Checkin' In

I have graduated from a big ugly white gauzy Serious Injury type bandage to a largish but much less alarming band-aid on my left index finger; however it's still awkward to use.

Nonetheless, I've managed to get a wee bit of creating done; I'm gonna *try* to go back to choir this month, even though my voice is noticeably weak. Hopefully that will resolve with some singing.

But, we have a new color for choir...salmon...and since I owned pretty much nothing in that color I hit a couple of fabric sales and made a couple of sleeveless tops and a cardigan. Not quite perfectly, mostly due to the basically useless finger, but certainly serviceable.

I hope to manage to get some pictures taken and posted shortly . ;-)

But, I did a little out of the box creating this week, too.

A friend of the Actor's asked him to escort her to her Prom; as it is the high school for which we're actually zoned, most of his middle school friends (which includes his date) will be there. So he should have a good time.

But he is clueless about the etiquette of such things and neglected to order her a corsage.

She said she preferred silk flowers to real ones, so we headed to Hobby Lobby and I looked around for silk tea roses.

They had some lovely, life-like looking roses, but none in the specified hot pink.

The hot pink ones were neither lovely nor life-like; I decided we'd go for something rather steam punkish.

I got a wrist corsage base, a bunch of cheap pink roses, and some black tulle. I had black feathers at home from a previous project.

Now, I am totally clueless about the proper way to construct a corsage. I just snipped 3 flowers from the bunch, discovered I could NOT remove any of the ugly plastic without losing the flowers shape altogether, grabbed the black net and a needle and thread and went to work, pretty much making it up as I went (the high school musical costuming experience pays off):

It turned out better than I expected. The Actor's Date told me she really liked it...but he'd told her I made it, so it's possible she was just being polite. I just hope it doesn't fall apart before the night is over. I had to put it in a ziplock bag to keep the cat from eating it...she likes feathers...

But it does suit her dress.


Ive actually got a Parting Shot...a true statement on the difference between guys and gals...the Actor less than one hour from walking out the door for the big event:

Owie

The Actor got into the car at the bus stop last night announcing that we needed to do a little shopping run because he needed a mask for drama today. I'd ended up at work for about 7 hours yesterday and I was completely worn out, so I told him we'd just have to make do with something from home. There are a few masks around, so he could satisfy his requirement without the exertion of a trip to a store.

He wasn't crazy about the options and, well, one thing led to another and ended up with me deconstructing an orange Lands' End polo that had resided in the sewing room since he'd ripped it beyond repair a couple of years ago; the plan was to make a hasty 'orange ninja mask'.

However, in my haste to get it thrown together I apparently had my left index finger hanging ever-so-slightly over the edge of the ruler as I zipped along it with the rotary cutter. Thanks to my sewing buddy, Miss A, who made a run to the Atlanta Sewing Expo while she was in the area visiting family, I had a nice new blade in the Ergo cutter.

There's now about a quarter inch divot missing from the side of my finger.


My Sweet Baboo bandaged me up, making use of the paper tape I normally reserve for pattern alterations.

Makes typing and sewing rather difficult. I guess I'm gonna be sat down to rest one way or another.

I did manage to get him a mask of sorts put together; not sure if it's exactly what the teacher has in mind or not. It's not very high quality, for obvious reasons, and I didn't get a picture last night.

He did, however, say that he intended to use it if it passes muster...since it cost so much. ;-)

Playing in the Stash

There is fabric ALL over my living room.

In some ways, it's depressing...so much nice stuff; I want to sew it all up...immediately.

Of course, I can't, that's why I'm trying to get it sorted and stored as efficiently as possible; so it's not 'out of sight, out of mind'. I'm swatching and cataloging and even purging a little bit...if I touch it and think, 'Ick!' it's going out...

Some things are not really 'ick', but aren't wonderful either and they're being put aside to use as muslin.

I found spongey-feeling black fabric that was listed as being from the dollar table at Wal-Mart; when I originally bought it back in '03, I wasn't nearly as fabric savvy as I am now and I put down that it was 'Poly? Blend?'

Turns out to be wool gab that went through the washer and dryer. The house reeked all evening last night from the burn test.

I look at the pile of juvenile-appropriate fabric and wonder - should I give it away? Or save it for grandkids? Odds are...it gets saved...

I've found a couple of spots of moth damage. I gotta find a better way to store the woolens.

I'm almost through all the bins; the tough part's gonna be figuring out the best way to get it arranged and labeled so I can find it.

I need to make a strategy so that this stuff gets sewn. I really don't like accumulating fabric; when I buy fabric, I've got at least a seed of a dream of something that's going to come from it.

Time to see some of those dreams actually come to pass.

Here we go again

I wanted to check fit on a couple of jackets to compare with my latest muslin...I thought the quickest way to do that would be to just look at the photos with the reviews.

So I went to one of them and clicked and...the Photoworks link was broken. Again.

Sigh. I clicked through and started to look for it, when suddenly a phase that had flashed by on the home page registered.

'Photoworks is closing. But we've found a great place for your photos!'

(*Beats head on desk. No! No! No!...*)

They have a transfer to Shutterfly all set up and ready to go; I had to create a Shutterfly account and then hit transfer. The photos won't be available for a couple of days whilst the transfer is taking place.

But the issue is...I've got to relink all those photos. Again.

Sigh.

One more shipment...

I have received the last of the fabric orders...and the next one will be wedding-related! Period! I'm cutting myself off 'til then...

The only reason I succumbed to this shipment from Fashion Fabrics club is that, included in the recent 50% off sale was a dark fuschia knit that I thought would be perfect for jammie pants to go with that pink flowered T shirt I made in January. And, of course, no fabric can travel alone, so...


I ended up with 4 pieces of fabric. The khaki was described as a fine line twill; it's actually a cotton/lycra stretch sateen. Very nice. It's a staple item...khaki will get used, sooner or later.

The other two pieces are tropical weight woolens. I know some people say wool and summer in the South are not compatible, but the tropical woolens are no heavier than cotton and they're much nicer than polyester. I *love* tropical wool...particularly when so many places (including my office) are air conditioned to the point of refrigeration (we recorded a temp of 63 degrees in the office last summer...). So, I bought these pieces for pants; but I got almost a whole yard more of the grey glen plaid than I ordered, so I might be thinking about maybe making a sheath dress. We'll see. The hand/drape on it is nothing short of FABULOUS. The black one has shadow striping with some very faint blue threads. Yum.

The quality on all these pieces is very, very nice. I know Fashion Fabrics Club gets some bad press but, by and large, everything I've ordered from them has been really lovely, and at rock-bottom prices. I got this exactly a week after I placed the order, which really isn't even remarkably slow.

Sigh. Now I'm wondering if my level of sewing inspiration is at all compatible with my actual need to put my feet up and rest...

Biting off more than I can chew...

Or, 'Whatever Made Me Think This Was Restful?'

For those who are joining us late, I'm spending as much time as possible at home, supposedly resting up and recovering from mononucleosis.

However, I don't feel particularly ill. I just have no stamina, and an annoying low-level sore throat.

I'd be better off if I were miserably sick. At least I wouldn't be tempted to work beyond my strength level.

But.

Now, I have been puttering about in the sewing room. As in, the last day I sat down at the machine late last week, I sewed the continuous lap on a sleeve. I didn't press it over and topstitch it down, I just sewed it on. That was all I could manage.

But my recent fabric acquisitions have been filling up all the available space in the sewing nook. It has been a while since I swatched and cataloged and put away...so I thought, Hey, that's just sitting at the table with some scissors and index cards; I can do that without expending too much energy!

So, little by little I pulled fabric out of the cabinet that I have down there. I pulled fabric out of boxes that were making it difficult to access the ironing board. I *didn't* get the fabric in box on the sun porch where my cutting table is...I'm still under the delusion hopeful that I can get something made from it soon.

Turns out it's been something like THREE YEARS since I last cataloged my fabric. I was slack-jawed when I saw the pile that I have:















I'm astonished and chagrined that I have so much fabric piled up...and now I had to do something with it.

Now, when we moved into this house I claimed the near end of the attic over the garage as my fabric storage area. I had everything arranged neatly, and I could find stuff.

But about 2 years ago, we re-roofed the house and My Sweet Baboo installed a skylight over my sewing nook...and the reflective tube passed through the eave space behind my fabric storage. He moved all my fabric stuff to other areas of the attic so he could access the eaves, and after the skylight was installed, well, things didn't get put back in any kind of order, and all kinds of other stuff was mixed in with my stash. It was depressing.

So, I had the bright idea that, since I have all this new stuff that needs to be organized in with the old stuff, AND the attic needs a good cleaning anyway, the guys in the family could bring the stash bins downstairs, I can slowly file away all my new stuff and give everything a good shaking out. AND, whilst all that is out of the attic, there's room to do some cleaning/purging of stuff up there to make room for, well, stuff that actually needs to be up there that isn't (just an aside...oh, to have a basement...).

Anyway. They brought the stash bins downstairs last night. I'd forgotten how much stuff was there...



Obviously, some of the mixed-in stuff got brought down, too, but not much. This is about 25 years of fabric accumulation....maybe more, actually, as a bit is from my Grandmother's stash.

Aside from the emotional impact of seeing all these dreams and hoped for projects, which is probably another post, whatever made me think I could do this while I'm recuperating from mono?

But it DOES need to be done.

Sigh. I think I'm going to be looking at that pile in the living room for waaaayyyy longer than I'd like.

Cringing Just a Little

So the Princess has agreed to 'let' me make the bridesmaid's dresses, since she was afraid that Her Dress wouldn't look right if I made it.

Really, that's ok, because I would hate for the girls to have to fork over bucks for a 'bridesmaid's dress' that ain't worth it.

However.

The dress The Princess has chosen is Simplicity 2692, view D, for the bridesmaid's and the same dress, minus the shoulder tie, for her maid of honor.

The Reviews for the one-shoulder version are less than complimentary, by and large.

I'm looking at it and thinking 'Blousy drapey off the shoulder bodice...hm...I wonder what is supporting the top edge of the bare-shouldered version?'

And most of the reviews stated that it ran big.

So...I think I have an idea. I told the Princess if she would get herself some fabric, I'd make a version of the dress for *her*, just to see how it works up.

If it's as beastly to make work as I expect, we may compromise. ;)

Think-Think-Think

My 3rd box of the year from Gorgeous Fabrics arrived yesterday; buying fabric over the internet is always a bit of a guess-what. And, as I've admitted before, this mono stuff has made me just a little denser than normal, so for some reason when I read the description of the blue jersey I pictured something a little different. Anyway, here's the photos:
















(I didn't even notice the white thread on the black cotton/lycra jersey; I was focused on trying to get the blue rayon/lyrca jersey to come out right...) The natural light in the sun porch really washed these out; they're NOT faded in the least. I tried taking a closeup of the blue...that turned out to be a better representation of it.



Anyway, when I read 'It has a sheen to it that looks like silk jersey.', I pictured the silk jerseys ...few and far between they have been,too!...that I've seen, and thought I'd have a matte-type jersey with the barest hint of silky shimmer.

Um, this is a shiney fabric. It's very, very drapey; it behaves very much like slinky, although it isn't.

Now, mind you, the description fits the fabric; I just didn't read it right.

It's still gorgeous, still a marvelous rich fabric, but I don't think it will suit Vogue 1027. Or maybe it's just not matching the picture I had in my head.

In any case, I'm back to the drawing board on this one. I need a dress from it, fairly soon, and I'm not sure what will suit.

Oh, it is just the teensiest bit sheer; I've got some black knit lining that I'll likely line it with, regardless of the pattern.

So...think, think, think....

February Fabric In

Doncha just love the internet? You can be sent home to rest and recover from an illness and STILL shop for fabric...

This arrived from Fabricmart today; the color isn't rendered very well; the red rayon/lycra in the middle looks more coral-ish; it's RED. The other really is salmon and I indulged myself with the burgundy Armani wool.
After I added this fabric to my '2011 purchases' spreadsheet, I realized I'd never shared the purchases that arrived earlier this month, all from Gorgeous Fabrics.


Two rayon/lycra jerseys in mango and deep coral (can you hazard a guess as to the new color we'll be wearing in choir in a month or so?), a yummy embroidered teal cotton, silk herringbone suiting and pinstripe wool.

And there is still one more box en route from Ann...I couldn't resist her latest sale and ordered some fabric to make Vogue 1027 and some staple black cotton/lycra jersey.

Ok. Stopping now... :)

Sleeve Hunting

So, I finished the muslin for the 12/09 Burdastyle jacket last week and transferred all my changes to the pattern; I should have it on the cutting table by now, eh?

But I don't. I couldn't figure out what my reluctance was; so I tried the muslin on my puny self again...and, for your benefit, took a a couple of truly humiliating bad bathroom mirror photos.


Try to ignore the spots/streaks on the mirror (nobody cleans if mom is ailing, you know). This is the muslin, out of exceedingly unstable fabric, and some of the pull lines have been addressed in the modifications I made to the pattern, but I think the biggest problem I've got is that I. Hate. That. Sleeve.

It hangs fine, but it's so big and floppy and what's up with that huge dart anyway? This sleeve is not NEARLY fitted enough to need a dart. I shortened the sleeve and trimmed the width down on the pattern pretty substantially, but I'm not sure it will work because it still has the dart.

So...I think I'm going to embark on a little treasure hunt through my stash of Burda mags and see if I can find a dartless sleeve I can swap for this one.

*later that same day* Suddenly, the statement This sleeve is not NEARLY fitted enough to need a dart jumped out at me; I used the Palmer/Pletsch method of dart smooshing (fold the dart out and just smoosh the resutling fullness in the pattern flat) to get rid of the dart. I think I shall proceed from here. ;)

Jo-Ann's Comes to the Rocket City

There has been at least one Jo-Ann's Fabrics store in The Rocket City in the 30ish years I've been here; it opened in a small strip center pretty much where a very nice independent fabric store had been located (it's sad that I don't remember the name of the store). There was a fire in the center, and the indy store never reopened, but Jo-Ann's was there for a little while. They came, they declined, they went.

Today there was a Grand Opening for a brand spanking new Jo-Ann's. I didn't figure I'd try to go, but I had an appointment on that end of town and, well, I had to look.

I wanted to know if the first thing visible when you walk in the door was fabric. Silly of me, maybe, but that kind of sets the tone for the store. There's a Jo-Ann's in Duluth, GA, that Miss A and I always visit when we make it to the Expo, and there's one in Cool Springs, TN, that we stop by when we do our annual trek to Textile Fabric's Summer Sale.

There's a huge difference. The Georgia store has the fabric front and center; it's what you see when you walk in. I've seen silk, linen, nice cottons...it's a fabric store. The Tennessee store has craft stuff up front, and the fabric tends to polyester.

I wanted to know what we had.

Now, I knew that, since I'm *supposed* to be resting up, I probably shouldn't go. If I hadn't had to get out anyway, I wouldn't have. But the new store was only about 3 miles from my appointment, so...I went, just to have a look.

It's just as well it was just a look. The line for the cash register went all the way to the back of the store. It was crazy.

I could sort of see the fabric all along the left side of the store when I entered; it wasn't front and center but it was visible.

However, a quick walk through...such as I could manage, with the crowd... showed mostly polyester and quilting cotton. I saw a teeny bit of very lightweight silk dupioni that was listed at $25/yard, but no linen or rayon or wool. And they didn't have Burda patterns, which was the main reason I was excited a Jo-Ann's was coming to town.

Sigh.

But I filled out the registration for the gift card drawing just the same before I left. :-)

Squish...

Question: Why would anyone carry antipersperant to work in her purse?

Answer: Obviously, she stopped on the way in for her mammogram.

Are you up to date?

(This has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood sewing blogger)

The Salvaged Silk Top

I'm continually disappointed by the way some garments photograph; silk charmeuse in particular. The color always looks off, and what appear to be horrific puckers along the seams are, in fact, not noticeable. I'm not sure why; I guess it's just that the particular reflection of light is captured, when it is ordinarily very transient.

Maybe. Whatever. The top looks tomato red here; believe me, it's more deep cherry; not a hint of orange in it.

Anyway, I finished the top last night. I've got the review written, and will post it when I have a photo of me actually in the top. It's got real potential for a wardrobe work horse, but I need to tweak the techniques a bit. Mostly I'll swap the goofy football-folded-in-half sleeve flap for a real cap sleeve, borrowed from another pattern.

And I need to find another way to mark the pleats, if I use a fine silk again. The tailor's tacks left holes.

But, it's wearable and it salvaged some fabric that would've otherwise just sat in a bag, sending out clouds of guilt and remorse, so I'm happy. ;)

Simplicity Frustration

Is anyone else having trouble accessing Simplicity's website?

For quite a while now...over a month, at least...I have been unable to click through any links to simplicity.com...not the ones in their emails, not the ones in reviews, not even when I type 'simplicity.com' in the browser line.

When I do, I get a page that says 'Bad Request'.

That's in Firefox. If I switch to IE, I can access it, but it tends to run very, very slow and sometimes just bogs completely down.

I suppose I'm going to have to delete all my cookies or something to click through in Firefox, but I'm curious...

Am I the only one?

...And Evaporating Guide Sheets

I'm totally not functional enough to sew. I'm trying to get some actual work done from home (that's probably crazy, but the work's gotta get done...), and it's using up all my brain function, I think. So the red silk top is waiting patiently, and I've been tracing another pattern bit by teensy bit.

It's the jacket for Vogue 1100. I got some turquoise wool from Fabric Mart last year to make a jacket...turquoise has turned into a regular color in choir...and I think this is the jacket I've decided on. I waffled a bit between it and a very similar Burda pattern, of which I have no image due to the untimely demise of the English Burda magazine website, but I think I like the swingy back pleat on this better.

So, I'm tracing away and I can't find a pocket piece. Maybe it's there and I just missed it; like I said, I'm not the sharpest needle in the pack right now, so I thought I'd check the guide sheet.

I've got the second sheet, and the French sheet, but the first sheet is nowhere to be found.

And I honestly don't know if I pulled it out to read and then didn't get it back into the envelope or if it wasn't there to begin with.

The second sheet begins with attaching the lining to the jacket, so any info about the pocket (or faux pocket) is on the missing sheet. So I'm gonna have to pretend this is a Marfy pattern and figure it out as I go.

Evaporating Silk

A couple of years ago one of my online fabric sources had an incredible sale on silk charmeuse; I bought 4 yards of a deep red, thinking I'd at last get a pair of silk charmeuse PJ's for a reasonable PJ price. I'd made the PJ's out of 3.5 yards of fabric before; I thought 4 yards would be plenty.

About a year or so ago I threw the silk on the cutting table and cut the first 'table load' - the back, sleeves, back facing, pockets and leg band. Then I pulled the next chunk of fabric on to the table to continue and discovered that I didn't have enough fabric.

Turns out was 42" wide instead of 45" wide.

I bundled everything up and threw it in a bag, but it has bugged me ever since. At that price, I should've bought enough for PJ's and a blouse and lining for a jacket...what was I thinking???

Anyway, fast forward to the present. We've had reservations for dinner for weeks at the bread-and-breakfast place where we went for our 30th anniversary and I'm determined to enjoy it. If my throat were screaming raw it might be different, but it's not, so we're going, and I though I'd try to throw together something pretty to wear. I traced off and altered the little top from Simplicity 2570 and then I pulled out the bagged up charmeuse and began to creatively cut it out.

I got the back of the blouse from the PJ back and the little cap sleeves and neckline facings from the sleeves. I only had to cut the shirt front/side front from the remaining yardage, and I could cut them pretty much side-by-side, so I didn't cut a lot more fabric from the uncut length. I'm going to skip the bias band on the sleeve; I'll just turn-and-stitch to finish that edge, or maybe I'll cut bias strips from the leg bands and seam them end-to-end. There'd be too much waste fabric around a long bias strip.

I changed the thread on the sewing machine, fused the interfacing to the neckline facings and hit the wall; as much as I wanted to finish the top, I was out of steam. But it's ready to go as soon as I'm up to it.

According to the pattern envelope, the top takes 1.5 yards of fabric in the largest size. And I have just about exactly 1.5 yards left. I'm having a hard time believing I had an entire yard disappear in the remnants of my PJ top...but maybe I did, counting the scrap fabric in the original layout. I'll get another sleeveless top or a scarf from the rest of the fabric, sometime down the road, but meantime, I've learned my lesson...

Don't skimp on the fabric order! ;)

More Color Thinking

Ok, I need to publicly thank Summerset for the tip on Silk Baron.

Oh.My.Goodness.

I sat down and made a list of no less than 20 colors of dupioni that I could possibly use for the MOB dress, depending on what opinion The Princess has on it. Absolutely gorgeous stuff...and the price is pretty reasonable, too ;)

But, whilst I was thinking about dresses and colors and such, I happened to remember a piece of rayon/lycra doubleknit that I purchased on a whim a little over a year ago from an online vendor. It was listed as 'Cherry Red', but, well, when I got it I thought it was more of a 'Coral Red'; it was definitely to the orange side, which doesn't work well for me.

I put it in the stash, wondering what to do with it, and today I happened to spot a partial bottle of Rit Dye, leftover from the dyeing I did for Complete Works, and I thought, what the hey...and I overdyed that orangey red with burgundy Rit.

Oh, it is SUCH a nice, dark red now! The heat from the water probably wasn't the best thing in the world for the lycra content, but I wasn't using the fabric as it was. Now, I'm thinking I'll see if I can get it made up into Butterick 5382. If it works out, that may be my go-to dress for moderately dressy events, like afternoon weddings for which we will be minor guests (we received 2 invitations this week...)

Hey, I'm inspired...I've got a few more pieces of 'meh' colored fabric in my stash; suddenly, I have options! ;)

Color Change...

The Princess was working on her 'save the date' announcements last night; playing with the colors and printing samples. She told me that Prince Charming didn't really care for the blue color she'd originally planned to use as the accent color in the ceremony, which she'd used for the first samples of the Save-the-Date, so they'd changed to a soft orange, which would be more fall-like.

I basically smiled and said, 'That's nice, dear, we'll need to talk about your bridesmaids dresses soon.' and forgot about it.

(Backing up: I just realized I never blogged about my decision for the MOB dress; probably because I made up my mind while I was off line. I decided to go w/ the Kay Unger dress, Vogue 1182, and I envisioned it in a silk dupioni, cross woven w/ silver and either royal blue or turquoise, which would blend well with the silver and cerulean blue color scheme she'd picked. I didn't know if I could find such a fabric, but I figured I had a bit of time to try...)

Until this morning, while I was making my weekly pass through my favorite fabric vendors, looking for my 'hope-this-exists' silk dupioni, when it suddenly hit me that they'd dropped blue from the plan and my pick might not work.

So I'm back to square one on my fabric choices.

Sigh. I don't know what she's planning to use besides the orange now; I don't know what my options are.

Ah, well, there's time, there's time...

One Muslin done!

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures, mostly because in my puny-ness I look pretty pathetic. But I finished out the jacket muslin (Burda magazine 12/08 # 116). I did a square shoulder adjustment when I traced the pattern, but, based on the muslin, I took in the shoulders at the princess seams pretty substantially and added a pinch of ease around the tummy/hips. It looked pretty good, except for the sleeves, which were huge. I ended up taking about 2 1/2 inches out at the wrist, tapering that up into the bicep, which fit fairly well. I also shaved a bit of the ease out of the back of the sleeve cap (oh, I have just had an epiphany! I realized when I was transferring the other adjustments to the pattern that I'd only actually done half the square shoulder adjustment when I traced the pattern; I raised the shoulder but forgot to raise the underarm. But I was pleasantly surprised that there was just a pinch extra ease in the sleeve cap when I put it in. It just hit me that now that I raised the underarm to match the shoulder, I bet I need to pull some more ease out... I'll fold 3/8" out of the sleeve cap to offset what I raised the underarm). I think I need to shorten the sleeves by about 1/2", too, but that's a minor fix. By and large, this jacket is ready to cut out of some real fabric.

Now, I just need to decide which fabric to try first. ;-)

This will be a really great basic jacket pattern that I can use as a basis for lots of style changes...once I'm convinced the fit's right.

But I'm just really glad that piece is out of the WIP file...I was surprised to see that I cut it out on 2/5/10; it's been waiting for over a year....

And, yeah, I probably should've spent the day on the sofa instead of messing with the muslin. But it was so close to being done... ;)

Hm...Directional Sewing?

I had some time a week or so ago to get to the jacket muslin that's been in the queue for absolutely ages, and I noticed something that I thought was worth a mention.

Notice that the shoulder seams line up nicely on the right shoulder, and are totally wonky on the left:



The only culprit I can think of is that I stitch-marked the seam allowances before I sewed the pieces together, and I sewed the shoulders one way on one side and the other way on the other one, so that one side stretched and the other didn't.

I won't be stitching unstabilized pieces on the actual jacket, but it was interesting to see such a definite illustration of one of Cynthia Guffey's concepts!