Merry 6th Day of Chistmas and House Pics!!

Friends...
I hope that you have all had a wonderful Christmas holiday filled with the spirit of the season. Today's post will mostly be pictures. First, our dog friend Stella,



who came to stay with us for Christmas. Her sister, Sadie has a broken leg. It would have been too much for her to had Stella the puppy as company all the way to her grandparents house, so she stayed with us and had a great time!

Second, an attempt at an artsy self portrait saluting one of my favorite Christmas gifts from this year.



I have been wanting a really nice teapot, and David pulled through! It whistles and everything.

And third, here are the house shots. We have the plywood on the upper level, and should get the tar paper on tomorrow.









Ta ta for now. I'm off the Christmas with the girls!

So sorry it has been so long...

I have been insanely busy since my last post, but I thought you all deserved something.

I'll do some more house photos soon, but in honor of this fabulous collection of bad Nativities, I'll add a photo of my own.



When I sold my house, I buried St. Joseph, Patron Saint of House and Home, upside down in my yard. The theory is that St. Joseph wants to get settled again, so the house will sell faster. Here is more info, and yes it did work.

Anyway, I forgot him. Yep, I left him in the yard at my old house. Oops! And I didn't buy a new set last year because all the good ones were gone. Ditto for this year, but now I kind of like it. So now we have Spiderman waiting patienly for Baby Jesus to appear. What can you do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for many things...

my friends and family...

my furry friends...

the roof over my head, and the partial roof on the addition...

and that man standing on said roof.



Tell your friends and family how thankful you are for them! Have a GREAT HOLIDAY!

Gobble, gobble!

We're gonna need a montage (montage)...

I put together two photo-montages to "remind everyone of what’s going on (what’s going on?) and with every shot you show a little improvement." (That's a quote from Team America, which I hope you have seen. If not, please fix that... today.)

Anyway, on to the montages. Here's the dining room

and the view from the loft

Photoshop has a "photomerge" function which is really cool. I think these really show what these two spaces look like from a human perspective, instead of a camera's perspective.

I'm off to make some items for the craft fair at Bottletree. Have a great day!

Stop and smell the flowers...

I think that's all I have today...

More house stuff later, but I felt that this needed to stand alone.

Fire and Rain (and dogs)

After the drought of the summer we finally got some rain...

And we were only kinda ready as ready as we could be with the addition. David was tied up last week with the Alabama Ballet's Where the Wild Things Are (which was fabulous) and, while it would have been funny, I didn't feel up to decking the upper level alone. David and crew of Crews are working tomorrow to get closer to weather-tight, or at least tarp-able.


I took these this morning and we seem to be weathering (pun intended) the 2+" of rain pretty well. We back painted the OSB with semigloss paint , tyvec taped the headers and wrap seams, caulked the places where the OSB joins the 2x4 at the bottom of the wall, and put plastic over any other sensitive areas.

We area also planning the look of the fireplace. We are using a stainless steel wood burning insert but need to decide on the surround, mantle, etc. I checked some books out at the library for inspiration and these are some of my favorites:

First row (l to r) are for real: off center modern with I-beam mantle and quartz surround; art deco wood surround; sculpted wooden mantle

Second row (l to r) are for fun: Tepee campfire in your living room perfect for my brother, Seth, and other Blackfeet from Winnataska; creative use of large stone as hearth; slightly overstated for my taste but some might like it

Now for the dog pics:

Ginny "Crazy Legs" Gump Weasley Glenn (as if she needs another name)

and her friend...
Winni

What can I say about that picture... she sure has a zest for life. I think she is actually skipping.

More progress

So Monday, in celebration of Columbus Day, we worked on the house. Actually, it had nothing to do with Columbus Day, and everything to do with Tuesday's impending rainstorm. The crew was David, Randy (our faithful crewman), David's parents and me. We finished applying the OSB sheathing and put the house wrap on. I took these photos before we added the tyvek wrap so that the windows were still visible.

Here's what we accomplished...

This is the view from the driveway as you turn off of Montcrest Drive. As you can see, it is starting to take shape.

Here is the view from the back. The hallway connecting the old house to the new house isn't constructed yet.

This is the (slightly slanted) bird's eye view from the roof of the shed. David had to turn the camera to get it all in.

Here's David working on the sheathing near the exterior door outside of the bedroom.

This one has nothing to do with the house but.....

Happy Birthday, Seth!

So a 10' wall...

Is really tall! David and a small crew have been building walls. I got home from work yesterday and David had two of them standing up.



Now that's tall.

Here are the rest of the walls all stacked up and ready to go.



Calvin supervised.

Concrete... check!

So the concrete is in! Remember last Tuesday when the much needed rain started...

This is what it looked like at our house...

We were halfway through the five truck concrete delivery when the rain started. During the twenty minute breaks in the rain they would remove the huge plastic tarps and break out the power trowel to smooth the surface.

It turned out great!!!

Here are some more pictures, from during and after. I'm also including the floor plan at the bottom of this post.

During the pour. These are before the rain moved in.

















David took these from the roof. Thanks!















If you don't know, David did all of the plans himself using AutoCAD. He did a great job, and it allowed us to customize the addition to fit our needs.


Here's the floor plan.

Lower level (click for a larger view)


Upper level (click for a larger view)

House progress...

So here's where we are now...

We have the form for the concrete in and the inspector came this morning and signed off on it.

Concrete trucks will arrive at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.

No turning back now!

Meet Ginny Gump Weasley Glenn...

Please meet our newest friend...

Ginny Gump Weasley Glenn

Ginny wandered up to David last Monday at OzWorks, our friends scenic production company. We originally named her Toto (from Oz), which proved too difficult to say. Then David and I were discussing Forest Gump, and the name Ginny came up. I, of course having just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, had Ginny Weasley on the brain. So she is named after the girlfriends of two of the most unlikely heroes in literature.

We decided to foster her until she found a better home. Now, six days later, I'm not sure that she will be going anywhere. If she does go, it will be to a very close friend or family member. She's having too much fun here. And she has figured out how to use the dog door, which is installed at the proper height for our other three 60+ pound dogs.

And what do the other dogs think? Chica is mildly frustrated with the task of reasserting her position of Alpha female. Calvin has no room in his life for puppies, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he likes her. Winni agrees to Ginny crawling on her and interrupting her couch time, as seen below.

Sorry that those last ones are blurry, but I thought that you might want to see them for scale.

I'm not sure how this will all turn out, but I'll keep you posted. Wish us luck!

Business and pleasure...

First, I'm sorry I've been away for a while. My mom, my friend Karen and I were directors at Camp Winnataska, the greatest place on earth. We had so much fun. When I got back, I hopped right into making my costume for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book release party. Normally I don't talk about business on my blog, but this is one of those times when they blissfully combine. I work at a fabulous library. We has a party from 10:00 to midnight so that people could come and pick up their reserved copies of the seventh Harry Potter book. There were games, costume contests, potion lessons, trivia, and so much fun! They asked me to dress up as the evil, vile, disgusting, mean Professor Umbridge. Here's my costume:

I had so much fun at the party. Scared some kids, gave some kids detention... it was a blast.

Here's another pic from the party of Professor Umbridge and Rita Skeeter:


A few details on the costume:

CAPE
Pattern: Simplicity 3959, View D & E hybrid
Fabric and Trim: The perfect purple and pink tweed from Hancock Fabric. The trim is a variegated chenille that was in the upholstery section.
Details: The cape pattern fastened in the middle (click for the line drawing) which wouldn't do. It wasn't too difficult to change. I cut the front piece on the fold instead of the selvages. The worst part of this plan was to redraw the pattern for the front and side front facings, but it wasn't that bad. The other major change was to omit the lining, which I didn't feel was necessary in Alabama in July. Four large fabric covered button holes, and that was that.

SKIRT
Pattern: Simplicity 4546, View A
Fabric: Linen, cotton, poly blend
Details: The only change to this was that I cut the skirt pieces on the bias.

Any other question... let me know.

Hem, hem
Elin "Professor-Umbridge" Glenn

A gift for my birthday buddy

So my friend Jennifer, has a beautiful daughter who was born on my birthday las year. Since I love my birthday, I find it cool that I know so many people who share it: (Mr. Carlson, Geoff, Eve, Dollie, and that's just the people I know), I thought I'd make Eve a new outfit. And since she is growing like a weed, I gave it too her a bit early so she might be able to wear it. The full pattern review is below the picture of the dress. I'll see if I can get some action shots.



My pattern review (from pattern review)
Hat and Panties
Back of dress

Pattern Description: infant dress, hat and panties

Pattern Sizing: s, m, l & xl, I made the xl (sized for 18-24 months).

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Yes, but I lined the dress and the hat with a different fabric.

Were the instructions easy to follow? They we very easy to make. The pattern is listed as an "Easy Sew and Save." While it was easy, I expected this to be a quick project. It took me longer than expected, but was well worth the effort.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? I love the hat and the dress. I think that there must be an easier way to construct the panties. If I make this again, I will do some experimenting to see what I can come up with.

Fabric Used: Outside: pale yellow with hot pink, green, and blue paisley. Inside: green and white small printed check. Trim: hot pink grossgrain ribbon

Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made: I added pink ribbon to cover the side seams on the panties. I also lined the hat and the dress in a different fabric. I substituted the ribbon or the bias tape for the panty trim as well (which may have added to the difficulty in their construction.)

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I would make this again. It was a gift for a friends baby (who shares my birthday). It was an easy project with good results. I hope that it will be a quicker sew next time.

Conclusion I love this style of dress for baby girls. It looks so summery and comfortable. When I found this pattern on sale, I know that I had to buy it to make a gift for my friend's daughter/birthday buddy.

A learned a new craft...

A few weeks ago at my church, St. Andrew's Episcopal, we had a creativity weekend. As a part of that I attended a craft workshop centered around paper crafting. Not scrapbooking, but collage, image transfer, etc. Here's what I made.

That is the front cover of this:

My friend Jennifer taught us two wonderful techniques for image transfer. One involves gel medium which I used for most of the images. The other technique involves packing tape, which I used for the other images.

Here are some close-up pictures of the inside:

Since the dogs wanted to give David a Father's Day present, they signed the back.
Hope y'all enjoy.

The search is over...

I have been looking for years for a monogram font, and I have finally found one. I had some requirements, deco-esque, free, bordered, and this one was the one.

You can download it for free here by clicking the download link at the bottom of the page. He has some other cool fonts available as well. There is a whole set of monograms for under $30.

I do love free fonts. If you do too, check out dafont and font garden for some great ones.

Now, I just have to figure out what to do with my monogram. Too bad I don't have an embroidery machine.

This shirt was a little sew and sew...

I made this knit shirt the other night and thought I'd let y'all see it. I got the fabric at the Eastwood Hancock for about $1.60 and had some left over. you can read the review below, but the short story is that printed stripes never line up correctly, and my stitch length was too short on the hems. I still like it and will wear it on weekends. I'm enjoying getting to know my new serger.

Pattern: Simplicity 4076

Pattern Description: Three knit tops with different sleve lenghts, often reviewed here on pattern review. Twist top, faux wrap top, scoop neck with gathers.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Yes, but I shortened the sleeves of view c.

Were the instructions easy to follow? For the most part. I think that I will set the sleeves flat next time. Also, the directions for gathering the neck wasted the pattern piece, so I zig-zagged elastic to the front piece to created the gathers.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? I like the versitility of the mix and match sleeve length. I might raise tthe neckline next time to make it a little more work friendly.

Fabric Used: Knit, 100% cotton,

Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made: Shortened the sleeves and added one inch at the add mark one inch at the bottom. The neck gaps a bit, so next time I will rotate the back pattern piece to remove a bit at the top and shorten the neckband to accomodate that and the raising of the front neck line.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I will sew this again, perhaps even the same view.

Conclusion I made this to test out my new serger, and as a muslin for some other tops I want to make. It looks fine, but I will most likely just wear it arond the house and on weekends. I think the stitch length I used for the hems was a little too short. I hate that the stripes are a bit off on the back, but oh well.

WWII at 3368

Don't be fooled by the post title. There's no major conflict here.

David and I are keeping our friends', Colin and Annalisa's, year(ish) old Old English Sheepdog, Sadie Belle. Here's a video of her and her new friends reenactment of a classic WWII battle, the Brits (portrayed by Old English Sheepdog, Sadie, against the Germans, portrayed by German Shepherd, Chica). Black dog, Calvin plays all other parts. (No cameramen, i.e. David, were harmed in the production of this reenactment.)



Winni chose not to participate.

She was enjoying the new granite countertops...

And eating sticks.