Another Dress Down

So, I have been working on about a hundred projects (more like 15). All of them are planned for the fair, which is coming up pretty fast. I finished another one today.

I very obviously haven't pressed it perfect yet, but all of the sewing is finished. I tried it on and will need to make a few adjustments for when I wear it and the skirt seam didn't match up in the back, but it turned out pretty well over all. I'll have to include a modeled picture when I finish up everything else I will be turning in.

On a completely separate note, we discovered Penny really loves onions.

I gave her one to keep her occupied during dinner. When I looked over at her I saw that she was making her own meal out of the onion. It was raw so I thought she would just throw it on the floor, but she went at it like it was candy.

I also need to thank my sister Jenny for introducing glow sticks as bath toys. Abram and Penny went nuts over them. I think they prefer it to bubbles even.

Firefighter Husbands

Life in our house has been pretty crazy the last couple of days. I have been trying to finish up some of my projects to turn into the county fair. Abram and Penny have been playing hard (except today; they both are running low fevers). Our car has been in the shop getting it's bumper replaced after some guy cut Mike off in the mall parking lot. And Mike has been working like crazy trying to finish the last few weeks of his school and internship strong. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am for him to finish school. Yes, I know he will be going back to get his paramedic's certificate, but this is is B.S. All I can say is, I hope it helps him get a job. He is currently number 20 on Salt Lake City's list. So, if everything goes well, he will get a job with them some time this next year. But until then he is the local volunteer department's happy intern/slave.
He really has enjoyed the internship. It is a "labor of love" as he calls it. The last two days he has been pulling 12 hour shifts for the department, cleaning and polishing the trucks (particularly the ladder truck). He just finished it yesterday.

 It may have been a poor use of public equipment, but the photo opp. was just calling me.

I have a horrible fear of heights and holding two little babies being up that high.... Let's just say I started hyperventilating a bit.

The truck is huge, so I can see why it took so long to wash and polish. But there is something that seems to run in a firefighter's blood. They really truly love their jobs, and Mike is no exception. There are times when I worry about what that profession will expose him to, but then I see the spark that comes into his eyes when he talks about his work with the volunteers. I love him so much, and that spark is part of the reason why.
Well, wish us luck for the next couple of weeks as our crazy summer comes to a fever pitch and closes.

Happy Pioneer Day

Happy Pioneer Day everyone. For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about. It is a Utah State holiday that celebrates the day when the Mormon pioneers came into the Salt Lake valley. Normally I celebrate the day by reading some of my own families pioneer histories. This year I was lazy and settled on just going to the family luncheon at Grandma and Grandpa D's house. The food was great and I loved the chance to see so many of my cousins. Abram especially loved playing with his little buddy Taylor, who I use to tend. Mike had to work so he missed out on the food, but as I was coming home from the get-together, I saw him putting up his enormous Mexican flag in our front yard, right next to the American flag the Boy-Scouts put up for the day.

I must admit, I was a little embarrassed. Apparently my Dad dared him to do it, saying that the "original" Pioneer Day had taken place in Mexico, which is true. He mostly just wanted to see if Mike would do it. Thankfully, Mike didn't get home to do it till after 7:30 so I only had to endure it for a couple of hours.
So I mentioned I would put up some of the pics from our "Aunt Jenny Visit". Here are some of the highlights.

We got to ride the carrousel, but Abram was too scared to ride one of the moving animals so he rode on the bench seat with Jenny.

Penny, on the other hand, was fearless. She sat on that moving penguin like a pro (with my help of course).

So, to those of you who don't know me yet, my favorite animal is the giraffe. I just think they are so cool looking and was ecstatic we could see them this time.

I wasn't sure to smile or be kind of grossed out at the water fountains. It was so hot that day, I probably would have drank from a real lion's mouth.

At the discovery museum, we brought Mike along with us. I honestly think he had just as much fun as the babies. He saw this hat and car and insisted that Abe wanted to play with it. What do you think? I think it lasted for about as long as it took to take the picture. Oh well, he had a blast the rest of the time.

Five Minute Project

Sorry to anyone who actually reads this blog. I know it has been a while since my last post. Between having family come in out of town and our hard drive corrupting, it has been a busy week. Having family down to visit was wonderful though. My sister-in-law Jenny came down to take the kids out on some fun adventures. Mike and I got to tag along. One day we went to the zoo, where Abram discovered his favorite animals are otters. The other day we went to the Discovery Museum at the Gateway Mall. I'm not really sure who had more fun. Mike or Abram? It was a blast all the same though. I'll post some pics when our hard drive finishes recovering.
In the mean time, I have a super quick and easy project. It seriously took me maybe 5 min. Baby leg-warmers.

My sister-in-law Rachel had made a ton of these when my nephew Jett was about Penny's age. I thought they were pretty cute, but I just couldn't bring myself to cut up a pair of perfectly good knee-highs. So I never made them. Just recently though I found a pair with a whole hiding in the back of my sock drawer and thought, what a perfect opportunity.

First, you cut off the sock just above the heal.

then you fold the bottom over twice and pin. Just your basic hem.

Sew the hem down. As an after thought, I would suggest sewing it from the outside rather than the inside like I did. You would end up with a straighter looking line.

And there you have it. Super cute leg-warmers. I told you it would only take five minutes.

Here is another shot of Penny sporting her new look. Sorry the pictures were blurry. she didn't want to sit still and I didn't realize they were blurry till after I had added them to the post. Well, I hope you all have a wonderful day.

A new dress for ...

So I don't know if any of you follow or have heard of Craftness is not Optional. I found several of her sewing tutorials showing up on my boards on Pintrest. I went to her blog and pretty much fell in love. I decided to try one of her tutorials this week. I chose the vintage heirloom dress. I thought it was adorable and thought it would look lovely on Penny.

 So I started out by tracing my pattern and cutting out all of my pieces. Here is where I made my first mistake (Apparently it is some sort of cosmic rule that I must make at least 2 mistakes with every project). The shirt i used to trace my pattern from fit Penny just fine, but only because it is made of knit. I also thought that because my child is half the age her child was, the scallops needed to be smaller. I don't know why I thought this but I did.

The scallops were the most difficult part for me. Eventually I got so frustrated with them that I decide that letting them look like an 8 year-old sewed them just gave them character. I also can totally see why she used piking shears. I have since added them to my crafting supplies wish list.

The sleeves were not as bad as I thought they would be. I had never made sleeves this way before, and found I liked it better. I think i may have gone over board on the pins though.

In the future, I think I will wait till after I have sewn the under arm and sides to add the bias tape trim. It would add a little extra work, but I think the finished product would look cleaner.

My favorite part would have to be the pleats. Normally I just gather up the skirt and slap it on there. But I found I actually enjoyed make the knife pleats. I loved how much prettier and cleaner they made the final product look.

So in the end I had a very cute (but definitely not perfect dress). The only sad art was, it didn't fit. Penny is a bit of a chunk and the dress just squeezed her cute little rolls a bit too tight. I had to have some satisfaction for my efforts though. So I held off putting on the zipper and squeezed her into it anyway.

She didn't seem to mind though. If anything, I think she liked the dress (or maybe it was just Mommy making faces to keep her attention). Sadly, the dress will have to wait for the next little girl to be born, but luckily I have enough of the material to make another dress for her. I think I will make a different one this time. I'll have to post my own tutorial for it. Well, I hope you enjoyed my joys and frustrations.

Tank Engines and Dresses.

So I finally got around to down loading all the pics and videos from my camera. On it were all the pictures I had taken of the "Day out with Thomas" we had taken Abram to down in Heber. For those of you who don't know, my son is a Thomas maniac. For about a year straight he would only watch Thomas and cried if anything else was playing on the TV. He has since branched out into other children's entertainment, but Thomas is still among his favorites. (I don't know whether to thank or curse Netflix).

My cousin and her family joined us, which was nice. He daughter and Abram are little buddies. Sir Topham Hatt on the other hand.... I would have thought he would be thrilled to see him, but I was mistaken. That's him, strangling me for dear life. 

The big steam engines, were a different story. He loved them. They had a small hay bale maze by one, perfect for photos. 

I put him up on the front of this one to get a picture and he thought it was so cool. He didn't want to get down. Considering this was about a month ago, I still get happy butterflies when I think about Abram's face when he saw that life-sized Thomas coming into the station. If they come again next year, we may have to go again.
So our county fair is coming up, which is a pretty big deal in my family. I have put things in the Home Arts exhibits since I was 18 (and no longer in 4-H). I always have fun and do pretty well, but this year I am taking things a little more seriously (my husband would say too seriously). I really want to get either a judge's choice or copper plate this year. I don't really care which category; I just want one more in case we have to move next year. My strengths are sewing, knitting, table settings, and baking. I have a good plan for each of them, but I really want to do well on my sewing. I has been a while since I made an adult sized dress (children's clothing I never seem to stop making). So I decided to make a simple one with a basic pattern and cheap clearance fabric from Walmart.

I'm glad I took a practice run. My tailoring skills are super rusty. I promise my waist isn't really that big and my I won't even mention the bust darts. It is probably a good thing little kids require minimalist tailoring. When I get my next tailored dress done, hopefully, you will see an improvement.

Our July 4th Weekend

So, welcome everyone to this my first blog entry. I'm sure that the first entry of anyone's blog should be full of profound thoughts and probably an explanation of the blog's title. Well, sorry if that's what you came for because you aren't going to get it. Don't worry I have every intention of creating such a post, but I am afraid it will have to wait for another time. Perhaps on a day when I am a little less run down and frazzled. (I'm afraid my desire to make it sound eloquent, beautiful, and worthy of the years of university study I dedicated to writing and analytical thought prevent me from doing so now). What I would rather talk about is what Mike, the kids, and I did for the 4th.
It was Idaho's turn for the 4th this year, but because of all the travel we have been doing testing at various fire departments, we chose to save the gas and stay in Utah. Very kindly, Mike's parents decided to come to us. They made it down in time to come to my family's picnic and then go to Henefer to see Jon Schmidt perform for the celebrations. (It was super fun performance by the way. If you get the chance to see him, you should). We were totally planning on going sailing on Thursday, but it was raining and way too windy. So we went to the City Creek Mall instead. I hadn't been before and was surprised at how good it was. Abram was a bit freaked out by the water fountains, but once he realized he couldn't get hurt by it he went nuts. People probably thought he was raised by wild animals. He kept screaming and running as fast as he could in circles. Blushing a side, I was glad he was having fun. He did the same thing in the play area, but he didn't seem so out of place there.
On Friday we finally got to go sailing. We had the kids all sun-screened up and ready to go, so I went to change into my suit and Mike took Abram out in the shallows on the little blow up tubes. Apparently he tipped over and fell head first in the water. He wasn't hurt, but it scared him spitless. The whole rest of the day he wouldn't go near the water and cried violently when ever anyone else went out (especially Penny). Abram's discomfort aside, the rest of us had quite a bit of fun. Mike and I went out alone. He got it flying for a bit, which was a first for me. On the way back around he turned the wrong way and flipped the boat. It was probably the slowest, calmest wipe-out I have ever experienced, but the best part of the day.

After a day full of crying on the beach, Abram was happy to be home. We opened up a package of clothes my sister-in-law Jenny sent. Inside were some Thomas the Tank Engine pjs. I immediately ripped off his cloths and put the pjs on. I think his smile says it all.

Penny got a new pair of pjs too. I had finally gotten around to making her a new nightgown. Her old ones were getting a bit small and they were way too hot for the summer nights in our non-AC house.

I made it out of a very old pillow case. I just used some lace I had lying around for the ties at the shoulders. There are tons of tutorials for this kind of dress on line. I had helped my mom teach some of the kids at the 4-H sewing camp how to make them. It was fun and simple, everything I like. I promise next time to get pictures with our good camera rather than my phone, but you can still see the smile on her face and a shadow of her beautiful dimples.
Well, thanks for reading this first blog. I promise to improve the posts as I get the hang of things.