ABSENT MINDED

I guess that absent minded is what you would call it. I like to buy patterns. A few posts ago I showed a pattern and fabric for a "Sassy Bag". Generally I will buy a pattern and it will be put away until some future time when I drag it out and make it. Or not. For once I had everything in one place at the same time. I had a plan. Wouldn't you know it the pattern disappeared!
I bought another one using a coupon and a gift card. I'm waiting for the first pattern to show up again, even though I have looked everywhere for it. I think there is a possibility that it fell off of the end of my ironing table into the garbage. At least I hope it did. Truthfully, I don't want to find it and then have 2 patterns, it will make me feel pretty stupid.

At least I learned something from my experiment in stain removal. My daughter decided to buy a wedding dress. I was getting nervous about the ultimate destruction of my wedding dress so it would fit her. So now she's happy and I'm happy. I will preserve it myself this time so hopefully someday a bride will see it and love it. I had hoped it would be one of my daughters, but they turned out to be more traditional in their tastes.. with the exception of the color trims or sashes, which I think is weird.

The bride's twin will be wearing a short dress for the morning wedding. I am making it. I am happy that I made the bodice first out of muslin because it turned out too small. I altered the pattern and will try again. I wish I had a dress form in her size (2) because now I have to wait until she is home to fit her. I haven't made a garment in a while, especially anything fitted. But it is kind of nice and I hope that it turns out well.

That's it for this Saturday. I hope that you all are having a nice weekend!

UPDATE TO LAST POST

This is the dress before. I know it is hard to see, but maybe you can see the age spots on the bodice, the front of the skirt , and on the left side of the skirt.. there were big spots of brown on the back. If I had known how well this was going to work, I would have done a better job of chronicling it.

This is the dress when it was really wet lying on a sheet in my yard.

After it was partially dry, and not as heavy, I put it on a hanger in a nearby tree. As you can see it is spot free. Looks as good as new!
If any of you have a good idea of how it increase the bodice so it is bigger, I would appreciate it. I have two talented friends who are going to help me with this. I made my clothes when I was a kid, but I don't know the first thing about alterations. We will probably have to use the fabric in the jacket as there just isn't much extra to work with. I may have to try to match the fabric. or something. It is fitted, not gathered at the waistline. I hope it can be done. Of course, my less endowed twin isn't interested in wearing my dress and it would probably downsize much easier.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION

Well it is a vacation to me. I have had the last 5 days off and for 3 of the five I have been gone and on the run. Here are some photos of what I saw.

NORTH MARKET is my favorite part of the NQA show in Columbus Ohio

Our "Twisted Stitcher" group met at Kathleen's home this month. This is the group going on a nature tour of Kathleen's beautiful yard. She works very hard to make her yard look beautiful, and she has an extensive knowledge about what is in her yard. Hey, if she knows something other than a daisy or a rose, she has me beat. While they were on the tour, I was quietly sewing

in the shade under a fan, bug and nature free watching them from her porch..

This is for those of you who have never seen a horse drawn barn. Is it an Amish RV? :)

This is part of the line of Scions that were taking up the middle lane of the highway. There must have been 50 of them and we only noticed them when we made the mistake of pulling into the center lane amoung them. Geeze.. we felt like we were being taken over by a swarm of little boxes on wheels.

This is my wedding dress. After having it "professionally preserved" in a box, I took it out to find it loaded with yellow spots. I put it into a white cotton bag and put it in my closet. Now my daughter would like to wear it and I needed to get some ideas about how to get the spots out before we attempt the extensive alterations to get it to fit around her abunduant chest. Genetics were much more generous to her than to me.. Anyway, a friend suggested using equal parts of Dove dishwashing liquid and Clorox 2. I couldn't find Dove anywhere so I bought some Ivory dishwashing liquid. I tried a section yesterday, and it worked. So now the whole dress is in a tub. I'm going up after this and rinse it and I'm going to lay it in sun to dry. Just in case you ever want to try this remedy, it works.

THURSDAY

I went to Amishland yesterday to Millers Dry Goods and to a store called "Zinks" which has a warehouse of different fiber things, most of them not that terribly wonderful, mostly Walmart or Joanne's quality fabrics and yards of fabric perfect if you were into Civil War reenactment or if you wanted to become or are Amish. But what they have is very inexpensive. Mostly less than 3-4 dollars a yard.

At Miller's I bought Ami Simms book for using pictures and novelty fabrics in children's quilts. I bought a little pre-cut kit to make a little I -spy quilt.

I bought these fabrics at Zinks to make nightgowns around $20.00 worth of fabric.

I found this yardage of flannel at Zinks. It looks stitched, like needlepoint. There are eight big panels of 2 faux applique, and the companion fabric. it cost a total of about $12.00. And will make a pretty decent flannel quilt to lay around with this winter.

This is the size that my Tuscany shawl ended up being. It drapes beautifully.

I got this fabric to make a Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt. I think I will need to find some more companion fabric. I think that a quilt like this plus a companion book will make a great gift for any future children in the family. Or maybe some I have now. I have so many ideas for quilts for my baby niece, she may end up with a lot of them.

I bought some fat quarters of batik to make this little bag

And I bought this fabric with nothing in mind other than I have a lot of Christmas prints and I like the peppermints and the fabric on top looked like knitted fabric and I bought a half yard of each maybe for a future bag.
So today is my second day off after a long stretch, and I actually slept in until 9:30 and after I run out and do one errand, I am spending the rest of the day in my sewing room doing what I should be doing.. okay... cleaning.. then sewing.

TUSCANY SHAWL

I have been working on this for a while and I had about 3 pattern repeats to go and I decided to quit and have a small shawl instead. The yarn is nice, but there were qualities that I didn't like about it. It is a sportweight silk. It was getting fuzzy with handling, and it was almost as if the fibers were spray dyed as I could see the white silk under the red in many places. The pattern is nice, but it isn't too exciting. I decided to move on to something else. It is an okay size, although smaller than it was supposed to be. I could use it as a large scarf and my 100 pound daughter would have no problem wrapping it around herself.
I have been wanting to make a Swallowtail Shawl for a long time here is a blog with some photos
http://swallowtailshawl.blogspot.com/
I am making mine out of sock weight yarn that is called "Faded Valentine" . It is pink/tan/cream. I think it is really nice, and if I really like it, I will try it in a laceweight yarn.

SUMMER READS

Diana Gabaldon author of the Outlander series of books has a blog which is listed in my side bar. Her latest blog entry is called WHAT'S IN YOUR BEACH BAG?
So I was wondering, do you have any special summer reads this summer? Until I took up knitting again, I would always have a book with me. Now my books are by my bed, and I take them out to sit in the yard on a warm day. Right now I am reading
THINGS I'VE LEARNED FROM KNITTING which is a book about knitting.. it is very small so I have put it in my purse. It has short stories, so I don't have to worry about getting involved with little time to read. PEOPLE OF THE BOOK is a very good book. It is the story about a real book called the Sarajevo Haggadah which is an illuminated book that is the story of the Jewish Passover and is read at Passover Sedar. It has fictional characters that try to discover the history of how the book managed to survive through the centuries.
I am also reading a book called THE DOLLMAKER . Many years ago I saw the movie staring Jane Fonda. It is set during WWII, and is about a poor mountain woman and her children and how she struggles when her husband is put to work in a war factory in Detroit. She and her children are uprooted from their mountain home and have to live in the harshness of the city. It is also a very good story. I should just sit down and read one from cover to cover, but sometimes I just go with what interests me at the time.
So, what is your summer read this year?

DAY EIGHT

This is my eighth day of work in a row. At this point I get a little cranky. Add to that going to the grocery store after I finish and who knows what could happen. I'm usually a slow to anger type. At least I would say I'm slow to respond to stupid - rude people, who I figure aren't worth my time. That is until today. My first mistake is going to the grocery store on a Saturday. I am in line behind 3 people, each with full carts and a kid at the cash register that must have turtle blood because he is moving so slow. I waited all of that time until I was the next person to put my stuff on the belt. I didn't have a much to begin with way less than everyone else, but probably a few items more than the express lane. Behind me there were a couple of people with one or two things. What usually happens, instead of going to the self checkout or to the express line, they pop in behind me and ask if they could go ahead of me. I will admit, I probably would have said no today because I was tired and I had already stood in line about 25 minutes.
Anyway, this other store employee comes up to me and tells me to move over to the next lane and then she disappears. The guy several customers behind me tries to get in front of me with his full cart and his wife and teen aged daughter. I pushed in front of him saying that I had been next in line and was told to come over here. He wasn't happy about it.. but when he said "unbelievable" it set me off. I don't think I have actually yelled at a stranger in my whole life. I told him I was next in line and I would never cut in front of anyone. And by all rights the people behind me should have been in front of him.. I verbally flayed him, and he actually backed down. I wouldn't go as far as believing that he actually understood he was wrong.. but at least I'm not stewing because I didn't say anything. And no, I didn't call names or use bad language..
Anyway.. I only have 3 more days of work to go.

NEW COMPUTER

This fabric is harder than hen's teeth to find. But thanks to QUILT TAFFY'S etsy shop, I was able to find one yard of the large print to go with the half yard (I should have got more) I bought a couple of months ago at Hancocks in Paducah. It is Michael Miller's "Knitmare on Elm Street". It is dark brown and pink, and I am going to use it to make a knitting bag.

All of my computer woes are over. I got my computer tower yesterday and I have all of my important programs installed. I DID opt to download Firefox as my browser, and it works fine. The 'add an element' option works and I put in the new blog reader that I am going to delete as soon as I am done with this post. In theory it is nice.. but it takes up too much space, and they say there even after they are read. Of course, I deleted all of my other links before I checked this out. I will eventually have to do this again. But not today. My coworker is on vacation starting tomorrow, so I will be working a lot in the next few weeks. Have a good weekend!

TRANSLATOR

I just translated an Italian quilting blog to English using the translator.. Let me say it leaves a lot to be desired. I kind of got the gist of what she was trying to say.. so to all of my international readers.. I hope that you can read English! Unfortunately I am at a disadvantage because I ONLY read English. I'm glad that there are people out there that can read and write in my language so that I can get a sense of how women from around the world apply our craft. Pictures just don't tell the whole story.

WEDNESDAY

Right now I am sitting here watching So You Think You Can Dance. I really like this show best of all of the dance reality shows. Some of those kids are just amazing. Makes my knees hurt just watching it.
I have a new computer being shipped and I can't wait until I can get it together and start installing programs. Things just aren't working right with my old computer. I have tried keeping it up to date by adding memory etc, but it is way past it's prime.. FLORIBUNDA suggested installing Firefox browser to help my "Add a Page Element" woes. But in that program, I can't even scroll down through my page, and the page element isn't there anyway.

If you scroll down through the stuff on my side bar, you will come across a link for QUILTING BLOGGERS which is a really nice site that is a compilation of various quilting blogs. It is broken down by country and the US is broken down by state. If your blog isn't listed, there is a link to send the info. Eventually, when everything is working for me, I will move the picture link up higher on my page. Just what you all need. More blogs to read to take up more of your time. You may thank me later.

TUESDAY

I've been missing the "add a page element" from my layout page for months. I don't know if it is because something isn't right about my computer or not. Is anyone else have this problem? I had to delete my cluster map so that I could add the translator.

It is cold and rainy here today. Someone on the weather said today we will have our one week of spring and BAM it will be summer. It is supposed to be nearly 90 by the end of this week. Ick. I don't tolerate the quick changes of temperatures well. If I turn on the air conditioning and close all the windows, the next day it will be 60!

A few months ago, I took advantage of Walmarts $2.00 a yard fabric.

It will make two fun sundresses/nightgowns to wear around the house. I made one last year of a black flower print Mary Engelbright fabric. It only cost about $4,00 to make that dress and it is really nice and cool to wear around the house on those humid summer days. I should go and see if I can get more fabric while there are actually Walmarts out there that have a fabric department. When even JoAnns fabrics are $8.00 a yard, it is nice to have someplace to go to where I can buy it for 1 or two. Good enough for something I would never wear in public!
I hope that you all have a great week!

THE DELETE BUTTON IS MY FRIEND

For Rian and Dorothy. Thanks for your comments, I always appreciate them. But I decided that the delete button would be my friend on this one. Hopefully not too many people were bored by the non quilt/knit related banter. I know how much it ticks me off to go to a blog expecting to read something light about knitting, quilting or something fun and find some sort of political comment. Sometimes it just ruins my leisurely walk through other peoples moments. If I wanted to read political blogs there are certainly many out there. I'm sorry to all of you that were assailed with my thoughts on the subject. I hope I didn't ruin your visit. It wont happen again.
Now on to what I should have done to begin with, complain about how much I'm not a gardener. A couple of years ago I planted three clematis plants by my dog pen. I haven't seen much of anything from them until this year when one of the plants was loaded with flowers

There were also tons of weeds and seedling trees in and around the pen thanks to stuff like this
So, excited because I actually have a non dandelion that was doing well, I went out and started cutting and pulling all of the weeds. I was very careful not to pull these vines out of the ground, I thought so but I got one of them. I tried re-planting it, and every time I would run into the house to get something this:

MANIAC

would dig it up. I couldn't figure out what was going on. After the third time, I actually caught her doing it. So far she has lived to talk about it.. but it was close. And she isn't allowed out with me today. I drove stakes into the ground at the bottom of each plant and tied strips of fabric around them, fed them, put mulch around them.. and now look:

They are all drooping. Crap. I've killed them. I should have just left them alone.
See all of these trees? I didn't plant even one of them. Nature did it..every stinking tree I have ever planted has died. So there you go.. I hope I never have to plant things in order to eat. I will have finally found the perfect weight loss plan.