Sisters with Hats

Oh, Junior, you didn't expect me to post this, did you?! My sister sent my boys a Halloween card with these pictures in it. These are from about 12 years ago, and we were trying to be very sophisticated with our new hats.


But you know that saying, "You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl?" There's a reason that sayings are sayings.



We Arnolds'll turn redneck in a minute when nobody's watching.

New Fabric Site!

Okay, I don't know if I'll find a lot there to wear to work, but I found TJ's Fabrics, which is a store in Opp, Alabama, or online here for your shopping pleasure. I immediately thought of KID and Kitschy Coo, although I don't know if Amanda could get it shipped to the UK.



Isn't this too cute?!



And for you sewists with kids, check out this site for awesome appliques and embroidery machine discussions.

So this is like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, or whatever that saying is. I subscribe to Lake Martin Voice, which is written by John Coley, a hilarious realtor up there, and I left a comment for the first time on his site. Then he came to my site. (Funny how that works, seems like this is a new area of etiquette...like in Japan, you present your business card and they investigate it thoroughly, then they give you their's, and you're supposed to read it carefully - see? Okay, I digress.)

Anyway, he mentioned a friend who embroiders and has a site, so I go check out her site and find a post about TJ's Fabrics, then click her link and voila: fabulous fabric!

You're welcome!

Another Football Weekend

Well Friday night Drew had his first date to the Homecoming dance. He's a very brave and outgoing person because he wore his fedora and walked into the football game by himself to find his date, who was already there. I would've begged somebody to go with me and couldn't have made eye contact with anybody in the stands. (I still get intimidated in a movie theater looking for empty seats with all those eyes staring back at me.)



Then it was off to Auburn for the Florida-Auburn game (thanks to my mom and Jim for hosting). It was more of a mess than the Florida-Alabama game, if you can believe it (thanks to my mom and Jim for providing post-loss cocktails). This one was exciting because we were on row 7 really close to the field, so in lieu of fabulous plays to describe, I'll show you what I was watching. Here's the War Eagle; I guess he has a name but I'm not sure. He flew right over our heads before the game started - very cool.



Gators take the field after half-time.



Aubie (the Auburn mascot) does lots of entertaining things, although I noticed the only law enforcement personnel who would dance with him was a woman. The men were too busy looking professional.



Lucas takes a break from complaining about how the guys in front of us won't sit down and fakes a sleepy face.



And I DID cut out the pattern pieces for those skinny jeans, but I'm taking my time watching the Pant Fitting DVD from Palmer-Pletsch again and trying it their way. I've drawn the stitching lines in marker so far. Next up is pin-fitting. And I saw that Erica got her version completed - don't they look great? There was only one other woman making these according to Google, so I need to get busy...

A Date for Homecoming

Well Drew put himself out there and asked a girl to the Homecoming dance. He obviously takes after Dean, because I certainly never had a date in high school. (Well, we can't forget the nice guy who graciously accompanied me to a required club dance....he was the 5th person I asked.)

Anyway, it turns out that Lucas's best friend, we'll call him John, is this girl's little brother. We'll call her Marsha. So in carpool, Lucas goes and tells John that Drew is going on a date with his sister. John exclaims and runs toward his car to tell his mother. Lucas thinks this is supposed to be a secret, so he grabs John and says, "Wait, is your sister's name Hannah?"
"No."
"Oh."
"Ohhhhhh."

So Lucas tells me this in carpool like he has saved the day. I point out that now John will get in the car and report that Drew is taking a girl named Hannah to the dance. (Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like a good sitcom?)

The plot thickens. I tell Lucas he needs to straighten this out, so the next day he tells John the truth. John says they already figured it out....and that his mom and dad talked about how the date would work. His mom would take Drew and Marsha to a restaurant and drop them off, but John and his dad would be hiding out at a table in the corner to keep an eye on them. Now the funny thing is that Marsha's parents haven't even returned my call about transportation arrangements, but they're obviously discussing it at home. Odd.

Proves that you have to be careful what you say around little brothers....and that they can be excellent sources of information!

Impulse Buying

I realize I'm quite good at showing you new patterns I've acquired, but not so good at showing new clothes I've sewn up, because there seems to be a very long delay between the two! My mojo is still MIA, but I'm taking baby steps to get it back. The first of which was to throw the stretch denim in the washer on hot for the first of 4 cycles....because I'm going to try THIS! (This being the Vogue 8774 jeans, which have not even been reviewed on PR yet!)



Q: But you said you needed dress pants to wear to work, and you spent all that time on the fabulous wearable muslin! Why not whip up another pair and just tweak the rear crotch like you said?
A: Because I have Mad Cow, and apparently ADHD.

Plus, these patterns were $3.50 at Vogue/McCalls/Butterick! I love the collar of this dress...till I read the directions - sounds very complicated. Also not reviewed yet at PR....maybe I should've waited.



And I've had this Butterick 5314 on my wishlist for a while till I found out it was out of print. Enter Ebay - I got it for $6.94 with free shipping - woohoo! I also love this collar. (You'd think I wear dresses a lot, huh? You'd be wrong.)



And speaking of impulse buying, Lucas pointed out that Toys'R'Us was having a sale on Just Dance 3 for the Wii. It was $5 off and you could get Michael Jackson's dance game for 50% off. Guess who's having a dance party this afternoon? Anybody else have an impulse-buying weekend?

Pants and a Band

So I wore my homemade (excuse me, handmade) pants out to eat the other night, and the manager, who's known us since he was a waiter, came over to chat while we were waiting for a table. Out of the blue he says, "I like your pants." I say, "You like my pants?" (Because really, who says that?) Then of course I have to tell him that I made them.

Now, my mother was sitting next to me and didn't hear him say that he liked them to start with, so what she heard of the conversation was,
"You like my pants?"
"Yes, I like your pants."
"I MADE my pants!"
She thought I was terribly rude through the whole dinner. I was thinking, "DAMN, somebody commented on my PANTS!"

So I wore them to work the next day and gave a lecture wearing them that afternoon. Of course, nobody commented on them at that point.

In new business, this is what we did this weekend....



Yes, that is the University of Florida band (now Alabama has the Million Dollar Band, but I don't know what UF calls their band, sorry) warming up before the big game against Alabama.



You may notice there are no happy smiling pictures of us in the stadium. There were no happy smiles after that first touchdown, so we'll leave it at that.