Some non-sewing activities

The sewing machine has been put away for at least a week so I can trace, alter, and cut my four projects. Yesterday, three of my four projects were traced and maybe tonight I can do the last one. It was surprising I was able to get that much done, considering the kids had off school yesterday for...a snow day? No. An ice day? Not really. One of those days where it might have made for bad driving weather that never materialized. Wasted day for them! However, at least I was able to get some things done.

Early in the morning, DS#1 wanted to play Xbox. Uh, no. He was advised to do something constructive. DD#1? She slept until about 11 a.m. DD#2 and DS#2 work so well together (she's 13, he's 8). They both like building and creative activities too. DS#2 wanted me to save our dishwasher box so he could play with it. So yesterday, he and DD#2 took that box and made him a "house". It took several hours, borrowed some of my material for the top and a little rug inside. They decorated with pictures, a radio, flowers and a few other items, and painted the outside along with making a mailbox. Here are pics of our proud little Pooky in his "Pooky house". Of course, DH had to tell him to spell Pooky the wrong way, so when he looked in his Garfield book he said, "Dad spelled it wrong!"

Today I didn't get much done. My typical routine on most days is to head to the gym from 8:30-10, then do whatever that needs to be done. After the gym today, I headed out to pay off a piece of furniture on layaway, shop at the grocery store and wholesale club, visits to the copy center and post office, then back home. It was 2:45 by the time I got back home and DD#1 and DD#2 come home at 3. So it was quick, quick, quick! Pull together a very quick meal. And wanting to use up leftover lunch meats that were stockpiled in the fridge, I decided to make a calzone sandwich. Mmmm! It was good. I threw together the dough ingredients in my mixer and cut up the lunch meats to brown them in a fry pan. I layered the provolone and mozzarela cheese on the rolled out dough, added the pepperonis, diced tomatos, chopped green olives, followed by grated parmesan cheese and spices. (Lots of good garlic!) The calzone is then covered and brushed with some skim milk. Here's the leftover finished baked sandwich (It makes two so I won't be doing a whole lot of cookin' tomorrow).

It was de-lish! The only problem? I got rid of lunchmeat leftovers, but now I have quite a bit of pepperoni. Besides making pizza, does anyone have any good ideas on what to do with a large quantity of pepperoni?

Now I'm off to help DS#2. He's a busy little boy and has been waiting 3 days to make some
Blondies. He's doing most of it himself, but needs a little help here and there. Here's the busy boy at work.

Water Woes

Funny thing lately as I read blogs. Lots of water problems! Karen had an issue and I just read nanflan's blog and it seems she had an water woes too. I joined the water woe club yesterday. We suspected (for a few weeks) an element was out on our water heater. Now, that water heater seemed fairly new but it was actually 10 years old! So it didn't make a lot of sense to repair, rather replace. To a tune of $775 dollars that is. Then the quote for dishwasher installation was $225. Uh, no thanks. That's almost the price I paid for the dishwasher!!! So I called Sears to get their price and the plumber matched it. I guess it was a good thing. The hot water pipe under the sink was starting to leak and the copper piping to the dishwasher was corroding. So we got that replaced. 5 hours after the plumber arrived, he was done with a nice bill to the tune of $1,181. That's a big ouch! However, it will finally be nice to use a dishwasher since I haven't used one since Thanksgiving Day 2006. Yeah, the year 2006 is correct, which means about 15 mos. without a dishwasher. Let's just say we've been using a lot of disposable plates, cutlery, spoons, and bowls during that time.

On the sewing front, yesterday, I was cleaning up and organizing our basement family room so I can install a pitching contraption for DD#2 and DS#1. I had a lot of fabric piled up on a table along with stencils, fabric paints, slopers, and sloper patterns I've created the past two years. I think one more rubbermaid tote would be good to store all my fabric remnants. Last night I was researching what I could do with all those smaller pieces, not enough for garments, but too nice to throw away. So there's 3 piles of remnants, two of smallish pieces, one with larger ones. Once that gets cleared out, I think my sewing corner will look much more organized. DD#2 did notice I put up a huge pair of paper mache scissors she made in art class. She said the teacher told them to make an item dealing with a school subject and she chose art class--thus a pair of scissors. (Darn, I wish I could say sewing class inspired her but that's not the case.) I'll try to take a picture of that later.

For my four upcoming sewing projects, I cut out all the pattern pieces needed for the projects. Today I'm going to the dollar store to get several packs of tissue paper for tracing. My first project to be cut? My Burda coat! I was thinking about black leather welt pockets, then changed my mine to self-drafted side seam pockets. Now I've changed my mind again after seeing Pattern Review member lilyofthevalley's coat. Check out this awesome pic of it: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2384/2287875316_6584e3133f_b.jpg . Not only is that houndstooth fab, look at those leather welts! So...I changed my mind and I'm back to black leather welts again. Thanks, Lily! Your coat was incredibly awesome! I even purchased some nice black fancy style buttons at JoAnn's the last time I was there just for this project.

Off to household duties now, and I can't believe the kids are off school today AGAIN! Hardly any snow and it's supposed to be a high of at least 40 degrees. Happy Sewing!

My Mini Swap.

I always admire how so many people do a SWAP. The story boards are absolutely amazing but I have to admire from afar. I'm ambitious, but just do not have the time to create an entire seasonal wardrobe. So lately I've been picking and choosing here and there. My retro Simplicity jacket and Vogue dress was my starting point. Then I just added my green wool suit and deconstructed/recycled mini. Pics are below and I'm going to link them to 3 pattern reviews I'm working on. What I need to add next is a black, classic blazer so I can wear that with my red dress or green wool mini skirt. However, there are other projects in my cue right now, but eventually I'll get to that--probably in the summer LOL!

Here are my pics of how I'll wear my new pieces. Other pics specific to each outfit can be found in my pattern reviews on the widget sidebar--I'll be working on doing them over the next few days.

This is my Sunday outfit for church this week and right below it is an alternate outfit paired with my recycled leather mini:

Or...the same jacket with jeans.

My leather mini with a borrowed red RTW top from my DD#2.

Or the leather mini paired with my Simplicity jacket.

I think with the boots, however, it is just a little too "edgy" to wear to church. For some reason the leather boots take it out of the realm of appropriate church attire IMO.

Now I have to be off and finish my pattern review for the jacket, at least.

Blech!

I'm sitting here in my leather mini skirt and McCall's jacket after just taking some pictures for some pattern reviews that need to be done. One thing that won't be reviewed is my blue mini dress. It looks horrendous! I thought it would either look really cute or like a blue potato sack. It's the latter unfortunately, and I spent the entire day working on it.

It could have worked. I was trying to copy a slouchy minidress look from Lucky. Had I used a sturdy, crisp cotton fabric, the look cold have been pulled off. But no. I had to use a light blue knit with a "chamois-like" feel on one side that I bought from fabric.com eons ago. Not only was it not the right fabric for this look, my machine absolutely hated it. The reason why it took so long to sew was because I had to sew each seam twice in a triple stretch stitch. Tried every needle in my stash--universal, stretch, ballpoint/jersey, microtex, and nothing worked. Skipped stitches like crazy.

Live and learn. We have to have projects like this every once in a while. The dress is hanging on my dress form right now. I'm very happy to have a duct tape double because it doesn't lie. It looked as shapeless on me as it did on the Phat Chick.

So much work into a wadder. As I typed before--BLECH!

Movin' on now to my three other projects and going to start my review on this wintry mix night in the Poconos.

Weekly Goals 2/20/08

Below are my weekly goals. These are actually a 2-week goal because DH just went back to work today and I've been very busy the past two days. In addition, I have a lot of paperwork and phone calls to make and need to work on LL stuff.

No sewing really, other than whipping up my blue minidress, which is half done, but a b*tch to sew. The suede-like knit fabric doesn't seem to agree with any needle in my stash--universal, stretch, jersey/ballpoint, nor microtex. Lots of skipped stitches. Less with my jersey/ballpoint but still a concern that I have to check and sometimes restitch my seams.

So my goals for the next two weeks are to tissue fit and cut the fabric, lining, and interfacing for four projects. Those projects are:

1. PJ pants for DD#2 using Simplicity 5923, the pattern photo is in my previous post.

2. Top-Simplicity 3624, long version with long sleeves.

3. Wrap dress-Simplicity 4074

4. Coat-Burda 7858, short version with full length sleeves.

The beauty of these goals are that for 2, 3, and 4, I'm using PR Weekend NYC 2007 fabrics! Here's a pic of the patterns and fabric:


The blue/black fabric is a wool from Paron's, the red/black is a knit from Spandex House, and the purple/pink sequined print is from Metro Textiles/Kashi. Ann, (Gorgeous Fabrics) also was selling this fabric although I'm not sure if she has it anymore. I can't wait to actually sit at the machine with these fabrics but first things first. Tissue fitting and alterations, tracing, and cutting will take up those two weeks. But after that, my machine's going to be smokin'!

That's it for now. Lots of things to do on this very busy day. Happy Sewing, everyone!

My Amusing Story for the Day!

Today I went down to JoAnn's in the Lehigh Valley to pick up some Simplicity patterns. Picked up 6, but two were not in stock. Well, actually one was not in my size. I'll post pics later of the patterns. Added some thread and buttons, too, for some future projects.

Anyway, the amusing part of my day was when I was walking out to my car from JoAnn's with DD#2. A car pulls up behind mine, a lady gets out and asks if I'm "ryan's mom". And, of course that's who I am :) . It was guernsey from Patternreview! She had recognized my black and white houndstooth retro swing jacket from my review a few weeks ago.

Meeting another lovely Patternreview member in person just by chance. How cool is that? Very!!!

ETA--My purchases!!! The patterns I was able to get:

The lower waist on this one with the belt--the "illusion" of a longer torso made it a must have for me.

This one I bought for the top. The dress is nice, but I don't think it would be flattering on my figure. I think there's a Butterick dress with a similar neckline that would be more flattering for me so I'm hoping to pick that one up during the next Butterick sale at JoAnn's.

This one--what can I say :) ? I didn't particularly care for this pattern at first, however, I've never been known to have any fashion sense either. After seeing several gorgeous versions of this at Patternreview, it changed my mind to a must-have pattern. I'm just hoping it will be flattering on me--I just don't know though

This one just seemed cute. And versatile for summer or winter.

I loved this one too because I'm a sucker for retro patterns. This has been on my list for a while now.

Last, but not least, DD#2 wanted some night pants. She chose a green flannel and flannel-backed satin for her two pairs.

Here are the ones that got away. The one below I was bummed about--not in my size range.

This Project Runway one I liked too, but it didn't bother me that it was out of stock.

What else did I pick up? Thread spools and buttons that were 50% off. Used that extra 10% off coupon too. Overall, I think I did pretty well. It was a short and sweet, yet inexpensive trip today.

Finished Work

Here I am on a Sunday night and have a quick few moments to jot down some sewing thoughts.

First off, both my skirts are done. I took pics of them but for now here is my leather skirt on the couch.

I removed the waistband and cut it in half lengthwise. Then I unstitched the side seams and inserted the waistband strips to give me the extra inch on each side for a little more room. Had to do the same to the lining too. I never liked that waistband anyway because of my short waist. I redid all the topstitching and finished the waistband by attaching bias tape and turning to the inside and topstitching. Quick and easy. On the left side of the pic you can see the waistband strip down the side. A big thanks to my sister, Carol, for making this suggestion. It worked like a charm.

My wool skirt is done. It was a TNT from a Vogue pattern but I turned it into a mini. It has a contoured waistband and two front seams, two back seams, a CF and CB seam. Pics are coming when they go back to school and DH goes back to work. It's a long holiday weekend so I'm just going to work on writing my reviews until there's just some "me" time in the schedule.

And my mini dress just got cut out. It's kind of a slouchy dress similar to one seen in a recent issue of Lucky. The fabric I'm using is not a substantial weight so I'm going to line the entire bodice with self fabric instead of using facings. The sleeves and skirt portions, however, will be unlined. I was thinking of underlining the entire piece with interfacing, but that doesn't seem like it would give it the weight I want it to have.

Time for bed...

Sneak Preview

Here's a sneak preview on my jacket, McCalls 5276:



I really like it and it turned out fine other than a lining issue which was correctable. I'll write more about it when I review it. Also, the skirt is now 100% done! Just finished it about 10 minutes ago. So in the next few days I'll try to get a pic of the jacket with the matching skirt, and the jacket with my leather skirt. Coordinating wardrobe pieces is not one of my strong points but I've really been trying lately.

More later...

Recipes and Invisible Zip Triumph!

Here are the recipes and/or recipe sources, ladies! I hope you enjoy them if you make them. One might ask why I would make homemade candy/candy bars but the answer is simple. My son has a severe peanut allergy and I vowed several years ago he would not miss out on life's little pleasures. Including candy bars. Although some people look at food allergies as a negative (especially since they can be deadly), I want my son to view the positives of it. And fresh, homemade candy is definitely a delight.

Caramel corn. I use the Jolly Time recipe found at this link: http://www.backofthebox.com/recipes/candies/baked-caramel-corn-g.html

Craisin clusters. Melted chocolate melted with your method of choice. I bought a tempering machine years ago but when I need things quick I don't use it. Simply craisins (or raisins) mixed with chocolate and poured into molds.

3 Musketeers. The nougat/candy bar recipe is found inTodd Wilbur's book, More Top Secret Recipes. I was going to post it but remembered about those copyright laws... One caveat to this recipe. A candy thermometer and heavy duty stand mixer are a needed for the nougat.

If I'm making Milky Ways, I have made my own caramel. However, this time I used the Kraft caramels. Where did I ever get my caramel recipe? I can't remember it's been so long. However, I do know it's such a simple recipe, maybe four or five ingredients? But a candy thermometer is an absolute necessity.

Chocolate covered pretzels. The no brainer. Either I buy the small pretzels and dip them or crush up big ones and mix them with chocolate if I'm pressed for time which I was.

The fudge will wait until next weekend, but this is my fave fudge recipe:

Nestle Holiday Fudge:

2 Tb. butter
2/3 cp undiluted evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups (4 oz.) mini marshmallows
2 cups (12 oz pkg) milk chocolate, semisweet, mint, (whatever!) morsels/chocolate chips
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine butter, evaporated milk, sugar and salt in medium, heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Stir in marshmallows, morsels/choc. chips, and vanilla. Stir vigorously for 1 minute or until marshmallows are melted. Pour into foil-lined 8" square baking pan; chill until firm. Cut int 1 1/2" squares.

As for the truffles? I bought the heavy cream but didn't make them. When I do, I'll post the recipe. That's in my book library downstairs. I always seem to forget there's only so much junk food one can make and eat in a week!

Now, about my invisible zipper triumph! I am elated to tell the world I finally found out what was wrong and caused me so much grief and aggravation doing invisible zips.

Way back when I went to my dealer to buy an invisible zipper foot for my Janome Memorycraft 3000. They sold me the generic, plastic foot which I now know is designed for YKK invisible zippers. Almost every time I'd do an invisible zip on something other than a lightweight, thin fabric, the time and grief spent on doing them wasn't worth the effort. I'd get broken zippers, crummy zippers, anything but a nice invisible zip. It made me wonder why people loved doing them so much.

This past week I tried again on my wool mini. And yet again I ended up with a jammed, broken zipper. In fact, I even started a thread on invisible zippers and why they disgust me found at this link on Patternreview:

http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/sewingclasses/board.pl?t=28354

Well, well, well! A big problem is that I've always bought Coats and Clark invisible zippers. They simply do not work very well with the generic plastic foot which is actually designed for YKK zippers. Yesterday I went to Walmart and bought one more C&C invisible zipper, and just by chance looked up and saw the Coats&Clark invisible zipper foot. Another plastic foot, but I bought it anyway. Let me tell you, this C&C foot which is specifically designed for C&C invisible zips make all the the difference in the world!!! It is absolutely amazing what the right foot can do. No wonder I had so many problems.

So now I feel prepared! In my stash are two invisible zipper feet for the two different types of invisible zips--C&C and YKK. I feel like a liberated woman! Just goes to show you if you want to get the job done you need the right tools.

...So here it is, Saturday night. Did I get my sewing goals done for the week? 2 out of 3 ain't bad. The black leather skirt is 98% done, the wool skirt is 90% done. Unfortunately, the dress didn't get cut out. But that's okay. It's a holiday weekend too :) .

Happy Valentine's Day!

Update: Couldn't make the fudge. This is the second time in a year that I've opened up a can of Carnation evaporated milk and it was bad. Usually I have lots of it, but that was the last can in my cupboard today. It was like yellow water, not off-white milk. Yuck, it got tossed. I'll make the fudge this weekend. One of my weaknesses is coffee and fudge. Mmmm...that is such a delicious pair!

However, below are pics of some of the candy in progress:

Boiling the syrup for the nougat.

Craisin clusters and chocolate pretzel drops.

Nougat and caramel corn.

3 Musketeers ready for cutting--white chocolate on one side, milk chocolate on the bottom

The finished baskets--some homemade, some store bought.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! It is likely I will not get much sewing done because I will be up to my ears in chocolate!!! My sewing update is that I'm almost finished with my leather skirt, almost finished with my wool skirt except for the zipper, and still have to cut out my mini dress. It is good progress.

So my activities today will be making lots of chocolate goodies for the Valentine baskets for my kids. On my list of goodies to make today:

Caramel corn
Chocolate covered pretzels
3 Musketeers
Fudge
Raisin clusters
Chocolate covered caramels
Chocolate/Rice Krispy drops
and if I get the chance--Truffles

And I better get started now!

Quick update

My green wool skirt is already stitched up, except for the invisible zip. I started a thread on Patternreview about why invisible zips disgust me, but perhaps my problems are due to the fact that I'm using a Coats&Clark zipper on the generic invisible zipper foot that is designed for the YKK ones. So today I'm ordering some YKK invisible zips and hoping the experience will be a bit more pleasant.

The skirt needs to be lined so I washed and dryed the lining yesterday. Today it will get a good press and since it looks to be bad weather tonight here in the Poconos with freezing rain and snow, maybe it can actually be cut out tonight.

One thing that is great about the skirt--the pattern is TNT. What a time saver and it's quick sewing too. The skirt was actually long, somewhat fitted, and had godets, but I cut to the part just above the godets, added a hem, and now it will be a mini skirt.

On my leather mini, I unstitched the side seams for the lining. It will need another long strip of lining fabric just like the leather did, so maybe that will get cut out today too. Once the lining issue is taken care of, everything else should be quick to get this done.

Lately, I'm trying to be fearless. For too long I've been looking at my stash, especially my more expensive wools from NYC, and just dreaming about what they could be. I'm actually cutting into them and making garments and it feels GOOD! Just like the leather mini. It's been sitting around while I'm thinking, "What if I screw it up?" And what if I do? (Which I won't ;) !) The leather can be used for something else. Somebody has the tagline at Patternreview which goes something like this, "Feel the fear and do it anyway." That's what I'm doing. Expensive fabrics seem to bring out that fear. But really, what is there to lose. It's not a life, just an expensive piece of fabric. Gotta keep it all in perspective.

The Reconstruction Period

And I'm not talking US History either. It's my leather skirt. I was SO proud of this mini skirt back in high school. Bought it when I was a Senior and felt so hip in it when wearing it.

Fast forward 24 years...my sister just gave the skirt back to me. I gave it to her once I started having kids, but she feels she'll won't be able to wear it. We both have to be at our skinniest to wear it. A couple weeks ago I previewed my retro Simplicity jacket and was wearing the skirt. I was really smiling in the pic because I felt like one of those pattern models. Everything looks good in the front, but don't look at the back LOL. My zipper wasn't zipped up ;) !

The skirt is such a nice length and is still such a nice wardrobe piece that I just can't part with it now, but it needed updating. I started deconstruction of the skirt so it could be reconstructed to my age 40-something size. It's great doing that and seeing what RTW manufacturers do in making their garments. The waistband was removed and I found a nice, stiff piece of hair canvas used for interfacing. Lots of glue too. Ribbon was used to secure the free-hanging lining to the side seams of the leather skirt. Last night I seam ripped the side seams and cut the waistband in half lengthwise. I'm using those waistband strips to create a narrow leather (about 1") insert strips down the side seam for some extra width. I really don't need the width at the bottom, just from the hipline up to the waist, but it seems like it will work out fine. There was a enough time last night to attach the side seam strips to the original back seamline. Today I will attach the other lengthwise strip to the front side seam. Tomorrow I'm hoping to work on adding some width to the lining. Here's a pic of the skirt in progress right now. On the left side you can see the waistband strip connected to the skirt back. The other side is the same. Just that little extra strip on both sides should help me get another 20 years out of this skirt :) .

Next Sunday's church outfit will be this black leather mini, my patterned lace hose with black heels and my new green wool short swing coat that I finished yesterday. The mini is actually long enough to look elegant and not sleazy so that should be okay for church.

I also plan on whipping up a matching skirt for my green wool swing coat. There seems to be enough fabric left and I have a great TNT pattern to use with it. Once I get that done, I've decided I'm going to need a black blazer. Slowly my dressy wardrobe for my go nowhere lifestyle is becoming more coordinated. And, of course, I need to make one more winter coat before focusing on spring dresses.

Oh...to many things to do, too little time. Focus! Must focus. So, my plans for the week are finishing the leather mini, cutting out and sewing up my green wool skirt, and cutting out my baby blue mini dress. These are my goals for the week.

Tomorrow I will write about a great book that I intend to review over at Patternreview. The inspiration for this book purchase was a comment/terrific idea in one of my garment reviews by Phyllis, one of the Sewing Divas.

Servicing your machine(s)

I was posting today in a thread over at Patternreview and the topic of servicing machines came up. I thought this was very interesting because there seem to be different views on maintenance. So my question is, do you service your machine yourself? What do you do with it? Or do you take it to the dealer for servicing.

I have a Janome Memorycraft 3000 sewing machine, one of Janome's low-end electronic machines. It does everything I want it to do, but the dealer (a big shout-out for Pocono Sew and Vac) www.poconosewandvac.com said not to oil it. It should never need oiling. Same with my Janome 300E embroidery machine. However, I know a few people have highly recommend oiling the 300E. My Pfaff serger, ancient by today's standards, is a 1991 or 1992 mechanical Hobbylock. Great machine, but it does need to be oiled and the manual is very specific about it.

The issue came up about teaching a prospective sewing student about oiling/preventative maintenance on their machine. I hesitate to make recommendations for specific machines and personally like to bring my machines in for servicing on a regular basis. I would recommend this to anyone, especially ones using an older machine that hasn't been used in a while. It just seems like common sense to me. One wouldn't learn how to drive on a car that hasn't been started in several years, would they? Why would someone want to learn how to sew on a machine that hasn't been serviced in what seems like forever. I would like to give sewing lessons. Not lessons in sewing aggravation. Starting on a new or newly serviced machine is what I would insist on for any student. And I would want proof (for an old machine) from my dealer that it has been serviced as they are the only dealer in our area that meets my high standards for quality and dependable service. They will let a customer know if it's not really worth it. They're not pushy, rather they state the facts and let the customer decide what to do.

There are the simple things every user should know like vacuuming/pipe cleaning lint and flossing thread tensions. But beyond that, I hesitate to make recommendations for things like oiling. Different manufacturers recommend different things and I'd like my students to hear what needs to be done from a reputable dealer.

If anyone thinks differently, I like to hear about it and why. If you teach sewing classes, what do you include about machine maintenance?

Another Winter Coat

Well, almost. It's just about done, but it hasn't been without a few problems along the way. Everything was going fine and although the jacket was supposed to be unlined as per the pattern, I decided to line it. I should have gone with a full, self-drafted lining, but used the stitch and flip method. Not having done this in a while, I encountered a problem when I was hemming. I tried on the jacket after it was hemmed and it was pulling in a really weird way in the back. Ugh! I hate that. I knew there were lining issues at that point. This is probably the one thing I don't like about the SNF technique. I usually don't use this technique and would have to make a jacket a few more times to work out the kinks to avoid this from happening in the future. And with that back pleat, IMO the jacket wasn't designed to be SNF'd anyway. I should have just spent about a 1/2 hour more developing a full lining piece on the front.

So, in the end, I ended up with a partial lining in the back. Because of the annoying pulling, I cut out the bottom of it up to the top of the pleat and finished the edges. It's not the prettiest interior close up, but from about 3 feet away it looks just fine ;) . The outside of it looks really nice though. Tomorrow I will do the buttonholes and buttons. After that, I'll tack down the front facings and be done with it.

There *IS* leftover fabric too :) ! I think there's enough for a self-drafted panel mini skirt with a contoured waistband. That's lucky. It will give me another wardrobe option. I'm still working on restyling my leather mini skirt from my high school days to wear with this jacket, but a matching skirt would like quite classy IMO. Hopefully I can post a couple pics or get a review done in a few days.

Home Stretch.

I am finally getting over the grave disappointment over a very poor judgement error by one of my children. Today I will be finishing up a list of "corrective actions" that will be taken over the next 12 months. It is really a big question mark in my brain how such an intellectually intelligent person can have a huge momentary lapse in judgement, however, we all make mistakes. Some big, some small, and we do get over them. Everyone has to take responsibility for their actions and accept the consequences of one's behavior.

Moving on to jacket thoughts...I'm headed down home stretch with McCall's 5276, pictured below. The collar and facings are done, the sleeves have been lined and they're ready to insert into the jacket. Here's the jacket so far, although I still have to give it a good steam press today. The buttons (I love these buttons!) are simply placed on the fabric to get a better idea how the jacket front will look when done. The buttons are edged with a gold finish and have an abalone-like face. So unique! The kind of buttons one usually does not find in mall-store RTW. One thing I've noticed thus far with View C (the yellow illustration on the pattern cover) is that my collar is not nearly as big as the illustration. That's fine by me, just an observation at this point though.

When I was tissue-fitting the jacket, I was mulling over the addition to length. I decided on +1 1/4 inches, but now wish I would have left it at 2". It's still fine, and really, those short jackets are in so all is still well. The length is merely my personal preference. And what is really funny about these jackets lately is the proportion. The patterns are designed for a 5'6" pattern model and I'm about 5'7" with a very short waist. My height comes from my long legs, not my torso. Some of my jackets lately have been lengthened by as much as 3 inches to give me, what I perceive, a proper proportion. McCall's 5007, was one of those jacket patterns needing the 3". The hemline would have been virtually at my waist had I not added that length, and the pattern illustration for 5007 does not show the hemline at the waist either. It looks to me like it's about 3" below the waist in the pattern illustration. Here's the Patternreview link for my review on my most recent jacket from that pattern, with links to two others I made in that review.:

http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/readreview.pl?readreview=1&reviewnum=21238

So I've been really checking the length of these patterns lately. They seem to be running overly short and I don't know why. Maybe it's a McCall's thing? We'll see. I think the next jacket I'm making is going to be a Burda that I purchased in October.

One thing for sure--I'm so glad to be using up some of my Pattern Review Weekend wools from 2006 and 2007.