I have a few people I sew for who bring me clothes to remake. That is the only type of sewing I do for them. This cream sweater is plain. The lady wants me to make it 3/4 sleeves. She wanted black and white pansies on it and there is a place on each sleeve that needs something done. I am going to put the two pansies on one sleeve to cover up a set of holes she tried to mend and on the other sleeve I will put the one pansy to cover up an ink spot that can not be removed. This is the front that I have embroidered already. I think it would look good with some black sheer fabric ruffled around the bottom and the bottoms of the sleeves.
I never got time to try out the pattern sample this weekend. I did hem a pair of pants for a lady and fix the too much gather in my shirt. Saturday we picked up our rat and went to my parents farm. One of my brothers had a deck built on the back of my parents home and surprised them with a hot tub on it. We went up to test it out! My parents grilled for us and had a pumpkin pie for my birthday. I love pumpkin pie. I have decided though store bought cannot compare to home made. They are not hard to make either. Sunday was my actual birthday and the General had to work. The children and I went to church, I brought a pumpkin pie Captain Kitty had made me to Sunday School.:) When the General came home he brought me a beautiful card, the roses, and French horns (another thing I have had a sweet tooth for). He ask me if I wanted to go out and eat, but I declined. Instead he fixed me grilled steak and fried potatoes at home. Ahhhhh! That's my idea of a great birthday.
Thank you God for the rain. It has rained on and off here the last two days. We desperately needed it. Rainfall has been sparse lately. In the afternoon yesterday I spent some time catching up on our families mending needs. I hemmed two pairs of jeans for Captain Kitty. I altered a shirt for her. I also tried to fix a shirt of mine. It is a store bought shirt. I really like it. The only problem is my shoulders and chest are smaller than my hips. Whenever I buy shirts to fit my hips they are huge and gapping in the shoulder and chest area. With the make of this shirt I decided to put elastic in the neckline to give it some gather. I made the elastic too short and got too much gather. I am going to cut it out and try again.
The moves are all completed. I have been so busy. I have six of the undergarments for the nutcracker soldier costumes put together. I have so much sewing to get done before Friday. My company starts arriving on Saturday. I love the layout of where my sewing room is now. It used to be our oldest son's room, then our youngest son. It needs paint. I feel like I am in a cave with the grey walls and black trim! Maybe next spring we can make it look more lady like.
Sew Long for Now!
Yesterday I cut out some of the parts for the soldier jackets for the nutcracker. They will be wearing an under garment of spandex type material with the sleeves attached to it. There will be a vest type garment to wear over this. I cut out 6 front and back panels of the spandex type material. I cut out 12 sleeves from the jacket material. I need to cut out 12 sleeve linings and then I can complete this. I have one complication. The General and I went furniture shopping this morning. We were given a king size bed frame a few months ago. Captain Chaos needs a new bed. We bought a king size mattress and box springs and are giving him our full size bed. Another complication. My in-laws are coming in two weeks. My mil cannot walk up and down stairs. The only beds they could sleep in are downstairs. We will be moving rooms around again! I promised I would not do this again. (I have been known to move bedrooms around in our house once a year) It seems now I have to. My sewing room will be going downstairs in Captain Chaos' room and he will be moving up stairs into my sewing room. I will also have to finish the nutcracker outfits and a formal dress I have to alter before they get here. My life is never boring! The good news I got a new couch and love seat also! Our couch was my parents. It was in my parents living room for 40 years and when they moved they got new furniture. I took a lot of their old furniture. The couch survived in their living room because it was the company sitting room when we were growing up and no one was ever allowed to sit on it except guests. A few weeks at my house with Captain Chaos using it as a tumbling mat did it in. That was five years ago! Next weekend they will deliver my new couch and loveseat. The next few weeks should prove to be more hectic than the last few. Lessons will go on, along with all the outside activities, and add all the moving, extra sewing, and cleaning to get ready for three extra guests for a couple of weeks. Well, it will give me some incintive!
Said shirt in progress of being remade!
Sew long for Now!
This is my new acquisition. For national sewing month my local sewing shop had sales each week. I purchased this one week. This lovely piece of equipment is a ruffler. I have tested it and it really works!
Sew Long for Now!
I finished five walker caddies for the ASG community service project. They actually take a bit of time to make. They came in a bag precut from our chapter. With this green corduroy it was hard to decide what to do. Since it has nap on one side and not on the other, which do you want to show the most. I decided to put the nap on the outside. It gave directions for sewing the pocket by sewing a seam down the center making two pockets. I changed this a little. I took a magazine and measured the width, then I made one pocket big enough to fit a magazine or folded newspaper and the other pocket is smaller. We are putting more effort into our school lessons so I have had less time to sew. I still have walker caddies to put together. I told the nursing home we volunteer at that I would make socks with polar fleece and non-skid for Christmas. They want as many pairs as I can make, five hundred would be nice! I doubt I can do that many. I have three dolls to dress for the Salvation Army to give at Christmas. I am also helping make costumes for the Nutcracker Ballet one of our local ballet companies is putting on. Right now I have the toy soldiers jackets to work on. Then there is the usual hemming and such for people.
This is one of my favorite pictures of a sunset I took off my front porch this summer. Days end. It's been a busy day. Yesterday I did some sewing. I finished another tote, hemmed some pants, and began five walker caddies. I also cut Captain Chaos' hair, and went shopping. Today I put up 10 pints of salsa, hung out clothes, swept and mopped the kitchen and livingroom, and cooked, cooked, cooked. My list still has many chores I needed to get done, but my body has given out. It has been a year now since my last surgery and I am just starting to get back into the swing of life. Five surgeries in four years drained me. I still have things I will never be able to do the same the rest of my life and I am finally overcoming and adapting to these changes. Even when you think you are ok, 2 weeks after surgery or even three months after surgery, your body takes a while to heal. Spiritually, you think everything is fine. Even spiritually and emotionally it takes time. Some days I just take a deep breath and think I actually feel like doing something. Life is good.
This a picture from earlier in the day with his sister.
Sew Long for Now!
A friend of mine came by and took the children to the pool with her today. In the quiet I made and canned salsa, made 6 more pairs of fleece socks, made a tote bag for a friend, worked on school planning, and putzed. I could have done the same with my children here. My children are great helpers. Our youngest son does yell Mom every five minutes and come and tell me things and ask me questions. No matter how much one on one I spend with him it's never enough so I have to tell him that I will give so much time a day totally devoted to him, but I have to spend some time doing other things. He knows that I will listen and pay attention even when I am sewing, cooking, or cleaning; I just can't stare him in the eye at that time. It is tiring, but I love him. Most of the time I try to incorporate him in helping. A lot of the time he doesn't want to and will go find something to do for a few minutes. He is very obsessive about things. Today his obsession is if he had the equipment he could make a tv commercial for his favorite toy. He has come and told me the same thing ten times since three o'clock. I am sure I will hear it again a few times before he goes to bed. Yesterday he spent all day writing a song about his favorite toy. He sung it to me over and over and over. It was very interesting.
Sew Long for Now!
This a picture of a pair of fleece socks I made last evening for our ASG's community service project. These are so easy to make. They require three pieces and it took me no time to put them together. The nursing home I visit once a month listed socks as a need for residence for their Christmas wish list. I think I will make some, but I will put non-skid fabric on the bottom. Most of the residence at the facility we visit do not wear shoes and that will be safer for them.
It's done! This is the wall hanging I made for my mother-in-love, whose birthday is today. Blue is her favorite color and her first initial is L. I used an alphabet that has a rose bud to match the material used in the middle border and sashing. Captain Kitty cross stitched her a picture of a bird that we will be making into a pillow tonight.
Sew Long for Now!
My mother-in-love's birthday is next week and I have been working on a present for her. This is a close-up of one part of it. I finally finished "the curtains" tonight. I need to give them a press and Sunday I will give them to the customer at church. I will post a picture of the finished present when I...well finish it!
Sew Long for Now!
Here is a picture of my sweet baby Captain Chaos. His 10th birthday was this past week. He has the sweetest heart and I love the freckles on his face! I often tell him I am going to keep him just because he has handsome freckles. All our children are special because we were told we would never have children of our own. Then when I was pregnant with both boys the doctors told us they would not live. I spent three pregnancies in the hospital and went through many procedures and even surgery to have them all. I wanted six children at least. I am grateful to have half as many. After spending the first six months of Captain Chaos' pregnancy in the hospital we were told he would have a disease worse than Downs and never make it to his 1st birthday. They ask us to choose to have him. We told them there was no choice. Our faith would help us to love and deal with what ever God choose to bless us with. I remember the morning I went into the delivery room. They hadn't told us that they had gotten a special pediatric neurologist to come assist in the delivery because of what they expected. He introduced himself after I was strapped down on the table for the c-section. I was blown away. I don't know if it was anger or just perturbment. Couldn't they have warned me? CC came out healthy physically except for a huge umbiblical hernia. He has had some special characteristics since he was born. The doctors thought he was deaf, nope. They thought he had sight problems, nope. They thought he had autism, the early tests showed not. Reading about Aspergers lately has us convinced that he does have that. We don't think it will affect his life negatively and that we can help him overcome some of the challenges. He has such a loving heart and is my right hand. 
My days have been so busy with laundry, cooking, gardening, lessons, cleaning, and relationships that my sewing is having a hard time fitting in. Over the weekend I did make it to my favorite local sewing machine dealer and JoAnn's for some supplies to work on things, but no actual sewing. Yesterday I was determined to complete something for some one so last night at 8:30 p.m. I embroidered four towels and a wash cloth for a girl to take to college next week. Don't you wish you had all day to sit and sew? Why do people have to eat and have clean clothes any way? LOL!
I have completed the purple formal dress. I will be delivering it today. It took a lot longer than I expected. The adjustments I made to the shoulder and back seem to affect every other area of the dress. I have ripped many seams out and redid them in this dress. I also finished both my skirts that I found the tops to match. The material was a little thin for my taste so I lined both the skirts. I choose to line them with bleached muslin. My reasoning was that I wanted to wear them mostly this summer and the muslin would not be as hot or stick to me as much as the silky lining material. I wore the green outfit yesterday when we took Lt. Col. Cool to VMI for the STP program. We did a lot of walking and it was warm (not as hot as usual) and it was very comfortable and worked well. Over the weekend I got a call of a desperate lady whose daughter was singing at Niagra Falls, N.Y. over the holidays with a local college children's choir. Her daughter had grown and her dress was too tight in the bust. They could not order new dresses until September so she wanted to know if there was anything I could do. The dress was made almost identical to the purple one pictured. The only problem was it was made out of velvet in the bodice. Since it was going to leave a mark from letting out the seams I let it out in the back and side seams. I tried to search the internet and see if there was a way to got the mark out of velvet, but I had no luck. It gave it enough to hopefully get her through the next three concerts before she could order a new dress. I am off to more sewing.
Remember the material I bought in Richmond? Today Captain Kitty and I were out shopping and I found these two shirts on sale. I thought they looked like they may go with the material so I took a chance and purchased them. Ah! I was so excited when I layed them with the material. They are perfect matches! I must get busy on these two skirts.
This morning while working in my gardens I found this peaking out at me. I can't wait until the tomatoes are ripe. I love home grown tomatoes!
Yesterday I spent several hours working on the formal. Everything was moving along. I started to put the zipper in and found things were not lining up. Today I will have to take the zipper out and do a few more alterations. I really wanted this finished by tomorrow, but it might not work. I need to finish up the bibs today. This afternoon I pray to be productive and that things will go smoothly.
Sew Long for Now!
Yesterday I took Lt. Col. Cool to Iron Bridge, Va. (outside Richmond) to take his Spots test. I had some time to kill so I went looking for fabric stores. I found a cute little quilt shop called JoJo's. I also bought this material at another store. I love the green on left. Capt. Kitty and I need some skirts so I hope to get some made...someday. I am still working on the formal dress. I also just realized I need to get some bibs done this week! On Saturday we went to Waynesboro's Cracker Barrel and met two of my sisters, their families, and my parents for breakfast. That was for Father's Day. We decided since we were up there to spend the day at the lake. It was overcast and I was chilly. The children have no nerve endings in their bodies and they swam happily all afternoon. A picture of my favorite view.
Sew Long for Now!
I did no sewing yesterday. It was an overcast, drizzly day, perfect for weeding our gardens. I haven't been good about keeping up with the weeding. We spent the morning weeding the upper and lower gardens. In the afternoon we did our lessons.
I am hoping that today I will finish up the formal dress. I have some errands to run this morning, but hopefully this afternoon I will work on it.
Sew Long for Now!
Poster found at Allposters.com
Yesterday we went to the zoo for science class. That and it was wild Wednesday. Parents got in for $1 with a paying child. There was also face painting and free ice cream. Our city has a small, but very nice zoo on top of Mill Mountain. This is one of the newest animals, a red panda. We used to have a tiger named Ruby that was the symbol of the zoo. Ruby passed away this past year. We spent a lovely afternoon admiring the animals and even got to pet a Russian turtle and a corn snake. 
Yesterday in the afternoon I was putting together the formal dress. I was restless. Maybe because all we have been doing is working around here. When the General came home from work I ask him to take us for a ride. He was shocked. With the price of gas almost $3 per gallon, he knew I was trying to keep our gas spending down. We went to one of my favorite places, the Blue Ridge Parkway. I grew up going for a ride every Sunday afternoon on the Parkway. It usually culminated with ice cream from the Dairy Queen. That was up in the Shenandoah Valley. Now we live in the Roanoke Valley. We drove to Buchanan and went up on the parkway. It was a lovely afternoon for a drive. We saw two does. The second one we saw was when stopped at the Roanoke Mountain Camp Ground. It just stood there and stared at us, not 50 feet away. We ended our ride by taking the children to the Roanoke Star and looking over our city. It was a nice change, very relaxing.
Sew Long for Now!
Last night I was so tired. After I got the kitchen cleaned up and set up for today, I settled the youngest two in bed and went to bed. The General was waiting up for Lt. Col. Cool. I was so tired, but I couldn't fall asleep when I lay down! Finally, I fell asleep. One half an hour later I awoke. I was wide awake. I tried changing positions. I tried praying. Nothing, I was definitely awake and I wasn't going back to sleep soon. I got up and met the General as he was headed to bed. He is getting used to me having these nights when I don't sleep. So, we switched places. I went up and began sewing and he went to bed. I hemmed a pair of pants and repaired a sweater torn in several places. Then I read for awhile. Finally, about 1:30 I decided I needed to get some sleep before I left at 3:30 a.m. I got another nap. Today I was trying so hard not to fall asleep this afternoon. I almost gave in and took a nap, but backed out at the last minute. I decided to work on more sewing. I repaired a torn toddler shirt and shorts. Then I serged all the edges of the formal dress. I am going to put it together on the reg. sewing machine and leave a 5/8 seam allowance in case it needs adjusting when I take it for the fitting.
The last two days I have felt so extremely tired by evening. We have gone back to school full-time. Even though I only have two left here, they are apart just enough to cause me to have to do their work seperate. Where I used to combine some things, now I have to do them twice each day. Of course there is still the paper route every morning at 3:30. My sewing business has been brisk lately, leaving little time for my personal sewing. The garden is begininning to take off. We staked part of the tomatoes today. Over the weekend we had to replant the cucumber and squash due to rabbits. Add in laundry, housekeeping, cooking, and general duties around the home and you have one tired Momma. This to shall pass. Above is material and a pattern I am using to make a formal dress for a young lady. She needs the middle view. It looks like a fairly easy pattern. The biggest problem I found is finding a zipper in the right shade to match the material. It says the material is lavendar, but the thread that matches best is light Cielo. That's a shade of blue. Both the lavendar and Cielo zippers did not look good against the material. The shades were all wrong. I am putting an off white hidden zipper in it. If we could find some fingernail polish or acrylic paint in the right shade we could paint the zipper pull to match. I have more towels coming tonight to embroidery. I have another order for a black bag. Then there's hemming and mending, mending and hemming!
It's been busy this week. So busy I forgot to take pictures of some of my sewing projects before they left. I embroidered a bag with initials for a graduation present. I also embroidered 5 beach towels for graduation presents. I hemmed some pants. Today I finished this cute little bag for a friend. She wanted it to put her Bible in. I have more projects to work on, but since the rabbits ate my cucumber and squash plants I went back to the nursery today and got more to plant. I also got some type of organic stuff that is suppose to deter the bunnies. Something about the smell keeps them away. I really don't like to say this, but bunnies are rodents and I look at them as not cute, but in the same class as rats. One year on Easter we were coming home from church and a bunny ran out and ran smack into the side of our car. It died. My children forever tell people how we killed the Easter bunny. They found it exceedingly funny. Don't worry we have never celebrated the Easter bunny so there is no psychological damage.
The 2007 Graduation Class of GRHE
FriendsIt has been another big weekend here. I did get some sewing in though. I have almost completed a black toile and solid black bag for a lady. I just have to put on the handles and some buttons. I altered 7 pair of pants for the minor league baseball team. Friday was Lt. Col. Cool's graduation. We spent the afternoon seeing the new Pirates movie. Graduation that evening was a very nice event. There was 13 graduates. We had family come down from Northern VA, the Shenadoah Valley, and Stuart. It was a wonderful ceremony. Afterwards we went to Cracker Barrel for a late supper. Saturday we went to a friends farm for a cookout. Sunday was church and we still have family here. Today I have to get caught up on laundry and some paper work. The guys are working and will be home this evening for a cookout. Just a few more weeks and Lt. Col. Cool will be headed off for the Summer Transition at VMI.
Sew Long for Now!
With the help of my three great children I got the garden in today. We planted 36 tomato plants. We also planted 12 Habeneros, 4 crook neck squash, 4 green bell peppers, 4 red bell peppers, 4 eggplant, 8 cucumber mounds, and three rows of green lake beans. It doesn't sound like much because I live in the city and that is all the room we have.
Here is a cute yellow moth who came to sample the water we used after putting in the plants. I don't know if I will get any sewing done today. I will try to mend two pieces I have for a lady and maybe put together a bag I am making for another lady.
This is a picture of some of Capt. Kitty and my aprons hanging up in the kitchen. I attached four hooks on the side of the cabinet to hold just them. I wear aprons almost all the time.
This is my clothespin apron. It has three big pockets stuffed full of clothespins. I put it on when I am hanging out the clothes and bringing them in. It is such a wonderful way to keep up with the pins.
Just for fun, the General's BBQ apron I made him. Here even the men wear aprons, manly type of course!
Sew Long for Now!
America has become a throw away society. We have let our lives become so busy that we don't know how to make things last any more. We have also accepted cheap consumer items in the market place so they don't last. I started realizing my part in this a few years ago. My first endeavor in mending items was socks. I still haven't learned a good way to mend socks. I ask an elderly lady who grew up in Switzerland some ideas in mending. She is great at it. When she was younger they learned how to mend. She gave me some ideas and I need to learn more. My next foray into mending was t-shirts. The General wears t-shirts working at his maintanence job and doing odd jobs around here. He gets lots of holes in them. T-shirts can be purchased inexpensively, but why throw a good shirt just because it has a hole near the bottom. The lady I ask gave me great advice and I am getting better at mending t-shirts. You almost can't tell I fixed them. Over the years I have tried to mend jeans. Jeans are not so easy. Especially since my guys seem to rip them at the belt loop or corner of the back pocket. This pair pictured has a hole where the belt loop was caught on something and it ripped. I will remove the bottom of the belt loop. Then stabilizer is important. You can get iron on patches, but they don't stay. If I have some denim around I use it as stabilizer, if not I use a blue or gray material. They key to mending or even hemming jeans is the right color thread. Blue thread doesn't work. Grey works best. Sometimes if the denim has more blue in it I will use a blue in the bobbin and grey on the top. If you look at jeans you will notice they are a blend of colors. With a hole, I stitch around the outside first to secure the hole from distorting. Next I sew back and forth across the hole from side to side and then do the same from top to bottom. On this pair I will then change to a dark gold thread and reattach the belt loop with a tight zig zag. Mending takes a little time and it would be easier to chuck the jeans and go to Walmart and get a new pair for $10, but is it really better? I keep thinking about the old saying, "Waste not, want not." 
