Yippppppeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Yesterday was Grandparent's Day, and we received the very best news of all........another grandbaby is on the way.

The Princess will have a brand new playmate in the Spring! So exciting, so exciting!

Of course I said, "Is it A Girl?"

And The Pregnant One said, "But Mama, will you still sew for it if it's a Little Boy?"

Music to my ears......I have a lot of planning and sewing and smocking to do, now don't I? Perhaps an entire layette in pink (and another one in blue, just in case) is in the future.....

The Proud Daddy noted that It could be one of each, A Boy and A Girl.......or two of each! Wouldn't that be fun!

I didn't sleep at all last night.......

Still Here....

First off, thanks to all of you who have left comments and sent get-well e-mails my way. It's nice to be on the receiving end of such good wishes....

Yes, I'm still here, slowly recuperating. I returned to work yesterday, and if nothing else, work is certainly good for taking your numb little mind off your troubles. Today was pretty good--I ate real food today. For the past 8-10 days my husband has kept me alive with mashed potatoes and chocolate pudding. He made me some grits a couple of times, just as a treat.

I was in so much pain that I went back to the Ontist Guys last Thursday for a look-see, just in case. I was almost blind with pain at that point and had decided that my jaw was broken, or worse. After seeing an x-ray we all knew why I was hurting so badly. During the removal process I lost four pieces of bone in the jawbone and mouthbone (hey! new word!) area. So I left with a new super-duper pain medicine prescription.

Yes, kiddees, there's a new Percoset out there now that is double the strength of the old Percoset. The Ontist Guy said it was the strongest pain med he could give me, so when it didn't work either I didn't go back and tell him, since the only further relief he could offer was to just shoot me. And no, it didn't help. It just numbed my mind...I'll have more on that later.....

Since my late father-in-law was in fact himself an Ontist Guy, I remembered that he used to use oil of cloves in his practice (I have lots of experience being a dental patient), and I asked my husband what the oil of cloves actually does when they put it on teeth. He said it deadens the nerve in the tooth. So after a couple more days of me crying and carrying on he brought home a teeny little bottle of oil of cloves. I dipped a Q-tip in it, dabbed it all around the ouchie, and in 3 minutes I was PAIN FREE.

It works. It works. IT WORKS! I got on the internet and looked it up and found that it is an antiseptic and an analgesic. It is magic. And it is dirt cheap, too. Go buy some, right now. I have three highly priced and so-called highly effective pain prescriptions here that would not even TOUCH this pain, but a simple little thing like oil of cloves solved my problem. I'm going to live, after all.

Once you get some you will recognize its scent. It's the stuff that is used to make potpourri smell so nice. Your Ontist Guy has probably dabbed you with it, too, at some point. Love this stuff. Tastes like poison (just have a paper towel ready to wipe your tongue off) and two or three dabs with a Q-tip are all you need. I'm carrying it around in my purse, just in case.

Remember this?



I had started working on it right before The Jaw Bone Incident, and had only gotten this far:



The yarn is Noro, and I spread out some of the skeins for you to admire the coloration. These are all the same color.

Here's a close up of the stitch pattern. It is a sort of traveling wave, with eyelets. Sorry for the bad photo, but you kind of get the idea, I hope:



A special note to Candle, who is thinking of smocking a poncho (check her link out in the sidebar, I just love her stuff!):

Yes, I've been thinking about your idea, but I have a couple of questions for you.....is it for an adult or a child?....do you want a yoke top or just the gathered bishop neckline....do you want a hoodie?....what length do you have in mind?....what kind (and weight) of fabric are you going to use?.....I have some ideas in my head for you.

No More Almonds

Oh, woe is me. What an awful last few days. Want to lose 5 lbs in 7 days? Chomp down on whole almonds like I did, and break a molar. Let the molar be one that has a $$$ porcelain crown on it, too. And let the break be in the dead center of the molar, so that the fracture goes straight down the middle of the tooth. And let your molar have the roots of Alex Haley. They will be so extensive, and so deep, and so embedded that when they come out, two of them will bring little pieces of your jawbone with them.

My dentist had that "look" on his face when he examined me. You know the one. That look that means "Gosh, I could write a Pain Filled Dentistry journal article on this one. Hmmm, has she signed a release form yet? Definitely gonna need a signature.....". That look also means "I'm not touching this one with a ten-foot pole. A highly sharpened dental tool, yes, but a ten-foot pole? No way." That look that also means "I'm sending her to one of the Ontist Guys." That look that is gonna cost you some big bucks.

So off I went to the Ontist Guy. He's nice enough, probably mid-fifties, looks like he should know what he's doing, so I'm all A-Okay. Until I see his forearms. This guy has the forearms of a gorilla. That's when I start to get a little panicky.

But I should have saved all that panic for when he actually started working on me. He pulled, he drilled, he pulled, he gave me umpteen shots, and finally he just started cutting on me. So he cuts enough to see that the problem is that the lovely roots are so near/into/whatever my jawbone that they don't want to come out. He warns me first, then uses his giant arm muscules and YANKS. I didn't know whether to pass out or wet my pants. So I did neither.

I leave with stitches, a swollen face and neck, and a prescription for Vicodin. I high-tail it home, hoping against hope that I can make it home and get my prescription filled before the pain shots wear off. Didn't happen. Since I had a 1 1/2 hour drive home, I was almost seeing double by the time I made it in the back door.

And the Vicodin? I took one and it didn't even PHASE the pain. I have an extremely high pain tolerance--I birthed three of these children with nothing at all (not by choice, mind you, it just happened that they wanted to be born RIGHT THEN!!). So I rarely take anything for pain. I don't know if the pain is beyond the level of the drug, or if this particular pain med just doesn't work with my body.

Before all this happened I did finish the sweater I was knitting. I ended up knitting three fronts, since the first two were both right fronts. So I raveled and reknit. I had planned on blocking the pieces over the weekend but that definitely didn't happen.

I had also started the little Noro sleeveless sweater and had taken pictures. But Blogger must have a mouthache, too, since I can't post any pictures.

I'm holding out hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

BUTTerick 4132 Is Truly A BUTT, part 2

Butterick 4132

So I sat down and figured out more adjustments to this accursed pattern, and then I:

• added another 2" FBA
• took out the extra at the lower side seams of the front as in version #1
• consulted with my Fashion Advisor, who suggested I remove 1/2" of the fullness at the center back neck
• lowered the armhole just a tad (3/16")
• extended the armhole seam about 1/2" just in case
• cut it out
• sewed it together

And have now wasted another 2 1/2 yards of innocent smocking fabric.

And hey, I was all photo ready this time! Hairdo, full makeup, smiling, you know the drill. But I just could not hide the TTO look on my face, so I cropped. That's for Totally Ticked Off. So now you know.

To prove that this is indeed ANOTHER one, look carefully and you will see that I marked the center front line with a PENCIL. I used a pencil only because I could not find a gigantic black magic marker.




The back neckline is much improved. Thank you, Fashion Advisor. Too bad that's the only nice thing I have to say about this torture.

I should point out (or maybe not) that I am a nerd. I pinned. I basted. I pressed. I serged. I even understitched, for Pete's sake. I am meticulously precise when it comes to sewing. I take my time with a project like this, making absolutely sure that any defects are not due to cutting offgrain, stretching, etc.

Here's the pit shot:





Yes, I shaved, just for you.

The side shot--I'm wearing booty pants today. This project is just full of BUTT, isn't it?




Horrors beyond horrors.

This thing is now about 4 inches larger in the bust than I am. So what gives?

Do you ever start to embark on an adventure and that Little Voice in your head whispers "this doesn't look right?" Or like in the situation presently at hand where I kept hearing "this just doesn't look NATURAL." The first time I looked at the pattern piece below, something struck me as very odd about it.

Test time! See if it speaks to you, too!




Here's what it looks like folded in half down the center front. The top portion is the front facing. You fold it in down in half so the armholes meet.



Another hint: This is cut on the true bias, remember, class?

In the next photo I have folded down the front facing and sort of draped the neckline down into a cowl shape:



I knew, just KNEW, that that bias armhole wasn't going to wear or hang correctly. So why oh why oh why did I make TWO of these things??????

The armhole as presented on this pattern are almost circular. In order to form the shoulder, the bias armhole is contorted. And it really doesn't want to be contorted. I have known for eons that the fit/grain/cut on the shoulder determines the total success/failure of a garment.

Lucky for me, three Well-Known Experts in the field just happened to drop by for a glass of cold sweet tea--here's M. Rohr (all he could do was demonstrate an inset cowl neckline, so no hope there) and Jack Handford, who isn't really into pattern design, but sweet tea is sweet tea.....




But my Very Best Friend, Helen Armstrong, came to the tea party, too:





And right there, on page 219, I found this:




Even though this is diagramed to demonstrate a bias back neck cowl instead of a front neck cowl--look at the armholes, people!

Lesson learned. Listen to the Little Voices. Put down the scissors and THINK.

Some Very Good News

I've had my mind read. Yep. By someone 12,000 miles away. I've been thinking about doing this very thing and I opened up the new Australian Smocking and Embroidery issue and there it was! I should trust my instincts more. Someone else did, and I have fallen in love with it. Can you believe I was also thinking of doing this in Hersheys Dark Chocolate, too???



Although I must admit that I was thinking of a fitted yoke with a zipper. They went for elastic in the waist instead. Gorgeous.

And there's also this, which has a very unique smocking pattern--it has zigs, but no zags:





I've also spent time with the new Sew Beautiful issue but am not really impressed. But this one does make me yearn for a teeny little fall breeze:




Beautiful smocking pattern.

Final Thoughts (subtitled Gee, I Thought She'd Never Shut Up)

If you need to grade patterns, buy the Handford book.

If you want to do some truly fancy design elements, buy the Rohr book.

If you want to do fancy design but need a little more direction or hand-holding or whatever, buy the Armstrong book. She has over 20 pages of just COWLS!

Butterick 4132--A Muslin

Any normal person would be too embarassed to post fat pictures of herself on the internet, wouldn't they? Just as my family has long suspected, I am not normal. Evidence:

Photo 1-the front shot of my muslin for the cowl neck top, Butterick 4132, in a size 18:




Out of respect for the tender-eyed among you, yes, I have cropped off my head and lower body. The hair and face after a long day at work (followed by a two hour nap once I got home) are a little the worse for wear. And the shapeless yoga pants? Old Navy, five years ago, five bucks. Absolutely my favorite thing to put on when I come home. Jealous, are you?

I made this as a true muslin to test the fit, length, bust, and overall look of this top. It is 100% cotton from the pile of fabric upstairs. It is bias cut. This is View A and has only 3 pieces.

Adjustments I made before cutting out:

One, lengthened waist length 1" at adjustment line on front and back.

Two, made a 2" FBA to the front pattern piece, which was quite tricky once you factor in that it is bias cut and has NO darts at all. Nada. So I used the FBA adjustment guidelines in the new issue of Burda Plus that just so happened to arrive in the mail. If you do it their way, as a final step you have to add a dart from the hemline UP to the bust (which I didn't want) or you take out the dart amount from the side seams (which gives you a slightly curved hemline in front). I went with the latter method.

Photo 2-the side shot:




This photo shows several things:

One, the slight curve in the front hem area (I didn't put in a hem).

Two, the nice cowl in the front, which is quite nice even in a firm woven fabric with absolutely no drapability (I think I just made that word up!)

Three, the apparent gaping at the back neck. The back neckline is cut pretty much straight across, so if I were actually using a soft fabric it would form a small dippy cowl thingee back there, too, which is exactly what it is supposed to do.

Four, the armhole fit, which is pretty perfect as far as I'm concerned. Yes, I am wearing it now. No binding, no gaping, pretty happy with it.

Five, my butt isn't as big as I thought it was (from the side at any rate).

Six, this is valid evidence that I don't work out enough. Hmmm, should I sew or exercise.......?

Photo 3-the back view, also known as "She's About To Fly Away!":



This photo shows:

One, see, I told yall I had really long arms!

Two, the shoulder fit (I like it).

Three, photographic evidence nonwithstanding, I am NOT wearing droopy granny underpants.

Four, my hair is not shorter on one side than the other. That was some nap, letmetellya!

Photo 4-The simulated Hair Test:




Works for me. I really like the shape and scoop of the armholes.

Those of you who are actually WEARING your contact lenses, as opposed to letting them marinate in sterile containers, may have noticed the safety pin stuck in there among the boobage. It is not there solely as an Eye Test. It marks the middle of the area I need to work on.

Either I need a little larger FBA or I need to move the existing FBA down a bit. Since this thing has a cowl it is really difficult to decide for sure if the existing FBA is in the correct spot, but I'm pretty sure that it is. I'm going to take this top off and compare the bust point on this finished top with the original bust point on the pattern, even though I did all that before I cut the pattern. Who knows? Maybe I was caffeine-depleted at the time. Measuring again will tell the tale.

Finally, Photo 5-Random Teenagers making fun of their mother as she laments her appearance (droop, droop, droop):

The one on the left is showing off his guns, and the one on the right is demonstrating the concept of EXERCISE. You can only wish your own offspring would be so helpful and considerate, huh?

I Got Seduced At The Mall

Yes, I did. By this:






















And I am enjoying every second of it. Who says you can't buy happiness?


This is Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby. Fabulous. No, I haven't ever done any lace knitting. But you betcha I want to now, after buying this book. I had seen it mentioned on several blogs and of course, as usual, I went by what I had previously read about it before even plucking it off the shelf. The photo on the front is what seduced me. I followed my usual method of not even flipping through it first--if you've been a reader for a while you know that the ANTICIPATION of getting this home, all to myself, with a cup of coffee is worth the wait.

I wasn't disappointed. The designs are wonderful (there are only two that I wouldn't consider knitting) and the photography is outstanding. Gorgeous stuff. Buy one if you can. This is one of those books that will be out of print 5 years from now and will command huge $$$$ on eBay. Maybe I should invest in another copy to resell later......

If anyone knows where to get the skirt fabric on the front cover, please say so. It, too, is beyond beautiful.

I need some lace weight yarn, I think. And somewhere to go so I can wear a lace shawl in hot pink.

I Can Type Better Now

It's been too hot here to do anything except swat at gnats. When I got home from work around four on Friday afternoon, it was 105 in the shade on my backporch. The heat index was 117. Dudes, it's really hot here.

I finally caved in and cut off my fingernails. Although I have been able to put in my contact lenses, I had been relying on the Random Teenager and Number One son to take them out for me every night. After a week of this, they got together and decided to start CHARGING me a fee for this service, per eye. I couldn't even get a discount rate for having a pair of eyes, so off came the fingernails. I have spawned a bunch of capitalists.

The fingernails always seemed to come in handy. I used them as screwdrivers to tighten up cabinet door knobs, and as a knife to pick locks. They were my favorite sewing tool, since they made excellent shovers, like when I needed to feed something carefully under the sewing machine needle. I haven't sewn through my finger (knock on wood) but I have hit a fingernail several times.

At any rate, I missed them terribly this afternoon when I was finishing up this:






















Yes, it's Woodstock. Finished at last.


Here's a close up of the snap closing:

Here you can see that I cheated and used the snap tape:

I'm very pleased with this. I still have a line of basting around the body in case it needs a cute little tuck or two. And I think it probably will. What we need now is a try-on.

Here's the official On The Hanger photo of the front:





It looks really purply here for some reason. And the back photo:




I'm happy.

Next up: A bias cowl neck top muslin!