Family Photo Season

One good thing about the end of the year...everyone seems to be a little more willing to be photographed.  It's sort of expected that there will be Family Pictures Taken. 


The first picture was taken on Thanksgiving Day, after the pecan pie evaporated.  It's hard to believe those sweet kids have grown up into these awesome adult people....or that it happened so incredibly fast...

 

 

 

 

 

Picture two was the Christmas Letter Photo... these are the ones who are still at home. 

The holiday season is a great time of year, if for no other reason than I  get to hang out with these folks a little more than usual.

How Fast Can I Type?

I've got to load up and head out to school in about 20 minutes...but yesterday was a Significant Sewing Day and I want to get the details and pictures up before I go, so...if the grammar and spelling are neglected, I'll fix 'em when I get home ;)

The significance wasn't in the sewing I did, but in the sewing related things I did. A fellow Pattern Review member, Peggy L, was in town to celebrate the opening of a new Jason's Deli, which is managed by her son-in-law. It just so happens that the new deli is just around the corner from one of the Hancock's stores in town, so Peggy and her daughter and I decided to meet up there to take advantage of the Vogue and Butterick pattern sale. (I bought a bunch of patterns; I'll talk about those in detail next week). Whilst we were perusing, I found a batch of really nice rayon/lycra jersey knits that were on sale for 1/2 price. Now, I had just been lamenting to myself this week that I needed a few more really nice long-sleeved knit tops...so I bought three two-yard pieces:


Yeah, they're all black and white...it's Black and White for choir this month; incentive to not let them sit around. ;)

Then we met Mr. L at Jason's for lunch (which was excellent; I'll go back w/My Sweet Baboo sometime) and Peggy's daughter snapped a photo before we left:


We had a lovely time; it's always great to meet an on-line friend in real life ;)

I came home, threw the knits in the washer and dryer ran some other errands and took care of other laundry; then, last night while My Sweet Baboo was attending a symposium, decided I *must* make one of those knits up. I was near to distraction, anyway, since I couldn't seem to get a stitch in edgewise on one of my own projects.


So, after a couple of false starts w/patterns that weren't ready to cut for one reason or another, I defaulted to my TNT Vogue 7799. I think the print is slightly off grain; hard to tell, with a knit, because you can't just check a crosswise thread to see, but it behaved as if it were off grain. I kind of struggled to get the lines straight (evidenced by the misaligned motifs on the underlayer at the left shoulder. Oh well.). And there was no way to avoid having *some* print element right at the bustline. I finished it at 12:15 AM...how crazy is that?...but it sure felt good to have something wearable. My Sweet Baboo was still up, since he'd been out late anyway, and I got him to take a photo.

Hopefully, I'll look better in the top in a future choir Sunday photo...maybe even tomorrow!

Ooops! Time's up...gotta run...

Bonus Post: Me, too...the Five Things Tag

When I saw that Danielle from Final Fashion had tagged Mary Beth at The Stitchery, I realized that the game had made the jump to the sewing bloggers...and that sooner or later I'd probably get tagged. The deal is this: If you are tagged, you
1) Post 5 things about yourself that you have never posted
2) Tag 5 people whom you'd like to know more about

Sure enough, Gaylen, who writes G Marie Sews tagged me this morning...

SO, Part the First...hopefully, I haven't already posted any of this stuff:

1) I've fed lions. Really. My uncle was a vet student at Purdue when I was a kid, and part of his college funding plan including working with the animals in the small zoo that was attached to Columbia Park (suddenly that doesn't look right...I hope my memory isn't failing me.) in Lafayette, IN. While he was there, one of the lionesses gave birth to triplets, which were named Tom, Dick and Harry. However, Mama Lioness rejected two of the triplets, so Uncle Ronnie had the task of bottle feeding them for a little while. He brought them out to my Grandparents one weekend and we all got to see (and bottlefeed) the cubs....just a little. Even at the young age of those babies, they were still lions and they still had very sharp teeth and claws. So we fed them VERY CAREFULLY.

2) I am an (inactive) member of the Professional Disc Golf Players Association...number 1818. DH & I actually played in tournaments before we had kids; I usually ended up solidly in the middle of the competition, if there were more than three ladies who showed up to play ;). I like Disc Golf; you can play a whole 18 hole round in an hour and a half or so...if you're having a bad round, it doesn't hurt for so long. However, it's been so long since I played regularly that I need a calculator to keep track of my score...

3) I play the clarinet, and was drum major of our high school marching band my senior year.

4) I HATE SPIDERS

5) I am a definite Night Owl...it's much easier for me to stay up late than it is to get up early. If I had my druthers, I'd stay up until 2 AM or so and then sleep until 9 or 10. Unfortunately, society does not run on those hours. (DH is, of course, a Morning Person who hates to stay up past 9:30 PM. Why does it always happen that way?)

I watched as the tags have hopped around a number of the blogs I read, with a sinking feeling that, by the time it got to me, most of the bloggers I know would have been tagged already. It can't just be any ol' blogger...it's got to be someone who might actually read this blog. I mean, it wouldn't do much good for me to tag the Superfantastic Manolo, as I doubt he drops by lowly Sew Random. And I can't tag my mother...she doesn't blog.
Hence the immediate response to Gaylen's tag...I'm afraid if I wait until tomorrow, there won't be anyone left!

But, I don't think these folks have been tagged yet...and I *think* most of them check in here from time to time...so, I tag:

Mamafitz
Pins and Needles
Gorgeous Things
The Southern Sewa
and Rustybobbin

I *would* tag Jemimabean, but I'm cutting her some slack since she's in the midst of the post-ice-storm apocalypse and there is no electricity in her neck of the woods. (ETA: I just noticed that Shannon tagged Jemimabean already anyway...gee, this is like buying fabric from Emmaonesock's roll ends page...ya gotta be quick....)

I will say that it has been fun reading all the "five things" that others have posted...I'm surprised by how many superb vocalists there are who sew and post (I am not one)...and I've found some new links, too. So this has been a Worthwhile Project. ;)

A Holiday Treat

Just in case someone hasn't already heard it, if you want a real holiday treat, check out Gorgeous' Things blog for today -- Gorgeous Things' Blog: Joyeux Noel!

Not only is Ann a Sewing Diva extraordinaire, she sings like a nightingale...

She made me cry. ;)

Lunch with Shannon

You'd never know it, but the Rocket City happens to be the place where internet sewing guru Shannon Gifford grew up. She happened to come to town today for a family event, and I was privileged to eat lunch with Shannon and her lovely parents. It was fun to talk sewing over the corner of the table, and you should've seen the adorable jeans jacket Shannon was wearing...the Kwik Sew pattern (I'm too lazy to look up the number), made in a black-on-white print denim that she got at the dollar table at her local Wal-Mart (I think I need to stop at that Wal-mart next time I'm traveling through her neck of the woods).

She drew a little schematic on a napkin which verified some of my thinking on the pink jacket muslin...I was afraid the most correct fix would be to go back and start with a smaller size, and it looks like I was right.

I shoulda paid for her lunch... ;)

Thanks, Shannon!

Pinch Me

Ok, this has nothing whatsoever to do with sewing, but I'm still amazed and it's the only thing that's presenting itself for sharing today.

DH has been attending Promise Keepers events since the organization had their first stadium events outside of Boulder...I think it was 1994, when he and a handful of other guys went up to the conference at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis (it may even still have been called the Hoosier Dome then...I can't remember). He's brought back books and tapes, which I've read and listened to, which have fed me almost as much as him. For a few years...maybe 96 - 98 or thereabouts, several of the PK conferences were broacast live on Christian radio (actually, they may still be doing that; the local station that carried those conferences has changed formats so we wouldn't be able to get them anyway). One of our favorite speakers, whom we wouldn't miss and whose tapes we listened to multiple times during that time was Wellington Boone, whether he was speaking on marriage, racial reconciliation, or just 'walking the talk,' that brother flat put the truth out there.

Now, fast forward to February, 2006, and Bishop Wellington Boone is the guest speaker ...for the third time...at The Rock Family Worship Center in Huntsville, Al. Serving that body as deacons, DH and I were escorts...for the second time... for Bishop Boone and his lovely and gracious wife, Katheryn, while they were here (it ain't always just sewing costumes and such!). Wow.

Who would've thought that eight or nine years ago, when we were listening and learning, that we'd've been in that position. Certainly not me. So I am still amazed...

Maybe I'll have some sewing to report tomorrow. ;)