GCGSW #7 - the Weekend in Pictures

This was the first time EVERYONE came on Friday, and it was glorious! First because I normally go there and do a marathon cleaning session by myself, eating a solitary dinner on the porch and anxiously awaiting everyone Saturday morning. This time I cleaned the weekend before. Second is that everybody packs tons of stuff and we haul it inside with a couple of trips (or more in some cases), then load it right back up 24 hours later, which I've always thought was somewhat unsatisfactory. Thirdly, it's been frozen pizza in the past on Friday night, but with the whole entourage came a real dinner - Heidi's lasagna rollups!

And Nancy brought the most interesting cookies from Whole Foods, I believe - yum!

This was Edith's breakfast burrito, equally yummy! Did I mention that I've gained 5 pounds recently somehow?

The group has grown to 10 now, though Katrina couldn't make it, so we had to share cutting space...

and add another sewing station, which worked out well.

And between Yaffa and Trinh I think there were 4 machines, might've been 5.

Now this is Yaffa's multi-year project that she finally finished and brought to show off. There were multiple attempts to steal it, but I think she still went home with it.

Our newbie this year is Stephanie, who has never sewn in her life but is set on making an Alabama Chanin floor length skirt with corset top. I'm trying to finish that second hand-painted sock, and unknit as much as I knit, but progress was eventually made.

Lunch break was Becky's delicious shrimp and grits - mmmm, gouda grits.

Another shot of the sweatshop.

Nancy poses with her tablecloth made from fabric from 2 different countries, if I remember correctly - very exotic, like Nancy!

Robbie shows off her bathing suit coverup she whipped together from vintage lace napkins and tablecloths - clever!

Saturday afternoon snack break with deviled eggs topped with caviar - what?!

And the charcuterie and cheese trays were amazing. I must admit that I fell down as a hostess and didn't realize we were out of rum. Katrina is our usual bartender and would've never let that happen!

Edith made something like 8 or 9 prayer veils...

plus used a knitting machine type thing...

to whip out this beautiful wrap.

Trinh made several baby bibs and tried out her embroidery skills.

Ummmm, some type of yoga maneuver after Heidi's white chicken chili...don't quite remember what that was about.

I successfully put together Trinh's bagel and lox bar for Sunday breakfast, even safely slicing tomatoes and onions with nary an injury!

I call this Fashionable Jesus - another bathing suit coverup. (She's going to Jamaica soon.)

Heidi actually knitted this slipper several times then took it back to the starting point each time to try and get it to meet up with the sole.

It'll be actual wearable footwear when she finishes!

Yaffa created this bedskirt, which involved a lot of math based on her mumblings at the ironing board and sewing machine, but what a payoff!

Becky, always one of our most prolific sewers, did this entire shirt from cutting to sleeve gathers with the only thing lacking being the hem.

And this is part of Stehanie's corset. She finished a whole piece with stitching and clipping out the centers - fabulous!

This was a serious Saturday snack break observing the rain and wind.

Heidi always lightens things up!

This is just to remind me of our setup, and next time we'll set up 2 machines to the left so Robbie may have to share with Katrina. Should work out fine.

I'll leave you with a post-GCGSW shot. Becky played with single-crocheting this design on a T-shirt using dissolvable stabilizer before she packed up Sunday, and it turned out great!

Thanks to all these awesome women for the food and the friendship, and it still blows my mind that this was our 7th time doing this. Ooh, plus special shoutout to Becky for reading my last post and gifting me ANOTHER pair of fabulous embroidery scissors PLUS a yarn cutter pendant that I can wear like a necklace next time I'm knitting or sewing on a plane in Belize. I shall never be project-less again!

Winter 2019 Catchup

So one of the funnest things I did was take Heidi's yarn-dying class at Mobile Yarn. This was a natural-colored "blank" that I painted with a squirt bottle of dye. Apparently if you do half in one color, you'll end up with stripes that are predominantly that color....I surmise.

We wrapped them in Saran wrap and took them home to steam them for a few minutes...

Then you rinse it I believe - the instructions are around here somewhere...and allow to dry

then commence to knitting!

And here's sock #1 - beautiful!!!

And at some point Dean got a wild hair to run the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon 10K in New Orleans, so I trained exactly 1.5 weeks or so...

and actually finished with a halfway decent time and no injuries. It's fun to run in New Orleans!

Bands playing every so often, which is apparently why it has that name.

Meanwhile, prior to an 8 AM 5K downtown I actually HAD trained for, we woke up to a fire alarm brought on by this water leak that flooded the fire alarm in the laundry room....and Drew's room. Hello, new pipes!!!

25th Anniversary in Belize (2018 catchup)

But first, the boys made a homemade apple pie for Thanksgiving dessert and that was nice.



And we ate on my grandmother's antique china - also very nice.

I finished this sweater just in time, which is a cool pattern where you knit whatever gauge you do and then find the appropriate directions, complete with various sleeves and borders. Little bit see-through.

And then it was off to Belize! This was our 2nd trip, but the first time we took Lucas for Spring Break and stayed on the mainland. This time we jumped on another tiny plane and headed to Ambergris Cay and the city of San Pedro - Madonna sang about it in La Isla Bonita.

This is my view from the balcony, and that's the sock I brought to work on. I should mention at this point that when flying within Belize, you may not have knitting needles or tiny scissors of any sort, and so my precious scissors gifted me by Becky were confiscated because I was doing Alabama Chanin sewing on the plane but the knitting was in checked baggage. (Moment of silence please for the sharpest scissors I ever had.)

Belize is the easiest Central American country in which to vacation (in my humble opinion) because it is 2.5 hours from Houston, the official language is English, it's on Central Standard Time, and they use the American dollar, plus the Belizean dollar is twice the American - no complicated arithmetic! This was new construction being held up by trees, apparently, until more rebar presents itself. Interesting.

Pause for beauty:



Haha - that's the dessert the resort (Victoria House - fabulous) sent to our room after dinner - total surprise!





And this isn't beautiful, but there aren't many cars on San Pedro because it's so tiny, so everybody drives a golf cart - precious!

This was some wildlife that ventured into the open-air restaurant.

This is a Cuban and fish tacos from the coolest joint in North San Pedro called Truckstop. It's a bunch of container trucks that all serve different kinds of food and have live entertainment. We took the boys back there for this Thanksgiving - more on that later - and they had a Family Feud game with families from the audience that was hilarious.

This is behind the containers where they have a huge space with Cornhole games, ping-pong, giant Jenga, and they put up a movie screen behind this pool for movie nights...that you can watch from the pool - what?!

Dean knew about "Chicken Drop" which is on select nights at a local bar, and for $1 you can pick a number and if the chicken poops on it, you win $100. Very touristy.

We did take a fishing trip and I caught a bonefish, which you don't eat, apparently, because it's full of bones, but it's sure pretty to look at before you throw it back. And if you wonder why I'm so buttoned up, this was a half-day fishing trip with no roof or shade whatsoever - I was NOT going to burn in Belize!

And this was in the iconic bar at the airport heading back home where the owner is a little old short guy (think the Oompa Loompa from Johnny Depp's version, and I mean absolutely no disrespect, but he's quite something) who's kind of hard to understand but does all kinds of tricks like yanking your napkin out from under your drink, etc. He's not in the picture but Dean couldn't resist the mooner next to me. We were figuring out how to AirDrop pics to each other on our phones when a chick in the bar yells out, "I got your pictures, Dean!" Good times...