jewels of pollen fronds that are perfectly engineered to get caught in our porch screen. Each late spring, early summer, I have a thick dusting of this powder over everything , and the screens are so clogged that it is actually blurring the view. I have to VACUUM my porch screens, and vacuum the little gaps between floor boards, and vacuum my metal mesh outdoor table. And you can see the trails on the screens where I have and have not vacuumed. I don't even want to talk to you about how this mess affects my allergies and sinus.

I knew there had to be a better way.
Earlier this summer, I decided that I was feeling a lot more energetic, so I bought a pressure washer, and cleaned my porch. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, let me start with the fact that I had never used one, and never seen one used, and the outside spigot is MILES (well, really...) from the porch. Let me also add that , at the time, the yard had not been mowed THIS YEAR.

So I was wearing myself out, sweating profusely, just trying to extract the hose from the thigh-high weeds, because apparently, a kink in the hose won't allow it to build up any pressure, and you might as well just sprinkle water from a cup, and take back the &(**(@$& thing, and get your hundred dollars back, and...

So I finally got some pressure built up, though it was an hour and a half later before I actually got to use the thing. It really works!! I can actually SEE the difference in color of the boards where I wash. I thought the graying was attractive, and a natural aging, and irreversible. I just wanted to get rid of the green, mossy-looking parts. But, no, the gray IS reversible, and I can see the GRAIN of the wood on my porch!! And it takes forever, because every porch baluster has THREE SIDES that I have to wash, and each side of each piece of wood needs MORE THAN ONE PASS, because I can't seem to hold the wand steady for more than ten inches. And I have to wash the screens too, because, again, you can see the trails where I have washed and where I have not.

I was already tired - did I mention that I have no stamina - so I finished the thing a couple days later.

We've lived here ten years, and this is the first time I've pressure washed anything, but it leaves the wood beautiful, and I never want to do this again.

The directions say you are supposed to let it dry for two days before sealing. (Sealing????)

Hoping that a wood sealer would mean I don't have to do this again.... All of them are tinted, apparently, so I pick up a gallon of honey brown, and buy three paint brushes, and .... did I mention that I have to paint THREE sides of every baluster, and FOUR sides of the ones down the stairs, and the stairs, and the stair rails, and.... I ran out of oil stain.

A week after I bought the washer, I finished the porch. It is gorgeous, and it is water resistant, and I have seldom been so physically tired in my life. Now, how do I enter this in my exercise log? It's very physical - moving, bending, stretching, in the heat, sweating.

The next week I started the other porch, on the west side. They took hours, and three gallons of oil stain, and probably three gallons of sweat, but they are beautiful.

handmade ice cream

A recent question on the Spark People Breast cancer survivors team was about your favorite ice cream. Mine isn't a flavor, but an experience.
We used to live near Woods Hole MA, and for a few years they had an annual town festival. A couple of times my husband and I and another couple made hand-cranked fresh fruit ice cream. We made about four freezers full beforehand, and had another four going all afternoon. The little kids would get a free taste if they cranked for a while. It was so much fun! And delicious! I think the best might have been real peach.

Then, near where we live now, a little park used to have a fourth-of-July picnic. At least one year they had the kids making their own ice cream in ziplock baggies. You put your ingredients in a pint size. Then you put that bag and ice and salt in a gallon size bag. Then you mash on it. It's magic! I don't remember it being quite so delicious, but the kids will never forget it.

What I learned from Tyra

I hate Tyra Banks.
So why am I addicted to her show?

All these scrawny 18 year olds who think that the most important thing in the world is to look beautiful - and to look more beautiful than the other 12 girls in the room. I am disgusted by their anguish over a nose that isn't quite as small or as straight as they want. I am astonished that they think they should win just because they want it so much.

And I am pondering plastic surgery, myself. I may allow someone to cut me open, readjust tissues, and insert drains that I will have to clean for a month while the scar slowly heals, and then feel pains for a year while nerves regenerate awkwardly.

And it is because of vanity. And because I want so much to win, and this surgery may be a symbol to me of winning. I want a breast again. I want to be balanced.

she's a killer

Caution - for anyone reading this who has a weak stomach - skip this one.
You see - there's nothing like the smell of entrails in the morning. Well, really - they didn't smell at all, out on the porch in the damp breeze. But the sight was quite a shock. I won't describe it in detail. Let's just say - way too big for a mouse - and not, well, I know not a rabbit. (see post about the farm.) I'm feeling all CSI about this - decoding clues.

So, we have entrails, and blood spots - just two really, dry, and bright red.

(aside - I always thought that the CSI, Bones, whatever, scenes where the blood is still bright red were so fake - they should be burgundy or bronze, or even dull brown at an hours-old murder scene. But no, these were dry, but bright, crimson, cherry, red.)

So we have entrails, and blood, but what drew me to the porch to begin with were tiny drifting puffs of fur. Not cat or dog hair, which I know intimately from the froths that fly up when I pet the cat, and from the random smattering left on my clothes after the dog, who I thought was not shedding, gets off my lap. (oooo CSI again) No, these were wild-animal colored, smaller than my smallest fingernail, softer even than my cat, and not attached to - anything (Thank God!) I reached down to pick up one, then another, then I suddenly saw a dozen, no, twenty fluffs in the wind or against the screen. And then I saw the entrails.

She's a killer.

I knew this.

My cat has brought me several presents over the last year. It started with whole, unmarked, tiny shrews, left on the mat outside the kitchen door on the porch. I was proud of her - I think an animal needs to express its instincts. Cats hunt. That's how they live. And she was giving me gifts of her love, of her skill. They do that. I was proud.

Then, unfortunately, only half of a shrew. Then, half of something else - I think it may have been a flying squirrel - its tail was long and fluffy - but not as long or as thick as a squirrel - perhaps a baby squirrel? No, I raised a baby squirrel once - and its tail, even when it was small, was relatively long and fluffy.

Then, more unfortunately, half of something else. Judging only by the haunches and long tail - maybe a baby rat. But the tail wasn't really a rat's tail. It had hair. quite a bit of hair - It had been a male.

Now, let me stop here and explain that I am not a scientist. But I have an enquiring mind - love all the SCI/Forensics shows, all the Medical examiner books, am almost as analytical as Bones (not as smart, of course, but nearly. -- 8^)] ---) And I have lived on a farm - killed and cleaned chickens and rabbits and geese and goats. And yes, I ate them, and I decided that if I was going to eat meat, I'd better be able to kill it - but that's another post.

But never entrails. Until today.

Of course, there was that one time she left me something that really looked like a kidney. It was small - about the size of my thumbnail, and firm, and not moist, but not dried out either - but not bloody - and no entrails. Bloody entrails on my porch in the morning before I've even had coffee - that's not really a gift, honey.

So she's a killer - and a gift-giver - but no more entrails, please!

mouse n the house

So a few days ago, late one evening, my cat was acting strangely.
The porch door was open, so she can come in and go out as she wishes.

She came in, went to the back of the couch, and seemed to be smelling or watching. Then she ran around to the front of the couch, and tried to get her paw under it. Then back around - you get the idea. Suddenly I realized that she was hunting something. I may have already mentioned that she brings me small gifts from time to time. Always before, they were non-moving. I went over and raised the couch so she could get it. She missed. It ran under the loveseat. I lifted the front of the loveseat, and it ran back. We did this a couple of times. It's a big, heavy couch, and I was getting madder.

Finally it ran to the fireplace and climbed up a few inches. My stupid cat now COULDN'T SEE IT, although it was only about 4 inches above her head, so I pointed it out. I was beginning to feel like a Keystone Cops episode. Then it jumped and ran over under the tv stand. The cat was running from one side of the tv stand to the other, again, doing the ineffective clawing the air trick. Again I tried to help her, because it was beginning to look like I was going to have a live mouse in the house otherwise.

I got on one side of the tv stand, trying to scare it over to her. But there are a lot of wires back there, and she seemed even more ineffective. The mouse, tired, now, probably having heart palpitations, scuttled into the corner on MY side. I realized that this could go on for a while if I didn't intervene. My arm was JUST long enough, and to my total surpruise, I was able to grab the mouse's tail, and whip it out from under the tv upside down.

My catwas beside herself, and beside ME, and she just about tripped me trying to get to the thing. I headed straight for the porch door, and flung the mouse out into the garden. I have no idea if it survived, but I didn't see any evidence that she got it again. (See note on entrails)

I went straight to the bathroom and washed my hands for five minutes solid, shivering every now and then. I'm not afraid of mice, but this one was either stupid, rabid, or wounded, and I TOUCHED IT!!! Erggggh!!

I no longer leave the porch door open.
And, yes, I was too busy to get a picture!!

sewing garments

I love to sew - just finished a blouse from quilting cotton. It's perfect! But I'm not - so it's a fraction tight. But that's Ok - as I'm on my way smaller.

I found a pattern that I loved - then realized, it wasn't the pattern at all - it was the fabrics! I got a teal and chocolate brown print linen and made myself a lovely shell that washes like a dream. I intended to make chocolate pants to go with, but didn't buy enough material. My usual M.O. is to buy more than I think I need, and then add a bit for luck. This time I tried to be skimpy, and I got bit. I may make it into a skirt - though I seldom wear skirts - but I have enough for that.

I also have two lovely batiks that I just got for blouses.

And a gray for a pants pattern that I have perfected for my current size and shape. I made two wool pants recently, and they fit well and look trim.

unfinished, but beautiful

Why start something easy?

My first quilt was a baby pinwheel - and I hand quilted it. But it was made of a seersucker-like puckery material. Sewing bias edges hard? It was for my first baby, and it was small, so it got finished.

And I made a couple of window draft killers that had tumbling baby blocks on them - not quilted because they had foam inside. - inset seams - no problem?
And they had to be finished - we were cold.

Then my daughter's quilt - she wanted a storm-at-sea pattern - or maybe that's the one I wanted to do for her. It got finished - years later. I didn't know it was supposed to be a difficult pattern. Quilting helped to flatten it.

Then I took a class and actually made a quilt for my son in a pattern called round the twist - a British expression for crazy - because it makes you crazy to do it. It got finished.

Since then - nothing finished - but 12 - count them, 12 projects on my walls -unfinished -right now.

more CIC sox

Some of these I had finished a long time ago, but they are now in the envelope, addressed,a nd ready to mail on Monday

Yarns are KnitPicks, Steelhead, KnitPicks, and Elsa Williams Tapestry Wool

tech bah

investigating so many sites for web use in teaching - thanks to Diigo

-beginning to think of blogging like twitter
-so what's wrong with that?
It would certainly mean that I finally post more often.

The Teachers Who Don't lose Any Weight

sung to the tune of the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

The Teachers Who Don't lose Any Weight

We are The Teachers Who Don't lose Any Weight
We just try and try, and lie about it.
And if you ask us to lose any weight,
We'll just tell you, we don't lose anything.

Well, I always do couch pushups
and I always dance during commercials
and I never eat the cupcake or the pie.
Well I walk two or three miles a day
and I give the Christmas candy to my students
and I always weigh the same weight in the fall.

We are The Teachers Who Don't lose Any Weight
We just try and try, and lie about it.
And if you ask us to lose any weight,
We'll just tell you, we don't lose anything.

Well, I always do Biggest Loser
But I never lose very much
and I always eat my salads and my veg
and I never eat much fried food
and I never add salt or butter
(But occasionally, on very dark nights when there's nothing good on TV, a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and pecans calls my name and I...)
and I always weigh the same weight in the fall!

bomb threat and cell phones

Bit of excitement a few weeks ago- bomb threat - But just as the students had all been evacuated to the gym, heavy winds and rain blew up, and knocked out the power. Since they hadn't been told anything, some of the poor short people thought we were having a tornado. We had 8 or 9 sheriffs in uniform, and guys in black with POLICE stenciled in glow-in-the-dark white on their backs, and dogs sniffing around the rooms. Luckily, this just randomly happened to be the one day a month we have our "character-building assembly" (usually only for 7th and 8th grades). But now, suddenly a minister was trying to define the word 'deference' for K-8, and trying to say that "It's not always just about you." Though it sounds painful, it was at least something to keep them occupied.

In the meantime, parents were unable to call the school (power out, and besides, the secretaries had been evacuated also) but some had heard it on the scanner, and called all their friends, relatives, acquaintances, and apparently even total strangers. At the same time, students were forbidden to use their cell phones, which were supposed to be turned off, and that had parents even crazier. A steady stream of parents, grandprents, and even distant cousins and best friends of parents were headed to the school to take the kids home. Now we have careful lists of who can, and cannot, take kids away from school, but those were in the (evacuated) office and on the (powerless) computers. But since this is a small town ( I mean a SMALLLLLL town), most every body (except me) knew most everybody, and who was related to whom and who could really take whoever, and besides, they made each adult sign out each kid.

Three hours later, the school was proclaimed (but not out loud) bomb-free, the firetrucks left (this time without the sirens - Oh, Did I mention that earlier while we were trying to keep it all low-key that the firemen arrived with lights and sirens?) and the remaining approximately one-fourth of total enrollment all went to lunch together (half an hour late for the shortest, an hour early for 7th n 8th graders). There were onlly three second graders left in the school. It was clearly ridiculous to attempt a regular schedule, so for the afternoon we had bunches of kids in studyhalls with people other than their regular teachers. At 3:30 some of our buses had only 3 or 4 students to take home.

A good time was had by all.

travels around the world

A Spark Buddy of mine posted a pic from one of her trips to Nepal!!!

I am so envious!

When I was in school, I thought I would never even get out of the state of Missouri. (This doesn't count the fact that I lived in Wichita KS for a couple of years when I was 5 or 6. KS/MO same ol' same ol')

But my father who didn't raise me, and whom I only got to know when I was in high school, took us on a family trip to DisneyLand - with a rented pop-up camper, and we saw the Painted Desert, the Continental Divide, and I don't know what-all. We were going to go to Yellowstone also - but couldn't make it because of a 'hidden' waterfall in the mountains, and a perforated oil pan when my father swerved to stop so we could enjoy it. We enjoyed it for several hours while we waited for the tow truck. But I digress.

And then I married a young man from MO, and I was sure that I would never leave. But he got a job for a man from Massachusetts, and there we were. I found that it was hard to get a teaching job on or near the Cape, and so luckily was unemployed when I took a friend to apply for a job at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. We both got jobs, and I loved working there, even though the pay was miserable - lower even than teaching jobs.

But, through that job, I have been to South Africa, Paris, England, Bermuda, and I spent one very long night in the Frankfurt airport the day the World Cup ended there. Let's just say that I didn't get any sleep, but I sure could have made a lot of money if I had wanted to. Apparently, the only women in the airport overnight were assumed to be "working girls." Met some fantastic young Czech men who worked in Amsterdam, and who proceeded to chase away other drunken revelers. And apparently, an answer to any strange behavior is "Go away, she's an American."

Later, I was able to go to Costa Rica to study Spanish. It turns out that I could spend a month there, and get 6 graduate-level college credits from the University of Costa Rica for about the same price as commuting to and paying out-of-state tuition to the University of Arkansas. No, I am not kidding, and no, that does not include the cost of souvenirs and gifts and approximately 20 rolls of film and photo development. And yes, that does include two meals a day, a private room in a family home, and meeting great friends with a lot of the same goals and values. I would have had to buy my lunches in Fayetteville AR anyway. And I learned a lot more there, immersed in the language and culture.

So I guess I shouldn't envy anyone their own trip - because I've been pretty lucky myself.

Cars I have loved

I had a red 1965 Mustang in 1970... Yep - we moved that old Mustang from Mo to MA, and it just about rusted out.

We traded it in, (god help us!) on a Subaru wagon. That Subaru eventually had a weird wiring problem. We had moved back to MO, to the real country, and partly because of the metric tools needed to work on it, there was only one man who could keep her goin. But we often had to wait until he got out of jail (again) to fix it.
While in MA, we had a Volkswagen bus that my husband rebuilt. What that meant was that we had hundreds of parts, lying on newspaper, carefully labeled with masking tape - all over our basement, for more than a year.
Once I had a twelve-year-old Dodge Dart that I paid a hundred dollars for, added a few parts for about another hundred, and drove it for two years. Of course, when she went, she was a total loss...

My husband also bought an old fifty-something Volvo in hopes of restoring it. It too had huge rust voids, and the front seat on the passenger side had to be removed because the floor wasn't solid enough to hold it. You should have seen us driving around town, me nine months pregnant, in the back seat, no front seat, and my legs stretched out to avoid the rusty places.

Much later, there was the aptly named Blazer, which burst into flames by the side of the road one night. We were way in the country, and by the time the local volunteer firemen got there, the dashboard was melted and dripping. Now, I was in another car, and I actually had a fire extinguisher in that car, and we got it out, and tried to make it work. We had not, of course prepared for a fire by practicing with it, so you have to picture two of us, in the dark, by the side of the road, trying to read the instructions on the fire extinguisher by the light of the fire...
Ah, the cars we have loved...