June Roundup

Yeah, maybe I'll just start doing seasonal posts, since I'm so bad at keeping up with everything. So I decided to go after that boyshort I tried a few years ago when I first attempted a swimsuit, and I forgot the puny little lining McCall's thinks will suffice. They literally tell you to lay it on either side of the inseam and sew it like this, and you're done!


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!

Summer Wrap-up

This is Pasta Carbonara that Drew cooked for us, although he forgot to put the Romano cheese in the sauce (apparently takes after his mother in the kitchen), so it looks like hashbrowns instead of pasta with cheese. He's going to be in an apartment this year at college, so he wanted to try his hand at cooking his own food. Yay for self-sufficiency!


We had Lucas's birthday, and I'd say he liked his giant donut pouf!


He also loved the camera dolly system that Drew hand-made for him, complete with PVC tracks. His camera tripod fits on the board, then the camera operator can push it along for moving shots, just FYI.


And THIS was terribly interesting. My donut picture actually made it onto Community Eye Candy at Ravelry - WHAT?! I found out when I started getting all these emails with comments from Ravelers, and wondered what was going on - I feel so loved by the crochet community!


So with Lucas's birthday behind me, I had to catch up on my brother's handmade birthday present. We decided to do handmade gifts for each other, and swap them at the beach when my sister came down to move HER son into college. My brother requested a woodturner's jacket, and sent me a couple of pics of ready-made ones as a guide. The main requirements are a tight elasticized neck, zippered front, and pockets with Velcro closures to keep wood shavings out, and good luck finding a pattern for that! Apparently Butterick had one a long time ago, but it's gone now, so I tried the men's Kwik Sew fleece jacket for the zipper and neck finish, combined with Simplicity 5581 from my stash. I started off on the wrong foot by cutting the back upside down - nice work.


However, I DID do a bang-up job of hiding a pocket, and left a little opening in the Velcro for a pencil.


Yes, I'm wearing shorts under that, and I might have to make myself a shirtdress out of this pattern, which sewed up REALLY quick.


In the meantime, Lucas had drum camp and band camp...he's the front drum punk.


And finally we started our last vacation of the summer at the beach, which made Jake very happy.


He's doing his Leonardo DiCaprio impression during our boat ride with the family.


This was a cool sunrise...


and with Chrome settings like we used in Lower Antelope Canyon.


Got some kayaking done with my sister...


and swapped birthday gifts with everybody. The big problem with the jacket is that I didn't interface the zipper guard, so Scott zipped it up into the zipper so far that I had to cut the dang thing out to get him unzipped. And the neck was so large I had to put 3 darts in it to make it hug his neck - arghhh!


Now one thing I neglected to get pics of were the pin-keep my sister cross-stitched for me, and the bracelet she had made out of our Dad's signature - that deserves a post of its own, and I'll give you a link to the lady's Etsy site who does those. And Scott turned a pretty green gin bottle into a lamp for me, which will be its own post, since I need advice on choosing a lampshade. It's very cool swapping homemade gifts with nary a gift card in sight!

So my BIL is also a woodworker, and I decided to try another jacket using my own draft of a collar instead of the Kwik Sew, to see if it would fit better. This one turned out much better, but Scott claims not to want an updated version for Christmas - we'll see if that zipper rubs his chin so much that he changes his mind. And by the way, this jacket was made in a record 4 hours!



It fit Joe perfectly.


And this is one of his own pens. Now both of them promised me pics of the jackets in action in their workshops, so I may have to start an Etsy business! The ready-made jackets go for $55-60 on the internet.


Once that was done, I started making Drew some dishrags for his apartment, and decided to crochet them instead of knitting them. Apparently I'm not good at HDC, so I abandoned that for some SC and DC - pitiful! I did get 2 finished by the time we moved him in, and forgot to get pics of the other one, which looks much better (different pattern).


And with 2 days left in the week before moving up to college, I made my sister the skirt she requested last month. She wanted a longer, more gathered skirt like we used to wear in the early 90's, and she couldn't find one in stores, so I found an old Butterick pattern I had in the stash, though I didn't really want to make 8 buttonholes.


One reviewer suggested faux buttons and changing to a zipper, so that's what I did. While we were at the beach, we made a run to Pensacola Joann's for fabric, but forgot about getting the buttons - doh! Oh well, this is what I ended up with. I don't think you can see the fake button placket...


but it's helping hold down the zipper, which I free-handed in there - could've used more time to make it look a little better, I'm sure!


And the rest of the front is sewn closed except for the bottom below the last button. So she tried that on once before I put the waistband on, and I was actually sewing the waist closures on in the car headed to Auburn, so I hope it fits!


And that is why Jake is sad, because Drew went back to school, and maybe why I was so wildly productive in the sewing room all week, trying to keep away the looming depression.


But it wasn't ALL depressing - this was a proud moment when he officially joined the ROTC.


And we stayed busy assembling furniture for his apartment.

This is pre-desk...



and post-desk!


We made sure to leave him with a couple of momentoes of our summer - I'm curious to see if they're still sitting there next time we go to visit - heehee.


And so now it's back to school for Lucas, and work for us - boo. Maybe I should try finishing the second sock now....