going through withdrawl

yep, thanks DH coming home in 4 hours..woohoo.....gave up trying to get house work done...after 4 loads of laundry (one of the cats sprayed a pile of blankets) I had enough.

Have to vacum the basement and then I can start wokr> Hi Larissa,

snip

I recently finished another Folkwear pattern, the Thai Blouse in a nice light cotton voile, printed all over with wild orange and pink flowers and leaves. I also finally wore the Chengosam (also Folkwear) the other day and got compliments on it. It is a dark green batik. Since Folkwear has started reissuing some of their patterns in a larger size range, I have been buying and making up some of my faves. Many of them I have sized up, but some of the patterns have odd shapes and are not easy to resize. The next time it gets cool around here (so I am inspired) I will make the Chinese Coat pattern up in some nice blue merino w/ purple trimmings. I also have a victorian walking skirt on the drawing table - this will be a puzzle, because the checked linen I have is not an even pattern. The colors go black, dark blue, blue, black, dark blue, blue ... I don't want the patterns to suddenly change directions 1/2 way around, so it will take some careful layout and a lot of thinking.

liz young

Wow! great...my mind is spinning with the images I've gotten..thanks!!!

Larisa

Elizabeth Young wrote:

My projects are more mundane: school uniforms for DD. They are still "optional," but all her friends are wearing them so she wants uniforms as well... Hers will be a little more fun than the stiff work clothes fabric they make the RTW out of. She likes circle skirts and ruffles, neither of which are standard uniform styles, so out come the patterns I drafted for her play clothes.

I am also crocheting a blanket out of Red Heart "Baby Clouds" yarn for my friend's new granddaughter who arrived ahead of schedule this week. A simple hooded blankie design, but the yarn is a real BEAR to work with. Size N hook and lots of pulling out stitches because the fibers are so loose. But my friend got a preview today and is happy with what I have done, so I'm not sweating it.

I bet nesting will kick in big time in the next few weeks, Larisa. Enjoy it and spend extra time with your son before you get too nervous! :-)

Beth,

According to DS's godfather, it has already kicked in (he remember his wife going through this with both of their children, and since he has known me for 16 years, he decided it was the only logical conclusion for all my activity lately). So far, I have gotten the entire master bedroom painted (except for the ceiling), which was the only room that hadn't been decorated. I couldn't stand the thought of another winter in an all white room. While DH was out of town, I finished the painting (he and DS helped me get the last wall done before DH headed to VA for a week). I also repainted the dresser, moved it to where I wanted it (under the window), repainted a bookstand and organized everything that was on it), bought 4 new pieces of artwork (a Norman Rockwell print, and

3 repros of old advertisements). There are still 2 bookshelves that need repainting, but I don't want to deal with them right now....they can wait for a few months as far as I am concerned because the rest of the room is done.

I have also reassembled the crib in our room because we decided that for the first few months, it would be easier for DH to help out if the crib was only a few feet away from the bed (he may not be able to breastfeed, but he can get his butt out of bed and bring her to me ).

Yesterday, I vacumed nearly the entire house (not the guest room or the stairs), sorted and threw out a lot of extraneous papers that had been immoblie for a few weeks, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, ran 4 loads of laundry (it was only supposed to be 2, but one of the cats decided to spray some blankets that we had in the basement ). Oh yeah, I had my doctors appointment at 9:30 in the morning, and fortunately, a friend was able to watch DS for the hour I needed.

DS has been having major problems with his allergies, so that would explain why he is being such a pain in my head, butt, belly....just a pain in general...wel, allergies combined with missing his daddy.

So, I think the nesting has already kicked in...the doctor *did* tell me that if I move any more furniture, she will personally make sure to kick me in the butt...funny when it is a 4ft tall woman talking to a 5'7" woman...lol, but I get her point..and the nurse seconded it...she is about 6ft tall, so I don't mess with her .

Larisa, who has rambled >

I set out to make a dress in a week, and had it wearable on Wednesday! That's a real accomplishment for me; usually I'd be doing well to cut out in that length of time. So I'm well pleased even though it's only an ankle-length T-shirt and it has no pockets yet.

I made patch pockets today, and expect to attach them tonight. I'm thinking of sewing them on by hand, since it's a Sunday dress (hence the one-week deadline).

The fabric was Phoenix Textiles "Villa Olive", which was labeled interlock, but turned out to be jersey after I washed it. (Maybe I should have told them; I think they have some left, and they don't like to sell mis-labeled merchandise.)

I made a T-shirt before making the dress, and plan to make one or two more.

I'd like to make the dress again from something nicer, but I don't think I'll see silk jersey any time soon, and wool jersey seldom washes well. But I have a length of printed linen to make a similar dress from another pattern.

I just took time out from typing to sew up a bag to match the dress (I'd cut it out and starched it earlier today.). It's literally a bag, just a 4 3/4" x 5 3/4" pillowcase, and after cutting it out, I decided that I wouldn't even hem it, since the Villa Olive doesn't fray. I plan to drop a few coins, a golf pencil, my calling-card sewing kit, etc. into it, fold it in half to make a 4 3/4" x 3" envelope, and drop it into a patch pocket.

(Remeasured in metric: 12cm x 15cm, folding to 12 x 7.5)

Joy Beeson

Hi Larisa, I am also having withdrawals, trying to get my orders done (a pair of worker coveralls in poplin, copied from the real thing and a silk skirt). I have finally decided to replace the quilt on our bed (that my 2 yr. old destroyed with an exacto knife) with one in denim and bright colors. Maybe drunkards path, maybe skewed log cabin. So I hit 2 flea markets today for old jeans. Bought 4-5 pairs for a song, in addition to other goodies. May start cutting out tonight, just to do something for me. I am a bit concerned about quilting through denim but will cross that bridge later.

Better the quilt destroyed than the 2-year old! Eeks, he/she could have done some serious damage to itself with that one. Glad that story had the happier of the two endings!

Karen Maslowski in Cincinnati

I am glad that she didn't cut herself, but had she, she would have stopped, rather than slashing up the entire quilt! It is still a mystery how she got the knife and how no one saw her (I have 3 older children).

Kirsten Sollie

This message was written Saturday night, 13 September

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 14:06:28 GMT, joy beeson sent a message written on 12 September:

Got both sets of patch pockets (for the T-shirt and the dress) installed tonight. I sewed the T-shirt pockets on with a zig-zag, set to zero length at the beginning and end to make a bar tack.

For the dress, I compromised: instead of sewing the pockets on by hand, I sewed them on with a straight stitch, and left a long tail at the beginning and end so that I could thread it into a needle and make a bar tack by hand. Hand tacking the ends was much easier than trying to make a smooth curve at the top of the stitching while wrestling a whole dress at the machine.

I did finally find the pocket pattern -- after drafting pockets directly on the fabric, and making them a trifle smaller than the pattern, which is just as well, as it turns out.

Joy Beeson

At some time, my youngest (who is now 24) played "swords" with two of my good kitchen knives. He cut the blades on both knives. Nobody knew that he had done this, nobody even knew that he had gotten the knives. This was a family with 4 children and two parents at the time. Those poor knives sat on my counter in a block for years, and I recently found someone willing to grind them down for me. I thought I would end up with a collection of boning knives, but it turned out better than that.

The real marvel is that any children live through childhood. We try to "childproof" our homes, we are careful, we teach them, but they inevitably will find something potentially lethal somewhere. When I think back on my own childhood, and the near-misses....gives me chills!!!

I used to see knives displayed at knee level in many stores. I made it a point to talk to the manager about this, warning of possible law suits, dead customers, etc. I do not see such these days (although I don't shop as much as I used to).

Childproofing is terribly difficult, isn't it? DDIL writes safety manuals and she and DS crawled aroung their house one day to locate dangers she should include. He ended up bolting every bookcase and corner cabinet to the walls, had all the shelving and built-in cabinets removed from DGS's nursery. Not sure what was done about the computer room/ study with all the cables and wires, or the antique desks (tall, on spindly legs).

Hear hear! I think humans are born with both a survival instinct and a guardian angel.

Kirsten Sollie

My uncle took an axe to my dad, and dad put a pruning knife right through one leg and pinned it to the other! ARGH! I dunno about how my dad survived childhood, I wonder how my GRANDMOTHER survived sane as long as she did! Unfortunately she died of something like kidney failure following an accident when my dad was about 16, so I never knew her to ask.

Kate, are you sure we aren't related??? My uncle took a shovel to my aunt..he was trying to make her dance, and she finally said enough was enough..he didn't believe her and ended up chopping her toes (they got reattached). My cousin was almost blinded by a lawn dart, thrown by another cousin, I was stabbed in teh shoulder by my mother (accident when I was trying to show off), and who knows what the other cousins did to each other.

Larisa

Kate Dicey wrote:

I'm sure my mother is still traumatized as well..as for me....I made ap oint of getting my first tatoo right next to the scar so that it was always visible......just as a memory.....wanted to actually get it OVER the scar, but they said that the ink wouldn't take equally....

Larisa, l>>I was stabbed in teh shoulder by my mother (accident

I caught my sister in the face with a fishhook. I was casting from the dock. The rule was, if someone is on the dock with a fishing pole, you don't go on the dock until the person w/ the pole turns around a talks to you. My sister just walks onto the dock and Wham! she has my favorite lure stuck through the side of her face. After much yelling and screaming and running in frantic circles, the doctor cut the barb, removed the lure, and everything was OK. I don't think she even has a scar from it.

liz young in sunny california

I caught my brother's hand in a door when he was barely a toddler - the nail still doesn't grow right. AND I broke a badminton racket over his head once...

------------------------------------------------------ Wendy Z Chicago, IL (Moo) Wench Wear Costumes

#525 AIM=wendylady525"Though she be but little, she is fierce""It's the little ones you have to watch out for...""I'm not short - I'm concentrated"--------------------------------------------------------

James broke his ankle and shut his finger in the car door in the same week... And in 5 weeks I think he had 6 plaster casts... AND he got trench foot! By the time we were finished with the hospital, they were offering us season tickets!

Dad got the third finger of his left hand mashed in the door of a Canberra PR9 TWICE! The nose cone weighs about 3 tons (because it's full of Radar stuff) and hinges open for the Navigator to sit inside). It never grew a proper nail after that, and was half an inch shorter than it should have been. I don't think Dad used up ALL the accident prone genes in the family, but he certainly had more than his share!