A Blast from my Parents' Past

While I was looking through fabrics to steal from my mom, I came across some vintage 70's garb. The first is a button down shirt which was (surprisingly) worn by my dad way back when. No wonder my mom fell in love with him - this pattern reminds me of shower or window curtains that she has made in the past. I wouldn't be surprised if my dad wore this with olive green pants to really wow my mom. I tool this to see what I can do with it - tailor it so it fits me? Use it as fabric in my next project?

Oh, don't worry. I'll show you a bit of my mom's 70's style too. The red, white and blue strip below is a thick knit that she used to put around the bottom of her bell bottoms for decoration. "I still have a pair in storage somewhere." No thanks, mom, I think I'll pass on that. Since I have so much, I can picture weaving it into a funky purse, or using it as straps (it's thick and sturdy). Maybe I'll put some on the bottom of my bell bottoms!

The polka dot is another fun fabric I brought back. There isn't much - it's probably the size of a fat quarter. But I absolutely love polka dots, so I'll collect all that I can.

My Next (Ongoing) Quilt Project

When I was home in Rochester last week, my mom gave me a quilt her mother started. (Hi Grandma!) After the use of Google search, I think it's called a Necker Cube pattern. I love the mathematics behind quilting, and I've always had it in my head to eventually incorporate optical illusions into some of my quilts.

I discovered that EVERYTHING has been done by hand - piecing all those diamonds together must have taken a while! (I also brought back a hoop that was used to hand quilt this.) And quilting it - no wonder my mom never attempted to work on it! This is going to be a big project for me - and I will not use my machine on any of it.

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The quilt is in descent shape. There's one brownish fabric that has literally dissolved. And some of the off-white fabric is stained (both are in the picture below). The good part is that most of these diamonds are in areas that aren't quilted yet, so I can go in, cut them out, and hand-sew new diamonds. There are one or two stained ones that I might want to replace that are smack-dab in the center of the quilting. I might have to think about how much time that will take to un-do and re-do. Could I first try hand-washing them out? I did take a few fabrics from my mom that might fit nicely into this quilt, but it might take some time to find the right off-white since it's used in ever trio of diamonds.

A Mathemagical visit

It may shock you to know that I was a giant Math nerd in high school. (gasp!) I memorized 85 digits of Pi, I made it to the A Team for MathCounts in 8th grade (take that, Dan Ketchum!), and as an alternate at the NY state Math League Meet my Senior year. Yes, I still have my Math League shirt, and yes, I made my own for Math League. One of my math teachers pretty much told me that if I was asking for harder work to do for homework, It'd be hard for me NOT to get an A+ in his class. As a self-proclaimed "Math Nerd," there have been times that I thought I'd lost the mathematical spark. Like the time I ended up getting a C in a math class in college (it was only one and my senior year), or when I decided not to go to grad school, or the time I worked for an insurance company and I felt like a drone.

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Well, my friends, my love for Calculus sparked once again. I was visiting my "best high school math friend" when I was home last week. Kevin gave me a tour of his apartment, as I had never before visited. There was a specific closet which is dedicated to math. He had all his college notes in binders, labeled and placed on a bookshelf. On the opposite wall were all his high school math books. No, Kevin didn't steal them from Churchville-Chili, he is now a math teacher.

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I gasped, my jaw dropped - I was stunned. How could I not have a math closet after all these years? I like Sudoku's before they were popular! Why had my interests veered towards sewing and sports. Where did my dedication go? Once I realized that I can still out-math Dan Ketchum, I felt a bit better. And to you, Mr. Laley, I tip my hat. You were voted most likely to succeed in high school, and a closet dedicated to math is about as successful as one can get. Euler would be proud. You've inspired me to re-memorize pi.

Jumping Julianna, Batman!

When I got a phone call Sunday morning asking if I wanted to skip church to watch my twelve-year-old cousin (Hi Jules!) in her horse show, I jumped (but not while on a horse) at the chance. For those of you who don't know, I had a horse growing up, and took riding lessons for a few years. The fact that Julianna loves horses is awesome, but I also need to throw in the fact that she's a Girl Scout too. And you all know how much I'm involved in Girl Scouts.

I was impressed at Julianna's posture (and while thinking about it, I'm trying to sit up even straighter) while riding. What poise, what focus! She must have stolen some of that from her dancing older sister. (Hi Liz!) And if it weren't for her spastic little brother (Hi AJ!), she might not have as much experience ignoring her surroundings and focusing at the task at hand.

What a great start to my Rochester visit! And for the record, there's a horse name Pi at the stables. Who WOULDN'T want to name their horse Pi??

A Weekend Away

Perhaps you have yet to hear about the craziness at work: picking up extra responsibilities because a co-worker got a new job, planning a conference in Cleveland that is next week, and having my deadlines fast approach (remember that 3.5 months I lost on a project? The deadline was supposed to be today, but now I have another 2 weeks because everything is BREAKING. 2 weeks is good, breaking is not good.)

Last weekend marked the first of three consecutive "out-of-Austin" weekends. My church planned a retreat to Mo Ranch, a Presbyterian-owned ranch in Hunt, TX (about 3 hours away from Austin). Just look at the view (and Chantal - she looked so at-peace, I had to take a picture)!

Lauren's voice popped into my head whenever I saw a cactus. She really wanted to see a real, wild cactus (non-landscaped) when she visited. Unfortunately, there weren't too many in the city of Austin, but I'm sure if we took a hike in the park, we would have seen some. Yes, this is a real-live cactus.

Carsickness likes to sneak up on me with long trips. My carpooling car-mates were nice enough to let me take the front seat both ways there. (It was after writing down 2 sets of Mad Libs that I had to stop and focus on the road.) To make up for it, Elizabeth took me off-roading. She went through this hedge, and we were surprised to see a footpath and basketball court. I'd have to say driving around in the dark, not knowing where we were going was one of the best parts of Mo Ranch.

There was a butterfly bush right outside my building. I stood there for about 10 minutes trying to get some good pictures. Then my camera battery died because I hadn't charged it in a LONG time! I love the contrast of the purple & green.

Little Emma seems to be in a lot of my blogs. The 6-month-old has an obsession with pulling hair and touching things. She sat down next to me, and quickly reached over to touch my head. In this picture, I think she was baptizing me.

I was happy to see some trees with changing leaves. We don't have green grass in Texas - it's too dry. But here, at Mo Ranch, I can say "the sky is always bluer." (This is by far my favorite picture.)

An Interactive Fun Pad Costume

I had a parade of costumes this year for Halloween (I know, I'm late on posting this), but none takes the cake (or took more time to make) than my interactive fun pad costume. The second most fun thing to do in any car ride (Mad Libs wins #1), I created a human-size Fun Pad. Sadly, my costume was not filled out at work, but when I told my kickball teammates about it the following Tuesday, they jumped at the chance to color by number. Yes, that's a Rubik's Cube in the color-by-number.

Fearless Fiasco Flag

My soccer team's name is Fearless Fiasco. Someone (Matt - also a Hokie and Presbyterian) had a fun idea to make a giant flag for the team. This is what I came up with (sorry, I didn't clean off the flag before I took the picture.) The tornado logo on the shirt was designed by Matt, and I tried to copy it as much as I could on the flag. The flag measures 42 x56, so it's giant. Matt will buy PVC pipe to carry it, and have some form of metal stake to put into the ground for the pipe to fit around. I did a tight zig-zag stitch around the tornado.

I didn't get to finish the back of the flag - you'll see what it looks like below, but I could cut out the purple inside the tornado to reveal white. It'll look cool, but I didn't want to stay up past 11pm last night working on it. Here's a close-up of the shirt too.

More pictures of Dorothy's dress

I had fun making the bows. It gave me memories of making giant barrettes in the early 90s. How cool we were to decorate our own! The red fabric was tough to use. I ended up doing and redoing a shoe (and still not liking it), and then almost not having enough fabric.

I was so proud that I was able to criss-cross the dress in the back (the distance from shoulders to shoulder blades is very small in a 5-month-old compared to an adult.) Did you notice the edging around the top is at a 45 degree angle? I did that to add a little personality.

The super-secret sewing project is revealed!

I can assure you this is not my child. But, that is an original Shelley dress, original Shelley ruby red slippers, and original Shelley bow. In attempts to save money, I was asked by a friend (hi Babita!) if I could make her daughter's Halloween costume. Thank goodness the parents wanted a basic costume, and not something super-complicated like a dinosaur or super-layered like an onion.

Babita, the baby, and I went shopping for the fabric lace, and buttons using JoAnn's exciting 40% off coupons for everything that wasn't already on sale. I think the total outcome came to ~$8. The fabric for the shoes ended up coming from my quilting coworker (thanks Lane!), which was so much better than what we initially bought. To make it easier on me (and I disguised it by saying "making it easier for anyone who dresses the child"), the buttons don't button - there's Velcro underneath. Oh how I love to avoid making button holes!

I've gotten many praises and compliments on it from Babita - and I don't think they're all to butter me up for next year's costume. She said she loves it even BETTER than what you can buy online or in a store. (It's probably better quality too.) The family sent out Halloween cards of their little one, and they've gotten compliments on my sewing work from that too.

To me, it's like dressing up a doll. It wasn't too much work, and anything looks cute on a baby! Plus, I had about 3 "dress fittings." What a great excuse to hang out with my friends!