a bolero and a bunting

It's Thursday, and I've been sewing, 

which means it's time for 

I finished my bolero

and have made good progress on (another) top from Alabama Stitch Book.

All hand-sewn, except for the basting at the neck and armhole.

I just love these shirts!

The bolero doesn't fit as perfectly as it was supposed to - 

there's a little bit of weirdness at the front of the shoulder seam.

I haven't decided if I'm going to ignore it, or take it in a bit.

I have a hard time ignoring weirdness at shoulder seams so I suspect it'll be the later.

It should be as simple as trying it on inside out and marking where the pouf is

and stitching it out.

I'm bamboozled as to why I didn't get it right,though, as my pattern should have been perfect.

I guess things have shifted south...

I've even fit in a little reading - I wasn't feeling the Nora Ephron book,

so about half way through, I put it back in the library basket.

Tyler wondered how I could possibly not love something by the writer of You've Got Mail.

I was surprised by that myself.

I guess I like her scripts better than her essays?

I am, however, enjoying The Next Thing On My List.

It's not fabulous writing, and I wouldn't want to own the book or anything, but it's good light reading.

I also was able to get our crayon melts made into a bunting yesterday afternoon

and got it hung just before the sun went down .

I like it!!

melted crayons

When we got home after the reception, we didn't bring anything in except for food and flowers.

I figured I'd bring in the rest a little at a time, as I could handle it,

starting, of course, with the linens.

I went out in the afternoon to get the second bag of linens out of the van

and was met by the strong scent of  lemongrass.

From candles.

that had been, shall we say, warmed by the sun.

I groaned as I walked around to the back of the van;

this did not smell good. 

I mean, the candles smelled good, but the situation

did not.

Fortunately, most of the candles were upright in boxes, but there was one that was not.

It wasn't in a box; nor was it upright.

It was however, in a bowl - for which I was very grateful.

Also, nicely contained, and melty, were the crayons from the kids' table.

I was a little bummed, 'cause I'd been excited about having so many new crayons.

At some point during the week, I followed a link that led to Jean's stained glass bunting post

and thought, "That is what we'll do with our melted mess of crayons."

Saturday was an Alexander type of bad day.

For some reason, I thought all would be redeemed if we just did a craft together.

(yes, I know; you are all hearing "What Was I Thinkin'?" right about now...)

I set out to grate some crayons.

It took for.ev.er.

What kind of person does this regularly? I wondered.

Stupid craft people.

I called in kids to help unwrap the crayons,

which sped up the process a tiny bit.

When I growled at the kids in response to their "What are you grating crayons for?" questions,

I realized it might not be the best idea to attempt a family craft after all.

Sunday was a better day,

and I really did want the bunting,

so I decided to pull everything out.

Brandon and TJ (who came down to celebrate Ton's birthday) joined in, too.

Since the mess was contained to the LEM, and the project was such a hit with everyone,

I left everything out and kids periodically went back to it on Monday.

(Of course, by Monday afternoon, they'd made such a mess, I was again wondering, "What was I thinkin?!")

I still haven't managed to turn them into a bunting yet, but just look how pretty it will be.

Which, of course, was exactly what I was thinkin'.

the reception, in pictures

Let me just say:

the reception was a photographer's nightmare.

I didn't bring my own camera, 

figuring that Roselle would do a much better job of capturing images than I could.

And she did, but she didn't necessarily get pictures of all the stuff I would have.

Like my favorite flower arrangement in the old metal water pitcher...

Also - I think it looked so much prettier than the photos show.

In person, the eye was drawn to the pretty stuff;

in the photos - the stains on the carpet and the cords and such jump out at ya.

Over all, though, what I saw looking through the pictures,

was people having a rockin' good time.

we had to get creative with the flowers - they didn't go nearly as far as I'd planned

that tub - for the silverware ~ it had little trick-or-treaters on it; I just covered it with double sided tape and glitter :-)

 agh - this picture of that picture does not do it justice. When Roselle saw it, she got chills
and said she couldn't believe it was one that she'd taken. Adding glitter made it amazing! you'll have to trust me on it ;-)

Roselle made this (and the groom's cake) as her ridiculously generous contribution to the potluck.
I'm telling you - that woman sure made my kids feel loved!

My talented friend, Amy, with some help from another crazy talented friend,
made this awesome photo prop as a gift to Tony and Kacy.   It was sooo much better than I could have imagined!

the kids table looked a little more Mardi Gras-ish than I would have preferred. still, I think they liked having it :-)

my Eva. always serving. She loves me so!

youngest and oldest. How I love them. And all of the others in between.

When I presented the idea of a dance area to Tyler, there were landscape timbers and cinder blocks involved.
isn't he amazing?! Thanks, Love, for going along with my crazy ideas. And making them (and me) so much better.

three words - double sided tape

my Gramma!

Many thanks to everyone who pitched in to make this a memorable evening for Tony & Kacy.

and everyone else :-)

XO

a conundrum

I like sewing more than I like working out.

Way more.

So,

when I have time to spare, I don't think, "Hey, I should get my butt on the bike."
I think, "Oh, goody! I have 15 minutes. What shall I sew on?!"

I go for days,

and the thought of exercise never crosses my mind.

Then, I see a photo of myself.

GAG!

And I say, "I am so sorry you people have to look at this all the time."

And I think, "I am definitely going to fit in working out. I just have to!"

Then, I think of new things to sew.

And I forget all about the working out.

Even though I pass the bike at least 77 times a day.

But.

I would enjoy the sewing even more,

if what I made actually looked good on me.

So 

maybe I should just force myself to remember to work out.

But then when would I sew??

Does any of this make sense?

finally sewing again

Brandon may not be able to use his hand - but mine work just fine

and I'd been itching to use them.

With a needle and thread, that is.

I mean, it certainly isn't like I haven't been using my hands at all...

But there were several times during the past few weeks of wedding reception preparations

that I really (really!) wished I had something to hand sew,

but I didn't have time to cut anything out.

I still have the quilting to do on Lily's quilt - but I'm not entirely sure if I want to do any hand-quilting on it or not.

(and I have a sneaking suspicion that when they fixed the timing on my machine, 

the tension got a bit messed up : / I need to call and ask about that.)

A few times when I got the itch, I was tempted to just grab some scraps to stitch on, just to sew something.

Even if it was nothing....

But that just seemed wasteful.

In the future - maybe I'll have the foresight to have a hand sewing project ready to go

when I'm going to be in the midst of big projects that require lots of thinking.

Tuesday, I finally had time to cut into some fabric.

I decided on a shrug, 

but instead of using the pattern in one of Natalie's books (I forget which one it's in)

which I'd need to make a muslin of,

I opted to go with something I knew would fit,

my own t-shirt pattern - cut in the shape of a shrug with 3/4 sleeves.

So far, I've got the shrug constructed, and the sleeve bindings done, complete with random amethyst beads.

The entire garment is hand-sewn, Alabama Chanin style.

Which, you know, makes me all kinds of happy.

Even if it does take forever to finish....

Seeing that every spare moment, and those I can manage to multi-task, is spent sewing,

 I haven't gotten to my library books yet.

But, just in case I have a moment and I'd rather read than sew, well - I'm all set.

out of commission

He's not at all clumsy,

but he does seem to be a little bit accident prone.

He had the wood in the foot - and the fork in the toe.

Just a few weeks ago, he hurt his ankle when we were at a birthday party.

He doesn't know what he did, but he was in a good bit of pain.

I was deciding if I should worry about him when he told me he was seeing flashes of light

and felt a little dizzy. Oh, and his lips turned completely white.

~

Apparently there was a chip out of the rim on one of the milk mugs (another one. sigh.)

and today, when he was washing up the lunch dishes, it sliced his finger.

"Mom, you better come here." Brandon called as he rushed to the bathroom.

We got the bleeding stopped fairly quickly, but as I tried to ascertain the severity, he said he wasn't feeling so good.

I told him to take slow deep breaths and looked up at his face. 

His lips were gray.

Crap.

I wasn't feeling too swift myself - but I was in the middle of a hot flash....

Just in case we were both fixin' to pass out, I quickly moved our operation to the bedroom.

I went back and forth over 'do we need to get stitches?',

and texted Maggie, Eva, and Tyler.

Maggie and Eva both felt like we were probably ok with steri-strips 

and Tyler told me to trust my judgement

or something like that.

So I decided we were probably good without stitches.

if we could keep it closed.

I'd already steri-stripped it and it was actually looking fairly good

but

I hadn't cleaned it out thoroughly,

so I had to open it back up

to clean it.

We both got a little woozy again.

Got him all bandaged back up and decided that I'd fashion a splint come bedtime, 

to keep him from bending his fingers in his sleep, and re-opening the wound.

That worked for awhile,

but then the stupid steri-strips wouldn't stay put;

the kid's hands were sweaty.

I sent Maggie another text 'steri strips aren't gonna cut it'.

So she told us to come on in and she fixed him right up.

And now, he can't do any writing, can't wash dishes, can't shower...

Poor guy.

multiplying miracle

A miracle of Biblical proportions has happened in my kitchen today;

the linens have multiplied.

I keep pulling them out of the bag

and throwing them in the washer

and lo, 12 hours later,

there are still 3 more loads of dirty linens in the bag.

It's not as impressive as the feeding of 5,000,

 but I, for one, stand amazed. 

pooped

That's what we are - pooped!

But everything was beautiful.

And fun.

I can't wait to get the pictures from Roselle and share them with you!

(borrowed this one from her FB page :-)
I wasn't expecting to cry,  but I got a little teary when they had their first dance.

At some point, we're going to have to unpack the vehicles and put everything away

(I hate that part!)

but for now, I'm just going to chill with my feet up.

(as much as I can chill, while listening to my way sugared up kids...)

party on

We're ready!

It took longer than I expected (I'm sure that surprises absolutely no one ;-)

but with the help of Lana, Tony & Kacy, and Eva and her boys,

we (and by we, I mean, our whole fam - even me!) got that gym whipped into shape

and had a good bit of fun doing it.

Oh, Meggy popped in with coffee and helped for a bit, too.

(although, Lana and I suspect that she was secretly scouting out our work, 

so she could see if she wanted our help for her wedding next month ;-)

Cha-cha slide was most definitely our theme song :-)

Without it, we probably would have finished a little sooner,

but we would have missed out on some of that fun I talked about up there, too.

At one point, all the big people were elsewhere in the building,

and the little people, (Lexi through Aaron McC) were in the barnzebo,

dancing like there was no tomorrow.

It was so cute!

We're a little pooped,

but I think the stage is set for everyone to have a good time  ~ which was pretty much the goal.

Get ready to party!

Brandon Levi the Science Guy

Brandon couldn't do his science yesterday

due to technical difficulties.

(and no - it wasn't just my ineptness ;-)

After getting a response to my e-mail to the tech people at Apologia this morning,

he was able to get everything set up.

There are 16 'modules' in the year-long course.

He came in the kitchen at lunch time and asked,

"So, how long should it take me to do a module?"

He'd already finished the first one.

Including (of course!) the experiments.

The boy does love science.

it just hit

full force.

I am now appropriately stressed. 

the picture has nothing to do with the post. I just thought it'd been a few posts since I added a picture....
these actually tickle me to no end and are not (not yet anyways) a source of stress or pressure ;-)

it was inevitable

Maggie said something a few weeks ago about me having all kinds of free time soon.

You know - when school starts up.

I looked at her if as if she was out if her d@mn mind;  (sorry - Psych quote) she knows we homeschool!

We started school today.

The students were ready; the teacher

was not.

But, if I put off starting any longer, I'd officially be a slacker,

so I had no choice.

So far, so good.

Although, a few times Lex' has reverted to her old ways.

wooo pig sooie

Tyler's brother, Mitch, asked me a few weeks ago if I'd like to go to a football game.

I told him I'd really rather let somebody who cared about it have a ticket instead of me,

but I guessed I'd consider going if it was, like, a double date or something.

So.

I'm 43 years old and went to my first Razorback football game yesterday.

And, I tailgated.

This is blasphemy, I know, here in the the great state of Arkansas,

but, I wasn't really looking forward to it.

I'm not really a football fan (that should have been read in a hushed whisper)

and I'm definitely not a milling around schmoozing with strangers fan.

(Calling it a date didn't really change anything....)

To top it off, we've got this big party coming up and I could have spent all that time

doing something productive, rather than doing nothing.

Which is what I think 3-4 hours in the car, tailgating for 3 hours, and watching a 3 hour game is. 

And if things couldn't be worse for me,

I've been off for a few weeks 

and for the past few days, tears have lurked just behind my eyelids all. day. long.

Oh. And I 'started'. yesterday.

(which probably explains the tears and eyelids thing)

But it turns out I didn't have to schmooze; I just sat and visited with my sister-in-law.

While Tyler brought me beverages ;-)

And I didn't cry. 

Which is good, since I couldn't find my waterproof mascara. (Girls??)

Although, it was so stinking hot, I was afraid the mascara was running down my face anyways.

The game?

It was fine. I cheered spontaneously a few times, so I guess that's good,

but I don't think I'll ever be crazy about football.

As much as I was dreading the 'wasted' day,

 it was probably good for me to be forced to take a break.
And it was so nice of Mitch and Jennifer to share their tickets with us,
and I'm really glad Tyler (who is a big football fan) and Brandon got to enjoy the game!
(and that the little ones got to spend a day with Gramma & Grampa ~ thanks, Mom!)

Go Hogs, Wooo Pig Sooie, and all that.

Now - back to regularly scheduled life.