This is looking down into it - they don't even have you secure the other end - I thought it would be caught in the leg hem, but nope!
So of course I opted to make a-whole-nother (that should be a word) bottom out of black lining then slide it inside and sew them together with the waistband and leg hems. Now I used my Jalie running short waistband to buy some tummy coverage, and that turned out great, but the legs...not so much. Here's my view of the left leg treated like a bikini bottom with elastic, and the right leg has the leg band from Jalie. The problem is that the boyshort is still too large at the bottom, so it looks like I'm wearing a diaper cover or something.
I don't think you can tell from here, but Lucas immediately started shaking his head and declared it looked like I was trying to wear boy's shorts....which is EXACTLY what I'm trying to do! He thought the whole look was ridiculous. Drew had already told me the elastic treatment was terrible, but he also agreed the banded leg was no better. So I guess I'll chop these back down to regular swimsuit legs and add elastic. So much for trying to hide the cellulite!
In other news, I tried my hand at gardening...
and don't you wonder what's buried under there? Lucas also said it looked like a gravesite. Amazingly, 4 of those 6 plants are still alive!
As are both of these lilies...
which actually sprouted even more blooms a week after I planted them.
And in homemade food, Lucas helped me make the "tableta" that we had in Belize, which is a bag of coconut flakes, a can of pet milk, and 2 cups of sugar, and was WAY too sweet, though tasty.
And my Mom got a homemade butter-maker that is a mason jar with a spinner that you turn for about 15 minutes till you've made butter from your cream. Don't forget to add a little salt.
And these would be the French sandwiches Lucas made for Dean on Father's Day.
Here's Robbie and me sporting our Alabama Chanin-wear into Ruby Tuesday's for lunch! Robbie's dress was beautiful - wish I caught a picture of the whole thing. And I stretched my shirt out enough to wear it with the blue AC skirt, but not one person said a thing about it at work, though I got plenty of weird looks. That always lets you know that they think it's odd and they don't know what to say. Oh well....
Let's pause for a couple of gorgeous sunsets from Fisher's in Orange Beach...
And in knitting news, here's a Little Kindness Monster I knitted for Mobile Yarn to donate to abused children.
What a cute little hat!
Lucas wanted me to leave the mouth off, because he said maybe the kid would have a bad secret to tell it, and now it's smirking when it should remain non-judgmental. Hmmm....
And FINALLY, Drew decided he needed new shirts, but clarified that he wanted to MAKE his new shirts. He figured if he's going in the military after college he needs to know how to sew, though I'm not sure who told him they'd have machines set up. Anyway, I got a Kwik Sew pattern and cut it out for him.
So this isn't too bad for his very first V-neck which we only basted, but why in the world did Kwik Sew make the band so wide? Obviously we'll go back and fix that, but he also discovered that he has to grade out at the waist since it's tight over the belly.
From the back, this looks like a folded-over collar, but it fits him well through the shoulders, so he's happy with it.
Oh, and it was my birthday yesterday, so here's a neat hair clip my sister sent me. Check out her website if you put your hair up!
We had a lovely dinner, then Dean surprised me with tickets to the Molly Ringwalds concert downtown (because this is my big 5-0 and that's an 80's band - I didn't stop dancing for 2 hours)! Can't you tell Lucas is excited to be there for the festivities?! Maybe he's sad because he didn't get to go to the concert.
Okay, what have you been up to, and what are you doing for the 4th? And yes, Robbie and I will be having another Alabama Chanin airbrush day when the weather cools off, so start collecting your fabric!
11 comments:
I turned 50 the day before you did! A surreal age to be. Anyway, I enjoy your blog very much. You always seem to have so much fun. I learned how to make a ceramic pot on the wheel for my party and wrote about it on my blog: TextileSanity on blogspot.
Happy birthday to you, Michelle! Thanks for commenting, and I popped over to see your blog - that looks like an awesome way to spend a birthday, and your pots looked professional! I think it's cool that we both have friends who like creating stuff with us - it's a great way to go through life.
It is cool having creative friends. Can't live without them. Thanks for taking a peek at my blog.
Yes, indeed, it is cool to have creative friends! And Happy Birthday to you both! On my 50th birthday I went to work and told my supervisor, who was quite a bit younger, that "today I"m 50, do you no what that means? It means I'm an old lady and I can say what ever I want to and I don't have to remember anything." His eyes got very big and he said, "Yes, ma'am." I think I scared him to death.
I"ve finished stitching the front of my newest AC dress. I didn't know to cut little slits in the areas to be cut out before sewing, though, so trimming the front will be challenging. I'm doing the "precut" in the back before I sew it.
Long ago when swimsuits were made of cotton fabrics, no knits, the boy shorts weren't form fitting, but the suit had some structure of it's own. It did fit very closely, a little restrictive, actually. But, they were very flattering if you had a big behind like I do (no elastic dig in muffin). Now I think Lands End may have some that are closer to what I would call a boy short.
Robbie
You're funny, Robbie! 50 doesn't feel older yet, just un-sexy to say out loud, and with a bigger belly...though that's probably because I haven't been running or exercising much with this heat.
Now is this dress the orangey/brown fabric? I can't remember since that was like 2 years ago! I use the little tiny embroidery scissors that Becky gave me to cut all the pieces out, and most of the time I forgot to cut little slits before sewing, too. I just pinched the fabric apart as much as I could and made a tiny snip to start. That's worked for most of the patterns, but for the really tiny places I used a pin to lift the fabric up a bit, or just left it uncut.
And yeah, cutting the boyshort down to a bikini didn't work out so well. It's constructed with a center front seam instead of the usual one piece of crotch material, so once I added elastic to the legs, it ended up about 1.5 inches wide at the crotch. Maybe I can wear them if I take up a second profession involving a pole....
LOL. Thanks for the good wishes. I bought a pair of boy swim shorts that had a center front seam. Big mistake. The crotch road up in water. Not very comfortable. Good luck with the shorts.
Happy Birthday!! 50 is a rough number. I've been through 51 and now 52 is staring me in the face. They seem to come faster and faster.
Looks like you have been too busy to blog. Love the photo of you and Robbie in your Alabama Channin wear. Those are awesome. You've caused me to hoard old t-shirts. Not like I needed much encouragement to hoard anything. It comes easy to me. One of these days.
I love that Drew made his own shirt. He did an incredible job. Lucas is becoming quite the chef.
I'm still plugging along with learning pattern making. We've got a little sloper club going at All About sewing and are meeting once a month. We are learning to take our slopers and to make other garments with them. Boy do I need a blog to share my photos. I've got sleeveless figured out and am really close to getting my armhole right for sleeves. My dream is to be able to look at a garment and be able to draw a pattern for it that fits. One of the ladies introduced us to Mrs. Stylebook from Japan. Those are amazing and show you how to make a garment from your sloper by dropping the neck by a certain amount or slashing a spreading the pattern by a certain amount. Lots to learn!
We took a trip a few weeks ago to Germany and the Netherlands. That really took a bite out of summer. We have a little over a month before Jessica heads back to college.
Thanks, Becky! Can't wait to see some pictures from your trip - that's awesome! You do need to start a blog for your sewing and traveling pictures. The sloper sounds over my head, frankly, but I think at our next GCGSW everybody should bring all the old T-shirts they have, and we'll airbrush or cut them up and see how creative we can get. You can show the more advanced attendees (i.e. Katrina!) how to do the slopers. But hooray for you for being that advanced!!!
And back in the early 2000's my college roommates who get together every year decided that you could bring your first baby to the reunion, so for a few years we always had babies at the get-togethers. Should we extend that to crafting children, who get to come to 1 GCGSW and pursue the craft of their choice? That would be funny. Maybe they need to be 21 first so they can fully participate in all the activities - heehee!
I'd love to do airbrushing and learn to do the AC technique! That will be very fun!
I got the bug once to do a blog. It was last summer. I was making the padded headboard that college freshmen moms with daughters make. I took some pictures and wrote a detailed how to. That was it. I could not write personally to save my life. The bulk of my lifetime of writing has been technical reports. It was a technical report on a craft. It was dull as dirt! It is out there somewhere with one blog post.
I'm all for including the young ones, but I would not have a young one to bring. I could not make my son craft. My daughter knits on occasion, but there has not been a knitting occasion for her in quite a while.
I don't have one to bring, either. My granddaughters are too young and my daughters too busy! I may, however, have a convert for us in a few years. A young couple from church was over on the 4th. My AC stuff was sitting in the living room and the 11 yo girl said, with awe in her voice, "You sew?" We just took off after that. She is the cutest thing and is taking sewing lessons. I of course, promised to help her any way I could. Vic wanted to know if that meant I would ask for my fabric back. I assured him "that fabric" no longer exists in my universe. I would have to buy more. :)
Robbie
Haha - there's certainly no reason to start adding kids to the equation, other than what my parents used to do in the 70's - "Hey, can you bring me another drink?" Becky, that's funny about your blog being so technical - I can totally see that from an engineer. And Robbie, isn't it nice to have a new enabler who needs fabric?!
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