Gone, Baby Gone...

"Beautiful girl, love the dress..." Anyone know the name of the group that's song opens with those lyrics? I gave you a hint (and no fair Sara, you know my eclectic, okay, kooky music taste!) That totally random song popped into my head as my beloved left on his elk-a-palooza adventure this morning and has left me to my own devices for a week.  I have to work part of it, but the rest is all about ME! I really miss Tom when he's gone on his trips, but I do try to make the most of my alone time to get lots of things done, and one thing that I need to get cracking on is Christmas! I need to make Colt's advent stocking and finish up the gifts for the kid's advent stocking.  I'm pretty certain I've got Colt covered for gifts (for the next 3 years...no, just kidding!!!) Being a grandma is wonderful!!! Oh, and since I haven't posted a picture of the little man in a week or two:

Love this picture! Okay, now back to what's happening in the sewing room.  I have a paying job to eek out this morning before work and then I can get busy with Christmas projects and me sewing.  There is a blouse on Valentine that should only take about an hour or two to finish up, a pair of pants that has been languishing for, um, years (better recheck the fit on that one!) and a simple vest...then the UFO train will pull out of the station, hopefully not to return soon! My morning has started out with a little FB, email checking and blog crawling, plus just a wee bit of fabric shopping...Ashley over at Trendy Fabrics is having a one day free shipping event and I LOVE free shipping!  I didn't go to hog wild...just 3 pieces that will fit nicely into my sewing plans.  So guess I better head on upstairs and get this party started before it's time to go to work. New students today...always a good time! Hope you all are having a great Sunday!

Warning: Not totally Sewing Related...

To be honest, this post will probably contain very little sewing, so if you are not interested in other random bits of life, feel free to click away right now! Let's talk about my husband's hobby, shall we? Tom is busy restoring a 1957 Willy's Jeep.  He is very excited about it and is vigilantly scouring Craig's List and the internet for parts and pieces he needs for this project.  This project started with his "little" brother (Eric is not little, but that's what Tom calls him).  They are always horsetrading back and forth and Tom brought home this jeep project about a year ago.  He was finishing up our son-in-law's classic Bronco and was itching for something new to work on.  Eric was working on a Jeep pickup and so this seemed like the thing to do. Tom stripped it down to the bare bones and welded and straightened the frame.  He got an old wrecked Toyota for parts and I'm not sure where the great transmission came from, but I've been told we have one! It's kind of like when I find a great vintage sewing machine...Tom knows I have it, but don't ask him for details!!! Anywho, there was an issue with the length of the drive line and Tom really had to do some figuring to work out how that was going to come together. He bought a transfer case off Craig's list, but discovered he needed a certain gear to "make it work" (thank you Tim Gunn!) plus an adapter.  Networking gave him a number of a guy that might have a gear, and he returned Tom's call early Thursday morning (okay, it was 7:20, I was up, but that's early for Mr. Man on his day off when He's not going hunting or fishing or something!). Come to find out, this gentleman designed the adapter for Advance and is an expert.  What a great resource! Since Tom was up in Brush Prairie close to Eric's shop that day, he stopped and took "little brother" to lunch.  They got talking engines, and evidently a guy that ERic raced with had the perfect engine for the Jeep he was selling at a good price.  So to Longview Tom traveled and now the Jeep has an engine.  Love it when a plan comes together.  I stayed home that day because I knew it was going to be a male bonding day for Tom, so I got some time to sew and cook.  I made a killer chicken pizza with my new Pampered Chef stone and it was a great dinner while watching Project Runway. It's Mondo, Andy and Gretchen...who do you think will win? I'm hoping Andy...we'll see. Didn't do any sewing last night because I had baking and cooking for Mister Man's excellent elk adventure.  I also purchased some new glasses at Zenni's Optical as my glasses that were repaired back in September are starting to fail again, so I dropped them off at the optical center for yet another remake.  I also ordered some Rx sunglasses, so I'm hoping this works out.  The price was very reasonable and the site has a feature where you can load a picture of yourself and with the pupillary distance you can "try on" the different styles to see how they look on your face. I tend to pick out the same frame (boring, I know), but this time I varied just a little bit...same basic shape but a different type of frame.  I am currently wearing my old pair of glasses that are rimless and have lasted better than the frames with rims! Go figure!  In other news, I made a new sewing buddy at work.  One of our students is a kindred spirit and she has become my new BFF! We are talking about taking a sewing tour together to NYC that is offered through Sew Many Options sewing tours...it will be me, Alice and her new guide Panama...Look out NYC!!! Well, enough rambling for now...Next post should be more sewing related since I will be a hunting widow for the next week and can spend all my free time sewing! Whoo-hoo!!!  

Buyer's Remorse

Or more aptly, buyer's disgust! Those blouses I bought at the Rack yesterday had to go back.  I had picked them up on my lunch break and thought...white blouses in my size...looks good...lay the money down, get out, move on... When I got home last night I tried them on.  MAJOR yuk!!! The first one fit okay throught the bodice, but the shoulders and collar were about 6 inches too high. The top of the collar hit me midway up my head! What??? I thought, well certainly they both can't be bad. WRONG! The other one had the collar down where it should be, but those cute little ruffles didn't look so cute on! So back to the rack they went this morning and I will chalk it up to a lesson learned. I guess we are spoiled as sewists. We strive for perfection in fit and don't settle for "good enough" (although neither blouse qualified for that description).  I was able to get some sewing and embroidery done today. Here is my afternoon in pictures:

Taking Care of Business...

Okay, who shouted out "Everyday!"??? You know who you are, you closet BTO fans! Seriously though, I haven't posted in awhile as I have been a busy girl.  Not all of it has been sewing, but in a roundabout way it always comes back to sewing.  I have been having a great response to the patterns I listed on ebay, at least all the Daisy Kingdom patterns.  I tried a few vintage numbers that are not seeing as much action.  I may need to change my strategy where that's concerned.  I did a major cleanout of the guest room closet and had an epiphany. It's only my husband and me living in the house.  We rarely have guests stay for more than a weekend.  Our closet is crammed between the two of us.  Why not take advantage and give my clothes some room to breathe? So that's what I've done and I can now see what I have to wear. They no longer need to be re-ironed because they've been crammed in a space that is too small! Tom actually has more room for his clothes, which surprisingly enough, he has quite a few. Who knew? While we're speaking of clothes, I must admit I bought some RTW today (Oh, the horrors!) We were downtown today and I took my lunch at the Rack and Borders.  I found two white blouses in the clearance with delightful ruffles.  They were 75% off and I snagged both of them for under $15.00.  What's not to like?  The one blouse had 3" squares tacked on to make a fluttery ruffle effect that I would like to copy. It was all for research, I cried, RESEARCH!!! :) Anyway, I did purchase David Coffin's book on making trousers, which I am finding quite fascinating.  I would like to up my game where pants are concerned and I like David's style.  May have to scare up the shirt book next! Yesterday the weather surprised us and was unseasonably warm. Neither one of us felt like working outside, which is what we needed to be doing, but we decided we would tackle one project and them we could both work on something we really wanted to spend our time at (Tom working on his jeep...me sewing of course) We decided to clean up the garden beds to prepare them for winter and trim up the raspberries.  It truly turned out to be an enjoyable time, and we not only did those tasks, hauling all the weeds to the burn pile with the Polaris, Tom drug the driveway with the tractor and I divided up the rhubarb in the upper beds before heading in to make lunch.  For not wanting to work outside, we got four hours in quite painlessly.  Sometimes you just have to get started...we ate lunch and messed with the stupid printer (thank you Honey for fixing it!) and even managed a nap before grocery shopping! After dinner Tom went out to the man cave to adjust the new trigger on his .270 and I went upstairs to finish an embroidery job.  I'll leave you with a picture of my last job:

Temptation

Oh Fabric.com...how you love to tempt me! My fabric closet overflows, yet you continue to haunt me with emails promising bargains beyond belief! Poof! Did I just hit the delete button? Ahhh, now I can quit obsessing...til the next time!

What are you looking for???

In my last post I mentioned that I am cleaning house in the pattern department and had, oh one or two patterns to unload.  I got thinking that some of you dear readers may have some patterns that you have been seeking, or you may just love sewing with vintage patterns.  Here's the deal...if I have something in the to go files that you would really like, I would be happy to send it to you for the cost of postage. Obviously I can't post pictures of every pattern, but if you have a specific pattern you are looking for or a certain era, I can send you some pics of what I do have and perhaps we can make the connection! Happy Sunday!

Cleaning House...

A couple days ago I was perusing Craigslist and came upon an ad from someone wanting to buy vintage sewing patterns...Cash they offered. I had been thinking that I really needed to weed out my pattern collection as there is no way in the world that I can sew every pattern I have ever bought, been gifted or otherwise inherited and the sheer volume has made it cumbersome to find what I want when I want it.  I thought it was a match made in heaven. So I emailed this person and diligently went through the boxes and drawers that house my patterns. At first cull, this is what I came up with:

Over 300 patterns, including some vintage gems like this:

I was prepared to let them all go...cheap...like FREE!

That is until the emails started coming "oh, I can't drive out to your house. Can you drive into the city and bring them to me?" What, would you like me to sew them up for you too? I got annoyed with the whole deal and just told her I was going to do something else with them.  My husband said he would manage selling them on ebay, so I may give that a whirl or open an etsy shop.

Speaking of wonderful husbands, Tom installed the new washer and dryer yesterday when he got home from work! I love the front loader so far and it requires so little detergent.  I had asked about complaints I had read online about the front load machines smelling musty. The owner of the family owned business where I bought it said that is caused by using too much soap and recommended using only a tablespoon of detergent per load. Tom's work clothes came out wonderful! Crazy the things that make a girl happy!  In sewing news, I have committed to finishing UFOs before I cut anything else out.  I have 2 blouses to finish, a pair of pants and re-attachment of an ill placed ruffle before the blades can fly again.  I have great incentive because I bought some adorable knit prints from Trendy Fabrics to make some stuff for Colt.  Grandma has to get her sew on for her little man!