December Skirt

I think I deserve extra credit this month. Not only did I finish my skirt before the end of the month, but I actually wore it to church on Christmas. Even more impressive, I bought a sweater and necklace to go with it so I have a complete outfit.  I think I've pretty much perfected this skirt pattern after using it several times this year.

I still haven't decided on my sewing goals for next year. The next few weeks will be crazy with work and church responsibilities so I may not even think about sewing until the end of January.

This is my first attempt at blogging from my phone so I apologize if things look funny. If I didn't need my computer for work I'd probably hardly ever use it since I can pretty much run my life from my phone.

November skirt

I sort of finished a skirt for November. Here's a bad picture of it.  I'm in a hurry and don't have time to try to get a good picture.  The skirt isn't hemmed so it's technically not finished, but I made the pattern myself and this is sort of a first draft.  I'm not sure I'll ever wear it so I didn't want to go to the bother of hemming it.  I'm trying to decide if it's worth the effort of taking it apart and fixing the things I don't like.  It might just be faster to tweak the pattern and make a whole new skirt.  I'll ponder that next week while I'm laying on the beach in Hawaii.  

A Cold Gray Monday

Today has all the makings for a miserable day.  Alex and Ashley went back to college yesterday after being home for five days.  It's cold in the house and I'm too cheap to turn the heat on when I'm home alone.  It's foggy outside and I may not see the sun all day.  And oh yeah, it's Monday.  But it's actually a really good day, for the following reasons:

1.  Persimmons

This picture of our persimmon tree was taken a couple weeks ago on another foggy morning.  Now most of the leaves have fallen, leaving probably 100 or so bright round persimmons on a scraggly-looking tree reminiscent of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  I decided I better pick some of the persimmons before they too fall to the ground.  I have a confession to make - I've never picked a persimmon from this tree before.  I usually let a friend pick them and have them all, but he didn't ask for them this year so I decided to acquaint myself with these strange little fruits.  I picked a few then hesitantly cut one up and ate it.  It was heavenly!  Crisp like an apple, sweet like a pear, with a little bit of a tropical-mango-type flavor.  So I went back out and picked another 20 of them.  I still have no idea what I'll do with all this fruit but I guess I'll figure something out.

2.  Exercise

I'm still plugging away at my Couch to 5k workout.  It's progressing very slowly and I've repeated a couple weeks and taken a few days off.  Last week I was wavering between giving up completely and going in for a check up to find out why I'm unable to run any length of time without feeling like I'm dying.  Today I had a breakthrough.  It's not my legs or lungs that keep me from being a runner, it's my mind.  When I'm distracted by thinking of all the things I need or want to be doing, I forget I'm running and I can go farther.  When I concentrate on time, speed or distance I psych myself out and think I can't do it.  I'm still much closer to "couch" than to 5k, but I'm making progress, I'm challenging myself to do something hard, and most of all it feels really good when I've done something I didn't think I could do.

3.  Spicy Food

I'm feeling a little bit of a cold coming on.  Maybe it's allergies instead, or maybe I'm just coughing and sniffing because it's cold in the house.  Whatever the reason, my favorite cold remedy is a spicy kimchi-flavored noodle bowl (a distant relative of cup-o-noodle or top ramen).  That's what I had for lunch today, with a few drops of sriracha added for good measure.  It was a nice hot bowl of throat-burning goodness and it made me happy.  

4.  Hawaii

Rick and I are leaving for Hawaii on Friday to spend a week vacationing with his dad and step-mom.  I really dislike flying but I think I can put up with it this time so I can trade 50 degrees and foggy for 80 degrees and sunny.  

I'm sure there are more things to like about today but it's still early and I haven't discovered them all yet.  In the meantime I think I'll start packing and I'll eat another persimmon.

October Skirt

Ok, so I'm a few days late.  I should at least get partial credit, right?  Anyway, here's my skirt for October.  It still needs a little tweaking but I could wear it as-is so I'm counting it as finished.  Only two more skirts to go!

C25K

I got a new app for my phone last week:  C25K Pro.  It was the free paid app of the day in the Amazon Android app store, which by the way I love for providing me with several great apps that I wouldn't have tried if I'd had to pay for them.  The app follows the couch to 5K training program and promises me that if I follow it I'll be running a 5K in 9 weeks.  After a major struggle with my willpower yesterday morning I got out of bed and did the first workout.  It didn't seem too intimidating at the beginning - a 20 minute workout alternating 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking.  How hard can that be?  Of course if I'd done the math I would have realized the 20 minutes didn't include the 5 minute warm up or the 5 minute cool down.  Not that it would have been a deal breaker but I should have been more mentally prepared for 30 minutes of physical activity.

I think it went pretty well for a first workout.  My running shoes are a little old and worn out, and so are my legs.  I was walking/running laps around my gravel driveway which probably isn't the best idea but if I have to drive somewhere to work out then I won't do it.  I was a little sore and tired at the end but that was to be expected.

Today is my day off between workouts.  That's a good thing, because I can barely walk.  I'm kind of curious to see how tomorrow morning will go.  I'll be battling my willpower AND my sore legs.  I think I'll need the additional motivation of my sister-in-law's wellness program (http://icanchangeclub.blogspot.com/).  Thank you Katrina for giving my that extra little push!

September Skirt

Who thought I wouldn't get a skirt done this month?  Besides me?  Honestly this whole skirt project is not as fun as I thought it would be, probably because most months I procrastinate and have to cram the whole project in at the end of the month.  I even took the whole summer off so I shouldn't be complaining now.  Even though it's been challenging at times I'm still working on ideas for next year's projects.  (Hint:  I probably won't be making skirts.)  Here's what 2 hours of effort got me on the last day of the month:

No I didn't make the shirt, only the skirt, but the skirt looked really boring without it.  It actually is kind of boring - dark gray knit with an elastic waist - but I needed something fast (since it's the 30th and all) and something that will pack well and be comfortable to wear all day.

Just for the sake of giving out too much information I'll tell you that the mirror behind the dress form is angled not so you can see the back of the skirt, because obviously you can't, but so my disaster of a sewing room is not reflected in the mirror.  I took some "before" pictures of the room a couple weeks ago which I planned on posting, thinking that would shame me into cleaning things up a little.  It was pretty bad though, so maybe I'll post some pictures after it's all clean and pretty.  Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen!

How much do I love my daughter?

I love her enough to make this for her:

 

Ashley picked out the pattern and fabric. My "only" job was to put it all together. That didn't sound too hard a couple months ago. And it wouldn't have been if the wool fabric weren't so think and bulky, and if there had been a lining pattern, and if the girl at the fabric store hadn't given me the wrong interfacing, and if I hadn't had to come up with something to line the collar with that wouldn't make Ashley's neck itch. 

It all came together pretty well, considering the obstacles, until it was time for the buttons and buttonholes. The coat has 19 buttons. The fabric store doesn't stock more than eight at a time. It took me three trips to get all the buttons. But the worst was yet to come!

My sewing machine has a really nice automatic buttonhole function. I made a couple test buttonholes on a scrap of fabric and they looked awesome! Then I made one on the coat. Not even close to awesome. I ripped it out and made another one. Now ripping out buttonholes is not fun to say the least. It probably took about 15 minutes to take out all those tiny little stitches. Things really went downhill from there. I won't go into great agonizing detail, but in order to get 8 less-than-awesome-but-better-than-hideous buttonholes I ended up ripping out at least 8 unusable ones. There was a point when I actually considered having the coat held shut only with the belt.

This morning I sewed the last button on the last sleeve. It's finished. Parts of the process were even fun. I got to use my handy-dandy new buttonhole cutter (which is really just a sharp chisel). I learned some new things, like if you're going to use an awl to pull the staples connecting the buttons to the card they come on, you should keep your fingers out of the way; and those clear bandaids that come in the variety pack from Costco are waterproof and use some sort of superglue-type adhesive; and it's not a good idea to use rubbing alcohol to try to get that adhesive off your finger when you have an open wound.

I have never been so glad to finish a project. Now with only a couple days left in September I need to start working on a skirt.