Graduation Dress

I've been working on an eighth grade graduation dress for the daughter of a friend. They asked me back in February if I would be able to make one, and how much. I said 'of course!' (I mean, come on! I have all boys. I leapt at the chance to make a girly dress!), and said I do like the barter system. :) It's win-win -- her daughter gets a lovely, one-of-a-kind dress, I get some babysitting, or meals, or housework....I haven't decided yet.

Anyway, here's the dress. She brought me a magazine photo of a dress they liked, and we started with Vogue 2481. I flared the skirt and added straps. C is pretty much a perfect pattern size 8, so I did virtually no adjustments to the muslin I made. She has that perfect 14 year old figure, with the willowy waist. Ms. Belinda does not have the perfect 14 year old figure (and definitely no willowy waist), so I pinned the dress onto her as best I could.

The dress has an inner foundation, which I think is going to be great for C. The foundation keeps the dress secure and held in place, so she shouldn't feel the need to hike up on it all the time. Calvin and I had his gymnastics banquet the weekend before last, and a lot of the girls were wearing strapless dresses and constantly pulling on them. Not a good look! For the foundation, I used muslin, and cut each piece twice. Then I layered the pieces, stitched the channels for the boning (I used rigilene), and constructed the foundation.

I took care to match the pleats on the left side seam. The fabric was purchased at Joanns. They fell in love with it, and bought the whole bolt (only 2.5 yards), and thankfully it was enough. It's a polyester, but it feels really nice and is a very good imitation silk. I prewashed everything, and underlined the dress with white lining.

We lined the dress in pink, because isn't it fun to have a pretty lining? Besides, white is so sheer, you'd see all the seams through it. I prickstitch my linings (instead of slipstitching)down to the zipper to prevent them from rolling and getting caught in the slide.

To finish the bottom for the hem, I did a hong kong finish. 'Cause it's pretty. :) Graduation is tomorrow, I hope C loves it as much as I enjoyed making it.

(btw -- the boys wear suit jackets. I think Caleb might need a cool stylish suit jacket next year, no?)

Busy

Spring is definitely here in Wisconsin, which means I spend nearly every nice day working outside in the yard. Last year my big project was the landscaping of our natural fence. This year my big project is our vegetable garden and the beginning of landscaping around our back patio (I say beginning because this is going to involve tearing out a lot of grass -- that's a lot of work!).

In late March I started by ripping out a bunch of grass next to our patio and porch. This area gets a lot of sun and faces south. It also looked to me to be the perfect size and location for a set of raised beds, for vegetable gardening. I ripped up the grass and flipped it over so that it would die and start to rot. PHEW! I was tired after this (but not as sore as I thought I would be. woo! Also, note how brown the grass is, and the bare dirt to the left by the white rock.).

This stayed like this for about 6 weeks, though I would go out there occasionally and smooth out areas or tear up big chunks of sod. Meanwhile, I started my seeds.

In the beginning of May, we bought our lumber to build the raised beds. We built 3 separate beds: 4'x8', 4'x5', and 3'x6', using 2"x8" pieces of wood (which really means 1.5" x 7.25". weird).

Last weekend we bought the dirt to fill 2 of the beds, and Connor helped me smooth it out. He had a lot of fun with that. We tore up the rotted grass and put that in the bottom of the beds. Oh, and see the plants growing up now where the white rock is? That's our raspberry patch.

I transferred our strawberries to the 3'x 6' bed, and the 4'x 5' one now has broccoli, sweet red peppers, jalepeños, serrano peppers, and lettuce. The rear bed will be getting the roma tomatoes and tomatillos sometime this week. The grass is also much greener now, no?

I also bought a new half-moon edger and have been working on cleaning up the edges of the flower bed. In this photo I'm working my way towards the peach tree. For now, I'll just clean up the edge, but eventually, a bunch of that grass around it is going to be gone. You can see the bird bath the family gave me for Mother's Day too. Most of the iris are in full bloom and those peonies are going to be next. Things are looking really good.

Regionals

This past weekend we went up to Minneapolis, MN, for the Region 4 Gymnastics Championships (region 4 consists of 6 states: IA, MN, NE, ND, SD, and WI) . They were held at the University of Minnesota. The NCAA Men's Championships were also that weekend (same venue, in the evenings), so on Saturday night, Calvin and I went to see the individual event finals. WOW. Some amazing stuff!

Calvin competed on Sunday morning. There were 123 level 5 gymnasts of all ages, and about 30 or so in his age division (age 9). The meet style was Capital Cup, which means the gymnasts warm up on an event, then compete on that event, etc, etc. Since there were so many gymnasts, they were divided into two "flights", and while flight A was competing on their events, flight B was in the other gym warming up.

On to the videos! Calvin was in flight A, and started on rings. He scored 13.9, good for 16th place:


Next was vault, where he scored 14.4, and 6th place:


On p-bars, he scored 13.5 and 15th place:


He scored 14.5 on high bar, which was good for 5th place:


Calvin changed into his sport glasses for floor (he broke his regular glasses on Easter, and was wearing his backups). He got a 15.1 and 7th place:


He had some difficulty on pommel. He got a score of 13.1:


With an all-around score of 84.5, he got 11th place. (He's the 3rd gymnast on the right):


Practice is year-round, but it'll be nice to have the break from meets. Now it's on to Caleb's soccer games, which start this Saturday!

Seedlings

I've been dreaming and planning my gardening projects for this summer. One of those projects is ripping out some grass and building 3 raised beds for our veggies and strawberries. The grass was torn out 3 weeks ago, the lumber has yet to be purchased.

I live in Zone 5, and stuff usually doesn't get put out in the garden until Memorial Day. This year I am ahead of the game and have started my seeds:

Don't they look cute? We've got roma tomatoes there in the front, broccoli on the left in the back, red sunflowers there on the right in the back (yes, I know sunflowers can get sown directly in the ground. Every time I do that, the squirrels dig up the seeds), and watermelons there in the front, in the paper egg carton. I'll be thinning these out and putting them in bigger pots probably next week. I bought some heirloom tomato seeds today, and I hope to find tomatillo seeds soon. Barring that, I hope to find tomatillo plants come late May.

BTW -- anyone know anything about urban beekeeping?

State Meet

This past weekend was the Wisconsin State Men's Gymnastics Championships. Calvin competed yesterday afternoon. He had been nervous about this meet for almost 2 weeks (unusual for him).
Mama? What if I do bad? What if I mess up my floor like I did in Iowa?
You'll be fine, Calvin.
But what if I do bad?

He did fine.

He started on floor and got a score of 15.1, good for 7th place (level 5 ages 8-9):


Next was pommel, where he felt confident enough to try his flares on the mushroom, and got a personal best score of 13.8:


Then it was on to rings, where he got a score of 13.9 and 16th place:


Vault was next, with a score of 14.5, and 7th place:


His p-bars routine got a score of 14.3, which was a tie for 9th place. He took 10th place (event ties are broken by the all around score):


Last was high bar, where he got a score of 13.6, another tie for 9th place (he took 10th):


His all around score was another personal best of 85.2. Not only that, he got named to the all-state level 5 team (the top 20 boys ages 7-9, by all around score)! This means he gets a t-shirt and gets to go to a Brewer's game with his coaches. He was pretty excited about that (I know it doesn't look like it, but he always gets kinda serious when he sees me taking his picture).

I'm really proud of Calvin. I think he's done very well this season. He started learning 4 of these 6 events last June or July, and I remember tears and frustration from him last summer complaining that he'll never figure out how to do a circle on the mushroom, or he'll never remember his floor routine, or he just can't do a kip. He's come so far and has been so determined and dedicated to improving. We are all so happy and very proud of him.

ONE more meet!

M&M Meet

Today Calvin had another gymnastics meet (I know! A whole month without a meet! He was supposed to have one 2 weeks ago, but it got cancelled). The meet was at M&M Gymnastics, home of Olympian Chellsie Memmel. Calvin did well (level 5 ages 8-9).

This time around he started on vault, and got a score of 14.2:


Next was p-bars, where he got a score of 13.0. There is a deduction each time his coach touches him to prevent him from going over. However, it's good that Calvin being aggressive in going for the handstands, instead of hesitating because he is afraid to fall over. His coaches want to see him going for it:


Then it was on to high bar, where he nailed his routine! His clear hip circle was fantastic, and he got a score of 15.5, and first place:


After high bar, it was on to floor. Again, he did very well, and got a score of 15.4 and 2nd place:


Ah, his most difficult event, pommel horse. He didn't fall off the mushroom! He got a score of 13.5, which I'm pretty sure is a personal best:


He finished on rings, where he got a score of 14.7 and 8th place:


His all-around score was 86.3 (another personal best, I believe), which was good for 10th place. In two weeks he has the State meet, then on to Regionals in April, and then our meet season is DONE. :)

I'm Running

A friend of mine emailed last week that she was starting her "get my body back after baby" program, and was anyone interested in joining her. So, I started running with her last Saturday. One of my goals this year is to get stronger and in better shape. The last time I lost some weight, running is what melted it off. Unfortunately, my knee started really hurting, so I stopped. Some friends suggested that the cause was that I didn't have proper running shoes, so on Friday I went and got fitted for some:
I love them, and I've put 6.4 miles on them so far (3 separate runs), and NO knee pain! While I'm still not crazy about the actual running part, I do love the endorphin rush afterwards, and I'm feeling better overall.

My ultimate goal is to do the Danskin this year. It's my last chance if I want to do it before I'm 40. My other goal is that I want to look good in my bikini when we go on our annual camping trip in June. :)