Category: To Occupy my Time

Pressing the facings, joining bodice and skirt

Here you can see how I used an improper marking pen on a previous project and stained my tailor’s ham.  Here you can also see that the tailor’s ham comes in handy (or ham-dy?) for pressing this dress.
 
Here you can see the facings flipping out on the arm holes, completely ruining the effect of the cool sleeves.  I’ll show them what’s what, just you wait.

At this point, aside from facing wrangling, I just need to get Julie to mark the hem and then sew the hem and then I’m done.  Ahead of schedule, even.

NWCTC’s The Seagull

This was my first foray to NWCTC without Matt, who was busy with a race today.
 
This was also my first Chekhov play and it did not disappoint.  It was interesting to note how many roles there were for actors past the age of 30 in this play.  I feel as though this is something I don’t encounter very often in theater.

As usual, the acting was astounding.  Jason Maniccia and Ben Buckley were good as the playwrights.  And, as usual, it was the women whose performances were searing.  Jane Bement Geesman crackled as Irina, the mother no one would ask for. Clara-Liis Hillier and Brenan Dwyer sparkled as Masha and Nina, women who seemed to embody one half of the tragedy/comedy mask, at least for the first act.

I love when plays make me gasp aloud and this one did.  I’m already looking forward to NWCTC’s Season of Kings.

Tacking down the facings.


The bodice has facings along the neckline and the arms.  I am making tiny stitches in the facings and sewing the seam to the facings, to encourage the facing to roll the right way.  Sentinel is helping and watching a movie with me.

Even after I did this, the arm facings would not behave, constantly turning out.  I ended up doing what Gertie did and carefully sewing the facings to the underlining.  That worked well, because of the two layers of fabric, but I’m not sure what I would have done if I had only one layer of fabric.  I’ve made a not on my pattern to underline, should I want to make this dress again.

Sewing the pockets and skirt


One of the best things about Collette patterns is that she usually includes pockets in her skirts.  Here are mine.  I’ve always thought pockets laid out like that look rather dirty.  Thank goodness they will be tucked away where no one can see.  It occurs to me that right now we’ve got a sort of external genitalia thing going on, but as soon as I sew this up, we will revert to an internal genitalia thing.  But maybe that’s just me.

Crazy Hair Day.

She’s pretty much the winner of crazy hair day. (not that we ever have “winners” at my school).
Might I remind you the K/1 classes are studying birds?

I twisted my hair up into 12 individual twists making nobs on my head. But I forgot to take a picture. I was a bit horrified when–despite the lack of product and my completely dry hair–I had a huge head of hair when I pulled them out at the end of my day. My hair likes to follow orders.

Vintage Cakes’ Cherry Chip Cake. Also Chocolate Ice Cream.

I’ve been busy this weekend making ice cream.
 
And a beautiful Cherry Chip Cake to celebrate the end of school.

It’s Cherry Chip cake with a thin spread of ganache between layers and then frosted with a cherry buttercream frosting.

The cookbook author developed it because she missed the Cherry Chip cake mixes from her childhood.  I too enjoyed those and was happy to try this cake.  I assumed that the Cherry Cake mixes were no more, however when buying ingredients at New Seasons, the cashier told me that the Cherry Chip mix is still made and that New Seasons carries it.  It was rather deflating news.  I still made the cake from scratch anyway.

Saying goodbye to the chicks.

 Today is the last day the chicks will be at school, they are going to live on a farm.
 
We have been teasing the teacher about animals living “on a farm” but it appears that it is a farm where they will not become chicken dinner.
 
They’ve grown up so fast.
 
Getting their real feathers.
 
One of them really likes to perch on things.
 
I tried to get the rest of them to do that too, but they weren’t ready.
 
Have fun with your new life, chicks.
 
The children named them, so you can see how incredibly creative they were.
 

Our volunteer Mary is the best.

Mary is a woman in her 80s who volunteers once per week at school.  She is full of fun and a kindred spirit of sorts, because she loves to go on walks and take pictures.

First, I must give you background.
Here is the sign on the inside of the door to the teacher bathroom.
(All adults can use the teacher bathroom at our school.  Sigh.)
This sign has been here as long as we have.  It came with the building.
 

Here are the lockers in the corner of the teacher bathroom.
 
And here are labels on the lockers.  The lockers came to us second-hand, so we have no idea who these guys are.  Charlie’s locker used to have a small sticker that said, “Fish On!” but it fell off a few years ago.
 
And here’s the poem that appeared on the side of the locker one day.
Mary left it anonymously, but we figured her out.

They’re gone, but not forgotton
immortalized in the loo
They are noticed in private moments,
those semi-anonymous two.
So here’s to Steve, Charlie and also
to some artful, anoymous wit.
We OPEN it ever so SLOWLY
and not nobody never gets hit.

Parade Magazine Photo Spread: You win some, you lose some.

On the one hand, when a heterosexual couple rides a tandem bike, it is very uncommon to find the female in front.  Really. In real life, I’ve only seen it once.  This makes no sense to me as most women are smaller than their partners and it would make sense for them to be in front so they can see something beside their companion’s sweaty back.  So I liked this pairing that places–wait, who is that?  Kelly?  I think it’s Kelly Ripa?  Anyway, it places her in front of her new co-host.
 
However, look at her shoes!

Good lord, no!