Bye-Bye, Miss American Pie

That does it. I'm moving to Japan. Or Canada. No, it's not Obamacare. It's the fact that Americans love Tim. They sent Didi home tonight (despite the 50-60 phone calls I made on her behalf). And I know it wasn't good last night, but she knows where she belongs and she sang Rihanna tonight for her desperate begging song, but they didn't save her. They're probably saving the save for Crystal or Lee or Casey. So they sent home a cute blonde with such an interesting voice so we could keep watching 2 boring people (Tim and Katie) with no personalities. I mean, even the Ford commercial was boring tonight. And I think they got the memo about how boring everybody is because there was no group song tonight. Just P-Diddy with his gyrating women singing, "Hello. Good morning." Really very catchy. And Usher's song was boring, but at least he can DANCE, so that saved the whole hour.

Alright, off to pack my bag. Oh, and I'm not done yet with the jeans - still have topstitching/carriers/hemming to do, but I sew on them a little every night then wear them till bedtime - so comfortable! And I can even do a little "scratching" (like a DJ on a turntable) with these pocket zippers to go with my dancing - how hip is that? (Yes, very!)

Ultraman to Save the Day!

I squealed in the bookstore - who remembers Ultraman??? Scott, you'll remember we watched this every afternoon - he fought Godzilla and other Japanese monsters. He looked like steel, but was actually more like polyester when he moved with unsightly wrinkles. He did some karate moves and flew through the air, and he shot lasers from his eyes. What was the thing on his chest for - it blinked when his time was up or he was in danger or something. Tracey, I bet you don't remember it, do you? I may go back and get it - totally awesome! We now return to our original programming.

What I Was Trying To Say....

It has come to my attention that the previous post made very little sense to some readers and even suggested that the Mad Cow may have taken over completely. It was simply an homage (a reference to, an allusion if you will, and I do believe I spelled that correctly for this use) to several children's books by Laura Numeroff which were quite popular at my house. It WAS indeed a stretch to think that "If you give a club a sailboat" would remind anyone of those books, but, in fact, I had my children read the post and they "got it" after the first sentence.

At least my sister-in-law got it - well done, Elizabeth!

If You Give a Club Some Sailboats

If you give a club some sailboats, they'll want to meet up together in a quiet bay.

You'll tell them not to run over the nice man with his son in the tiny sailboat with the blue sail, because the man's wife is a famous sewer who has connections to Sandra Betzina.

They will ask what there is to do there, and you'll suggest they have wine and cheese and spend the night. This will remind them that there's a basketball game on, so you'll have to get them a TV to watch the Kentucky upset (but how nice for West Virginia to win after 51 years).

When they wake up, they'll ask you what the dinghies are for, and you'll tell them to putter over to a little island for brunch. (Most likely it's brunch. But it could be that they're an odd boating cult sacrificing a goat to hold off the rain. Then we'd have to call this "If You Give a Cult a Goat." Or maybe someone is a famous sewer and is doing a little demo on plackets..."Do you see?")

They'll ask you what they should do next, and you'll remind them that you gave them sailboats, so they should do just that.


And I didn't make it to the church on the beach that I was going to visit because I got up too late, but God smiled at me anyway. That's what I think when the sun shines through a tiny hole in the clouds like that, or when a tiny bird poses for a picture next to me.


Now why did I spend an hour making this sound like a children's book - I've got jeans to finish!

I've Got a Fever...

And the only cure...is more Sandra Betzina. I'm totally obsessing now. I've worked out that we'll have a class at our vacation spot. I'll host in return for free tuition, and we'll blow up some air mattresses to fit everybody, but of course she gets the master suite. We'll have to push the den furniture out of the way and bring in some long tables for everybody's sewing machines (hmmm, not enough outlets), but there's a step up to the kitchen so she can set up there for demos. Now Sue the shop owner can bring bolts and notions to sell, because the nearest fabric store is an hour away. And you can pay an extra $10 if you want to enjoy the sunset cruises (gotta cover gas for the boat!) and we'll eat out in our new duds or bring in some boiled seafood if we're going to sew through the night. And this'll only be a weekend thing, so the kids and husbands and employers should be okay. And maybe Sandra would like to bring her husband and enjoy the beach, so maybe she'd lower the fee a little.

This is totally working in my head - are you in?

Oh...uh, well then we'll just find a way to all meet up in San Fran!

And yes, I typed this whole thing on my iPhone. Told you I was obsessed.

I Love Me Some Sandra Betzina!

I'm heartbroken that this was the last day, and I didn't get there as early as I wanted because of work, and I had to leave early because we're going to the beach, but I had such a nice time anyway. Check out that zippered back pocket. I'll get more pics later because we're literally leaving in 10 minutes, but I was just so jazzed to have a picture with her. I spent a long time on that pocket and ripped out topstitching once, but I finished them both and now just have to waistband/yoke the jeans and baste them together to check fit.

Just to share how helpful she is, another lady spent a long time making a tunic top to wear with leggings, then thought she looked pregnant and didn't want darts or princess seams or anything Sandra came up with to make it look better. So Sandra went through all her patterns to see if there was any bodice she liked, and when there wasn't she went to the Kwik Sew patterns till they found something. She then measured her up and made adjustments to the pattern pieces before the woman left for the night. Now that's just wonderful. She also offered to help us fit any pattern we wanted, didn't have to be Vogue.

So, more pics Sunday night, and dammit I forgot to take my book to get her to sign it! Saaaaannnn-draaaaaaaa!!!!!

Day 2 of Sewing Camp

Giddy with excitement, people! Yesterday was okay with the fitting, but I was nervous about keeping up with everybody and having to make a muslin out of pillowcase fabric, etc. Here's the muslin, which had some issues. I'm holding out the hip area where she widened the seam, and I think you can see the marks on the crotch where we widened the fly.



And if she saw one wrinkle on that left leg I'm impressed, because I see a bunch. But we added to the "hook" on the back crotch seam and extended that to the knee for the wrinkle.



So today I came home from work and cut out everything and interfaced it before I went in so I could get straight to sewing. And just how awesome are my pockets? (Bitchin' pockets, Sister, testify!) She made me hold them up and someone asked if I used a twin needle or was that just some fine stitching (DAMN fine stitchin'). She "encouraged" me to pick out some fun cotton print for the lining instead of the white stuff I brought from my closet, and what a great idea. I had just told my mother I hated that fabric when we were in there the other day, but I think it's the cutest pocket lining for some reason. So I was slow as Christmas doing ALL those pockets, but it was really fun and came out so nice. (I am so hyper right now, sorry!)



So I left at 9:45 PM (I did take 45 minutes to meet Dean and the boys for dinner, during which time they had to hear about how famous she is and how lucky I am and how awesome my pockets were). Tomorrow I'll try to head in about 1 PM and get these bad boys finished. Now could you vote on whether the back pockets should have zippers or not? It calls for a zipper at the top of each back pocket, and I don't know if that's too gimmicky or not. She did tell me that Vogue wanted more jeans patterns from her after her first one, so she stood outside Versace and sketched the pockets on the $900 jeans in their window. Too cool....makes these seem relatively cheap at $350. (Dean said this would be the most expensive jeans I ever had.)

And if you're still here reading my manic ramblings, I actually loosened up more tonight after that beer at dinner (just one), and got to know these women better. They told me the San Fran. retreat is a week long for 10 women, and you stay and sew in a hotel with meals pretty much provided, plus happy hour, so you can drink and sew all night long if you like. Then they fabric-shop all day Saturday and go back to HER HOUSE for dinner. And they might spend the night there before flying home on Sunday, but I could be confused. So cool...this is so awesome...