My friend Rowena has a post up that I think my sewing/knitting/crafty friends might like. You might recognize one of the rooms (or at least recognize the alias).

Remember that 4 hour session I won with an organizer? She's coming November 12. Hopefully I'll have some great pictures to share.

It's A Girl!

As of Friday, we finally have another girl in the family.

This is Esperanza. Sometimes I call her Chica for short. Maybe she'll be a bilingual dog, since I talk to her in Spanish half the time. She's almost 4 months old, and weighs 4 pounds. I think she'll eventually be about 6 or 7 pounds, like her mama. Best of all, she's already house-trained.

My mom saw a flyer at the VA (where she works) stating "Pom Puppies for Sale, 10 weeks old, to a good home". She knew we've been looking for another dog (and having no luck with the WI Humane Society or the rescue groups), and took the number down. I phoned, drove out, and got a dog! :)

She is so much fun! She stays near me most of the time, but on the beach she went exploring a bit. She isn't too sure about big dogs, and hides between my legs when they come by, but I am going to do my best to get her used to them. She also gets carsick, so I am hoping she outgrows that.

Right now, Randall tolerates her, but he's slowly warming up. She gets a bit rambunctious and tries to jump on him sometimes, and he's having none of that. Today, though, they ran around together on the beach, so I hope they'll eventually be good friends.

State Fair Food Entries

My food entries were due at the fair yesterday morning for judging. I entered 3 items: banana bread (no nuts), scones, and strawberry jam (didn't get that in the picture).
Everything looks good to me, I hope the judges thought so too! I got up at 5 to bake the banana bread, as I work out with some friends every Wednesday at 7 (Mondays too). The scones I made the night before, up to the point of baking, and baked them after I got home from my workout.

It was fun to see and talk to the other entrants during drop-off. I usually don't enter food (except for jam, which I usually drop off when I bring my clothing entries), so that was new for me. More younger entrants than for the textile categories, and a lot more men. Judging was yesterday afternoon, but I didn't stay, so I won't be able to find out my results until I go to the fair (August 4-14 this year).

More HotPatterns

I made 2 more HotPatterns last week. These were for the WI State Fair, and I cranked them out pretty fast. I thought garments were due for judging last Friday (the 22nd), but after checking online, realized they were due last Monday (the 18th), with judging on the 21st. Without those extra 4 days, I didn't get all my entries finished.

Anyway, I made the HP Riviera Cote D'Azur top:
which went together very fast. It's a great looking top. I want to try the dress also, though I'm pretty sure I'll stick with a solid for that, otherwise I fear it will look a lot like a caftan or muu-muu. Not really a look I'm going for right now at this point in my life.

I also made the HP Primavera dress:
which looks lovely, but in all honesty I don't know if it fits me. I'm pretty sure I should have at least done a FBA, but I was under a time constraint, so just made a straight 10. I figured if it didn't fit me, I'd be able to give it to someone, and sure enough, when I posted the picture on my Facebook page, Stacy S piped up that she'd take it if it didn't fit. :)

Both garments placed (4th and 3rd, respectively), as well as my HP Kimono Wrap dress (3rd) and Caleb's waistcoat (1st).

My food entries are due for judging tomorrow morning. I won't stay for that, so I'll have to wait until I go the fair to see those results. I'll be entering banana bread, a plate of scones (I plan do to whole wheat cinnamon ones), and strawberry jam.

Strawberries

It's strawberry season here in Wisconsin, or at least it was last week.
We picked strawberries 3 separate times this year, and got a total of about 30 pounds. I might have gone a wee bit overboard.

Here is the beginning of mango-strawberry jam. We ran out of jam about 3 months ago, and I am making sure that we do not run out this year.

See? I went a bit overboard (and this isn't all of it). Over the past few days I made strawberry syrup, strawberry jam, strawberry-rhubarb jam, strawberry-raspberry jam, mango-strawberry jam, strawberry sorbet, vanilla yogurt, frijoles, refrigerator pickles, and pickled garlic scapes.

It got pretty hot in the kitchen some of those days. We don't have working a/c.

It was worth it though, as it all tastes SO good, and we'll especially appreciate it this winter when we get to have a taste of summer.

I also celebrated my 41st birthday on Wednesday. Calvin planned a dinner of my favorite comfort food (homemade macaroni and cheese), and instead of cake (which I don't care for very much), my favorite dessert (creme brulee).

Auction Bags

I made some bags for a silent auction/raffle at school:
l-r: Chelsea handbag, In Town bag, and Swing bag, all from Amy Butler. Also, all from stash! :)

At the last minute I decided to add a button closure to the In Town bag. Hopefully all 3 bags will do well and raise some money.

In other news, my husband and I went to the MDA Black-N-Blue Ball last Friday. I decided to go all badass and went with leather. It was pretty fun. I bid on a few things, but really really wanted one of them, and I won! Soon a personal organizer will be coming to my house and working on one area for 4 hours. That area will be my sewing room! Right now I'm working on de-cluttering and de-stashing, because I want all 4 hours focus on organizing.

HP Wong-Singh-Jones Kimono Wrap Dress

Dudes, I have a new dress, and I LOVE it:
I made this a few days ago. It didn't take long at all, and went together beautifully. This is a straight size 10, although I made some minor changes, such as lengthening the skirt 4 inches, and making full patterns of the contrast bands (instead of cutting them on folds as per the pattern).

The ties are VERY long, and I ended up shortening them 18 inches (they are already wrapped around my waist twice). My original plan was to make the dress green and the contrast bands in the print, but I did not have enough of the green. HP suggests about 2 yards of 60" knit for the dress for sizes 6-8-10, but I ended up using 2.625 yards of the print. HP also suggests about .75 yards for the contrast bands, and again, I don't think that is possible. I used about 1.75-2 yds and had to piece the ties.

To apply the bands, I trimmed 1/8" off of one side (seam allowances are 3/8"), so that the edge would overhang the seamline by 1/4". Basically the same way I finish off a waistband. This keeps the bands nice and flat.

It's a great dress, I definitely need more of these in my closet. :)

Full review is here.

Regionals (plus 4 other meets)

I don't know why I put off uploading Calvin's gymnastics videos, but I do. It's not like there is anything new in them, it's the same 5 (should be 6) routines each time. Anyway, there are a lot to catch up. I won't embed them all.

In mid-February, we traveled to Iowa City for the Iowa Boys Invitational. Calvin's all around score was 61.8, the best for the season. His routines are here: floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, and parallel bars.

March started off with a meet at Salto, where he got an all around score of 57.1 (floor, pommel, rings, vault, and p-bars).

The following week was our meet; his all around score was 57.3 (floor, pommel[painful!] , rings, vault [messed up his steps], p-bars).

The week after that was state, which Calvin qualified for, as they changed the qualification score. His all around score this time was 60.9 (floor, pommel, rings, vault [messed up his steps again!], p-bars).

Finally, this past Saturday was regionals. They were held here in Milwaukee, so we didn't have to travel anywhere. The boys started out on floor, where Calvin got a score of 13.85:


Next was pommel horse, which was painful to watch. He got a score of 6.2:


On rings he got a 12.8:


Then it was on to vault, where he got his steps right! His score was 14.45:


Last, parallel bars, with a score of 11.75:


His all around score was 59.05.


He also got to meet Morgan Hamm. Paul (his twin brother) was there as well. Morgan will also be at Porter Camp this summer, so they'll get to hang out again. :)

Competition season is DONE!

Swiss Cup

We had another gymnastics meet Saturday night. The team started on high bar, and Calvin did not compete on that event. He really needs to work through whatever issue he is having on it, because he will not be able to qualify for state without a high bar score.

After high bar they rotated to floor, where he got a score of 13.8:


Next was pommel horse, where he got a score of 7.6, one tenth better than last week, plus I think he didn't fall off as much:


After pommel comes rings, with a score of 11.2:


On vault he got a score of 14.2:


The team ended on the parallel bars, where Calvin got a score of 11.9:


His all-around score was 58.7, improving by two tenths from last week. Next meet is in 3 weeks, so he has plenty of time to focus on getting that high bar routine ready for competition!

By the way, this meet was especially fun to watch, as the session was for levels 7 through 10. Some of the skills the 10s do are just breathtaking, and sometimes it was hard to decide which event to watch.

Windy City Invite

Competition season has started again for Calvin. This year he is in Level 7. My understanding is that this is a particularly difficult level, and he has really been struggling lately. His first meet was Sunday. He actually did much better than I was expecting, since earlier in the week the team had run through their events with a judge and all did pretty terrible.

The boys started on rings, and Calvin scored a 13.2:


Next was vault, where he got a score of 14.2:


On the parallel bars he got an 11.1:


He did not compete on high bar (he needs to be able to do giants better)

Next was floor, where he got a score of 12.5 (he shouldn't be landing on his butt for a front tuck, he almost never does that!). I especially like his first tumbling pass, with that beautiful layout:


The boys ended on pommel horse, which was pretty rough for him. Calvin got a score of 7.5:


His all-around score was 58.5. Not enough to qualify for state yet, but now he knows what he really needs to work on, and has a goal to reach for. Next meet is Saturday night!

by the way, the team got new uniforms this year, they look pretty nice, no?

Fun With Food

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you know that I've been having fun learning how to put up food. I've been making jam for years, but have always wanted to try other things, specifically tomatoes. When a friend asked if I was interested in taking a canning class in late August, I was there. At the class, we made jam with no added pectin, salsa, and canned whole tomatoes. Doing the tomatoes was just the boost I needed to start on my own.

I've belonged to a CSA (Springdale Farm) for about 5 years, and every year, we get lots of cucumbers. I don't really like cucumbers. This year, we also got dill once in a while, and in the weekly newsletter, they sent a recipe for refrigerator pickles. Both Calvin and David like pickles, so I gave it a try. They declared it a success! Next year I might try a cooked recipe that is canned.

I made basil-garlic tomato sauce (from the Ball Blue Book) using tomatoes from my garden, CSA, and the farmer's market. I needed 20# of tomatoes, and when I told the farmer I was making sauce, she offered me a price break if I would take the 'ugly' brandywines. Yay! The sauce took forever to reduce, but it was worth it, and I now have 9 pints sitting on my shelves.

I also put up tomatoes for the first time. These are Clint Eastwood Rowdy Reds, from my garden. I managed to keep the late blight mostly at bay this year.

Outpost had a truckload sale last Saturday, and one of the specials was an 18# box of organic peaches for $20. I bought one and put up 13.5 pints of sliced peaches in a light syrup. Unfortunately I dropped one pint on the floor. I learned that I should always wear shoes when canning (I was fine, but it was close!).

I have to say, I love that I can take this...

...and end up with 7 quarter pints of really really good ketchup.

School

I have been so bad in posting! We had a wonderful, busy summer, and, as all good things do, it has come to an end. School started on Wednesday.

Caleb started high school. I can hardly believe he is a freshman!

Calvin is at the top of the totem pole this year, starting 5th grade. Middle school next year!

Connor is in 1st grade, and will be having his first experience going to school all day. He's loving it so far, telling me it's fun to eat lunch at school, and that he LOVES recess.

As for me, I am now home alone during the day for the first time in a long long time. I do go to the elementary school every day for noon hour recess supervision, but otherwise, I am on my own. I have grand plans for my time. Maybe I'll finally get those living and dining room curtains finished, the halls repainted, my sewing room cleaned, and some clothes made. :D

Ankle Surgery

Remember when Caleb broke his ankle? It healed well, but about 6-8 months ago, it started hurting again. He also twisted it pretty badly in a soccer game in May. We went to the doctor to have it looked at. The x-ray didn't show anything, so they sent us to get an MRI. After the MRI, we got referred to our doctor's partner, who specializes in ankles. On the MRI, the entire back of Caleb's ankle was swollen and inflammed. The culprit? A bone in the back that was pushing on either a tendon or a nerve, or both. The treatment? Surgery. So last week Friday, Caleb had a posterior talar exostectomy done on his right ankle. Basically they took some bone out.

It was bigger than we thought it would be. That's my pinky finger you see. No, they didn't let us keep the bone (we both asked).

Caleb woke up in time to catch the last minute or so of the Brasil/Portugal game. Portugal lost. :( (oops, I got confused. too much soccer lately. :) Brasil/Portugal had a draw, Portugal lost to Spain. When your opponent controls the ball 60% of the time, it doesn't matter how good your defense is, the odds are against you)

He had a boot on after surgery, and on Tuesday we went to the doctor to have the bandage removed. The steri strips fell off soon afterwards. Now he wears the boot only if he needs the extra support, and is to walk and flex his ankle as much as possible. He'll start PT at the end of next week.

In other news, I also turned 40 on Tuesday, and had a great evening out with my girlfriends.

Vogue 7488

Caleb's 8th grade promotion ceremony was last night, and here is his waistcoat. He picked Vogue 7488; I made a size M. I was to make a suit as well, but we decided it would be too hot to wear, plus probably wouldn't fit him come winter anyway. So, I'm going to take that wool and either make a suit for him for fall/winter, or I might find a topcoat pattern, as he wants a formal coat. (sometimes I think aliens have taken my real son)

Modifications I made were to cut the back out of the fashion fabric (the pattern calls for the back to be made from lining), I eliminated the back belt, and all four pockets are functional (top two are faux according to the pattern. I do my pockets like this). He was very pleased with how this turned out.

I don't really like finishing vests this way, preferring instead to stitch the shoulders and armholes completely by machine, turning through the lining side seam. However, there is no back collar on this (! I didn't like that part), so I had to do the armholes according to the directions, which meant hand stitching the back shoulder lining over the seam.

There is a nice split at the side seams.

The front inside has a hem facing. There is also a small pleat where the lining meets the facing -- it's not really needed, IMO. I'd eliminate that next time.

My boy is in high school now!

Full review for this pattern is here, at Pattern Review. I've entered it in the Sewing for Men contest.

Single Welt Pockets

Four months since my last post. Sorry!

Caleb's 8th grade promotion ceremony is coming up, so I'm working on some clothes for him. While making the vest, I thought I'd show you how I do a single welt pocket.

First, I stitch around the opening, shortening my stitch length on the corners. You can see I bring the top part of the opening in about 1/4" on each side. This vest front is underlined with Texture Weft. If where your welt pocket is going isn't underlined, fuse a piece of interfacing on it to reinforce that area (I prefer knit fusible interfacing).

Make your welt, checking to be sure it is exactly the correct length for your opening (I was a bit off on this one). Baste the seamline. Place the seamline on the bottom stitching of your opening. Baste the welt down and then trim the seam allowance.

Put your pocket lining over the welt and stitch just the long edges of the pocket opening. Do this from the wrong side of your garment, so you can see the stitching that you did in step one. Stitch right on top of your previous stitching, starting and stopping exactly as you did before.

Cut through the pocket lining and opening, clipping just the garment diagonally into the corners. See how I stopped and started exactly on my previous stitching?

Turn and press the pocket to the inside. I don't press the triangles to the wrong side. It makes a smoother pocket, they are bias and won't fray, and no one is going to see them anyway.

Edgestitch the welts down, and you have a finished welt pocket! For this pocket, I was a bit off on my welt length and if you look on the right side, you can see a bit of my original pocket opening stitching. The damask hides a lot, and yes I know, I am being very picky. :)

KOTC - my bedroom

KOTC = Kick Out The Clutter

This week I worked on my bedroom. I figured this was a good room to start with, as I could get it done fairly easily, plus it's my sanctuary at the end of the day. I usually sit and read in bed before going to sleep.

Here's what I did this week:

- did all the laundry, including folding and putting most of it away. I say most because my husband has a ridonkulous amount of clothes and so there are 2 stacks of folded sweatshirts and shirts on the blanket chest. Hopefully I can figure somewhere to put them.

- cleaned and re-organized the bookshelf.

- dusted everything, including the ceiling fan

- cleaned and vacuumed the entire floor, including under the bed. there is NOTHING under the bed now, except for the box of gift wrap. :D

- went through my clothes and filled a bag for Goodwill.

- cleaned out my nightstand.

see? I have a stack of books to take to Half Price Books, a bag of clothes for Goodwill (already gone), a bag of blankets/sheets for the Humane Society, and a bag of garbage (also gone).

It's War

on clutter, that is:

I am IN. How about you?

LaFleur Meet

A few weeks ago, on January 3, Calvin had another meet (yeah, I'm behind in getting the videos up). He did pretty well, improving on his previous scores.

Para la familia del sur: Aqui estan los videos de la gimnasia de Calvin. Está era su segundo competición de este año. ¿Él es muy fuerte, no? Mi papá quisiera ver su nieto. Una trabajo perfecto sera diez y seis puntos. ¡Ganó su equipo primer lugar!

Los videos! ;)

First was floor. He scored a 13.4, and I think this was good for first place in his age group (I forgot to write down his placing on the events):


Next was pommel horse, where he got a score of 12.0:


On rings he got an 11.4:


He got a 14.5 on vault:


His p-bar routine got 12.5:


On high bar he got 12.9:


His all around score was 76.7, which was good for 5th place in his age group (10-11). Best of all, the team won first place! They were pretty thrilled:

Racine Meet

Calvin had a gymnastics meet yesterday, the first of this season. He has moved up to Level 6, so that has meant learning new routines. Each routine builds on the previous level, so while there are similar elements, there are new things to add. What has made this hard for Calvin is that in practice he'll be working on his new routine and then find he's automatically doing the old one. He was nervous about this meet because of this and because he's really been struggling with some of the events. This is a really nice meet to start the season because the judges will talk with the boys and/or coaches after each event about what they did well and why they got certain deductions. It's kind of like a practice meet. :)

This year he started on high bar, one event he was quite nervous about. You can see he uses grips now, and he hates them. They take some getting used to, and even though he's been using them all summer, he still hates them. He was worried about his cast. It's a scary skill to learn, but he did it! He got a 13.2:


Next was floor. On his last pass he forgot to do his scale, but he remembered in time to go back and do it. He got an 11.7:


Then it was on to pommel horse. Not his best event by a long shot. After he watched these videos last night, he told me he forgot to do 2 of the circles on the mushroom, which would partly account for the very low score (the mushroom counts for quite a bit of the score). He got an 8.8.:

(by the way, if you want to see some amazing pommel skills, check out this routine by Alexander Artemev)

He uses grips now on rings as well (they are different than the high bar grips). He hates those too. He scored 11.3:


He got a 13.4 on vault. He needs to run faster:


He seems to really struggle with p-bars in practice also. He did pretty well, and managed to get up into some handstands (something he seems to be hesitant to do). I can't remember what the skill is called where he has to hold himself over the bar and then go into a press, but he did it much better here than I've seen in practice. He got a 12.7:


His all around score was 71.1, which was good for 8th place in his age division (ages 10-11) and a little trophy. :)

Sasha

Our cat Sasha died sometime Saturday night. She was nineteen and a half years old.

I took this picture Saturday afternoon when I knew this was it. Poor thing is just skin and bones; she always had a hard time keeping weight on, and maybe weighed 3-4 pounds when she died.

Quite honestly, we've been thinking she's going to die for the past 5 years or so, but each time things looked bad, she'd pull through. This time, I knew it was for real when I noticed on Friday that she wasn't eating. She also started following me around the house (very unusual, especially since David was always her favorite). I could also see she had lost even more weight, and felt cold to the touch. So, Saturday night I built a fire in the fireplace, put a blanket down in front of it, and sat there with her, reading a book. Before I went to bed I brought her over to the kitchen counter, put her on a towel, tried to cover her a bit with another one to be warm, and went to bed. The boys and I buried her in the back yard on Sunday.

I'll miss her, and it's quiet, but at the same time, it's kinda like we've been ready for this forever.