We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Post

...even though I have no late-breaking news to bring you. 

Did you even miss me?  LOL - I thought not.  Someone has been lurking my previous blog posts, though - they must have seen something that they really liked because they have been visiting the same post, every single day.  So far, that post has logged 166 visits.

Maybe it's a blog bug.  Do those even exist?

Haven't been posting much lately for a few reasons:  

1. Been doing a lot of the same thing.  Figured you didn't want to have to suffer through reading about that.

2. Been doing work for clients and had second thoughts about posting the work on my blog.  I'm still all for giving them props for their designs and free advertising - I just got a little spooked reading about how many people are ripping off designs by blog-stalking and then claiming the designs as their own.  More than a few of my clients are young designers and I'd hate for someone to walk all over their dream - so I've opted not to post photos of prototypes/samples on my blog anymore to attempt to fend off said perps.  

3. It's been hot.  Hot, hot, hot.  And that tends to make me sick to my stomach.  Which doesn't leave me exactly focused on blogging about my creative skills.  I figure most of my readers are also hot, hot, hot (or for some of you lovelies in the "other" hemisphere - cold, cold, cold) and probably don't want to sit with a cuppa and browse my musings vague rambling.  Wish I could send you all a cool pack and a sympathy note.  I know I needed one this week.

4. I was in a creative slump for awhile so even though I managed to get work out for clients, I wasn't "in the zone" when it came to doing my own thing.  

That last line is making me bonkers.  I finally had some down time this past week, so I excitedly began cutting apart two soft-n-loverly tie-die print t-shirts that I'd purchased at the 99 Cent Store.  I know, I know - but the fabric was so soft I couldn't help myself.  Somewhere along the line, the 99 Cent Store people have been buying up name brands like you see at Kohls, The Gap, Old Navy, and other department stores - I just about fell on my rear in the store when I started going through the labels.  Long story short, I was trying to replicate something I'd seen on Anthropologie:

I figured between the two oversized t-shirts, that I'd have plenty of fabric to pull something like this off.

Not even going to justify that with photos of the disaster that ensued.  

My calculations were off, I hadn't accounted for the soft-n-loverly fabric to be so limp when it came to draping & weaving like the above shirt, and it hung on me like a sack of potatoes.  I was crushed - it's not often these days I have time to make something for myself.  I rushed through it, knowing I'd have work coming in any day, and it really disappointed me so much I thought I'd lost my sewing mojo. I haven't given up entirely, just need to come up with a Plan B. 

In the meantime, here are a couple of projects I just completed for a friend's daughter who is getting ready to do an exchange year in the Czech Republic:

I think this is the PERFECT bag to carry to Eastern Europe, don't you?
She chose the colors for her name to be embroidered on the bag -
wish I'd had more time with it, I would have loved to have knocked off
the design a little - not copy it directly, but it had some nice features.

She chose the colors to coordinate with the flowers on the bag.

This next bag was a special request from her mother (my friend) -
Alex had gone on a small trip using a bag to carry a blanket & pillow
on the plane, only it was just a few inches shy of being big enough to zip shut.
So her mom and I went to Joanns to choose sturdy fabric, since Alex is going to be using this bag
for day trips with her host family when she gets to Europe.  We wanted it to coordinate with
the other bag; not match it, but complement it.
I chose this embroidery design out of the Jacobean Flowers I've purchased from Embroidery Online, and changed
up the colors to match the flowers on the other bag.

And here, after two zipper assembly snafus, is the completed bag.
Do not ask me about the first zipper disaster.
Do.  Not.  Ask.
It was the heat that did it.  The heat, I say!

ECU of the completed Jacobean Flower -
I love me some Embroidery Library!
Their designs ALWAYS stitch out muy excellente!

Check out the color blocking - Alex loves green, but also loves
this deep blue (check out her prom dress), and my friend and I
thought she would also love to have the red & yellow from
the floral print worked into the bag as well.

The red inside lining, with a contrasting yellow inner pocket, just for a
fun pop of color when she opens the bag.
Hey, the zipper needed SOMETHING to coordinate with, right?
Note to self: make sure to write in the margins of the instructions
for making this type of bag -
SERGE INNER EDGES OF ZIPPER PLACKET.
That is all.

Embroidered on the other side, in letters to coordinate with
the other bag.  Trust me, when you're not in direct sunlight,
those first two letters do not look like exactly the same color.
Really.

It's interesting for me to imagine that my work is once again going half way around the world. Of course, that happens every time someone overseas looks up one of my blog posts, but still.....


Stay tuned for more projects, including one of the strangest alteration/repair requests I've gotten so far.  And I promise to upload photos of Plan B, if I can ever make it come to fruition.  

Craftiness Is Not Confined to My Workroom

Well, it's been a week.  

My son's preschool teacher used to say things like that when I'd pick him up at the end of a class.  She didn't like saying "he had a bad day" or anything negative in front of him, so she would say, "Well, he's had a day."  That way, I'd know right off the bat that something had happened, but would wait until the right moment presented itself before asking her about it.  This sounds like it could be annoying, and I imagine I thought it was at the time.  But when you think about it, it makes sense - I was alerted to the fact that something not so great had happened, while we were preserving whatever peace of mind he'd attained in the aftermath.  Since he was a bit high-strung, this was a particularly effective way of coding the message for Mom.  

Fast Forward to the present: here I was, working my caboose off to get the Relay For Life pouches ready to take with me to the Relay.  After struggling at the computer (see this post), I managed to get about half of them done for donors - especially those I'd be meeting up with at the Relay - when I finally called it a night and decided to get the rest done after the Relay.  I figured it would be a good thing to work on while I was recovering.  

HA.

First things first.  I did manage to correct the stitching on the reduced cupcake image, and, as promised, here is the net result:

MMMMM....doesn't that frosting look much better?
I like learning new stuff.

Then dawned the day of the Relay.  I made it there in time to register and find my team before the opening ceremonies & Survivor Lap started, which was good.  I hadn't had time to make up a pop-up display for the pouches, which would have made it a lot easier to see.  Most of my team didn't know that I was bringing them to take more orders, so when I wasn't at the table, they weren't sure if they should be selling the ones I had brought or if they were just for show.  As a result, I didn't sell as many that day as I was hoping to.  Bummer.

The Relay started off well, though:

About half of the team goofing around for a photo op!
I'm the one in the back in the black pants and black shoes.
Too bad you can't see my purple hair.  It was awesome.

I'd arranged with my sons (and one of the girlfriends) to meet me at the track with lunch, and to stay to cheer on the team.  My oldest and his girlfriend had decided to go to the local swap meet first, then he would text & ask what I wanted for lunch, pick up his younger brother, and head my way.  Lunch time came and went, and around 1:00 or so, I texted him and his brother, asking what happened - did someone sleep in a little too long?  Find something terribly interesting at the swap meet and lose track of time?  Forget about mom's lunch?  

How about "None of the above" ?

I finally get a call back from the older son around 1:15 - and he's calling from the emergency room, where he was taken by ambulance after being hit on his motorcycle.  He hadn't wanted to call me, knowing I was pretty determined to get my miles in at the Relay, but he knew I would be worried about him not showing up (and he felt bad that I didn't get lunch) so he called anyway.  He didn't want me to leave the Relay and head to the ER (yeah RIGHT - like any mom would sit back and say "OK, I won't head straight down there, like, YESTERDAY!"), but I knew even if he was perfectly fine, he wouldn't know how to check out properly and I knew he didn't have the $75 co-pay with him at the time.  Besides, I can never take it for granted that he's "just fine," in spite of his insistence.  I could tell he was upset & spooked, and if all I needed to be was moral support, it was still worth the trip.  So I finished up the lap I was working on, took my bead, and told one of my teammates where I was heading.  

Oh, yeah.  The beads:

The commemorative bead stopper, made by one of the volunteers.

Some of the volunteers donated a huge box of pony beads
and plastic lanyard cord - that way, as you made your way around the track,
you could simply pick up a bead and string it while you were walking.
This helps you figure out how many laps/miles you've walked.
Simple, but genius.  Trust me, when you're exhausted after walking the track
and napping here and there for 24 hours, picking up those beads is the ONLY
way to keep track of what you're doing.
Here's a partial view of my 10 miles.

After being in the ER with my son for several hours, meeting with the doctor who had overseen his care, making sure he hadn't had internal injuries, picking up his crutches and then his medications and getting him discharged, I needed to get him home and DOWN.  As in, "you're not moving unless you need to go to the restroom" DOWN.  Got some food in him, gave him his pain meds, made sure the girlfriend was settled down - the poor thing was beside herself - she was really rattled because he had held the bike up as he was getting hit, so that she could jump off the back and not get hurt - it was all he could think about at the time.  We've nicknamed her the Backseat Flying Ninja, because usually she has a hard time getting on and off the bike - but this time she was fueled with adrenaline and made it off in one giant leap!  Trying to hold the bike up while being rammed by the truck in front of him (that guy threw his truck into reverse & backed into my son without looking) was what had caused his injuries - pulled ligaments & torn muscles in his groin area & thigh, a pretty good bruise in his abdomen from the motorcycle handlebars slamming into his stomach.  Thankfully, nothing worse.

I left him for awhile at home with his brother; the girlfriend, her parents, and I went to U-Haul to rent a trailer and then up to the accident site to get his motorcycle to bring home.  Eventually, after giving him his second dose of pain meds, I decided to head back to the track to walk off some of the stress.  I got about 5 more miles in to make it an even 10, and finally left around 10:30 or 11:00 pm.  Most of the rest of my team spent the night there and took turns walking the track while others were sleeping/napping, but I couldn't make it that long, especially with my son at home needing attention.  Still, it was a very worthwhile endeavor and I'm planning to walk again next year.  
I had plenty to keep me busy this week while trying to keep that son down and quiet.  He's like me - I swear we're half jackrabbit the way we're always jumping up to do something.  His girlfriend came over every day and stayed most of the day to keep him occupied and make sure he was eating, because I needed to get three bridesmaid dresses done for a client.  Keeping him occupied was a full-time job, especially when he started feeling better - he was so bored!  So they decided to go to the store to find something for him to do while sitting down - we went to about three stores and none of them had the toy he was thinking about getting (thankfully - it was an RC helicopter and I'm sure he would have been dive-bombing the Sewing Assistant).  Well, he had a plethora of PVC pipe and other assorted oddments from a project he'd worked on earlier, so they decided to make some marshmallow air cannons. 

The 99 cent store rocks for stale marshmallows - apparently, the best kind to shoot.

Decorated by the girlfriend - they nicknamed it the Phat Blaster, and that is
a cartoon rendition there of the Sewing Assistant.  

Stuffing a stale marshmallow into the barrel of the cannon, which was
lovingly decorated with kitty footprints.

Little Phat will be face to face with a version of himself as the cannon is being shot!
Unfortunately, they never really got a chance to test it out against the Sewing Assistant.
The girlfriend's brother & dad showed up to bring something over and help my son by rolling
the motorcycle up into the garage from where we'd left it on the curb.  Her brother then swiped her
cannon and stuffed too many marshmallows down into the barrel - so now it won't shoot.  Rats.  

So as you can see, not all the craftiness that goes on around here happens in my workroom.  

I got the three dresses done in time for the client to pick up to do the fittings, but needed to do a little more work on one that was a bit on the tricky side lining-wise.  So she left that one with me and came back to pick it up later on Friday night.  While she was there, I related to her that my niece had narrowly missed being at that theater in Aurora, CO with her boyfriend and his two sons - I never thought I'd be grateful to find out that someone was too broke to go to the movies, but this was certainly the case here.  It still freaked me out all day, though, just reading the reports and imagining what nearly happened to someone I love.  The client took a phone call while I was finishing up the bodice lining, and then told me after she hung up that she'd just found out that the bridegroom's sister had a very good friend (her sorority Big Sister) who WAS at the theater - and had been one of the victims that was shot.  What a sobering way to send your client off with dresses intended for a happy occasion.  I'll be seeing them again soon - which is good, because I forgot to photograph them in progress.  She was going to do the fittings but I will be finishing them off once she brings them back - hopefully, nothing else will happen and I'll be able to photograph them this time. 

Like I said - it's been a week.  Maybe the Sewing Assistant has the right idea for once (sure beats the migraine I got after everything was said and done):

Sewing for Charity - Finished Products!

Just have time for a short post - worked out some kinks today, learned a couple of new things in my embroidery software (amazing how desperation leads you to research, which leads to a wizard, who gives you the answers you seek - thank you, Mr. Patience!), found an awesome tute on how to very quickly make a lined zippered pouch here (and how have I EVER sewn one of these before I found this?), and ended up with this:

Purple zippered pouches, ready for my donors who gave $10 or more to the cause!

The interior lining - found in the remnant basket at my local fabric store for pennies!
The color was perfect - gives a nice, formal surprise touch in contrast to the fun-loving
purple corduroy exterior!

The Relay for Life official logo - this stitched out so nicely as you could see in the photos that I posted yesterday!

This embroidery stitched out so well it makes me want to nom-nom-nom-nom.....and this was yet another thing I learned today - that my Viking Girl has a separate and distinct stitch setting for satin stitch.  I've only had the darned machine for  6 or 7 years now - you'd think I would have noticed that stitch before.  I thought it was a bar tack setting and had never fooled around with it!  If you look closely (click on the photo and an enlarged pic should pop up), you can see the first go-round with the zig-zag stitch on my machine set to the lowest possible setting - BLEH!  You can see far too much of the underlying color poking through - couldn't get the density compact enough.  Changed to the new stitch and VOILA!  Instant satin perfection (the outside stitching)!!!!

This little doozy is what sent me on my researching spree this afternoon - I had accidentally reduced it too much - my software recommends only resizing 20% or less, and I must have just gone over the top.  As a result, the no longer nom-tastic frosting looks like it's slightly curdled.  (Compare this stitch-out to the photo directly above it - it's the same design!)  So today, I learned from Mr. Patience how to open up an existing design file, hide all the extraneous stitch points, color change info, and other objects and do a global properties change.  This isn't generally recommended, as any success you'll have is based entirely on how the original designer digitized and saved the file - but I'm anxious to do a test stitch-out to see how my changes affected the final result.  (For those of you who don't machine embroider, here's a brief translation:  Full-size?  Nice. Shrinky-dinked file?  Doesn't play nicely.  Fix?  Doesn't always go so well.)
Oh, and I changed the blobby cupcake liner as well.  Looked too much like old play-doh.  I'm about to do the stitch-out, so I'll let you know if I meet with success.  

These little pouches are going over really, really big - it's nice to be able to give my donors something nice, something personally made, to thank them for donating on my behalf to the Relay For Life.  My donations escalated ten-fold when I posted photos on my Facebook page and sent out an email promising one to everyone who donated $10 or more!  Awesome!

Back to stitching for me - then to bed!

Give 'Til It Hurts

And maybe even a little beyond.  

Today was spent embroidering for charity (and yay, my Viking Girl was up to the task after her brief stints in the sewing machine hospital!).  While I was embroidering, in between checking Facebook & my email for updates to my donations page, I managed to browse through a discount book I just bought at Barnes & Noble - a visual guide to Digital Photography & instructions on how to do some simple things in Photoshop.  I have other books, but this one had some pretty neat things in it I knew I could do right away.  It managed to demystify depth of field for me (being a craftsy-but-not-camera-savvy person, I jumped for joy when I saw the simple descriptions and lots and lots of sample photos).  That's saying a lot.  So as my Viking Girl was stitching out the samples, I played around with some settings on my camera and was very pleased with how one or two of the shots came out.  

Stitching away for the American Cancer Society!

I'm incredibly, stupidly pleased with the depth of field on this one.  I've never been able to achieve this effect before I bought this book, and it finally made some sense to me.  

The beauty of digital photography is that the ones that didn't quite come out were deleted right away.   Love being able to do that without having to wait for film to be developed, only to find out that my settings weren't correct or whatever.

I will be walking in the Relay For Life in Fountain Valley this weekend, and for those who donated $10 or more to the American Cancer Society on my behalf, I decided to make simple zippered pouches as a thank-you token.  
I downloaded the free embroidery designs at Apex Designs (http://apexembdesigns.com/american-cancer-society-relay-life-embroidery-designs)
and also at one of my favorite sources, Embroidery Library
(http://www.emblibrary.com/EL/search.aspx?search=Support%20is%20Sweet).

The cupcake design is no longer available for free, though - I think they were offering it free during the month of October 2011, so I downloaded it thinking I could use it at some point.

I knew when I found the purple corduroy fabric the other day in the clearance section at Joann's Fabrics, that I'd finally be able to do just that.  Finding it on the day that the fabric was 50% off the clearance price just made it that much sweeter.

One of my newer clients was kind enough to pick up some purple zippers for me when she went to the garment district in Los Angeles - and donated them to the cause since her mother is suffering from colon cancer.  

I made a list of all the people I have known over the years who have suffered from cancer.  Some made it through the struggle, some did not.  It blew my mind how many people made it onto my list - I lost count after 30 and I know I've forgotten a few more - if I know that many, and you know many more, how many cancer victims are out there?  (The answer:  TOO MANY.)  I've had a few scares myself but each time the results were benign and I consider myself very, very blessed.  I'll be walking for all of those people in my life who were not quite so lucky; I just wish I could do more.

So what's with the post title?  Well, while I was embroidering today I dropped my pair of embroidery scissors - you know, the little 4 inch ones that are incredibly sharp.  And instinctively, I slammed my knees together to keep the sharp blades from dropping into the Pergo floor.  Only I hadn't counted on catching the very same blades using my thigh muscles.

Ow.  

 I'm fine, but I'm going to be a bit sore for awhile.  Band-Aids and Neosporin are my friends.   Next time, I'm letting the darn scissors hit the floor (with apologies to my husband, if he's reading this).

Here's what my Viking Girl cranked out today:

Tomorrow, I'll be working on making more of these patches and then working them into little zippered pouches to give to my donors, as well as getting caught up on a few orders for some clients.  I'll post more photos of the finished pouches tomorrow. 

If you are interested in donating, here is a link to my page:http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY12National?px=29697372&pg=personal&fr_id=36593 


The Sewing Assistant says you know you want that cupcake....

All proceeds go directly to the American Cancer Society Relay For Life, to help fund cancer research and provide support & assistance to those with cancer and to those who love them.
The Sewing Assistant would walk, too, only it sounds a bit too much like work.

New Post, New Look

Hey there - glad you didn't give up on me altogether!  It's been a pretty hectic couple of months and I've been sorely lacking for original post material.  Unfortunately, a lot of what I've been doing lately is for other clients, and I've given some serious thought to posting about the work I'm doing for them, since it involves original designs (and not mine at that!).  In the middle of all the work I've been doing, my poor Viking SE experienced a bit of work fatigue and ended up in the shop three times in the last month!  Thanks to the guys over at OC Sewing, she's back at home and raring to go again (you guys seriously rock!).

My oldest son and two of his friends decided that this would be a good time for them to take their first real Road Trip on their motorcycles, up to Sequoia Nat'l Park.  Originally, they had thought they would go north of San Francisco, but we talked them out of that since they had all recently had some mechanical trouble with their respective bikes, and talked them into going somewhere a little closer (we live in Southern California).  My husband just couldn't handle the idea of letting them take off on their own, so he and my younger son drove up there in one of the cars to be on hand, "just in case."  And also to get some hiking in - at one point, my younger son realized he was less than 40 feet away from a bear cub, startling him quite a bit (you just KNOW momma bear was somewhere close by!).  Still managed to get a good shot of the cub before fleeing down the hill (completely bypassing the trail, LOL).

I figured while they were all gone, I'd have myself a nice four day art retreat of sorts and had invited Son #1's girlfriend over to join in on the painting, dyeing & sewing.  The original plan was NOT to work on anything for anyone but myself over those four days, which would have been all well and good - except that a couple of clients had to push their order deadlines out a bit, and then I ended up with a two-day migraine (or stomach flu, or combination - the jury's still out on that one) at the same time.  NO FAIR, COSMOS!  It's not too often that I make time for my "own thing," and I was really bummed.  Still, when the migraine started to clear, we got out the paints, the dollar store t-shirts I'd been collecting for an opportunity like this, the dyes, bought some sheer organza type fabric to experiment with, and set up in the garage.  (No motorcycles in the way meant we could leave all the paints, dyes & fabric out on tables we set up - nice!)  We were having so much fun that we didn't even stop to photograph the process, which was actually a good thing since my free time had gotten so truncated.  In addition to all the other artistic endeavors, we decided it was a good time to dye my hair as well.  Part of it, anyway.

You know that poem, "When I Am Old, I Shall Wear Purple?"

Wearing the aforementioned purple - just not where you'd expect!

The reactions I've been getting have been nothing short of humorous - totally worth doing.  :)

Some of the randomness I managed to actually finish during the short time we were working playing:

A wine-colored t-shirt from the 99 Cent Store, painted & stamped with
Jacquard Lumiere paints and outlined with dimensional gold paint.
Not the best photo, but this was my favorite project.

This one?  Not so much.  It was mono-printed using an engraved foam
plate, then overstamped using the Lumiere paint.  When stamping,
the Lumiere seemed to experience a shift in the mica or metallic flakes
in the paint, which dulled the effect - the three bear images had to be overpainted with a brush.
I still don't like it - I may embroider something on other fabric and applique it
over this one.  Still ruminating.

The organza, which was dyed with Dye-Na-Flow from Jacquard, then stamped
using Lumiere paints when dry.
I am far too symmetrical in nature - I really need to break out of this rigid
grid-like structure.  But it did help to have something like this to work on
while the migraine was lifting.

A close-up of the dyed fabric & the stamps - you can see how obscure the butterfly looks, even though the metallic effect was not lost - the opposite is true of the other two stamps, which didn't lose too much detail while stamping but
lost the metallic sheen in the process.  I'm going to have to experiment a little more with this, it looks like a Rorschach test or something.

The Sewing Assistant, of course, spent most of his time yowling outside the garage door (in the hallway), protesting that he'd been left out of all the fun.  So he decided to have his own "staycation," and opted for a  Spa Treatment:

Ummm...the hot tub appears to be a bit....snug....

Oh, waiter!  I'll take a large Long Island Ice Tea, with one of those cute little umbrellas, please!
Sashimi on the side!

I've also decided to give the blog a bit of a makeover - let me know what you think!

Marathon!

I may need to pull an all-nighter, at this rate.

Here's what's gotten into the queue this week, condensing my available time for the son's Cosplay jacket down to a bare minimum.

First this:

Prom dress #1 - needed three skirts hemmed,
and the straps tightened up a bit.  The most beautiful
shade of deep blue - the photo unfortunately
washes it out.

Rather than pull the entire bodice apart to tighten the straps, I
opted to open up the bodice lining/interlining/overlay up
at the strap insertion point and then restitch the shortened strap to all
three layers from the outside.  I'm betting no one will be able to
detect this stitching after about 7 pm.  :)

My favorite dress detail.  Probably EVER.

And this:

Prom dress #2.  One shoulder strap that needed adjusting,
the bodice needed to be taken in, and this one had
FOUR skirts that needed hemming.
Oh, and did I mention that the strap and waistband were
covered in beading?  

The bodice had to be taken in on one side only -
the other side had a zipper and I had to finish this
too fast to properly take the zipper out and adjust both
sides, which is the way you really should do it.  I opted to spend what
time I had reinforcing all the beading on the strap and on the waistband
along the zipper instead - this was a brand-new dress but so many
beads were already loose and falling off!

Close up of the strap - I had to shorten it by about
an inch - which meant removing about 70 or 80
beads, and then reinforcing the ones that were left before sewing
the strap into the bodice again.  

This client requested a simple drawstring bag to take
to Prom, for money, ID and her cell phone.  I had
some ivory crepe satin left from another project, some more satin from
this project, and part of the original hem that got cut off I saved and then inserted into
the top of the bag to coordinate with her dress.  I found a tutorial here:
http://www.chicaandjo.com/2010/05/03/how-to-make-a-drawstring-bag/
Took about 25 minutes, start to finish.

Way to recycle that old hem! :)
Just wish I had had more time, I would
have put in two or three ruffles instead of just one.

Cinched up.  The bag measured about 7 inches x 9 inches
and she was really excited when she saw it.

And these:

Premade Minky blankets, which had to be unstitched, hooped, embroidered, and stitched back together.  

Overnight.  But it was for twinsies!  How can you say No to that?

And finally, this:

Working on about 60 purificators and finger towels for my church's Altar Guild.  These were samples that I had stitched out previously, but they needed them to be smaller (these are an inch high) so I resized them yesterday and stitched out the smaller samples since my embroidery unit was already in place.  Forgot to photograph the final result before I dropped them off for the liturgical coordinator to review.  Oops.  I think they will like the smaller versions much better.  The circled ones at the bottom are the design they liked.  (These are available here.)

Now - 54 pieces cut out; 54 pieces all marked, clipped, and ready to be sewn; one thrift store suit coat torn apart to recycle the shoulder pads & sleeve headers (can you believe it?  Not a single fabric store anywhere in sight sells shoulder pads for mens suit coats - in fact, only one pattern company even carries a pattern for a men's suit coat!) - it was a great bargain, as the coat only cost $6 and I can use the thrifted wool for a purse or something.  If I can get the Sewing Assistant off of it long enough.

Speaking of whom, he INSISTED on helping with my son's jacket, every step of the way.  Or every SIT of the way.  He even went so far as to pull pins out while I was in the process of marking & clipping.  I think he got fired about 6 or 7 times today, only he kept forgetting and kept returning to work.  

The World's Largest Pattern Weight.  Not available in stores.

Somehow, I don't think he finds that last joke funny.  I'd better watch myself.....

I know where you live.

A Challenge of an Unusual Sort

It's Prom season.  Which means that in addition to my regular clients, I have random young'uns calling & texting to see if I can hem/alter/rebead/re-hem dresses in preparation for their big day this coming Saturday.  My son's band banquet is this Friday as well, and it's semi-formal.  Being of the t-shirt and jeans ilk, he doesn't have much in the way of dress wear.  I had even bought a McCall's pattern (M6044) not too long ago when they were on sale, thinking that he would like to have one or two dress shirts.  No go.

He loves to read online comics, especially MS PaintAdventures and Homestuck (by Andrew Hussie).  There is a character that goes by the name of Dave Strider, whose " incredible coolness also enables him to stay level-headed when dealing with supernatural things, (like SBURB) incredible things (like METEORS or TIME TRAVEL), or generally disconcerting things (like seeing his own corpse or talking about his DEAD FRIENDS" 

Don't ask.  I'm still trying to figure it out.  Suffice to say, he would like to attend his band banquet this week dressed like Dave Strider.  I guess there will be enough students there who are aware of the online comic enough that they will get the reference, but to carry it off, he will need my assistance.

Thus the Challenge.

The banquet is Friday.  Today is Sunday.  I have the next four days to come up with a fitted, lined suit coat for my son.  Oh, and it has to be red.

Oy.  I thought maybe I could find a jacket to fit my tall, thin Cool Guy that I could overdye in red, but no such luck.

So today, we went shopping at Joanns Fabrics, where the clerks are always slightly bemused by whatever odd hunt I happen to be on at any given moment.  It's amazing how they get roped into the story, whether it's finding just the right non-gender-specific flannel for preemies in the hospital, to shiny ribbon for shorts and the multi-hued sequined trim for a corset for a Rocky Horror costume:

to rhinestone straps to remake a prom dress for a young lady who had her own job, paid her own way to Prom, but couldn't really afford a dress of her own (a friend of hers gave her a gently used one which I repaired, took in slightly, and changed the straps to give it an all-new look):

  to skin colored fabric for a biology project, to repeated attempts at matching thread for any of the recent projects you've seen here.  

Now you know why they all look up and ask querulously, "What are you working on NOW?" when they see me coming.   (My own fan base?)

So this week's challenge:  to be able to finish up the two prom dresses I'm altering and hemming (three and four skirts on each one, thankyouverymuch) and still have enough time to make this:

look like this:

Game on.  Stay tuned for updates.