Stick a Fork in Me . . .

We got in at 5:24am this morning after flying all night. Then, we picked up the kids. They were overjoyed to see us and were bouncing on us like little rubber mallets. My husband is the picture taker so you'll see very few of him. He likes it that way. I am thinking I'll just post a few pictures at the top of each new blogpost for a while. He took tons of pictures and a lot of them are really good. But, I don't want to deal with Bloggers weird-ass photo upload. It's more fun this way.

Me on 'Anini Beach. It's on the north part of the island. Beautiful beaches and great snorkeling.


Beautiful sunrise.


Me hiking along the Pools of Mokolea. Every time you turned the corner, big black crabs would scramble off the rocks. They looked like really fast tarantulas.


This is Waipouli Beach early in the morn'. It's pretty windy out.

My husband liked these footprints in the sand and so do I. I don't think any of these belong to us. Well, I'm for sure on the small dog tracks.

What's up with sewing?? I plan on making up Burda 7761 (an envelope pattern, gasp!) in a blue double knit from Gorgeous Fabrics. The things that put me over the edge is Angie's version. It's from the 09-07 BWOF. The pattern is #121. It's an easy jumper that I think is cute, cute, cute!! I'll have to figure out how to do the swayback adjustment but I think it will be okay if I just adjust the pleats at the back.

Man Jacket, Hawaii, and Thanks!

I finally completed my husband's jacket. It's KS 3187. I snagged this from Ann at Gorgeous Fabrics when she had a "Culling the Herd" give away. I've been waiting for-ever for zippers to show up. I wanted the super nice, waterproof kind. I ordered them before Christmas but I guess those type have to be ordered directly from YKK. So, I ordered them from ZipperStop who, in turn, ordered them from YKK. YKK has a major holiday shut-down so they didn't get sent to ZipperStop until the end of January. Then, he sent them to me. The jacket turned out nice. My husband is going to bring it to Hawaii with us for the light rain showers we are sure to encounter. I'll take pictures over there and do the review when I come back.

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Tomorrow is the big day! We leave for Kauai in the morning. I'm all packed, lesson plans are done, and kids are all taken care of. I'm make sure to grab lots of pictures while I'm away.

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Maja had a give away on her blog and I was happy to win this. Thanks Maja!!!!! I'll be taking a better look at this when I get back from Hawaii. I love the fabrics they used in this magazine.

My mailbox

See the writing? This 8.5" by 11" color photo was in my mailbox this morning at work. I know it's hard to see. It says, "Hi Dawn, If you're interested in this it's for free." Well, hot damn, sign me up. I am the proud owner of a Necchi BU Mira. I know nothing about it and I'm getting it tomorrow. I don't know if it has any feet or attachments but he says it works great. I did join the Necchi Yahoo group so I've been looking through it a bit. I think it's a straight stitch machine that can be set up to do zigzag stitches too. There is a Wonderbar and I have no idea what that does. But anything with that name has gotta be good right? I'm hoping I can set it up as a topstitching machine so I don't have to thread, re-thread when do something with a lot of topstitching and seams.

It has a lot of levers, knobs, and things that can be adjusted.

Tomorrow I'll find out what things it has that go with it. I read on the Yahoo group about cams and the Wonderbar but didn't really know what they were talking about. I'll fill you in on the details tomorrow. The Yahoo group information I read said it was made in Italy from 1952-1956.

Dorky Hat - I'm gonna make another.

So my husband says this is an "old lady hat." Damn him. This one, unfortunately, is a dud. I used too light of an interfacing and it's really floppy. It may be okay as a beach reading book but that's about it. I can't really walk to well in it unless I just want to see my feet. This one is crooked too. It's really floppy on the left and wavy on the right. This is the free Burda download #150 from the February issue. You have to register in order to download the pattern.

I think I will make another with stiffer interfacing.

Burda 02-2009 #118 Puff Sleeve Top and Tutorial

Wow, I need to start doing something with my hair on Saturdays. I made two of these tops today. You will only get to see one on me. The other one got chucked in the bin. I like the overall shape of it but the arms were a bitch to sew. Below you'll find a picture tutorial of what I did. No, it's not pretty but it worked.


I love this fabric. It's a wool/blend jersey. It's apple green with white/grey stripes running through it.



Okay, here she goes. I skipped taking pictures of the steps leading up to this one because they are pretty straight forward. For sake of clarity, I will call the gathered part of the sleeve The Sleeve and the part that it's gathered onto The Inside Sleeve. BWOF uses the same lingo for those parts and it's important later. Trust me on this. Gather the sleeve onto the inside sleeve and sew those onto the bodice pieces. Make sure you match the shoulder notches and the front notch on piece #1.


Put the front yoke right sides together (RST) with the front bodice/sleeves. I would notch the middle of the bodice and the middle of the front piece. There is some stretching to be done and that makes it a lot easier. Only sew from notch #5 to notch #5 on the other side.


Sew your side seams. I note notch #5 on most of the pictures below just to give you a reference point. In the picture below, you don't really need it but I labelled it anyway.

Sew from notch #5 to the side seam line. You are attaching it to the sleeves only -- not the inside sleeve. Sew just to the side seam line and get as close as possible.

Now, this is were it gets confusing and hard (if someone knows a better way, let us know!). Start at the side seam and sew around the sleeves with them RST. You only ever sew two layers at once. First you start in the middle with the sleeves and as you work your way around, you cross over and begin sewing the inside sleeve. It gets harder and harder because you are sewing yourself into a hole. Try to make it to notch #10. Sewing this way makes your sleeve turn inside itself and now you have to carefully turn it back right sides out.

This is what mine looks like on the inside. Not pretty, I know.

But, the outside looks nice.


Here's the one that didn't make it. I tried for an hour to rip threads out of stretch velour. For-get-it. I may make another one in this fabric because it was/is beautiful but I was destroying the fabric trying to tear it out.

Burda 01-2009 #121 Pants

So I decided on the aluminum buttons. I really had a hard time deciding between the fabric-covered buttons that LindseyT suggested. This tab looks a bit crooked because I think I need to move that bottom button down a hair. Isn't that annoying? I always see something in the pictures that makes me want to go back and do one more thing. And, I'm not a huge fan of this fabric. It's a thin denim with a lot of stretch. I think it's too thin.

The original pattern calls for one loop to be sewn directly into the CB seam. Since I do a hefty swayback adjustment I didn't want to put it there in case I needed to snug up the pants one last time. So I added another loop and just made them to the side of CB.

What's going on under my butt? I don't usually have that kind of wrinkling with BWOF. It looks like I could take out a good inch out of that area. I may try to pinch out a little and see if that makes it better. I hemmed these a bit long too but they always shrink and then I have to let them out.

This is the third installment of the F-ing Cold SWAP. All I have left is the coat.

Button Help

Thanks guys for all the comments on my belly. :) You guys know how to make a gal's head swell like a balloon. And I never said thank you for the advice on the embroidery machine but I do really appreciate the lengthy responses. I know it takes time to comment like that and I appreciate it.

I am currently working on BWOF 01/2009 #121. I'm not sure about buttons. They are a dark blue denim with white topstitching. I plan on adding a deep jean hem to the bottom.

These are bright aluminum buttons. I inherited a bunch of them. They are super light and shiny. It's hard to take a picture of them. So far, I think these are my favorite.


Here are the last three brass jean buttons. I'm not sure that the yellow-y brass goes with the white topstitching.



These are just plain white buttons. They are semi-opaque.



Red would be fun but then I have to sort of be careful with what I wear it with and they are a little too 4th of July. But, I still kinda like it.

These are smaller dark blue buttons. I would probably use three on the waistband and one on each pocket.

These are a smokey grey. I don't like them at all in the picture. They almost have a lavender tone to them.

Here's the inside facing. This is what makes me want to go with red buttons.

What do you guys think?