A Ceylon giveaway!

Ha ha! I tricked you! I gave my Ceylon dress away already, to Stephanie. It required no adjustments and she does not look like a sausage in it at all. Today was the last day of school for the teachers, so we took some pictures in front of the "interesting" murals in the courtyard. 

Back of the dress, and a the New Orleans skyline.

 Side of the dress, and the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.

 Kissing a dinosaur, whose face looks like a storm trooper to me.

 Molly goes to the Space Age...

 I gave her the dress yesterday, but the light was really yellow. She always screams "teeeeeeeeeeee rexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx!" in a high pitched voice to make the dog go crazy. As you can see, it's working!

 She also said I needed to include a picture of the print, since it is hard to see from far away.

So there you go! The Ceylon has a happy new home. Stephanie said it got lots of compliments at work today, so that's nice.

I decided to start drininking champagne at six to celebrate the end of school and it's now 7:30 and I'm sleepy and woozy. I might finish my dress tonight, but I might do it tomorrow. I need to take pictures before we go to the beach on Sunday- I have a great IDEA for a photoshoot. Wait and see!

Dress in progress- Butterick 5599

I bought this fabric at Hancock's before we left for the wedding. It's a magenta, black and white swirl print. I made the bodice front and back, but felt tired and stopped last night. I of course had to screw something up! It was attaching the black band on the top. It involves turning on dots and sewing down the strip on a triangle point and it still makes no sense- to you or to me!  I will have to take it off and re-do it. 

 Here's what it should look like when I am finished. I made the contrast band version and I plan on adding bra cups to it, since it's a halter neck.

Thoughts? Tomorrow is the last day of school for students! This year has flown by! 

Spring Wedding Ceylon

We drove to Athens, Georgia for a friend's wedding this weekend. We were calling it the "End of the World Wedding Weekend Getaway" but it seems the world did not end and no one was raptured up into the sky. Shocking, right? Hee hee. 

I finished my evil Ceylon just in time. I hemmed it by hand and sewed on twelve buttons in the hotel room the morning of the wedding. 

Here is a cropped full-length version of the dress. It is a pink and off white striped print that is fairly sheer, so I underlined it with off-white lining fabric. Basting all the pieces together made me cranky and made this a long, drawn out, less than satisfying project. 

 Here is a close-up. The buttons are just plastic, off white shiny ones. I am slightly making a crazy face.

 Here is a complete shot. Andrew hates being posted on the interwebs, yet when I told him I was cropping him out he got all whiny. 

The dropped waist is still questionable. It just is not flattering. I don't know what body type it is designed for, but it certainly is not mine. 


The actual pattern was easy to make. I did not do the top-stitching because it did not look nice with this fabric. I did the steps out of order, but that doesn't really matter. I spent too much time basting pieces together. Boring!


In conclusion, I am not sure if I will keep this one. I think I will wear it to work tomorrow and see if it grows on me. If not, I'll just take a bunch in on the sides and give it to Stephanie!

Ceylon Update

I may actually finish this dress in time for the wedding this weekend! All it needs is a hem, button holes and buttons, which I have not yet purchased. Please excuse the lighting and how frumpy the dummy looks. She was not wearing her padded bra. 

 I was really hating it mid-way through, but now I am somewhat more accepting.

 I still question the whole dropped waist look. I know some people on blogs who love it, but I don't think I have ever seen someone who looked great in one. We shall see...

Ugh, look at the flash! The back is blousy, so that I will hopefully be able to move my arms and use my shoulder blades.

Thoughts so far? I am hoping it looks better on.

Garage Sale Loot and random shopping

I went to an estate sale I found on Craigslist and it wasn't run by a company for once. There was a woman yelling "everything's $1" Yay! It turned out all the purses were $2 each, but that's fine. I bought the green metal box to hold sewing supplies. The gold purse is a Whiting and Davis, which I love and have another. They are metal mesh bags and look really cool. The black one is a knock-off of the same style. The beaded bag is slightly tacky, but I love red, white and blue together. 

 The costume jewelry was a dollar each as well. I got a leather bracelet with a flower, and a golden hippo that's hollow inside. The rest of the 80s earrings were 50 cents each. Whoo hoo.

 I also went to the World Market and bought Kinder Buenos, which I LOVE, and two bottles of wine to try. Then I went to K-Mart to buy snacks for a movie (to be cheap and not buy anything at the theater) and I bought some new sunglasses. Not only were they buy one, get the second half off, but I did just lose a pair in the ocean that needed to be replaced.

 I also bought two pairs of 80s pants at the estate sale, thinking I could just hem them and wear them around. Sadly, I forgot how high the waist would be and how poofy the hips were and how flat my butt looked with the tiny, high pockets.

Here are some LOLZ for you:

Almost like hammer pants, and its pinching my waist like a sausage. There are also numerous delightful pleats at the waist.

 Those were the purple and here are the blue!

A bit long? A bit sausage-like?

 Whoops, I need to figure out how to stop posting sideways pictures. This is what I get for updating, Blogger!

I bought two US history place mats for my classroom, as well a great Reader's Digest book on the US. It is from 1968, but it is full of great maps and facts about the US. Since it's mostly about maps and places, it isn't really out of date. That's great because we are going to study US geography before I send the 6th graders off to the 7th grade.

The dog also took me for a walk. I took him to the park and he ran/trotted around the mile loop at such a pace that I was sweating and out of breath. He was hyper!

 I also saw the movie Bridesmaids, which was okay, but not great. That was the first time in my life that I went and saw a movie in the theater ALONE! What? And I'm 27! It made me feel like an adult.

The Ceylon is coming along, but it got too dark to take a good picture. Hopefully more tomorrow!

Collette Ceylon, in progress...

First, some garden updates. I am very proud these plants! It's as if I gave birth to them...

A sideways bell pepper, about the size of my fist. I have about 10 of those, and a bumper crop of jalapeño peppers. 

 Next, my Ceylon in progress. Since I am underlining the sheer fabric (mainly so I don't have to finish all the seams on the sheer fabric, oh and the lack of a full slip), it is taking some time. Plus, I wasted all of Thursday evening napping on the sofa. Maybe wasted isn't the right word, because it was delicious!

Now, I just notices the tuck I accidentally made, so I will have to pick that out and fix it. I am not sure, but holding it up the waist seemed very small. What ever, if it doesn't fit I will give it to skinny Stephanie and she will be gleeful.

If I was to make this again, I would eliminate that back seam! Who wants a seam gripping your butt crack? Ick. 

Lastly, my bean plants are both blooming and making baby beans. There is one right in middle hanging down.

I will work on it this weekend and hopefully finish it!!!

I might also drive to the Mississippi River and take some pictures of how incredibly high the water is!

Everyone, have a good weekend!!!!

Refinishing Furniture, Part II

The garden is doing great! I already have two ripe tomatoes that I am going to eat for lunch. 

 I have sanded and painted three chairs, with only one left. That will be for next weekend. Andrew left to visit his mom in France today, so I knew I had to finish painting the table yesterday, since there is no way I could possibly lug that thing up the stairs!

Last weekend, Andrew had sanded down the whole table, so I was ready to go. I stained the top with 2 coats of Golden Pecan stain and 2 coats of clear gloss. Then I painted the sides and legs in my green paint, with 2 coats as well. That sounds like nothing, but it took the whole day yesterday. I started the first coat around 10 am and finished the last around 7 pm. I did also take 2 naps though. Let's not lie...

I need to finish the fourth chair, and then I can move on to seats and cushions! Now that I have my "sewing table", aka my "take over the dining room table with my sewing stuff, so that we eat dinner on the coffee table" table, I think I will finish some sewing projects. We're going to a wedding in Georgia in two weeks and I need a dress for that.

Refinish Furniture, Phase I

I am working on refinishing some furniture before we move. I know Andrew would try to make me throw all the  grim, seatless chairs away, so I knew I had to fix them up. I also had all of last week off of school, so that was a good time. 

This si the before picture of the table. Andrew has sanded it, and it is sitting in the back yard waiting for the weekend, weekend. Lol. The white will be painted a medium green and the top will be stained golden pecan, which is the same color that I stained the giant frame.

 I forgot to take "before" pictures of these two chairs. They were both stained a dark brown, and the finish was coming off. This one was so easy to sand that I only had to do it by hand. This chair is really pretty with the upside down hearts.

 For this one I used the electric sander to speed things along. The paint color is "Grape Vine."

 This one took forever to sand, even with the electric sander. I spent an hour or two and then I got cranky and quit. Andrew went out and smoothed out the seat more, but I still ended up just painting over some of the white. Whatever. I haven't taken an "after" picture yet.

Awkward encounter:
Andrew gave the new downstairs neighbors the impression that everything in the shed in the backyard was just junk up for grabs, so they took one of my four old, mismatched chairs. That was on Thursday. I had to think about how to get it back with either leaving a note (which always sounds bitchy, even if you don't mean to) or knocking on the door and saying "Um, hi. Could I have my chair back. please?" Fortunately, on Sunday Andre was sanding the table and the girl came out to water her plants. He asked very off-handedly and they were like "oops, sorry" and gave it back. Yay, Andrew!

So this weekend I will paint and stain the table and sand and paint the last chair. Three of the chairs need new upholstered seats and I am going to make a cushion for the one with arms. My mom gave a great Martha Stewart how-to article on how to do that. I will have to go around to the home decor shops around town and find a cool fabric. I want something modern and young looking, maybe in a blue or beige.

Any fabric suggestions?