This 'n' That

First of all I'll get this nasty business out of the way. The spambots have found me. Well... it's only been about one a day and I haven't had one for several days but this common problem angers me way more than it should. To me it feels exactly like someone came to my actual, physical house and put a giant poster on my front porch advertising a used car dealer or something else especially sleazy. Spam in the comments feels the same - exactly! It angers and offends me. I could do things like use a CAPTCHA and ban anonymous comments but I get so few comments I hate to discourage commenters in any way so as long as it doesn't get any worse I won't do that but I really really really really hate spambots to the point that I fantasize about committing acts of physical violence against the their human owners.

And now to the sewing...

I bought some 60 inch wide cotton fabric for Vogue 9106 and I was so excited about trying it out for the first time but then I discovered that I do not have a zipper the right color and they are sold out everywhere! I put my email in at one online store to be notified when they are in stock again but who knows how long that will be. Now that I've seen the actual pieces of this pattern I kind of think I could make it out of 44 inch wide fabric. I just need to figure out how much I would need. A lot.

So I'm in between projects and I don't know what I want to make next. I like Tasha's tradition of birthday dresses and mine is just a little over a week away but I don't know. I think the smart thing to do would be to continue making stuff for the granddaughter and to "fix" some of the things I've been putting off fixing because making new things is more fun. My closet is full. I mean FULL! Overstuffed! I really don't think I could stuff a single thing more in it. Time to make a few more sacrifices I suppose but it's so hard when you honestly love everything. The old "if you haven't worn it in a year" rule doesn't work for me. What an evil, mean-spirited rule!

I still don't have any takers on my swap offer. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about those. I have never sold anything on eBay before and I'm hugely cowardly about it. I don't know. Maybe I'll just keep it all, make a dress for myself (V9106 maybe?) and use the rest to make gifts. (tote bags? throw pillows?) That's IF I don't get any swap offers. That's still open for now.

Amazing Colors

A few months ago I had some less than enthusiastic thoughts about Girl Charlee fabrics. So why did I go shopping there again? Well, here's the thing. We're building a house. Now when most people say, "We're building a house," they mean, "We hired a contractor to build us a house," but we, my husband and I with occasional help from sons and brothers, are hands-on, DIY, literally building a house ourselves. And it's getting close to 100F these days so I need some more cool clothes to work in. I have plenty of old t-shirts but it is too hot for anything with any sleeve at all or a high neckline and I have only two sleeveless knit tops that I have been wearing for working on the house which is, honestly, enough but I thought it would be nice to have a couple more in case I wanted to put off doing laundry for another day or two.

Girl Charlee always has good prices on knits and given my purpose for these it doesn't really matter a lot if they come out less than presentable. The fabric I chose is a cotton/modal blend. I have had no idea what modal is but that's what Google and Wikipedia are for. It's a type of rayon. (groan) What is it with Girl Charlee and rayon? They need to rename the company Girl Rayon. But anyway, this is different. It turns out, it's a very nice, smooth, surprisingly stable, easy to sew knit.

Well, I have babbled enough. Here it is, finally.

OMG! Look at those colors! And the fit is good. It's not twisty or wonky in any way. Now I'm thinking this is way too nice for construction work. I almost exclusively wear dresses in the summer (except for working on the house or in the yard, obviously) but this would go great with a cardigan for cooler weather and there are so many colors I could pair it with.

I used a t-shirt pattern, Butterick 5215, left off the sleeves and adjusted the arm holes so they wouldn't be so gaping, and lowered the neckline. (I could have lowered it even more.) I made narrow facings for both the neckline and arm holes.

So now what am I going to wear for working on the house? Well, screw it. I'm going to go buy several modest sports bras and just work in those and cargo capris. Did I mention that it's been getting up to nearly 100F here? (It's supposed to be above 100 this weekend.)

* * * * *

BTW, the house is post frame construction, which is more tornado and earthquake resistant than conventional construction. We have both here. It might look like not much has been done since the last picture I posted of it (back in January, I think it was) but we have actually done a lot of work. Most of the work so far has been up above, on the roof and the second floor. You wouldn't believe all the little details of roof construction!

My Furry Little Friends

Since I mentioned them in the comments here are pictures of my cats.

The clingy one...

And the scaredy cat...

A Confluence of Fabric Love and Tragic Events

I normally don't need any encouragement to go fabric shopping but I am currently in a "OMG! I have SO much fabric; I can't buy any more right now" phase. Add to that a little political uncertainty about what is acceptable for an old southern white woman. But I would have gotten around to the African fabrics eventually, maybe in a year or two. But I had to go and shoot off my mouth (or fingers) over at Oonaballoona and Marcy (as well as another commenter) encouraged me so I suddenly had to obtain a piece of African or Dutch Wax Print fabric as soon as possible!

I had been looking at a couple of fabrics at eQuilter.com but when I went back there they were gone so I looked at Etsy and found hundreds. I have been looking at and favoriting fabrics for days. I added about 20 favorites. I want to narrow it down to only one or two. So hard! Finally, I woke up yesterday morning and just knew which one it had to be and, as always when such a decision comes to me, in my heart it was already mine. A lovely print in shades of purple with some big fan-like shapes. But then I realized - the seller is in Houston. No one in south Texas is going to be shipping anything anytime soon and I feel a bit guilty even thinking about something as trivial as fabric shopping when millions of people are now homeless.

But, for me at least, life goes on and in a few days I will decide on a different fabric. Or two. I'm thinking about making a shirt for my brother-in-law as a thank you for being so helpful to us. Besides the purple, I have been especially attracted to fabrics with a lot of red and yellow. But those are not all so I don't know. Hopefully another fabric will speak to me in the next few days.

* * *

UPDATE: I kept checking that Houston-based Etsy shop (HouseOfMamiWata) and this morning there was a note saying that she is open! She is traveling to Austin to ship orders. So of course I went ahead and ordered that gorgeous fabric. Also ordered another piece from a different shop and I might even order one more. (I'm incorrigible.)

Creepy Christmas Cards

Hello all. No sewing to show off right now. Sewing clothes has recently taken a back seat to quilting as I try to finish two(!) quilts by Christmas. I have successfully completed one. The other? Not looking too good right now.

Anyway, I really just wanted to share this collection of weird Victorian Christmas cards. (50+) Some of them are cute but most are like "What the H__?!" and a few are seriously creepy. Which is your favorite and which one most creeps you out?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.

I'm Sorry

I don't do politics here but I feel an irrational urge to apologize to the world for the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, even though I didn't vote for the guy and I know I'm not personally responsible. But when I think of the rest of the world watching I am embarrassed. Please don't think too harshly of us. In fact, slightly more than half of voters did vote for Clinton but we have this weird thing that most of us don't fully understand called the Electoral College.

I am worried but I am sure we will survive. We always do somehow. Now back to sewing. There will be sewing posts soon, I promise.

Template Troubles

The template I was using previously was misbehaving this morning. It refused to load completely, so I'm going to try this one for a while. I like it but I'm afraid most people might consider the background "too busy" so I'm going to look around for more templates and maybe change to something else. Thoughts?

Not Sewing

Hey, it's been a long time, huh? Actually I have been sewing. There was one week when I only did one little thing the whole week - fixed some pockets that were bugging me. And I'm almost finished with another dress that I feel like I've been working on forever, doing just one little step a day most days. Eventually I'll take some pictures and get around to showing off some things but that's not what I'm here for today.

This is not about sewing but it is crafty and it's incredible. I want to shrink (like in those movies) for just an hour down to the size to fit in this dollhouse so I can walk around in it. I'd probably throw out the skulls and the creepy dog skeleton but otherwise this is fascinating and wonderful.

Shoe Review

I first started seeing those woven elastic shoes a couple of years ago, maybe longer. It seems really recent but I know it's been longer than it feels like. At first I thought they might be one of those things that most people either love or hate and get all worked up about way out of proportion and I wasn't sure which side I would be on. Then last 4th of July I noticed my sister-in-law was wearing a pair of them and I asked her about them. She said that they are the only kind of shoes she wears now.

My sister-in-law and I have very little in common, fashion-wise. She is more conventionally fashionable than I am. (I'm more like, "Oh, that's fashionable now? Get it away from me.") But anyway, the shoes - I'm always looking (usually unsuccessfully) for comfortable shoes that look appropriate with dresses and some of the more recent styles of these are fairly attractive. The earlier styles I saw looked a little tacky or clunky to me. So, I've been curious about them and finally got around to trying a pair about a month ago and then bought two more pair.

Shoe selfies are a bit awkward so these are not the best shoe modeling photos.

This first pair is Bernie Mev brand. They look more grey than silver in this photo but in real life they're definitely sparkly silver with a subtle bit of pink trim. They feel like house shoes, very comfortable and kind of flimsy. The sole is very thin and it almost feels wrong to wear them outside the house.

This multi-colored pair I actually saw at Walmart a few weeks before I bought the silver ones and thought about buying them but didn't. I'm not a snob about Walmart generally but I am a snob about buying their shoes or any cheap shoes but I went back and bought these. In some ways they are actually better shoes than the silver ones. The sole is sturdier, like an athletic shoe sole, and they have a very thick cushiony insole. Downsides: The heel piece is very stiff and uncomfortable. I bought stick-on heel pads and that fixed that problem. The other thing about them is they are rather tight with a very strong elasticity. They're fine when I'm standing or walking but when I'm sitting down, not putting weight on my feet they put the squeeze on my toes.

This navy blue pair, received just a couple of days ago, are Sketchers brand and they're the best of the three - sturdy enough sole, cushy insole, and just right stretch. I'm trying to resist the temptation to get one or two more pair of these. The "bronze" ones would be very useful. They would go with a lot of different clothes. But I tell myself I need to wait a while and see how well these hold up in the long run.

I'm not ready to give up all other shoes because I still like most of my other shoes but I can really understand why someone would want to wear these exclusively. I can see myself wearing them more and more.

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to take minute to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends and just a happy week and weekend to my international friends. I don't have anything new to show off so how about a cat picture.

It seems like an appropriate image for Thanksgiving. This is pretty close to the condition I'll be in tomorrow afternoon, though certainly not that flexible.

The Reason Why I Must Have Pockets

I posted this on my other blog and it's not about sewing but I can relate it to sewing. This is why all of my clothes must have pockets, no matter what. (Here's a picture with pockets from April 2014, because sewing blog posts should have pictures, right?)

I carry my son in my pocket. He's nearly six feet tall but he's right there in my pocket so, at any time, he can show me pictures of his daughter or his dogs or what he's doing at work or we can talk about what we're reading or make fun of something we saw on TV or just share a silly joke. I don't get sad and lonely because "he never calls" because he's always right there in my pocket.

I also carry my other son in my pocket. He's a lot quieter but he does always tell me when he's going to be late. Their father is in my pocket too. It's so convenient having him there. And I have several other people in my pocket - my daughter-in-law, my grandson and my sisters-in-law. It may seem crowded in there but there's always room for more, if any of my cousins ever decide to stop being techno-phobic.

There are other things besides people in my pocket. There's my grocery list. I like having it there where I can update it anytime and I never forget it when I go to the store. And speaking of stores, I have thousands of those in my pocket too so I can read reviews or compare prices anytime, anywhere I might be. I also have all the world's libraries in my pocket so I'm never stuck somewhere with nothing to read.

Maybe you've seen my husband and me at a restaurant, both of us looking at our phones, and made assumptions about us. What you don't understand is that there are more than just two people at the table. We are not ignoring each other; we're spending time together with family and friends. And maybe you've seen me in the dentist's office or in a car dealer's service department waiting area looking at my phone and thought how sad that I'm not talking to you instead. What you don't understand is that I probably wouldn't be talking to you anyway. Without my phone I would be either reading a book that I brought with me or flipping through the world's most boring magazines wishing I had something good to read.

So you don't like my phone even though you don't even understand what it really is. I wonder, how is it any of your business? People going about their own business, not bothering anyone. How is that any of your business. Don't disrespect my phone. You don't understand what it really is, and it might be keeping me from biting your head off.

Just Site Notes

Small Blogger problem - actually small but sort of huge to me: When I upload photos to Blogger they appear on my phone. (WTF, Google? I thought you said you weren't evil.) This is a problem because when the extended family gets together and we're all passing around our phones showing off pictures of kids and pets I don't want to have to explain why I have so many pictures of myself on my phone so I'm going to use Flickr for most of the photos on this blog until I figure this out. (And yes, they all know I have a blog (though they might not know about this one yet) but most of them wouldn't read it if I bribed them with money.)

Since I started this blog I have had absolutely NO spam comments so I'm wondering if I really need to moderate comments, but at the same time I'm a little worried the spammers will suddenly come out of the woodwork by the thousands if I open up comments. But I might try it. For a little bit. Maybe.

Also, I still have a lot more links to add, not only blogs but a few of my favorite stores too. I was going to say that it might take me a long time to get around to that but it's been my experience that a blogroll or links list is never really finished.