Five on F-F-F-Saturday

What.Ever. Yesterday was too busy for Five postings, so they’ll have to be a bit late this week!

1. The February Aurifil Block of the month is up! Sherri‘s block has some adorable Snowmen in Love! Skip on over to the Aurifil page and download the pattern. And after you’re done making your block, don’t forget to post a picture to the Flickr group — there are Prizes! Every Month!

2.  Do you love Sally Mavor’s work like I do?  I think her little felt figures are just adorable!

I was stumbling around the internet the other day and I found a fun video about her making of the Rabbitat piece above. Her detail work is amazing and the video shows some cool closeups! You can view the video HERE.

3.  I was talking to my Auntie Annie last night about Lone Star dinner rolls and how much we love them.  She said she searched the internet and found a knock-off recipe that was pretty good.  Which made me think of how much I love O’Charley’s dinner rolls, so I searched and there’s a knock-off for them too.  I’m waiting for a fun time to try them, but if you try them first, let me know!

4. I was lucky and won another giveaway! This time from Sweet DottyCookie. She makes the cutest beaded Christmas ornaments and I won one shortly before Christmas. Isn’t it beautiful? She also kindly included some fun notecards, a little chapstick holder for my keychain and some fab Green and Black’s Dark Chocolate Toffee which may or may not be melting in my mouth as we speak. Yum. Yum. Thank You Very Much Ms. Dotty!!!

5.  We got a bit of snow, so a few of the gingerbread houses have been put out for squirrel food.  Sadly, they’ll probably be a puddle by tomorrow ’cause it’s supposed to get warm again.  This warm winter has made it so difficult to fill the squirrels full of sugar!

Have a good weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

Into Africa

Man oh Man.  It’s February already.  What a strange winter this has been.  We’re having spring-like weather and I can’t even remember most of January.  All work and no play….

Oh well, a week or so ago I conducted my annual recon to the kids’ old school to check out the prep for their black tie auction and dinner.  (I don’t actually attend the auction, but I enjoy seeing all of the decorations – you never know when there might be a fun idea to take home.  Shandi came from one of these events.)  At the end of my post about the auction last year I said “And now, if I start a new traditional closing line, maybe one day it will come true … I hope they go back to having a children’s book theme next year.”

Nope.  Not Workin’.

The theme this year was Into Africa.  (They seem to be stuck on travel themes — maybe so they can auction off exotic trips?)  There’s always a fun entry into the auditorium.

Once past the zebra curtains the safari them starts in a hallway.  (Locals will recognize that jeep from our local children’s zoo.)

And after walking through the swampy marshes, you enter the auditorium.  Lots of zebras hanging from the ceiling.

And wild animals hovering at the edges of the tables.

Every year they give the attendees a take-away and this year it appeared to be a zebra mask attached to each chair.

The dinners are served in multiple courses with different wines and the table settings are always so pretty.

I think this year was my least favorite though.  The centerpiece was a “tree” with pretty flowers around the base.  They always have beautiful flower arrangements and I’m sure it was difficult to come up with something that was truly “Africa”.  (Not sure I’m buyin’ the roses LOL!)

Wild animals lookin’ at you.  (With a grill to be auctioned under them.  ;-D)

The desserts were stacked outside, wrapped in cellophane.  MyDadLovesMeBestSister works at the school so she’s lucky enough to attend.  She reports that these were delicious cupcakes.  Cute!

So, I must continue my mantra.  “I hope they go back to having a children’s book theme next year.”

A girl can dream!

XOXO,
Anna

Wherein SweetiePie and I are Strippers

Strippers for a day.  Our entry hall had this wallpaper that I have Disliked since we moved here 12 years ago.  The main paper really wasn’t too bad, it was the border that I didn’t like.  I think the person who put this paper here was trying to convince herself that she lived in a tropical climate — not the freezing, landlocked midwestern US.

The problem has been that our entry hall is very tall.  The ceiling is probably close to 20 feet from the floor.  So, not an easy stripping job.

And maneuvering those ladders around that glass light fixture was delicate work.  But, once we got our system in place, things went well.  SweetiePie did all the really high stripping, while I worked mid-level and below.  It took us about 8 hours with a little break for dinner.

SweetiePie is a trooper.  We work well together and she made the job fun.  We made a big mess too.  There’s wallpaper and glue everywhere.  Today’s job will be figuring out how to clean those ladders.  The easy way would be to take them outside and hose them down, but there’s a dusting of snow on the ground, so that won’t work.

Ah well, the hard stuff is done — yipee!  And we won’t be doing the painting.  Paint everywhere just wouldn’t be pretty!

Have a good weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Hot Patterns Review

Hmmm, I seem to be dragging my blogging feet around here, but I have a pretty good excuse. I’ve been slaving away on my applique border! When I get home from work I make dinner and then sew a little before bed, so, not much time for posts.

In addition to my applique, I managed to get my Amy Butler corduroy shirt finished.  Garment sewing is probably my first crafty love, so that makes me deliriously happy!   I chose Hot Patterns Plain and Simple Superfantastic Shirt pattern for my shirt. Have you heard of Hot Patterns? When I purchased my fabric at The French Seam, I asked if they had any good shirt patterns. She showed me the Hot Patterns section and let me browse.  After I chose my pattern, I asked the shop owner what she thought of them — were they pretty true to size?  She said that the directions weren’t the best, but the sizing seemed to be pretty accurate.  I don’t usually read the directions in patterns real closely anyway, so we both decided this pattern should work just fine.

And it did.  But when I first started sewing there were several little annoying things (like where most patterns say cut 2 she says cut a pair, and yardage requirements were for 60″ wide fabric — nothing for 45″ wide fabric) so I was pretty prepared to give it a very lackluster review.  The shop owner was correct, the directions are definitely lacking.  If you’re a beginning sewer, you will have to consult other sources for some of the steps.  For example, as you can see below, the sleeve has a few pleats in it.  The instructions simply said to put the cuff on the sleeve.  No instructions (or markings on the cuff) as to where to put those pleats or buttons.  The instructions were a little better for the button placket, but probably because it is a pretty unique way of doing the placket.  There is only one dot marking the end of the dart for all pattern sizes.  And since the shirt sizes range from 6 to 26, that’s a pretty big problem.  Since I’m on the lower end of that range, my darts are a little too deep.   Oh, and while I’m whining, the pattern is multiple sizes on heavy paper — which is good, except that I hate actually cutting into the paper.  With normal patterns, I can fold the pattern tissue here and there to cut the patterns.  For this pattern, I used a very thin fabric and drew out and cut the pattern pieces to my size.  Pretty time consuming.

Having whined said all that, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this pattern!  Just as the shop owner said, the sizing is pretty accurate.  (Although, I have long arms and legs — I always have to add an inch or two to sleeve and pant lengths, but I didn’t have to with this pattern – Yipee!)  I also (just 10 minutes ago) checked out the Hot Patterns website and I wish I’d seen it before I made my shirt.  There are videos for some of the patterns (three for this particular shirt, which are very helpful).  The owner/designers of Hot Patterns are British, living in Florida, so that explains away the little differences in terminology.  The woman in the video even says that she’s pretty laid back about the instructions — she likes to let you do things your way.   I LOVE the way my new shirt fits and that soft corduroy makes it wear like a dream.  I also really love the way she constructed the placket — it’s very clean and quick and clever.

So, to sum up … if you’re a beginning sewer, you’ll probably need some help with these patterns. Otherwise, I think they’re wonderful and I give them two big thumbs up. I’m a big fan now and I’ll definitely be using them again — I can see many more versions of this shirt alone in my closet.

Happy Sewing!
XOXO,
Anna

Five for Friday

1. SNOW!  It’s snowing here tonight.  They said we might get as much as five inches.  I’m trying not to get too excited, but.  SNOW!!!!

2. I had a VERY lucky streak in blog winnings a few weeks oops, months ago.  From Alison I won a beautiful set of Christmas ornaments.  Aren’t they pretty?  They arrived just in time for Christmas — Thank you Alison, I love them!

3. In another giveaway, I won a pattern for the very pretty Crossroads block from Meredithe.  For some reason, when I won, I didn’t realize that the pattern included a template set.  I love the pattern and the templates are just perfect.  They’re pretty and sturdy and very cool.  Thank you Meredithe — what a fun giveaway prize.

4. In yet ANOTHER giveaway, I won a gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop from Vreni.  It took me a few weeks to make my selections, but it sure was fun to do a little shopping.  I had to add a few new Cat-in-the-Hat prints to my Dr. Suess stash.  That red dot comes from Moda’s Circa 1934 collection and the bottom two pink-ish fabrics are a Dear Stella line.  Thank you SO much Vreni — it was really fun to add some goodies to my stash!

If you haven’t been to Alison, Meredithe, or Vreni‘s blogs, please check them out — they all have beautiful blogs and they’re lots of fun to read.

5. I’m hiking right along on my applique UFO.  I’ve finished one more border since Christmas.  Considering it took me 10+ (15?) years to complete the first two borders, that’s big progress.  Jan mentioned these John James Gold’nGlide applique needles a few weeks ago on her blog so I thought I’d try them out.  I like them!  They’re a tad bigger than the needles I have been using (just random needles from the sewing box) but, true to their word, they glide through the fabric.  Thanks Jan for a great tip!

Ok.  Off for some stitching.  Happy Weekend!

XOXO,
Anna