Saturday's Sewing Smackdown

Okay, my men were off to the ski slopes at 7:30 a.m. I have decided that today I am going to really burn up the sewing! I thought if I posted progress here I might be more likely to stay on track. I am sorely tempted to continue my decorating tantrum, but really want to get as many skirts done as possible while I have the house to myself, no one to feed and no one to keep company. So, this is the report so far. I will continue to update this post through out the day.

Sewing SmackDown Progress Report

LAST OF THE 3TS!!! - Sewed up two 3T skirts I had previously cut out. Just have to do the embellishments. I already have 1 3T done and Paula is doing the rest. As soon as I do the embellishments, I will post pics and then I'll have two sizes completed or accounted for by others, the 3Ts and 5Ts!!

UPDATE - Finished the embellishment on one of the 3Ts. On to the last of the 3Ts.

Skirt #14...The Cat's Meow


UPDATE - Finished the embellishment on the last of the 3Ts. On to the Size 6s.
Skirt #15..."Definitely Knot"


UPDATE - Ack! This is going so much slower than I had hoped. The embellishment takes longer than I estimated. I had hoped to produce a skirt an hour, but no-go there. I have three Size 6 skirt made and am now doing the embellishment on them. Will post pics when done.

UPDATE - The first Size 6 is done. It has a little Mary Engelbreit scotty dog button on the pocket. One done, nine to go! I have two here with their embellishments in progress.

Skirt #16..."Beam Me Up, Scottie"


UPDATE: I couldn't post this last night. Couldn't get Mozilla to even open. Sigh...I have two skirts that were finished yesterday. Here is the second Size 6.

Skirt #17..."Mad for Melon"


charity

Hate It When The Brain Skips a Groove

I should know better than to visit home decor stores by now. They are a stumbling block for me. I go in a perfectly happy woman and come out a disgruntled, depressed covetous whiner. But we have a new pastor at our church and he has a totally delightful wife. They have bought a home here after spending the last 3 years on a sailboat. She is anxious to "nest" again and I thought she might enjoy visiting our local decorating mecca. I live in a huge valley, the size of West Virginia, but for all our space we have terrible shopping resources. Especially home decor. EXCEPT...for the "yellow barn" store. It's a huge building stacking to the vaulted ceiling with all kinds of gorgeous (and expensive) home goodies. The owner has exquisite taste and the store is beautifully merchandised. It is so overflowing with lamps, shelves, boxes, pillows, candles, aprons, finials, tassels, chairs, tables, couches, etc. that you have to slide around sideways carefully watching your purse lest it bump a very expensive knick-knack onto the floor. We had a great time, looping around twice just to take it all in. I was very good and left empty-handed. But somewhere along the way I shop-lifted a major attitude problem. I arrived home on a major decorating tear. I shuffled furniture and redistributed accessories and spray-painted frames and..and...and... Which leads me to the Brain Freeze....

I decided that the back foyer window needed a topper. I had given the window a really cool Gallery Glass treatment when we first moved in ten years ago, but in my current mood it seemed insufficient. So I sketched out a simple topper - afterall it's a small window and whipped it up on my serger. It seemed a little bare so I decided I would pick up some tassel trim on my trip to Wal-mart to fetch the rod and curtain rings. The window is 34 inches wide. I made the topper 46 inches wide so it would have some ease and not just lay flat. But when I get to Wal-mart and the clerk asks me how much trim I need, what do I tell her? A yard!!! I didn't even think about it until I came up inches short upon applying it. ARRRGGHHH! Now I have to pull it all off, go to the store and buy more and start all over.

That's my wake-up call. Time to readjust my attitude and return to being the happy little homemaker blissfully ignorant of how far her home falls short of HGTV standards.

Just for giggles and grins...here's my new window topper. In the photo it looks like it's shorter on one end, but it's not.



And here's how $10 worth of Wal-mart greenery gave my hutch a boost.



Charity

Skirt #13..."Bella Ballerina"

I finished Skirt #13, the last of the Size 5Ts. Tomorrow I plan to stack several pieces at a time and rotary cut ten Size 6 skirts. I'd like to get them all done over the weekend. My guys are going snowboarding so I should be able to do a marathon sewing session on Saturday.




Heading to bed!

Charity

August Deadline??!!!!

I talked to my Mom and Dad this week about The Hundred Skirts Project. I wanted to get some sizes from my Mom and ask my Dad about customs and shipping. Dad said that he was planning a trip back to the Guatemalan orphanage in August. I guess they are getting some pressure from the Guatemalan government to accommodate more orphans. The need there is urgent. So there are plans for more building and a medical clinic. Dad will be going in August with a construction contractor to address this need and make plans for more growth. He says that he will be happy to hand-deliver The 100 Skirts Project for us.

But this means moving up my self-imposed deadline from the end of the year to August! I also would like to expand the project to allow for the new orphans that will be coming in. So I'm aiming for more like 150 Skirts by August. I did the math and I will need to make about 1.8 skirts a day. This sounds overwhelming, but really it's entirely do-able. With my serger, I can make a skirt in about 30 minutes, not counting the embellishment. So I plan to spend about an hour each morning making two skirt blanks and then when I sit in the evening to watch a movie or TV DVD episode with DH, I will do the hand-embellishing. I will need to be diligent to stay on track, but it's nothing overly taxing.

In early April I have a group of about 8 teenaged girls and 4 women who will be getting together for a one-day sewing marathon. We should be able to knock out about a dozen skirts.

And Lindsay has a skirt on the way already! I will post her skirt and blog link when it arrives. I'm anxious to see it!

Paula is making SEVEN skirts in Sizes 3T for me. I will, of course, share hers as well.

Peggy L has made three skirts in connection with Pattern Review's Charity Sewing Contest. They are in honor of her daughters and DIl.

And I have had a variety of emails from other gals who will be participating as well. So I'm completely confident that we'll reach goal in time!

That said...I didn't get much sewing done today. I have a ballet print skirt almost done. It just needs the embellishment and then I will share it. It will be the last of the 5T sizes!

Charity

Sewing Lessons

Playing catch up here...Thank you to those who've inquired as to my whereabouts. My computer is running so slowly despite herculean efforts at rescitation that it's just very difficult to post. I'd have to have the patience of a saint and well....I don't. :) We will be purchasing a new computer, but we are a no credit, cash-only family and there are some other items ahead of a new computer on our Cash Flow List. So I guess I'll be learning some patience. Or posting less frequently until a new computer appears on the horizon.

Monday was Sewing Lessons Day with the girls. Sarah wanted to perfect the hem points on her vest and worked on that, developing some new marking techniques involving reversed tailor tacks in order to mark a sewing line on a garment already constructed. Her patience continues to amaze me. Maybe she and I need to swap computers! LOL! Emily completed marking on her furry coat and began construction. She completed the stay-stitching and setting in the in-seam pockets on her center front pieces. The pockets of this coat are set into shoulder princess seams.

During our instructional time, the girls learned how to do Madeira applique and padded applique. We only have shadow applique left for next week and then they will have completed their unit on applique. Our next unit will be on Fabric Modification Techniques. This should be a really exciting unit and I hope to produce some tutorials from our experiences. We will be covering various types of dye techniques, such as ombre, tie-dye, crayon resist, etc. We will also look at acid etching, embossing, painting on silk, stenciling, etc. And we will look at some techniques that involve manipulating fabric through tucking and pleating. I'm looking forward to it.

Charity