Dress alteration, before and after, how to.

7+ years ago when the Pirate was born I bought this cheap knit dress at Walmart to wear home from the hospital. I thought it would be comfortable and soft and still look decent for the inevitable coming home picture.  And then the Pirate spent a week in the NICU and I was nursing, so I never wore it. I think I may have worn it once or twice while pregnant with the Princess.  I recently got a similar style dress at the thrift store and have worn it twice in a week, so thought maybe this one should have a new life.



I'm going to show you how I did it, but please know there are other- better- tutorials out there. I'm not experienced with knits and my armhole  shaping is hit or miss. I also didn't take in the shoulders, and you'd want to do so to be more professional. I don't care, because for me it's completely wearable. Also, I had lots of help and not infinite time, so you don't get well edited before and after pictures. This post is a pretty good indication of how everything gets done at my house.



The first thing I did was turn it inside out and put the one that fits well on top of it. I traced along the side seams and marked where the armhole of the new dress fell.



I removed the new dress, and carefully pinned all the way down, making sure it was nice and flat. I had lots of help.



Then I transferred to my serger and carefully sewed all the way down my line, removing the pins as I went. (Sorry, didn't take a picture of that. Imagine sewing on a line. Pretty easy to imagine, no?) If you don't have a serger you could do this on your regular machine, with a zigzag stitch.

I turned the dress right side out again, and Ta-Da! New wearable dress!



And it only took me 7 years and 30 minutes to do!

Christmas, Easter, Romance

• Mike was gone from early Sunday until this morning.  The kids and I have had enough togetherness to last the next year.
• My sister-in-law Anna and her husband are coming today to spend a couple days. I am so excited for adult conversation! These last two bullet points are like Christmas.
• I pretty much did nothing while Mike was gone, so last night and this morning I scrambled to clean house. It was worth it.
• I should deal with the issue of my flat tire this morning. It remains to be seen if I will.
• I cut out the potential Easter dress for the Princess. The Pirate took one look and christened it her Fire Flower dress. So it is.
• I went to the YMCA twice this week to work out. I left the Bug and the Princess in the nursery. They didn't even notice I was gone.
• Are you watching American Idol this year? Is it just me or are the girls WAY stronger than the boys? I loved Hollie and, after this week, Jessica.

Bookish Thoughts

• Instead of cleaning, I read 3.5 books while Mike was gone. I haven't done that in years, just sit and read. It was nice.
• 
  I finished Tempt Me at Twilight (Hathaways, Book 3), Married by Morning (Hathaways, Book 4), and Love in the Afternoon (Hathaways, Book 5) by Lisa Kleypas.  More on these later.
• 
  I read a good bit of Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life by Lauren E Winner. Well on my way to finishing it.
• 
  I started Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord by Sarah MacLean. I had really enjoyed Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, so requested this one by InterLibrary Loan.

February 2012 at a Glance

I managed to take a picture every day but once this month.

1. Feb 1. I sure do take a lot of pictures of her eating., 2. Feb 2. Wearing great grandma made sweater, mama made tutu, miles of lace trim., 3. Feb 3. A fabric rainbow., 4. Feb 4. Under the weather, 5. Jan 5. Sunday night was a fail., 6. Feb 6. Write your own caption for this one., 7. Feb 7. Laundry., 8. Feb 8. Black dog. Black chair. Instant camo!, 9. Feb 9. Someone front faced my shelves., 10. Feb 10. Brotherly companionship., 11. Feb 11. Unwanted books., 12. Feb 12. Best toy ever., 13. Feb 13. Red velvet cupcakes, 14. Feb 14. As seen by Noah., 15. Feb 16. Ham., 16. Feb17. At the pool. Daddy called me a redneck., 17. Feb 18. Hexes., 18. Feb 19. Reading before bed., 19. Feb 20. Fresh bread., 20. Jan 21. She would like to take her bath now., 21. Jan 22. Baby's bedtime buffet., 22. Feb 23. This is the only picture I took. Just keeping it real!, 23. Feb 24. More horses., 24. Feb 25. Baby's first ponytail, 25. Feb 26. One of the knows the rules. One of the does not., 26. Feb 27. Stole his brother's DS, 27. Feb 28. I dunno who did it, wasn't me!, 28. Feb 29. Baby, brothers, snow plow.

Mops, Vintage Easter Dresses, Spiritual Memoirs

• I mopped the floors this week. Yes, it's big enough news to open a post with it. I kinda hate my mop though ("Wonder", yeah right). What kind of mop do you use?
• The Princess is full on toddler. She talks so much, asks for things, says please, plays with her brothers, watches tv (ahem.Bad mommy.) And she's so stinking cute. But if she doesn't learn to eat in the evenings I'm trading her in for a nice pair of boots. (She does not eat, therefore, she does not sleep.)
• I have both a pattern, and the fabric, for what might be her Easter dress. I have 37 days? 40? Something like that, left in which to make it. It may not be her Easter dress because I also have this vintage, 30 year old, smocked dress my grandmother made. If I do make it, I'll do the version with the sash, with a bright pink sash. (please ignore the photo quality, it was a quick snap to show my mom and I'm too lazy to retake it.)
• If you don't pay attention, the Princess with go try to take her own bath. See?
• I'm been planning some changes to my Etsy shop, I'm sure ya'll are all hanging on eagerly to hear them.

What I Read This Week:

• I read some new stuff this week!
• 
  Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods by Jennifer Reese. Literally just finished. Highly recommended. There is some question about if I will be required to buy the library a new copy, so I might have my own soon!
• 
  Tempt Me at Twilight (Hathaways, Book 3) by Lisa Kleypas. I was in the mood for romance. About 4 chapters in.
• 
  Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life by Lauren E. Winner. This is a re-read, barely started.
• 
  Through the Narrow Gate by Karen Armstrong. On hold while my BFF gets a copy.

Three things to love about Pierre, South Dakota

1. This morning the Bug, the Princess and I went to the thrift store. Tuesday is the day all the new stuff appears, so it's a fairly crowded day in a very small building. Add a loud 3 year old and a stroller and you can imagine how much they love me, but we still go every week.  Today I had given the Bug his very own five dollar bill with which to buy his toy. Predictibly, he lost it. I mentioned it at the check out and she took my name and number, but really, it was $5 and I expected it to be gone.   I got a call, less than an hour later, that someone turned it in. Yes, this could happen anywhere, but it seems like such a small town thing to me.

2. When we first moved here I worried about the tiny library. One of my first posts was about the library and how  less technologically advanced it was than my old one. As time has gone on, I've come to love the little library. I can get most of the books I want off their shelves, and if they don't have it there is always Inter Library Loan. They forgive all fees if you return books on Wednesday and Sunday, there's no limit to the number of books you can check out, and all books are 30 day loans. With only one or two exceptions, the librarians are all very friendly.  But here's why I really love it- on Sunday, Mike dropped me off at the front door so I could run in some returns and pick up my holds. I get a LOT of holds. I was standing at the desk putting my returns in the bin, when one of my favorite librarians looked up and saw me. She said, "Oh! I have something for you!" and propped against the phone, right there on the front desk, was a little note attached to a card that they had found in one of my returns. The amazing part is not that they would return it to me (though really, it was an unremarkable Christmas card), but that I hadn't told them my name. They didn't KNOW I'd be in on Sunday unless they'd noticed I'm there every Sunday.  It wasn't with my holds that I hadn't even asked for yet.  When we go to story time, which is not as often as you'd think, the children's librarian remembers ALL the kids names, including mine. This personal touch is exactly what I want in a library.

3. We recently had some work done on our car.  We only own one car, our other vehicle being a company truck. We are allowed to ride in the company truck, but it only seats four. So we had no car that the entire family could fit into. The day that it was returned to us was a particularly busy one for Mike and he was having a hard time getting away from work, let alone finding someone to take him to pick it up. When I was talking to the woman on the phone, she offered to bring it to me. "Oh, I'm headed that way anyway, I'll just have my partner follow me. No big deal!" No extra charge. My car showed up at my door within the hour.

January 2012 at a glance

January 1. Pocket Bling.

1. Jan 30. Her favorite food is celery., 2. Jan 30. Multi-tasking., 3. Jan 29. Little old lady, 4. Jan 28. They fought all day., 5. Jan 27. A girl and her doll, 6. Jan 26. Looking at legos, 7. Jan 25. Fell asleep watching tv, 8. Jan 24. Old school Super Mario Bros., 9. Jan 23. Trial run., 10. Jan 22. Library loot., 11. Jan 21. Playing with grandpa, 12. Jan 20. Bowling with Cub Scouts, 13. Jan 19. This is my horse., 14. Jan 18. Sewing for Lauren., 15. Jan 17. Removing the pins for mama., 16. Jan 16. "cooking" a snack, 17. Jan 15. Legos all day, 18. Jan 14. View of the Pierre Capitol building, 19. Jan 13. Sharing mama's lap, 20. Jan 12. Ice caps in the road., 21. Jan 11. View from my pillow at 11:12 pm, 22. Jan 10. Reading., 23. Jan 9. Live from South Dakota!, 24. Jan 8. Annie takes a ride., 25. Jan 7. Mommy needs to hide the scissors better., 26. Jan 6. Dog days., 27. Jan 5. 65 degrees in January??, 28. Jan 4. Christmas has left the building., 29. Jan 3. New carseat., 30. Jan 2. Boot storage

Why Women Need Fat

At the end of last year I read a really great book called The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, by Kathleen Flinn. While the entire book was excellent, there was one chapter about eating out of the box, about how mixes have taken over for cooking, even though they don't really save that much time. Food out of a box is full of ingredients and preservatives that we wouldn't be eating if we just made those items from scratch. I had just finished that book and was pondering making a lifestyle/eating change when the BlogHer Book Club offered me the chance to read Why Women Need Fat: How "Healthy" Food Makes Us Gain Excess Weight and the Surprising Solution to Losing It Forever. Since I was already in the mood to read more about food, I accepted the title. It arrived during the craziness of Christmas so I didn't start reading until after the new year.

The content of the book was really fascinating, and (as the writers would hope) I thought their argument had merit. Their science made a lot of sense, and I'm more than willing to try their suggestions.  I did find the writing a bit circular and at times a tad (ok, very) dry and hard to focus on, but I found that if I skimmed those bits and came back they would make more sense. Their basic premise is that the addition of so many processed oils, replacing more natural animal fats, have lowered beneficial Omega-3s and raised the more harmful, more fat inspiring, Omega-6s. They'd have you drop processed food and oils. This jibes well with my thinking from the other food reading I've been doing, so I was willing to go along for their ride.

If you want to join the discussion and learn more about how you can add fat and lose weight, you can click through to the BlogHer Book Club page here. The first topic of discussion is "This means I get to use real butter, right?"  I mean, how can you not follow through on that?

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

Project 366 with Instagram and LetsLassotheMoon

At the very end of December I was browsing Pinterest when I saw the following pin:

Source: letslassothemoon.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Well I can do that- I always have my phone with me! I take a million pictures with it. I'm the world's biggest fan of taking a picture and texting it to someone for an opinion, or to show off my kids, or to share a giggle. A picture a day of my life? Easy peasy mac n cheesy!

(Unexpected boot storage)

If you want to follow along, you can find me on Instagram as lharsma, or you can see them on Flickr as part of this set.


(Unexpected Scissors Usage)
I'm hoping that at the end of the year I can find a way to export my 366 pictures to Shutterfly or Walgreens or some other nifty site and have them printed into a little book.

A picture a day, what a great record that will be.

I made a castle out of a card table.

And apparently I'm never going to take better pictures, so you get these.

A month or two before Christmas I saw this play castle on Etsy. The kids are (were) forever asking me to make a tent out of ours by throwing a blanket over it, so I just knew they would love it. I had SO much fun making this. It really started an addiction to making things with felt.

I started with the door side, since it seems obvious that they will need a door.



The purple bit to the left is a little mailbox, complete with a flap so you can actually put mail in it. I didn't know who would be King or Queen at any given time, so it has a crown on it for identification. The door has velcro to hold it closed. And the porch light, of course.



This side is the castle proper. I left the canvas behind the felt window to give it a bit of body. It's very sturdy, but the canvas is unraveling a bit. Might do that differently were I to make another.
 The orange things inside are from the Nerf guns. The castle makes a good target.


This side has a tower (obv) that makes me think of Repunzel. The flowers and leaves are only stitched on through the middles, so the petals are 3D.



The last side was really challenging for me. The inspiration castle had a dragon and a knight on it, but I knew I wasn't up to making a dragon and since I wanted the girls to enjoy it as well I didn't want to do a knight. I ended up with this Sword in the Stone, and the knight's abandoned helm. You can actually see through the helm (please ignore the fact that you'd have to lie on the floor to do so) and I sewed a little pocket in front of the felt sword so that they could slide a toy sword inside and pull it out trimuphantly.

I had a few issues with it fitting properly, that would have been easily corrected if I'd been able to set it up during the making process. While I was able to make all four panels right in front of my kids ("Mom, why are you making so many flowers?"), I didn't want to set the entire shebang up while they were watching. And since I worked every single night until midnight, I wasn't about to do it at 1 am! So there are a few baggy spots. I was unable to take it in more without getting into the designs.

Do they love it? Sadly, no. They barely even noticed it. Regardless, it was a lot of fun to make and I think once the Princess is better at interactive play it might get more use.