Hello again, Alabama Chanin

Wow, so many topics to catch up on. I don't where to start, but let's go with the coat that took me 4 years to finish. I posted about the weekend at Alabama Chanin with my 2 sewing buddies, and here's the final product 4 years later.

I've worn it twice to dinner, once to Ruth's Chris over my tight black pants, and I forget the other place.

I love it, just waiting for colder weather, and I seriously might wear it as a dress somewhere!

I forgot the little codes to separate text from pictures but I'll try to take it up again because I wanted to post previous Christmas pics for the boys, who are grown men now. Happy Independence Day to you all!

Catch-up: Mardi Gras 2020

Yikes, I never reviewed McCall's 7047 and now I don't remember how I found it, other than I think I saw it at Pattern Review. I did find my comment on one lady's version from February 2020, so that must've been it. I remember that it was super-easy to make and my mom didn't have to help me rip or re-sew anything. I'm doing this now so I can keep track of the pattern and dress for future Mardi Gras's.

I do love that the huge drape can be styled as conservatively or boldly as you like!

It was super comfortable, not fussy, wearable with a strapless bra. Highly recommend! Here are some more photos from that Mardi Gras:

Dancing at Lafitte's is always a hoot.

We stayed in an AirBnB for the first time and I got to enjoy a hot tub during the down time - what a change from staying in a hotel!!!

My son Drew's BF Omkar's first Endymion extravaganza, and you should consider hard hats if standing close to the floats, as they throw those beads like they're Patrick Mahomes.

This is actual Mardi Gras day when everybody dresses up and Dean was in the Pete Fountain's Half-Fast Walking Parade. The most prescient costume I saw was a couple dressed as a beer and a lime with a sign that said, "I'll take my Corona with a Lyme."

Hey this posting was a lot easier than before - maybe I can finally catch up with posts. If anyone is still here, y'all have a great week!

Kwik Sew Shorts during call!

Blogging is different on my laptop but I'm trying to start up again and will go back and catch up as I have time so I can relive family events. This is my second week of call because I took so much vacation over the summer, but, amazingly, I had time to scratch the itch of sewing. I was going through drawers of fabric and I find that always sparks the mojo, so I looked for something quick and sure, and it was the KS 3614 shorts pattern that came to mind, since those still fit me 13 years later! These go well with my precious Fluevog shoes I bought in Montreal - yet another post to come!

The main draw of this pattern is the curved waistband that fits amazingly well. The only drawback is that the pockets reportedly gape so I used some from another pattern and just slapped them on. There are optional belt loops but I probably won't tuck too much.

Dean declared them fancy but they're also good with T-shirts - very versatile! I think this fabric came from Robbie at a GCGSW swap, but I'm not sure. I have about 4 or 5 yards of it!

And this is Dexter, our rescue Catahoula Leopard/Lab mix. Sweet Jakey left us the week before Christmas of 2020, so that's another terribly sad post for later. Maybe that'll be one big Covid post.

Wedding weekend begins! (CATCH-UP POST)

We moved Lucas into his Atlanta apartment last Friday (summer internship) then flew back to Mobile to load up for Drew's wedding in New Orleans.

The boys tried on their suits and I asked Drew to turn around; cute that Lucas did too.

Once, in New Orleans, Dean and I started at our old breakfast place in Metairie.

Then checked into our suite and set up the space for entertaining family and friends for the weekend.

Then set off to entertain ourselves at the Erin Rose bar with a frozen Irish coffee.

We had a balcony where we overlooked some of downtown. I'm not as good as my sister at editing photos but this was how I showed my brother where his hotel was.

This one's out of order but apparently now you can get temporary tattooes, which most of the bridesmaids did - hilarious!

Dean and I picked up the wedding cake - that's a whole story in itself, as it was jostled in the handling and had some missing icing that had to be replaced - oops!

My sister helped beautify our suite with flowers while I barked orders.

The rest are rehearsal and rehearsal dinner pics.

My First Alabama Chanin Corset

Well, I nearly forgot how to blog but a new comment popped up a couple of week ago hoping for a pic of the finished corset I handpainted with brown paint and a sponge several years ago, so I decided to add a pic and couldn't put it in the comments, thus a new post! Not sure where you found me, Vivine, but thanks for reading!

And this reminds me that I went with 2 of my sewing buddies, the electrophysiologist and the retinal specialist, to Alabama Chanin in September for the sewing weekend of a lifetime! Alas, I don't have the cable to upload the pics and have no idea where they're stored on the computer, if they even went to the Cloud....oh wait I found one that AC emailed me. This is the famous music studio we toured in Muscle Shoals:

We did our social distancing part and wore masks while sewing in the Factory, and an aMAZing time was had by all - I'll have to do a better post on the restaurants, the Gun-Runner Hotel which is a post unto itself, and seeing Natalie at dinner that last night at Odette's. Such good times. Anyhoo, I'll be back soon hopefully with catch-up pics of life, Hurricane Sally and its damage to the beach house where we have our own once-in-a-lifetime sewing weekends, etc. Have a good holiday!

Grand Teton & Yellowstone (Summer 2019 catchup)

Continuing the catch-up - sorry! After realizing that the National Parks in the west are amazing and we should've been skipping Disney this whole time, we decided to try Grand Teton and Yellowstone, and stayed right outside Jackson Hole, WY. One of the activities was paragliding, and why not?! YOLO, so the boys and I gave it a shot, and it's quite bracing to run straight down a steep mountain, but it literally was only about 4 steps before my feet lifted off the ground (thank you, Jesus).


Don't have any shots of Drew, but he had lots of video.


I think these are moose we saw driving through Grand Teton.


We did a couple of great hikes...











And Drew made contact with somebody using his portable Ham radio, which was pretty cool. ("CQ, CQ, CQ" - reminds me of our old CB, "Breaker Breaker 1-9!")


Oh yeah, their water comes in boxes, which is disconcerting.


This was at dinner atop a mountain - beautiful weather.


And you can rent bikes instead of hiking...


Cool shot Dean took - historic homes...


And the last day we decided to venture into Yellowstone - first stop was Old Faithful and the restroom. Totally didn't believe this was a thing, but apparently it is!


Hot springs are amazing...


Old Faithful was cool but there were TONS of people.


This is the lobby of the hotel there - very cool to read about how they built it and I think one of my college roommates stayed there but you have to reserve WAY ahead of time.


This bison was walking around the parking lot at one of the springs and you'd be shocked at the tourists who were oblivious and just walking right by him till the park rangers yelled at them. I also just saw that a woman was injured by one a couple of days ago because she got too close...some people!


Some of the falls just don't even look real in photos.








I'm blanking on the name of this particular spring, but it's like being on another planet.


Saw lots of wildlife just driving around...





This was back at our hotel watching a paraglider get ready to take off from the highest peak...





And this was a really weird painting in the lobby that I just had to get a shot of - not sure why swimming foxes are a thing, but I thought it was cool.

Yay for National Parks! Oh, I didn't get any pics of white water rafting, but that happened too - such good times!