2015 in Review

Warning: VERY photo-intensive post. I'm doing a huge photo dump here of my last year since my blogging pretty much went south and unless you follow me on Instagram, this will all be new to you. I understand that not everyone is going to be interested in my mundane, boring year but I'm documenting it as much for my own recollection as to catch you up. Feel free to scroll down and move on. I won't be insulted :-)

All in all 2015 wasn't terrible and overall better than 2014. But it started out crappy because the house in the city I started renting in April 2014 turned out to have a major slumlord as an owner and I hated everything about it. I've never lived in such a horrible place and it really took a toll on me. (First world problems, I know.) But once I found a new place, moved, and (mostly) settled in, my mental state did a 180 and things have been rolling along ever since. (I'm still in the city, with a 7-minute morning commute. It's awesome!) Even the sewjo has returned and now that the holidays and my related travels are pretty much in the rear view, I expect some serious output to start happening. If for no other reason than I NEED NEW CLOTHES.

So here's some "highlights" of my last year, sewing- and family-wise, at least those moments documented via cell pics.

I think this is the first thing I started and finished in 2015. I still wear it (which you'll see below in the December pics).

My "baby" Alex turning into a man.

A visit to The Tattooed Moose and the Marine in Charleston, SC.

At the bar at Parris Island. Quite a different experience from boot camp there.

And then I wrecked my car on the drive back to Florida. No injuries and the car is now good as new. The damage was mostly plastic and the radiator and looks worse here than the bill reflected. Thank heaven.

Seeing the Blue Angels practice over Beaufort, SC on my trip back to pick up my fixed car.

Another sewing project. I wear the HECK out of this. It's comfortable, flattering, and professional looking. It's the Muse Jenna cardi over a Simplicity pull-on tank dress with an elasticated waist. I'm too lazy to look up the pattern number.

A work bathroom selfie and another Simplicity dress and I'm still too lazy to look it up. It's the faux wrap that was popular a few years ago, which took me a while to get around to.

One of the MANY reasons I moved house. Yeah, it's what you think it is. OMG.

A long weekend get-away to the beach with Alex, his then-gf, and the pups. Much needed.

Just sitting and chillin' at our fun little rental cottage.

Isn't it cute? We could walk everywhere, and did.

A quick maxi tank dress I made for the beach trip and which subsequently got a lot of wear over the summer. I think this is the last of the cheap rayon knit from Fabric.com.

A rare (for me) blogger meet-up. Mr. Celie's Pants was there too but he was holding the camera. This was so much fun and I'm glad Renee and Jordan have an excuse (her dad) to return sometime. I want a repeat. They are SO nice!

Still enjoying my job and still very thankful to have it.

We "found" pup #3, Charlie, in July, the week before we moved. He's a Chi-Weenie and is adorable. I still can't believe I have 3 dogs again. Alex is a mean negotiator and it's all his fault. And they all love him more than me.WTF

The herd.

The new place, as of July. It's a lot smaller than my previous houses and I've had to get rid of a LOT of stuff, but I'm of that "downsize" age anyway and it's nice to not be tied to housework and ... stuff. Plus, it's so bright and pretty inside and I'm happy.

The new small sewing room. It's mostly unpacked now but it's very small and my cutting table lives in another room and my pattern cabinet and much of my fabric live in the garage. I'm slowly moving some of the best stash inside and will eventually get rid of the unloved remainder but for now, it's working.

New kitchen before we hung shelves.

The Great Tampa Flood. That's my street.

We spent a lot of time (and cash) at Ikea those first couple of months after moving in. That's Alex pushing the cart in the warehouse.

I bought Alex a new BBQ/smoker he had been eyeing and he's been perfecting his wings and ribs since. We've had delicious food pretty much every weekend since football season started. Momma knew what she was doing buying that BBQ.  ;-)

In November, we saw America at the 2015 Ribfest in St. Pete. A bunch of "old" people my age (hahaha) enjoying them and the Doobie Bros and Santana tribute bands. It was a great day with great music, but Alex makes much better ribs.

A treat for myself (and Alex) from Black Friday and the proceeds from selling so much of my crap that didn't fit in the new house. (Have you noticed how bright every pic of my new house is? Sigh.)

The Cook men, minus Alex who stayed home with the pups, from when I went to see Tyler's performance 2 weeks ago in a church Christmas production in SC. This was the first time seeing my ex in 4 years. It was ... interesting. We all just ignored him and had a good time. I'm not kidding. Hahaha.

Tyler at church practice the night before the Big Performance.

And the church band performing "Carol of the Bells," which you'll recognize as a Trans Siberian Orchestra tune. They rocked it, and the rest of their performance!



The infinity scarf I made (on request) for my soon-to-be stepdaughter-in-law. While in SC two weeks ago, my stepson Michael asked for this and also for my help in picking out an engagement ring!!! for his gf (and the mother of his son, which makes me a step-grammie OMG).

Here's me with the "boys" on Christmas Eve in St. Augustine ... it was about 400 degrees that night, so we felt as blurry as we look here ... and ...

... Michael proposed to Hannah (see her scarf heehee!) ...

... and Tyler filmed it all (bad language warning if you watch it).



Michael and Hannah's son, Dean, who will be 1 in January.

And, finally, the sewing project (Cashmerette Appleton) I started at the beginning of the month and which I WILL finish this weekend.

Happy New Year!!

Mojo, Inspiration, Diving In & Giveaway

So, no, I haven't done another thing with the J Stern jeans yet. The mojo for them seems to be fleeting at the moment. I still want to work out the alterations and make them, but I've had something else nagging at me that just would not shut up.

Backing up a bit …

About a month ago, curiosity made me order the Palmer/Pletsch Full Busted DVD. It promptly arrived a week later. And sat. And sat. Well, because I could not motivate myself to work on the jeans this weekend (but I did at least finish the "chore" sewing of two valances for the bath and a "body" pillowcase for DS!), I decided to finally plop it into the DVD player and have a look. It's another winner from Palmer/Pletsch. (More below.)

While I did not personally learn anything new from the DVD, it did motivate me to start working on a knock-off of a dress I've had in a still-open browser window for at least 5 weeks now. (No, I don't turn off the computer.) Every few days, I remember it's there and look at it again. And wish it was in my closet.

Click here to look at it on the website.

It's a pretty simple but non-frumpy denim A-line dress, and I can see myself living in it over the summer. Especially on the 4th of July with some cute new white or red flip-flops.

So, I've silenced the screaming mojo and have begun making one. I'm using this pattern (B5131), which I searched for, found, and ordered right after I first saw the dress:



Watching Marta Alto in the video motivated me to actually try tissue fitting the pattern instead of muslining it. Foolish? Maybe. Especially since I am a strong proponent of muslins and I usually think pattern tissue is evil. But fabric is cheap, my time is limited, and the worst thing that could happen is that the dress becomes the muslin/prototype. Right? ;-)

The pattern is a pretty good match, isn't it? Slice and dice a couple of seams here and there, morph the sleeve into a slight puff, pin the tissue, try it on, and it's good to go. Or in theory anyway. But that's what I'm doing. Fabric is cut and I've started sewing it up.

Wish me luck!

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So, back to the DVD (and the Giveaway). It's very basic at the beginning and most, if not all, of that info is covered in the book and the original companion video (FFRP Basics), which is understandable or else the DVD wouldn't stand on its own. But the rest, the "meat" of it, is new to P/P. Highlights include Marta Alto demonstrating FBAs on twist tops, empire seams, strapless tops, princess seams, a jacket, the "Y Dart," 3 live models of all sizes, and I'm sure more that I'm now forgetting. Marta's style is very homey, a bit grandmotherly but in a good way. But she's direct, a good teacher who knows her stuff, and if you have any reservations about doing FBAs, you WILL learn from this video.

However, since as I mentioned above, I personally didn't learn any new tricks and I have a tendency to never watch a DVD twice, I've decided to offer this up as a giveaway so someone else can benefit from the great info. Just leave a comment on this blog entry telling me to enter you into the drawing. I'll find one of those random number generator thingies and next Monday I'll "draw" a number to match up with the order in which comments are posted. I'll ship this anywhere, but please note it's in U.S. DVD format, so you've got to have a player that can play it or it won't do you much good. Unless you need a shiny plastic coaster with a hole in the middle. ;-)

Another Off the Honey-Do List

DH was a busy man this weekend. Not only did he finish my cutting table, he also washed down the windows outside and put up a zip line for Dani.

Dani's favorite thing to do outside is chase squirrels. She's actually caught one and then was surprised when it didn't "play" anymore. She tears off after them and turns completely deaf when you call her to come back. It would be OK if she stayed in our yard but she doesn't. She always, always heads right for the neighbor's yard and sometimes keeps going from there. Other than building a fence which we may do one day, the only option has been to take her outside on a regular leash. That's fine a lot of the time, but she and Chili love to play tag and wrestle all over and keeping them (and me) untangled and my arm in its socket is tricky.

I'd been spying two trees in our front yard which are about 100 feet apart from each other without a lot of anything in between. The dog trolleys I could find locally are only 30 feet long. I found a 100-foot version online last week and ordered it. It got here on Friday, just in time for DH and the weekend. That was great, but there was still a problem. I really wanted a retractable drop line for it so that Dani could have more space side-to-side without dragging a line on the ground that would tangle her and Chili. I can't believe these dog trolley things don't have retractable leads but I couldn't find anything anywhere. So I improvised.

We cut the drop line so the hook is about 4 feet off the ground. Then we just loop her regular leash through it. With her harness on so she's attached at the back and not the neck, it's perfect. The leash follows along on the zip line and stretches/retracts as necessary. The harness prevents the lines from swinging around her neck and getting trampled and tangled. We'll never leave her on it unattended, but this rectractable set-up means we don't have to walk over to her every 5 seconds and unwrap a line from her legs. She's not very coordinated so "every 5 seconds" isn't an exaggeration. ;-)

Here a shot of the two trees and the zip line between them highlighted in yellow:



Here are the wrestlers, and you can see the leash hooked onto the drop line:



And a little video that was much better quality before YouTube got ahold of it. You can see the handle of the leash swinging by as they move around. The main objective of this game is to trip each other, by nibbling legs and tails. Today Chili is playing the submissive. Other days, he's the aggressor on top. They have tons of fun together and play this game in the house too, incorporating zooming up and down the stairs as part of the play. Sometimes even Pepper joins in. Read: Herd of Wild Elephants



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Sewing related, I've cut and sewn the Connie Crawford pants. I was out of camera memory card space so I had to process the dog photos first. I'll be back later with an update on the pants.

The Chase

Not high quality and it's silent, but here's our latest entertainment — Dani chasing a laser pointer.



She'll go on and on and on, chasing forever. And when we're done and the light goes away, she sits and stares at the floors and walls waiting for it to show up again. She just knows it's still out there, somewhere, hiding from her.