The Quilt

Violet made her quilt last week.  They added an extra class session so that the girls could finish them.  Violet's turned out magnificent!  She chose all her materials and did all the sewing herself.  With the instructor's guidance, of course.  Here it is on her bed:

And in this photo our cat, Preki, was kind enough to pose with it so that you could see the backing she chose:

Preki is the cat that hasn't been eating much.  We got some kitten chow for her and she does pick at that.  She has energy, is taking good care of her fur, and still has her old spunk.  She just barely eats.

But back to the quilt.  Violet has already said that if they offer quilt class again next summer she wants to go and do another one.  In the meantime, she has a few projects planned out, but hasn't started yet.  She did spend 25 hours working on the quilt for a total of 61 hours of class time this summer (I'm giving her a full credit of sewing on her 8th grade transcript.  By the time you add in travel time to the offsite class, which I fully believe public schools would do, time spent purchasing her material and planning other projects, she'll have a full credit earned).  I can see where maybe she's ready for a break from it.

The Making of a Skirt: A Photo Journal

I made the khaki skirt on Saturday and knew you'd all want to come along on the journey!  So grab your favorite beverage, get comfy and here we go....

Prepping that material:

I forgot to take a picture with all the pieces pinned and laid out.  But here's one sleeve.  I hate pinning and cutting out the pattern pieces most of all.  I'm not sure why.  I do tend to poke myself with pins a lot during the process, but I do that throughout the sewing process.

Pieces that have been cut out:

The first pocket sewn and basted into place:

Both pockets are in:

The casing for the elastic.

Finally, got that blasted casing on!  I think I had to redo it 3 times if not more.  I had trouble first with getting one of the pockets caught up in it (rookie mistake), then I ran into all sorts of problems with the thread tension.  Finally, I got it to turn out okay.

I wasn't happy with how bunchy it was by one of the pockets.  But I'd had such a time I wasn't going to redo it AGAIN!  I plan to wear shirts untucked with it anyway.  And if anyone is looking at it that closely while I'm wearing it, I'll punch them.  I did do another skirt (yes, #4!) on Sunday and I kicked pocket butt!  Smooth and gorgeous.

Working on the elastic:

Still working on it. 

Finally, done.  Look at that BEAUTIFUL slit!  I'm really proud of it, it looks the best of all the ones I did.  The purple dots (you can see if them if you enlarge it) and from my sewing marker, I washed them off today.  And the water spots were from spraying and ironing.  They're gone too.

Voila!  The finished project.  Done all on Saturday.  No photo of me wearing it because Mr. Incredible and Violet have been gone all weekend and aren't home yet (hence my ability to sew 2 skirts in one weekend). 

There you have it.  My beautiful khaki skirt.  I think it will make its debut on Tuesday with the black shirt.  I have to go to training for 2 days this week (don't get me started on that waste of time) and thought it would be nice.  I'll wear it with my new black sandals.

The Green Shirt

I started out liking the green shirt.  But it is hard to match.  And at a conference recently they took a photo of me and 2 coworkers all in our green shirts.  The next morning at breakfast they had the photo up on the big screen.  It was supposed to be scrolling through all the photos from the day before but they were having technical difficulties.  For 30 minutes or more we were larger than life in our green shirts.  All three of us pale as they come looking even more washed out and ill.  That kinda killed it for me.

I thought it was passable with the purple skirt too. I'll probably do that combo some day.

I had the worst time getting the hem straight on both. 

I think my inner girlie girl is coming out.  I've avoided skirts for at least 10 years also.  I bought a new pair of sandals to go with them.  A pair of black Keds sandals.  Very comfy for walking all over the trade show.

The skirts

I've made 2 so far.  I hope to get another done this weekend.

The purple one was the first one.  I think I like it better.  The material isn't quite as thin and it just seems more me.  You can decide.

When did I get so chunky?  Yipes!

My original idea when I made these was to wear with the company shirts.  I hate wearing the shirts with slacks.  I feel like I'm dressed just like the guys, because I am.  I am not a guy.  As Anne Burrell might say (she probably wouldn't, but maybe) "I'm a kick ass girl accountant."  (I recently heard her refer to herself as a "kick ass girl chef" and decided I wanted to "borrow" it.)  Anyway...

The black shirt works okay with both:

But, man, the green one is just impossible:

I don't think anyone can possibly look good in that shade of green.  My next skirt is a khaki "bottomweight twill".  I'm not exactly sure what that is (and apparently Blogger doesn't know either).  But it looks and feels just like what I refer to as khaki pants.  If that works, I'm going back to Joann armed with coupons and getting some black bottomweight twill and some dark brown and do 2 final skirts.  And if after trying to sew the twill for 20 minutes I'm ready to throw it in the trash, I'll try something else.

Hope you enjoyed my fashion show!

In a nutshell

I'm such a bad blogger, I'm so behind.  I've been goofing off this summer...and it feels great!  Here are some highlights:

1.  I made a skirt!!!  I sewed it all by myself.  Well, Violet threaded my sewing machine for me.  Then, guess what!  I made another skirt!!!  I'll post photos of them soon.  My thought was that the men at trade shows all wear their company shirts with slacks or khakis.  So we women do too.  What nonsense is that?  I don't want to look like a man!  So I made skirts to go with my company shirts.  Today I bought some khaki material to try to make a skirt with.  Because once in a while we do have a written dress code to follow (suit or company shirt and khakis).  The skirts turned out okay.  Not perfect.  I had to redo steps numerous times.  But the more I sewed the better I got.  I'm still a beginner, but hey I MADE TWO SKIRTS!!!

2.  Violet turned 13.  Gasp, I HAVE A TEENAGER!!!!  She's a great teenager.  We had a nice family day together.  She has a party planned on Friday with her best friend.  They'll have fun.

3.  It was hot.  It was over 100 for 5 days straight.  It doesn't get that hot here!  And the grass and the flowers and the garden have practically all turned to dust.  Some of our plants have just disappeared.  I'm guessing spontaneous combustion.  That or rabbits.

4.  Our oldest cat has stopped eating, or practically.  We've gotten her to eat some ham, some KFC (she likes original recipe) and some kitty Ensure we got from the pet store (it isn't called that, but it describes it well).  Her energy level has been back up since we brought home the KFC and she had some of that.  Then we got her to eat the other stuff.  She turns 15 next month.  We're keeping a close eye on her.

5.  We've been going to movies as a family.   Well, twice now.  That's more than we've ever done.  We saw Brave and Madagacar 3.  We have plans to go to the new Ice Age movie in a couple of weeks.  There's a theater just around the corner from Mr. Incredible's office so we go there.  Quite a fun outing.

6. Violet was supposed to have a drawing class this week but it was canceled due to low enrollment.  We'll look for other classes with the instructor this fall at the art studio where she took jewelry class.  He teaches there as well as at the Kids and College program.  Bummed on the cancellation, but she's been so busy this summer, I really don't mind her having a week off.

I'm sure I've missed a lot, but those are some highlights.