Hot hot hot!

It is ten minutes till 11pm and it is 102 degrees outside still. All of my hydrangea are burning.

Fantastic

I already ditched cell phones and went back to a land line. Maybe I'll go back to a typewriter. . .

Project 15 of many. . .

The need for this project developed as I realized that I could not finish project 13 without it. One of the bridesmaids that I am making a dress for is itty-bitty and I could not for the life of me figure out if her dress was going to fit her without having her try it on. Unfortunately she lives in Hong Kong. I spent the day trying to create what I imagine her upper torso must look like given the measurements I have.

I started out with a piece of cardboard for her shoulders.
Using modge podge and a scoring tool (knife) I began to give the piece of cardboard as much shape as I could. This picture also gives you an idea of how small the form is - I "draped" it over a size 3t child's form.

Inside of the form (that's the magic of Macy's)

Unfinished torso and skirt

More shaping

Once I had the basic shape that I wanted I covered everything in about 10 layers of brown paper. I wanted a sturdy and thick structure.

I over-stuffed the inside of the form with polyfil and put a 10lb bag of beans in the bottom of the form to help keep it upright (This form will sit on a table instead of resting on a pole). Then I closed up the bottom, the neck and the armholes with more cardboard, duct tape, glue and brown paper.

Next I sprayed the form with carpet adhesive and covered the form with batting.

To finish everything up I made a knit cover to put over the form. I stapled the fabric to the bottom of the form and put a piece of cardboard over the bottom to cover up the staples.
I would like to do this project again sometime with different measurements. I would extend the project over a period of about a week. I needed to finish this today, so I did not allow the glue to dry all the way which led to the form warping when I took the stays out from the inside and stuffed it with polyfil. As a result one of the shoulders appears higher and the waist doesn't seem to go in as far on one side. All in all I'm not too upset with the results from my first attempt.

"Thirty to forty years ago you were a lot younger. . .

maybe not even born. Sometimes you probably wish you could go back. . . "

That is about all that I remember of my speech on Y2K that landed me a spot at the state 4-H speech contest back in 1999.

When I later told Kyle about how I had done a speech on preparing for Y2K, he laughed and me - when I told him about all the cans of food that my family had stockpiled in the basement, he laughed even more. I guess that Kyle never thought that Y2K would turn out to be a big deal. . . and he might have been right until last night. . . I had just taken a shower and was putting on some deodorant when I noticed that the bottom of the bottle said that my deodorant had expired in August of 1953! Now, if I hadn't known or cared to remember about Y2K I might have thought that my deodorant was extremely expired (okay, I probably wouldn't have thought that), but thanks to my knowledge of the computer glitch I knew that some people over at Unilever just decided not to fix one of their computers.

My etsy shop. . .

I've got a store front for Maevery & Maeve Barton now. . . there isn't anything up on the site yet. . . but keep checking back! I hope to have a very limited number of items up soon.

Click on the link above to visit my etsy shop.

Project 14 of many. . .

Earlier today I got a package in the mail. Inside were some old drawings of mine and a lovely little "present" from Sarah.

Before

It reads. . .
Caitlyn
Sarah is pretty sure you can make her a skirt out of these jean legs!
Mom

After

I also considered titling this post, "What Sarah wants, Sarah gets."
I thought it turned out pretty cute, though I'm not sure I like the crochet at the hem any more. . . (Sarah, have mom cut if off if you don't like it)

Demolition Derbries

Last Saturday I did a bunch of demolition (I like to call it demo, but this makes Kyle upset for some reason) at my friend Melody's flip house. First of all, let me say that it was so much fun! I spent 6 hours pulling up carpet, baseboards, knocking down cabinets, tearing up linoleum and old tile floors, it was great! The only bad part was when I thought I had lost my wedding ring somewhere in the mess. . . and considering that we filled up an entire 40 yard dumpster I wasn't too hopeful that I would ever see it again (probably felt about like my grandmumz did when she realized her ring had been flushed down the toilet. . . although, wait, THEY FOUND THAT on the first attempt at going through the septic tank with a stick. . ..). Luckily it was in my other pocket. . . the one without a zipper. . . I can't believe that it didn't fall out. . . ANYWAY!
So I was in the kitchen and asked Mel what she was going to do with the old appliances. . .
"Do you want them?"
"...Ohmy goodness, are you serious!?!"

One moving truck and broken glass door later we have the results. . .
The best part was that my old stove quite literally started falling apart when I took it out. The top burners were already a disaster and as I moved it out the top came off as well as the handle! This new stove is such a blessing! The dishwasher is great too! It sits really low to the ground so you can get a lot more stuff inside, especially pots and pans. It is also one of those really quite dishwashers! Thanks, Melody!