Vacation? Already?

This past Tuesday, the girls and I left the house and headed off to Texas - Fort Worth, to be exact. Cody's job is in the middle of town and while it was supposed to be about 4 weeks - I think that it's safe to say, it'll be a bit longer.

We were about an hour from the house when I realized that I had left my knitting bag at the house! It had the next two projects that I was planning on, along with yarn and necessary needles and equipment. I figured I could surely manage without something to keep my hands occupied. Right? Hah! It is to laugh.

We arrived Tuesday afternoon, to tornados and hail - always fun, don't you think? By the end of Wednesday, I was going stir-crazy. Need yarn, NOW! So... Thursday morning, found us loaded up in the Tahoe and off to find a yarn store. I found Yarn Heaven - truly a wonderful yarn shop with a delightful owner that told me all kinds of places to take the kids while we were in the Fort Worth/Dallas/Arlington area. She helped me find some scrumptious yarn for Julia - Lana Grossa Setanova in Turquoise. It's a beautiful silk/cotton blend - and knits up just wonderfully.

We won't talk about the fact that it took me two days to cast on. Okay, we will. Julia is knit from the bottom up with the lace work around the hemline. The designer calls for a backwards cast-on - which is definitely not one of my favorite cast-ons. Going by sizing, I'm making a large, but decided to give myself that little bit extra around the hips and cast on for the XL, and I'll make decreases down to the size L stitch count further up around the waist area. The first cast-on (using backwards loop) was a bust. I find that backwards loop is hard to pick up stitches when trying to knit the first row and it's even harder when going straight into a lace pattern. I ripped that all out and start over using my new favorite cast-on, the cable cast-on. The cable cast-on is nice and stretchy (necessary for hemlines going around hips), and I just like the process of this cast-on.

So far? I've knit 7 rows. Woot! At this rate - I won't need more yarn for the rest of the summer.

After our stop at Yarn Heaven, the girls and I headed to the Fort Worth Zoo - may I just say? The zoo in Fort Worth is amazing! Totally, totally, worth the trip - I'm not sure it was worth the two hour wait for a lock smith when I realized that I had left my keys in the Tahoe, but that's life. I'll post pictures of that trip in a day or so.

Friday, Rachael was sick, and we stayed at the trailer. Saturday, the pool at the RV park was opened and the girls spent all day in the pool. Rachael came home with a sunburn despite several re-applications of spf 50 sunblock.

Debra and I found an awesome church to attend this morning. The pastor's brother has been to my home church and preached revival for us several times over the years. Hannah and Rachael went to Six Flags Over Texas with Cody, Johnathan, and his girlfriend, Heather.

And that.... concludes this week's episode of the Southern Life.

FO - Pegboard Lace Tunic (that's not a tunic)

Finished the Pegboard Lace - it's awesome!!!! I love this so much.

Front:


Back:


As I wore it last Sunday to church:


It can be styled with out the scarf, but I'm pretty sure that's how I'll wear it most all of the time.

Piano Recital 2011

This year's piano recital has come and gone - Rachael did an awesome job! She played "Wasn't That a Band?". Sorry that the close-up is blurry - I filmed this on my little digital camera.

I could not even face the idea of getting up there in front of everybody and playing - amazing how much courage children have.

Last Day of School

Notice that they aren't wearing school uniforms? This week was free dress - all week. They threw the uniforms away last Thursday evening. Today, they were released at 10.

Hannah said, "This year was awful, and I want to come home next year."

Rachael said, "This year was really hard work and I can't wait to go back."

Last year, I bought quite a bit of fabric intending to make dresses and jumpers and such for Debra. Yeah, that didn't happen because around December, my sewing mojo left the house on an extended vacation. I actually closed up my sewing desk - something that hasn't occurred in ??? never?

Slowly my sewing want-to has come back. I thought that I would start off with something easy - something that wouldn't take too long - something that didn't require fitting (that means it wasn't going to be for me).

Looking through stash, I stumbled upon three fabrics stacked together. I remember buying them at Quilt 'N' Stitch around this time last year. I absolutely could not recall what pattern I had in mind when I bought them.

After studying them, I decided to pull out a pattern that I've had since Hannah was about 2 (and never used).

This is Collars, Etc. Hannah's Sundress and since I wanted to use all three fabrics, I wanted to make a variation that I saw on the Collars, Etc. website, "Twirly Girl Hanna". I cut all the pieces for a size 2 dress on Thursday while Debra was taking her nap.

I can tell that it's been a while since I sewed. Crazy mistakes! Still, they were fixable.

I didn't cut out enough pieces for skirt tiers, had to go back, change the fabric for each tier and cut the correct amount (with barely enough fabric to do so). I sewed up the dress bodice and attached the first tier. Turned the dress around to look at back and realized that the left side of the back bodice was 1/4" higher than the right side. Oops, fixed that.

Okay, so at this point, it's Saturday afternoon. I've done the bodice, the first tier with placket, and attached the second tier. So much for quick and easy, right? I was all set to attach the third tier when I realized that I just wasn't sure if I liked the green fabric with the other two fabrics. So, I decided to take a break, think about the dress and see if any other ideas came up. Tuesday morning, I walked by the dress laid out on my sewing desk, and I thought, "I like that - it looks good."

I added the third tier yesterday afternoon while Debra went off with me MIL. How's this for an awesomely twirly dress?

Added buttons this morning and then finally tried the dress on Debra. Good Golly!

Just a tad short. It could really use a fourth tier.

But you know what? I like it - a lot. Okay, it took me a week to complete the dress, but well... there is a reason for the name of this blog after all.

Seeing is Believing

Considering that I posted a video last week about my speech/accent/whatever, I thought this video to be rather interesting - I saw this originally over on WhyHomeschool.



Watch it the first time with your eyes open and close your eyes the next time thru.

Steps To Sewing

So... around this house, it takes a few steps to actually get around to doing anything resembling sewing. BTW, sewing, to me, is actually sewing something from new or re-purposed fabric but does not involve repairs!

Step 1: Wait until nap time. I learned to do this the hard way. I sat down to sew and when I got up later on, I realized that my home had been destroyed by a small tornado named Debra.

Step 2: Clean off the sewing desk.

Step 3: Re-thread sewing machine and re-thread serger. Every. Single. Time, I have to re-thread because of someone's little hands and her curiosity. I can not wait until my sewing desk is back in its own room!

Step 4: Repair any and all clothes that have piled up on the sewing desk since the last sewing session.

Step 5: Iron fabric, 'cause even though I was a good girl last year and washed and ironed the fabric, it's been folded so long that there are numerous creases in the fabric.

Step 6: Trace pattern, and then cut out fabric.

Step 7: FINALLY, sew... nevermind, it looks like nap time is over.

Turning Two

Today, Miss. Debra turned two. Not sure where all the time has gone. It was mostly a blur. I do know that it was fun, 'cause this kid is a blast!

Pegboard Lace Tunic - Part 1

I'm currently knitting a top for myself called the Pegboard Lace Tunic. It's a free pattern, found over on Metapostmodern Knitting (btw, the blog is on hold and the owner isn't posting any more).

I'm knitting an XXL size with Debbie Bliss Prima Yarn in Peach - it looks orange in the picture but is a muted dark peach. Prima is an 80% bamboo/20% wool blend - DK weight yarn. It's a bit splitty and I've found several knots in the 6 skeins that I've used so far. I've also encountered a few spots where one the yarn plies has broken. A tad frustrating but nothing that can't be overcome.

I've almost finished the body of the top. I'm not knitting a tunic length; rather, mine is going to (hopefully) end with a 21" or 22" length. If I knit this the way the pattern states to do - it'd be about 36". A bit too long for this 5'0" shorty.

It's not really much to look at right now, just rows of lace knitting, but this is a really neat sleeveless top. Take a look over on the Meta Blog and you can see that the top can be styled several different ways.

Southern Speech

ETA: It took awhile, but I finally got a video to upload that works! Sorry about that.

So, I saw this over on Beangirls' Blog. Can I just say that she always manages to make me laugh?

Anyway, I've been wanting to start blogging again for a bit, but just really wasn't sure if I wanted to make the effort. But this... this... I had to do!

I find that it's really fun to hear the way people speak. I'm Southern, always have been, always will be and you can definitely hear it in my speech. The voice you're about to hear is Texas and Louisiana combined together.

The words to say:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting Image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

And these are the questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

And that would be it for today's episode of Living the Southern Life!