See Ya Later

We leave tomorrow for warmer weather. We'll fly to New Orleans and hop on the Carnival Fantasy for a week of sun and fun. I'm pumped! Cruising has never been on my "bucket list," but if someone suggests a trip, I'm game to go. I have a feeling I'll be hooked.

I don't have all those fancy gadgets like a blackberry and I'm not taking my laptop, so I won't be posting during that time. I do hope to have tons of pictures.

See you in 11 days!

Packing

Important things:


The dressy outfit is done. I'm not sure I'm totally satisfied with it, the knit has a nap and doesn't slide very well, but I think it'll be fine and the jewelry goes pretty well with it.


Pardon the cluttered sewing room-a clean sewing room is a room where nothing happens! All the batting that sits in front of the mirror is there to keep the cheap mirror from tipping backwards. The bolts have stripped and the doggone thing won't stay steady. Do you like the black socks?

I just have to sew a snap in the purse, and alter a t-shirt I bought the other day. The shirt is a little low-cut, but I think I can take it up a bit in the shoulders and make it work.


A zippered pocket in the back.

A nice little iris on the flap.

Getting Them Done!

First, I changed horses in midstream with the dressy outfit. My SIL gave me this jewelry set for Christmas and since she's going on the cruise, I thought I should make something that I could wear the jewelry with.

The fabric underneath the necklace is what I finally cut out. I cut out a simple tee, a gored skirt, and a v-neck jacket. The stretchy knit will pack well. I was in Coldwater Creek the other day, and saw a gored skirt made out of the same fabric. I thought it was funny since I've had this fabric for years-got it on clearance at Walmart. Four yards at $2.00 a yard versus $90.00 just for the skirt-do the math! That and fitting issues is why I sew. I can have a whole wardrobe of beautiful, custom, great-fitting clothes for under $100.00. I need to go back to Coldwater Creek, they have gorgeous clothes-maybe I can memorize some of the designs and go home and make some of them.

Now the jacket:


I really like how it turned out, and the fit is terrific. I lined it completly and hand-stitched the lining to the hems. I noticed in the photo there's a bump in the right sleeve seam, but in real life it's smooth. It must be how I hung it on the hanger.

I make purses out of upholstery samples. I dug in my stash of already completed purses, but I couldn't find any that matched the dressy outfit, so I found another sample in a nice navy with a tiny print. If I can find a zipper in my stash (see last post), I'll make it to take along.

Burning the midnight oil could definitely be in my plan for the next couple of days!

Vintage Sewing Notions

Because I sew, people are always giving me stuff that Grandma or Aunt Mary had in their stash. Some of it's not great, but some things are neat enough I don't want to use them, just keep them around.

I didn't find a date on the package, but how cool is this? Any guesses?

The Wedding Dress I Talked About

I needed to shorten this wedding gown 1". With the border on the lace, the only way I could do it was to take it up at the waistband. Surprisingly, this was one of the simplest wedding dress alterations I've done in a long time. This job came from the one I did last summer. The bride is a cousin of last summer's groom. I had to put a hook and eye in the back, too, so she could bustle it for dancing. Once again, it went smoothly. This isn't right-when is the other shoe going to fall?

I started a sweater for the Princess. It's for her birthday, but since Easter comes before that, she'll get it early. This yarn isn't fancy or high priced. It came from a dollar table at Jo-Ann's.

I started this with cruise ship knitting in mind, but it's going so fast that I downloaded a shawl pattern from Ravelry with the idea of taking that along instead. I could be done before the weekend is over. The sweater pattern is Lion Brand Eyelet Yoke Cardigan. It calls for Cotton-Ease, but this Symphony yarn swatched up just fine. Actually it swatched a bit big, but since the pattern only goes up to a 4, I decided it will work out okay. I added a bit of length, too. Gracie will be five, but she is a tiny five, so she should get some wear out of it.

Closet Monsters

A few weeks ago we noticed some condensation on an outside wall of our front closet. What had happened was that there was a small section of the wall, the part that overhangs the basement, had not been insulated when the house was built. It got so damp, black mold built up on the sheetrock.

We ripped everything out and got rid of the mold. Then we used that spray foam insulation to fill in the roughly two foot square that had been neglected. In order to do this DH had to drill four holes. It turns out this boxlike section of the closet was divided into two compartments, so he had to have one hole in each to spray the insulation and one to see what he was doing. The second compartment he got a little generous, and over the next 24 hours these monsters grew:

They look like patrons at the Star Wars Cantina. I think I have to paint them and give them faces and identities. We've already named them. The big one is Sully and the little one is Mike, after the closet monsters in Monsters, Inc.

It Came!

My invitation to Ravelry, that is. Soooo-pop on over and visit me there. Hopefully I'll fill it with projects, patterns and pictures. Yayyy!